advances.  At last, on January 19, 1343, a truce for nearly four years was signed at Malestroit, midway between Ploermel and Vannes, “in reverence of mother church, for the honour of the cardinals, and that the parties shall be able to declare their reasons before the pope, not for the purpose of rendering a judicial decision, but in order to make a better peace and treaty”.  Scotland and the Netherlands were included in the truce, and it was agreed that each belligerent should continue in the enjoyment of the territories which he held at the moment.  Vannes, the immediate apple of discord, was put into the hands of the pope.

The spring of 1343 saw Edward back in England.  The scene of interest shifted to the papal court at Avignon, where ambassadors from Edward and Philip appeared to declare their masters’ rights.  The protracted negotiations were lacking in reality.  The English, distrusting Clement as a French partisan, did their best to complicate the situation by complaints against papal provisions in favour of aliens “not having knowledge of the tongue nor condition of those whose governance and care should belong to them”.  English indignation rose higher when, despite the terms of the truce and the promise of the cardinals, Montfort remained immured in his French prison, while Breton nobles of his faction were kidnapped and put to death by Philip.  Clement declared himself against Edward’s claims to the French throne, and, long before the negotiations had reached a formal conclusion, it was clear that nothing would come of them.  At last in 1345 the English King denounced the truce and prepared to renew the war.  His first concern was, necessarily finance, and he had already exhausted all his resources as a borrower.  The financial difficulties, which had stayed his career in the Netherlands five years before, had reached their culmination.  Stratford was avenged for the outrages of 1340, for Edward was in worse embarrassments than on that winter night when the glare of torches illuminated the sovereign’s sudden return to the Tower.  The king’s Netherlandish, Rhenish, and Italian creditors would trust him no longer and vainly clamoured for the repayment of their advances.  “We grieve,” he was forced to reply to the Cologne magistrates, “nay, we blush, that we are unable to meet our obligations at the due time.”  Edward’s anxiety to prepare for fresh campaigns made him careless as to his former obligations.  His wholesale neglect to repay his debts drove the great banking houses of the Bardi and the Peruzzi into bankruptcy, and the failure of the English king’s creditors plunged all Florence into deep distress.  One good result came from the king’s dishonour.  The foreign sources of supply having dried up, Edward was forced to lean more exclusively upon his English subjects.  A wealthy family of Hull merchants, recently transferred to London, became very flourishing.  Its head, William de la Pole, who had financed every government scheme since the days of Mortimer, became