5
Triumph and the Treaties of London
The constable of Bordeaux, John Streatley, and William Lynne, dean of Chichester, were entrusted with the peace talks, alongside Gasgon advisers and members of the prince’s council including Warwick, Reginald Cobham, Nigel Loryng, Burghersh and the captal de Buch. In October 1356 they were joined by the papal legates, the cardinals of Périgord and Capocci. Early in the following year, the prince was authorised to seek a peace, and a truce was established for two years until 9 April 1359.1
The prince and his captive returned to England on 11 April 1357 and proceeded to London, where they were received at a glorious celebration. The next years were marked by a number of great tournaments and ongoing negotiations for Jean’s release. The Black Prince also rewarded many of those who fought with in France. For the ordinary soldiers this might include pardons for various crimes, gifts of wine, timber, grazing rights and so on. Land, rents and offices were also granted, and annuities were given to those of greater status. For example, William Lenche, the prince’s porter, who lost an eye in the battle, was granted the profits from Saltash ferry in Cornwall.2 The case of James Audley shows the generosity expected of a prince and also the value of ransoms. Audley was injured in the struggle and so could take few prisoners. As a consequence, he received the largest annuity of any of the prince’s army, £400.3 The Black Prince sold three prisoners to Edward III for £20,000.4
The price for the greatest prize from Poitiers, King Jean, was the subject of two treaties. Negotiations, again mediated by the papal representatives, began in June or July of 1357. The first treaty of London was signed on 8 May 1358, and involved the transfer of nearly all French lands south of the Loire and 4,000,000 gold crowns (£666,666). The French, now wracked by internal strife and dissension, were certainly unwilling and probably unable to even pay the first instalment. At this point, perhaps not even expecting a peaceful resolution, Edward III demanded an even higher price with the inclusion of Boulogne, Anjou, Maine, Touraine and Normandy, perhaps half of the kingdom of France in full sovereignty in addition to the ransom. The dauphin refused to ratify the secondtreaty and England mobilised for war once again.5
The Reims Campaign and the Treaty of Brétigny
In 1359, Edward III’s motivation was different to that which had galvanised previous campaigns. This was a direct assault, aiming for nothing less than the throne of France, and presumably influenced the change in strategy from that employed at Crécy and pursued ten years later. In all probability it was the victory at Poitiers that allowed Edward III to seriously countenance an attempt on the crown. The attempt failed. Edward hoped that he would encounter little resistance and that the gates of Reims, possibly with the aid of the archbishop, Jean de Craon, would be opened to him. If this failed, he would attempt to force the dauphin into battle, employing the tactics that had been so effective in 1346 and 1356.6 By contrast with the Crécy and Poitiers campaigns, this was not achevauchée in the true sense; it was not to be an overly destructive expedition. Edward had no desire to further alienate and anger his future subjects and damage his potential tax revenue. The king did not seek to pillage and burn the land that he thought would soon be his own. The capture of Jean II and many of his nobles at Poitiers had given the English a huge advantage in the war, which they tried to convert into something tangible and territorial. The failure of the treaties of London (1358–9) resulted in a campaign to hammer home the victory of three years before and seize what was almost a vacant throne. It proved to be a campaign of long marches and lengthy sieges and, arguably, it came to nothing.
Preparatory strikes preceded the campaign of 1359–60. Lancaster arrived at Calais as an advance guard on or around 1 October and led a chevauchée through Artois and Picardy returning to Calais via Montreuil. Roger Mortimer followed on 22 October and raided along the coast to Étaples, which he burned before returning to Calais.7 There was no attempt to maintain any sort of secrecy about the invasion. Edward made his intention clear, to march to Reims and there be crowned king of France. Whilst this was necessary from a political and psychological point of view, it did permit the French to strengthen the defences of the coronation city and lay in supplies of victuals and weapons.
On arrival at Calais, the army divided into two columns. The king, Edmund of Langley, Warwick, Suffolk, Oxford and Salisbury with 3,000 men-at-arms and 5,000 archers commanded the main body. The Black Prince, with his brothers, Gaunt and Lionel of Antwerp, commanded the rearguard of 2,500 men-at-arms and 4,000 archers including Thomas Gray, the author of Scalacronica, the main source we have regarding the prince’s itinerary and for many of the incidents of the march.8 The duke of Lancaster, already in the field, reinforced the newly arrived troops to form a third unit.
