hour.  Then Philip challenged the enemy to a pitched battle, and four knights on each side were appointed to select the place of combat.  The French, however, were of no mind to risk another Crecy, and on the morning of July 31 the smoke of their burning camp told the English that once more Philip had shrunk from a meeting.  Then at last the garrison opened its gates on August 3, 1347.  The defenders were treated chivalrously by the victor, who admired their courage and endurance.  But the mass of the population were removed from their homes, and numerous grants of houses and property made to Englishmen.  Edward resolved to make his conquest an English town, and, from that time onwards, it became the fortress through which an English army might at any time be poured into France, and the warehouse from which the spinners and weavers of Flanders were to draw their supplies of raw wool.  For more than two hundred years, English Calais retained all its military and most of its commercial importance.  Later conquests enabled a ring of forts to be erected round it which strengthened its natural advantages.

Crecy, Neville’s Cross, Aiguillon, and Calais did not exhaust the glories of this strenuous time.  The war of the Breton succession, which Northampton had waged since 1345, was continued in 1346 by Thomas Dagworth, a knight appointed as his lieutenant on his withdrawal to join the army of Crecy and Calais.  The Montfort star was still in the ascendant, and even the hereditary dominions of Joan of Penthievre were assailed.  An English garrison was established at La Roche Derien, situated some four miles higher up the river Jaudy than the little open episcopal city of Treguier, and communicating by the river with the sea and with England.  So troublesome did Montfort’s garrison at La Roche become to the vassals of Penthievre, that in the summer of 1347 Charles of Blois collected an army, wherein nearly all the greatest feudal houses of Brittany were strongly represented, and sat down before La Roche.  Dagworth, one of the ablest of English soldiers, was at Carhaix, in the heart of the central uplands, when he heard of the danger of the single English post within the lands of Penthievre.  He at once hurried northwards, and on the night of June 19 rested at the abbey of Begard, about ten miles to the south of La Roche.  From Begard two roads led to La Roche, one on each bank of the Jaudy.  Thinking that Dagworth would pursue the shorter road on the left bank, Charles of Blois stationed a portion of his army at some distance from La Roche on that side of the Jaudy, while the rest remained with himself on the right bank before the walls of the town.  Dagworth, however, chose the longer route, and before daybreak, on the morning of June 20, fell suddenly upon Charles.  A fierce fight in the dark was ended after dawn in favour of Montfort by a timely sally of the beleaguered garrison.  In the confusion Charles forgot to recall the division uselessly stationed beyond the Jaudy, and this error completed his ruin.  Charles fought like a hero, and, after receiving seventeen wounds, yielded up his sword to a Breton lord rather than to the English commander.  When his wounds were healed, Charles was sent to London, where he joined David of Scotland, the Count of Eu, and the Lord of Tancarville.  It looked as if Montfort’s triumph was secured.