The last seven years of Edward's reign (1370-77) were full of disasters abroad and discontent at home. In France the successors of the Black Prince proved utterly unable to maintain their grasp on Aquitaine. Town by town and castle by castle, all the districts that had been won by the treaty of Bretigny passed into the hands of King Charles V. His skilful general Bertrand du Guesclin won his way to success without risking a single pitched battle with the invincible English archery. When John of Gaunt took a great host over to Calais in 1373, the French retired before him by their king's order, and shut themselves up behind stone walls, after sweeping the country bare of provisions. The Duke of Lancaster marched up to the gates of Paris, and then all through Central France down to Bordeaux; but, though he did much damage to the open country, he could not halt to besiege any great town for want of food, and finally reached Guienne with an army half-starved and woefully reduced in numbers. Before King Edward was in his grave his dominions in France had shrunk to a district far smaller than he had held before the "Hundred Years' War" had commenced. Nothing was left save the ports of Bordeaux and Bayonne, with the strip of Gascon coast between them; in the north, however, the all-important fortress of Calais was firmly and successfully maintained. [Sidenote: =Discontent and intrigue in England.--The Lollards.=] Meanwhile there was bitter strife in Parliament at home, for ill success without always brings on discontent within. John of Gaunt, since he was known to sway his father's councils, was forced to bear the brunt of the popular displeasure. It was he who was considered responsible for the misconduct of the French war, the peculations of the king's favourites, and the demands of the crown for increased taxation. The party opposed to him in Parliament counted as its head the good bishop William of Wykeham, who had been Chancellor from 1367 to 1371, and had been driven from office by Lancaster's command. He was supported by the clergy, and by most of the "knights of the shires," who formed the more important half of the House of Commons. It was probably the fact that the clergy were unanimously set against him that led John of Gaunt to seek allies for himself by giving countenance to an attack on the Church, which was just then beginning to develop. This was the anti-papal movement of the _Lollards_, or Wicliffites, as they were called after their leader John Wicliffe--the "Morning Star of the Reformation." The state of the Papacy and of the Church at large was at this moment very scandalous. The Pope was living no more at Rome, but at Avignon, under the shadow of the French king, and the power of the Papacy was being shamelessly misused for French objects. England had never loved the papal influence, and had still less reason to love it when it was employed for the benefit of her political enemies.