as the closest landing point from England, and adjacent to the low-country marts. Immediately after the English victory at Crécy, the English army, under King Edward III, marched north and, during 1347, besieged the town for eleven months, after which it was recaptured] Edward's campaign had also a dynastic rationale, as, following the death of his uncle, Charles IV of France in 1328, Edward saw himself as the Capetian heir to the Kingdom of France, but the French chose to follow anall - male line of descent from his great grandfather and the House of Valois. Angered, Edward demanded reprisals against the town's citizens for holding out for so long and ordered that the town's population be killed en masse. He agreed, however, to spare them, on condition that six of the principal citizens would come to him, bareheaded and barefooted and with ropes around their necks, and give themselves up to deat On their arrival he ordered their execution, but pardoned them when his queen, Philippa of Hainault, begged him to spare their lives. This event is commemorated in The Burghers of Calais (Les Bourgeois de Calais), one of the most famous sculptures by Auguste Rodin, erected in the city in 1888.A copy stands in Victoria Tower Gardens, outside the Palace of Westminster in London. Though sparing the lives of the delegation members, King Edward drove out most of the French inhabitants, and settled the town with English, so that it might serve as a gateway to France. The municipal charter of Calais, previously granted by the Countess of Artois, was reconfirmed by Edward that year (1347).
In 1360 the Treaty of Brétigny assigned Guînes, Marck and Calais – collectively the "Pale of Calais" – to English rule in perpetuity, but this assignment was informally and only partially implemented] On 9 February 1363 the town was made a staple port. It had by 1372 become a parliamentary borough sending burgesses to the House of Commons of the Parliament of England. It remained
