TEN

Edward the Conqueror

ON 1 JULY 1346, while Edward was still at sea, Simon Pouillet, a wealthy merchant of Compiègne, was dining with some of his relatives. At the dinner table he happened to remark that, in his opinion, it might be better if Edward were to become king of France, for ‘it would be better for France to be ruled well by Edward than badly by Philip’. This remark was noted by some who were present, and mentioned to others, and so on, until it was carried around the town. Eventually it came to the attention of King Philip. His reaction says much about his state of mind. Pouillet was arrested, dragged to the Paris meat market and hanged on a meat hook like a beef carcass. Then he was butchered alive: first his arms being severed, then his legs, then his head. His limbless and headless torso was hung by a chain from the common gallows at Montfaucon, just outside Paris.¹

About one month before this, an event took place which reveals the morale of the English assailants in France, and perhaps explains Philip’s paranoia. His nephew, Charles de Blois, was sweeping across Brittany in an attempt to destroy all Breton support for the English cause. So large was his army that he was successful in persuading many Bretons to switch sides. The English forces were then under the command of Sir Thomas Dagworth (Northampton having returned to England in January). Dagworth’s force was too small to face de Blois, and so remained in the fortresses at Brest, Lesneven and La Roche-Derrien. But Dagworth was surprised while making a tour of his outposts. Very early in the morning on 9 June he and eighty men-at-arms and one hundred archers realised they were trapped by the entire French Breton army, numbering several thousand men. Offered no quarter, they dug themselves in, and prepared to fight to the death. They were hugely outnumbered, facing at least twenty if not forty times as many men. They had little chance of even creating an impression on the opposing force. One French knight declared he would himself tie up Dagworth like a parcel and bring him to de Blois. But as the fight raged, something almost unbelievable happened. The English position held. All day they fought, ten, twelve, fourteen hours, right into the evening. They countered attack after attack, and kept going until nightfall. Charles de Blois himself led the last charge and did all he could to break the English line. But Sir Thomas Dagworth and his men, wounded as they were, exhausted as they were, held firm. At the end of the day, having seen de Blois’ army fall back, Dagworth realised something close to a military miracle had been accomplished. The French were retreating. Despite fighting for about sixteen hours, and sustaining terrible injuries, he and his troops had come through. It was cause for a letter to the king, and a claim that that day he had led the bravest men that England had to offer.²

These two stories are glimpses of a huge contrast in mood in 1346. For twenty years Philip had kept up an awkward war of words and diplomatic squabbling with Edward, at least partly to sustain an image of royal superiority over the upstart grandson of Philip the Fair. And in all that time he had achieved nothing substantial; he had not even lessened the threat to his people. He had not engaged Edward in a full-scale battle, far less defeated him, and he had had to sacrifice territorial rights in order to avoid conflict, which had only resulted in accusations of cowardice. A succession of French popes had proved powerless to help him, and one, Benedict XII, had clearly thought him a fool. Now people openly derided him. But like many unconfident kings before and after, his reaction to dissent was anger and tyranny, and that only exacerbated his difficulties. Edward on the other hand had never stooped to butchering his detractors. His determination to keep the war on French soil meant that he was much more likely to keep the goodwill of his people than Philip. And his policy of continual war coupled with his reluctance to compromise meant that, when he did settle for a truce or a ceasefire, it was always on his own terms. He had every reason to be optimistic.

Optimism was not something to rely on, however, as Edward well knew, and there was still plenty of room for him to miscalculate and lose. Northampton’s failure to win a major northern port suitable for an invasion was an indicator of how large Edward’s problem was. There could be no failed siege this time, as at Tournai in 1340. Nor could there be a withdrawal, as at La Flamengrie in 1339. This time the armies of France and England had to clash. Philip could not afford to be called a coward again, and Edward had parliamentary expectations to satisfy, that he would bring the war to a successful close. This raised an issue that must have been in the back of Edward’s mind: he had never actually defeated Philip on land. Indeed, no one had defeated the French army on French soil for more than a hundred and fifty years.³ They were reputed to be the best knights in Europe, and certainly constituted by far the largest assembly of trained men who would fight for a single cause. When the two armies did meet, it was probable that Edward would be facing an army two or three times the size of his own. And he could not be sure that the French would not pull some new tactics out to combat his archers. When Dagworth and his men had dug themselves in on top of a hill, it was noted that de Blois had advanced on foot, avoiding the entrapment techniques which Edward’s forces had to date relied upon. This was Edward’s quandary: he had to bring the French to battle, and defeat them comprehensively on their own soil, knowing he would be outnumbered, and knowing that his tactics were no longer unfamiliar to the enemy. Unless he could choose the place of the battle, and had time properly to arrange his forces, he would be in grave danger of losing everything for which he had fought and negotiated over the past sixteen years.

It is important to remember these dangers, for the character of Edward III has been portrayed as somewhat frivolous compared with such resolute figures from English history as William the Conqueror and Edward I. That would be absolutely the wrong picture to have of him now, on the point of invading France. Edward’s ability to enjoy himself has been seen traditionally as reflecting a moral weakness, and his fondness for women has often been cited as a lack of commitment to the business of being a king. But his enjoyment of hunting and male as well as female company should not lull us into forgetting that beneath the lighthearted exterior was a deeply committed and serious core of ambition. He had already shown it dramatically at Halidon Hill and Sluys. It is clearly visible in the very elaborate preparations for this campaign. Although Philippa was about to give birth to another child, Edward did not allow family matters to distract him from his prime purpose.⁴ He was now aged thirty-three, Alexander the Great’s age at death. Had William the Conqueror or Edward I met their descendant in Normandy in July 1346 they would have recognised a man every bit as resolute as they had been at the height of their powers, and one who was fully aware of the expectations of his peers, his parliament and his people. At times like this Edward was a warrior monk to whom the military guidebook of Vegetius was like a bible and whose reverential prayer all his waking hours was for victory over his adversary.

Propaganda was employed to the full. The very place of landing – Normandy – was partly chosen for its symbolism.⁵ The three main reasons for choosing the beaches were probably the proximity to England, the lack of a French army there and the difficulty of preventing a landing. But there was a fourth reason too: England had once been conquered by the duke of Normandy. Now England was returning the compliment. Edward’s contemporaries would have understood this as recovering the lands of his ancestors, a powerful symbol of duty in the medieval mind, and in many ways similar to the crusaders’ dream of recovering Christ’s patrimony in the Holy Land. It was said that Edward tripped on landing, and bloodied his nose, but got up and claimed that it was a welcome embrace from the land of France. William the Conqueror was said to have fallen similarly in 1066, clutching the sands of England as he got up, saying he held England in his hands. Edward certainly came prepared to draw connections between his campaign and that of the Conqueror. In his speech to the invading troops he reminded them of his dynastic right to the duchy of Normandy, which, he told them, inaccurately ‘had been taken unjustly in the time of King Richard’.⁶ Would not his men fight to right this injustice done by the French to that crusader king? And, like William the Conqueror, he announced that he would send the ships away. There would be no retreat. When he exhorted his men to be valiant, and to conquer the land of France or die, the army responded with shouts and overwhelming enthusiasm that ‘they would follow him, their dear lord, even to death’.⁷

Edward’s actual landing place – Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue – was on the western side of Normandy, on the Cotentin peninsula. No serious resistance to the landing was encountered; what little there was was quickly swept away by the vanguard, commanded by the earl of Warwick. Many Norman vassals were distrustful of Philip, and whether or not they wanted the old overlordship of England restored, they may have seen a political opportunity to change the king for one less inclined judicially to murder Norman lords such as Olivier de Clisson, who had been hanged during the truce, three years earlier. Godfrey de Harcourt – an important Norman landowner, who had been exiled from France – was with Edward, and may have pointed out that the Norman townsmen were not used to war on this scale, unlike the Flemings and Gascons. They would not be able to form a serious militia to resist Edward. As the English advanced towards Paris, they would be wresting control from Philip all the way.

Soon after landing Edward made his way on to a small hill near the beach. There he knighted his sixteen-year-old son, Prince Edward (the Black Prince), and several other promising young men including the eighteen-year-old William Montagu, second earl of Salisbury, son and heir of his late great friend, and the seventeen-year-old Roger Mortimer, grandson and heir of his late great enemy, the earl of March. He then resorted to Morsalines while his captains oversaw the disembarkation and organisation of all the troops, victuals and equipment, an operation which took a full five days. Edward sent troops to take the ports of Barfleur and Cherbourg which lay nearby. Both towns were looted and burnt. Edward did speak to his men – or as many as could hear him – telling them that he had not come to despoil Normandy but to accept its allegiance; but his exhortation failed to restrain the substantial minority who considered it their prerogative to loot the goods, rape the women, and gorge themselves on the fruits and soft cheeses of Normandy. Even as the troops disembarked the wildest English and Welsh bands – there were about three thousand Welsh spearmen with Edward – roamed between the villages and ‘cheerfully’ set fire to the countryside ‘until the sky itself glowed red’.⁸

On 17 July the English army began the march eastwards, towards Paris. They travelled in three divisions. The first, the vanguard, was under the nominal command of the prince of Wales, assisted by the earls of Warwick and Northampton. The main body of men was under the king’s own direct control. The rear was commanded by the recently consecrated bishop of Durham, Thomas Hatfield. With such an enormous force approaching, the first town in their way – Valognes – had no option but to submit, the inhabitants begging only that Edward spare their lives. Edward made a show of granting to all the Normans who accepted his kingship that he would indeed spare their lives and property. But in reality his word alone was not sufficient to control the urges of his men, who looted the town and burnt it as they left. The same happened at the next town they came to, Carentan, which was also subjected to looting and burning despite the king’s attempts to save the property of men whom he considered his subjects. After Carentan he knew that, wherever the English army went there would be destruction unless the most strenuous and time-consuming efforts were made to keep the troops in order. In most cases, this was counter-productive. For the French towns in his path, his approaching army was simply a tide of misery.

