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PART PAGE
INTRODUCTION 9
" No. 2 " 32
" No. 3 " 49
" No. 4 " 61
POITIERS
INTRODUCTION
The Battle of Poitiers was fought ten years and four weeks after that of Cr?cy.
The result of this breach in the negotiations was that Edward, and his son the Black Prince, entered upon the renewal of the war with a vague claim to Aquitaine as a whole, with an active claim upon Guienne--that is, the territory just north of the Garonne--and a real hold upon Gascony; and still preserving at the back of the whole scheme of operations that half-earnest, half-theatrical plan for an Anglo-French monarchy under the house of Plantagenet which had been formulated twenty-five years before.
When, therefore, upon the 20th September 1355, Edward, the Black Prince, landed at Bordeaux, it was to find a province the nobles of which were honestly attached to his cause and the greater townsmen as well; while in the mass of the people there was no disaffection to the idea of this one out of the vague, many, French-speaking feudal lords whom they knew to be their masters, being the actual governor of the land. There was no conquest, nor any need for it, so far as Gascony was concerned; and in any expedition the Prince might make he was as certain of a regular following from the towns and estates that lay between the mountains and the Garonne as the King of France was certain of his own feudal levies in the north. But expeditions and fighting there would be because the Black Prince came with a commission not only to govern Gascony, but to establish himself in the more doubtful Guienne, and even to be--if he could conquer it--the lieutenant of his father, Edward, in all Aquitaine. He was to recover the districts immediately north of the Garonne, and even right up to the neighbourhood of the Loire; and he was to regard those who might resist his administration of all these "lost" countries of the Central and Southern West of France as "rebels."
It was thought certain at first, of course, that the whole claim could never be pushed home; but the Black Prince might well hope so to harry the districts which were claimed--and the neighbouring county of Toulouse to the east, which was admittedly feudatory to the King of Paris--as to compel that sovereign to recognise at last his father's absolute sovereignty over Gascony certainly, and perhaps over Guienne, or even somewhat more than Guienne.
The remainder of that year, 1355, therefore--the autumn and the winter--were spent in striking at the sole portion of Gascony that was disaffected , and pushing eastward to ravage Toulouse and Carcassonne; for though these towns were admittedly outside Edward's land, the wasting of their territory was a depletion of the King of France's revenue.
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