peaking united monarchy of French and
British under the single rule of the Plantagenets, as to try a great
adventure and to see what would come of it.

It was this that gave to Edward's wars the character not of campaigns with
a fixed object, but GREAT RAIDS, the very successes of which were
unexpected and only half fruitful. It was this, again, which made him so
uncertain and vacillating as to how he should use those successes when
they came; which made him suggest now this, now that basis for peace after
each victory, but never to insist very particularly, however surprising
and thorough his work in the field, upon the French throne.

It was this, again, which gave to the actual results of his battles
haphazard consequences, as it were, the most notable and permanent of
which was the English hold upon Calais. And it was this which always left
so huge a disproportion between the object he in theory desired to obtain
and the forces with which he set out to attain it. To sum up, we shall
only understand the victory of Crecy and the succeeding twin victory of
Poitiers ten years later, if we conceive of the whole business as
something of a tournament rather than a true political or even dynastic
struggle.

Further, we must always remember that the leaders upon both sides came of
one society, were of one speech and of one manner, often closely related
in blood. We must remember that it was no desertion for a French lord to
serve the King of England, and that even brothers would be found (as were
the two Harcourts) honourably attached, according to the ideas of the
time, to opposing forces.

Beneath this social aspect of the wars there was, of course, the growing
national sentiment of the French and of the English. Most of the men who
fought against Edward at Crecy, especially of the obscure men, thought of
Paris as the only possible seat of authority, and of the Valois as their
only possible king. All the Archers at Crecy, and many of the squires
there--and a good half even of the forces at Poitiers--were
English-speaking, and had no experience of life save that confined to this
island, up to the moment when they set out for the Great Raids upon the
Continent.

As the Hundred Years' War proceeded, as it approached its second phase in
which Henry V. was actually successful in obtaining the Crown of France,
or rather the reversion of it, the national feeling was growing rapidly
upon either side, and by the time of Joan o