The Plantagenets: The Three Edwards Part 24

5.

The Finest General of Them All

Sir John de Hawkwood differed in two respects from all the other great military leaders on the English side. First, there was not a chivalrous bone in his body. He did not fight for the sheer love of conflict, for the admiration of fellow knights, for the love of a beautiful lady; he fought for wealth and power, and he became the greatest condottiere of his time, perhaps of all time. Second, he did not treat common people with scorn or unnecessary cruelty. In fact, he preferred when possible to levy on the n.o.bility and the clergy.

Students of his campaigns declare him to be the first general of the modern type and, further, that he has never been equaled at his kind of warfare.

Some say he began life as a tailor in London, and one Italian historian calls him Granni della Ginglia (John of the Needle). The truth is that he was the second son of Gilbert de Hawkwood, a holder of land and a tanner at Hedingham Sibil in Ess.e.x.

Entering the army under John de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, he came to the attention of the Black Prince and was knighted. When the truce had been made after the capture of the French king at Poictiers, Hawkwood turned his eye to personal gain and became the leader of a body of Free Companions. France was the sorriest land in all Christendom, for even the French soldiers turned to freebooting and the rape of their own home. Hawkwood seems to have been the most successful of all, even though he often acted on the principles imputed to Robin Hood. Certainly he was the first to see that France had been bled white and that the return of the plague, which was beginning again, would complete the work the Free Companies had begun.

He was a handsome man, above the average in height, with the shoulders of a woodsman and the deep chest of a runner. His eye was that of a born leader, keen, luminous, firm. Because of the confidence he inspired among Englishmen who were at loose ends in France, he got the very best of them. He could pick and choose, and his picking and choosing were so expert that he gradually gathered about him a band of superlative strength known as the White Company. Some writers think the name arose from the splendor of equipment they used, but there must have been some more tangible reason. They may have worn cloaks of white, or at least of light gray, or perhaps they had white c.o.c.kades in their riding hats. It might even have been that the baldrics they wore crosswise on their chests were of that color. Whatever the reason, the White Company, or the Compagnia Bianca as it was called in Italy, became the most talked about and the most feared of the Free Companies.

Hawkwood trained his men with a thoroughness equal to that of Oliver Cromwell in a later century and in accordance with his own theories. The company consisted of a thousand lances, a misleading count which came of considering three mounted men as one lance; a thoroughly trained man-at-arms, a squire, and a page, the latter having to be content with riding a palfrey. Both the man-at-arms and the squire rode heavily armed. Their chief weapon was a long lance of such weight that it took two men to handle it. The lance, however, was only for use when fighting on foot, when the stout companions would form themselves into a square or circle and receive the enemy on the lance points. For use in the saddle, they had heavy swords and daggers. Five lances const.i.tuted a company, five companies a troop.

With the thousand lances were two thousand foot soldiers, or perhaps it would be more accurate to call them bowmen. Most of them had carried a longbow on the fields of Crecy and Poictiers and they were supremely expert with it. In fact, they had learned a better way of handling that deadly weapon. They would place one end in the ground, which kept the bow firmer and made a steadier aim possible. It may be taken for granted that Hawkwood placed his greatest reliance on his bowmen; having nothing of the Bourbon in him and being quick to learn. These strong-limbed sons of Albion could make twenty miles a day and would be in camp before the weary horses, with their heavy loads, hobbled in on stiff limbs.

Well, here was a France as bare as a bone on a dust heap. And here was the White Company, fit to battle any force in Christendom and avid for spoils. And here was John Hawkwood, the best leader in all the armies. What to do?

Hawkwood knew what to do.

Over the mountainous barrier between France and Italy lay the Lombardy plains, bounteous and fertile and dotted with cities fairly bursting with wealth; all of them fighting with bitter jealousy among themselves. In Lombardy, moreover, was the great family of the Visconti, the dukes and absolute rulers of Milan. The present head of this great family was the ambitious Bernab Visconti, who was determined to get all of the plain under his rule and to oust the Avignon popes at the same time. Hawkwood decided that the White Company would have a fine future in this warm and luscious land. After capturing the city of Pau as a final gesture (and robbing only the clergy), he made an arrangement with another band of freebooters under the command of Bernard de Salle by which the newcomers enrolled themselves in the company.

