A Distant Mirror_ The Calamitous 14th Century - Barbara W. Tuchman [228]
In 1379 Isabella de Coucy died in England leaving Enguerrand free to remarry. Less precipitate than the Prince of Aragon, or too occupied in urgent affairs, he did not fill her place for seven years. Nothing came of the King’s visit to his barony at the time, but the crown’s interest remained active.
A new reign in England brought the English no better fortunes in the war. The easy mastery of the Channel that Edward III had once enjoyed was lost, thanks to Charles’s steady alliance with the sea power of Castile and his own program of shipbuilding. When a force led bythe Duke of Lancaster finally succeeded in landing near St. Malo in Brittany, the situation of Cherbourg was reversed. Held by the French, St. Malo defied siege and wore out the Duke until he went home in a cloud of failure. “And the commons of England began to murmur against the noblemen, saying how they had done all that season but little good.” Unsuccessful war stimulated more than murmur. While Lancaster was bogged down in Brittany, English merchant ships were harassed and captured with impunity by French and Scottish pirates. When the merchants complained, the nobles and prelates of the King’s Council replied only that defensive action was up to Lancaster and his fleet.
At this, a rich alderman and future Mayor of London, John Philpot, Master of the Grocers’ Company, assembled a private force of ships with a thousand sailors and men-at-arms and went forth to battle the pirates, several of whom he captured together with their prize ships. When, after a triumphant welcome in London, he was summoned by the Council to answer for acting without the King’s leave, his hot reply summed up the growing exasperation of the Third Estate with the less than adequate performance by the Second. He had spent his money and risked his men, Philpot said, not to shame the nobles or win knightly fame, but “in pity for the misery of the people and country which, from being a noble realm and dominion over other nations, has through your supineness been exposed to the ravages of the vilest race. Since you would not lift a hand in its defense, I exposed myself and my property for the safety and deliverance of our country.” Even if Philpot and his fellow merchants were primarily concerned with the safety and deliverance of their trade, his complaint of the country’s defenders was none the less valid.
With ill-success on both sides in the war, both desired peace. Reopening of hostilities in Brittany had counterbalanced for France her success in Normandy, and the schism raised the temperature of hostility everywhere. Aware of failing health, Charles V did not want to leave the quarrels with Brittany and England a burden upon his son. The parleys after King Edward’s passing had closed without result and evidently in bad feeling. To avoid mutually irritating debates, it was proposed to convene separately the next time: the English at Calais and the French twenty miles away at St. Omer, with the Archbishop of Rouen acting as go-between. Postponed by the schism, this plan was adopted for a renewed effort in September 1379.
Coucy, Rivière, and Mercier with one or two others were the French plenipotentiaries at this parley, and they were also delegated to meet with the Count of Flanders at Arras in the hope of inducing him to mediate a settlement with the Duke of Brittany. Before they could accomplish anything, the Count was caught up by a local revolt that, surmounting every repression and involving every faction, was to plunge Flanders into ruinous civil war.
The rising of the men of Ghent had no connection with the workers’ insurrection that had seized control of Florence in the previous year. Although separate and spontaneous, the events in the two cloth cities initiated a whirlwind of class war over the next five years arising both from the accumulated miseries of the working class and from a new strength resulting from the disruptions of the Black