rese troops at Cocherel and took prisoner their
best general, Jean de Grailli, captal of Buch. The establishment of
Charles's brother, Philip the Bold, in the duchy of Burgundy, though it
constituted in the event a serious menace to the monarchy, put an end to
the king of Navarre's ambitions in that direction. A treaty of peace
between the two kings was signed in 1365, by which Charles of Navarre
gave up Mantes, Meulan and the county of Longueville in exchange for
Montpellier. Negotiations were renewed in 1370 when Charles of Navarre
did homage for his French possessions, though he was then considering an
offensive and defensive alliance with Edward III. Du Guesclin undertook
to free France from the depredations of the "free companies," mercenary
soldiers put out of employment by the cessation of the war. An attempt
to send them on a crusade against the Turks failed, and Du Guesclin led
them to Spain to put Henry of Trastamara on the throne of Castile. By
the marriage of his brother Philip the Bold with Margaret of Flanders,
Charles detached the Flemings from the English alliance, and as soon as
he had restored something like order in the internal affairs of the
kingdom he provoked a quarrel with the English. The text of the treaty
of Bretigny presented technical difficulties of which Charles was not
slow to avail himself. The English power in Guienne was weakened by the
disastrous Spanish expedition of the Black Prince, whom Charles summoned
before the parlement of Paris in January 1369 to answer the charges
preferred against him by his subjects, thus expressly repudiating the
English supremacy in Guienne. War was renewed in May after a meeting of
the states-general. Between 1371 and 1373 Poitou and Saintonge were
reconquered by Du Guesclin, and soon the English had to abandon all
their territory north of the Garonne. John IV. of Brittany (Jean de
Montfort) had won his duchy with English help by the defeat of Charles
of Blois, the French nominee, at Auray in 1364. His sympathies remained
English, but he was now (1373) obliged to take refuge in England, and
later in Flanders, while the English only retained a footing in two or
three coast towns. Charles's generals avoided pitched battles, and
contented themselves with defensive and guerrilla tactics, with the
result that in 1380 only Bayonne, Bordeaux, Brest and Calais were still
in English hands.

Charles had in 1378 obtained proof of Charles of Navarre's treasonable
d