lly offended John of
Armagnac by requiring a direct oath of fealty from the Bishop of Rodez,
who held all his lands of Armagnac as Count of Rouergue. Clerks of
lesser degree were outraged by the prince's attempts to hinder students
from attending the university of Toulouse.

The Spanish expedition immensely increased the Black Prince's
difficulties. He exhausted his finances to equip his army, and both on
their coming and going his soldiers cruelly pillaged the country.
Edward now dismissed most of his troops and urged them to betake
themselves to France. In January, 1368, he obtained from the estates of
Aquitaine a new hearth tax of ten _sous_ a hearth for five years. The
tax was freely voted and collected from the great majority of the
payers without trouble. The towns were mainly exempt from it by reason
of their liberties; and the lesser lords were as yet not averse from
English rule. But the greater feudatories saw in the new hearth-tax a
pretext for revolt. They had no special zeal for the French monarchy,
but the house of Valois was weak and far removed from their
territories. Their great concern was the preservation of their
independence, which seemed more threatened by a resident prince than by
a distant overlord at Paris. Even before the imposition of the
hearth-tax, the Count of Armagnac entered into a secret treaty with
Charles V., who promised to increase his territories and respect his
franchises, if he would return to the French allegiance. The lord of
Albret married a sister of the French queen and followed Armagnac's
lead. A little later the Counts of Perigord and Comminges and other
lords associated themselves with this policy. Thus the rule of the
Black Prince in Aquitaine, acquiesced in by the mass of the people, was
threatened by a feudal revolt. Armagnac appealed to the parliament of
Paris against the hearth-tax. Charles V. accepted the appeal on the
ground of the non-exchange of the renunciations which should have
followed the treaty of Calais. Cited before the parliament in January,
1369, the Black Prince replied that he would go to Paris with helmet on
head and with sixty thousand men at his back. His father once more
assumed the title of King of France, and war broke out again.

The relative positions of France and England were different from what
they had been nine years before. Edward III. was sinking into an
unhonoured old age, and the Prince of Aquitaine suffered from dropsy,
and was inca