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CHAP. XXVIII,

WAR WITH FRANCE.-DUKE OF LANCASTER COM-
MANDS IN PICARDY.-DEATH OF THE DUCHESS
BLANCHE.

XXVIII.

IT was the policy of Charles V. king of CHAP France, surnamed by his countrymen the Wise, that in 1369 disturbed the peace between the two crowns, so happily established by the treaty of Bretigni in 1360. The pretence for his conduct we shall presently have occasion to assign; the motive was the declining age of Edward III, and the infirm health of the Black Prince. It was natural that a king of France should seek the earliest opportunity to avenge the victories which those princes had gained in his dominions, and to recover the territories which the pressure of his affairs and the frowns of fortune

XXVIII.

CHAP. had obliged his predecessor to yield in full sovereignty to his adversaries. It was with that contempt of the solemnity of oaths, the clear construction of obligations, and the sacredness of public engagements, which characterises the proceedings of the directors of nations, that Charles V. endeavoured to varnish his conduct.

1367.

Critical si

tuation of

Prince.

When the Black Prince returned to his government of Aquitaine, he brought back the Black with him the army he had so successfully commanded in Spain; but, victorious as they had been, he brought them back abridged in their numbers, sickly, disheartened, impoverished, and destitute of almost all the necessaries of existence. Peter king of Castille, whom they had restored to his throne, had engaged amply to remunerate their services; but he had disdained even the appearance of making an exertion for that purpose. Edward, their commander, had made himself the security for Peter that they should be fully paid; and, the principal in the business having failed, the obligation seemed now to devolve upon the second. The attachment

XXVIII.

1367.

1368.

which even the lawless regiments, who had CHAP. proved themselves the scourge and terror of more peaceful scenes, had displayed to their gallant commander, was memorable: at his beck they had resorted to him from the standard of Du Guesclin; they had followed him, famished, hopeless, but unrepining, in his return out of Spain; and the Black Prince's subjects of Aquitaine having com→ plained of the depredations to which their necessities compelled them, they at his command quitted his dominions, unpaid, and withdrew into the adjacent provinces of France. Edward could not bear that they should be thus grievously injured by the services to which he had led them, and by the failure of engagements of which he had been the surety.

money.

In this emergency the bishop of Rodez, Hearthchancellor of Aquitaine, urged the prince to impose a tax upon his French subjects, under the name of hearth-money, of one livre per

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XXVIII.

1368.

CHAP. hearth, which it was computed would yield an annual sum of one million two hundred thousand livres. Chandos, constable of the duchy, the most virtuous as well as the most gallant of the soldiers of the prince, is said to have opposed this advice; either because he thought the prosperity of the peaceful subject a matter of higher consideration than the providing for these bands of adventurers, or that he foresaw the fatal consequences to which this policy would lead. The prince however persisted, and the tax was solemnly proposed to the states of the different provinces within his government ".

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Taxation was a measure, in these early times, of comparatively rare and novel practice. It was inconsistent with the original and genuine spirit of the feudal system. That system sufficiently provided for the expences of the first magistrate by his hereditary demesnes, by the prescribed contributions annexed to the great feudal incidents, and by

Froissart, ubi supra.

the established and unremunerated services CAP.

to be rendered in war by the holders of knight's fees and baronages. In proportion as the feudal system declined, these resources became inadequate. There was consequently a crisis in government in Europe, between the destruction of the feudal provisions, and the rise of the more modern method of taxation. The recollection of this will serve as a clue to many of the political transactions of the fourteenth and following centuries.

XXVIII.

1368.

in Aqui

The proposition of the hearth-money was Discontents variously received in the different states or taine. parliaments of the English provinces in France. By the lower classes it was viewed as an insupportable incumbrance. Among the lords and holders of feudal estates variouscabals were formed against it. It is observed, that in the districts nearest to Bourdeaux, the seat of government, and where the influence of the popular manners of the Black Prince was most sensibly felt, it met with scarcely any opposition; while in the remoter parts, where there was less opportunity for the growth of this sentiment of personal attach

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