The inhabitants of the next town on the way to Paris, Saint-Lo, realised in advance what was likely to happen to them, and decided to resist. With a French army in the vicinity, commanded by Robert Bertrand, they prepared to defend their homes. They broke down the bridge and barricaded the streets. But their decision was a naive one. When the size of the English army became clear, Bertrand realised his position was suicidal, and withdrew to Caen, leaving the inhabitants of Saint-Lo to defend their homes as best they could. Had the English been a mere raiding party of a couple of hundred men, perhaps the townsmen could have held them back. But fifteen thousand fresh soldiers was impossible. Edward’s carpenters repaired the bridge and the army smashed through the gates and barricades and swarmed over the town, seizing whatever they wanted and killing anyone who got in their way. When the news was spread that the three skulls hanging above the gates belonged to three Norman knights who had been executed against the terms of the truce for supporting Edward in 1343, the inhabitants were doomed.⁹ Overt statements that rapes took place are relatively rare in chronicles – killing could be considered chivalrous, rape never – but at Saint-Lo, in le Bel’s words, ‘several pretty women of the town and their daughters were raped, which was a great pity’.¹⁰ The wealthiest men – cloth merchants – were seized, bound and dragged off, to be shipped back to England and ransomed. As the first town that had actively resisted him, Edward did not say a word to try and prevent the destruction. Instead he gave the order for the whole town to be burnt. He might have lost the power to save those prepared to accept him, but he could still demonstrate what horrors would be inflicted on those towns which resisted.

*

Edward made his men rise early, before dawn. Each morning they were ordered to move out to a certain destination. On the 23rd they were ordered to Torigny, but a change of plan switched them to Cormolain. The next day’s march took them to Fontenay le Pesnel, then Cheux. On 26 June, Edward arose, heard mass before sunrise, and ordered the army to advance on Caen.

Edward knew that Caen would be the site of the first important battle of his campaign. Inside the secure walls of the old town and its castle were the forces of the count of Eu, the lord of Tancarville, the bishop of Bayeux and a substantial population, probably in excess of twelve thousand people. There were also about three hundred mercenary Genoese crossbowmen. Outside, waiting for Edward, was a large contingent under the command of Robert Bertrand, including many townsmen of Caen who had insisted on meeting the English in the open, bravely trying to minimise the damage to their town. The English approached at about three o’clock in the afternoon.¹¹ Edward drew up his men in battle formation. Seeing the thousands of pennons approaching, the men of Caen realised that they had totally misjudged the scale of the invasion, and fled back within the old town. Fearful though they may have been, their retreat was also a sensible tactical move, strengthening further the town’s defences. The French numbered between two and four thousand soldiers and perhaps four thousand adult male citizens; this made it a daunting task to storm the town, as the walls were strong, and seven thousand men (not to mention a few thousand women) could easily defend them for a long period. The king’s confessor mentioned in a letter that when he first saw Caen, he thought it was impregnable.¹²

Edward could not afford to think in terms of impregnability for he did not have time for a long siege. He noted that the two great abbeys built by the Conqueror – the Abbaye aux Hommes (where the Conqueror himself lay buried) and the Abbaye aux Dames – lay outside the walls, so that a complete destruction of the town need not destroy his ancestors’ burial place or his religious foundations. When the bishop of Bayeux refused even to answer his letter offering to spare the lives of the inhabitants if the town surrendered, and failed also to permit the return of Edward’s messenger, the destruction of the town became his determined path.

As it happened, the vanguard had run ahead of his decision-making. As the last of Bertrand’s soldiers desperately made for the safety of the old town, the foremost of the troops under the prince and the earl of Warwick had followed them and attacked. A battle ensued in which the archers in the vanguard were confronted by large numbers of men-at-arms. In order to save his valuable archers, Edward sent a message to the earl of Warwick to order them to retreat, but, in the vicious chaos which followed in the streets of the old town, the earl also became drawn into the fighting. Realising there was nothing to do but engage fully, Edward ordered an attack. Everything centred on the bridge between the new and old towns. A contingent of Welsh spearmen, seeing the low tide allowed them to cross the river on foot, jumped in and bravely waded towards the defenders on the far bank, attacking the bridge from the rear. More English piled into the fray until the defenders lost heart and fell back, leaving their compatriots on the bridge to be killed. Some knights took refuge in the upper storeys of the gatehouse. They saw what happened to those caught in the streets. Even the wealthy were killed by the English troops who were (in Froissart’s view) ‘men of little conscience’. No one was being ransomed. The knights in the gatehouse only survived when one of their number happened to recognise the arms of Sir Thomas Holland amidst the mêlée, and pleaded with him to take them prisoner, so that their lives would be saved.¹³

When the dust settled, more than five thousand Frenchmen lay dead in the streets and in the fields around the town, hacked down as they tried to flee. One hundred and seven knights were taken prisoner along with about one hundred and twenty esquires. Three hundred Genoese archers lay dead, their crossbows all useless after they ran out of bolts. As the town had resisted, a large number of women were systematically raped. Some of the English knights tried to prevent some of the rapes and killings. But Edward did nothing to prevent any of it. He was set on destroying everything, ruthlessly eliminating every obstacle between him and Philip. When he was told that he had lost several hundred soldiers, some killed in the ransacking of the town by citizens throwing stones down from their upper windows, he gave the order to kill everyone within and to burn the town. Only the insistence of Sir Godfrey de Harcourt persuaded him that he had destroyed enough already, that he needed to remain focused on his real ambition, which was to meet Philip in battle, reassuring him with the words ‘without more killing we will still be lords and masters of this town’.¹⁴

Edward accepted Harcourt’s advice. It became a pattern for him to insist on the most stringent, horrific punishments for those who had dared oppose him, and only to relent when one of his own men begged him to show mercy. This campaign was not about mercy. It was about him being seen to be ‘terrible to his enemies’, demonstrating that Philip and the French, and the pope and the College of Cardinals, had to regard him not as the son of Edward II but as the greatest warrior in Christendom, and king of a commensurately great kingdom, capable of re-enacting the most glorious exploits of Arthur or anyone else from history they cared to mention. The self-doubt which he had experienced as a teenager still seems to have been pushing him on, to prove himself, to live up to the prophesies of greatness.

After the battle of Caen Edward spent five days in the town, preparing for the battles that lay ahead. He sent out troops to devastate the countryside around. When he received the capitulation of the citizens of Bayeux, terrified that theirs would be the next city destroyed, Edward told the city’s representatives that he would accept their submission only when he could guarantee their safety, with the obvious implications that Philip had failed to do exactly that.¹⁵ He ordered twelve hundred reinforcement archers to be levied in England and despatched to him in Normandy together with their equipment.¹⁶ And he held a council of all his nobles. King Philip had taken possession of the sacred war banner – the Oriflamme – from the Abbot of Saint-Denis on 22 July and was marching to Rouen.

Edward’s decision – presumably supported by his nobles – was to go straight for Philip. On 31 July he ordered the army to break camp and head towards Rouen. On either side of the main army rode the marshals, devastating everything, so that a broad trail of incineration and destruction fourteen miles wide was left behind Edward wherever he went. That night he encamped at Troarn, the next at Rumesnil. The following day he marched into the city of Lisieux. On 5 August he was at Le Neubourg, twenty-five miles from Rouen. On that day two cardinals sent by the pope to discuss a new peace initiative were allowed into Edward’s presence.¹⁷ Their suggestion was that Edward should accept Philip’s offer to restore the counties of Ponthieu and the duchy of Aquitaine to be held on the same terms as Edward II had held them, as feudal tenements of the French king. Edward must have been hard-pressed to retain a diplomatic front. These men were still treating him as if he was a supplicant, the king of a little country, a weak country, unable to question the military and ecclesiastical might of France. Did they not realise he had invaded France and was actively trying to engage the French king in combat? Did they think this was merely to regain his father’s territorial possessions? Did they not realise that he did not care whether the pope placed England under an interdict? Where were their letters of authority? They had none, they admitted. He dismissed them from his sight, and gave orders to advance to Rouen.

