The truth is that, in spite of the truce still existing, the English, since the accession of King John, had at several points resumed hostilities.  The disorders and dissensions to which France was a prey, the presumptuous and hare-brained incapacity of her new king, were, for so ambitious and able a prince as Edward III., very strong temptations.  Nor did opportunities for attack, and chances of success, fail him any more than temptations.  He found in France, amongst the grandees of the kingdom, and even at the king’s court, men disposed to desert the cause of the king and of France to serve a prince who had more capacity, and who pretended to claim the crown of France as his lawful right.  The feudal system lent itself to ambiguous questions and doubts of conscience:  a lord who had two suzerains, and who, rightly or wrongly, believed that he had cause of complaint against one of them, was justified in serving that one who could and would protect him.  Personal interest and subtle disputes soon make traitors; and Edward had the ability to discover them and win them over.  The alternate outbursts and weaknesses of John in the case of those whom he suspected; the snares he laid for them; the precipitancy and cruel violence with which he struck them down, without form of trial, and almost with his own hand, forbid history to receive his suspicious and his forcible proceedings as any kind of proof; but amongst those whom he accused there were undoubtedly traitors to the king and to France.  There is one about whom there can be no doubt at all.  As early as 1351, amidst all his embroilments and all his reconciliations with his father-in-law, Charles the Bad, King of Navarre, had concluded with Edward III. a secret treaty, whereby, in exchange for promises he received, he recognized his title as King of France.  In 1355 his treason burst forth.  The King of Navarre, who had gone for refuge to Avignon, under the protection of Pope Clement VI., crossed France by English Aquitaine, and went and landed at Cherbourg, which he had an idea of throwing open to the King of England.  He once more entered into communications with King John, once more obtained forgiveness from him, and for a while appeared detached from his English alliance.  But Edward III. had openly resumed his hostile attitude; and he demanded that Aquitaine and the courtship of Ponthieu, detached from the kingdom of France, should be ceded to him in full sovereignty, and that Brittany should become all but independent.  John haughtily rejected these pretensions, which were merely a pretext for recommencing war.  And it recommenced accordingly, and the King of Navarre resumed his course of perfidy.  He had lands and castles in Normandy, which John put under sequestration, and ordered the officers commanding in them to deliver up to him.  Six of them, the commandants of the castles of Cherbourg and Evreux, amongst others, refused, believing, no doubt, that in betraying France and her king, they were remaining faithful to their own lord.