Attempt of the

who owned estates on both sides of the border, who feared to lose one or the other; and in 1332 some of them assisted barons to make Edward Balliol, the son of the former king, John Balliol, to attempt to dethrone David. For a time he succeeded, and defeated David's forces at Dupplin Moor, but soon had to fly the country.

Edward Balliol
King of
Scotland.

English invasion of Scotland. Halidon Hill. Capture of Berwick.

Edward, who had discountenanced the expedition, now came to his assistance, and besieged Berwick. The Scots tried to relieve it, and were defeated at Halidon Hill, 1333; Berwick fell into the hands of the English, and has been counted as one of the possessions of the English king ever since. Balliol was again placed on the throne of Scotland, and David fled to France, but was very soon restored by the Scots, and Balliol was expelled the country. A second invasion by Edward and Balliol produced no result.

In the time of Edward I. we saw that the Scots had begun the policy of allying with France against England. This was always their plan, and now Edward's interference made them call for French aid.

Scots receive help from France.

This

was given. In 1336 Philip invaded Gascony, and the result was the outbreak of the great war between England and France.

Question of the
French

succession, and
Edward's

All the brothers of Isabella, wife of Edward II. (see pedigree IX.), had died in turn, leaving only daughters, and by the Salic law no woman could reign in France; but Edward now declared that the rights of the brothers had passed to his mother Isabella, and through her to himself, and claim. that, therefore, he should be King of France, instead of Isabella's first cousin, Philip of Valois, to whom the French had given the crown. This claim of his was entirely an after-thought, for in 1329 he had done homage for his dominions to Philip, and it was only when he wanted to punish the French king for helping the Scots and for receiving David at his court that he brought forward the claim.

Edward, however, not only persuaded himself that his demand was just, but he also got the English Parliament to believe that it would be a good thing for England if he could become King of France. This was probably due to the idea that if the king had

Causes why

the English Parliament

supported Edward.

large foreign possessions he would require less taxes, and also that there would be more trade with France if the two countries were joined; but it is also thought that the English were afraid lest Flanders, to which they sent their wool, might fall into the hands of the French, and so their trade might be stopped; for Flanders was to England what Yorkshire is to the Australian wool-growers at the present day. For these reasons the Parliament was eager to help Edward, and to vote taxes to pay for the war.

This helped to make the Parliament much more important, and other causes helped to the same end. In 1322, as we saw, the Commons had got a share in legislation, but in 1332 Importance of the knights of the shire are first recorded to have Parliament. deliberated by themselves, and the next year they joined themselves to the citizens and burgesses; so that Parliament separated into two houses, as it is now-the lay and two houses. spiritual peers forming the House of Lords, and the knights of the shire and citizens and burgesses the House of Commons.

Separation into

This change was most important. By birth the knights of the shire were of the same class as the lords, often they belonged to the same family; and their sitting in the House of Commons Importance of prevented the king from playing off one house against this change. the other, as he certainly could have done had the two been composed wholly of different classes. Moreover, the spiritual peers sat with the lay nobles, so that they could not be played off against one another. This helped Parliament to act as a whole. In the French estates, on the contrary, the nobles, clergy, and commoners sat in separate chambers, and the king used to play off two classes against the third; this could not be done in England.

In 1337 Edward assumed the title of King of France, and prepared for war. The Parliament had granted him money; he had next to look out for men and allies. For an army

Raising of

troops.

Edward relied neither on the feudal array nor on the militia; he used hired soldiers, as England has always done since, when soldiers have been wanted. He was able to pay them well, as he had plenty of money, and young men of all classes who thought they had a turn for fighting flocked to his banners. They

took service under some great man, and the whole army was

I

formed into divisions, thoroughly well armed and rudely drilled. The best soldiers were the archers.

For allies Edward, of course, had the Flemings, at the head of whom was the great master-brewer of Ghent, Jacques Van Artaveld; but he also made friends with the small states on the

Allies.

