g sitting on deck in his jacket of black velvet, his head
covered by a black beaver hat "which became him well," and calling on Sir
John Chandos to troll out the songs he had brought with him from Germany,
till the Spanish ships heave in sight and a furious fight begins which ends
in a victory that leaves Edward "King of the Seas."

But beneath all this glitter of chivalry lay the subtle, busy diplomatist.
None of our kings was so restless a negotiator. From the first hour of
Edward's rule the threads of his diplomacy ran over Europe in almost
inextricable confusion. And to all who dealt with him he was equally false
and tricky. Emperor was played off against Pope and Pope against Emperor,
the friendship of the Flemish towns was adroitly used to put a pressure on
their counts, the national wrath against the exactions of the Roman See was
employed to bridle the French sympathies of the court of Avignon, and when
the statutes which it produced had served their purpose they were set aside
for a bargain in which King and Pope shared the plunder of the Church
between them. His temper was as false in his dealings with his people as in
his dealings with the European powers. Edward aired to country and
parliament his English patriotism. "Above all other lands and realms," he
made his chancellor say, "the King had most tenderly at heart his land of
England, a land more full of delight and honour and profit to him than any
other." His manners were popular; he donned on occasion the livery of a
city gild; he dined with a London merchant. His perpetual parliaments, his
appeals to them and to the country at large for counsel and aid, seemed to
promise a ruler who was absolutely one at heart with the people he ruled.
But when once Edward passed from sheer carelessness and gratification at
the new source of wealth which the Parliament opened to a sense of what its
power really was becoming, he showed himself as jealous of freedom as any
king that had gone before him. He sold his assent to its demands for heavy
subsidies, and when he had pocketed the money coolly declared the statutes
he had sanctioned null and void. The constitutional progress which was made
during his reign was due to his absorption in showy schemes of foreign
ambition, to his preference for war and diplomatic intrigue over the sober
business of civil administration. The same shallowness of temper, the same
showiness and falsehood, ran through his personal character. Th