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CHAP. plore the aid of Philip of Valois to rescue his heritage of Brittany, whilst his rival took possession of Brest and Rennes, and then repaired to the King of England at Windsor, to inform him of his occupation of the duchy, and to do homage for the county of Richmond, held in England by the Dukes of Brittany.

On his return John found a summons from King Philip to repair to the Louvre, and attend the judgment of the French peers respecting the succession. He did not disobey the summons; but proceeded, accompanied by 400 knights, to Paris, where he presented himself to the king, and found him attended by his rival, Charles of Blois. The monarch reproached the duke with the visit and the homage that he had paid to the King of England, and then bade him await fifteen days for the judgment of the peers. John at once perceived in the attitude of the king and the aspect of the court the sentence that would be passed against his right, and, as this would have been accompanied or preceded by his arrest, he left Paris secretly, with a few of his followers, and retired in all haste to the duchy.

The judgment of the peers, or rather of King Philip, was of course in favour of his nephew, Charles of Blois, who mustered an army at Angers for the reconquest of the duchy. It consisted of 5000 men-at-arms, under the command of John, Duke of Normandy, eldest son of Philip, and 3000 Genoese archers, who had been engaged for the Flemish war. Descending the Loire, this army first attacked and took Chantoceaux, the frontier fortress of Brittany, and then laid siege to Nantes, in which Montfort had shut himself. A Breton historian records the cruelty of the French and the Duke of Normandy, in decapitating thirty knights taken in a fortress, and flinging their heads from engines into Nantes, in order to terrify the inhabitants. Certain it is, that the citizens of Nantes soon became weary of incurring extreme risk for the sake of De Montfort, and

they accordingly entered into several negotiations with the French commander, to whom they betrayed not only their town, but the duke himself. According to the account of De Montfort's own secretary, he was party to the negotiations, and was to have been liberated on the surrender of Nantes; but his enemies carried him off, and consigned him to the dungeons of the Louvre.

The cause of the captured prince was, however, taken up, with a spirit superior to his own, by his wife. She was at Rennes when tidings arrived of her husband's capture. She immediately appeared to her soldiers and partisans, showed to them her infant son, who, she declared, should one day be the restorer and avenger of his father; and, in the meantime, the party should not want a captain. She no doubt alluded to the King of England; but she proved herself a valiant and admirable captain. Having provided to the best of her power for some garrisons, she withdrew herself with her son to Hennebont on the sea, in order to be within reach of English succour, to demand which she despatched Amaury de Clisson. The countess had another reason for withdrawing westward: this was, that whilst the eastern towns of the duchy were inclined to the French and their supremacy, the western, or more truly Breton portion of Brittany, the Brittania Brittanizans, as the chronicler calls it, remained attached to De Montfort.

Charles of Blois remained during the winter quiet at Nantes. In the spring of the following year he advanced to Rennes, and laid siege to it. The garrison which the Countess of Montfort had left was commanded by William Cadoudal, who soon encountered the same difficulty which the count had experienced, the citizens being desirous of surrendering rather than endure the perils and risk of a siege. Cadoudal imprisoned the most turbulent, and continued his defence; but, finding this impossible with the townspeople's reluctance, he sur

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rendered Rennes, on condition that he and his partisans should be allowed to withdraw.

