d the England from which the armies of
Edward the Third went forth to conquer France.

A period of more than a hundred years followed, during which the chief
object of the English was to establish, by force of arms, a great empire
on the Continent. The claim of Edward to the inheritance occupied by
the House of Valois was a claim in which it might seem that his subjects
were little interested. But the passion for conquest spread fast from
the prince to the people. The war differed widely from the wars
which the Plantagenets of the twelfth century had waged against the
descendants of Hugh Capet. For the success of Henry the Second, or of
Richard the First, would have made England a province of France. The
effect of the successes of Edward the Third and Henry the Fifth was to
make France, for a time, a province of England. The disdain with which,
in the twelfth century, the conquerors from the Continent had regarded
the islanders, was now retorted by the islanders on the people of the
Continent. Every yeoman from Kent to Northumberland valued himself as
one of a race born for victory and dominion, and looked down with
scorn on the nation before which his ancestors had trembled. Even those
knights of Gascony and Guienne who had fought gallantly under the Black
Prince were regarded by the English as men of an inferior breed, and
were contemptuously excluded from honourable and lucrative commands. In
no long time our ancestors altogether lost sight of the original
ground of quarrel. They began to consider the crown of France as a
mere appendage to the crown of England; and, when in violation of the
ordinary law of succession, they transferred the crown of England to the
House of Lancaster, they seem to have thought that the right of Richard
the Second to the crown of France passed, as of course, to that house.
The zeal and vigour which they displayed present a remarkable contrast
to the torpor of the French, who were far more deeply interested in
the event of the struggle. The most splendid victories recorded in the
history of the middle ages were gained at this time, against great odds,
by the English armies. Victories indeed they were of which a nation may
justly be proud; for they are to be attributed to the moral superiority
of the victors, a superiority which was most striking in the lowest
ranks. The knights of England found worthy rivals in the knights of
France. Chandos encountered an equal foe in Du Guesclin. But Fra