Edward knew that the French army was growing larger every day. At the beginning of August Philip had crossed the Seine and had briefly headed towards Edward, but then had come news of the landing of the second English army in Flanders, under Hugh Hastings, and intelligence that the Flemings had provided a large force to invade France from the north-east. Philip hastened back to Rouen, uncertain of what to do. As the cardinals wasted Edward’s time, Philip ordered the destruction of the bridge over the Seine at Rouen, thereby cutting himself off from Edward. He also sent troops ahead to guard the next bridge upstream, at Pont de l’Arche, and the next at Vernon, and so on, giving him enough time to gather an even bigger army, hoping to sweep around through Paris and crush the English. This posed the question: would Edward attack the capital? His baggage wagons were only able to move slowly, about half the speed of the men, but a large contingent could certainly have reached it sooner than Philip, and could have perhaps burnt the suburbs. But it was a very risky move. To get drawn into street fighting in the largest city in northern Europe, against a massive and hostile population, was to risk being overpowered by numbers.¹⁸ The capital had been defended with barricades, compounding the difficulties. Nor would burning the capital of France have helped him reach the northern bank of the Seine. If Philip moved his army to guard the city, Edward would face an impossible series of obstacles between himself and safety. For good reasons, then, Philip gambled that Edward would not actually attack the capital, though he might threaten it. If Philip could bring another army against Edward from the south, and bring his main force through Paris to attack Edward from the east, he would force Edward back towards Normandy, if not destroy him. In view of this, Philip ordered the huge army under the command of his son, the duke of Normandy, to give up the siege of Aiguillon and begin the long march north.

This decision may have raised a smile in the English camp. It would certainly have raised a fantastic cheer in Aiguillon itself. The town had been besieged for over four months by Duke John, and he had sworn not to rest until he had overrun it. For the three hundred English men-at-arms and six hundred archers within, life had become very difficult. Only the remarkable antics of Sir Walter Manny and his indomitable comrades had prevented the town falling to the huge French army at the gates. Indeed, at times it seems that Manny regarded the enemy’s presence as simply a form of entertainment to break the monotony of the siege, making daily sorties to destroy the French bridge being built over the river, and later to forage for supplies. On one of these sorties Manny and his men had found themselves cut off by a French foraging party six times the size of his own. In the ensuing fight, Manny’s horse was killed underneath him, and his men were all cut down, but when a rescuing party from Aiguillon reached the skirmish and fought their way through to him, they found him carrying on the fight completely surrounded by Frenchmen, and ‘fighting most valiantly’.¹⁹

Edward destroyed all the manors of the king of France, even those within two miles of Paris, but he did not advance on the city itself. It is likely that he realised the risks were far too great, and the chances of bringing Philip to battle in favourable circumstances were far too small. He was still as determined as ever to fight, but to do so on his own terms required him to cross the Seine. He also knew that, before long, the duke of Normandy’s army would trap him if he remained south of the river. So began a desperate chase along the river towards Paris to find a bridge. At Pont de l’Arche the local forces desperately fought off the English vanguard until the main French army arrived. The next bridges were at Vernon, Mantes and Meulan. At these places too the English found either the bridge in ruins, or defended by several thousand Frenchmen. Which left them no option but to press on to Poissy.

By 13 August, the situation must have been beginning to rattle those around Edward, even if he himself remained calm. Yes, they were within twenty miles of Paris. Yes, they were feasting off the king of France’s own cattle and drinking his wine. But they were not safe. They had failed to engage the French army. Philip controlled the bridges, and by now his army was much larger than the force at Edward’s disposal. Edward was stranded south of the Seine, with no way to go except back to Normandy, and that was unthinkable. There was an army of perhaps twenty-five thousand men between him and safety, and it was still growing in size.²⁰ If Edward had lost only a thousand men in the campaign so far – and he had probably lost more – then he had about half this number. And a second French army was approaching from the south-east. His freedom was at stake, if not his life. Certainly his leadership was in question unless he made something happen soon. It was of paramount importance that he cross this river.

This was where Edward saw the return on the years and the money he had spent on encouraging chivalric pursuits. By promoting the cult of the knight, Edward had fostered men who saw opportunities for greatness and glory in fighting against odds of six to one. It was said in England that if a French army outnumbered an English one by three-to-one, it would be as fifteen lambs to five wolves. Sir Walter Manny and Sir Thomas Dagworth were not alone among Edward’s men in showing outstanding courage and supreme fighting skills. Vignettes of an almost comic nature have come down to us, slipped as they were between the pages of the chronicles of enthralled contemporaries. When Sir Thomas Holland found the bridge at Rouen had been destroyed, dividing him from the French king, he was distraught. Having fought and killed the only two French knights he could find, he stood on the edge of the ruined bridge and repeatedly bellowed ‘St George for King Edward!’ at the concerned Frenchmen on the other side.²¹Comic as such events may appear to us, Holland’s shouting, Manny’s extraordinary courage at Hennebont and Aiguillon, and even the wanton destruction of towns and villages by ‘men of little conscience’ are all indicative of a powerful collective will – one is tempted to say psychosis – to attack the enemy. Edward had encouraged a spirit to fight which was so strong that it was difficult to control. The upside of this was that he commanded a force which was undaunted by any task he set. That promise to follow him ‘even to death’, which the army had made on landing, was serious.

On 13 August the main army came to Poissy. The bridge itself was broken but, as the English looked at the remains, it seemed that the piles were still in place. Odd beams from the bridge floated here and there on the river’s edge. Carpenters were called up. Could the bridge be repaired? It was possible, but if the French attacked in sufficient numbers, those first across would be massacred. Edward ordered the carpenters to begin work at once, and asked Northampton to stand by to defend them. Within a short while a single beam, one foot wide, was laid across the swift-moving river. As the last beam was secured, a French force of one thousand horsemen and two thousand infantry appeared on the far bank.²² Had Edward’s men had any doubt in his leadership, things might have been very different. But Northampton and two dozen knights did not hesitate for a moment. They rushed straight over the narrow crossing, one after the other, swords drawn, and engaged the French in bitter hand-to-hand combat, and held them back, as reinforcements crossed behind them. By the end of the day, between five and twelve hundred Frenchmen lay dead around the north side of the crossing.²³ The English too had lost many men. But Edward had his bridge.

*

The next day Philip learnt that Edward held the bridge at Poissy. His policy of entrapment had failed. He now had no option but to take positive action. He issued a public challenge, declaring that he would meet Edward’s army in the area south of Paris, or north of Poissy (north of the Seine), between 17 and 22 August. Edward told Philip’s messenger that he would be delighted to fight Philip, but he would choose the time and place of the meeting himself. When asked where Philip could expect to find him, Edward told him to look for the smoke of burning towns, and promptly gave orders to burn every place between Poissy and Paris, including Montjoye, the French king’s favourite residence and the place which gave him his battle-cry (‘St Denis et Montjoye’).²⁴

Philip may have supposed that Edward did mean to fight him south of the capital, in the plains. Perhaps he believed that Edward was so eager to fight that he would rush into poorly defended ground, where his comparatively small army could be surrounded. But Edward was a better military leader than Philip, and a more competent strategist than Philip’s advisers were prepared to admit to their king. The day after the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary (15 August) – during which both sides observed an informal truce – the French army marched south, towards Paris. In so doing they opened the door for Edward to cross the Seine at Poissy and march north, escaping their entrapment on the south side of the river.

This move has led many subsequent writers to believe that Edward never really meant to do battle with the French at all, that he was running away. But it is one thing to escape a trap, seeking a more suitable battlefield, and quite another to run away. Edward was doing what the Scots had done to him in 1327, what he had done on the way to La Flamengrie in 1339, and what any skilful strategist would have done in the circumstances. He was searching for a more advantageous place to fight. He even put his plan into a formal letter to Philip on the 15th, stating that his sole intention was ‘to put an end to the war by battle’, stating ‘at whatever hour you approach you will find us ready to meet you in the field’ and that ‘we do not consider it advisable to be cut off by you, or to let you choose the time and place of battle’.²⁵

Having crossed the Seine on the 16th, Edward had the Somme on his north, and he now learnt that Philip had destoyed all the undefended bridges over that river also. If he stopped on the south bank, the massive French army would advance on him there, and surround him. It seemed as though all France was one big spider’s web full of rivers on which he could be caught, and the French army a big spider able to crawl towards his army wherever it was trapped. If he came to the Somme, and was cornered, Philip’s army could hold back and devour him at its leisure, slowly, without a pitched battle, thereby avoiding the risk of attacking the mass of Edward’s archers. The answer therefore was simply not to get trapped. And that meant crossing another big river.

Philip could destroy bridges, but he could not destroy fords. There was only one crossing which would guarantee Edward safety from the French army. This was the ford called Blanchetaque, the ‘white spot’: a path across the Somme estuary marked with a white stone which was traversable on foot at low tide. At high tide merchants’ ships could sail up the river to Abbeville, so there was only a narrow opportunity to cross. This was known to Philip, of course, so he had already despatched Godemar du Fay to oversee its defence, with an élite corps of five hundred men-at-arms and three thousand archers and footsoldiers.²⁶ This was more than enough to guarantee that it could not be crossed, so Edward sent Warwick to try to force the bridge at Pont-Rémy. There Warwick encountered Sir John of Hainault and King John of Bohemia, who drove him back with heavy losses. Attempts to take the bridges at Longpré and Fontaine-sur-Somme proved equally fruitless. Edward’s food supply was now beginning to run down, and Philip was just upstream with his army. Edward was once more vulnerable.

