lish; the French and Genoese sailors helped the Normans; and
thus the greater part of the mariners sailing over the sea became, in
their way, as violent and raging as the sea itself when it is disturbed.

King Edward's fame had been so high abroad that he had been chosen to
decide a difference between France and another foreign power, and had
lived upon the Continent three years. At first, neither he nor the
French King PHILIP (the good Louis had been dead some time) interfered in
these quarrels; but when a fleet of eighty English ships engaged and
utterly defeated a Norman fleet of two hundred, in a pitched battle
fought round a ship at anchor, in which no quarter was given, the matter
became too serious to be passed over. King Edward, as Duke of Guienne,
was summoned to present himself before the King of France, at Paris, and
answer for the damage done by his sailor subjects. At first, he sent the
Bishop of London as his representative, and then his brother EDMUND, who
was married to the French Queen's mother. I am afraid Edmund was an easy
man, and allowed himself to be talked over by his charming relations, the
French court ladies; at all events, he was induced to give up his
brother's dukedom for forty days--as a mere form, the French King said,
to satisfy his honour--and he was so very much astonished, when the time
was out, to find that the French King had no idea of giving it up again,
that I should not wonder if it hastened his death: which soon took place.

King Edward was a King to win his foreign dukedom back again, if it could
be won by energy and valour. He raised a large army, renounced his
allegiance as Duke of Guienne, and crossed the sea to carry war into
France. Before any important battle was fought, however, a truce was
agreed upon for two years; and in the course of that time, the Pope
effected a reconciliation. King Edward, who was now a widower, having
lost his affectionate and good wife, Eleanor, married the French King's
sister, MARGARET; and the Prince of Wales was contracted to the French
King's daughter ISABELLA.

Out of bad things, good things sometimes arise. Out of this hanging of
the innocent merchant, and the bloodshed and strife it caused, there came
to be established one of the greatest powers that the English people now
possess. The preparations for the war being very expensive, and King
Edward greatly wanting money, and being very arbitrary in his ways of
raising it, some