The most famous episode of these years was a naval battle fought off Winchelsea on August 29, 1350, against a strong fleet of Spanish privateers commanded by Charles of La Cerda.  The Spaniards having plundered English wine ships, Edward summoned a fleet to meet them, and himself went on board, along with the Prince of Wales, Lancaster, and many of his chief nobles.  The fight that ensued was remarkable not more for the reckless valour of the king and his nobles than for the dexterity of the English tactics.  The great busses of Spain towered above the little English vessels, like castles over cottages.  Yet the English did not hesitate to grapple their adversaries’ craft and swarm up their sides on to the decks.  Edward captured one of the chief of the Spanish ships, though his own vessel, the Cog Thomas, was so severely damaged that it had to be hastily abandoned for its prize.  The glory of the victory of the “Spaniards on the sea” kept up the fame first won at Sluys.

In these years of truce first appeared the worst scourge of the war, bands of mercenary soldiers, fighting on their own account and recklessly devastating the regions which they chose to visit.  The cry for peace rose higher than ever.  Innocent VI., who succeeded Clement VI. in 1352, took up with great energy the papal policy of mediation.  Thanks to his legates’ good offices, preliminary articles of peace were actually agreed upon on April 6, 1354, at Guines.  By them Edward agreed to renounce his claim to the French throne if he were granted full sovereignly over Guienne, Ponthieu, Artois, and Guines.  When the chamberlain, Burghersh, laid before parliament, which was then sitting, the prospect of peace, “the commons with one accord replied that, whatever course the king and the magnates should take as regards the said treaty, was agreeable to them.  On this reply the chamberlain said to the commons:  ’Then you wish to agree to a perpetual treaty of peace, if one can be had?’ And the said commons answered unanimously, ’Yea, yea’."[1] Vexatious delays, however, supervened, and at last the negotiations broke down hopelessly.  The French refused to surrender their over-lordship over the ceded provinces, and the Easter parliament of 1355 agreed with the king that war must be renewed.  Two years of war were to follow more fierce than even the struggles which had culminated in Crecy, La Roche, and Calais.

    [1] Rot.  Pad., ii., 262.

Two expeditions were organised to invade France in the summer of 1355, one for Aquitaine under the Prince of Wales,[1] and the other for Normandy under Lancaster.  Westerly winds long prevented their despatch.  It was not until September that the Prince of Wales reached Bordeaux.  The change of wind, which bore the prince to Gascony, enabled the host, collected by the King and Lancaster on the Thames, to make its way to Normandy.  But the special reason which brought the English thither was already gone.