The War with France

In the actual prosecution of the war, Edward was supported in part by the old feudal army and in part by the native yeomanry of England. The lords, who composed the cavalry, threw themselves into the war as if it were but a tournament governed by the rules of chivalry. Knights were eager for adventure; even ladies followed the armies to bestow their favors on successful warriors. But the most important part of Edward's army was national, not feudal, in character. The men of the Assize of Arms and the Statute of Winchester, that is, the freemen, armed with lances, bows and arrows, and other weapons, made up the infantry. These yeomen, though often unwillingly pressed into service, formed an efficient military force, the like of which was unknown on the Continent.

The beginning of English victory was the naval battle of Slugs (1340), which was fought between the English and the French fleets off the Flemish coast, and resulted in the destruction of the French navy. Edward then determined on an invasion of France, and in 1346 landed on the coast at Cherbourg. After pushing his way inland; a dangerous venture, for without connection with the seacoast he was in constant danger of being cut off and surrounded in a hostile land by the enemy's forces, he was brought to bay by Philip, near the little town of Crecy, August 26, 1346. Here a famous battle was fought, in which the English archers won a victory over the feudal army of the French king. The bowmen placed in the front of the battle first shot down mercilessly the Genoese mercenaries, and then repelled every advance of the armed feudal cavalry. In this battle the fifteen-year-old Black Prince (of Wales); so called, it may be, from the black armor he wore, won his spurs and the honor of knighthood. The battle of Crecy testifies to the insight of the kings who armed and organized the commons of England as a fighting force more powerful than the feudal array and the mercenaries of either England or France.

From Crecy, Edward advanced to Calais and besieged it. Philip was unable to relieve the city, and David Bruce, his ally, hoping to aid him by diverting the attention of Edward, invaded the northern counties of England. On October 17, 1346, Bruce was defeated and captured at the battle of Neville's Cross, by Queen Philippa and the barons who had remained in England. This disaster deprived Philip of aid from Scotland and made inevitable the fall of Calais. After holding out for a year, Calais was starved into surrender. It was taken August 4, 1347, and remained a possession of the English kings for more than two hundred years.

The first period of the war ended with the capture of Calais, but in 1355 war was renewed. Philip had died in 1350, and his son John took up the struggle. At the same time the Scots renewed the attack from the north. In the summer of 1355, Edward mercilessly devastated Lothian out of wrath against Scotland, while his son, the Black Prince, starting from Gascony, harried central France from Guienne to Poitiers. At the latter town the prince was confronted by a French army, larger than his own, under the command of John himself, and was compelled to fight for his life. But at Poitiers, as at Crecy, the English archers carried the day. King John was captured and the French forces completely defeated. The battle was fought on September 19, 1356 .

The succession of victories, the capture of King John, the ruin which had fallen on the country, forced the French to come to peace with the English. At Bretigny, in 1360, a treaty was signed. According to this treaty, Edward gave up his claim to the French throne and to all lands in northern France except Calais and Ponthieu and some other towns and castles. In return, he received the whole of the duchies of Gascony and Guienne, to be held by him henceforth in full sovereignty and no longer as a vassal of the French king, and in addition a ransom for the French king of three million gold crowns. Three years before, he had made peace with Scotland, had released David Bruce, and, in return for one hundred thousand marks ransom money and the towns of Berwick and Roxburgh, acknowledged Bruce's title to the crown.

The Position of Edward III

In 1360 Edward seemed to be at the height of his success. Victor at Crecy, Calais, Neville's Cross, and Poitiers, the master of two kings, one of France and the other of Scotland, he had been able to dictate a peace which freed the English king from his vassalage to the king of France and which restored to the English crown lands in southern France that had been considered lost forever. His reign, thus far, had been a time of splendor and display. French booty and money were poured into England, and luxury invaded the life of the court. Edward encouraged an artificial chivalry, which, with its Order of the Garter, the Thistle, and the Golden Fleece, its Round Table and Courts of Love, gave rise to a social caste far different from the truer feudal chivalry of the Crusades. Of this life Froissart and Chaucer wrote, the former describing its wars, diplomacy, and chivalry, in the familiar French language of the court; the latter depicting the pleasures of its middle and upper classes, in his native English tongue. The contrast is striking. The wars with France were arousing national enthusiasm, the writings of Gower and Chaucer were giving wider currency to the humble English speech, and the battle's of Crecy and Poitiers were raising the free English tenantry into an instrument of great military efficiency. On the other hand, the feudal nobility were becoming a social and political clique, feudal life was becoming stereotyped and unreal, and the chasm between the nobility and the people was becoming wider than ever.