they should do farther, the which process was secretly and sufficiently examined in the Regent’s chamber at Paris, and answer was sent again by writing to them what they should do and what they should offer; and so these ambassadors were oftentimes with the King, as he went forward toward the city of Chartres, as in other places, and great offers they made to come to a conclusion of the war and to have a peace. To the which offers the King of England was hard hearted to agree unto, for his intention was to be King of France and to die in that estate. For if the Duke of Lancaster, his cousin, had not counselled him to have peace he would not have agreed thereunto. But he said to the King, “Sir, this war that ye make in the realm of France is right marvellous and right favourable for you: your men win great riches and ye lose your time, all things considered, or ye come to your intent, ye may hap to make war all the days of your life. Sir, I would counsel you (sith ye may leave the war to your honour and profit) accept the offers that ben made unto you, for, sir, you might lose more in a day than we have won in twenty years.” Such fair and subtle words that the Duke of Lancaster said in good intention, and for weal of the King and all his subjects, converted the King by the grace of the Holy Ghost, who was chief worker in that case. For on a day, as the King was before Charters, there fell a case that greatly humbled the King’s courage. For while these ambassadors were treating for this peace and had none agreeable answer, there fell suddenly such a tempest of thunder, lightning, rain and hail in the King’s oost, that it seemed that the world should have ended: there fell from heaven such great stones that it slew men and horses, so that the most hardiest were abashed. ‘Then the King of England beheld the Church of our Lady of Charters, and avowed devoutly to our Lady to agree to the peace, and, as it was said, he was as then confessed, and lodged in a village near to Charters, called Brétigny. And there were made certain compositions of peace, upon certain articles after ordained; and, the more firmly to be concluded by their ambassadors, and by the King of England and his Council, there was ordained, by good deliberation and advice, a letter called the Charter of Peace’ (1360). By this treaty the English King waived his claims on the crown of France and on the Duchy of Normandy; but, on the other hand, his Duchy of Aquitaine was not only restored to him, but freed from its obligations as a French fief, and granted in full sovereignty with Ponthieu, as well as Guisnes, and the new conquest of Calais. The captive King, Jean-le-Bon, was ransomed and released, and he, like his captor Edward, and the Black Prince before him, made a pilgrimage to Notre-Dame, and passed piously beneath the Holy Chest, which it was deemed safe at last to bring forth from its hiding-place in the Chapel of S. Lubin.