Few of our historians have attempted thoroughly to penetrate Edward's plan in that famous expedition of 1346-7, in which he traversed the North of France, landing at La Hogue, and embarking at Calais, just as though it had been a piratical expedition needing no further explanation. Sir Edward makes a good suggestion as to the commencement and early stage of the invasion; namely, that one great object of it was to deliver a blow at the nourishing woollen manufactures of Normandy, and thereby relieve English trading towns from their powerful competitors in that quarter. But we think he fails to account satisfactorily for Edward's movements after the taking of Caen, when he assigns it as a sufficient reason for his advance on Paris (after being obliged to turn away from Rouen, be it remembered), that he wished to divert French troops from the South of France, where a small English army was being hard pressed. But could not the king of England have effected such a purpose by establishing himself in Normandy, where he rested on his fleet? To dismiss his ships, as he did at Caen, and to take a moderate force of some 40,000 men into the interior without a base of operations, in the hope of relieving a distant province, would not have been worthy of the genius of Edward III. We have little doubt that after achieving his success as far as Caen, if not before, Calais itself (not Paris, nor yet Guienne) was in his eye. In fact, the speech of Sir Geoffrey Harcourt to Edward, at Caen, reported by Froissart, distinctly recognises Calais as the ultimate goal of the expedition. His having found the North of France so defenceless (to say nothing of his having taken prisoner at Caen the Count of Guisnes, on the border of whose territory Calais lay), probably suggested the feasibility of capturing Calais on the land side. Hence the immediate attempt to cross the Seine at Rouen; and hence, when this failed, the march up the Seine--not to relieve Guienne, but to effect a passage of the river. The famous fortress fell to Edward as the result of a bold calculation, not as a piece of good luck after a desperate escapade. To judge how tempting it must have seemed to him, even so far off as Caen, we have only to reflect on the immediate use he made of it as soon as it was his own; to say nothing of his resolution in maintaining a longer winter siege. He immediately converted what had before been a piratical stronghold against him into an English colony; besides which he made it the Continental staple for the English wool trade, by which means he delivered himself from certain Flemish towns, which hitherto had converted his necessities into their own gains. Those who understand something of English State finance in this reign, and the peculiar importance of the woollen trade to Edward as a financier, will be able to comprehend his views when he resolved on obtaining hold of this important position upon the Straits of Dover.