3783-8. Here comes to an end the most valuable part of the Poem, and that which the author himself evidently regards with the greatest complacence. The conclusion loses its personal interest; for although the Herald was still in France, and taking an active share in events, a share which continued even after the death of his master (he was sent by Cambridge and Pembroke with a message to the Duke of Bourbon in 1370), he spends no time over the recital of all that he must himself have witnessed, but merely gives a brief summary of the close of the Prince’s career in France. But though little but a summary, it appears to have been conscientiously written, and can be verified by comparison with Froissart and the Grandes Chroniques.
3845. The Comte d’Armagnac was the real leader of the deserters: he had refused to pay fouage as early as 1367.1 Jean, Comte de Lisle en Jourdain, Captain of Moissac2 does not appear to have been amongst the number of those appealing to Charles, but he is mentioned as taking part against the English in the subsequent struggle.
Roger Bernard, Comte de Périgord was a sharer in the treaty made with Charles V in 1368 (see note on 3855-64); his son Talleyrand deserted the English about the same time; Archambaud, his successor in 1369, during that year or the next.
3846. Arnaud Amanieu, Sire d’Albret, married Marguérite, sister of the French Queen, on May 4, 1368.3
Pierre Raymond, Comte de Comminges, is mentioned by Froissart and the Grandes Chroniques as another deserter.4
3855-64. June 30, 1368. Charles made a treaty with Armagnac, Périgord and Sire d’Albret, by which he agreed to receive the appeal of the Gascons; mutual aid was promised in case of war and fouage was never to be imposed on them against their will.5
Nov. 19, 1368. Charles granted money to Albret, who had appealed to him, and promised aid in case of war against England.6 In March, 1369, certain towns and castles were given to the Comte de Périgord, who had appealed against the English.7
There were also appeals from various towns, e.g. Montaubon,8 Sauveterre, Villefranche,9 &c.
3865-76. Dec. 25, 1368. Charles summoned a Council to discuss his action in regard to these appeals.10
The summons of Edward to appear before the Parliament of Paris, to which allusions are 218 made in various letters of the French King to the appellants,11 was conveyed to him by Bernard Palot and Jean de Caponval, and dated from Paris, according to Froissart, 15th January, 1369. This date seems rather late; Luce thinks It must have been delivered at the end of 1368, or in the first week of 1369.12 As King Edward was preparing help to send out to the Prince on Jan. 16, 1369, war must certainly have been declared by that date. 13
3881-8. This answer is given in practically the same terms by Froissart.
3898. War began Jan., 1369. The Duke of Anjou had prepared an army which included in its ranks the Counts of Armagnac, Périgord, Comminges and Vendôme.14
3918. Edmund Langley, Earl of Cambridge.
3921. John Hastings, Earl of Pembroke.
3925. They must have arrived by April 1369, and were sent into Périgord in the following May.15
3927-30. Froissart recounts the siege of Bourdeilles, but does not mention the knighting of Pembroke (vii. 150-3).
3932. La Roche-sur-Yon was invested by the English in July, 1369, and was given up by a traitor, Jean Belon, its captain. This town had never been handed over to England after the treaty of Brétigny, as it should have been by right.16
3933. Chandos was in Montauban at the end of January, 1369, where he was guarding the frontier with the Captal de Buch and others;17 but Froissart narrates various other undertakings in which he was engaged and names him at the siege of La Roche-sur-Yon. He must in any case have left Montauban before the 15th June, at which time the town submitted to the Duke of Anjou.18
3943-5. According to James and Francisque Michel,19 both Chandos and Froissart are mistaken in placing here the death of the celebrated Sir James Audeley, who, in their opinion, returned to England at this date, and did not die till 1386. It would be curious, however, for the Herald to be mistaken in an event touching his master so nearly, and about so well known a person. May not the Audeley who died in 1386 have been a son of the warrior and not Sir James himself? Froissart says his death took place at Fontenay-le-Comte, which is at a very short distance from La Roche-sur-Yon.