The advance in parallel on a broad front, perhaps on a pre-planned route, was necessitated by the need to find provisions. The prince stopped at Montreuil, Hesdin, Nesle, Ham, St Quentin and Martiers, which the French burned to obstruct his crossing, although a way was forced at Chateau-Porcien. The route roughly followed the path taken in Lancaster’s preliminary raid. They were not attacked throughout the march:
the young prince [dauphin], warned by the ill-success of his father, resolved to act only on the defensive; he accordingly prepared to elude a blow it was impossible for him to resist.9
On reaching Reims, the prince made camp at Villedomange. The town defences had been undergoing steady improvements for some years, a process further galvanised by the battle of Poitiers. There had been no attempt to disguise the English target, unlike in the 1346 operation, and accordingly the French were well prepared. Artillery had been purchased from Paris, St-Quentin and Rouen and an artilleur hired from Verdun. Defences were also laid in the River Vesle. The town was effectively ‘enclosed’ in the summer of 1358, leaving a killing ground outside the perimeter.10 Much of the credit for the improvements to the defences in the months leading to the siege must be given to the captain of the town, Gaucher de Châtillon, seigneur of Ferté.
The eventual French victory in the war depended on successful sieges in France. Equally, it was dependent on successful fortification and defences. The ability of a town to resist siege determined who controlled the territory in its hinterland.11 The English army that came before Reims did not expect to besiege it, at least not for long. However, the walls had been strengthened following an order from the king to Jean de Craon, issued on 18 March 1356, and the defeat at Poitiers further spurred building activity. On 31 December 1358, the dauphin wrote to the captain of the town, ordering its defences strengthened and work done on the fortifications throughout 1359. Edward hoped that his close relationship with the archbishop would result in the easy capture of the city. It was a thought shared by many of Reims’ population. However, when Edward and his army arrived on 4 December 1359, they found strong defences and a city well stocked with soldiers and supplies.12
As the siege began, so did raids into the surrounding country. Eustace d’Aubrechicourt was very successful in a number of attacks along the River Aisne.13 The prince’s troops operated in concert with Gaunt’s on a number of occasions. Burghersh,14 Botetourt and many others of the prince’s and the earl of Richmond’s households took Cormicy and captured the lord of Clermont after a siege lasting from 20 December to 6 January. The town was burned two days later. Lancaster, Chandos and Audley, with Gaunt and Mortimer, took and burned Cernay-en-Dormois (30 December) and later, with d’Aubrechicourt, Autry and Manre. No attempt was made to assault Reims and, at best, an ineffective blockade was achieved. It adds credence to the concept that Edward simply hoped to gain the acceptance of the resident populace as their king. Efforts were continually made to convince the city of the validity of his claim and his goodwill towards the people.15
The siege failed because of the lack of provisions, particularly fodder for the horses, and the army was forced away in search of forage. It took them to Burgundy. Near Châlons, Audley and the captal de Buch joined the prince. They reached Auxerre, staying at Égleny but suffered considerable losses at French hands:
Several of his [the prince’s] knights and esquires were killed at night in their quarters and his foraging parties taken in the fields.16
The king managed to secure the support of a section of the Burgundian nobility on the payment of 200,000 florins. They were further reinforced by members of the Free Companies, including Knolles and a number of Gascons who had ‘made their way right across France by a devious route’17 to serve under the prince. But a number of further reverses followed. Flavigny was retaken from Nicholas Dagworth (son of Thomas and another of the prince’s Norfolk military associates and captain of Flavigny in Burgundy) and on 24 February, Roger Mortimer, the earl of March, died during a raid at Rouvray.
A French naval attack on Winchelsea in March 1360 then spurred Edward to assault Paris. The rearguard marched via Pierre-Perthuis, through the Gâtinais and east to Tournelles and Moret, suffering French guerrilla attacks en route. It reached the suburbs of Paris by the end of the month and set up camp in the Corbeil-Longjumeau area. Gray recounts a number of incidents that befell the prince’s retinue, including the near-capture of Richard Baskerville and Brian Stapleton and other knights who met and defeated a French force near Janville.18 However, they failed to provoke a battle, despite burning the suburbs, and the siege lasted only until 13 April, Black Monday, when lack of food and storm conditions took their toll and a truce was called at Brétigny.
