第98章 THE JACQUERIE(1)

ON the evening after the battle of Poitiers a splendid entertainment was served in the tent of the Prince of Wales to the King of France and all the principal prisoners.John, with his son and six of his highest nobles were seated at a table raised above the rest, and the prince himself waited as page upon the French king.John in vain endeavoured to persuade the prince to be seated; the latter refused, saying, that it was his pleasure as well as his duty to wait upon one who had shown himself to be the best and bravest knight in the French army.The example of the Black Prince was contagious, and the English vied with each other in generous treatment of their prisoners.All were treated as friends, and that night an immense number of knights and squires were admitted to ransom on such terms as had never before been known.The captors simply required their prisoners to declare in good faith what they could afford to pay without pressing themselves too hard, "for they did not wish," they said, "to ransom knights or squires on terms which would prevent them from maintaining their station in society, from serving their lords, or from riding forth in arms to advance their name and honour."Upon the following morning solemn thanksgivings were offered up on the field of battle for the glorious victory.Then the English army, striking its tents, marched back towards Bordeaux.They were unmolested upon this march, for although the divisions of the Dauphin and the Duke of Orleans had now reunited, and were immensely superior in numbers to the English, encumbered as the latter were, moreover, with prisoners and booty, the tremendous defeat which they had suffered, and still more the capture of the king, paralysed the French commanders, and the English reached Bordeaux without striking another blow.

Not long after they reached that city the Cardinal of Perigord and another legate presented themselves to arrange peace, and these negotiations went on throughout the winter.The prince had received full powers from his father, and his demands were very moderate; but in spite of this no final peace could be arranged, and the result of the conference was the proclamation of a truce, to last for two years from the following Easter.

During the winter immense numbers of the prisoners who had gone at large upon patrol, came in and paid their ransoms, as did the higher nobles who had been taken prisoners, and the whole army was greatly enriched.At the end of April the prince returned to England with King John.The procession through the streets of London was a magnificent one, the citizens vying with each other in decorating their houses in honour of the victor of Poitiers, who, simply dressed, rode on a small black horse by the side of his prisoner, who was splendidly attired, and mounted on a superb white charger.The king received his royal prisoner in state in the great hall of his palace at Westminster, and did all in his power to alleviate the sorrows of his condition.The splendid palace of the Savoy, with gardens extending to the Thames, was appointed for his residence, and every means was taken to soften his captivity.

During the absence of the Black Prince in Guienne the king had been warring in Scotland.Here his success had been small, as the Scotch had retreated before him, wasting the country.David Bruce, the rightful king, was a prisoner in England, and Baliol, a descendant of the rival of Robert Bruce, had been placed upon the throne.As Edward passed through Roxburgh he received from Baliol a formal cession of his rights and titles to the throne of Scotland, and in return for this purely nominal gift he bestowed an annual income upon Baliol, who lived and died a pensioner of England.

After Edward's return to England negotiations were carried on with the Scots, and a treaty was signed by which a truce for ten years was established between the two countries, and the liberation of Bruce was granted on a ransom of 100,000 marks.

The disorganization into which France had been thrown by the capture of its king increased rather than diminished.Among all classes men strove in the absence of a repressive power to gain advantages and privileges.Serious riots occurred in many parts, and the demagogues of Paris, headed by Stephen Marcel, and Robert le Coq, bishop of Leon, set at defiance the Dauphin and the ministers and lieutenant of the king.Massacre and violence stained the streets of Paris with blood.General law, public order, and private security were all lost.Great bodies of brigands devastated the country, and the whole of France was thrown into confusion.So terrible was the disorder that the inhabitants of every village were obliged to fortify the ends of their streets, and keep watch and ward as in the cities.The proprietors of land on the banks of rivers spent the night in boats moored in the middle of the stream, and in every house and castle throughout the land men remained armed as if against instant attack.

Then arose the terrible insurrection known as the Jacquerie.For centuries the peasantry of France had suffered under a bondage to which there had never been any approach in England.Their lives and liberties were wholly at the mercy of their feudal lords.Hitherto no attempt at resistance had been possible; but the tremendous defeat of the French at Poitiers by a handful of English aroused the hope among the serfs that the moment for vengeance had come.The movement began among a handful of peasants in the neighbourhood of St.Leu and Claremont.These declared that they would put to death all the gentlemen in the land.The cry spread through the country.The serfs, armed with pikes, poured out from every village, and a number of the lower classes from the towns joined them.Their first success was an attack upon a small castle.They burned down the gates and slew the knight to whom it belonged, with his wife and children of all ages.Their numbers rapidly increased.