The Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, vol 3 | Page 4

NAVARRE, v3
HISTORY OF THE HOUSE OF VALOIS. [Author unknown]
CHARLES, COMTE DE VALOIS, was the younger brother of Philip
the Fair, and therefore uncle of the three sovereigns lately dead. His
eldest son Philip had been appointed guardian to the Queen of Charles

IV.; and when it appeared that she had given birth to a daughter, and
not a son, the barons, joining with the notables of Paris and the, good
towns, met to decide who was by right the heir to the throne, "for the
twelve peers of France said and say that the Crown of France is of such
noble estate that by no succession can it come to a woman nor to a
woman's son," as Froissart tells us. This being their view, the baby
daughter of Charles IV. was at once set aside; and the claim of Edward
III. of England, if, indeed, he ever made it, rested on Isabella of France,
his mother, sister of the three sovereigns. And if succession through a
female had been possible, then the daughters of those three kings had
rights to be reserved. It was, however, clear that the throne must go to a
man, and the crown was given to Philip of Valois, founder of a new
house of sovereigns.
The new monarch was a very formidable person. He had been a great
feudal lord, hot and vehement, after feudal fashion; but he was now to
show that he could be a severe master, a terrible king. He began his
reign by subduing the revolted Flemings on behalf of his cousin Louis
of Flanders, and having replaced him in his dignities, returned to Paris
and there held high state as King. And he clearly was a great sovereign;
the weakness of the late King had not seriously injured France; the new
King was the elect of the great lords, and they believed that his would
be a new feudal monarchy; they were in the glow of their revenge over
the Flemings for the days of Courtrai; his cousins reigned in Hungary
and Naples, his sisters were married to the greatest of the lords; the
Queen of Navarre was his cousin; even the youthful King of England
did him homage for Guienne and Ponthieu. The barons soon found out
their mistake. Philip VI., supported by the lawyers, struck them
whenever he gave them opening; he also dealt harshly with the traders,
hampering them and all but ruining them, till the country was alarmed
and discontented. On the other hand, young Edward of England had
succeeded to a troubled inheritance, and at the beginning was far
weaker than his rival; his own sagacity, and the advance of
constitutional rights in England, soon enabled him to repair the
breaches in his kingdom, and to gather fresh strength from the
prosperity and good-will of a united people. While France followed a
more restricted policy, England threw open her ports to all comers;
trade grew in London as it waned in Paris; by his marriage with

Philippa of Hainault, Edward secured a noble queen, and with her the
happiness of his subjects and the all-important friendship of the Low
Countries. In 1336 the followers of Philip VI. persuaded Louis of
Flanders to arrest the English merchants then in Flanders; whereupon
Edward retaliated by stopping the export of wool, and Jacquemart van
Arteveldt of Ghent, then at the beginning of his power, persuaded the
Flemish cities to throw off all allegiance to their French-loving Count,
and to place themselves under the protection of Edward. In return
Philip VI. put himself in communication with the Scots, the hereditary
foes of England, and the great wars which were destined to last 116
years, and to exhaust the strength of two strong nations, were now
about to begin. They brought brilliant and barren triumphs to England,
and, like most wars, were a wasteful and terrible mistake, which, if
crowned with ultimate success, might, by removing the centre of the
kingdom into France, have marred the future welfare of England, for
the happy constitutional development of the country could never have
taken place with a sovereign living at Paris, and French interests
becoming ever more powerful. Fortunately, therefore, while the war
evoked by its brilliant successes the national pride of Englishmen, by
its eventual failure it was prevented from inflicting permanent damage
on England.
The war began in 1337 and ended in 1453; the epochs in it are the
Treaty of Bretigny in 1360, the Treaty of Troyes in 1422, the final
expulsion of the English in 1453.
The French King seems to have believed himself equal to the burdens
of a great war, and able to carry out the most far-reaching plans. The
Pope was entirely in his hands, and useful as a humble instrument to
curb and