passage, the flotilla reached Sandwich on May 4th.[1] On May 23rd, a truce was concluded to last until Easter, 1359.[2]
Preparations with a view to the termination of this truce were made towards the end of 1358. The admirals, Lord Morley and ,Sir Guy Bryan, were directed on December 8th to impress ships and barges, and to see that they were at Sandwich by the following Palm Sunday in readiness for the King's passage across the Channel.[3] But Edward's sailing was postponed, and in June, 1359, fresh orders were sent out, pointing to a departure in July, vessels being then obtained from Sluis, Gravelines, and Dunquerque, as well as from the English ports.[4] The King did not actually sail from Sandwich until October 28th. He weighed early in the morning in a ship called the Philip, of Dartmouth. and landed at Calais at about four in the afternoon, accompanied by one of the largest armies that ever quitted England, and publicly professing his intention never to return until he had ended the war by a satisfactory and honourable peace or had died in the attempt.[5]
The new campaign in France was little more than a triumphant military promenade. Edward had, unfortunately, no right to treat himself to the luxury of this progress. At sea he had been more successful than any previous English sovereign. There can be no reasonable doubt that he understood all that the maintenance of the dominion of the sea meant to his island realms, and it is absolutely certain that with the men and the material at his command, he might, had he listened to the counsels of sense and prudence, instead of to the promptings of blind ambition and immoderate love of empty glory, have completely crushed the French at sea, and rendered them impotent on that element until the last days of his reign. But his delight in pageantry and display got the better of him. The conclusive processes of naval warfare were too slow, too dull, and too monotonous to suit his hasty spirit. He had the dash of a Cochrane, but he lacked the steadfast and single-minded application of a Nelson, or a Collingwood. And so, after covering himself with quickly acquired glory at Sluis and Winchelsea, he neglected his navy to submit to the seductions of military spectacle. It was a strange and disgraceful infatuation.
