We will now return to Philip of Valois and Edward III., and to the struggle between them for a settlement of the question whether France should or should not preserve its own independent kingship, and that national unity of which she already had the name, but of which she was still to undergo so much painful travail in acquiring the reality.
Although Edward III.

by supporting with troops and officers, and sometimes even in person, the cause of the Countess of Montfort, and Philip of Valois by assisting in the same way Charles of Blois and Joan of Penthievre, took a very active, if indirect, share in the war in Brittany, the two kings persisted in not calling themselves at war; and when either of them proceeded to acts of unquestionable hostility, they eluded the consequences of them by hastily concluding truces incessantly violated and as incessantly renewed.

They had made use of this expedient in 1340; and they had recourse to it again in 1342, 1343, and 1344.

The last of these truces was to have lasted up to 1346; but, in the spring of 1345, Edward resolved to put an end to this equivocal position, and to openly recommence war.

He announced his intention to Pope Clement IV., to his own lieutenants in Brittany, and to all the cities and corporations of his kingdom.