enote: Renewal of the War]

The Prince was maddened by the summons. "I will come," he replied, "but
with helmet on head, and with sixty thousand men at my back." War however
had hardly been declared when the ability with which Charles had laid his
plans was seen in his seizure of Ponthieu and in a rising of the whole
country south of the Garonne. Du Gueselin returned in 1370 from Spain to
throw life into the French attack. Two armies entered Guienne from the
east; and a hundred castles with La Reole and Limoges threw open their
gates to Du Guesclin. But the march of an English army from Calais upon
Paris recalled him from the south to guard the capital at a moment when the
English leader advanced to recover Limoges, and the Black Prince borne in a
litter to its walls stormed the town and sullied by a merciless massacre of
its inhabitants the fame of his earlier exploits. Sickness however recalled
him home in the spring of 1371; and the war, protracted by the caution of
Charles who forbade his armies to engage, did little but exhaust the energy
and treasure of England. As yet indeed the French attack had made small
impression on the south, where the English troops stoutly held their ground
against Du Guesclin's inroads. But the protracted war drained Edward's
resources, while the diplomacy of Charles was busy in rousing fresh dangers
from Scotland and Castille. It was in vain that Edward looked for allies to
the Flemish towns. The male line of the Counts of Flanders ended in Count
Louis le Male; and the marriage of his daughter Margaret with Philip, Duke
of Burgundy, a younger brother of the French king, secured Charles from
attack along his northern border. In Scotland the death of David Bruce put
an end to Edward's schemes for a reunion of the two kingdoms; and his
successor, Robert the Steward, renewed in 1371 the alliance with France.

[Sidenote: Loss of Aquitaine]

Castille was a yet more serious danger; and an effort which Edward made to
neutralize its attack only forced Henry of Trastamara to fling his whole
weight into the struggle. The two daughters of Pedro had remained since
their father's flight at Bordeaux. The elder of these was now wedded to
John of Gaunt, Edward's fourth son, whom he had created Duke of Lancaster
on his previous marriage with Blanche, a daughter of Henry of Lancaster and
the heiress of that house, while the younger was wedded to Edward's fifth
son, the Earl of Cambridge. Edward's aim wa