and Charles V., being always ready to betray either, according to what suited his interests at the moment.

Tired of so many ineffectual efforts, Edward III.

was twice obliged, between 1375 and 1377, to conclude with Charles V.a truce, just to give the two peoples, as well as the two kings, breathing-time; but the truces were as vain as the petty combats for the purpose of putting an end to this great struggle.
The great actors in this historical drama did not know how near were the days when they would be called away from this arena, still so crowded with their exploits or their reverses.

A few weeks after the massacre of Limoges the Prince of Wales lost, at Bordeaux, his eldest son, six years old, whom he loved with all the tenderness of a veteran warrior, so much the more affected by gentle impressions as they were a rarity to him; and he was himself so ill that "his doctors advised him to return to England, his own land, saying that he would probably get better health there." Accordingly he left France, which he would never see again, and, on returning to England, he, after a few months' rest in the country, took an active part in Parliament in the home-policy of his country, and supported the opposition against the government of his father, who since the death of the queen, Philippa of Hainault, had been treating England to the spectacle of a scandalous old age closing a life of glory.
Parliamentary contests soon exhausted the remaining strength of the Black Prince, and he died on the 8th of June, 1376, in possession of a popularity that never shifted, and was deserved by such qualities as showed a nature great indeed and generous, though often sullied by the fits of passion of a character harsh even to ferocity.

"The good fortune of England," says his contemporary Walsingham, "seemed bound up with his person, for it flourished when he was well, fell off when he was ill, and vanished at his death.