The Perfect King (68 page)
Authors: Ian Mortimer
Tags: #General, #Great Britain, #History, #Europe, #Royalty, #Biography & Autobiography, #History - General History, #British & Irish history, #Europe - Great Britain - General, #Biography: Historical; Political & Military, #British & Irish history: c 1000 to c 1500, #1500, #Early history: c 500 to c 1450, #Ireland, #Europe - Ireland
And then dawned Monday
13
April: Black Monday as it would be known for centuries in England. Even Edward had never seen anything to compare with the weather that day. A storm broke, but it was not just a storm. As the skies darkened and thunder crashed above them, the temperature dropped so suddenly that a wall of ice fell. Huge hailstones rained down, killing men and animals in their thousands. Out in the open, just to the south of Paris, Edward's men had little hope of finding shelter. With the landscape lit by lightning and the thunder above them, and everywhere ice missiles descending, it must have been terrifying. In later years the chroniclers all wrote in awe of the event. Froissart wrote that 'it seemed as if the heavens would crack, and the earth open up and swallow everything'. Thomas of Walsingham stated that several thousand men and horses died. The author of the
Eulo
gium Historiarum
wrote that many men died of snow, hail and rain. Henry Knighton wrote that hail killed six thousand horses and a large number of men. Other sources put the number of dead men at one thousand, including the eldest son of the earl of Warwick, who died of injuries sustained in this storm two weeks later.
There is no doubt that Black Monday was a momentous event, and no doubt that it affec
ted Edward's strategy. But exactl
y how and to what extent remains a mystery. The view of contemporaries and writers prior to the eighteenth century was that 'Edward, like a good and pious prince, looked upon it as a loud declaration of divine pleasure: wherefore alighting immediately from his horse, he kneeled down on the ground, and casting his eyes towards the church of Our Lady of Chartres, made a solemn vow to Almighty God that he would now sincerely and absolutely incline his mind to a final peace with France, if he might obtain good conditions.' Twentieth-century writers, less inclined to understand divine signals as a motivation, were far more cynical, and regarded Black Monday simply as an excuse. But Edward did believe in the connection between God's will and the weather, six thousand dead horses and up to one thousand dead men in a hailstorm was a clear indication that God was not pleased. Therefore we have to ask, was Edward finally brought to the negotiating table by the difficulties of sustaining an army in the field? Or was it down to his belief that on Black Monday he had been spoken to by God?
Edward was forty-seven years of age. Much had happened since Halidon Hill, after which he had given thanks to God for his first great victory. After that he had gone on many pilgrimages, often after surviving a storm or winning a
battle
. There is no evidence that this was ever a cynical ploy, to make him look religious, let alone that it was cynically motivated on every single occasion. Such was the regularity of his acts of thanksgiving that we must lay aside the postulation that Edward's shows of religion were merely routine. His personal religious zeal might not have been unusual, but we must remember that Edward was living in a deeply religious age. He may have been a great warrior, but so was Lancaster, and Lancaster wrote a book on religious salvation. Also Edward's spirituality had probably increased since the
1330s,
not lessened. There had been some significant religious acts over the years, such as donating a figure of St Thomas to Canterbury Cathedral, the pardon to Cecilia Ridgeway, and a commission to search for the body of Joseph of Arimathea at Glastonbury Abbey in
1345.
All these do not force us to believe that Edward was a holy man, but neither do they suggest a cynical approach to manifestations of divine will. Edward certainly believed that there was a connection between extreme, life-threatening storms and divine providence. The most obvious example of this is his four pilgrimages, including one to Canterbury from London on foot, and his gift of a valuable golden ship to each shrine after being saved from the storm in March
1343.
Therefore Black Monday may well have been pivotal in convincing Edward that the time had co
me to stop the destruction, settl
e his military account and accept the best terms that the French were prepared to offer.
The French were of course fully aware of the effects of the storm, and they had been protected in their houses from the worst of it, but they had seen and suffered enough. If Edward was having problems supplying his army in the field, they all knew that he would simply turn in a new direction and savage another place, another string of villages, another few towns. His armies had swerved this way and that between Rheims and Paris, devastating a huge area. The time had come for them to swallow their pride. The question they placed on the table now was whether the territorial concessions of the First Treaty of London, coupled with the reduced ransom demand of
£500,000
for all the French prisoners, would be sufficient to appease Edward? In all probability Edward had already decided that this would be the basis for a permanent peace, but, playing the part of a wrathful, Old Testament king, he could not be seen to acquiesce so easily. As with his acts of mercy, he preferred to be asked to temper his fury by others. According to Froissart, it was his greatest friend, the duke of Lancaster, who now assumed this role. 'You can press on with your struggle and pass the rest of your life fighting', the duke is supposed to have said, 'or you can make terms with your enemy and end the war now with honour.' Edward had come to the end of his war. He wisely chose the latter.
The negotiations took place at
Br6tigny
from
1
May
1360
and were finalised on
8
May. Edward agreed in principle to relinquish his claim on the French throne in return for sovereignty of all the territories he had inherited as a vassal and
many of those he had subsequentl
y obtained by conquest. Details remained to be sorted out with the captive French king, but Edward was satisfied. He had achieved his aims, and secured everything he had fought for. The claim on the French throne had proved a very powerful negotiating position indeed, but, like the territorial claims of the Second Treaty of London, it had served its purpose, and could now be dispensed with. Edward ordered the English army to march to Honfleur, from which he sailed on
18
May. After landing at Rye, there was feasting in the royal household every day for two weeks.
He had returned in triumph.
