SEVEN

Sluys and Tournai

BEFORE HIS BIRTH it had been predicted that Edward would wear ‘three crowns’. The prophecy probably meant the iron, silver and gold crowns of the Holy Roman Emperor, the title currently borne by Ludvig of Bavaria.¹ Ludvig declined to give up his title, but Edward was not to be outdone. He already had a good claim to wear the sovereign crown of England, and a claim on the overlordship of Scotland. To these he had added the vicarial crown. But even these three were not enough. Now, in the market square of Ghent, in Flanders, he went one better, exceeding the prophecy with a claim on a fourth crown: that of France.

In reality only his English title imparted genuine sovereignty. Scotland was almost lost. The Holy Roman Empire had proved an expensive and weak ally, and its counts, margraves and dukes had shown themselves to be undutiful subjects. And Edward had not conquered so much as an inch of French soil. Those who witnessed his proclamation as king of France on 26 January, sitting on a makeshift throne in a marketplace, might have wondered if this was another gesture, as devoid of power as the last. But Edward’s French claim was a deeply serious move, for by it he was able to accept overlordship of the Flemish people, and thereby ‘conquer’ a part of Philip’s realm (in a manner of speaking) without having to pay or fight. In shifting his friendships away from the half-hearted German leaders towards Flanders, while keeping Brabant in the alliance, he had forged a much more powerful confederacy, for Flanders and Brabant had a definite interest in English affairs through their dependence on the English wool trade. An alliance with them had the potential to last.

Claiming the throne of France was a complicated business. Not least of the problems was that of which kingdom came first. Was Edward king of ‘France and England’, or ‘England and France’? To the modern reader this might appear a minor point, but to contemporaries it was of grave importance, for it could be construed that it implied precedence and subjection. In October 1337, when Edward had first contemplated adopting the French title, he had played safe, issuing two sets of letters, one styled ‘king of France and England’ and the other with the order reversed. After 1337 it had been easy to refer to Philip as ‘he who calls himself king of France’, or ‘our cousin, Philip de Valois’. But actually claiming the title was much harder. Philip himself may have contributed to the problem, mocking Edward at first for quartering the arms of England – the three leopards – with the fleur de lys of France. Probably before 1340, Philip pointed out in ridicule that Edward had put the arms of the little country of England in the upper dexter quarter – the most important position – thus relegating the arms of France (the largest and richest kingdom in Christendom) to a lesser position.² Edward’s decision to reverse this, putting the fleur de lys prominently in the upper dexter quarter, was a direct challenge to Philip, visually demonstrating in vivid blue and gold that he, Edward, was the heir of France.

Philip’s response to Edward’s claim was surprise and anger. His fury reached a peak on 8 February 1340, when Edward’s new seal arrived. That day Edward issued a declaration to the French people, in French, declaring that, as the Flemings had recognised him as king of France, he invited them to do so too. Now Philip could see for himself, engraved on the seal, the French arms quartered with the English. When Philip read the motto – ‘Edward, by the grace of God, king of France and England’ he was aghast at his audacity. Then he learnt that Edward had issued the same declaration and issued copies of his seal to all the towns in and around Flanders as well as several places in France. Realising he had been challenged and embarrassed, he ordered a search of all church doors and public places for copies of the letter, and decreed that anyone found carrying a copy was to be regarded as a traitor and hanged.

The pope too was surprised and angered by Edward’s claim, stating that the ‘sight of his letters, with his new title and seal engraved with the arms of France and England, caused surprise’.³ He insisted that heirs of females could not inherit in France, despite the arguments laid before him by Edward’s lawyers. He added that, even if they could, there were others closer to the throne than Edward.⁴ Then he went on to castigate Edward for accepting ‘evil counsel’. In this way he put forward a vehement protest on behalf of his homeland, with direct accusations that those who had advised Edward were untrustworthy and that the allies of France would do Edward no end of harm.

