Strangely, and certainly wrongly, the history of the naval war between France and England at the end of the Middle Ages is an under-estimated subject, its contribution not yet fully studied by historians. The apparent ineffectiveness of naval forces, particularly when contrasted with the vital role which they came to play in the sixteenth century, may have turned students against the subject. Yet, the fact remains that, although we are dealing with an age when history was not decided by battles at sea, the first major battle of the Hundred Years War was fought at sea in June 1340. The subject has an importance in the history of war at this period which merits emphasis.
During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, France developed what was nothing less than a long-term naval strategy. In 1200 the king of France, ruling in Paris, was virtually land-locked, the county of Ponthieu, around Boulogne, being his only access to the sea. With the conquest of Normandy, however, Philip-Augustus gained control of a long stretch of coastline opposite England, from which he could also ‘oversee’ Brittany, while access from the mouth of the Seine gave him a means of developing trade and a wider market. It also meant that in 1213, and again in 1215–17, the French king was able to take the war to England, a thing unheard of only a generation earlier. Ten years later the French, now ruled by Louis VIII, broke out in another direction, this time in the Bay of Biscay, with the capture of La Rochelle in 1224. Twenty years later still, under Louis IX and with the needs of the crusade in mind, a port was built at Aigues-Mortes on the Mediterranean, to be used for commercial and, even more so, for military purposes. The vessels used by the French had to be brought from Marseille and Genoa. These were still days of innovation.
It is all too easy to see the development of France in terms of an inexorable and inevitable process of expansion from early beginnings in the Ile de France around Paris to the country we know today. Yet it may be argued that part of the process was a search for the open sea which France had been denied until the early years of the thirteenth century, and that the desire to win control of the peripheral duchies of Aquitaine, Brittany and Normandy was but an aspect of a wider policy which included an ambition to have access to, and control of, the ports on the Atlantic, Mediterranean and Channel coasts for military as well as for commercial reasons.
As the rivalry with England grew in the late thirteenth century, so the sea, which separated the two countries, took on added importance. By 1294 there already existed at Rouen, on the river Seine, a shipyard controlled by the king and employing specialist ship-builders brought in from Genoa. These were the signs for the future, but at the moment only signs. When Philip IV tried to attack England in 1295, he still had to seek transport ships from the Baltic ports and from those which he could seize in French harbours, together with sailors from Flanders. But, as the king found, he could not rely upon the Flemings; their links with England were too strong for them to act with determination against those who supplied them with the wool upon which their own economic prosperity depended.
The fourteenth century showed how valuable access to the sea, and in particular to northern waters, was to be for France. The sea coasts provided sailors to man the vessels used in war, a large number of which were requisitioned fishing or trading vessels, as the records make clear. The ports, such as Harfleur, at the mouth of the Seine, could develop ship-building facilities, and the control of the lower Seine effectively made Rouen into a sea port and a shipyard. It was probably the success of these steps which, in 1337, caused Philip VI to decide upon the building of a naval base at La Rochelle, a base which was to be ceded to the English by the terms of the treaty of Brétigny, thereby underlining the significance of ports as pawns in international diplomacy. In addition, we should not forget the value of the sea as a source of fish which provided an essential dietary element to people of the Middle Ages. Many French people, not merely Parisians, benefited from fish caught in the Channel or nearby waters.
At the begining of the war with England the French crown, denied the use of the ports and coastline of Brittany and Aquitaine, had to witness the English army enjoying access to both, and using them as bastions on the continental mainland from which to launch attacks into territories ruled by the king of France. In the fifteenth century the problem became more acute. Part of the strategic significance of the English occupation of Normandy, and of the alliance with the dukes of Burgundy, lay in the zone of control which was thereby created: for not only did the English rule both sides of the Channel and the Seine below Paris, but their Burgundian allies controlled the upper reaches above the capital. In terms of policy it thus became essential to try to weaken the English grip upon both the sea and the main rivers, such as the Oise, which flowed into the Seine, by seeking to detach the Burgundians from their English links. The vital role (which contemporaries fully appreciated) played by such relatively small ports as Le Crotoy, at the mouth of the river Somme, in the period 1420–50, together with the fact that the ports of Dieppe and Harfleur were among the first places to be snatched from English control in 1435 (leaving them with Cherbourg as the only port from which they could maintain regular links with England between 1435 and 1440, a vital period in the military history of the occupation), shows how important the Burgundian connection was to both main protagonists as they struggled to acquire and maintain a measure of control over the sea.
