of the Duke of Gascony, built a bastide at Saint-Sardos upon a site which he declared was held by himself of the duke, but which the French officials claimed as belonging to Charles IV.  The dispute was taken before the parliament of Paris, which decided that the new town belonged to the King of France.  Thereupon a royal force promptly took possession of it.  Irritated at this high-handed action, the lord of Montpezat invoked the aid of Edward’s seneschal of Gascony, who attacked and destroyed the bastide and massacred the French garrison.[1] The answer of Charles the Fair to this aggression was decisive.  Gascony was pronounced sequestrated and Charles of Valois, the veteran uncle of the king, was ordered to enforce the sentence at the head of an imposing army.

[1] See for this affair Brequigny, Memoire sur les differends entre la France et l’Angleterre sous Charles le Bel, in Mem. de l’Acad. des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, xli. (1780), pp. 641-92.  M. Deprez is about to publish a Chancery Roll of Edward II. which includes all the official acts relating to it.

Thus, in the summer of 1324 England and France were once more at war.  But while England remonstrated and negotiated, France acted.  Norman corsairs swept the Channel and pillaged the English coasts.  Ponthieu yielded without resistance.  Early in August, Charles of Valois entered the Agenais, and on the 15th Agen opened its gates.  The victorious French soon appeared before La Reole, where alone they encountered real resistance.  Edmund, Earl of Kent, who had made vain attempts to procure peace at Paris, had been sent in July to act as lieutenant of Aquitaine.  He had not sufficient force at his command to venture to meet the Count of Valois in the open field, and threw himself into La Reole.  The rocky height, crowned with a triple wall, and looking down on the vineyards and cornfields of the Garonne, defied for weeks the skill of the eminent Lorrainer engineers who directed Charles of Valois’ siege train.  But when Charles announced to Edmund that he would carry the town by assault, if not surrendered within four days, the timid earl signed a truce from September to Easter, and was allowed to withdraw to Bordeaux.  A mere fringe of coast-land still remained faithful to the English duke, when Charles of Valois went back to Paris, having victoriously terminated his long and chequered career.  Before the end of 1325 he died.[1]

    [1] Petit, Charles de Valois, pp. 207-15 (1900), gives the
    fullest modern account of these transactions.

The truce involved a renewal of the negotiations.  Bishop Stratford and William Ayermine, the astute chancery clerk, were commissioned in November, 1324, to treat with the French, but made little progress in their delicate task.  At this stage Isabella, inspired probably by Adam Orleton, came forward with a proposal.  She besought her husband to allow her to visit her brother, the French king, and use