BOOKS BY THOMAS B. COSTAIN by THE THREE EDWARDS:
Author:THE THREE EDWARDS:
Language: eng
Format: epub
BOOK THREE
Edward the Third
CHAPTER I
Hamlet on the Steps of the Throne
1
THE foul deed which brought to a close the days of that poor shadow of a king, Edward II, inaugurated a reign which would touch the peaks. Edward III was the most spectacular of the Plantagenets; fair, of goodly proportions, with a face, so it was said, of a demi-god; a conqueror, brave, vainglorious, extravagant, ostentatious; somewhat shallow of character, lacking, at any rate, the deep sense of kingly responsibility which has kept the memory of his grandfather so green. It must have been a great sight to watch the third Edward riding in a tournament, his lance expert and deadly, his delight in the sport so keen. Or to observe him in his brilliant and gay court, strutting like a peacock in the velvets he loved, the double-piled new varieties from Lucca and Genoa; his voice richly modulated, his laughter spontaneous, an intimate look in his eye for every pretty lady.
These were the days when chivalry reached its greatest height in England. The armies with which Edward defeated the French and came so close to establishing his claim to the French throne were filled with knights of spirit and repute, knights-errant in the fullest sense of the word, about whom much will be told later. One of the stories of the period which is repeated with the most gusto concerns a beautiful lady of the court who had dressed herself for a ball with such splendor that a line from Piers Plowman seems to fit her: ÂHer array ravished me, such richness saw I never. But the ladyÂs dress had beauties which did not show on the surface, and when she lost a most necessary part of her attire, a delicate thing of rich silk with jewels nestling in its rosebuds, and the king found it, he was inspired (or so runs the story) to form the Order of the Garter, which has been the only rival for the legendary Round Table of Arthurian days. It may be recorded also that only the most perfunctory efforts were made to capture a Frenchwoman of high rank who set herself up as a pirate in and around the Channel. Was she not a lady and beautiful, forsooth?
But the rise of chivalry was no more than the flare-up before its final extinction. The brave knights were certain, no doubt, that they had won Crécy and Poictiers, but a realistic vision would have taught them a different story. Those great battles were won by stout-limbed, brawny-backed, sun-bronzed fellows of low degree who wore lincoln-green jerkins and had a deadly skill with a new weapon called the longbow. The chivalry of France died under the lethal hail of English arrows, without realizing that the fine bloom of chivalry withered with their passing. An insignificant item is found (without foundation) in Froissart. The English, he reports, had something very strange called cannon; long-snouted barrels of bronze which spewed forth shells under the compulsive force of
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