to make peace, initiated by Pope Innocent VI., came to nothing, though the English commons were now weary of the war. The result of this failure was the renewal of war on a large scale. In 1355 Edward led an unsuccessful raid out of Calais, and in January and February 1356 harried the Lothians, in the expedition famous as the Burned Candlemas. His exploits sank into insignificance as compared with those of his son, whose victory at Poitiers, on the 19th of September 1356, resulted in the captivity of King John, and forced the French to accept a new truce. Edward entertained his royal captive very magnificently, and in 1359 concluded with him the treaty of London, by which John surrendered so much that the French repudiated the treaty. Edward thereupon resolved to invade France afresh and compel its acceptance. On the 28th of October he landed at Calais, and advanced to Reims, where he hoped to be crowned king of France. The strenuous resistance of the citizens frustrated this scheme, and Edward marched into Burgundy, whence he made his way back towards Paris. Failing in an attack on the capital, he was glad to conclude, on the 8th of May 1360, preliminaries of peace at Brétigny, near Chartres. This treaty, less onerous to France than that of London, took its final form in the treaty of Calais, ratified by King John on the 9th of October. By it Edward renounced his claim to France in return for the whole of Aquitaine.
The treaty of Calais did not bring rest or prosperity either to England or France. Fresh visitations of the Black Death, in 1362 and 1369, intensified the social and economic disturbances which had begun with the first outbreak in 1348. Desperate, but not very successful, efforts were made to enforce the statute of Labourers, of 1351, by which it was sought to maintain prices and wages as they had been before the pestilence. Another feature of these years was the anti-papal, or rather anti-clerical, legislation embodied in the statutes of Provisors and Praemunire. These measures were first passed in 1351 and 1353, but often repeated. In 1366 Edward formally repudiated the feudal supremacy over England, still claimed by the papacy by reason of John’s submission. Another feature of the time was the strenuous effort made by Edward to establish his numerous family without too great expense. In the end the estates of the houses of Lancaster, Kent, Bohun, Burgh and Mortimer swelled the revenues of Edward’s children and grandchildren, in whose favour also the new title of duke was introduced.
In 1369 the French king, Charles V., repudiated the treaty of Calais and renewed the war. Edward’s French dominions gladly reverted to their old allegiance, and Edward showed little of his former vigour in meeting this new trouble. He resumed the title and arms of king of France, but left most of the fighting and administration of his foreign kingdoms to his sons, Edward and John. While the latter were struggling with little success against the rising tide of French national feeling, Edward’s want of money made him a willing participator in the attack on the wealth and privileges of the Church. In 1371 a clerical ministry was driven from office, and replaced by laymen, who proved, however, less effective administrators than their predecessors. Meanwhile Aquitaine was gradually lost; the defeat of Pembroke off La Rochelle deprived England of the command of the sea, and Sir Owen ap Thomas, a grand-nephew of Llewelyn ab Gruffyd, planned, with French help, an abortive invasion of Wales. In 1371 the Black Prince came back to England with broken health, and in 1373 John of Lancaster marched to little purpose through France, from Calais to Bordeaux. In 1372 Edward made his final effort to lead an army, but contrary winds prevented his even landing his troops in France. In 1375 he was glad to make a truce, which lasted until his death. By it the only important possessions remaining in English hands were Calais, Bordeaux, Bayonne and Brest.
Edward was now sinking into his dotage. After the death of Queen Philippa he fell entirely under the influence of a greedy mistress named Alice Perrers, while the Black Prince and John of Gaunt became the leaders of sharply divided parties in the court and council of the king. With the help of Alice Perrers John of Gaunt obtained the chief influence with his father, but his administration was neither honourable nor successful. His chief enemies were the higher ecclesiastics, headed by William of Wykeham, bishop of Winchester, who had been excluded from power in 1371. John further irritated the clergy by making an alliance with John Wycliffe. The opposition to John was led by the Black Prince and Edmund Mortimer, earl of March, the husband of Edward’s grand-daughter, Philippa of Clarence. At last popular indignation against the courtiers came to a head in the famous Good Parliament of 1376. Alice Perrers was removed from court, and Duke John’s subordinate instruments were impeached. But in the midst of the parliament the death of the Black Prince robbed the commons of their strongest support. John of Gaunt regained power, and in 1377 a new parliament, carefully packed by the courtiers, reversed the acts of the Good Parliament. Not long after Edward III. died, on the 21st of June 1377.
Edward III. was not a great man like Edward I. He was, however, an admirable tactician, a consummate knight, and he possessed extraordinary vigour and energy of temperament. His court, described at length in Froissart’s famous chronicle, was the most brilliant in Europe, and he was himself well fitted to be the head of the magnificent chivalry that obtained fame in the French wars. Though his main ambition was military glory, he was not a bad ruler of England. He was liberal, kindly, good-tempered and easy of access, and his yielding to his subjects’ wishes in order to obtain supplies for carrying on the French war contributed to the consolidation of the constitution. His weak points were his wanton breaches of good faith, his extravagance, his frivolity and his self-indulgence. Like that of Edward I. his ambition transcended his resources, and before he died even his subjects were aware of his failure.
Edward had twelve children, seven sons and five daughters. Five of his sons played some part in the history of their time, these being Edward the Black Prince, Lionel of Antwerp, duke of Clarence, John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, Edmund of Langley, afterwards duke of York, and Thomas of Woodstock, afterwards duke of Gloucester. John and Edmund are also important as the founders of the rival houses of Lancaster and York. Each of the last four was named from the place of his birth, and for the same reason the Black Prince is sometimes called Edward of Woodstock. The king’s two other sons both died in infancy. Of his daughters, three died unmarried; the others were Isabella, who married into the family of Coucy, and Mary, who married into that of Montfort.
Authorities.—The two chief modern lives of Edward III. are W. Longman’s Life and Times of Edward III., and J. Mackinnon’s History of Edward III. Neither work can be regarded as adequate, and in some ways J. Barnes’s quaint History of Edward III. (1688) is less unsatisfactory. The general history of the time can be read in W. Stubbs’s Constitutional History of England, vol. ii. chapters xvi. and xvii.; in T. F. Tout’s Political History of England, 1216–1377, pp. 301-441; in R. Pauli’s Geschichte von England, iv. pp. 307-504; and in Edward’s life by W. Hunt in the Dictionary of National Biography. For the Hundred Years’ War, see E. Déprez’s Les Préliminaires de la guerre de cent ans, 1328–1342, and H. Denifle’s La Desolation des églises, monastères et hôpitaux en France pendant la guerre de cent ans. For economic and social history see W. J. Ashley’s English Economic History, and W. Cunningham’s Growth of English Industry and Commerce during the Early and Middle Ages. For the end of the reign see S. Armitage Smith’s John of Gaunt, J. Lechler’s Wiclif und die Vorgeschichte der Reformation, translated as Wycliffe and his English Precursors, R. L. Poole’s Wycliffe and Movements for Reform, and G. M. Trevelyan’s England in the Age of Wycliffe. (T. F. T.)
EDWARD IV. (1442–1483), king of England, son of Richard, duke of York, by Cicely Neville, was born at Rouen on the 28th of April 1442. As a boy he was styled earl of March, and spent most of his time at Ludlow. After the Yorkist failure at Ludlow field in October 1459, Edward fled with the earls of Salisbury and Warwick, his uncle and cousin, to Calais. Thence in the following July he accompanied them in their successful invasion of England, to be welcomed in London, and to share in the victory over the Lancastrians at Northampton. After the acceptance of Richard of York as heir to the crown, Edward returned to the Welsh marches, where early in the new
