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By Root 1419 0

of any enemy, even as when he was present they feared no warlike encounter.” Had the Prince lived and kept his health, he could have averted the troubles that were to arise under a child king, but not the social unrest nor the ebbing of victory. Although Walsingham reproached “thou untimely too-eager Death,” death may not have been untimely, for, unlike his father, the Prince died while he still reflected the image of a hero. Froissart called him “the Flower of Chivalry of all the world” and the chronicler of the Quatre Premiers Valois acknowledged him “one of the greatest knights on earth, having renown above all men.” Charles V held a requiem mass for his late enemy in the Sainte Chapelle, attended by himself and the ranks of French nobility.

What was it in the Black Prince that everyone admired? Comrades in chivalry felt pride in him because he represented their image of themselves; the massacre of Limoges was nothing to them. The people of England mourned him because his marvelous capture of a king at Poitiers and his other conquests had dressed them in greatness. Though his famous victory in Spain had proved ephemeral, his empire in Aquitaine had collapsed, and his prowess faded in disease, yet he represented that emotional choice a people makes to satisfy its craving for a leader.

The death of the Prince was the turning point in favor of John of Gaunt. While still in session, Parliament took the precaution of having the boy Richard presented to them in person to be confirmed as heir apparent. This being done, the memorable session closed on July 10, having lasted 74 days, the longest of any Parliament up to that time. Its spectacular accomplishment was wiped away the moment it dispersed. With no permanent organization or autonomous means of reassembly, the Commons ceased to exist as a body as soon as members scattered to shire and town. Its reforms had not been enacted as statutes and, like the reforms of the French Grand Ordinance, were simply rendered null by the hand that regained effective power. By favors or threats, Lancaster won over or neutralized the leading lords of the opposition, except for the Earl of March, who was compelled to resign as Marshal. His place was taken by his onetime ally Sir Henry Percy, who went over to the Duke.

The Lords’ absence of political principle was the key to the collapse. Lancaster declared the entire parliamentary session invalid, reinstated Lord Latimer and his associates, dismissed the new Council and recalled the old, arrested and imprisoned without trial Sir Peter de la Mare when he attempted a protest, banished Bishop William of Wykeham from court and seized his temporal properties. When, sealing his control, he brought back Alice Perrers to reweave her spell over the King, the bishops who had acted with the Commons “were like dumb dogs unable to bark.”

Except for impeachment, the work of the Good Parliament left hardly a constitutional trace. Yet in expressing so forcefully, and for its brief moment effectively, the will of the middle class, the role of the Commons strongly impressed the nation and taught an experience of political action that took root.

Witness to England’s turmoil, Coucy returned to France in the summer or fall of 1376. Given the crisis during his visit, he is unlikely to have obtained a clear statement of what peace terms England was prepared to accept, but he would certainly have brought back a report of a torn and vulnerable nation. He is reported by Froissart to have advised Charles V not to wait for the King of England to offer combat when the truce should end, but to seek him out in his own territory because “the English are never so weak or so easy to defeat as at home.”

Before Coucy left England, King Edward fell ill of a great malady and “all his physicians despaired and did not know how to care for him or what medicines to give him.” Although he recovered spontaneously, the end of the reign was clearly approaching and with it the moment for Coucy’s decision. Whether Isabella returned with him to France or remained with her sinking father