Hawkwood spent the rest of his life in Italy, thirty years of almost continuous fighting. To tell the whole story of those sanguinary years while the White Company marched and countermarched across the rich plains would fill a long volume. Hawkwood, whose word was law, changed sides often, sometimes fighting for the Visconti, sometimes against them, at intervals in the employ of the Pope, as often against him. Once he received 180,000 florins as ransom for the Count of Savoy. The city of Pisa paid the company as high as 23,000 florins a month. Sometimes he lost a battle (when pitted against heavy odds), but generally he was the victor. The warring cities bid against each other for his services. When the second son of Edward of England, Prince Lionel, the handsome young giant who stood nearly seven feet in his harlots (as the pointed dress shoes of the period were called), arrived to marry a daughter of Bernab's, Hawkwood took his band back into the Milanese service and was rewarded by being made, by the left hand, a brother-in-law of the English prince. At least Bernab gave him in marriage the handsome Donnina, one of his illegitimate daughters. It is not known if the Englishman made this a condition of his services, but it is certain that it was a love match. Bernab was at war at this particular moment with Pope Urban V, who had braved the wrath of the French cardinals by taking the papal court back to Rome. Perhaps the pontiff began to show signs of weakening and thus stirred the ire of the Milanese ruler. Whatever the cause, the Englishman found himself chasing the Pope out of Montefiascone and all the way to Viterbo.

The largest amount Hawkwood was ever paid was 220,000 gold florins from a combination of five of the richest cities to leave them alone for five years. Once, when fighting for Rome, the name of the band was changed to the Holy Company, a misnomer which the realistic leader accepted with a wry smile.

The fame of this truly remarkable man as a general rests largely on the campaign he fought on the side of Florence against the almost overpowering strength of Milan. By this time his original company had changed in personnel. Thirty years of continuous fighting had thinned out the Englishmen in the ranks, although a few of the original members were still in harness; the toughest and bravest of the lot, bronzed beyond recognition and still capable of shooting off the finial on a stone gate at a distance of a hundred yards. The armies of Milan, under the command of the Count of Virtue (so called because he was a most villainous fellow), a nephew who had murdered Bernab, were large and powerful. As commander-in-chief of the forces of Florence, the Englishman won an initial victory. When a second Florentine army, which was supposed to attack Milan from the west, failed to move, Hawkwood found himself alone against the Visconti might. He had less faith in his band now, having no archers save crossbowmen (what a step down from the longbowmen of Crecy!), and he had to stage a quick retreat. The Florentine historian Bracciolini calls his generals.h.i.+p in this extremity the equal of anything in the annals of Roman history. He crossed the Oglio and the Mincio and then had to get his troops across an inundated area caused by the breaking of the ditches on the Adige, a feat of the utmost daring. In the meantime the second Florentine army had been soundly beaten and Hawkwood found himself alone to face the strength of the Visconti.

By the use of brilliant hit-and-run strategy he kept the Milanese armies from uniting and finally succeeded in hammering their main force so resoundingly that they all turned back and sought sanctuary in Liguria. Milan was happy to make an honorable peace with Florence on the strength of this.

During the rest of his life, four brief years, Hawkwood lived in peace in Florence in a fine house called Polverosa in the suburb of San Donato de Torre. He was regarded as the savior of the city and was cheered whenever he appeared on the streets. Knowing that he had little time left, he transferred all his castles and holdings to the government of Florence for sums of money, intending to return to England. His beloved Donnina was still alive and his three daughters were married to high-ranking captains in the Florentine armies; but he longed for the cool breezes and the green fields of his native land. Death forestalled him and the grateful republic did honor to his memory with a magnificent funeral.

The one anecdote about him which seems to have survived is that he encountered one day at Montecchio two wandering friars and was accorded the customary greeting of "G.o.d give you peace." The leader of the White Company stared at them in silence for a moment before responding, "May G.o.d take your alms away!" The poor friars stammered in surprise and had nothing more to say. "You come to me," declared Hawkwood, "and pray that G.o.d will make me die of hunger. Do you not know that I live by war and that peace would undo me?"

