Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (1104 page)

Edward III (“the Knight”), by interesting these barons in his French and Scottish wars,
where there were lands and money as well as glory to be gained, snuffed out their quarrels for nearly fifty years; but he, too, had several younger sons who quarrelled with each other after his strong hand was gone.

He was a man of many different sides of character. He loved pageants and splendour,
but he also loved hard knocks in hard fights by sea and land. He was merchant-king, sailorking, soldier-king, and Parliament’s king too,
for he added greatly to the power of the
House of Commons, which, when he died,
had obtained a full share in all law-making,
could call the King’s ministers to account if it thought they were misbehaving, and, in fact,
was almost as powerful as the House of Lords.
It was always ready to vote Edward enormous sums of money. Finally, Edward thoroughly understood the needs of English trade, and he founded English manufactures; for it was he who invited Flemings to come from Flanders and settle in Norwich and teach us how to weave fine cloth.

Yet Edward has a bad name in history because he plunged England into that great war with France which lasted off and on for
100 years. In the beginning, I think, he could hardly help fighting. At the best of times
England and France were rather like two fierce, well-fed dogs, the doors of whose kennels looked right into each other. Edward had wisely begun his reign with several serious attempts to conquer Scotland, and had won a great battle at Halidon Hill in Berwickshire, while, all the time, French help was being poured into Scotland. Then, again, the
French never ceased their attempts to eat up our old ally, Flanders, now more than ever necessary to English trade. Finally, no English King of any spirit could refuse to defend
Gascony, our one foreign possession. The war opened with a great English victory on the seas, at Sluys off the River Scheldt (1340);
and, just before this victory, Edward had been persuaded by the Flemings to come to their help on land and to take the title of “King of France.” By English law his claim to the
French crown would have been a good one,
because his mother was the daughter of King
Philip IV, but French law did not recognize that a man could inherit a kingdom through his mother. However, from this time forward

until 1802 all English kings called themselves
“Kings of France” and put the French Lilies beside the English Leopards on their Royal
Standard. This was the most expensive piece of gardening on record, but the war gave the
English a long experience in hard knocks which stood them in good stead.

Edward had in him a good deal of the
“knight-errant,” the sort of brave, reckless rider who was supposed to go about seeking adventures, rescuing ladies in distress, and cutting the throats of giants. But he had also a rich kingdom at his back and plenty of fighting barons, knights, and freeholders, as greedy of adventure as himself. His subjects,
in fact, urged him on and gloried in his splendid series of victories.

Perhaps you are disappointed that I am not going to describe any of his great battles or rides through France; but I had much rather that you learned
why
a King of England was fighting in France than the dates of the Battle of Crecy (1346) or Poitiers (1356). In the open field, up to 1361, we were always victorious. This was because the English leaders,
including the King himself, his noble son called the “Black Prince,” Chandos, Manny,
Knollys, and many others thoroughly understood “tactics” — that is to say, they knewhow to move their men on the battlefield.
The French used to huddle too many heavyarmed knights, whether on horse or foot, into too small a space, and trusted to crushing the
English by mere weight of numbers. But it is an old saying that “the thicker the hay is,
the more easy it is to mow it.” The French light infantry was contemptible and was despised by its own knights; whereas our sturdy yeomen, armed with the long-bow, were the first line of every English force and could pour in such showers of arrows as neither horses nor men could face. Then our cavalry could charge in after the arrows had blinded or frightened whole battalions of the enemy.

In the course of the war Edward captured the great city of Calais, which, as you know,
is right opposite Dover. He wanted, or said that he wanted, to hang six of the principal citizens of Calais, for the city had made a desperate resistance and cost him much trouble;
but his good Queen Philippa begged them off.
By the possession of Calais we got command of the “narrow seas” as we had never had it before, and Edward III might well put the picture of a ship on his new gold coins, to show that he was “Sovereign of the Seas.” We held
Calais for 200 years. After more than twenty years of war Flanders was free from the French,

Gascony was safe, and, though Scotland was as unconquered as ever, a Scottish king had been taken prisoner at the Battle of Neville’s
Cross near Durham (1346), and a French king at the Battle of Poitiers. A peace was concluded in 1361, which left Edward in full possession of all the old inheritance of Henry
II’s wife (Eleanor of Aquitaine), as well as of Calais.

