The Hundred Years' War, therefore, broke out again in 1369, after an interval of nine years. Edward III. assumed once more the title of king of France, while Charles V., in the usual style, declared that the whole duchy of Aquitaine had been forfeited for treason and rebellion on the part of its present holder. The second period of war, which was to last till the death of the English king, and for some years after, was destined to prove wholly disastrous to England. All the conditions had changed since 1360. Edward, though only in his fifty-seventh year, was entering into a premature and decrepit old age, in which he became the prey of unworthy favourites, male and female. The men of the 14th century, who commanded armies and executed _coups d'état_ at eighteen, were often worn out by sixty. The guidance of the war should have fallen into the hands of his eldest son, the victor of Poitiers and Najera, but the younger Edward had never recovered from the fatigues of his Spanish campaign; his disease having developed into a form of dropsy, he had become a confirmed invalid and could no longer take the field. The charge of the military operations of the English armies had passed to John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, the king's younger son, a prince far inferior in capacity to his father and brother. Though not destitute of good impulses Lancaster was hasty, improvident and obstinate; he was unfortunate in his choice of friends, for he allied himself to all his father's unscrupulous dependents. He was destitute of military skill, and wrecked army after army by attempting hard tasks at inappropriate times and by mistaken methods. Despite of all checks and disasters he remained active, self-confident and ambitious, and, since he had acquired a complete control over his father, he had ample opportunity to mismanage the political and military affairs of England.
Lancaster's strategy, in the early years of the renewed war, consisted mainly of attempts to wear down the force of France by devastating raids; he hoped to provoke the enemy to battle by striking at the heart of his realm, but never achieved his purpose. Warned by the disasters of Creçy and Poitiers, Charles V. and his great captain Bertrand du Guesclin would never commit themselves to an engagement in the open field. They let the English invaders pass by, garrisoning the towns but abandoning the countryside. Since Lancaster, in his great circular raids, had never the leisure to sit down to a siege--generally a matter of long months in the 14th century--he repeatedly crossed France leaving a train of ruined villages behind him, but having accomplished nothing else save the exhaustion of his own army. For the French always followed him at a cautious distance, cutting off his stragglers, and restricting the area of his ravages by keeping flying columns all around his path. But while the duke was executing useless marches across France, the outlying lands of Aquitaine were falling away, one after the other, to the enemy. The limit of the territory which still remained loyal was ever shrinking, and what was once lost was hardly ever regained. Almost the only reconquest made was that of the city of Limoges, which was stormed in September 1370 by the troops of the Black Prince, who rose from his sick-bed to strike his last blow at the rebels. His success did almost as much harm as good to his cause, for the deliberate sack of the city was carried out with such ruthless severity that it roused wild wrath rather than terror in the neighbouring regions. Next spring the prince returned to England, feeling himself physically unable to administer or defend his duchy any longer.