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in fact no league with Scotland . On the contrary, fighting had continued sporadically along the border from soon after Ban nockburn until in 1328, with the marriage of Bruce's four-year-old son David - soon to be King David II of Scotland - to Edward's sister Joanna, a truce had been declared - only to be broken by the Scots when they captured Berwick in 1332. Newcastle, on the other hand, did not fall to them until 1341 — the date when, according to Froissart, 3 Sir William Montague appealed to the King for help. But to attach any serious importance to these inaccuracies is to miss the point. The dramatist is not interested in historical exactitude; he is concerned only to set the general scene of almost continuous warfare along the Scottish
The editor of the New Cambridge edition charitably maintains that 'the existence of Philip VI is deliberately ignored in order to present a single royal French counterpart to Edward in the campaign that lasted from 1337 to 1356.'
There seems also to have been some confusion in the identity of Montague, but it need not concern us here.
Jean Froissart, the greatest prose writer of his day, was born at Valenciennes in the county of Hainault around 1337 and was brought to England by Queen Philippa in 1361 as one of her household clerks, remaining there until her death eight years later, though making frequent trips to the continent. He was at the Black Prince's court at Bordeaux when Richard was born there in 1367. His chronicle - which includes long extracts from that of an earlier compatriot, Jean Le Bel - covers the period from 1322 to the end of the century.
    border, and of the consequent danger to Edward's subjects throughout the north, rich and poor alike.
    Edward thus finds that he has two enemies to fight; of the two, however, he has no doubt that the King of France is by far the more formidable. Against him he orders his eldest son, Edward - whom he calls 'Ned' 1 - to raise a mighty army from every shire in the land, simultaneously arranging for appeals to be made to his father-in-law the Count of Hainault and even to the Holy Roman Emperor, Lewis IV. While such preparations are in train, 'with these forces that I have at hand', he proposes to march against King David, liberating Lady Salisbury from the castle in which she is besieged - and on the battlements of which we find her at the opening of scene ii.
    The identity of this lady is not so much a mystery as the result of a chaotic confusion on the part of Froissart and other less trustworthy sources. 2 She is probably based on Alice Montague, whose husband Edward was governor of the Earl of Salisbury's castle of Wark and whom the King is known to have tried, unsuccessfully, to seduce; but once again it hardly matters. Her eavesdropping on King David and the Duke of Lorraine, as they walk the ramparts below discussing the devastation that they will wreak on England, enables her to taunt them when they flee at the news of Edward's advance; her real purpose, however, is to provide the play with a love interest and to show us the King as a lover as well as a man of action. This theme is continued throughout the long first scene of Act II. It includes much fine poetry and introduces an interesting moral dilemma when the Countess's father, the Earl of Warwick - who is no more a historical character than she is herself- is commanded by the King to persuade his daughter to yield:
    I'll say, she must forget her husband Salisbury, If she remember to embrace the king; I'll say, an oath can easily be broken, But not so easily pardoned, being broken; I'll say, it is true charity to love, But not true love to be so charitable;
Edward, the Black Prince, was seven years old in 1337.
It is discussed at length in the New Cambridge edition, p. 186.
    I'll say, his greatness may bear out the shame, But not his kingdom can buy out the sin; I'll say, it is my duty to persuade, But not her honesty to give consent.
    But these two scenes - together