hand-to-hand fight followed. The French were utterly defeated; it is said that they lost nearly the whole of their fleet and twenty-five thousand men.

In July, 1346, Edward invaded France. He landed at la Hogue and marched towards Paris, burning and plundering wherever he went. He turned at St. Germain and led his army northward, because Philip was coming with a vast host to meet him. Having crossed the Somme Edward pitched his camp at Cressy, fifteen miles from Abbeville. He arranged his men in three divisions, giving command of the first to his son, Edward the Black Prince, then only sixteen years old.

The French army (which was eight times as great as the English), set out from Abbeville on the morning of August 26th. It moved along in great disorder, the knights hurrying on 11 confusedly and the peasants from the country round walking with the foot soldiers, shouting, "Kill, kill!" The men were weary with their march before they reached Cressy, so the wiser nobles advised Philip not to fight till the morrow. He gave the order to halt, but in the 12 tumult no one thought of obeying. Moreover, the king's own blood was stirred when he saw the enemy, and he commanded an attack.

The Genoese bowmen, who were to begin the battle, tried to frighten the English by shouting at them. The English archers replied with such a cloud of arrows that the Genoese were 15 dismayed, and many of them fled. Philip seeing them flee bade his knights ride among them and slay them.

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This only made the confusion greater; horsemen and footmen were mixed together, and ever where the crowd was thickest the English archers shot. The French made several desperate charges but all in vain. As the shades of evening were falling Philip, accompanied by only four knights, rode off the field. The fight was over but the slaughter lasted far on into the darkness. The French dead numbered more than the whole English army.

From Cressy Edward marched to Calais. He found the defences of the place so strong that he could not hope to 14 storm it, and he therefore decided to besiege it. After eleven months the people were brought to dreadful straits; they had eaten all the horses, cats, and dogs in the town, and there was nothing more they could eat, unless they ate each other.

The governor offered to 15 surrender if only the soldiers and citizens were 16 suffered to depart. At first Edward said that they must all be slain or held to 17 ransom as he thought fit. After a while, however, he 18 abated somewhat of his hard conditions; he agreed to have mercy on every one else if six of the chief 19 burgesses submitted "20 purely to his will." They were to come out bareheaded, in their shirts, with halters about their necks, and bringing the keys of the town and castle.

When the governor reported these terms the weeping was pitiful to hear. At last Eustace de Saint Pierre offered to put his life in danger in order to save his fellow citizens. Others caught

his brave spirit, and the number was soon made up. Edward ordered them to be put to death at once. His followers begged him to have mercy but he

QUEEN PHILIPPA PLEADING FOR THE CITIZENS OF CALAIS.

would not listen. At last he yielded to the prayers of his good queen Philippa, and set the prisoners free.

Eustace de Saint Pierre and his unnamed companions are the heroes of the siege. Nothing in the life of the victor can be compared to the noble self-sacrifice of the 21 vanquished: to save the citizens of Calais was more glorious than to conquer the armies of France.

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3

1 His father, Edward II. 2 his grandfather, Edward I. trifling, slight, small. 4 Flanders, the west part of what is now Belgium. 5 Guienne, in the south-west of France. 6 pretext, excuse. See Genealogical Table, page 183. 7 desperate, hopeless, very great. absolutely, entirely, completely. Sluys, near the mouth of a little river running into the mouth of the Schelde. 10 Genoese, from Genoa in the north-west of Italy. 11 confusedly, in a disorderly way. 12 tumult, disorder. 13 dismayed, frightened. 14 storm, to take by hard fighting. 15 surrender, to give in. 16 suffer, to allow. 17 ransom, money paid for setting a prisoner 19 18 abate, to lower, make easier. burgesses, citizens, men of a borough. 20 purely, entirely, without conditions. 21 quished, conquered.

free.

THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR.

van

PART II.

ter-ri-tory

mas'-sa-cred ad-mir-a'-tion sove'-reign-ty FOR eight years after the taking of Calais there was very little fighting. Then the war broke out again. Edward the Black Prince, who ruled at Bordeaux as governor of Guienne, marched with a great force into the 1territory of the French king to burn and plunder. Next year, with a much smaller force, he did the same. But by this time John II. (who now reigned in France in the place of his father, Philip VI.) had got together a splendid host, and was coming to crush the little army of the Prince.