But Edward still had the chivalric fervour of his men on his side. When he needed men who were prepared to risk almost certain death in return for a chance of immortal glory, he had an abundance of volunteers. So, trusting in the valour of his men-at-arms, and the range of his archers, Edward selected the earl of Northampton and Sir Reginald Cobham to lead the perilous attack on Godemar du Fay at the ford.

What happened next was a testimony to how far the English had progressed since that day, nineteen years earlier, when Mortimer had held Edward back from attacking the Scots across the river at Stanhope Park. With incredible courage, Northampton and Cobham proved that it was possible to advance across a river facing large numbers of entrenched, well-armed forces, and drive them from their positions. With one hundred men-at-arms and one hundred archers, they waded into the water, twelve abreast. With the longbows’ rapid fire pinning down the front ranks of the enemy, the first group of men-at-arms charged across the river and mounted the bank, despite the returning fire of the Genoese crossbows and the onslaught of the men-at-arms who defied the English longbows. In this way, despite heavy losses, they provided a place for the next hundred men-at-arms to run to, to take the place of the dead, dying and still-fighting first wave. And the archers moved slowly nearer and nearer to the far side, replenished from behind by the next hundred, and then the next hundred. This carried on until they had sufficient numbers to launch a full-scale onslaught on the men of Godemar du Fay. Before long the French men-at-arms realised that their advantage had been shot away by the English archers, and they fled, leaving their infantrymen to be rounded up and killed by the pursuing English knights who now rode freely across the ford. According to a contemporary newsletter, two thousand Frenchmen were killed in the forcing of the passage across the Somme.²⁷ Soon the English army was across. Not long after that, the tide came in. Philip was cut off from the English. The French were left staring across the river at their elusive quarry. It was not quite comparable to Moses and the parting of the Red Sea, but for the English on the morning of 24 August 1346, it was another of those military miracles for which they were becoming famous. Edward was the first to offer thanks to God.²⁸

*

Edward had escaped entrapment. He was still no nearer to victory but at least he could choose when and where he would fight the French king. At first he considered it to his advantage to engage Philip on the river bank at Blanchetaque, and to this end offered Philip an unimpeded crossing. But Philip refused, and returned to Abbeville, where the bridge still stood, held for him by another large force.

Edward was now on home soil, in a manner of speaking. He was in the county of Ponthieu, which was his mother’s inheritance, given to him by his father more than twenty years earlier. Froissart specifically attributes the arrival of the army in Ponthieu as the reason Edward stopped near Crécy: to go further would have been to relinquish land he rightly claimed as his own. This is probably correct; keeping the war on French soil was his highest priority. But it needs to be noted that Edward was on familiar ground. He had been here before, on his journey to see Philip in 1329.²⁹ He had almost certainly been along the road from Abbeville to Saint-Riquier before, and perhaps more than once, for he was in the vicinity in 1325–26 and 1331. How well he could remember the land is another matter. In 1329 he had been a seventeen-year-old on his way to swear fealty to his cousin. Now things were very different. He was twice as old, and had about ten thousand tired men dependent on him; they were hungry, and their shoes were beginning to disintegrate after marching several hundred miles. And they were all about to be attacked by the largest and best-equipped army in Europe.

On Friday 25 August, Edward sent scouts towards Abbeville to find out whether Philip was going to attack that day. They returned to say they could see little sign of action. Sir Hugh Despenser had meanwhile attacked Le Crotoy and returned with plenty of victuals. Edward remained uneasy, concerned that Philip would attack that following night. He gave orders for the army to camp in the open, and to prepare a defensive formation. With still no sign of the French advance, he held a dinner for his nobles and captains. The men remained in their armour. Froissart states that when the lords had retired from the king’s pavilion, the king spent several hours in a makeshift oratory, praying for victory, or at least honour. Without honour, he would be nothing, not even self-respecting. At around midnight he went to bed.

Next morning – Saturday 26 August – he was up before dawn. He summoned the prince to him, and together father and son heard mass and received Holy Communion. Then, as the rest of the camp was stirring, they rode out to survey the surrounding area with Edward’s principal commanders, including Northampton, Warwick, Cobham and de Harcourt.³⁰ One can imagine Edward looking over the ground with care, lines from Vegetius echoing in his head. Perhaps he repeated some of them for the benefit of his son, or tested the prince on what he could remember. ‘The nature of the ground is often of more consequence than courage.’ Or ‘if your forces are few in comparison to the enemy, you must cover one of your flanks either with an eminence, a city, the sea, a river or some similar protection’. Edward did not have the sea, and he did not want a river, far less a city. But there was the forest of Crécy. With that to cover one flank he chose to place his standard at the top of a hill. He positioned his men in three battalions in front of it, across the hill. The first would be under the command of the prince of Wales, and would include Warwick, de Harcourt, Cobham, Sir Thomas Holland, Sir Bartholomew Burghersh, Sir Thomas Clifford, Sir John Chandos and many other outstanding knights, with eight hundred men-at-arms and the surviving thousand Welshmen. The second would be under Northampton, with the earl of Arundel in support and a further eight hundred men-at-arms. To himself he reserved the remaining seven hundred men-at-arms, who would hold the rear, and about two thousand archers. It went without saying that the other four thousand or so archers would be on the flanks. Trapping the enemy was the essence of their power.

The baggage wagons were carefully positioned. Some were used to make a corral around the horses, who were placed at the rear of the army, near a windmill at the top of the hill. But some of those carts which had rumbled over the rough roads of France all the way from Saint-Vaast-La-Hougue were placed with the archers. King Philip was about to discover why his army had been able to cover thirty miles in a day and the English could only manage half that. They had been protecting these carts. Strapped beneath them were about one hundred small cannon. Now we can see how meticulous Edward’s planning and preparation had been. The powder for these artillery pieces had been made at the Tower of London in March, long before landing in France. It had been hauled across the ford at Blanchetaque still dry. Until now gunpowder had only been used in sieges, with the sole exception of Mortimer’s use of ‘crakkis of war’ on the Stanhope campaign. Those had been dangerous exploding buckets by comparison with Edward’s refined guns. As well as small cannon with calibres of roughly four inches (the shot were still stone) he brought his newly developed ‘ribalds’ – series of bound gun barrels designed to shoot metal bolts, like crossbow bolts. And Edward not only had developed them, he had thought of how to use them too. That was why they were with the archers: to catch the advancing French in the deadly crossfire.³¹

Edward had another surprise, also long in preparation. Beside his usual royal arms he unfurled another banner: a painted dragon clothed in his own arms. It was his answer to the Oriflamme. As the troops marched to their positions, they all saw this new symbol of English power and confidence: ‘Drago’ they called it, recalling the prophetic symbol of his grandfather, Edward I.³²

The English captains passed on the orders for pits, one foot deep, to be dug in front of their lines to break the charge of the French men-at-arms. As they worked, four French knights appeared in the distance, surveying the English array. Edward gave orders that they were not to be bothered or interrupted. Let them report to Philip how few they were in number! Let them see Drago! Let them tell the French army to come to them. For Edward was still dependent on being attacked. If his troops were drawn out and down to fight Philip and the French lords on their terms, the battle would be lost. Discipline was everything. He jumped on to a small palfrey and went among the ranks of men, carrying a white wand with which he made his gestures and directives clear to all those who could see him. And they listened. His words were words of honour, he spoke of the glory which they would win, and of the rights they would uphold. Never again would the French king be able to hold the English people in contempt, no, nor the pope. Froissart states that all who heard him, even those who were feeling afraid, were cheered by his presence, so positive and optimistic he seemed. He filled them with self-belief. And he did this as he rode at walking pace through all the ranks. Until ten o’clock he rode among them, exhorting them to do their utmost. He commended them to the protection of God and the Virgin Mary. Then he gave orders for the army to sit down, and rest some more, and have food distributed so that they might be strong when the French came on the scene.

Edward and his leaders met together for one last time in his pavilion. Those who were hungry ate, and they all drank a little. Then the pots and pans were packed up, and sent away to the carts at the rear, and each lord resumed his place with his men, said his prayers, and waited.

Edward might have been unfortunate with the weather at sea, but he surely would have gladly weathered all those storms again for the luck that came upon him now. It began to rain. The English sat or stood and waited in their positions as the summer grass beneath their feet was soaked. And as the grass grew damp so did the crossbow strings of the Genoese who were being force-marched to the front of the French army somewhere beyond their sight. Exhausted, and insulted by their French employers, these Genoese had been chosen to lead the assault on the English, using archers against archers. But these crossbowmen needed time to shoot and reload, and they usually fired from behind their great shields. These shields were still in the wagon trains, somewhere behind them. No time for those, they were told; they would have to fight without them.

