ound that the king and
all his host were retreating at full speed. The Earls of Lancaster and
Northampton, with a large body of horse at once started in pursuit, and
harassed the retreating army on its march towards Amiens.

No satisfactory reasons ever have been assigned for this extraordinary
step on the part of the French king. He had been for months engaged in
collecting a huge army, and he had now an opportunity of fighting the
English in a fair field with a force four times as great as their own.
The only means indeed of accounting for his conduct is by supposing him
affected by temporary aberration of mind, which many other facts in his
history render not improbable. The fits of rage so frequently recorded
of him border upon madness, and a number of strange actions highly
detrimental to his own interests which he committed can only be
accounted for as the acts of a diseased mind. This view has been to some
extent confirmed by the fact that less than half a century afterwards
insanity declared itself among his descendants.

A few hours after the departure of the French the French standard was
lowered on the walls of Calais, and news was brought to Edward that
the governor was upon the battlements and desired to speak with some
officers of the besieging army. Sir Walter Manny and Lord Bisset were
sent to confer with him, and found that his object was to obtain the
best terms he could. The English knights, knowing the determination of
the king on the subject, were forced to tell him that no possibility
existed of conditions being granted, but that the king demanded their
unconditional surrender, reserving to himself entirely the right whom to
pardon and whom to put to death.

The governor remonstrated on the severe terms, and said that rather
than submit to them he and his soldiers would sally out and die sword in
hand. Sir Walter Manny found the king inexorable. The strict laws of war
in those days justified the barbarous practise of putting to death the
garrison of a town captured under such circumstances. Calais had been
for many years a nest of pirates, and vessels issuing from its port had
been a scourge to the commerce of England and Flanders, and the king was
fully determined to punish it severely. Sir Walter Manny interceded long
and boldly, and represented to the king that none of his soldiers would
willingly defend a town on his behalf from the day on which he put to
death the people of Calais, as beyond