Charles then marched to Hennebont, resolved to terminate the war and the subjugation of the duchy by the capture of the countess. The inhabitants of Hennebont were, however, genuine Bretons, not like the citizens of Nantes or of Rennes; and when the Genoese marched to the assault, "they lost more than they gained," says Froissart. The countess presided over the defence, and compelled her maids to unpave the streets and carry the stones to the walls to fling down on the assailants. Armed, and on horseback, she headed a sally from a postern, and fired the tents and baggage of the besieging army, making her escape when discovered to a neighbouring fortress, from whence she afterwards re-entered Hennebont under the beards of the besiegers. Despairing of taking the town by assault, Charles entrusted the siege to Louis of Spain, who undertook to batter and destroy the walls by huge engines. The Italians and Spaniards were more advanced at that time than the French in the science of attacking towns. They already used cannon, which were then but slowly creeping into France. The stones and heavy missiles that Louis of Spain now flung against the walls of Hennebont caused no little alarm, and gave occasion to the Bishop of Leon to persuade the Bretons to surrender. The countess, on the other hand, encouraged them to persist in the defence, but at last was obliged to limit her demand to three days; in that time the succour promised from England she thought might arrive. The bishop, however, laboured to bring about the surrender before the expiration of the time when the countess, watching from a high tower, at last perceived sails, and summoned the townsfolk to observe them. It was Walter de Manny, De Clisson, and an army of English, coming with six thousand archers to their relief. No sooner had the

English landed, than a sortie was made by them and the besieged, which burnt the great engine, and put the besiegers in such disarray that on the victors re-entering the fortress, the countess "came to kiss Walter de Manny and his companions one after the other, two or three times," says Froissart, "like a valiant dame."

Louis of Spain and the French were obliged to withdraw; but they did so to wreak vengeance in their turn. They surprised Guerrande, not far north of the Loire's mouth, and finding there a great fleet of vessels, which had brought the wines of the Gironde, Louis seized them and filled them with his Spaniards and Genoese, as well as French soldiers, and set sail westward. They landed at Quimperlé, and, at first, met with small resistance. But Walter Manny, hearing of the expedition, sailed with the English from Hennebont, surprised Louis's fleet and army near Quimperlé, and so completely destroyed both, that of six thousand men that Louis of Spain had brought with him not one hundred escaped.

Edward himself was preparing an expedition to Brittany he despaired of making any impression on France by means of the Flemings, and, as to his German auxiliaries, the Emperor had recalled his grant of the vicariat. In 1342, therefore, besides sending John Arteveld with two hundred knights and a body of archers to Bayonne, he despatched Robert of Artois with a considerable force to Brittany, on board of" fortysix vessels, great and small." The French, in order to intercept this fleet, mustered another of thirty-two vessels near Guernsey. These vessels were much larger, and manned by Genoese and Catalonians, as well as French sailors. The Countess of Montfort, who had been to England, was with Robert of Artois, and was not his least valiant support. The fleets engaged towards evening off the coast, but were separated at first by night and afterwards by a storm. The English

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fleet got into a port near Vannes, which town was soon recaptured. The greater portion of the English and the partisans of De Montfort then separated, some proceeding with the Countess to Hennebont, others to attack Rennes, so that Robert of Artois was left with but a small force in Vannes. He relied upon the fidelity of the Bretons, but the French had gained so many partisans among them, that Robert d'Artois was soon besieged in Vannes. The English were obliged to return from Hennebont to his relief, and there ensued several severe actions, in one of which Robert d'Artois received so severe a wound that he was obliged to be transferred to England for medical aid. He had scarcely reached London when he died, and was buried by Edward, with much regret and many honours, in St. Paul's.

Soon after the English king sailed in person for Brittany with a reinforcement of 2000 knights. He found Vannes in the power of the French, and strongly garrisoned by them. Edward, leaving a corps to observe it, advanced to Nantes, in which was Charles of Blois, with a force insufficient to take the field. The English undertook the siege, but despairing of reducing so considerable a town with a large garrison, they marched to the north of Brittany, ravaging as they went, and taking possession of Dinant. At the approach of

another French army under the Duke of Normandy, Edward, whose force was much inferior, retreated to Vannes, and there entrenched his camp. The French dared not attack it, whilst Edward was not strong enough to combat with them in the open field. In this suspense, both armies suffering much from scarcity of provisions and the winter weather, two papal legates made their appearance and persuaded the monarchs to consent to a truce which was to last three years, from the next Michaelmas to that of 1343. It was agreed that each monarch was to take the Pope for arbiter,