ples, as Count of Provence, and
there for eighty years the Papal court remained. As they were thus
settled close to the French frontier, the Popes became almost vassals of
France; and this added greatly to the power and renown of the French
kings. How real their hold on the Papacy was, was shown in the ruin of
the Templars. The order was now abandoned by the Pope, and its knights
were invited in large numbers to Paris, under pretence of arranging a
crusade. Having been thus entrapped, they were accused of horrible and
monstrous crimes, and torture elicited a few supposed confessions. They
were then tried by the Inquisition, and the greater number were put to
death by fire, the Grand Master last of all, while their lands were
seized by the king. They seem to have been really a fierce, arrogant,
and oppressive set of men, or else there must have been some endeavour
to save them, belonging, as most of them did, to noble French families.
The "Pest of France," as Dante calls Philip the Fair, was now the most
formidable prince in Europe. He contrived to annex to his dominions the
city of Lyons, hitherto an imperial city under its archbishop. Philip
died in 1314; and his three sons--_Louis X._, _Philip V._, and _Charles
IV._,--were as cruel and harsh as himself, but without his talent, and
brought the crown and people to disgrace and misery. Each reigned a few
years and then died, leaving only daughters, and the question arose
whether the inheritance should go to females. When Louis X. died, in
1316, his brother Philip, after waiting for the birth of a posthumous
child who only lived a few days, took the crown, and the Parliament then
declared that the law of the old Salian Franks had been against the
inheritance of women. By this newly discovered Salic law, Charles IV.,
the third brother, reigned on Philip's death; but the kingdom of Navarre
having accrued to the family through their grandmother, and not being
subject to the Salic law, went to the eldest daughter of Louis X., Jane,
wife of the Count of Evreux.

CHAPTER II.

THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR.

1. Wars of Edward III.--By the Salic law, as the lawyers called it,
the crown was given, on the death of Charles IV., to _Philip, Count of
Valois_, son to a brother of Philip IV., but it was claimed by Edward
III. of England as son of the daughter of Philip IV. Edward contented
himself, however, with the mere assertion of his pretensions, until
Philip exasperated him by