own.
There remain to be added, however, for the understanding of Poitiers and
its campaign, two features which differentiate the fighting of 1356 from
that of ten years before. These two features are: first, the character of
the commander; and secondly, the nature of the regions from which he
started and through which he proceeded, coupled with the political
character of the English rule in the South of France. I will take these
points in inverse order.

When Calais had fallen and had become an English possession in the summer
of 1347 no peace followed. A truce was patched up for some months,
followed by further truces. Through the mediation of the Pope a final and
definite treaty was sketched, which should terminate the war upon the
cession of Aquitaine to Edward III. in full sovereignty. The French Valois
king would perhaps have agreed to a settlement which would have preserved
his feudal headship, though it would have put the Plantagenets in virtual
possession of half France (as France was then defined). But Edward III.
would not accept the terms. He had claimed the crown of France. He had won
his great victory at Crecy still claiming that crown. He would not be
content with adding to his _feudal tenures_ under the French crown. He
would add to his _sovereignty_ at least, to his absolute _sovereignty_,
or continue the war. In 1354 (the Black Death intervening) the war was
renewed. Edward would have been content, not with the whole of Aquitaine,
but with complete sovereignty over the triangle between the Garonne and
the Pyrenees in the south, coupled with complete sovereignty over the
north-eastern seaboard of France from the Somme to Calais, and inland as
far as Arras, and its territory, the Artois. But the French monarchy,
though ready to admit _feudal_ encroachments, would not dismember the
nominal unity of the kingdom: just as a stickler in our north will grant a
999-year _lease_, but will not _sell_.

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.

[Illustra