During a truce between the English and French, England was visited by the Black Death, a plague that came from Asia and bade fair to depopulate the country. London lost fifty thousand people, and at times there were hardly enough people left to bury the dead or till the fields. This contagion occurred in 1349, and even attacked the domestic animals. [Illustration: NO MONARCH OF SPIRIT CARES TO HAVE HIS THRONE PULLED FROM UNDER HIM JUST AS HE IS ABOUT TO OCCUPY IT.] John having succeeded Philip in France, in 1350 Edward made another effort to recover the French throne; but no monarch of spirit cares to have his throne pulled from beneath him just as he is about to occupy it, and so, when the Black Prince began to burn and plunder southern France, his father made a similar excursion from Calais, in 1355. The next year the Black Prince sent twelve thousand men into the heart of France, where they met an army of sixty thousand, and the English general offered all his conquests cheerfully to John for the privilege of returning to England; but John overstepped himself by demanding an unconditional surrender, and a battle followed in which the French were whipped out of their boots and the king captured. We should learn from this to know when we have enough. This battle was memorable because the English loss was mostly confined to the common soldiery, while among the French it was peculiarly fatal to the nobility. Two dukes, nineteen counts, five thousand men-at-arms, and eight thousand infantry were killed, and a bobtail flush royal was found to have been bagged as prisoners. For four years John was a prisoner, but well treated. He was then allowed to resume his renovated throne; but failing to keep good his promises to the English, he came back to London by request, and died there in 1364. The war continued under Charles, the new French monarch; and though Edward was an able and courteous foe, in 1370 he became so irritated because of the revolt of Limoges, notwithstanding his former kindness to its people, that he caused three thousand of her citizens to be put to the sword. The Black Prince fought no more, but after six years of illness died, in 1376, with a good record for courage and statecraft. His father, the king, survived him only a year, expiring in the sixty-fifth year of his age, 1377. English literature was encouraged during his reign, and John Wickliffe, Gower, Chaucer, and other men whose genius greatly outstripped their orthography were seen to flourish some. [Illustration: A STRIKING ILLUSTRATION OF WAT TYLER'S CONTROVERSY WITH THE TAX RECEIVER.] Edward III. was succeeded by his grandson, Richard, and war with France was maintained, though Charles the Wise held his own, with the aid of the Scotch under Robert II., the first of the Stuarts.