The treaty of Brétigny19 was a prize that Edward III would have grasped with open arms in 1340; whether it was a settlement so gratefully accepted in 1360 is another matter entirely. The Reims campaign was a failure. However it is painted, the expedition made no military gains and Edward had no opportunity to use the crown he had brought with him in his baggage train. It did however, acquire territory equivalent to perhaps a third of France and a very substantial ransom particularly for King Jean and also for a number of his close family and members of the high nobility. But this was not the throne, and it was not all that Edward had demanded in the treaties of London. Essentially, the question that must be asked was whether the treaty of Brétigny was enough given the crushing victory at Poitiers, the capture of King Jean and the social and political turmoil wreaked by Etienne Marcel, the Jacquerie and the machinations of Charles of Navarre. Perhaps it was not.
The role of the Black Prince and members of his household and retinue should not be underestimated in the negotiations leading to the treaty of Brétigny-Calais in 1360. Stephen Cosington was involved in diplomatic activities in Normandy and elsewhere, and Miles Stapleton and Nigel Loryng served as ambassadors to France between 13 August and 7 December 1360. The prince himself was sent to Calais ‘pro tractatu pacis ibidem habito inter reges Francie et Anglie’, for which he was paid expenses of £200 and wages of £10 a day.20
Anne Curry has characterised the Hundred Years War as a conflict of three treaties (Paris, 1259, Brétigny, 1360, Troyes, 1420), each of which contributed as much to the origin and continuance of the war as they did to ensuring differing periods of peace.21 There is little doubt that the treaty of Brétigny and the failure of both sides to implement the renunciation clauses contributed a great deal as regards later motivation to fight, and it was a prime complaint of Henry V, prior to the Agincourt campaign, that the conditions of Brétigny had not been met. Nor was it only a matter of concern for those engaged in high politics. It has been suggested that the treaty and Edward III’s war policy in the 1360s were the subject of allusions by Langland in Piers Ploughman. If correct, the treaty was not viewed favourably – the king had lessened his lordship ‘for a litel siluer’. Similarly, the Prophecy of John of Bridlington, written 1362–4 by John Erghome, urged the king not to give up his inheritance and predicted that the Black Prince would become king of France by 1405. The Anonimalle Chronicle also reported that Brétigny was ‘to the great loss and harm of the king of England and his heirs for ever’. The Scalacronica of Thomas Gray was similarly scathing although the criticism was couched in more general terms advocating that the king should not make peace.22
Chivalry, Military Society and a ‘Revolution’23
The treaty of Brétigny marked the conclusion of the first major phase of the Hundred Years War. It also brought to a conclusion English military success, apart from in the more distant theatres of Spain and Brittany. There are many reasons for this, the ability of the French to marshal defences being key. It was a major period of transition in the composition of the English aristocracy. The Reims campaign had also marked a change in the complement of English armies that altered the role and significance of the chivalric classes.
The decline of the feudal host, the development of the contract army and changing military tactics influenced both the projected image of the aristocracy and the view that they had of themselves. The traditional role of the English aristocracy was compromised in victories founded on a tactical system that did not rely on the mounted knight. The ‘Three Orders’ may have been, to some extent, an artificial construct, but it had relevance in everyday life and was an accepted and ingrained philosophy. The raison d’être of thebellatores was fractured by a tactical system founded on infantry, archery and the ‘common’ soldier. Chivalry was founded on the battlefield but skill-at-arms was now not its only criterion. The ‘courtly arts’ had become a standard of polite behaviour and were the foundation of a genteel education. However, despite the need for literacy and curtesie, the essential qualities of the milites strenui remained the qualities of the warrior – courage, loyalty and above all skill-at-arms.24 Laudable as the prince’s actions were after Poitiers, what was truly valued was prowess, a combination of training, innate skill and boldness, such as exhibited by Sir Ralph Hastings ‘who cared not two cherries for death’, and Sir William Felton ‘the valiant [who] very boldly and bravely charged the enemy like a man devoid of sense and discretion’.25
While the core of the chivalric ethic remained static, other aspects of noblesse were more fluid. The structure and complexion of aristocratic order was complicated as it became more socially diverse. In 1337, the Black Prince became the first English duke and other ranks would follow at both ends of the chivalric spectrum with the establishment of the esquire and gentleman as ranks and titles in their own right. With this developed a dichotomy as ‘class’ boundaries were blurred in some cases and reinforced in others.
