courts.  The ineptitude which characterised all Edward’s subordinates was particularly conspicuous among his Gascon seneschals and their subordinates.  While the English king’s servants drifted on from day to day, timid, without policy, and without direction, the agents of France, well trained, energetic, and determined, knew their own minds and gradually brought about the end which they had clearly set before themselves.  In vain did bitter complaints arise of the aggressions of the officers of Philip.  It was to no purpose that conferences were held, protocols drawn up, and much time and ink wasted in discussing trivialities.  Neither Edward nor Philip wished to push matters to extremities.  To the former the policy of drift was always congenial.  The latter was content to wait until the pear was ripe.  It seemed that in a few more years Gascony would become as thoroughly subject to the French crown as Champagne or Normandy.

Philip the Fair died in 1314, and was followed in rapid succession by his three sons.  The first of these, Louis X., had, like Edward II., to contend against an aristocratic reaction, and died in 1316, before he could even receive the homage of his brother-in-law.  A king of more energy than Edward might have profited by the difficult situation which followed Louis’ death.  For a time there was neither pope, nor emperor, nor King of France.  But Philip V. mounted the French throne when his brother’s widow had given birth to a daughter, and continued the policy of his predecessors with regard to Gascony.  Again the disputes between Norman and Gascon sailors threatened, as in 1293, to bring about a rupture.  The ever-increasing aggressions of the suzerain culminated in summoning Edward’s own seneschal of Saintonge to appear before the French king’s court.  Edward neglected to do homage, alleging his preoccupation in the Scottish war and similar excuses.  But the threatened danger soon passed away, for again the interests and fears of both parties postponed the conflict.  In avoiding any alliance with the Scots, the French king showed a self-restraint for which Edward could not but be grateful.  In 1320 Edward performed in person his long-delayed homage at Amiens, though his grievances against his brother-in-law still remained unredressed.  In 1322 the death of Philip V. renewed the troublesome homage question in a more acute form.[1]

    [1] For the relations of Edward II. and Philip V. see Lehugeur,
    Hist. de Philippe le Long, pp. 240-66 (1897).

The obligation of performing homage to a rival prince weighed with increasing severity on the English kings at each rapid change of occupants of the throne of France.  The same pretexts were again brought forward, as sufficient reasons for postponing or evading the unpleasant duly.  But before the question was settled a new source of trouble arose in the affair of Saint-Sardos, which soon plunged the two countries into open war.  The lord of Montpezat, a vassal