First Treaty of London

In exchange for peace, France was to transfer to England more than a quarter of its territory; while Edward would give up his claim to the French throne.

The first instalment of the ransom – 600,000 écus (£100,000) – was due to be paid on 1 November, but with the French government collapsing into insurrection and anarchy it proved impossible to raise it.

By the first quarter of the fourteenth century, the only significant French possession still held by the English in France was Gascony in the south west.

[2][3] After ten years of fierce but sporadic fighting the Truce of Calais was signed in September 1347,[4] partially as a result of both countries being financially exhausted.

[13][14] In April 1355 Edward III and his council, with the treasury in an unusually favourable financial position, decided to launch offensives that year in both northern France and Gascony.

[15][16] John attempted to strongly garrison his northern towns and fortifications against the expected descent by Edward III, at the same time as assembling a field army; he was unable to, largely because of a lack of money.

An Anglo-Gascon force marched from Bordeaux 300 miles (480 km) to Narbonne – almost on the Mediterranean coast and deep inside France – and back to Gascony.

This time 6,000 Anglo-Gascon soldiers headed north from Bergerac towards Bourges, as before leaving a trail of death and burning French towns on the way.

The French succeeded in cutting off the Prince's army, and attacked it in its prepared defensive position, partly from fear it might slip away, but mostly as a question of honour.

Also in February, the French national assembly, the Estates General, fearing what John might agree to, attempted to prohibit him from negotiating with Edward.

[34] By early 1358 the English and French negotiators had agreed that John's personal ransom would be the huge amount of 4 million écus.

[35][36] Nearly all of this was in the south west – Aquitaine, Saintonge, Poitou, Angoumois, Périgord, Agenais, Limousin, Rouergue, Quercy, Bigorre, Gaure – but also included Ponthieu, Montreuil, the Pale of Calais, and parts of Normandy.

Almost all of the senior nobility of France were to be held in England as hostages for compliance with the terms of the treaty, along with two of the more important burghers from each of 20 principal French towns.

[41] French opinion was strongly against the treaty from the start,[42] and between its sealing and the date on which the first tranche of John's ransom was due the calamitous situation in France grew worse.

An unaffiliated army of unemployed soldiers and freebooters, known as routiers, cut a swath of destruction through the Seine valley; Charles of Navarre, backed by armed force, continued to manoeuvre to seize the French throne; a savage peasant uprising, the Jacquerie, broke out against the established order; the Dauphin had to leave Paris, he returned in July and laid siege to the city.

This ended the Anglo-Scottish war, fudging the issue of English suzerainty and freeing the captured Scottish king, David II for a ransom of £67,000, to be paid in instalments over ten years.

[52] Both countries were finding it almost impossible to finance continued hostilities, but neither was inclined to change their attitude to the proposed peace terms.

On 13 April 1360, near Chartres, a sharp fall in temperature and a heavy hail storm killed many English baggage horses and some soldiers.