In 1373 an English army landed at Calais, under the command of the Duke of Lancaster, and overran nearly the whole of France, being incessantly harassed, however, without ever being attacked in force, and without mastering a single fortress.

"Let them be," was the saying in the king's circle; "when a storm bursts out in a country, it leaves off afterwards and disperses of itself; and so it will be with these English." The sufferings and reverses of the English armies on this expedition were such, that, of thirty thousand horses which the English had landed at Calais, "they could not muster more than six thousand at Bordeaux, and had lost full a third of their men and more.

There were seen noble knights, who had great possessions in their own country, toiling along a-foot, without armor, and begging their bread from door to door without getting any." In vain did Edward III.

treat with the Duke of Brittany and the King of Navarre in order to have their support in this war.

The Duke of Brittany, John IV., after having openly defied the King of France, his suzerain, was obliged to fly to England, and the King of Navarre entered upon negotiations alternately with Edward III.