The pope’s surprise at Edward’s claim was probably genuine. When Edward had first claimed the title in October 1337, it was probably only the prompt intervention of the cardinals which had prevented him from sustaining the claim. The pope felt that his cardinals had done enough then to dissuade Edward from adopting the title, limiting him to merely disputing Philip’s right. This may have been effected through secret threats as well as more open persuasion, and, at that point, this may have included threats to unveil his father, in Italy. Now, thanks to Niccolinus Fieschi, Edward could contain this threat. Perhaps in connection with this matter, it was Niccolinus whom Edward chose to go to explain his actions to the pope. Edward’s position was that Philip de Valois had made no attempts to avert war, and although Edward would have been content with a modest attempt at peace, he could see no other option but force.⁵ But shortly after Niccolinus’s arrival in Avignon, the French, with the help of the pope’s marshal, broke into the house in which he was staying and kidnapped him in his nightclothes. Although Benedict was very much in favour of the French at this time, he took the seizure exceptionally seriously, and placed the whole of France under an interdict until Niccolinus Fieschi was set at liberty. To suspend the religious services (including burials, marriages and baptisms), confessions and privileges of an entire kingdom on account of a single offence committed in his own household against a Genoese knight acting for the English king was extreme, to say the least. Philip complained directly about the punishment. Whatever the real purpose of Niccolinus’s mission, there was more to his seizure than a violation of diplomatic immunity. He had become as important to the pope as he was to Edward. Pope Benedict hanged all those he suspected of being involved. With regard to his marshal, who committed suicide in gaol before he could be hanged, the benign pontiff had the man’s body exposed on a gibbet ‘for the birds to eat’.⁶

The English were the most surprised of all by Edward’s new title. Although Edward decided on a solution with regard to the order of his kingdoms – ‘king of France and England’ for international affairs, and ‘king of England and France’ for matters relating to the British Isles – not even he could justify having more than one coat of arms. For the English to know that their king had adopted the arms of France and set them above those of England was confusing and damaging to English pride. It was threatening too, because his decision to adopt this coat of arms and title was made without any reference or explanation to parliament. Combined with his demands for money and his other high-handed orders since leaving England, it was beginning to seem that he gave little thought to the people of his homeland, and respected their independence even less.

Edward’s point of view was very different. Eighteen months on the Continent had broadened his horizons. Here he was, the Vicar of the Holy Roman Empire, the self-proclaimed king of France, and a champion of Christendom: it is easy to see why he did not relish the prospect of returning to a small island to beg for every tenth scraggy sheep off the South Downs. But although Edward’s conceit, anger and frustration sometimes blinded him, and made him act rashly, like his self-defeating father, he had not completely lost touch with reality. His claim on France and the vicariate were only made possible by revenues derived from English land and English sheep. If he wanted to reclaim all of Gascony, including the Agenais, and defend England against any counter-attack, then those sheep were important.

Edward had planned to return to England early in December 1339, and had written to the duke of Brabant arranging to leave hostages during his absence, hoping to wriggle out of the terms of his earlier financial agreement. This did not happen, possibly because the Flanders negotiations took longer than expected, possibly because the duke of Brabant refused him permission to leave, or possibly due to Edward deciding that his proclamation to the French throne had to be made while he was still in Flanders, on French sovereign territory. Whichever it was, events were now moving quickly, and even Edward was having difficulty maintaining control. Stuck in Ghent, he probably convinced himself that he could rely on past decisions of parliament to support his adoption of the French title, and that a belated explanation would be acceptable. But his first inclination – to return to England and do his explaining up front – was the better one. In January the commons again refused to grant him a new subsidy. They would confer further and give him a formal answer in February. Such continued resistance from mere commoners had never before been voiced in an English parliament, and it alarmed him. He needed to return to England straightaway.

Edward landed in England on 21 February 1340, having left his heavily pregnant queen in Ghent. Two days earlier the commons had returned their final verdict. They had consulted with those they represented and they would grant no further taxation without concessions. Adapting quickly to the sensibilities of the English, and aware that these men of the shires and towns regarded themselves as representing those who had chosen them – a new development in itself – Edward issued a summons for them to attend another parliament at which he could address their grievances. In order to pre-empt criticism over setting the arms of France above those of England, he explained in the writ of summons that it had not been his intention to prejudice the kingdom of England by assuming the title of France.⁷ Indeed, by 29 March, when parliament gathered in his presence for the first time in three years, Edward was in an attentive, concession-ready mode. He was prepared to say what the people wanted to hear, and to grant whatever they demanded.