The distinction between nobility, knighthood and gentility was one of degree; there was little to choose between a wealthy member of the gentry and a relatively impoverished noble, especially as the opportunities for social advancement became dependent not only on military ability or a fortunate marriage. The example of the de la Pole family who rose from being East Anglian wool merchants to earls of Suffolk is a case in point. Similarly, although knighthood and chivalry were inextricably linked, they were, nonetheless, not synonymous. Chivalry was not a code only restricted to knights: the emerging gentry were both chivalrous and armigerous.
The gradations within the gentry were partially formalised in 1363, with sumptuary regulations laid down by parliament governing the dress of different social ranks, by which the lesser aristocracy were grouped according to income. Similarly, the labour legislation following the Black Death and reintroduced on a regular basis sought to restrict ‘social climbing’ as the game laws would do in the last decade of the century. In concert with such general attitudes, it was at this time that nobility became a question of legal definition and was divorced from its knightly and warrior overtones through its association with the parliamentary peerage. ‘By the late twelfth century nobles were knights and knights were the highest social class …’26 This association was to change during and partly as a result of the Hundred Years War.
In addition, formerly military titles were being conferred for civilian service. This is not to say that military service had lost its importance, it could not in the context of the Hundred Years War, although perhaps the triumph of the contract army changed its character. However, administrative and legal abilities were becoming highly valued. Thus, knighthood was losing its monopoly on chivalry as it passed to non-knightly ranks and as the knights themselves saw the opportunities of non-military careers. In this capacity, they could still act as the leaders of local society and the landowning elite could still serve the king or an overlord through an institutionalised relationship. The prince’s retinue demonstrates this clearly through the changing character of the administration in which clerks were replaced by soldier-administrators, men such as John Delves and John Henxteworth, before progressing to a ‘professional’ bureaucracy.
While they remained the recruiting captains, knights were no longer the chief defenders of the realm or the key weapons in an army. The knight now often fought dismounted, alongside lowborn soldiers, indeed often criminals, fighting for booty and a pardon. Chivalry always had financial connotations; the development of the ransom system lay at the heart of the ethic on the battlefield and in the tournament. Now, however, knights fought for pay as part of a tactical system of which they were only a component. Some of the chivalric veneer was taken from them even as some of it passed to those they fought alongside. Knighthood itself, despite a brief resurrection following early English military successes, was becoming less popular. Therefore, while this was undoubtedly a period of chivalric revival, the numbers of militarily active knights diminished to such a degree that action had to be taken to reverse this trend. A variety of theories have been proposed to answer the question of why the need to distrain arose: increasing costs of equipment; the spiralling expense of the dubbing ceremony; and escalating and onerous local duties have all been mooted. While plate armour and horse costs increased in the period up to the Reims campaign, the value of warhorses taken abroad by the English after the resumption of the war in 1369 fell considerably. This was probably due to the nature of English raiding tactics, the chevauchée, which necessitated the use of light, swift horses, and the Crown’s unwillingness to reimburse the loss of horses on campaign. The developing stratification of the lower aristocracy, the diffusion of the chivalric aura and the concurrent extension of gentility to these new ranks enabled potential knights to decline the honour and retain a comparable social position.27
Differing influences shaped the military aristocracy, as nobility and knighthood and chivalry, virtually synonymous for so long, became separate concepts and realities. To a degree, and only briefly, they came together in the halcyon days after Crécy and Poitiers. Edward III emphasised the military implications of chivalry, assimilating the ideals of knighthood with royal policy and dynastic ambition.28 So it was that ‘Chivalry remained a live cultural model even when, after Crécy … it was out of tune not only with the new military techniques but with the moral perception of the practical irrelevance and visible “frivolity” of the knight in shining armour.’29
