nd, forbid
history to receive his suspicious and his forcible proceedings as any
kind of proof; but amongst those whom he accused there were undoubtedly
traitors to the king and to France. There is one about whom there can be
no doubt at all. As early as 1351, amidst all his embroilments and all
his reconciliations with his father-in-law, Charles the Bad, King of
Navarre, had concluded with Edward III. a secret treaty, whereby, in
exchange for promises he received, he recognized his title as King of
France. In 1355 his treason burst forth. The King of Navarre, who had
gone for refuge to Avignon, under the protection of Pope Clement VI.,
crossed France by English Aquitaine, and went and landed at Cherbourg,
which he had an idea of throwing open to the King of England. He once
more entered into communications with King John, once more obtained
forgiveness from him, and for a while appeared detached from his English
alliance. But Edward III. had openly resumed his hostile attitude; and
he demanded that Aquitaine and the courtship of Ponthieu, detached from
the kingdom of France, should be ceded to him in full sovereignty, and
that Brittany should become all but independent. John haughtily rejected
these pretensions, which were merely a pretext for recommencing war. And
it recommenced accordingly, and the King of Navarre resumed his course of
perfidy. He had lands and castles in Normandy, which John put under
sequestration, and ordered the officers commanding in them to deliver up
to him. Six of them, the commandants of the castles of Cherbourg and
Evreux, amongst others, refused, believing, no doubt, that in betraying
France and her king, they were remaining faithful to their own lord.

At several points in the kingdom, especially in the northernprovinces,
the first fruits of the war were not favorable for the English. King
Edward, who had landed at Calais with a body of troops, made an
unsuccessful campaign in Artois and Picardy, and was obliged to re-embark
for England, falling back before King John, whom he had at one time
offered and at another refused to meet and fight at a spot agreed upon.
But in the south-west and south of France, in 1355 and 1356, the Prince
of Wales, at the head of a small picked army, and with John Chandos for
comrade, victoriously overran Limousin, Perigord, Languedoc, Auvergne,
Berry, and Poitou, ravaging the country and plundering the towns into
which he could force an entrance, and