Parliament had been worried by Edward’s repeated high-handedness, and it assembled with a view to listing all of its many demands. Edward had only one requirement: money. If the commons wanted reform, they would have to agree first to finance Edward’s war, for that was the bedrock of his policy: to keep the enemies of England on the defensive and in their own lands. To this the commons did agree. In fact they did more than just agree, they encouraged him and supported him in this policy by granting him every ninth sheep, fleece and sheaf for two years.⁸ Those who lived in forests and wastes, and foreign merchants, were to be taxed at a fifteenth of their goods, but it was stressed that it was not the wish of the king, nor of the magnates, nor of the commons, that this tax of a fifteenth should be extended to ‘poor cottagers or those who lived by their labour’ (this was the first time tax relief had been granted for the poor). Parliament also granted a duty of forty shillings on every sack of wool, every three hundred sheepskins and every last of leather exported. This generosity permitted parliament to ask for much in return. Liberties were confirmed, debts to the Crown were pardoned, and delays in the administration of justice were ordered to be dealt with. The use of standard English weights and measures was implemented throughout the kingdom. The method of appointing of sheriffs – widely hated officers of state – was reformed.⁹ The Walton Ordinances, which Edward had ordered when leaving England in 1338, were wholly repealed. The outdated custom of Englishry was dispensed with forever.¹⁰ Purveyance was dealt with, as well as rights of presentation to church benefices. A permanent baronial committee, appointed by parliament, was established to oversee all royal taxation and expenditure.¹¹ Lastly, the question of the subjection of England to the kingdom of France was firmly and unambiguously settled. Edward undertook that ‘the realm of England never was or ought to be in the obedience of the kings of France’ and ‘that our realm of England and the people of the same shall never be made obedient to us, nor our heirs and successors, as kings of France’.¹²

This process of creating legislation – responding to social demands in return for extraordinary taxation – was effectively selling laws. As a result, it has frequently been attacked as a haphazard legislative programme. It certainly suggests that Edward had no domestic legislative agenda of his own. But we have to ask whether a responsive approach to lawgiving was a negative thing. After all, most modern laws are passed in reaction to changing social circumstances. In April 1340 Edward was in no position to know what was required in England; he had been overseas for almost two years. All he knew was that he had to restore his standing in parliament. So the relatively free hand he gave to representatives to set the legislative agenda was not simply due to his need for taxation. It follows that he cannot be credited with the reforms of 1340 except in one important respect: he allowed these statutes to be enrolled. For this his contemporaries were prepared to give him some credit. They knew it was something his father would not have done.

*

On 16 April 1340 Edward was jousting at Windsor Castle. Unexpectedly, a messenger arrived from Flanders. Five days earlier, two of Edward’s closest companions – the earls of Salisbury and Suffolk – had left the main army and set off to spy out the defences of Lille. They had had with them thirty men-at-arms, and some mounted archers. They were spotted, however, and as they moved around the town, they were gradually surrounded. When the garrison closed in, they were trapped, with their backs to the moat. They had drawn their weapons and fought furiously, even until dark. But when sixty or more men lay dead on the ground, the last seven were overpowered. One – a renegade French knight – was dragged over to a nearby tree and hanged there and then. Both earls and the remaining four men-at-arms were taken captive.¹³

alisbury and Suffolk – his friends, Montagu and Ufford – to Edward this must have come as a shock. But there was worse news to follow. The earl of Salisbury had been his principal commander in the Low Countries, and his capture flung the whole region into disarray. The French destroyed the towns of Haspres and Escaudœuvres and many villages in Hainault. In May they attacked Valenciennes itself, the capital of Hainault, burning and destroying everything in the vicinity.¹⁴ Sir Walter Manny’s brother, Giles, was captured and killed. An allied attack on Tournai failed. Incursions into England from Scotland meant that now, unable to spare troops to defend the border, Edward had to sue for a lasting peace in Scotland, against his wishes. In addition to all this, Philip’s fleet was so strong that Edward had to prohibit the export of wool for fear of it being stolen by the French.¹⁵

To Edward there was only one solution. He had to return to France as quickly as possible and lead an attack on the French army. If he did not, Flanders would be lost to him, and his wife too, still a hostage in Ghent, recovering from giving birth to John, later known as John of ‘Gaunt’ (Ghent). Edward needed ships, particularly the large Mediterranean galleys which Philip had been able to requisition from the Genoese. He wrote to the pope exhorting him to make sure Niccolinus Fieschi was released from prison so he could arrange for the commissioning of vessels. He also wrote to the Venetians, asking them specifically for forty galleys.

