ness or fancy. He had the hereditary passion of his house for the
chase. In his youthful campaigns in Scotland and in his maturer
expeditions in France, he was accompanied by a little army of falconers
and huntsmen, by packs of hounds, and many hawks trained with the utmost
care. He honoured with his special friendship an Abbot of Leicester,
famed throughout England as the most dexterous of hare-coursers.[2]

[1] _Continuation of Murimuth_ (Engl. Hist. Soc.), pp. 225-27,
which gives the best contemporary description of Edward's
character.

[2] Knighton, ii., 127.

Edward's abounding energy was even more gladly devoted to war than to
the chase. He was an admirable exponent of those chivalric ideals which
are glorified in the courtly pages of Froissart. Not content with the
easy victories which fall in the tiltyard to the crowned king, Edward
was anxious to show that his triumphs belonged to the knight and not to
the monarch, and more than once jousted victoriously in disguise. The
same spirit led him to challenge Philip of France to decide their
quarrel by single combat, and to win a personal triumph when masking as
a knight attached to the service of Sir Walter Manny. He was liberal to
the verge of prodigality, good-tempered, easy of access, and, save when
moved by deep gusts of fierce anger, kindly and compassionate. His easy
good nature endeared him both to foreigners and to every class of his
own subjects. Not only did he enter fully into the free-masonry which
regarded the knights of all Christian nations as equal members of a
sworn brotherhood of arms, but he extended his favours to the London
vintner's son who earned his bread in his service, and entertained the
wives of the leading London citizens, side by side with the noble
ladies in whose honour he gave the most quaint and magnificent of his
banquets. Pious after a somewhat formal fashion, he was unwearied in
going on pilgrimage and lavish in his religious foundations. Though no
prince was more careful to protect the state from the encroachments of
churchmen, his orthodoxy and devoutness kept him in good repute with
the austerest champions of the Church. He could choose fit agents to
carry out his policy, and his campaigns were a marvellous training
ground for gallant and capable warriors.

Edward seldom lost sight of the material and economic interests of his
subjects. He was the friend of merchants, the father of English
commerce, the pat