The force of the monarchy however lay above all in its position as the one representative of national order and in its policy of peace.

For two hundred years England had been almost constantly at war, and to war without had been added discord and misrule within.

The violence and anarchy which had always clung like a taint to the baronage grew more and more unbearable as the nation moved forward to a more settled peacefulness and industry.

At the very time however when this movement became most pronounced under Edward the Third, the tendency of the nobles to violence received a new impulse from the war with France.

Long before the struggle was over it had done its fatal work on the mood of the English noble.