Invasion of

of Flanders.

east of France and with the Emperor, so he had hopes of bringing an immense force to bear upon the French king. The next question was the point of attack. Three routes presented themselves, first by way of Flanders, second by the river Seine, and third by way of Gascony. Of these, France by way Edward, in order to be with his allies, chose the first. On his arrival, however, he found that his friends, though willing to receive subsidies, were unwilling to risk themselves in the field. He invaded France, but Philip wisely declined a pitched battle, and having exhausted his money and loaded himself with debt, Edward returned the next year to England. Parliament granted him the enormous tax of the ninth lamb, the ninth fleece, and the ninth sheaf in his dominions, and, having collected a new fleet and army, Edward prepared to return.

Its failure.

Heavy tax.

Battle of Sluys.

He learnt, however, that Philip had prepared a vast fleet at Sluys to prevent his passage. The French fleet was formed in four lines, but Edward arranged that each ship of men-atarms should be supported in its attack on a French ship by two vessels filled with archers, who shot down the Frenchmen on the deck; the men-at-arms then boarded, and in this way line after line was defeated, and the ships either sunk or taken prisoners. The French loss was enormous, and for thirty years the

English gain command of the sea.

English had complete command of the seas, and could go to and fro as they chose. From Sluys Edward went to Brussels, but his new invasion of France was a failure, and it was not till 1346, when he changed his base of operations to the mouth of the Seine, that any success was won (See map, p. 145). Meanwhile Edward was terribly pressed for money, and he conceived the idea that his officers were cheating him of the taxes they collected. Accordingly he hurried to England in 1340, dismissed the Chancellor Robert Stratford with the other officials, and accused John Stratford, Arch

Quarrel with
Archbishop
Stratford.

bishop of Canterbury, of wasting his money, and ordered him to answer the charge before the Court of Exchequer. This Stratford refused to do, and the peers backed him up in demanding that a peer should never be tried except before his peers assembled in full Parliament. Edward was forced to yield, and he also made three other concessions of great importance.

First, that the accounts of the kingdom should be audited by auditors elected in Parliament; second, that ministers should be appointed by consultation between the king and his Concessions to lords, and should be sworn before Parliament to keep parliament. the law; third, at the beginning of each Parliament ministers were to resign their offices into the king's hands, and be compelled to answer complaints brought against them. The first of these gave Parliament complete control over the purse, for they not only were to vote taxes, but also to inquire how the money had been spent ; the second and third established what is called responsibility of ministers to Parliament. These concessions were revoked by the king the next year; but they show what the statesmen of the fourteenth century aimed at, and how strong Parliament had become.

Invasion of

of the Seine.

Allies with
Brittany.

For five years little had been done in the French war, but in 1346 Edward changed his base of operations to the mouth of the Seine. He did this because a dispute had arisen about the succession to the duchy of Brittany, and of course France by way he took the side of one candidate and Philip of the other; accordingly, in July, 1346, he raised a new army and landed in Normandy. After plundering Caen, Edward reached Rouen, and finding the bridge over the Seine held in force, he turned towards Paris, and, after burning and plundering Vernon and Mantes, he reached the neighbourhood of that city. His movements were followed by Philip on the right bank of the river. Edward's object was to reach Flanders, and by a clever feint on Paris he decoyed Philip from the bridge of Poissy, seized it, and crossed the Seine.

He then marched north, but the river Somme, which runs slow and deep through a marshy soil, barred his path; the bridges were all held or destroyed, and Philip was

close behind him. (See map, p. 145).

Retreat

towards

Flanders.

It seemed that Edward would be shut into the corner between

Somme.

the Somme and the sea, when, by threats and bribes, he induced a Passage of the peasant to lead the army across a ford still called Blanchetaque, or white shingle, where the mouth of the Somme could just be crossed at low tide. A body of horsemen barred the passage, but the English fought their way across with the courage of despair, and Philip only arrived in time to see the incoming tide cutting him off from the rear of the English forces.

Arrived on the north side of the river, Edward turned to bay on the high ground behind the village of Crecy, where the ground slopes away on three sides for a distance of some six hundred yards from a windmill which still marks the spot, and there, on Saturday, August 26th, 1346, he waited for Philip, who had gone back to cross the Somme at Abbeville, to come and attack him.

The rest was a great help to the English, and they made good use of it to prepare for the coming fight. Edward drew up his men on