He had indeed lived by war, but the brief peace which came to him in his final years did not undo him. He left a comfortable fortune to his family when the grateful republic laid his body in a splendid tomb in the choir of the Duomo. His one son had returned to England and later saw to it that the bones of the old warrior were brought home and buried at Hedingham Sibil in a chantry which friends had raised to his memory.

CHAPTER XVII.

Some Incidental Achievements in the Course of a Long Reign

1.

THE reign of Edward III can be divided into two periods, the days of national glory and the days of decline. Most of the incidental achievements, which may now be briefly mentioned, came in the second period, when the gray goose no longer flew high in the sky. They had no bearing on military matters and so provide a welcome change.

It was at this time that English became the accepted language of the nation, ushering in what may reasonably be termed the birth of English literature. Edward III either initiated the movement or at least gave it his sanction. One of the many churchmen who served for brief periods as chancellor during the reign, William de Edington, introduced into Parliament the famous statute which provided that all proceedings before the courts of Westminster, the judgments as well as the pleadings, must be expressed in English. The statute went further and stipulated that schoolmasters must teach their pupils to construe in the English tongue. This was a radical measure, for Norman-French had been the official language since the days of the Conquest. It took a long time for the enactment to be fully accepted.

Edward had been fortunate in his tutor, a learned and witty churchman named Richard de Bury, who later became Bishop of Durham. It was in his last years that he wrote his famous book Philobiblon, which was in a sense an autobiography although it was devoted largely to books and book lovers, a rare cla.s.s, it must be agreed, in those days. It was written in bad Latin, say scholars, but when translated into English was found to be most beguiling and witty. He was perhaps the first, and most certainly the most active, of book collectors in England, rummaging in the dust heaps of abbey and cathedral archives and rescuing the volumes which made his personal library larger than those of all other bishops combined.

This period produced five rather remarkable writers of widely different gifts. The first, of course, was Geoffrey Chaucer. Born in 1340, he did not achieve any prominence in letters until near the close of the reign. His youth was spent in the Vintry, where his somewhat wealthy citizen father had a house of two cellars, a hall, a parlor, a solar bedroom with a chimney and a privy, a kitchen and larder and chambers in the garret. From this substantial home could be heard very distinctly the deep ba.s.s notes of the bells of St. Martin-le-Grand tolling the curfew. Here an observant eye could see enough of life to prepare him for the writing of the wonderful tales he later produced in the native tongue. The productive period of the poet coincided with the closing of the deep shadows about the senile king.

John Gower, called the prince of poets, was born in 1325 but did not produce his serious work until he had reached his mature years. One of his major works, Confessio Amantis, was written in the English tongue and was a monumental effort of thirty thousand rhymed lines.

Little is known about Will Langland except that his long narrative poem, Piers Plowman, was the most noteworthy single effort in the native tongue at this period. In this pa.s.sionate picture of the life of the common people, he not only displayed intense feeling and power but won himself recognition later as the spokesman of the lower cla.s.ses.

Jean Froissart came to England bearing letters of commendation to Queen Philippa. He served for a time as secretary to the queen and was given every opportunity to observe and set down the things which transpired. He was born for the life of courts, having a fanatical enthusiasm for knights who lived by the code and who spent their days in the pleasing occupation of snipping, slas.h.i.+ng, shearing, mutilating, and disemboweling each other. If he had been content to remain permanently in England on the fat pension that the lavish Edward would have provided for him, he would undoubtedly have produced a great ma.s.s of biased but readable and useful history in his Chronicles. Many incidents which are no more than a scratch on a page of history would have come to life in some form or other if Messire Jean had been on hand to track them down and present them in his pleasant but irresponsible prose. What stories he might have told! Of the great John Hawkwood who formed the White Company; of the Lady Joan de Clisson whose bitter grief over the unjust execution of her husband by the French king led her into piracy in the English Channel; of the long and silent conspiracy of the villeins of England which culminated when John Ball had "rungen their bell"; of the real story of d.i.c.k Whittington with his cat and tie voices he heard in the bells!

But Froissart went later to France and transferred his enthusiasm to the exploits of French knights.