France had been harried from end to end;
but so had Northern England by the Scots.
And, though our country was gorged with
French gold, it was by no means happy. The war had in fact become a war of plunder, which is the worst kind of war. And in 1348 a pestilence, called the Black Death, had swept off more than a third of the population of England, which early in the century had perhaps reached four millions. The exceedingly dirty habits of our ancestors had frequently caused epidemics of various horrible diseases, but never before upon such a scale. No doubt this plague was brought by travellers and goods coming from the East. All Southern
Europe suffered, but England perhaps worse than any country. The “villein” class was certainly diminished by one half; and so landowners could no longer get their labour-rents,
or, indeed, get their land tilled at all. Pricesdoubled everywhere, and the few “villeins” that were left demanded enormous wages for a little work. All the “feudal” ties which had bound village life together were snapped. Men began to wander “in search of work” from the old home where they had been born and where their ancestors had lived from earliest Saxon days. Landowners, finding they could get no reapers or threshers, began to sell their land,
or take to sheep farming, which wants few hands.
Parliament went on saying: “Oh, ye villeins,
you
shall
work for the old wages; oh, ye landowners, you
shall not
pay higher ones.” But it was not a bit of good. There was a great deal of work to be done; there were very few men to do it, and those men asked and received higher wages. For a year or two it seemed as if society would come to an end.

Then, slowly, things got a little better, but,
as you shall hear, there was a fierce rebellion of the peasants in the next reign. Edward
Ill’s last years were unhappy. His son, the
Black Prince, governed Aquitaine, and was beguiled by a Spanish scoundrel, called King
Pedro, to interfere in a Spanish civil war.
Wherever the Prince and his archers fought they won, but his army suffered dreadfully from the climate. A new King of France took the opportunity to renew the great war (1369)

His captains had been learning tactics from their English foes by the simple process of being beaten till they understood how to hit back, and slowly and patiently began to win back castles and frontier provinces in Aquitaine. The Black Prince, sore stricken with fever, turned every now and then, like a dying leopard, and tore his victorious foes, but in vain. He died in 1376; and his father, Xing
Edward, worn out with hard battles and also with luxurious living between compaigns,
died in the next year. The heir was little
Richard, son of the Black Prince, aged eleven.
Two greedy and unscrupulous uncles, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and Thomas,
Duke of Gloucester, were glaring at the boy and at each other. So the great reign closed in gloom and fear for the future.

CHAPTER VI

THE END OF THE MIDDLE AGES; RICHARD II TO RICHARD III, 1377-1485.

As we go on in English history each period seems to have a character of its own. The twelfth century, in spite of Stephen’s reign,
is hopeful; the thirteenth is glorious, rich, and fairly peaceful. In the fourteenth begins a decline, of which it is difficult to explain all the causes; both men and classes have begun to snarl at each other. In the fifteenth, the period now before us, they are going to bite each other; the century seems to be a failure all round.

The nation at large was by no means rotten;
but men’s sense of right and wrong had been corrupted by the French and Scottish wars.
Too much fighting is as bad for men as too little. Also they were losing their faith in the Church, which had ceased to be the protector of the poor and thought mainly of keeping its enormous riches safe. Men were soonto lose their faith in the Crown as well, and even in the Law. In a rude state of society,
when the barons were again becoming too rich and too powerful, and the Crown becoming too poor and too weak, the excellent system of government by Parliament, and even the excellent law courts, were of very little use;
the barons used both for their own ends, and they kept armed men to enforce their views.

In those days armies were only raised for particular campaigns, and, when peace came,
were disbanded; and the soldiers, who had perhaps been fighting for ten years in France,
were not likely to be peaceful when they came home. So they used to attach themselves to some great lord or baron who could employ them in his private quarrels. The numbers of the barons were now very small, but each was proportionately more powerful; and a great man might perhaps hold four or five earldoms.
The younger sons of the kings held many of these, and were often the worst rowdies at the fashionable game of “ beggar-my-neighbour”
and “king of the castle.” In my schoolboy days, when we were asked what we knew of any particular baron in the fourteenth or fifteenth century, we usually thought it safe to answer:
“He was the King’s uncle and was put to death.” Most of the King’s uncles and cousinswere put to death, and more of them deserved to be.

As regards the mere “politics” and wars of the hundred and eight years from the accession of Richard II to the death of Richard III,
there is little that you need remembpr.

Richard II had many good qualities, but he was rash and hot-headed; while he was a boy his uncles and some four or five other great barons were always trying to rule in his name; when they found this difficult, they conspired against him and killed his best friends.
When he came of age they despised him because he kept the peace with France, whereas they and their plundering followers had enjoyed the war. Richard, however, was no coward, and when he was not yet fifteen he had a fine opportunity of showing his pluck. In
1381 the question of the wages of farm labourers, which had been so much upset by the
Black Death in 1348, led to a fearful outbreak called the “Peasant Revolt” (1381) all over the richest lands of England. It was headed by one Wat Tyler. London was occupied by the rebels, and King and courtiers had to fly to the Tower. Again the ship of state seemed in danger of foundering; but the] peasants lacked real leadership. Young King Richard II (he was then fourteen) showed the greatest pluck