It was mid-afternoon when the first ranks of Genoese archers came into view. Behind them, in a long disorderly mass, came the army of France: about thirty thousand men, roughly three times the size of the English force, with more following, yet to arrive. The English ranks were ordered to their feet. The archers restrung their bows. And they waited. The Genoese advanced, and shouting insultingly at the English. Local people had lined the road all the way to the battlefield, and chanting Kill! Kill! Kill! as the French army passed. Now the time to kill had come. Line after line advanced, shouting abuse, their bolts primed for the first volley. They yelled for a third time at the English, hoping to scare them. But the English did not move. Then with the boom of the first cannon, the Genoese loosed their volley of bolts.³³ And with dismay they watched them die up on the air, and fall short. Hurriedly they began to reload in the open, as the next line advanced, taking up the shouting. Still there came nothing from the English but the occasional sighting shot from the cannon. Only when the bulk of the Genoese were in range and about to shoot did the English trumpets ring out for the attack to begin.

If Genoese pride had died in the air with the falling short of those first crossbow bolts, then English pride struck home hard and true with the first English volley. The Genoese were ripped to shreds: ‘these arrows pierced their arms, heads and through their armour’, said Froissart. Each archer in the English camp could fire between six and ten arrows per minute. If each man fired at the slower rate, to ensure accuracy, and if there were only five thousand archers in the English army, the Genoese – who numbered no more than six thousand – were suddenly struck by thirty thousand arrows per minute, each of which was potentially deadly. We do not know how long they could have kept this up, but if Edward had brought supplies on the same scale as he had ordered them in 1341 (a single order of three million arrows for seven thousand bows) then we may reckon that this rate of fire was sustainable for at least an hour. Chroniclers describe the effect in terms of arrows falling like snow.

Within a few minutes there were very few Genoese who were not dead or dying. Those that survived the attack retreated, shouting, some throwing down their crossbows. But the appalled French commanders refused to allow them to flee. The count of Alençon (King Philip’s brother) set spurs to his horse and charged some of them down, slashing at them as an example. Philip himself gave the order to kill anyone who retreated from the battlefield as he saw the Genoese run: ‘Kill these scoundrels, kill them all!’ were his actual words, reported on good authority.³⁴ But as his own men realised, killing Genoese crossbowmen would not help them against the English.

Despite this appalling start, the reputation of France as leading all Christendom in arms was much more than mere posturing. Pride ran very deep in the French psyche; military honour was integral to the identity of the French nobility. Even as the French knights saw their mercenaries run, they rallied and readied themselves. These men knew the purpose of their privileges, and recognised the time had come for them to do their utmost duty. They cannot have failed to understand at that moment that they were facing a test as severe as any previously encountered by a French army. Trumpets blared. Wave after wave of knights set their spurs to their horses and charged up the hill in a furious attempt to drive the English from their position, only to suffer humiliating and catastrophic losses on the hillside as their polished armour and surcoats were torn open by the humble arrows of the English archers. Each time they fell back, but, as befitting the flower of European chivalry, they regrouped and charged again. Fifteen charges were thrown against the English. At one point they broke the line, and fought through to reach the first battalion of English men-at-arms. Seeing the standard of the prince of Wales, they made a concerted effort to seize him. The prince, although only sixteen, was strong and brimful of confidence, and as soon as the French knights came to him he rushed at them, slashing at their horses, bringing down their riders, stamping on their helmets and cutting through their lances. As a result, he ran the risk of being surrounded, and briefly it seemed the French had managed to seize him. But they failed to disarm him, and he fought on, while his bodyguard ferociously fought back to save him. At one point he was struck to his knees, and his standard-bearer, Sir Richard Fitzsimon, resorted to the desperate measure of actually laying down the prince’s standard in order to draw his sword to defend his master. Another of his men rushed back to Edward to ask for help for the prince. Edward sent it, but by the time it arrived the prince was far from needing it. With Fitzsimon’s help he had regained his feet, and started fighting more furiously than ever, so that by the time the twenty knights from Edward’s own bodyguard had reached him, they found him laughing and leaning on his sword beside a long pile of corpses, catching his breath before the next onslaught.

With the chaos of the hand-to-hand combat, and the volleys of arrows still being coordinated by the captains, the trumpets, the whinnying of horses, the cannon booming away, the arrows and the cannon bolts and cannonballs, and the yells, the shrieks and screams, the scene must have been truly terrifying. But one thing was clear to all, no matter where they stood: the English position was holding. Against all the odds, ten thousand were holding back thirty. When he was told of the developments on the battlefield, the fifty-year-old blind King John of Bohemia asked to be led forward. He had demanded to be given command of the French vanguard, for he too had believed they would easily pick off the English. They had even selected in advance who was to have which prisoners. Now he realised that his presumption had contributed to the rout. If he had not demanded the command of the vanguard – if the man in charge of the French advance had at least been sighted – they might have stood a chance. He asked his knights to do him one last service. Would they tie the bridle of his horse to theirs, and lead him to the front line so that he might, for one last time, lift his sword and charge into battle. He was asking them to lead him to his death, and for them to die with him. Solemnly they did what he asked. When the next trumpets blared, and the next great charge against the English rode at full tilt, the closest household knights of the king of Bohemia rode with them, all in one line, stretched out on either side of their king, shouting his war cry for one last time, lances couched and swords aloft. For them there could be no retreat. It was a matter of fighting with the knights and men-at-arms of the first battalion of the English until they were all dead. After the battle their dead horses were found, all still tethered together, with their corpses scattered near the body of their king.

With the last of the French charges failing on the front line, Edward gave the order for the English horses to be led forward. The pages ran to get their masters’ steeds and led them out of the enclosure. When the fifteenth charge had fallen back into the mass of men on the slopes of the hill, the trumpets sounded the English attack and the mounted chivalry of England poured around the limits of the front line. When the French infantry saw the standards of Northampton, Warwick, Dagworth, Burghersh and Cobham bearing down towards them, they came to a horrified halt on the slope, and quickly turned and fled. King Philip – a tyrant but certainly not a coward – saw his men desert him in their thousands. And as he watched, on came the English knights. Philip’s bodyguard rallied around him, so too some infantry and some of his closest friends and supporters, but the battle they now fought was not for victory, it was for their king’s survival. Bitterly they exchanged blows until evening gave way to night. His standard-bearer was killed as he stood beside him. The king’s own horse was killed beneath him. An arrow flew into the fray from one of the English archers and struck Philip in the face. The English raised a great shout, and then another as the Oriflamme went down. The sacred war banner of France lay in the mud of the battlefield. John of Hainault realised that nothing now could save the day, and forcing the king on to a spare horse, and keeping hold of the reins, he and a few knights dragged the king from the battlefield. As Edward had previously given strict orders not to pursue the enemy into the night, Philip escaped. Of all the knights and great men who had come with him to Crécy, he had only five barons with him when he departed.

As Philip fled in the darkness towards Amiens, the English regrouped in their positions on the hillside. There was a windmill at the top of the hill; now Edward ordered it to be filled with brushwood and set alight to act as a beacon and a focal point for the English. Still he kept order, wearing his full armour, not even having removed his helmet. Only when he came to the lines of the first battle which had withstood the French attacks, and saw his son Prince Edward with his own eyes, did he remove it. He embraced him and kissed him. ‘Fair son, God save you! You are my good son, and you have acquitted yourself nobly. You are worthy to keep a realm.’ And the prince bowed to his father, honouring him. He had picked up the crest of the fallen king of Bohemia, an ostrich feather, and repeated his motto as he knelt before his father: ‘Ich dien’ (I serve).³⁵ Edward then began to speak about the battle to all those present. No one was to boast; everyone was to thank God for their good fortune. And they must be on their guard lest there be a counter-attack by a relief force in the night.

There was no other attack that night. The English rested safely with the burning windmill above them and the mounds of corpses and wounded in the darkness below, lying in the cold. There the unfortunate lay in pain, expiring on the killing field, or unable to move, able only to wait for the dawn and the swift cutting of their throats as the English infantry began to pick over the battlefield looking for loot. On the day after the battle there was another fight, between a second contingent of Frenchmen who arrived too late for the battle and who came out of the morning mist to find themselves face to face with the earl of Northampton. Soon they too lay dying. When on the Sunday Edward expressed a desire to know how many had died on either side, he ordered Sir Reginald Cobham, Sir Ralph Stafford and the heralds to establish an accurate figure by collecting all the French surcoats worn by the men-at-arms. Edward ordered that his men now ransacking the battlefield itself could keep all they found as long as they surrendered the surcoats to him. Over the day they covered the whole area of the battle and all the outlying fields and forest, and the site of the battle between Northampton and the reinforcements who had arrived too late for the battle proper. Eleven great princes lay dead, including the king of Bohemia, the count of Flanders, the duke of Lorraine and Philip’s brother and nephew, the counts of Alençon and Blois. One archbishop and one bishop lay among the dead, and eight great secular lords. Eighty bannerets – principal knights – were dead, and 1,542 knights and esquires lay just in the area before the English front line, where the prince had been fighting.³⁶ A great number – thousands – of uncounted infantrymen’s bodies were scattered over the battlefield. A further four thousand French men-at-arms and Genoese crossbowmen had been killed by the earl of Northampton in the attack on the following day. In comparison, English losses amounted to about three hundred men.

