Chaucer's Mission to Florence in i^'j2 41 



falling into premature and dishonored senility, having less than 

 five years more to live ; after Crecy and Poitiers, after the naval 

 exploits of Sluys and Espagnols-sur-Mer, England was fallen 

 upon evil days, and encountering reverses on every hand: the 

 Black Prince had come home to die ; Guienne was practically 

 lost; and John of Gaunt, who w^as now working his will with 

 the kingdom and the King.-'^ Whether he was successful or not, 

 cessful. Edward knew not where to betake himself for the 

 indispensable funds, become more indispensable than ever, now 

 that the shadows of the fifth act of his dramatic life w^ere thicken- 

 ing round him, and the skill and indomitable perseverance of 

 Charles V were at length proving more than a match for the 

 brilliant impetuosity which signalized the Edwardian house. The 

 Commons were beginning to grumble, to contrast the present 

 plight of the kingdom with its glory twenty years earlier^- ; and, 

 worst of all, they were more and more loath to appropriate the 

 heavy sums repeatedly called for. Edward engaged a Genoese 

 fleet, ^^ and appointed a Genoese captain, but where was he to 



^' Cf. Nicolas 2. 148-9: 'Parliament met on the 3rd of November [1372], 

 and the state of the Navy received immediate attention. After the Com- 

 mons had granted another subsidy for its support, they represented that 

 "twenty years since, and always before that time, the navy of the realm 

 was so noble and so plentiful in all ports, maritime towns, and those on 

 rivers, that the whole country deemed and called our Lord King of the 

 Sea, and he and all his country were the more dreaded both by sea and 

 land on account of the said navy. And now it was so decreased and 

 weakened from diverse causes that there was hardly sufficient to defend 

 the country in case of need against royal power, whence there was great 

 danger to the realm, the causes of which were too long to write." ' 



" Nothing came of this, apparently. The skill of Pietro Fregoso was 

 required in another quarter, with rewards far beyond any that Edward 

 was prepared to ofifer, and no doubt the proposed mariners and galleys 

 were requisitioned for the Genoese adventure in Cyprus. Historians 

 continue to say diat the Genoese fleet was on the spot, or actually employed 

 in the English service (Nicolas, 2. 149; Ronciere, Hist, de la Marine Fr. 

 2. 23), but I see no proof of this, and the contract for a year with 

 Gregorio Usodimare and Oberto Gay on Jan. 8-9, 1373 (Rymer) seems 

 a clear indication to the contrary. The 50 crossbow-men and 50 sailors 

 called for by this contract were not nearly enough to man a single galley 

 (each galley of the Genoese fleet engaged by the French in 1337 was to 

 carry 210 men, according to Ronciere i. 411, note 3; according to Nicolas 

 2. 225, these consisted of 180 rowers and 30 crossbow-men, the latter to 



