released under the title of Sir David, King
of Scotland, and by his engaging to pay a
large ransom. The state of France encouraged
England to propose harder terms to that
country, where the people rose against the
unspeakable cruelty and barbarity of its
nobles; where the nobles rose in their turn
against the people; where the most frightful
outrages were committed on all sides; and
where this insurrection of the peasants, called
the insurrection of the Jacquerie, from
Jacques, a common Christian name among the
country people of France, awakened terrors
and hatreds that have scarcely yet passed
away. A treaty called the Great Peace, was
at last signed, under which King Edward
agreed to give up the greater part of his
conquests, and King John to pay, within six
years, a ransom of three million crowns of
gold. He was so beset by his own nobles
and courtiers for having yielded to these
conditions—though they could help him to no
better—that he came back of his own will to
his old palace-prison of the Savoy, and there
died.

There was a Sovereign of Castile at that
time, called PEDRO THE CRUEL, who deserved
the name remarkably well: having committed,
among other cruelties, a variety of murders.
This amiable monarch being driven from his
throne for his crimes, went to the province of
Bourdeaux, where the Black Prince—now
married to his cousin JOAN, a pretty widow
—was residing, and besought his help. The
Prince, who took to him much more kindly
than a prince of such fame ought to have taken
to such a ruffian, readily listened to his fair
promises, and, agreeing to help him, sent
secret orders to some troublesome disbanded
soldiers of his and his father's, who called
themselves the Free Companions, and who
had been a pest to the French people for some
time, to aid this Pedro. The Prince, himself,
going into Spain to head the army of relief,
soon set Pedro on his throne again—where
he no sooner found himself, than, of course,
he behaved like the villain he was, broke his
word without the least shame, and abandoned
all the promises he had made to the Black
Prince. Now, it had cost the Prince a good
deal of money to pay soldiers to support this
murderous King; and finding himself, when
he came back disgusted to Bourdeaux, not
only in bad health, but deeply in debt, he
began to tax his French subjects to pay his
creditors. They appealed to the French King,
CHARLES; war again broke out; and the
French town of Limoges, which the Prince
had greatly benefited, went over to the French
King. Upon this he ravaged the province of
which it was the capital; burnt, and plundered,
and killed, in the old sickening way; and
refused mercy to the prisoners, men, women,
and children taken in the offending town,
though he was so ill and so much in need of
pity himself from Heaven, that he was carried
in a litter. He lived to come home and make
himself popular with the people and
parliament, and he died on Trinity Sunday, the
eighth of June, one thousand three hundred
and seventy-six, at forty-six years old.

The whole nation mourned for him as one
of the most renowned and beloved princes
it had ever had; and he was buried with
great lamentations in Canterbury Cathedral.
Near to the tomb of Edward the Confessor,
his monument, with his figure, carved in stone,
and represented in the old black armour,
lying on its back, may be seen at this day,
with an ancient coat of mail, a helmet, and a
pair of gauntlets hanging from a beam above
it, which most people like to believe were
once worn by the Black Prince.

King Edward did not outlive his renowned
son, long. He was old, and one Alice Perrers,
a beautiful lady, had contrived to make him
so fond of her in his old age, that he could
refuse her nothing, and made himself ridiculous.
She little deserved his love, or—what I dare
say she valued a great deal more—the jewels
of the late Queen, which he gave her among
other rich presents. She took the very ring
from his finger on the morning of the day
when he died, and left him to be pillaged by
his faithless servants. Only one good priest
was true to him, and attended him to the
last.

Besides being famous for the great victories
I have related, the reign of King Edward the
Third was rendered memorable in better
ways, by the growth of architecture and the
erection of Windsor Castle. In better ways
still, by the rising up of WICKLIFFE, originally
a poor parish priest: who devoted himself to
exposing, with wonderful power and success,
the ambition and corruption of the Pope, and
of the whole church of which he was the
head.

Some of those Flemings were induced to
come to England in this reign too, and to
settle in Norfolk, where they made better
woollen cloths than the English had ever had
before. The Order of the Garter (a very fine
thing in its way, but hardly so important
as good clothes for the nation) also dates from
this period. The King is said to have picked
up a lady's garter at a ball, and to have said,
Honi soit qui mal y pense—in English, "Evil
be to him who evil thinks of it." The courtiers
were usually glad to imitate what the King
said or did, and hence from a slight incident
the Order of the Garter was instituted. and
became a great dignity.

Now Ready, Price 3s. 6d.,
THE FIRST VOLUME OF
A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND.
BY CHARLES DICKENS.
To be completed in three Volumes, of the same size and price.
Collected and revised from "Household Words,"
With a Table of Dates.
BRADBURY AND EVANS, 11, BOUVERIE STREET.