*

The importance of the battle of Crécy cannot be exaggerated. It demands that we look beyond the limits of Edward’s own life to understand his achievement in the broader terms of European history. Leaving aside the political circumstances of the fourteenth century, it was the first major battle between two well-resourced martial kingdoms in which victory was obtained by projectile weaponry rather than hand-to-hand fighting. In that sense it marks the advent of modern warfare. Since his victory at Halidon Hill in 1333 Edward had pioneered the systematic deployment of archers to win a battle. In the mid-1330s he was experimenting with mounted archers. By 1339 he had a projectile-based means of fighting which was exportable, and in 1346 he demonstrated against the best-equipped and proudest military kingdom in Europe that archery could and would defeat the greatest array of chivalry, provided the battlefield was chosen with care. From now on, groups of well-disciplined commoners with longbows could destroy much larger groups of the richest, most-heavily armoured, bravest and well-trained noblemen in Christendom, even when they were backed up with crossbowmen and huge numbers of infantrymen. The banner of aristocratic military splendour which characterises the middle ages had been shredded, not in a single afternoon by a few thousand archers but by thirteen years of careful experimentation and thought as to how projectile-based warfare could be perfected.

The implications of this for European society were profound. It is easy to point to the effects of the approaching plague as a reason for the socio-economic changes by which the medieval peasant was freed from his feudal bonds in the period 1350–1450. Fewer peasants to work the land meant more could sell their labour, and move away from their original manor and its obligations. It is less frequently noted that this socio-economic shift was accompained by a huge change in outlooks and attitudes after the battle of Crécy. Previously medieval society had understood that it was composed of three ‘estates’ of people: those who fought (the nobility and knightly class), those who prayed (monks and the secular clergy), and those who worked (the peasantry). In reality, ‘those who worked’ also provided the infantry levies to support their lords; but infantry were raised through a feudal hierarchy, were not well-trained, and they did not generally win battles by themselves. At Crécy all that changed. From now on, ‘those who worked’were ‘those who fought’. A thousand well-trained and well-equipped peasants with longbows were more than a match for a thousand of the best-equipped knights in Christendom. The consequent effect on the pride and military confidence of the English peasantry should not be underestimated.

The effect on the political situation was every bit as profound. Edward had not just won a victory over the French, he had turned many of society’s values upside down. He had overturned the common understanding that France was the greatest military power in Christendom, and he had done it in such a way that all could see that this was not a lucky or accidental victory. It was a carefully planned and well-executed systematic destruction of an enemy which could be repeated again and again. This upset the commonly held understanding of God’s natural order – the assembled fighting nobility were demonstrably weaker than the peasantry – and paved the way for that combination of political authority and large armies which would eventually see feudalism give way to absolutism. It also threatened papal influence: what help had a French pope been for the French king? If the pope’s prayers on behalf of France had so little effect on divine providence, and had not even saved the sacred Oriflamme from being trampled into the mud, how could a papal interdict on England be a sign of divine will? How could it be anything other than a sign of French bitterness?

For Edward, Crécy was a mark of personal glory. He had done what had been prophesied at his birth. He had won a military victory on the Continent and, in so doing, had done something absolutely remarkable. No English army had ever previously won a battle on this scale against the French on French soil. After the long campaigns and the heavy taxation, the news in England that Edward had triumphed was sensational, and the credit went directly to the king. Victory meant that the years of taxation, the strategy, the planning and the very policy of taking the war to France were all seen as a complete success.

For us, looking back on Edward as a man and as a king, it is not just the victory but the Crécy campaign as a whole which is remarkable. If we peel away the concretions of anti-Edwardian polemic written in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries – especially that Edward had been scared into flight by the approach of Philip’s army and had been forced to do battle at Crécy against his will, and was lucky – we may see that the entire campaign leading up to the battle had been planned meticulously, managed effectively and led superbly.³⁷ Today few scholars would deny that in 1346 Edward demonstrated all the qualities for which he was to remain famous for the next four centuries. His courage has to stand high in any list of these. If he had lost his nerve at Crécy or at any time earlier in the campaign – if he had been trapped at Poissy or Blanchetaque, for example – he would have lost not one but every chance of greatness. Great kings do not lose important battles. His reputation at home would have been severely dented, and his ability to raise money to further his firm anti-French policy would have been undermined. Then there is the matter of his leadership. Edward’s personal courage would have meant nothing if he had not had men willing to fight for him in extremely difficult situations at Poissy and Blanchetaque. His generalship thus commands respect. But in masterminding the whole policy of an aggressive response to Philip’s infringements of his sovereignty, in bringing the English parliament around to support his war, in organising the taxation to pay for it, and in devising the strategy which would ensure victory, Edward proved himself much more than a mere general. The battle of Crécy might have been won by English archers, but the archers by themselves would never have found themselves in France, still less in a position to have won the battle, if it had not been for the king’s inspired leadership. All Edward’s positive attributes – courage, leadership, strategic thinking, tactical brilliance, discipline, innovation and political astuteness – came together in the Crécy campaign. Together they gave his kingship a touch of greatness.

*

The battle of Crécy undermined Philip’s authority but in itself it was a symbolic and strategic demonstration of superiority; it was not a conquest. On the second day after the battle, as the body of King John of Bohemia and the other great men were solemnly buried by the English, and as Philip was issuing orders for all the Genoese archers who had retreated from the battlefield to be hanged, Edward prepared to press home his advantage. Had he seriously wanted to make himself the sole king of France at this time, he should have advanced on Paris. But such an advance would have carried with it many problems, not least the task of trying to persuade more than a hundred thousand Parisians to accept that the Louvre might be occupied by an Englishman. It would have been just as hard in the long term to persuade the English that their royal family might remove itself to Paris and patronise French merchants and craftsmen as much as English ones, and administer French justice, hear French pleas, and attend French parliaments. The idea of a single monarchy might have been militarily viable at this point but it was not a realistic political proposition.³⁸ Had Edward tried it, no doubt he would have had the same problem as he had in Scotland: a legal monarchy fighting a rival ‘nationalist’ one, without the means to support an inevitable succession of French campaigns, each of which would probably be organised to coincide with the Scots’ harrying of Northern England. It is therefore not surprising that Edward refused to countenance a march on Paris. On 29 August Edward ordered the army to take the road north, towards Calais.

Edward’s policy in Scotland had not been to occupy the whole country but to be able to march through the country at will. This was what he now decided to do in France. But to enable himself to bring an English army across the Channel whenever he wished required a permanent bridgehead on the northern coast. For this purpose, Brittany was too distant, too often subject to bad weather, and too hostile to the English. Normandy had been originally intended as a place to build such a bridgehead but victory at Crécy allowed Edward many more options. Calais was the strongest defensive town on the coast – it was practically impregnable – and the nearest port to England, the safest from the weather and the most easily supplied. Edward knew he would never have a better opportunity to set about the long siege which would be necessary to force it to submit.

The siege of Calais is today remembered largely for the story of Queen Philippa begging for the lives of the six burghers who surrendered the town, but this small detail masks a victory as politically important and as strategically significant as that of Crécy itself. It also masks the not-inconsiderable fact that the task of attacking the town was every bit as difficult as engaging a superior French army on French soil and winning. The town was surrounded by water and marshes. It was built on a concentric plan with two strong curtain walls between mighty towers, and ditches also protecting it. It could not be attacked by siege engines or mining, due to the marshes and water. That left Edward only two options: he could try to attack the outer defences using boats and scaling ladders and overwhelming numbers, or he could starve the inhabitants into submission, in conjunction with a slow attempt to break down the walls with stone and iron missiles, and wear down their will. He opted for the latter.

The reasons for this decision continue to be debated by historians. One view is simply that the place was too strongly defended: the walls, for example, being too high.³⁹ But we have to wonder; given sufficient numbers and a little time, surely every fortified place is vulnerable. And Edward did have sufficient numbers at his disposal. A recently suggested alternative is that Edward was trying to provoke another full-scale battle with Philip.⁴⁰ The truth is probably a combination of the two positions, Edward’s preferred strategy changing as circumstances around him changed. Yes, he would have relished the chance to fight Philip again on his own terms, and so may have placed himself ostentatiously at Calais to lure him to attack. He certainly stayed there expecting him to do so.⁴¹ But even before Edward arrived at Calais he had sent an order to England to send across all the remaining cannon at the Tower, so he clearly anticipated an assault on the town. However, no full-scale onslaught on the walls took place.⁴² Instead Edward built elaborate siege defences around the town, with shops and a marketplace and incorporating stone houses for his leaders and a fine palace for himself. ‘Villeneuve-le-hardi’, he called it mockingly, ‘Brave New Town’. Perhaps he thought that a concerted effort to take Calais would result in the complete destruction of the walls, which he wanted to avoid if he could help it. But with more sombre warning for the besieged, he declared he was prepared to stay there twelve years, if it should take so long to gain the town. And he populated Villeneuve-le-hardi with a very substantial force, up to thirty-two thousand men. If this figure – drawn from army pay records, not the exaggerations of chroniclers – is correct, it would amount to the largest English army raised for an overseas expedition before the eighteenth century.⁴³

Calais was commanded by Jean de Vienne, as resolute and committed a man as Philip could have wished to be in command. When the town was first besieged he took a quick and ruthless decision to expel all the poor women and children of the town, so that food could be conserved for the defenders as long as possible. Seventeen hundred women and children thus found themselves trapped between the walls of their home town and the English army, with nothing but the clothes they stood up in. Often in such circumstances such people became used as prey to twist the minds of the defenders, sometimes being killed in front of the walls but more often being left there to starve to death in the sight of their fellow townsmen. On this occasion, Edward was merciful, and not only allowed the women and children to go but gave them a meal as they passed through.