The most important of this first school of writers from one standpoint was a strange young character who became known as the Hermit of Hampole. His name was Richard Rolle. Feeling the desire to live a detached life, he took two kirtles of his sister's, one white and one gray, and a rain hood of his father's, and in this patched-up costume lived in the woods near his home in solitary contemplation. Later he went farther afield and first attracted wide attention when he entered a church at Dalton, put on a surplice, and delivered a sermon of pa.s.sionate fervor. The rest of his life was spent in a cave at Hampole near the Cistercian nunnery of St. Mary and was devoted to writing messages on spiritual and inspirational questions in the vigorous but little-known dialect of Northumberland. He preached a gospel of hope and joy in a period given over to gloom and despair. The nuns aided him by preserving copies of his work in his own hand in their choir bonds. He was carried off in 1349 by the Black Death, which seemingly could penetrate into dense forests and the deepest caves.

Richard Rolle has been called the father of English prose because he was the first to give written form to what had only been spoken before, an amalgam of Old English, Norman-French, and Latin, the basis of the present tongue. His fame did not penetrate the closed circle known as the court, however, except perhaps as an amusing anecdote about an unhinged recluse.

2.

The one branch of the arts in which it may reasonably be claimed for Edward that he led the way was architecture and building; and in this field his contribution was largely administrative.

The last quarter of the century saw the change from the Curvilinear style to the glories of the Perpendicular. This was, in a sense, a revolt from the great elaboration of the Curvilinear period, when beauty in tracery was eagerly sought and other elements were sometimes neglected. The Perpendicular was manifested in a preference for straight lines rather than flowing, a demand for the sterner and more dignified aspects of simplicity.

Edward was wise enough, and sufficiently discerning in taste, to accept the change and put all his power behind it. A Royal School was founded with headquarters at Westminster in the great administrative building over against the abbey. Here the many ventures in renovation and addition were discussed and planned. It is doubtful that Edward took an active part in the purely technical discussions as his ancestor, Henry III, undoubtedly had done. He was always too busy for that, and his departures from the kingdom were so frequent and so prolonged that he had no time left for such lesser labors. It is certain, however, that he always knew in a general way what the master masons were going to do. The costs were tremendous and so the great Plantagenet king, who was always s.h.i.+vering on the brink of bankruptcy, would have to know what his responsibility would be.

Edward's activities in building centered at Windsor and Westminster, but his lead was being followed elsewhere. Richard of Farleigh was at work in the west, his chief contribution being the truly beautiful steeple of Salisbury Cathedral. The erection of Salisbury had been a major triumph for England a century before; a rarely fine building, designed, planned, and raised by Englishmen in the record-breaking s.p.a.ce of forty years instead of the centuries which more leisurely races allowed. It had always presented one lack, a suitable main tower. Richard of Farleigh proceeded to supply this.

After completing their work at Windsor, William of Wykeham and his right-hand man, William of Wynford, moved on to Winchester and began their memorable contribution there. William Joy transformed Wells Cathedral and John Clyve designed the chastely lovely tower of Worcester. In addition to these major accomplishments, there were native artists, unsung geniuses of the chisel and the mallet, at work on churches throughout the country. It is in the rare artistry of her small churches that England has always excelled.

The spearheading of this change in architectural design in England is said in some quarters to have been the contribution of Robert de Bury, the wise and witty Bishop of Durham. He was above all others the one who might have felt the need for change, but the evidence available is not tangible or convincing. He went, on one of the many continental missions which were entrusted to him because of his suavity and culture, to visit Pope John XXII, who also has had his place in these pages. John was more concerned in the practical and administrative aspects of the papacy but at the same time he was deep in the evolution of the Palace of the Popes at Avignon. This brought many great architect-masons to the spot, and it is conceivable that the urbane Richard would be a welcome visitor in all cultivated circles and that he would come to know in what direction the thought of the great continental leaders was trending.

This much is certain, that the author of Philobiblon met Petrarch at the city where the winds blowing so insistently from the south were no hotter than the controversies raging about the new papal domain. The Italian poet is said to have questioned the English prelate about his island home, which with poetic license he called "the distant north."