The conduct of the prince’s knightly retinue when on military service was governed by chivalry, particularly those aspects which found expression in the Laws of War – compounds of Christian and Classical theories bound with feudal tradition. These prescribed a minimum of humane and rational behaviour30 which fell short of the chivalric ideal but for some mitigated the worst battle conditions. They dealt with matters such as military discipline, the payment of wages, the division of spoils, military ranks and honours, duels, treaties, truces and alliances. They were chivalric rather than simply military in that pacts sworn under the law of arms were sworn on the knighthood of those concerned. In the context of a cosmopolitan knightly caste, the law of arms was international. There were, however, no international courts to implement the laws and cases were brought before the sovereign of the defendant. There were obvious difficulties in getting a fair hearing once one had overcome the immediate practical barriers of travel to the court, which was very possibly in enemy territory. The cases were heard by knights with experience of such matters who were often the official lieutenants of the lord in question, his constable or marshal. In England, cases were heard before the court of chivalry in which the Lord High Constable and the Earl Marshal presided. The constable, John Chandos, heard cases brought before the Black Prince, as prince of Aquitaine.
The effect of the crusades, romance literature and social tradition led to both an idealisation of war and ambivalence towards violence allowing for an equivocal attitude to mercenaries and the condottieri. Although written after the conclusion of the Hundred Years War, the following passage is indicative of fourteenth-century attitudes: ‘War! What a joyful thing it is! One hears and sees so many fine things, and learns so much that is good.’31 There was a direct link between chivalric idealism and the social distress and devastation caused by its implementation. Despite courtly and literary influences and those from religious authorities, from the introduction of the Peace and Truce of God movements onwards, it is difficult to see those outside the chivalric order gaining any practical benefits from the code. For some, such as Henry of Grosmont, duke of Lancaster, chivalry prescribed a strict moral code and contemporaries saw him as an archetype of religious chivalry. He crusaded in Lithuania and elsewhere and was the author of a devotional treatise that confessed his own sins and highlighted the tension between one’s duty as a Christian and a delight in the noble lifestyle. Nonetheless, on several occasions he massacred the inhabitants of a city who had resisted him, including women and children. His acts were justified by the Laws of War and did not detract from his chivalric status. Geoffrey de Charny, bearer of the French royal standard who died at Poitiers, and was, incidentally, the first known owner of the Turin Shroud, had similar views, which he extended to the whole order of knighthood. Like Grosmont, Charny’s Livre de Chevalerie, probably written for the Company of the Star, the French answer to the Garter, sometimes has an almost puritanical tone and contains some very similar images, particularly those concerning the denigration of the body. Charny emphasised the physical suffering endured by the knight on campaign and in battle. He viewed the life of a true knight as almost one of martyrdom. He drew parallels between the order of chivalry and a religious order but argued that no order of religion imposed greater rigours than chivalry. In much the same way as St Bernard had written of the Knights Templar so Charny wrote of the order of knighthood in general, stating that ‘Through the hard martyrdom of their profession knights acted in accordance with God’s will.’32 For the majority, chivalry provided less elevated strictures although they benefited from those attitudes. The Black Prince and Bertrand du Guesclin may be seen as leading examples of this ‘secular’ knighthood.33 Away from the battlefield, the prince behaved with the courtesy and generosity expected of a knight of his station; in battle he was governed by the laws of war and the practicalities of the chevauchée strategy.
