welfare thus to accord this homage and fealty.

Nor is the cause for this advantage far to seek. Gascony was of immense
value to England, and of increasing value as she lost her hold upon the
more northerly portions of France. The wine trade alone was so
profitable that the nobility, and even the royal family of England,
traded on their own account. Bordeaux, with its magnificent harbour and
vast trade, was a queen amongst maritime cities. The vast "landes" of
the province made the best possible rearing ground for the chargers and
cavalry horses to which England owed much of her warlike supremacy;
whilst the people themselves, with their strength and independence of
character, their traditions of personal and individual freedom which can
be clearly traced back to the Roman occupation of the province, and
their long attachment to England and her King, were the most valuable of
allies; and although they must have been regarded to a certain extent as
foreigners when on English soil, they still assimilated better and
worked more easily with British subjects than any pure Frenchman had
ever been found to do.

Small wonder then that so astute a monarch as the First Edward had taken
vast pains to draw closer the bond which united this fair province to
England. The bold Gascons well knew that they would find no such
liberties as they now enjoyed did they once put themselves beneath the
rule of the French King. His country was already overgrown and almost
unmanageable. He might cast covetous eyes upon Gascony, but he would not
pour into it the wealth that flowed steadily from prosperous England. He
would not endow it with charters, each one more liberal than the last,
or bind it to his kingdom by giving it a pre-eminence that would but
arouse the jealousy of its neighbours. No: the shrewd Gaseous knew that
full well, and knew when they were well off. They could often obtain an
increase of liberty and an enlarged charter of rights by coquetting with
the French monarch, and thus rousing the fears of the English King; but
they had no wish for any real change, and lived happily and prosperously
beneath the rule of the Roy Outremer; and amongst all the freemen of the
Gascon world, none enjoyed such full privileges as those who lived
within the walls of the "villes Anglaises," of which Sauveterre was one
amongst the smaller cities.

The construction of these towns (now best seen in Libourne) is very
simple, and almost always practi