onarch was averse to engage against so great a superiority: the French
thought it sufficient if he eluded the attacks of his enemy, without
running any unnecessary hazard. The two armies faced each other for
some days: mutual defiances were sent: and Edward, at last, retired into
Flanders, and disbanded his army.[*]

Such was the fruitless and almost ridiculous conclusion of Edward's
mighty preparations; and as his measures were the most prudent that
could be embraced in his situation, he might learn from experience in
what a hopeless enterprise he was engaged. His expenses, though they
had led to no end, had been consuming and destructive; he had contracted
near three hundred thousand pounds of debt;[**] he had anticipated all
his revenue; he had pawned every thing of value which belonged either
to himself or his queen; he was obliged in some measure even to pawn
himself to his creditors, by not sailing to England till he obtained
their permission, and by promising on his word of honor to return in
person, if he did not remit their money.

* Froissard, liv. i. chap. 41, 42, 43. Heming, p. 307.
Walsing p. 143.

** Cotton's Abridg. p. 17.

But he was a prince of too much spirit to be discouraged by the first
difficulties of an undertaking; and he was anxious to retrieve his honor
by more successful and more gallant enterprises. For this purpose
he had, during the course of the campaign, sent orders to summon
a parliament by his son Edward, whom he had left with the title of
guardian, and to demand some supply in his urgent necessities. The
barons seemed inclined to grant his request; but the knights, who often,
at this time, acted as a separate body from the burgesses, made some
scruple of taxing their constituents without their consent; and they
desired the guardian to summon a new parliament, which might be properly
empowered for that purpose. The situation of the king and parliament
was for the time, nearly similar to that which they constantly fell into
about the beginning of the last century; and similar consequences began
visibly to appear. The king, sensible of the frequent demands which he
should be obliged to make on his people, had been anxious to insure to
his friends a seat in the house of commons, and at his instigation the
sheriffs and other placemen had made interest to be elected into that
assembly; an abuse which the knights desired the king to correct by the
tenor of his writ of summo