It seems that Edward was just beginning to panic. In his letter to the Venetians he was at pains to point out why they should supply him with galleys and not Philip. He explained the cause of the war – that Philip had occupied his lands in France – and added that:

On this account, King Edward calls upon the said Philip to fight a pitched battle. But for the avoidance of reproach hereafter on account of so much Christian bloodshed, he at the commencement of the war offered, by letter, to settle the dispute either by single combat or with a band of six or eight, or any number he pleased on either side; or that, if he be the true king of France as asserted by him, he should stand the test of braving ravenous lions who would not harm a true king, or perform the miracle of touching for the evil; if unable, to be considered unworthy of the kingdom of France.¹⁶

It all sounds very self-confident, bragging even. Edward was portraying himself as a leader prepared to risk his life for his political beliefs. But on reflection it is all a little too bombastic; these after all were very distant and very dignified correspondents on the Adriatic. This need to justify himself, personally, in a request for ships to a distant state, was inappropriate. This is especially so when one remembers that Philip was much older than Edward. Edward’s need to show that he was a brave and divinely chosen king, brave enough to challenge Philip to single combat, protected by God from the hunger of beasts, hints at a self-conscious need to convince others of his greatness. Such a protest of bravery suggests self-doubt.

The reason for Edward’s worry is not hard to find. His whole strategy was collapsing, economically and militarily. On 27 May Edward arranged for his son again to act as regent during his absence overseas. The council of regency was to be headed by the archbishop of Canterbury and the earl of Huntingdon. But they had only been appointed for a few days when the archbishop heard from a messenger of the count of Guelderland that the French were gathering their ships in a great fleet in the Channel to trap Edward when he returned to Flanders. Genoese, Picard, Spanish and French vessels were all drawing together to present an impenetrable wall. Philip had decided that Edward was the cause of, and the solution to, his problems. To capture him now became his highest priority. The archbishop conscientiously told Edward straightaway, but in so doing he made the mistake of telling him what he should and should not do. There were too many ships, he explained, for Edward to consider attacking them. He must remain in England. At this Edward’s already-frayed nerves gave way. He exploded in rage at the archbishop, accusing him of being against the war and dictating to him. Faced with this onslaught, the archbishop immediately resigned his office of Chancellor. Edward coldly accepted his resignation, and called two of his most trusted naval advisers to him, Robert Morley, admiral of the northern fleet, and John Crabb. They confirmed what the archbishop had said, saying it was too dangerous to cross the Channel. Edward was furious. ‘You and the archbishop are in league, preaching me a sermon to stop me crossing! Let me tell you this: I will cross, and you who are frightened where there is no fear, you may stay at home.’¹⁷ The two naval advisers then said that if the king were to cross, then he and those who crossed with him would be facing almost certain death. But they would follow, even if it cost them their lives.

The chronicler who recorded the above lines was probably trying to accentuate Edward’s bravery. However, he did not need to alter the facts to portray Edward as a brave man. Edward was all the braver because he did what he did despite his fear. The inappropriate stresses in the letter to Venice, his lack of money, elements of political misjudgement, his shortage of troops, his giving up of the Scottish war, his admission that the seas were too dangerous to risk the export of wool, the capture of two of his best friends by the French and the risk of losing his wife and son at Ghent, all suggest that now he was under extreme pressure. Given this it is truly impressive that Edward not only gathered a fleet but instilled in his men the belief that they were sailing to Flanders to engage and defeat the enemy. That he was able to inspire them, despite knowing the scale of the task facing them, is astonishing. There were two hundred ships and galleys in the enemy fleet at the mouth of the River Zwin, with nineteen thousand fighting men aboard. Two of the French ships – the Christopher and the Edward – had once been the pride of his own navy. He himself had only about 120–147 ships and they were mostly much smaller than the large galleys and warships of the French fleet, and fewer than twelve thousand fighting men when he gathered them all at Harwich.¹⁸

On 20 June, one week late, Edward stepped aboard his largest remaining ship, the Thomas and received his new great seal from the archbishop of Canterbury. The archbishop apologised to Edward. Edward accepted the apology and reinstated him as Chancellor, but the prelate, having thought over his position, would not accept. He was too old, he said. He could have added that he was too old to argue politics with a twenty-eight-year-old king who annually made a pilgrimage to see the point of the sword which had killed Thomas Becket, an earlier archbishop of Canterbury. For a second time Edward accepted his resignation. He appointed the archbishop’s brother, Robert Stratford, instead. Then, resolved to fight the French, he gave the order for his fleet to sail towards Flanders.

