But there is an awfully dark background to it. A rude stop was put to all these rejoicings by the Black Death (1348-50). This Chinese epidemic swept desolation over all Europe. One-third of the population of England was carried off; half the people of London died, and it was difficult to find places of burial. The king’s daughter was one of its victims, and her death took place while she was _en route_ to Spain to be married; she was buried in the church she was to have been married in. The loss of laborers and beasts was so great that famine was added to pestilence. But these dreadful dispensations contributed to the overthrow of slavery and hastened the downfall of the Plantagenets. To counteract the effects of the scarcity of help the Statute of Laborers was passed, a law which attempted to fix the price of labor and to prevent villeins leaving their masters. This act was at the bottom of Wat Tyler’s rebellion in the next reign, and that was the beginning of the end of slavery. The revolt of the laboring classes proved a powerful aid to the spread of Lollardism, and that was the beginning of the Reformation. Thus do remote blessings flow from dark and inscrutable causes. A more resplendent scene follows, by way of contrast again: The wonderful battle of Poictiers (September 19, 1356), in the heart of France, whither the Black Prince has recklessly pushed his maraudings. Here ten thousand English defeated sixty thousand French, and took the French king, John, prisoner. This completed the humiliation of France, and “she found in her desolation a miserable defence against invasion.” King John was borne to London in honor—for the chivalrous prince would not triumph over his captive, and humbly waited on him at table as his superior in rank. Then did his motto, _Ich dien_, shine brightly. Another contrast: “Last scene of all that ends this strange, eventful history is second childishness and mere oblivion” to honor and fame on the part of Edward III. Phillippa was dead. The Black Prince had died, his last battle being disgraced by an inhuman slaughter of all his prisoners. The great warrior king in his dotage is the degraded creature of wicked Alice Perrers. Faction and contention rule at court, and discontent is in the land. The old king is on his death-bed. Alice Perrers hastily gathers her wealth, seizes the king’s jewels, even strips the rings from his fingers, and flees. The servants rifle the palace, and the mighty conqueror is left to meet a mightier—alone. Thus a wandering friar finds the apartments deserted, the doors standing open, and a wasted, gray old man dying alone. “Mighty Cæsar, dost thou lie so low? Are all thy conquests, triumphs, glories, spoils, Shrunk to this little measure?”