A Distant Mirror_ The Calamitous 14th Century - Barbara W. Tuchman [186]
Since his return from the Aargau, Coucy’s friends had been urging him to become wholly French. They argued, according to Froissart, that he need not necessarily lose his English lands if it came to a choice, because the King of England could not expect him to give up his far greater French domain, especially since he was French “by name, blood, arms and extraction.” Since he knew himself esteemed by the French King and felt grateful to him for financing the Austrian expedition, and doubtless too because he had no wish, in case of renewed war, to be left again in an enforced and difficult neutrality, Coucy was drawing close to a decision. But first he clearly hoped to resolve the matter of his English lands and revenues on the forthcoming visit. His English wife, in view of her unfading attachment to home, would surely have energetically opposed a renunciation of her country. Nevertheless, that choice was clearly in her husband’s mind upon accepting his new assignment.
“And seeing that he was regarded as one of the wisest and most prudent of nobles … in whom one could not want more of all good and all loyalty, it was said to him, ‘Sire de Coucy, it is the intention of the King and his Council that you belong with us in France and that you can aid and counsel us in treating with the English. Therefore we ask you that you make this voyage covertly and wisely, as you know how to do, and that you discover from the King of England and his Council on what terms peace can be made between them and us.’ And so he hastened upon the voyage.”
* The Historical Museum of Berne describes the banner as a 15th century reproduction of the original. Bernard Aucien suggests that it may have been captured in 1388 when the Swiss regained Nidau which had been ceded to Coucy at the close of the Aargau campaign.
* According to Swiss sources, the cession was not made until ten years later when Leopold wanted Coucy’s support against the Swiss in the struggle that led to Sempach.
Chapter 14
England’s Turmoil
Coucy arrived in England in April 1376 just at the moment when English discontent came to a head in the first impeachment by Parliament of ministers of the crown. In the historic session called the Good Parliament the monarchy discovered that it had drained the cup of public confidence in a government that could neither win the war nor end it.
The failure to conclude peace at Bruges had brought to a climax public resentment of corrupt royal officials, a profitless war, military mismanagement, and waste or embezzlement of the people’s tax money. These were the same ills that twenty years earlier had generated the French Third Estate’s challenge to the monarchy. They found the same opportunity to make themselves felt when the English crown needed a new subsidy to prepare for the prospective end of the truce a year hence. Parliament was summoned for April, and as members gathered, London reverberated with “a great murmur of the people.”
The Sire and Dame de Coucy, who had been welcomed “joyously” at court on their arrival, found themselves in the midst of wrath and crisis surrounding the royal family and focusing on Isabella’s brother, John of Gaunt, otherwise known as the Duke of Lancaster. In place of the sick Prince and senile King, he was the key figure in the royal government who was now held to blame for all that had gone wrong.
Seventy-four knights of the shire and sixty town burgesses made up the Commons of the Good Parliament. Acting with some support from the Lords, they demanded redress of 146 grievances before they would consent