The ships of the fleet all came together over the next two days, keeping close. Small wooden vessels bobbed up and down around Edward’s cog: tiny by comparison with some of the vessels they would be facing. Nineteen of the French ships – including a few giant galleys hired from the Genoese – were said to have been larger than anything hitherto seen in the Channel. Late on the next day, Friday 23 June, as the English approached the Zwin estuary, they all saw for themselves. There was no more arrogant bragging or self-delusion. Every man in the fleet could see what stood between them and their purpose. Masts like a forest rose up before them in the evening light. The ships’ prows were all armoured with wooden castles, one after the other, all in a row, totally blocking the mouth of the River Zwin.

Edward gave the order for the fleet to drop anchor, and wait the night. The next few hours cannot have been easy for him or his men, trying to sleep with the movement of the ship, each half-listening for a surprise night attack. No sound but the waves lapping at the side of the boat and the low voices of those talking about strategies for the morning. No refuge from the thoughts of the danger that lay ahead. For the women Edward had brought to attend to his wife and newborn son, it must have been a troubling experience. They knew the horrific consequences if they were captured. Aware of their fears and vulnerability, the king ordered them to be kept well back from the battle.¹⁹

In the morning Edward saw that the enemy ships had not moved overnight. As the sun came up, he and his men waited for them to leave the estuary, to sail towards him. He probably hoped that they would do what the mounted knights at Dupplin Moor had done: charge into the sights of his archers on the flanks. But the French did not move. Their greatest and largest ships were placed at the front, defensively. If Edward wanted to land in Flanders, he would have to take the fight to them.

Still he waited. It was 24 June, the feast of St John the Baptist. Facing the French, the English archers would have looked into the sun. So Edward continued to wait, close to the coast. He knew that if he sailed north, the French could sail between him and the midday sun. Only in the early afternoon, when he knew that the sun would be behind his ships for the rest of the day, and the wind and the tide were with him, did he give the signal to advance.²⁰ The first of the three lines of English ships sailed forward, theThomasin their centre, with Edward on board and with the new royal banner of England and France, resplendent in red, blue and gold above him.

Slowly he came within arrowshot of the huge French ships. The French and Genoese crossbowmen waited. The English loosed their arrows. The greater range and the faster speed of the English longbows swept the decks of the French vessels. The crossbowmen were powerless to put up a line of fire. Even with the rising and falling of the boats, the English arrows tore through the lines of men on the French vessels. Realising that the impetus lay with them, the English sailed their ships into the French line and hurled their grappling hooks over the sides, drawing them together. The French responded, sending galleys forward to pick off some of the leading English ships. Four great galleys armed with springalds (giant catapults) sailed towards one English ship, the Oliver, and fired large amounts of stone shot into its sails and across the decks of the vessel. Soon many aboard the Oliver were killed or wounded. But Edward gave orders to respond to the challenge, and several English ships reached the beleaguered boat, driving off the galleys.

Over the next few hours it became clear that to judge the armies by the numbers of ships and men had been misleading. The first line of the French fleet blocked the second line from attacking, and they blocked the third line. All the English ships massed in an attack on the leading French vessels. The men who now rushed from the English on to the French and Spanish ships were hardened fighters. Foremost among them were the earl of Huntingdon, Sir Walter Manny and John Crabb: men used to warfare at sea as well as on land. The men they commanded had marched with Edward against the Scots. They had marched with Edward against Philip at La Flamengrie. They had thought, talked and dreamed of war for the last ten years. Now, at last, they saw that a momentous victory was within reach. It was as if Edward was a sacred leader who could only lead them to victory, like Alexander. He stood on the deck of the Thomas, shouting orders, undaunted, even when a French spear struck him through his thigh. Very soon theChristopher had a grappling iron hurled on to its deck, and as the English archers on an adjacent vessel let loose volleys of arrows to pin down the Genoese crossbowmen and to curb the sailors throwing down stones from the mastheads, the English men-at-arms scrambled on board.²¹A great shout went up from the English when they saw the French flag torn down from the Christopher. It was all the inspiration they needed.