In spite of these interesting speculations, De Bury remains a figure on the outside and far removed from the dust of the building sheds, the screech of winches, and the toil on the ramps. On the inside there was a figure whose contribution can be weighed in more concrete terms, Henry Yvele, and at his shoulder a brother, Robert. Of the birth and early life of Henry Yvele, nothing is known, and the record begins with his work in London in the year 1355. This year belongs in the final stages of the first of the plagues, called the Black Death. The plague had turned this teeming capital from a busy, cheerful, confident city into a center of gloom and fear and new-made graves, where one man was left of two and the dread of the unknown hung over all. Men no longer congregated in noisy crowds for fear of contagion. Their thoughts had turned to the life after death, and those who could afford a chantry were sinking their funds in the building of them; a chantry being a small chapel dedicated to the chanting of ma.s.ses for the soul of one lowly mortal. This was the kind of thing in which Yvele excelled, and he was kept busy in the planning of royal tombs and, later, the breath-taking naves of Westminster and Canterbury. His success was so quick that in 1356 he was made director of the royal work at Westminster. In 1369 this post was granted him for the duration of his life.

There was also a man who must have been a superb craftsman, although his period antedates the swing to the Perpendicular, William de Ramsaye. He was first heard of in 1326, when he was employed under Thomas of Canterbury on the work being done at Westminster. Ten years later he was engaged in the needed repairs and additions to the Tower of London, where he became the chief mason of the king. In 1344 he was engaged on Edward's Round Table, the circular hall which was planned for Windsor. The war with France did not stop all architectural activities, but it did lead to the suspension of this major venture. It was never resumed, although in 1365 the king paid the sum of fifty pounds to one John Lindsey for a table to be used in St. George's Chapel.

How unfortunate it is that little is known of these men. The past yields up so much about the figures of royalty, about the fighting men killing each other with so much zest, even about the dull, rule-ridden, sniveling, and acquisitive creatures in the chancelleries. Although scientists have been known to claim that with one bone the complete body of any long-extinct animal can be re-created, it is impossible to conjure up a flesh-and-blood man of this supreme age of building from a date and an obscure reference in moldy state doc.u.ments about "our well beloved servant" of such-and-such a name. History pays no heed to the unspectacular citizen who worked hard all day and walked at night to a humble home with dust on his tunic and his flat cap. But in the end the builders have had the better of it. The miracles they accomplished in stone are still standing and still beautiful, even with the disintegration of so many centuries on them, but the battlefields where great warriors died are so encroached upon by modern villas and so befouled by the rotting remains of motorcars and the staves of oil barrels that they do not always repay a visit.

CHAPTER XVIII.

The Days of Decline

1.

THE year 1369 marked the beginning of the English decline in power and prestige. First came the visit of the French king's scullion to declare the resumption of hostilities, at a time when the island kingdom was not prepared to wage successful war. In the same year occurred an event which can be considered as of almost equal consequence. Queen Philippa had been suffering for two years from a dropsy and as a result of the disease had become very heavy of body and so lacking in strength that she could not move from her couch. On August 14 the good queen knew that her time was at hand and sent for her royal husband, begging him to come to her at Windsor Castle. When the king arrived, she extended to him an arm from underneath the covers, having still too much pride to want him to observe how gross she had become, and placed her hand in his. The only other member of the family present was their youngest son, Thomas of Woodstock, in many ways the least admirable of them all, being full of pride and truculence, and his good looks (for of course all Plantagenets were handsome) differing from the rest in being darkly smoldering.

Philippa must have been unhappy that her other sons could not be with her; her beloved first-born who was, she knew to her sorrow, very likely to follow her soon into the shades; her amiable, huge-framed Lionel for whom she had felt a protective love and who had died abroad three years earlier after his brilliant marriage to the daughter of Bernab Visconti; the suave and clever John of Gaunt.

"My husband," whispered the queen, "we have enjoyed our long union in happiness, peace, and prosperity."

Edward, whose affection had never faltered, even though he had not been blind to the charms of others, nodded in silent grief.

"I entreat," she went on, "before I depart and we are forever separated in this world, that you will grant me three requests."

Edward, his eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g with tears, responded: "Dear lady, name them. They shall be granted."

The requests seemed of small moment: the payment of her lawful debts, the fulfillment of the legacies in her will, and her wish that he be buried beside her in the cloisters of Westminster when his time came.