Philip’s hope was probably that news of a large Scots attack in England combined with the advance of a French army would drive Edward off from Calais. To this end he summoned his own army to reassemble on 1 October at Compiègne, and sent to King David asking him for an immediate invasion in the north of England.⁴⁴ David, who had been waiting for such a call, led an army forward at the beginning of October. Edward’s northern frontier was not undefended, however. The levies of the north were ready, commanded by William Zouche (the archbishop of York), Sir Thomas Rokeby and Sir Henry Percy. On 14 October, as a Scottish foraging party led by Douglas looted a village near Durham, the archbishop led his men forward. As they did so, a thick fog came down. The Scots, suddenly realising that they were surrounded by an army which they could not see, panicked. They fled back to their main army. When told that they were being attacked, King David responded that they had nothing to be afraid of, for he had twelve thousand men and there were not that many soldiers left in all of Northern England. But Archbishop Zouche was one of those clergymen who not only knew how to pray, he knew how to fight too. Now he put the two together, preaching to his army that they were defending not only their homelands but the lands of Durham Cathedral and the shrine of St Cuthbert. Three days later, at Neville’s Cross, the king of Scotland met an army as large as his own, motivated by fear and pious courage. English archers devastated two of the Scottish battalions, and forced them to break ranks. The third, commanded by David, was left exposed. Although he fought ferociously, even when shot through the nose by an English archer, he had no hope of escape, still less of victory. He was pursued, overpowered and captured. Sir William Douglas and four Scottish earls were captured along with him, the earl of Moray being left dead on the battlefield.

The news of the Scottish defeat stupefied the French. It hit them just two weeks after an English onslaught in the south. Sir Walter Manny, eager to join in the action at Calais, had obtained a safe conduct letter for himself and twenty men to go to Edward, but on his journey north he was overpowered and thrown into prison at Saint-Jean-d’Angély. Not a man to suffer wrongful imprisonment cheerfully, he broke out of his cell and stormed off. His eighteen fellow-prisoners were unable to escape, but Lancaster rode to their rescue a little later, as he pressed the boundary of Gascony further to the northward. And having come this far, Lancaster decided he would go on to attack Lusignan, where he had some notable successes. The sack of the rich city of Poitiers in particular, coming on top of the news of Neville’s Cross, paralysed the French. Few men responded to Philip’s summons. No one wanted to march into the hail of arrows which had massacred so many at Crécy. By the end of October Philip had given up hope of bringing an army against Edward, and turned bitterly to accuse his ministers and even members of his own family of ineptitude and disloyalty. His only hope as far as Calais was concerned was that Jean de Vienne would hold out for so long that Edward would be forced to give up the siege.

The last thing Edward was going to do was give up. It is in his camp at Calais that we may see him at his most confident and most resolute. The defences he had prepared around Villeneuve-le-hardi were exceptionally strong. He had a huge army with him. Although all his attempts to cross the walls were met with determined resistance, and some French ships did break through to supply the men within, he remained focused on the capture of this important town week-in, week-out. The lack of a relieving army merely persuaded him that he would be spending winter in Villeneuve-le-hardi, so he sent for Queen Philippa to join him for Christmas in his temporary palace. The contrast with the situation of Jean de Vienne could not have been greater. Realising he could not expect a relieving army before the spring, the city’s stern commander ousted a further five hundred people into the ditch between the walls and the English army.⁴⁵

So the stand-off continued well into 1347. As each day went by, Edward knew he drew nearer to victory and de Vienne became more desperate. By March it was clear that Edward would not retreat from Calais unless forced to do so. Philip summoned another army in March 1347, and went to the abbey of Saint-Denis to take a newly embroidered Oriflamme. Edward waited, twisting his garrotte around Calais even tighter. Lancaster, who had returned to England from Gascony in January, crossed the Channel to join in the siege. After a French attempt to drive barges towards the town in April was fought off by the earl of Northampton, Edward ordered a timber castle to be built on the sandbank on the seaward side of Calais. He garrisoned it with archers and men-at-arms, preventing any supply ships approaching the town by day or night. He seized every approach road to Calais, and defended them all. He knew that Philip had no option but to attack him. His regnal responsibility demanded it. And this time he was in a far stronger position than he had been at Crécy. In addition to his army of Englishmen he had a force of several thousand Flemings.⁴⁶ He was inviting Philip to march to his doom.

The pressure on Philip to meet Edward in battle was growing greater all the time. By the end of June it was extreme. Gascony had been reduced to English control or smouldering ruins, and the flame of English resistance in Brittany was burning more brightly than ever. On 19–20 June the five thousand-strong Breton army of Charles de Blois was defeated in a night attack at La Roche-Derrien by seven hundred men under Sir Thomas Dagworth and a few hundred men of the town, Charles himself being captured in the attack. Philip had lost another nephew to the English. It seemed that whatever Philip did in any corner of his realm, he was powerless to stop the relentless tide of English military success. In the space of two years the English had overrun and looted more than fifty towns and countless villages and monasteries. And there seemed nothing that Philip could do to oust them. He could not even remove Edward from Calais.

The siege had now gone on for nine months. The food had finally run out, and with Edward’s comprehensive blockade in force, there was no hope of relief. Jean de Vienne in desperation wrote a letter to Philip and gave it to a Genoese captain to try and smuggle out of the town. He left, in his ship, quietly at dawn on 26 June. The English caught sight of the man, and pursued him in their own vessels. In an attempt to conceal the contents of the letter, in the last moments of freedom the messenger thrust an axe through it and hurled it as far as he could into the sea. Unfortunately for him, all the English had to do was wait for low tide. A few hours later they took the letter to Edward. Now Edward could read for himself of the plight within the walls:

Right dear and dread lord . . . The town is in sore need of corn, wine and meat. For know that there is nothing herein which has not been eaten, both dogs and cats and horses, so that we cannot find any more food within the town unless we eat human flesh. Formerly you wrote that I should hold the town so long as there should be food. And now we are at that point that we have nothing on which to live. So we have resolved amongst us that, if we do not receive help soon, we shall all march out of the town into the open field to fight for life or death. For it is better to die with honour in the field than to eat each other. Wherefore, right dear and dread lord, do what shall seem fitting to you, for if nothing is done soon, you will not hear from me again, and the town will be lost, as well as us. Our Lord grant you a good and long life and give you the will, if we die for you, to acknowledge our sacrifice to our heirs.⁴⁷

Edward, fully realising the power of this letter, copied it, then fixed his own seal to it and sent it to Philip. It was as good as a challenge.

The French army arrived at Sangatte, six miles from Villeneuve-le-hardi, on 27 July. In the town the defenders were overjoyed, and lit bonfires and raised flags in honour of the arrival of the French king. But Edward also watched them as they drew up on the ridge above the marshes, knowing it would be certain catastrophe for them to attack him in his current position. He had his archers, his strong defences and more men-at-arms. He also knew that Philip had no time to spare; the one last attempt to buy time for Calais – sending a fleet of eight barges with food and drink to the besieged – had been captured by the watchful English. Delaying tactics now would prove of no avail. Calais was as good as his.

That evening the two cardinals with responsibility for the peace negotiations between England and France asked for safe conduct to come to the English camp and put proposals before the king. Edward appointed the greatest scourges of French troops to receive them: Lancaster, Northampton, Sir Walter Manny, Sir Reginald Cobham and Sir Bartholomew Burghersh.⁴⁸ The following day a French embassy came through the marshes with the cardinals to meet the English negotiators. They recognised that Calais was lost, and that the best which Philip could do was to beg for the lives of those who had held out for so long. But Edward did not need to bother with agreements of this sort, and his negotiators let the cardinals know they had not been empowered to discuss the town, which was already theirs. When the French embassy then tentatively suggested a peace treaty, to include the restoration of all of the duchy of Aquitaine, to be held on the same terms as Edward I had held it, they were told this was a small thing hardly in proportion to the efforts which Edward had made to recoup his rights. For four days the debates continued, everytime the French trying to bring Calais back into the discussions. On 31 July, with nothing else to offer or discuss, they departed.

On the departure of the cardinals, Philip resigned himself to war and the bloody destruction of his kingship. What precisely happened is still obscure, but one thing does seem certain: when the peace negotiations failed on Tuesday 31 July, Philip’s negotiators returned from Philip immediately with a challenge to Edward to do battle in an open space between then and Friday evening. This was to be selected by four knights on either side, and safe conducts were to be offered to those who would do the choosing. One chronicle – that of Jean le Bel – states that Edward refused, saying that he (Philip) could see that he was in his realm and despoiling it; if he wished him to leave then he should attack him. However, this is probably incorrect, amounting to no more than le Bel’s interpretation a few years later.⁴⁹ In his own letter to the archbishop of Canterbury, Edward states that his negotiators received this challenge on the evening of Tuesday 31st. They said they would show the challenge to Edward, and promised a response on the following day. Edward then took advice and ‘trusting in God and our right, we answered that we accepted their offer and took up the battle willingly’. This reply was presumably delivered on the Wednesday, together with the safe conducts which Edward ordered to be written. But, as Edward himself states, ‘they of the other side, when now they had heard this answer, began to shift in their offers and to speak of the town all anew, as if putting off the battle’. It would appear that Philip’s advisers had demanded why they were fighting, if not to save the town? If Edward had agreed to fight in the open, should the town not be the prize? Edward’s refusal to talk about the town probably made up Philip’s mind for him. He stood to lose not only Calais but a second battle. He could do nothing about the former, but he could at least save his forces a second ignominious defeat. Philip gave orders for his men to burn their own camp and any supplies they could not carry, and to disperse.