Late that afternoon, when the foremost English vessels broke through the first French line, the second line was open to attack. Seeing the disaster unfolding, the third line fled that evening. The men of Flanders, who had been watching from the shore, themselves rushed to their boats and put out into the estuary. Attacked from both sides, and with very little chance of sailing around the island of Cadsand and away from the carnage, the majority of the French had no option but to fight to the death. Many threw themselves into the water and struggled to shore, where the Flemings caught and mutilated them. For many more there was no retreat, for their leather or metal armour would have drowned its wearer. And this being warfare at sea, which held special fears for men-at-arms, there were no chivalric courtesies. Probably seventeen thousand Frenchmen were killed or drowned, including both commanders of the French fleet. One of the French admirals was captured alive, but his skills rendered him too dangerous to ransom. Edward ordered the man to be hanged from the mast of his own ship.²²

It was the most extraordinary victory, and one for which Edward could take the full credit. Not only had he fought in the front line against heavy odds, the decision to sail had been his, the martial experience and ethos of his men had been down to him, and the strategic use of archers had been his. But even more than these, his leadership was responsible for this victory. He had inspired his men to take on a much larger and better-equipped fleet, knowing that the penalty for failure was death. He may have been half-mad with anger, frustration and worry when he had resolved to set sail; nonetheless he had convinced himself and his men that he could win. In his first great battle against the French – the battle of Sluys, as it came to be known – Edward captured 166 ships. Only twenty-four escaped. He had destroyed French naval supremacy in the Channel.²³

*

In London they could not believe the news. Only the previous October they had been driving piles and stakes into the Thames, fortifying the city, and arranging for church bells to be rung in warning, fully expecting to see two hundred French ships come sailing up the river to burn the city. Now that enemy fleet no longer existed. They could not believe it until a letter from Edward spelled it out for them.²⁴ In Ghent too there was great rejoicing. Obviously the men he had led to victory themselves did the most celebrating, ‘making much noise and much joy from the instruments they had brought’.²⁵ Edward himself was deeply affected, and gave thanks to God over and over again. It was a propitious day; he had received victory by divine clemency: it was a great miracle. Thanks were given to God ‘who had shown mercy to Edward in his great danger’.²⁶ The significance of it being the feast of St John the Baptist was not lost on Edward either (although it was probably a coincidence that his newborn son had been christened John shortly before).²⁷Thanks to that saint were offered in abundance. Edward could not walk or ride because of his thigh injury, and had to stay on board the Thomas for two weeks, but, if he had been able to, he would have no doubt gone on a pilgrimage straightaway. He did not neglect to send a letter to all the archbishops and bishops in England informing them of his victory and desiring their prayers. And he wrote to his son with news of the victory, stressing that the Christopher and the previously captured vessels had been retaken together with several other ships as large as the Christopher. This was news not just of a victory but of an improved platform for English trade, for it hugely increased the seaborne defences and security of the English wool fleet. As soon as he was well enough, he proceeded to the shrine of the Holy Blood at Bruges and the church of the Virgin Mary at Aardenburg to give thanks for his safe delivery.²⁸ Only then did he progress to Ghent to see Philippa and his new son.

Edward had spent the time laid up with his injury discussing with van Artevelde how best to prosecute the next stage of the war. The sieges of Tournai and Saint-Omer, which had been planned earlier in the year, remained the top objectives. These were both French-controlled towns on the Flemish border, both of strategic significance to Flanders and of great symbolic value to Edward. Tournai in particular was fanatically loyal to Philip.²⁹ There was no time to lose. Despite his recent victory, the archbishop of Canterbury had written to say that the council was having difficulty in gathering the wool to fund the expedition. The Peruzzi and Bardi banks were also failing to meet part of a loan agreed for the expenses of the royal household. Edward knew he had to keep the momentum going to avoid a repetition of the 1339 fiasco.³⁰ He split his army into two parts. One, the smaller, was to attack Saint-Omer under the command of Robert d’Artois. He himself would command the other in an assault on Tournai when he was fit enough.

The expedition began badly. Robert d’Artois was an old man unused to Edward’s new strategic thinking and unable to organise and inspire the English archers and men-at-arms. He was not trusted by the Flemish infantry either. He sought to take on the French with traditional methods, and was heavily defeated. Many valuable troops were lost to the alliance, and only remnants of the army made their way back to Edward. The siege did not just fail, it did not begin.