3950-1. Chandos was mortally wounded in the skirmish at Lussac, January 1, 1370, and died one or two days after at Mortemer, where he was buried, and where his tomb is still to be seen.20
3975. Bertrand du Guesclin had been ransomed after the Battle of Navarete and released on 27th December, 1367; he had rejoined Henry of Trastamare before Toledo, which he was besieging in the following year. After his recall, he arrived at Toulouse about the middle of July, 1370, where he met the Duke of Anjou.
4009-10. Anjou and du Guesclin had in their company a large number of the discontented Gascons; they marched towards Agen, taking Moissac, Agen, Port Sainte-Marie, Aiguillon, Tonneins, Montpazier, and laying siege to Bergerac.21
4011. The Duc de Berry had been made Lieutenant-General on the 5th Feb. 1368.22 On the 6th April, 1372, he received a large sum of money from Charles for his services and conquests in Guienne.23
219Louis de Bourbon, Comte de Clermont.24 Named also by Froissart as accompanying Berry.
4014. Berry and his army arrived before Limoges on the 21st August.25
4025-7. According to the Grandes Chroniques, Lancaster arrived n Calais towards the end of 1369;26 but he did not come south till this time (Aug., 1370), when he joined the Prince’s army at Cognac.27
4037-8. This was the work of the Bishop, Jean de Cros, who ‘turned French’, as Froissart expresses it;28 and the town was occupied by the Duc de Berry in the name of King Charles, 22nd August.
4040-1. Possibly the Herald thought it better for his hero’s reputation to leave this incident without comment: even Froissart spares pity for the townsmen on this occasion. ‘Il n’est si dur cœur . . . qui n’en plorât tendrement du grand meschef qui y étoit; car plus de trois mille personnes, hommes & femmes, et enfans, y furent délivrés et décolés celle journée. Dieu en ait les âmes, car ils furent bien martyrs.’29 The siege was from the 14th to 19th Sept., 1370.30
4043. Roger de Beaufort was a son of Guillaume Roger, Comte de Beaufort and Vicomte de la Motte.31
4045. Jean de Villemur, son of the Vicomte de Villemur.32
To these two Froissart adds Hugues de la Roche, who had married a sister of Roger de Beaufort.
4061-2. Prince Edward, according to a note by Buchon, died at January, 1371, aged 6.33 The Prince was probably in Angoulême before this, since the massacre of Limoges took place in September, and he was too ill to remain long in the field.
4069. The Prince must have left for England before Jan. 15, 1371, since the duke of Lancaster is mentioned in an act of that date as governing for him.34
4074. Sept. 8, 1372, La Rochelle surrendered to the Dukes of Berry and Burgundy.35
4076. Pembroke was taken in a sea-fight with the Spaniards outside La Rochelle, June 23, 1372, before the town fell into the hands of the French.36
4077-92. In August Edward began to prepare a force to go to the help of La Rochelle, in which the Prince insisted on taking part despite his illness, and his son Richard was declared Guardian of the Kingdom during their absence. They must have been about eight weeks at sea altogether, since they embarked at Sandwich 30th August, and on the 31st August the King signed a document there arranging for the custody of the kingdom during his absence, while he was back in Westminster by the 28th October; for there is a document of that date ‘teste rege apud Westmonasterium’, whereas on Sept. 14th we find at the close of an Act ‘teste Ricardo filio . . . ’37
4165-85. The account given by Chandos of the Prince’s death agrees closely with that given by a monk of St. Albans in a chronicle which is very valuable for the history of home affairs.38
The date is correct: Trinity Sunday, June 8, 1376.
4189-252. Francisque Michel suggest that this list of principal officers, which follows as a sort of appendix, may have been added by another hand. There are several arguments in favour of this view: —
220(1) Chandos has wound up his poem in the previous canto: ‘Et ci fyn je lui ditz du très noble Prince,’ &c.