Before the 1346 expedition, Edward III issued strict orders to check excesses by his troops. No towns or manors were to be burnt, no churches or holy places sacked, and the old, women and children were to be spared, on pain of life or limb. This had relatively little effect, if indeed it had ever been more than propaganda. It was impossible to restrain troops whose main object was pillage.34 As Froissart said, ‘in spite of the King’s orders, many atrocious murders, thefts and acts of arson were committed, for in the kind of army that King Edward led there are always villains, rogues and men of easy conscience’.35 However, when the abbey of St Lucien near Beauvais was destroyed, the king promptly hanged twenty of the men responsible. The Black Prince’s raids of 1355–6 were particularly vicious and it appears the prince was unable to prevent a great deal of devastation, such as the burning of Carcassonne after he had given explicit orders for its preservation. It was not incongruous that the leaders of the 1355 raid should spend a Sunday at a monastery whilst their men, a few miles away, were burning and looting.36
It has been said, ‘It is impossible to be chivalrous without a horse.’37 The knight was by definition a soldier. He had gained social and political status as a result of being a highly effective mounted warrior powerful enough, in the words of Anna Comnena, to batter down the walls of Babylon.38 Yet, in 1346, the chivalry of France was defeated at the battle of Crécy by a combination of archers and dismounted knights and men-at-arms. It was confirmation of the end of the dominance of the mounted knight. His customary military role had altered and would further change. This shaped the ethos that sustained the knight and reinforced his social and political position. Nonetheless, knights remained an important constituent of armies although they were to adopt different tactics and modes of fighting.39
The increasing use and role of the longbow also compromised the influence of the knight and, it has been suggested, brought an end to chivalry on the battlefield. The devastating power commonly attributed to the longbow may have been overstated and there is much disagreement over the physical nature of the weapons concerned, let alone their deployment and effect in a battle situation. There is no doubt, however, that throughout this period the complement of armies changed and the emphasis on heavy horsed troops shifted significantly in favour of archers, both mounted and on foot. Campaigns continued to concentrate on economic warfare bent on destroying the enemy’s revenue. The chevauchée was used to great effect by the English in the early years of the war. In addition to financial consequences, it struck a powerful psychological blow. The people suffered and the authority of the French nobility was questioned and threatened in the strongest possible manner. The battles of Crécy and Poitiers followed suchchevauchées and it has been argued that they were deliberately provocative actions designed to bring the French to battle where highly effective defensive tactics could then be used to good effect.40 The essential factor in the use of this new tactic was discipline. This, in itself, ran counter to the knightly quest for individual glory. It is arguable that Crécy and Poitiers were victories of professional discipline over traditional chivalric recklessness.
By the early fourteenth century, the old feudal basis of knighthood had virtually disappeared in England. The summons to the feudal levy was no more than a technical obligation, and money not land was exchanged for military service as the indenture system became increasingly common. As a consequence, the Hundred Years War was fought, for the most part, by paid professionals. This was true not only of the mercenary Free Companies but also the nobility who augmented their fortunes in land with the profits of a career in arms, and of the rank and file raised in England and Wales. Yet, despite the new practicalities of war, it was recorded and reported in an older fashion. The tournament had begun as a mimic war; war was now described in terms reminiscent of a tournament. This was so because guerre mortelle remained rare until the fifteenth century having been reserved usually for the infidel. Crécy was an exception to this.41 Ransoms prevented wholesale aristocratic slaughter but encouraged hostilities. War was often an economic necessity for poorer knights and the rewards for service could be considerable.
The direct effect of chivalry in a military context is more difficult to pin down and may serve to show that despite the overt ‘courtliness’ of the Black Prince’s household, his military retinue was an altogether professional military unit. In an age of discipline and defensive tactics, chivalry, and particularly mounted chivalry, was more likely to bring about defeat than victory as had happened at Crécy, Poitiers and Nájera. It was not only a French ‘weakness’. During the Crécy campaign a scouting party of the first division, of which the prince was in nominal command, was detached to see if a way across the river Seine could be found for all the bridges were broken. Eventually they found a ford but it was heavily defended. The French troops on the other side taunted and bared their backsides at them. This so enraged the English that they made an ill-advised assault and were beaten back with heavy losses. Ten years later while on a scouting expedition shortly before the battle of Poitiers, the captal de Buch, Burghersh, the sire de Pommiers and Eustace d’Aubrechicourt attacked the French army. ‘These Englishmen could not forebear but set upon the tail of the French host and cast many down to the earth and took diverse prisoners so that the host began to stir and tidings thereof came to the French King …’42
The members of the Black Prince’s retinue achieved the military success necessary for chivalric acclaim and were at the forefront of Edward III’s policy. It was further supported by the atmosphere and ethos at work within the household and court of the prince. It was there in the household, in the tournament, in the courtly world that the prince’s chivalric reputation is best exemplified, for his military success was founded on a tactical system that flew in the face of the chivalric ideal, being both dismounted and disciplined. The retinue benefited from the military success gained on the battlefield and the chivalrous and courtly milieu when not on campaign. It brought members of the retinue together through military associations of various kinds and gave them a collective identity. Many individuals who fought with the prince were marked out as worthy knights, prudhommes in their own right, but all benefited from the prince’s reflected glory, a glory which in its way sounded the death-knell of chivalry on the battlefield.