Victory
The war was over. After eight years of struggling to capitalise on his dominant military position, Edward had finally achieved a lasting settlement. All that remained was for King John to relinquish sovereignty of the lands agreed and for Edward formally to renounce his claim on the French throne. In October
1360
he crossed the Channel to Calais to see these things done. A few questions remained about the renunciations, and these clauses had to be removed from the final treaty and inserted into a separate document to be discussed further, but otherwise the Bretigny agreement was ratified at Calais on
24
October. Edward returned to England and summoned parliament to meet after Christmas, the ratification by parliament being the very last stage in ending the war.
As every reader knows, the conflict which Edward believed he had brought to an end after twenty-three years fighting is now known as the Hundred Years War. The name is misleading, for it suggests that it was one great, protracted struggle. At several times in the fourteenth century the war came to an end, and peace treaties were entered into - and ratified - in good faith. We tend to forget that different stages of 'the war' broke out for different reasons. Some would say that there was no such thing as the Hundred Years War. What we have so far heard about is just the first phase of the great conflict which was given an ideological unity by presenting the English claim to the throne of France as real. But this first phase was essentially a war of rivalry between Edward
III
and Philip de Valois, in which' Edward's claim was a means to an end, not an end in itself (unlike later stages of the conflict). Almost every aspect of Edward's involvement in the war since hearing of Philip's death had been an attempt to secure a lasting peace on good terms for the English. It is more accurate therefore to think of Edward in
1360
as having achieved a belated but satisfactory end to this war of rivalry.
Edward was now nearing fifty. His original rival was long-since dead. His victories were of such glory and magnitude that he could not have easily repeated them. He was more interested in great building projects than protracted sieges. Besides, his health was not good. His wife's health too was declining. Almost the first thing he did when returning to England in
1360
was to merge his household with Philippa's, with the implication that henceforth they would be together. He was not going to spend the rest of his days fighting a futile war with France which, in his own mind, he had already won. It was time for him to enjoy the fruits of his labours, in peace, and to spend his last days of companionship with his much-loved queen, creating works of lasting beauty.
Edward and Philippa spent Christmas
1360
at Woodstock with their sons and daughters and the king of France. Here Edward wore a coat he had specially commissioned. It was made of black satin embroidered in gold and silk thread with the image of a woodbine - a climbing plant, such as ivy or honeysuckle - and bearing the motto in gold lettering 'Syker as ye Wodebynd' (clinging like the woodbine). This is the fourth and last of Edward's known mottoes, and in many ways it is the most mysterious. If the first ('It is as it is') is to be associated with the death of Edward's father, the second ('Hay, hay the white swan, by God's soul I am thy man') is to be loosely associated with the tournaments of
1348-49,
and the third
('Honi soit. . .')
with Lancaster, then we should be looking for another personal subject as the inspiration. Without further evidence it is impossible to be certain, but it seems that this motto is Edward's own comment on himself and his queen: a reflection on his career and the part she had played in his success. She had been the tree around which he had climbed, twisting like ivy. She was like a pillar to him, a source of courage and self-confidence despite his wanderings and adventures, and had been ever since the day they married. His open appreciation of her loyalty and support after more than thirty years is touching, and inclines us to see the kindness and gratitude of the man. But the motto is also interesting in that Edward clearly compares himself to the searching, questioning woodbine. This is apt; since that frightened, lonely boy-king under Mortimer's dominance, Edward had been feeling his way like the climbing ivy. Even the firm policies on which he relied strategically had been discovered through trial and error: he cannot be said to have inherited them from his father. In looking for the man's own idea of himself we should not ignore this unique case of self-definition. He had always been searching for the way to be a great king, and, now that he was one, he realised that it had only been possible due to the consistent and devoted support of Queen Philippa. She had been the strong emotional foundation for his experiment in kingship. Later events would prove this to be only too true: as her sickness worsened, so did his leadership. She was essential to his continuing to strive to be a great king.
So what does a warrior-king do when he has won his last
battle
? What does he do when he has sealed the peace treaty on his last war? What does the climbing woodbine seek? Edwar
d, of course, had already given
much thought to this question. There were the permanent structures of the Order of the Garter and his religious foundations. There were his many secular building projects, especially Windsor Castle and Queenborough, to which he now could direct more money than ever before. And there was parliament. When he entered the Painted Chamber in
1361
it was to the smiles and delight of the representatives of a grateful people. Even the most ardent anti-war merchants had to be pleased, for now they could expect to be taxed less. Ratification was predictably swift and complete. On
2
February the first ransom instalment was received from the French and, following oaths in the presence of the archbishop of Canterbury, King
J
ohn was free to return to his devastated homeland.
The parliament of
1361
was more than a mere congratulatory assembly. It was like the great parliaments of the
1350s:
it transformed the enthusiasm of the time and the rapid economic development of the country into business decisions and social legislation. The king and representatives locked together in a debate about power over everyday lives. The Statute of Labourers was reinforced, the earlier legislation regarding weights and measures was renewed. Laws were passed restricting the exportation of corn and banning jurors from receiving bribes. Given Edward's interest in hunting, it is interesting to note that a law was passed ensuring that the lord who lost a hawk could legally expect its finder to return it to him. But by far the most important legislation of this parliament was an Act which became the basis of local administration in England for the next half-millennium. Edward agreed, at long last, to the principle that local landholders should have the right to arrest, try and punish minor wrongdoers. In each county there were to be four Justices of the Peace to try offenders. Serious cases were still to be tried by the royal assize courts, but local justice had finally arrived. Two years later Edward expanded the JP's role to include quarterly meetings: the 'Quarter Sessions'. It was only in the nineteenth century that this structure of local government began to be replaced. The basic legislation empowering JPs is still in force today.