(2) The list is a mere pretence of verse, without the life and spirit which characterize the rest of the poem, and even its lists of names.
(3) There are a few slight variations of spelling — as for example, Estephen, instead of Stephen, which is generally found; Poytoo instead of Poitou; Anguymis for Angoumois; Cressy, whereas elsewhere it is called Cressin and Cressyn; Perègore instead of Perigos; Gwichard for Guychard. This is, however, very little proof, since Chandos is rarely consistent in his spelling of names, and there are no radical differences.
(4) The list is certainly incomplete and not always correct, whereas Chandos is particularly accurate in all such questions.
(5) It is not given on the author’s own authority: twice it refers to a list — ‘Après sa mort comme dit lestille’ (4228).
4197. Sir John Chandos, Constable of Aquitaine, 1361-1370.39
4196. Captal de Buch, Constable of Aquitaine, 1371-1373. 40
1 Rouquete, Le Rouergue sous les Anglais, Millau, 1869, 133.
2 Sceaux de Clairambault, ii, No. 4087.
3 Le Rouergue sous les Anglais,140.
4 Froissart, vii. 94; Grandes Chroniques, vi. 282.
5 Arch.Nat., J 293; see also Bibl. Nat. Fonds Fr. 15490, fol. 22vo.
6 Arch. Nat., JJ 105, No. 67.
7 Arch. Nat., JJ 100, No. 431.
8 Bibl. Nat. Fonds Doat, vol. lxxxvii, ff. 64, 171.
9 Arch. Nat., JJ 102, No. 16; 100, No. 783.
10 Arch. Nat., J 654, No. 3; Froissart, vii, p. 28, note 3; Bibl. Nat. Nouv. Acq. Fr. 6214, fol. 32vo.
11 Arch. Nat., JJ 99, No. 345; J 1-5, No. 67.
12 Froissart, vii. 96; ibid., p. xxxix, note 3.
13 Gascon Rolls, 42 Edw. III, m. 1. Letters of safe conduct to Pembroke to go out to Aquitaine.
14 Le Rouergue sous les Anglais, 169.
15 Froissart, vii, p. lii, note 2.
16 Guérin, Archives du Poitou, vol. xvii, 387, note; Froissart, vii, p. liv, note 3.
17 Froissart, vii. 145, 147, 161.
18 Froissart, vii, p. lxxv, note 1.
19 Chandos, ed. F. Michel, 374; Froissart, vii, p. lxxiv, note 1.
20 Meyrick, Jean Chandos, in Archaeologia, xx.
21 Froissart, vii. 226, 227.
22 Delisle, Mandements de Charles V, Paris, 1873. (Documents Inédits), No. 495.
23 Arch. Nat., K 49, B, No. 59.
24 Chazaud, Chronique de Loys de Bourbon (Soc. de l’Hist. de France).
25 Froissart, vii, p. cii, note 1.
26 Grandes Chroniques, 307.
27 Dict. of National Biography; Froissart, vii. 240.
28 Froissart, vii. 242.
29 Froissart, vii. 250.
30 Froissart, vii, p. cxiii, note 4.
31 Arch. Nat., K 44, No. 7.
32 Guérin, Arch. du Poitou, vol. xiii, 41, note.
33 Froissart, Panthéon Littéraire, 625, note.
34 Froissart, viii, p. x, note 1.
35 Delisle, Mandements de Charles V, No. 918.
36 Guérin, Arch. du Poitou, vol. xix, introduction.
37 Rymer, iii, pt. ii, 206; Froissart, viii, p. liii, notes 1, 3, 7.
38 Chronicon Angliae auctore monacho quodam Sancti Albani, ed. Maunde Thompson, 1874 (Rolls Series), 85.
39 Dictionary of National Biography.
40 Beltz, Duchy of Lancaster Records.