en unemployed lived by
plunder. The peace had only let these wretches loose on the peasants.
Some had seized castles, whence they could plunder travellers; others
roamed the country, preying on the miserable peasants, who, fleeced as
they were by king, barons, and clergy, were tortured and murdered by
these ruffians, so that many lived in holes in the ground that their
dwellings might not attract attention. Bertrand du Guesclin offered the
king to relieve the country from these Free Companies by leading them to
assist the Castilians against their tyrannical king, Peter the Cruel.
Edward, the Black Prince, who was then acting as Governor of Aquitaine,
took, however, the part of Peter, and defeated Du Guesclin at the battle
of Navarete, on the Ebro, in 1367.

5. Renewal of the War.--This expedition ruined the prince's health,
and exhausted his treasury. A hearth-tax was laid on the inhabitants of
Aquitaine, and they appealed against it to the King of France, although,
by the Peace of Bretigny, he had given up all right to hear appeals as
suzerain. The treaty, however, was still not formally settled, and on
this ground Charles received their complaint. The war thus began again,
and the sword of the Constable of France--the highest military dignity
of the realm--was given to Du Guesclin, but only on condition that he
would avoid pitched battles, and merely harass the English and take
their castles. This policy was so strictly followed, that the Duke of
Lancaster was allowed to march from Brittany to Gascony without meeting
an enemy in the field; and when King Edward III. made his sixth and last
invasion, nearly to the walls of Paris, he was only turned back by
famine, and by a tremendous thunderstorm, which made him believe that
Heaven was against him. Du Guesclin died while besieging a castle, and
such was his fame that the English captain would place the keys in no
hand but that of his corpse. The Constable's sword was given to Oliver
de Clisson, also a Breton, and called the "Butcher," because he gave no
quarter to the English in revenge for the death of his brother. The
Bretons were, almost to a man, of the French party, having been offended
by the insolence and oppression of the English; and John de Montfort,
after clinging to the King of England as long as possible, was forced to
make his peace at length with Charles. Charles V. had nearly regained
all that had been lost, when, in 1380 his death left the kingdom to h