founders of the order of the Garter, and a

gallant and most distinguished coadjutor of Edward III. in all his expeditions into France".

СНАР.

XXVIII.

1369.

system of

monarch.

Here were displayed the first symptoms Cautious of the military system of Charles V. Indif- the French ferent to the brilliant scenes of actual service in which he took no part, he fixed a stern and stedfast eye upon consequences and results. The maxims of war then fashionable were calculated to incite him to signalise the first campaign of his reign by some memorable achievement. The French army is said by seven times to have outnumbered the forces of the duke of Lancaster "; and therefore to the ardent and enterprising spirit of a young man it would have appeared as if they had it in their power to trample down and annihilate the English by a single effort. But the king of France thought otherwise. He remembered the discomfitures of Cressy

XXVIII.

1369.

CHAP. and Poitiers; and he knew that the present commander of the enemy burned with the most painful desire to place his name upon the same-scroll with those of his father and his brother. Charles V. saw that the inhabitants of Picardy and Aquitaine earnestly desired to return under the sway of their native sovereign; and he was convinced that nothing could tend more strongly to that purpose, than his carefully providing for them time and opportunities for that purpose, and wasting the strength of the adversary in inactive campaigns. Like Fabius, he aimed by procrastination and delay to win back the conquests of the British Hannibal. Accordingly, his peremptory instructions to his brother were, by no consideration to be drawn into a general action. The English and French armies therefore faced each other from day to day, without proceeding any further than to mutual ostentation and menace.

Fable of the monkish historian.

An idle and ridiculous story is here intro

Froissart, ubi supra.

XXVIII.

1369.

duced by the monkish historian, which is CHAP. entitled to be noticed, as affording a clue to explain many subsequent parts of the history. He states that, while the two armies thus spent their time in inaction, Thomas Beauchamp earl of Warwick, with a small number of followers, suddenly came over from England, and expressed great indignation at the dastardly conduct of his countrymen. He said, that his companions should not have time to digest the first bread they ate in France, before they gained some signal trophy from the opposite party. The valiant earl however was disappointed. The French army no sooner heard of the arrival of this wonder-working knight, than they struck their tents with dismay, and fled with the utmost precipitation; so that, when the new comer went out after dinner for the accomplishment of his promise, he found nothing on every side but solitude and silence".

Seldom has the history of any eminent

XXVIII.

1369.

CHAP. character been more atrociously misrepresented than that of John of Gaunt; and accordingly we find those who have pretended to record it, endeavouring to fasten disgrace upon it in the first page, as it were, of the series. We shall have abundant occasion in the sequel to detect their falshoods, and to expose the motives in which they originated.

Campaign

in the

south.

Death of queen Philippa.

The Black Prince achieved nothing memorable in this campaign. The principal exertions on the side of the French were directed against Aquitaine; but such was the vigilance of the prince, and his illustrious coadjutor, lord Chandos, that they gained no substantial success, and, notwithstanding the advantage in point of time which they derived from their perfidy, the posture of the English affairs in the south was not less favourable at the close of the campaign, than it had been before the commencement of the

war.

If the year 1369 was marked with no trophies of great military success against us, it was not however undistinguished by domestic and private calamities. Queen Philippa,

XXVIII.

1369.

of the

duchess

of Lanof lord

caster.

whose merits have been already described, CHAP. expired on the fifteenth of August 9; and Blanche, the consort of John of Gaunt, toward the close of the year. The celebrated Chandos, the most illustrious of all the military subjects of Edward III, fell obscurely in an accidental rencounter with a small party of French, before the commencement of the ensuing campaign.

Chandos.