Such a change in strategy, tactics and attitude to war begs the question of whether this constituted a ‘military revolution’. Unfortunately it is difficult to ascertain the conditions under which war was fought and battles undertaken, if they were undertaken with any regularity or confidence before the period for which a number of authors have suggested that there was such a revolution. The role of the warhorse, long held to have been the mainstay and supreme weapon in the ‘feudal’ army, has been questioned, the importance of infantry highlighted, and the significance of the longbow considered. However, although infantry, well drilled, preferably experienced and occupying a defensible site, would defeat heavy cavalry in most situations does not preclude the importance of the knight and his warhorse as a savagely effective weapon both physically, and perhaps more importantly, psychologically.
Whether or not there was a military revolution in the early decades of the fourteenth century there was a change in English tactical thinking, probably spurred by a number of humiliations at the hands of the Scots. The use of dismounted knights necessitated alterations in equipment, particularly to provide increased mobility out of the saddle. Nonetheless, ‘The military scene was still dominated by the heavily armed knight armed with a lance and sword even if it often happened that he fought on foot.’43 The development of the use of infantry in co-ordination with archers was of vital importance in the English successes of 1346 and 1356. The ‘revolution’ was not marked by a great increase in troop numbers, especially when compared with those armies raised by Edward I. The paucity of particular records for 1346–7 does not allow for an accurate breakdown of the types of troops involved although the complement was probably in the region of 8,000 foot soldiers and over 3,000 mounted archers and hobelars. This was perhaps the largest field army raised during Edward III’s reign. It was augmented for the Calais siege.The army of the Reims campaign may only have numbered 6,600 in total.
The use of dismounted troops was not an innovation, although to dismount knights, with its inherent social implications, was rare. The cavalry charge was an uncommon, if highly effective phenomenon. It could also prove very costly. The charge was not to be used as an opening gambit but as at Crécy and at Poitiers, Englishtroops were remounted towards the end of the battle after the archers and dismounted troops and infantry had done their work. The manoeuvre of the captal de Buch at Poitiers in which he led a cavalry force to attack the rear of the French army was decisive, as was Calveley’s similar action at Auray, and it was also undertaken at Nájera. This pattern was rare; after Bannockburn there was scarcely a battle in which the English chivalrous class fought on horseback.44
The early victories and those at La Roche-Derrien, 1347, Taillebourg, 1351, Ardres, 1351, Mauron, 1352, and Poitiers in 1356 have not all been attributed to an Anglo-Gascon tactical approach. Jim Bradbury maintained that the French failures were the result of not developing a type of infantry to match the pikemen and infantrymen of other nations. Perroy attributed the English victory of 1346 to numerical inferiority that forced Edward ‘to resort to improvised ruses, of which, in his heart of hearts, he was somewhat ashamed’.45 Rogers states that the early victories that were so influential only occurred because of peculiarities of terrain and the mistakes of enemies.46 Rogers’ theory of an English battle-seeking strategy is open to question but it would seem likely that, particularly at Poitiers, the prince could have avoided battle if he so wished. Philip VI’s tactics in the 1330s and early 1340s proved highly effective. The rashness of Audrehem at Poitiers and the failure of Enrique to listen to French advice not to give battle before Nájera brought about defeat.
The characteristics of the wider strategy and more narrowly-focused tactics were, by the beginning of the prince’s military career, based around an experienced and professional body of men, both in the wider military community and within his own retinue and household. The basic characteristics of the English battle formation remained constant from Dupplin Moor to Agincourt. The disposition of troops was crucial to the English and Anglo-Gascon victories, and the arrangement of troops at Crécy followed the pattern instigated by Northampton at Morlaix. The most significant element of the strategy and the close-quarter tactics that supported it was the necessity to entice the enemy to attack; these tactics were essentially defensive. For this reason, men-at-arms were dismounted and, when possible, the battlefield was prepared with defensive contrivances to protect the foot soldiers from enemy cavalry with trenches, stakes and other items.
