s
sword at the service first of the Duke of Anjou, governor of Languedoc,
who was making war in Provence against Queen Joan of Naples, and then of
his Spanish patron, Henry of Transtamare, who had recommenced the war in
Spain against his brother, Pedro the Cruel, whom he was before long to
dethrone for the second time and slay with his own hand. But whilst Du
Guesclin was taking part in this settlement of the Spanish question,
important events called him back to the north of the Pyrenees for the
service of his own king, the defence of his own country, and the
aggrandizement of his own fortunes. The English and Gascon bands which,
in 1367, had recrossed the Pyrenees with the Prince of Wales, after
having restored Don Pedro the Cruel to the throne of Castile had not
disappeared. Having no more to do in their own prince's service, they
had spread abroad over France, which they called "their apartment," and
recommenced, in the countries between the Seine and the Loire, their life
of vagabondage and pillage. A general outcry was raised; it was the
Prince of Wales, men said, who had let them loose, and the people called
them the host (army) of England. A proceeding of the Prince of Wales
himself had the effect of adding to the rage of the people that of the
aristocratic classes. He was lavish of expenditure, and held at Bordeaux
a magnificent court, for which the revenues from his domains and ordinary
resources were insufficient; so he imposed a tax for five years of ten
sous per hearth or family, "in order to satisfy," he said, "the large
claims against him." In order to levy this tax legally, he convoked the
estates of Aquitaine, first at Niort, and then, successively, at
Angouleme, Poitiers, Bordeaux, and Bergerac; but nowhere could he obtain
the vote he demanded. "When we obeyed the King of France," said the
Gascons, "we were never so aggrieved with subsidies, hearth-taxes, or
gabels, and we will not be, as long as we can defend ourselves." The
Prince of Wales persisted in his demands. He was ill and irritable, and
was becoming truly the Black Prince. The Aquitanians too became
irritated. The prince's more temperate advisers, even those of English
birth, tried in vain to move him from his stubborn course. Even John
Chandos, the most notable as well as the wisest of them, failed, and
withdrew to his domain of St. Sauveur, in Normandy, that he might have
nothing to do with measures of which he disapproved. Being