"All this shall be done," declared Edward.

Very soon after this she made the sign of the cross and died. With her pa.s.sing a serious change came about in the king. His deterioration in body, in mind, in spirit was very marked; and these changes were contributing factors to the final collapse of what he had striven so hard to achieve. There had been signs of it before, a loss of energy, an increasing moodiness, a tendency to debauchery. His tall and proudly straight back developed a stoop, his nose seemed to grow longer and thinner, and his freshness of color gave way to a tallowy gray, his eyes lacked their onetime fire. He still strutted a little and he dressed as usual in the expensive black velvet cloaks and tunics he had always affected, although a carelessness in the matter of food stains could not be overlooked. Even the inevitable c.o.c.k's feather in his velvet hat seemed to have lost its jauntiness.

He no longer came into the offices at Westminster like a bl.u.s.tering north wind, full of plans, bursting with confidence and pride, keen to be about the affairs of the nation. Instead he was likely to sit in long ruminative silences at his place beside the long marble table, while doc.u.ments piled up around him and his ministers found it increasingly difficult to get decisions from him. His arrogance, his self-confidence, his ostentation showed only in flashes. He had ceased to be the conquering king and had become, to his subjects as well as to those close about him, old Edward of Windsor, who drank too much and who allowed a haughty, round-hipped hussy named Alice Perrers to lead him about publicly by the nose.

Alice Perrers had been one of the ladies of Queen Philippa's household, and the king had made little effort to conceal his interest in her while his wife was still alive. He had given her a valuable manor house the year before and soon after the demise of Philippa he granted her several other pieces of property. It was generally believed that the girl had already presented Edward with two daughters and that these grants were to provide for them.

The queen must have been fully aware of what was happening, for in her will she left pensions to all the damsels of her bedchamber, naming each (including Philippa the Pycard, who became the wife of Geoffrey Chaucer); with one exception, Alice Perrers. Edward proceeded to compensate his mistress for this omission, issuing an order in the following terms: "Know all, that we give and concede to our beloved Alicia Perrers, late damsel of the chamber to our dearest consort Philippa deceased, and to her heirs and executors, all the jewels, goods and chattels that the said queen left in the hands of Euphemia, who was wife to Walter de Heselaston knight; and the said Euphemia is to deliver them to the said Alicia, on receipt of this our order."

It is clear that there was a story back of this grant. As already stated, the sick and world-weary queen was fully aware that the one damsel for whom she had the least liking, the bold and buxom Alice, had won the favor of the king. She did not want any of her own prized possessions falling into the greedy hands of the interloper and undoubtedly made arrangements to prevent it. All her personal possessions were confided into the care of the reliable Euphemia, in the hope that they could be kept safely until such time as they might be distributed to those for whom the queen had intended them.

But courts are hotbeds of gossip and t.i.ttle-tattle. It was impossible for such a plan to be made without some word of it getting out. It came to the ears of Alice Perrers, who probably had antic.i.p.ated some such action. The mistress of a king always has many enemies, but it is also true that there are invariably other members of the court sycophantic enough to hitch themselves to the rising star. The word of what the dying queen had done was whispered into the alert ear of the favorite and she lost no time, once the queen was dead, in going to Edward. There may have been quite a scene between them, but in the end the mistress won. She received the jewels and other possessions, and the story of what had happened went into quick circulation outside the palace.

All England soon learned the shoddy step into which the king had been cajoled by his favorite. Indignation was felt everywhere and the pride of the people in their once magnificent king began to wane.

2.

After the death of the queen, Edward tossed shame aside and had Alice Perrers constantly with him. He held a great tournament at Smithfield and selected her in advance as Queen of Beauty. They rode in a colorful procession through the Chepe Ward from the Tower, with the beauteous Alice in the lead and wearing a costume which won her the description of Queen of the Sun: a rich yellow gown, covered with gold and precious jewels, and a flaring headpiece of the same color, all of which accented her lively brown eyes and long dark hair. In her train rode a number of ladies, some of the court, some of much less lofty degree, but all of them more wantonly attired than the favorite because they had donned men's attire, with parti-colored tunics and tight hose and gold and silver girdles. All of them were very gay and noisy, ogling the knights who rode with them knee to knee. This was at best the fringe of the court, of course, none of the women being of good birth or standing; perhaps it might have been the medieval equivalent of what is now called "the younger set."

