Free Shakespeare's Kings by John Julius Norwich

country.
    When the two Kings met at Calais in October, however, Edward insisted that he would make his renunciations only after the transfer to him of all the lands ceded at Bretigny, with a proviso that this should be complete by i November 1361. It was a deeply disingenuous stipulation, and both sides knew it. Such transfers were long and complicated; they could not possibly be completed in a single year. The fact of the matter was that Edward was determined to leave his options open. He willingly agreed to easier terms for the payment of the ransom but, as things turned out, it would have been better had the money not been paid at all. In the summer of 1363 one of the hostages, John's second son, the Duke of Anjou, broke his parole and fled. His father, horrified, declared his intention of returning immediately to London. His advisers did everything they could to dissuade him, but he remained firm. 'If good faith and honour are to be banished from the rest of the world,' he is quoted as saying, 'they should still be found in the hearts and words of princes.' He left Paris the week after Christmas, crossed the Channel in midwinter, and arrived in January 1364. Four months later he was dead, 'of an unknown illness'. Edward ordered him a magnificent funeral service at St Paul's before returning the body to France, where it was buried at Saint-Denis.
    Let us return now to our play. The first scene of Act IV of Edward III introduces Lord Mountford, in conversation with the Earl of Salisbury. Mountford is, more properly, that Jean IV de Montfort who in 1341 claimed the dukedom of Brittany - which had been assigned to the nephew of Philip VI - and did homage for it to Edward III. Unfortunately he was captured in the same year and ended his life as a prisoner in the Louvre; but in the play he has been restored to the dukedom, and his presence therefore suggests that this short scene is set in Brittany. The incident which follows, on the other hand, in which Salisbury persuades one of his French prisoners to obtain for him a letter of safe conduct so that he may join the King at Calais, is inspired by a similar story in Froissart involving not Salisbury but another of Edward's knights, Sir Walter Manny, who had been at the siege of Aiguillon, ridden across France and, as we have seen, had arrived at Calais in time for its submission. Thus, to include it in his play, the dramatist has changed both the location of the incident and its subject. He has also given the prisoner - unidentified in Froissart - the invented name of Villiers.
    Scene ii brings us to the walls of besieged Calais, immediately after King Philip's departure. It seems a little odd that Edward in his opening speech should order the siege to begin, since in fact it had already been in progress for almost a year — as is immediately indicated by the appearance of six poor men - representatives, presumably, of Froissart's 1,700 - who, having explained the reasons for their distress, are given money by Edward. There follows a brief interruption by Lord Percy, who enters with two pieces of good news: the first that King David of Scotland has been captured; the second that Queen Philippa, though heavily pregnant, is on her way. Edward then announces - personally, rather than through Sir Walter Manny - his conditions for sparing the people of Calais, giving them two days in which to comply.
    Since the story of the six burghers can clearly not be completed without the presence of Philippa, we might have expected some minor telescoping of time to allow for her immediate arrival in the following scene; scene iii, however, comes as a considerable surprise, involving as it does by far the greatest chronological liberty taken in the entire play. It divides naturally into two parts: the first, which must follow shortly after scene i with Salisbury and Mountford, continues the story of Salisbury's letter of safe conduct, with Villiers requesting it from Charles of Normandy. 1