Bruges.  More than once the negotiations broke down altogether.  At no time was there much hope of a permanent peace.  The English insisted on the terms of 1360, and the French demanded the cession of Calais and the release of the unpaid ransom of King John.  However, on June 27, 1375, a truce for a year was signed at Bruges, which was further extended until June, 1377, just long enough to allow the old king to end his days in peace.  France had once more to wrestle with the companies set free by the truce, so that England could still enjoy possession of Calais, Bordeaux, Bayonne, Brest, and the other scanty remnants of the cessions of the treaty of Calais.  Satisfied at putting an end to the war, Gregory XI betook himself to Rome.  Thus the truce outlasted the Babylonish captivity of the papacy as well as the life of Edward III.

CHAPTER XIX.

ENGLAND DURING THE LATTER YEARS OF EDWARD III.

Never was Edward’s glory so high as in the years immediately succeeding the treaty of Calais.  The unspeakable misery of France heightened his magnificence by the strength of the contrast.  At eight-and-forty he retained the vigour and energy of his younger days, though surrounded by a band of grown-up sons.  In 1362 the king celebrated his jubilee, or his fiftieth birthday, amidst feasts of unexampled splendour.  Not less magnificent were the festivities that attended the visits of the three kings, of France, Cyprus, and Scotland, in 1364.

Of the glories of these years we have detailed accounts from an eye-witness a writer competent, above all other men of his time, to set down in courtly and happy phrase the wonders that delighted his eyes.  In 1361, John Froissart, an adventurous young clerk from Valenciennes, sought out a career for himself in the household of his countrywoman, Queen Philippa, bearing with him as his credentials a draft of a verse chronicle which was his first attempt at historical composition.  He came to England at the right moment.  The older generation of historians had laid down their pens towards the conclusion of the great war, and had left no worthy successors.  The new-comer was soon to surpass them, not in precision and sobriety, but in wealth of detail, in literary charm, and in genial appreciation of the externals of his age.  He recorded with an eye-witness’s precision of colour, though with utter indifference to exactness, the tournaments and fetes, the banquets and the largesses of the noble lords and ladies of the most brilliant court in Christendom.  He celebrated the courtesy of the knightly class, their devotion to their word of honour, the liberality with which captive foreigners was allowed to share in their sports and pleasures, and the implicit loyalty with which nearly all the many captive knights repaid the trust placed on their word.  To him Edward was the most glorious of kings, and Philippa, his patroness, the most beautiful, liberal, pious, and charitable