The role of archers in English victories has also been questioned in recent years and some have suggested that rather than causing the disruption and destruction traditionally associated with the English and Welsh bowmen, that archery was a less potent weapon. The disposition of these archers is a particularly vexed question, hinging on Froissart’s use of the word herce to describe their formation. All that can be said with certainty is that the archers flanked the dismounted troops and took a strong defensive position.47This was the case at Crécy and Poitiers followed this same pattern, hardly surprising given that the prince and his commanders had seen the effectiveness of such a formation ten years previously.
The English successes in France can be attributed to the psychological and economic effect of the chevauchée. The war was fought in the heart of France and ‘[b]y 1355 it is clear that the English were using destruction of territory as a deliberate weapon, designed to reduce the resources available to the Valois monarchy and discredit it in the eyes of its subjects’.48 Raiding tactics also meant that the English and their allies could choose the theatre of operations and, in the case of Crécy and other clashes, the battlefield itself. These factors coupled with the professional nature of recruitment to establish a highly effective fighting force and military tradition that bred success of itself.49 These battlefield tactics, although not the overall raiding strategy, were again to be useful and effective in Spain.
Perhaps in English terms, revolution has been too closely associated with military success and that success based primarily on two battles. The Black Prince’s retinue at Crécy and Poitiers was central to English victory, forming the core of the vanguard and the heart of the army in each case. As the chief figures in the retinue fought together, the expeditionary forces developed an organised command structure and high level of discipline. It was these factors which, when used in concert with other developments in equipment and tactics, were the main elements in the early English triumphs in the Hundred Years War. As a military leader the Black Prince was both following and setting an example of ‘good practice’. It was a model primarily based on what he and members of his retinue observed in 1346. The campaigns of 1355–6 displayed courage, even foolhardiness, but the strategy may have been out of his hands in the absence of support from Lancaster. Poitiers itself was a tactical triumph and even if he was following a successful pattern, the prince must be given great credit for its success. The military aspects of the Nájera operation were more mixed. The campaign strategy was poor and it was only Enrique’s willingness to fight, and fight in a manner at odds with the advice of du Guesclin and Audrehem that gave victory to Pedro and Edward.
The retinue of the Black Prince proved to be a highly effective military unit when used in offensive situations, although it fought its pitched battles using defensive tactics. Recruitment was rarely difficult but there were ongoing problems with regard to paying and supplying the troops, most evidently in the sieges of 1359–60 and after Nájera in 1367. Cornwall provided much of the foodstuffs, Cheshire many of the soldiers, although the recruiting captains were drawn from much further afield, and Wales a large proportion of the money. The individual success of the prince’s retinue was underpinned by a national war effort, which in Edward of Woodstock became something of a national icon. The health of the Black Prince mirrored the English military condition. The early successes were attributable to a relatively small number of commanders, many of whom found inclusion in the Order of the Garter. Many of the prince’s retinue were founder members of that august association and many others would later be granted a stall in St George’s chapel. Even when the principality of Aquitaine had been broken and the prince had died the reputation of the retinue and of its members remained. The prince himself was used, time and again, as a model by which his son should be judged and those who had fought with him, many of whom were very fine soldiers in their own right, retained something of his aura and the acclaim from Poitiers. Some of these men were soldiers through and through, but others had wider responsibilities, in local society and in parliament. Many more were members of the prince’s household and officials in the administration of his estates. That administration provided the retinue with rewards and underpinned the financial costs of the military campaigns. These two elements were inextricably interwoven. However prosaic and distant it may have seemed on the plains outside Poitiers or on the banks of the Najerilla, the victories that would follow, the opportunities to implement the tactics which would lead to the capture of King Jean and du Guesclin, came about, in part, through such concerns as demesne farming in Wales, tin mining in Devon and Cornwall, and the wine trade in Aquitaine.