Edward reached Tournai on 23 July, one month after Sluys. As he and his allies were taking up positions around the city, it became clear that it was well-prepared to sustain a siege. Its massive walls had been built for just such a purpose. The River Scheldt ran through the centre of the city, making it impossible to deprive it of water.³¹ No attempt to take it by force had ever succeeded. More recently, Philip had stationed a strong French garrison there to galvanise the resistance of the twenty thousand inhabitants. The suburbs had been burnt in advance of the allies’ arrival. It looked as though it would be a long siege.

Edward, still high after his victory at Sluys, decided the best way to keep the momentum going would be to challenge Philip to a duel. This was what he claimed to have done already in his letter to the Venetians. Now he actually issued such a challenge. On 26 July he sent a letter to Philip, ‘count of Valois’. In it he demanded the throne of France, and complained that Philip had violently withheld from him his rightful inheritance. He went on to say that, since the quarrel was between the two men themselves, ‘let the controversy between us be fairly decided by ourselves, body to body, that the great nobility and valour of each other may be seen before all men’.³² Failing that, he offered a pitched battle between each king and a hundred men. And failing that, a pitched battle between their two armies before the walls of Tournai. The sooner Edward could have a positive and decisive victory on land, the less the cost to him, and the sooner he could advance negotiations into his real object: the return of all the lands he had lost since his coronation.

Philip’s reply was to pretend that he knew no one who answered to the name of Philip de Valois. It was a dull response, and it frustrated Edward, who clearly took pride in his being prepared to issue a personal challenge as a king. Everything now pointed to Tournai as where the great land battle would take place. It fell to Edward and his allies to subdue the city as quickly as possible. Against a city whose burghers themselves manned its defences and who volunteered to go out on raiding parties to attack the English, that was not going to be an easy task. It was 26 August – a whole month later – before any determined assault was made on the city walls. Two thousand Flemish sought to break through the northern defences. Despite its weakening state, they failed. They failed again a week later.³³

As the siege went on, Edward grew more and more disillusioned and angry. His money supplies had again dried up. The German allies who were doing nothing on the east of the city were reprimanded for their slackness. They resorted to the reasonable defence that Edward had not yet paid them. The Hainaulters on the southern fringe of the city were engaging often and having successes in ravaging the countryside. But they too were disillusioned by the inactivity of their allies. The Brabanters fell out with van Artevelde, feeling that he was winning the favouritism of the English king. Matters worsened after a Brabant lord told van Artevelde to ‘go back to Ghent and brew beer’, prompting van Artevelde to draw his sword and kill him. And still the defences of the city had not been breached. The French army under Philip, with the sixteen-year-old King David of Scotland in tow, was drawing close. Edward knew he would have the greatest difficulty resisting them, but there was no alternative. All the allied armies were drawn together, regardless of their squabbles, to face the French advance on 7 September. The citizens of Tournai took arms and prepared to launch themselves on the rear of the allied troops when the battle was underway. Edward stationed a rearguard to protect his armies, and readied his archers.³⁴

In one of the most prescient acts of his pontificate, Pope Benedict had sent secret messengers to both Philip and Edward two weeks earlier. To Philip he had sent the low-ranking William Amici, provost of Lavaur. For once we have a secret messenger’s instructions written down, for a copy was kept in Pope Benedict’s own register. The reason for sending a low-status messenger was to be explained to Philip; it was so he might move more freely than the cardinals sent in the past. He was to set before Philip the pope’s fears for his safety and the safety of his eldest son, John, duke of Normandy. He was to stress how successful the English had been at sea, and how the tide in Gascony was beginning to turn in favour of the English. He was to accentuate the size of the Flemish army with Edward, and to underline the dangers of a revolt in the French nobility against Philip, about which the pope had obviously heard mutterings. Finally, there was a renewed danger of a Moorish invasion. Considering all these things the pope heartily desired there to be peace between the two sides, and suggested that Aquitaine should remain in Philip’s overlordship with Edward offering fealty and homage for it, as he had before the war. To Edward he sent his chaplain, William Bateman, a trusted agent of Edward’s, explaining that just because he had won one crushing victory did not mean he would always be victorious, ‘for one who was conquered seventeen times won the eighteenth battle and another who won two victories was totally defeated in the third engagement’. He also made William write down a series of good reasons why Edward should want peace, namely the problems he was facing through being away from his own kingdom, and the danger of the huge army Philip was bringing against him.³⁵