A little after dawn on Thursday 2 August 1347, before the walls of Calais, Edward watched as the army of France gave way before him. Anyone of a normal disposition would have been overjoyed, but not Edward. He did not feel victorious. He had promised to make an end to the war, and now he knew his adversary would live to fight another day. He had promised in his letters back home that there would be a second great battle, and a victory, God willing. His mood was therefore blacker than it had been for ages when his attention was dragged back to the plight of the beleaguered town. Sir Walter Manny had been summoned by a messenger to treat with the governor of Calais. After eleven months of bitter siege conditions, and desperate hopes, the crushed garrison realised they had held out in vain. Their king had deserted them.

In the traditional form of chivalric behaviour, the garrison now sought terms. After eleven months of siege, and cheated of his second battle, Edward was in no mind to offer terms at all. When Manny passed this news to Jean de Vienne the governor was at a loss, and pleaded with him to return to Edward to beg for their lives. ‘We are just a few knights and squires who have loyally served our master, as you would have done, and have suffered much as a result . . . I therefore once more entreat you, out of compassion, to return to the king of England and beg of him to have pity on us.’⁵⁰ Manny relayed this plea to the king who again refused it, insisting that the Frenchmen should submit unconditionally to his will. At this even the hardbitten Sir Walter Manny seems to have been moved, for he answered the king back. ‘My lord, you may be to blame in this, for you set a very bad example. If you order us to go to any of your castles we will not obey you so cheerfully if you put these people to death; for they will treat us likewise if we find ourselves in a similar situation.’ These words struck home. Manny was alluding to the many small garrisons Edward had left in Normandy, which had been overpowered and massacred after he decided to besiege Calais. After due thought he announced his decision:

Gentlemen, I am not so obstinate as to hold my opinion alone against you all. Sir Walter, you will inform the governor of Calais that the only grace he must expect from me is that six of the principal citizens of Calais march out of the town with bare heads and bare feet, with ropes around their necks, and the keys of the town and castle in their hands. These six persons shall be at my absolute disposal, and the remainder of the inhabitants pardoned.

Having heard this offer from Manny, Jean de Vienne ordered the town bell to be rung so the citizens would assemble in the marketplace. In the most famous passage in his chronicle, Froissart repeats how one by one six of the wealthiest men of Calais volunteered to die so that their fellow townsmen would be pardoned. The first to volunteer was Eustace de Saint-Pierre. He was followed by Jean d’Aire, the brothers Jacques and Pierre Wissant, Andrieu d’Andres and finally Jean de Vienne himself.⁵¹

On 4 August 1347, eleven months to the day since the siege had begun, these six men did as Edward had asked. Carrying the keys of Calais they walked barefoot with ropes around their necks. De Vienne was so weak he could hardly walk, and had to be given a horse. When Manny led them before the king, they prostrated themselves before him, begging for their lives. Edward simply ordered them to be beheaded. Everyone present was shocked, after the courage shown by these men in coming forward. Edward’s mind was not inclined to sympathy but to business; his campaign was not yet finished. Even Sir Walter Manny’s requests for Edward to show mercy were ignored. According to Froissart, only when Philippa implored him to show mercy did he relent.⁵² Aware of the accusations of cruelty which would be brought against him if these men were killed, Edward did what he had always previously done: he relented when begged to do so by someone dear to him.

Forgiveness at the point of death. It was a powerful image, especially for a warrior-king. But it was typical of Edward, right through to his core. He had behaved in exactly the same way when the tournament stand had collapsed at Cheapside in 1331, almost killing Philippa. He had similarly given in to Philippa’s plea for him to show mercy when a young girl was brought before him on a heinous charge in 1337.⁵³ At Caen he had at first ordered a massacre and then relented when begged to do so. In fact, although Edward ordered quite a number of large-scale massacres in France, none was ever carried out. It was as if in each case he was trying to play the dread king ‘terrible to his enemies’ as well as the compassionate monarch. At Calais, as elsewhere, it was a method which confused and frightened his enemies. But from Edward’s point of view, it said everything about him which he wanted to project: magnanimity in victory, mercy, ruthlessness and power.

*

Edward had plans for Calais. Some of the citizens died in the next few days – from eating too much food and drink, when Edward sent abundant food supplies into the town – but most of the remaining townsmen were sent into France. In their place he established a strong English garrison. He destroyed Villeneuve-le-hardi so it could not be reused by Philip in a reprisal attack, and gave rich houses in Calais to each of his leading warriors. His vision for the town was as a landing place for future English armies, and men like Lancaster and Sir Walter Manny would doubtless be on such expeditions. To ensure the financial prosperity of the town he established there a mint and the English tin, lead and cloth staples (the official trading posts). Eventually he would add the valuable wool staple but not until 1363; for the time being that remained at Ghent, to the benefit of his Flemish allies.

Edward never dropped his guard. On 20 August, after the dispersal of the English army, he learned that Philip had summoned the French army to gather again for a surprise attack. Without hesitation he ordered his own forces to return to Calais. He repeated this instruction at the beginning of September, fully determined to meet Philip in battle as agreed before. Edward sounded out his leading magnates and then announced he was going to proceed into France once more ‘to do battle with our adversary . . . in order to recover our rights and to take whatever grace and fortune which God shall give us’.⁵⁴ But with both sides exhausted, financially as well as militarily, a truce was the preferred option on both sides. In addition, the English army was suffering badly from dysentery.⁵⁵The truce was agreed in mid-September. As before it was to include Scotland as well as France and Flanders. Everywhere Edward’s gains were to be respected, and loyalties were not to be broken. The peace, which was planned to last until 8 July 1348, was wholly in favour of the English.

Edward remained for a few more weeks in Calais, and then set sail for England. And as soon as he was out at sea, he got caught in another storm. In England, Edward’s voyages had almost become a means of predicting the weather. It was commonly joked that if he was going to France, the weather would be fine, but if he was returning, they could expect storms.⁵⁶ After invoking the protection of the Virgin yet again, he landed at Sandwich on 12 October and arrived in London two days later.⁵⁷ After two months of seeing to the rewards of those who had fought at Neville’s Cross and providing for the administration of Calais, Edward went to Guildford to celebrate Christmas.

Christmas 1347 was a great occasion. He had just completed the longest and most dramatic overseas expedition of any English king since the time of Richard I. Now he could enjoy himself once more. Roll out the tournament banners! For Edward went straight back to enjoying his hunts and his feasts, his celebrations, tournaments and games. Once more we may read in the wardrobe accounts of the extravagant purchases of this proud, happy monarch. For the Christmas games at Guildford Edward ordered:

forty-two masks bearing the likenesses of women, bearded men, and angels’ heads in silver. Twenty-eight crests, fourteen with legs reversed with shoes on, and fourteen with hills and rabbits. Fourteen painted cloaks, fourteen dragons’ heads, fourteen white buckram tunics, fourteen pheasant heads with fourteen pairs of wings for these heads, fourteen tunics painted with the eyes of a pheasant, fourteen swans’ heads with fourteen pairs of wings for the swans, fourteen painted linen tunics, and fourteen tunics painted with stars.⁵⁸

He himself and all his fellow knights wore long green robes embroidered with peacock feathers.⁵⁹ We could almost say that it was business as usual at the English court. Edward’s daughter, Joan, was betrothed to be married to the son of the king of Castile. And Philippa was pregnant again.

But in reality, life was never going to be quite the same. On 11 October 1347 Ludvig of Bavaria died while out hunting bears, and the electors chose Edward to be his successor as Holy Roman Emperor. Those prophesies from his youth, of European victories and of receiving the three crowns of the Empire, which once had seemed so daunting, had all come true. But it was not the offer itself that marks the difference, although it was a very rare honour for an Englishman to be offered the triple crown of the Holy Roman Empire. The real difference between Edward before and after Crécy lies in his response. He turned the offer down. He no longer sought to add to his prestige through allusions to prophesies, or the acquisition of great titles. He no longer needed to associate himself with old kings and legends. His own reputation, won through his own efforts, and in new ways, was greatness enough in itself.

At the age of thirty-five he had achieved everything his kingdom had expected of him. The English collectively had a new pride, a new identity, and it was one unparalleled in Europe. Edward’s war had begun to galvanise England into a nation, with common interests and, increasingly, a common culture. In the words of the great chronicler Thomas Walsingham ‘it seemed that a new sun had arisen for the English because of the abundance of peace, the plenitude of goods and the glory of the victor’.⁶⁰