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By Root 782 0

and a poor circulation and debilitated by an undiagnosed disease which frequently sent him exhausted to his bed. Even had he wanted, he could never have been a man of action. In fact he was both pious and bookish with a keen interest in theology and history, a genuine intellectual of his time who amassed a library of nearly 1,200 chained books in a tower of the Louvre. Indeed the name Carolus Sapiens bestowed on him by chroniclers meant Charles the Erudite rather than the Wise. Although no less magnificent and grandiose in his concept of kingship than his father—he held a surprisingly splendid court—Charles V’s unusual talents combined to give him a curiously legal approach to matters of state; he had all the lawyer’s passion for correct procedure and care for detail.

The new King of France was not at first ready to confront the English or to overthrow the Brétigny settlement, which had at least bought him time. He had first to deal with four other problems—the war in Brittany, the King of Navarre, the Flemish succession, and the Free Companies (routiers).

After twenty years of bloody warfare the Montfort and Blois factions were still fighting for the Duchy of Brittany, a situation which the English continued to exploit with their accustomed rapacity. Duke John IV had returned to the land of his ancestors in 1362 and in September 1364 (under the able direction of Sir John Chandos and Sir Hugh Calveley) finally defeated and killed his rival, Charles of Blois, at Auray. Though the French candidate had lost, there was now at least peace and a stable situation, and Duke John paid homage to King Charles in 1365.

The King of Navarre was altogether a more serious matter, as his lands near Paris enabled him to blockade the capital. At the beginning of 1364 he had again risen in revolt, enraged by King John’s bestowal of the Duchy of Burgundy on his son Philip; Navarre had been deprived of yet another inheritance, for his claim to Burgundy through his grandmother was better than that of his Valois cousins. He raised his followers in Normandy and recruited men from the Free Companies together with Gascon mercenaries under the redoubtable Captal de Buch. However, the latter’s forces were completely routed at Cocherel in May 1364 and the French then thrust deep into Normandy, overrunning the Navarrese strongholds. Charles the Bad made peace the following year and surrendered all his estates near Paris. Henceforward, although still an irreconcilable enemy, he was no longer a real danger.

Flanders once again was threatening to fall under English control. Count Louis had decided that Margaret, his daughter and heiress, should marry an English prince, Edmund, Earl of Cambridge; and King Edward offered to endow his son with all his possessions in northern France. Charles V, much alarmed, managed to obtain a Papal ban on the projected marriage, on grounds of consanguinity; after years of diplomatic manoeuvre the French King finally succeeded in obtaining Margaret’s hand for his brother, Philip of Burgundy. If later the Valois were to regret bitterly this union of two vast fiefs, it was at least better than the establishment of a northern Guyenne.

The routiers of the Free Companies were the most difficult problem of all. There were so many of them, veteran soldiers who were unwilling to return to a life of poverty or even serfdom. Often they had served under the Black Prince and had taken to living off the country after being discharged. So professional were they that every company had a proper command structure with a staff which included secretaries and butiniers to collect and share out the loot; some had their own uniform, like the bandes blanches of the terrible Archpriest Arnaud de Cervole. Among them were Bretons, Spaniards, even Germans, and of course Englishmen, but the majority were Gascons. However, most of the captains were English, like Sir John Hawkwood, Sir Robert Knollys, Sir Hugh Calveley, Sir John Cresswell, and many more.

The routiers ‘wasted all the country without cause, and robbed without sparing all that ever they