Richard II and the House of Luxemburg

Abstract In January 1377 the Anglo-French peace negotiations, which had got under way at Bruges in the summer of 1374, finally broke down. No agreement had proved possible on the issues dividing the two sides, and all that they could achieve was a prolongation of the general truce until 24 June 1377. Charles V made one last effort in May 1377, with a series of proposals which the English envoys agreed to place before Edward III and return to Bruges with a response by I August. However, Edward III died on 21 June 1377; the English never kept their appointment at Bruges, and the war began again on 24 June.The breakdown of the Bruges negotiations and the resumption of the war necessitated, so far as the English were concerned, a renewed search for allies amongst those rulers of western Europe, particularly in the Empire, the Low Countries, and the Iberian peninsula, who might share England ‘s interest in countering French power. In the early months of 1377 English attention was directed particularly towards the Iberian peninsula. During the Parliament of January 1377 the chancellor had warned that the French king, supported by the king of Castile and the Scots, was planning to attack England by land and sea in the coming summer.2 England ‘s ineffective naval response has been discussed in some detail by James Sherborne; but the diplomatic reponse in the early months of 1377 was firmer.