The whole nation was shocked, the clergy indulged in pulpit tirades; but the tournaments went on, and the people turned out in dense crowds to gawk at the brazen hussies. The king seemed to be enjoying himself immensely.

His relations.h.i.+p with Alice Perrers took on a more dangerous aspect when she began to play the part of a medieval Madame Maintenon, sitting beside him at meetings of the council and actually ensconcing herself on the bench at Westminster and advising the judges as to what their verdicts should be. She lacked the finesse of the French dictatress, and her methods of interference became so open at last that a parliament called the Good took a step which had never been dared before. It publicly chided a king's mistress by name and ordered her expelled from court. How the Henrys and John and Edward I and Edward III himself in his prime would have raged and roared and sharpened the ax and called loudly for the execution of all of them for this invasion of royal privilege! But poor old Edward of Windsor had outlived his fighting days. He took the reprimand like a schoolboy and actually did keep the indignant Alice away until a new parliament, called the Bad, came into existence and restored her to favor.

Not much is known about this lady who flaunted the preference of the aging king more openly than any of the bevy of mistresses of Charles II would ever do. Efforts have been made to prove that she was a woman of common birth, even a domestic drudge. This, however, seems absurd, because no one who had handled a broom or wielded a scrub brush would have been raised to the circle of the queen's ladies-in-waiting. It is reasonably certain that she was of the family of Perrers in Hertfords.h.i.+re, the daughter or perhaps the niece of the Sir Richard Perrers who had been sitting in Parliament earlier. Edward, becoming credulous in his old age, a.s.sumed that she was unmarried. He refused to believe she had a husband when the fact was brought out publicly, basing his stand on the grant to her of the manor of Oxeye (which involved her in furious altercation with the monks of St. Albans), in which she was described as a spinster. It soon became apparent, however, that she was married to one William de Windsor, who was willing to play the role of wittol.

In spite of this her power over the ruler grew steadily and she began to interfere in both royal and bench decisions. Not content with thus displaying her power over a king who had fallen into his dotage, the ambitious Alice went still farther afield. She entered into some kind of secret alliance with John of Gaunt, who was prepared to take advantage of the disorder which had descended on the kingdom. She undoubtedly had some part in the political chicanery which first kept the king from summoning a new parliament and later led to the calling of the well-packed body known as the Bad Parliament. Things had reached a sorry pa.s.s in England by this time; with the king behaving like a senile pantaloon, the Black Prince dying, and John of Gaunt, who had an instinct for mischief-making but lacked the courage to come out into the open, hovering about and pulling strings. It was a situation which gave boundless opportunities to a woman like Alice Perrers, and she seems to have taken full advantage of it.

So much for the fair Alice up to this point in the sorry tale of the last years of Edward. It has been a.s.sumed that she was fair, although the chronicles of the day are not specific about her appearance. One even goes to the length of calling her plain and a.s.serting that she succeeded by "blandishment of her tongue." She undoubtedly had a tongue skilled in the tattle of the court, but that would hardly have been enough. It might help to hold the aging philanderer, but she would have needed a pair of sparkling eyes and a trimness of figure to win him in the first place. The point is not important; whatever her weapons, she had caught him, and she seemed capable of holding him in spite of everything.

3.

Merlin had predicted that one day an eagle would fly out of Brittany to rescue France, and the truth of this was eagerly accepted when Bertrand du Guesclin came into prominence in the middle years of the long war. He had been born in a quiet valley called Glay Hakim, the ugly-duckling son of a beautiful mother. He had a squat figure and a face somewhat on the order of a gargoyle, but he had enormous strength in his misshapen body, and inside him there burned a greatness of spirit such as nature creates only once in many centuries. His merits as a leader were so manifest after the Castilian campaign that the new King of France, Charles V, had the great good sense to appoint him constable of France instead of selecting one of the t.i.tled nonent.i.ties of his court. Du Guesclin himself protested that a poor knight-bachelor without fortune was not fit to lead the lords of France. The king, who had suffered enough from the incompetence of the lords of France, insisted.