Although the seeds of Pope Benedict’s advice had always fallen on stony ground before now, and these low-ranking clerics were not directly successful, both kings listened to these emissaries. Their words prepared the ground for a more personal appeal, on the night of 22 September. At the pope’s request, Jeanne de Valois, dowager countess of Hainault and an abbess since her husband’s death, came to Edward in his tent. As Edward’s mother-in-law and sister of King Philip, and mother to the count of Hainault (whom Philip was threatening to decapitate), she was well-placed to gain access to the leaders and able to beg for peace. She had already wept on her knees before Philip. Now she begged Edward to think of Hainault and the destruction and damage that was being done to her son’s dominions. She implored Edward for the love of God to desist from fighting.

Normally Edward would have paid scant attention to such pleas. But he faced a very serious dilemma. A messenger from Tournai to Philip had been caught escaping from the city and had informed the English that the people were close to surrendering. That was certainly the feeling in the French camp; many French nobles were gathering with Philip in fear that their relatives in the city were starving to death. Edward desperately wanted to take Tournai. He saw it as a test of his military capability. But at the same time his army was falling apart. If the city lasted out another two weeks, he would lose altogether, and his army would begin to desert. Money from England had entirely dried up, and he was having to borrow at very high rates of interest just to keep going. Thus Jeanne de Valois’ pleas and protestations – made by a holy woman, and a special emissary from the pope – gave Edward an honourable way to begin negotiations with Philip. He could pretend that he was agreeing to parley out of benevolence. He agreed that he would send an embassy to treat with Philip at the chapel of Esplechin, about three miles away.

As Edward admitted frankly in a later letter to the pope, his problem was money. Tournai might have been about to fall, or it might not, but Edward could not afford to go on. In this respect he did exactly the right thing, agreeing to terms, for Tournai was not strategically that important to him, and he stood to gain more from a generous peace than a hard-won victory. Three days after Jeanne de Valois’ visit, a truce was agreed, to last until the following midsummer. This would apply to France, the Low Countries, Scotland, Gascony: everywhere that the two kings were at war. All armies and troops, including the Scots, would be required to cease their operations, including sieges, with immediate effect. Those who had made conquests could keep what they had won for the time being. There would be freedom to travel and trade. Prisoners were to be restored. The proclamation was to be read in all the countries affected within twenty-six days. One cannot say that normality was restored – war had become more ‘normal’ than peace between England and France – but a period of stability and relative safety had been settled.

It has been said that the treaty of Esplechin offered something for everyone except Edward.³⁶ Philip had succeeded in relieving the siege of Tournai and sending Edward and his army back to England, and in pacifying the men of the Low Countries. Van Artevelde had protected his leadership of Flanders, had an interdict on his country lifted, and retained the English wool trade. The duke of Brabant and the count of Hainault preserved their frontiers, including several gains in the case of Hainault. They had no obligations to do any more fighting but were still owed a small fortune by Edward. But did Edward really lose by the treaty? If Tournai had fallen, the English would have occupied the city and there would have followed a siege or battle between Philip and Edward. The campaign would have been prolonged, and Edward would have found himself in even more dire financial circumstances, regardless of whether he had been militarily successful or not. If Edward had a clear vision of his situation in September 1340 – and from his letter to the pope it seems that he did – he would have seen that his greatest enemy was not the city of Tournai, nor Philip, but his lack of money. If we consider that it was money which defeated him, as he himself said and as historians unanimously agree, then it may be seen that Edward came out of the siege of Tournai very well, and indeed both the siege and the treaty were something to celebrate. He personally remained undefeated in battle. He had stopped the drain on his finances, stopped the attacks on Gascony and his castles in Scotland without having to spend any more money, retained the services of his allies in the Low Countries, and was free to turn his attention to finance. And for this he had had to make no concessions with regard to his claim on the throne of France, no surrender of lands seized by his allies, and most importantly no lasting peace. It is thus understandable that some contemporary knights regarded it as a victory. A great tournament was held at Ghent in October to celebrate his return from the siege. Some even ranked it alongside the more glorious episodes of Edward’s career.³⁷ Thus, although the siege was not successful, the truce which resulted from it was a success. Through it Edward achieved a stability which he needed more than the city of Tournai itself.³⁸