The Hundred Years War - Desmond Seward [49]
Here one should emphasize that, although everyone had hopes, not every soldier actually made a fortune out of the Hundred Years War. At the Count of Foix’s castle at Orthez ‘a squire of Gascony called the Bascot of Mauléon, a man of fifty years of age, an expert man of arms’ was only too keen to tell Froissart his story while they sat by the fire waiting for midnight and for the Count to begin supper. The Bascot (Bastard) was a by-blow of a family of petty nobles and had had to support himself entirely by soldiering. ‘The first time I bore arms was under the Captal de Buch at the battle of Poitiers,’ said the Bascot. ‘I had that day three prisoners, a knight and two squires, of whom I had one with another 400,000 francs.’ He then went to Prussia to fight at the side of the Teutonic Knights, returning to put down the jacquerie ; and he was with King Edward during the Rheims campaign. After Brétigny he became Captain of a Free Company, riding with Hawkwood to Avignon to demand money from the Pope. He was in Brittany under Sir Hugh Calveley, taking prisoners at the battle of Auray ‘by whom I had 2,000 francs‘, and he accompanied the Black Prince to Spain. During the renewed war between France and England he kept the main chance in mind, capturing a castle near Albi which had since been worth ‘100,000 francs’ to him (presumably by extorting money from the surrounding countryside), though ‘I abide still good English and shall do while I live’. Yet although the Bascot travelled ‘as though he had been a great baron’ and ate off silver, he admitted he had known ‘as much loss as profit‘, that at times he had been so miserably poor—’so overthrown and pulled down’—that he could not afford even a horse. For all his campaigns and silver plate, he was ending as a mere household man of the Count of Foix. Many English men-at-arms must have been disappointed in the same way.
In 1378 a new Pope was elected, the Italian Urban VI. The Papacy had returned to Rome in 1369 and Urban decided upon radical reforms which would diminish French influence. A group of cardinals were so alarmed that they declared Urban’s election invalid and chose another Pontiff, Clement VII. Charles was delighted and invited Clement to reinstall the Papacy at Avignon. Western Christendom was to be divided by the Great Schism for nearly half a century. Only the Scots and the Neapolitans joined the French in recognizing Clement, most countries trying to remain neutral. Naturally the English gave Urban enthusiastic support. Hitherto the Papacy had played a most valuable part in negotiating truces and attempting to make peace-now there was no international body to perform this work of mediation.
Charles V, iller than ever and approaching the end of his painful life, was so worn out and so depressed by his recent lack of success that he sued for peace. He offered the English all Aquitaine south of the Dordogne, together with Angouleme and a marriage between his daughter and Richard II ; the project collapsed when one of Urban’s cardinals arranged another match for the young English King. The French were increasingly restive under Charles’s ferocious taxation, which was essential for the war effort. There were revolts in Languedoc during which tax collectors were lynched. The risings were crushed but the King’s nerve was shaken and he abolished the most important levy, the hearth tax, thereby seriously diminishing the regular revenue which was vital for war.
Seal of the Black Prince after the Treaty of Brétigny in 1360, when the English ruled a third of France. The inscription reads: ‘Seal of Edward, the King of England’s eldest son, Prince of Aquitaine and Wales, Duke of Cornwall and Earl of Chester.’
The English were nothing if not persevering. The Earl of Arundel, Marshal of the West, attacked Harfleur at Whitsun 1378, but met with