The French crown, it is rightly argued, had a definite policy with relation to the sea which it had followed since the early thirteenth century. Ports it must have, particularly in the Channel. One of the last examples for this period was the conscious creation of a further naval base at Granville, in western Normandy, called the ‘clef du pays par mer et par terre’ by Charles VII in the charter by which he granted privileges to those who would come to settle there to keep it for the good of France.14 But there must also be ships, and while France could not provide a sufficient number of them for herself, she was obliged (as the English were on some occasions) to seek them elsewhere. Thus both Castile and Genoa became suppliers of galleys which often fought on the French side, notably in 1416 when the Genoese provided part of the fleet which suffered defeat at the hands of the English at the battle of the Seine, off Harfleur. If one is seeking an example of a naval battle which was to have consequences, one need look no further than this one. At stake lay more than the future of the English garrison in the town which the French were besieging and blockading by land and sea. By sinking several Genoese vessels and taking others captive, the English made sure that the port remained in English hands, that (for some while) they would control the wide estuary of the Seine, and that they might, in the phrase of the day, ‘sweep’ the French off its waters by patrolling the sea. This was not simply lucky, nor was it unimportant. It emphasised that there were men, in both France and England, who understood the role of the sea in war and of the part which it might play in determining the outcome of future English expeditions to France. After 1416, the English had reason to be optimistic.
Indeed, there is no doubt that control of French mainland ports was vitally important to the English, and that much diplomacy in the course of the war was concerned with securing and maintaining access to the use of their facilities. In this respect England’s relations with Brittany were likely to be of great importance, not only for the positive reason that a friendly duke of Brittany would allow the use of his duchy as a stepping-off place into the mainland, but for the negative one that a hostile duke might cause untold harm to English maritime interests, both military and commercial, by failing to stop the activities of Breton pirates and privateers whose ships gave much trouble at sea, as complaints in Parliament and in some of the political literature of the time, notably The Libelle of Englyshe Polycye, testify.
In the case of the Low Countries, England had a similar interest which was both military and commercial. The capture of Calais by Edward III in 1347 had given England virtual control of the Straits. But it was a control which required active defence, to which the Cinque Ports contributed a good deal, particularly in the late fourteenth century. As a trade depot and naval base, Calais was to serve as an entrepôt for trade in and out of England, and as a back door, which armies might and did use, into France. But so physically restricted was the Calais area, and so often was it under French pressure, that for long years at a time all the needs of the garrison, whether in provisions or materials, had to be shipped in from England. In such conditions every effort had to be made to keep the sea passages open – and safe.
The military involvement of England in continental war meant an unusually high concern for achieving and maintaining some measure of control of the sea. Trade was vulnerable to attack, and cases of piracy were common. Fishing, too, required protection, for the activities of hostile seamen could easily lead to the loss of catches and vessels, for which there was no insurance provision. The defence of the coastline had also to be seen to, and was not infrequently found to be wanting, most particularly when small forces of enemy soldiers attacked the English shore and ravaged villages and towns which they found undefended. So important was this regarded that in the final quarter of the fourteenth century a system of coastal defence on land was developed, essentially a second line to carry the burden of defence once the enemy had managed to effect a landing on English soil.15 Likewise, at the time when armies and their accompanying equipment were being shipped over to France, efforts were made (as they were by Henry V in 1417) to keep the sealanes clear by sending out other ships on patrol, thereby ensuring a minimum of safety for those going to fight abroad.
The appreciation of the growing role of the sea in war can be observed in the positive attitudes of some kings of France and England to this matter. Kings neglected the sea at their peril. In England, as has been shown, both Edward III and Richard II reacted to mercantile opinion expressed in Parliament by impressing large numbers of ships for purposes of defence, such fleets at times employing almost as many soldiers at sea as did field armies on land, all at great expense.16 The development of the Clos des Galées at Rouen, under the patronage of the French crown (notably in the reign of Charles V), is matched by the steps taken by Henry V to develop a royal shipyard at Southampton, so much better positioned than the traditional one at the Tower of London, and by the appointment of royal officers to supervise its working and administration. Historians have tended to ignore these important developments, which implied the growing need for a small supply of vessels specially built for war (like heavy artillery, these could only be afforded by the crown), the facilities for their maintenance, and the growing appreciation that England’s commercial interests should be defended by ships built for that purpose. Furthermore, sieges which were in effect blockades by both land and sea (Calais by the English in 1346–7; Harfleur by the French and their allies in 1416) show that an understanding of the value of the naval arm, used in conjunction with that of land forces, was developing.
The importance attached to the sea by more reflective Englishmen and Frenchmen at the end of the Hundred Years War may also be seen in two works: The Libelle of Englyshe Polycye, written about 1437, and Le débat des hérauts d’armes, composed about 1455. The first, a vigorous piece of polemic written in verse, leaves the reader in no doubt about the strongly-held views of its anonymous author on the very positive policy which the royal council was urged to adopt towards the sea which, if England were not careful, foreigners from many nations would use for purposes, both commercial and military, detrimental to English interests. Among those whom the author singled out for praise were Edward III, who recalled his victory against the French at Sluys in June 1340 by introducing a fighting ship onto the noble of England, and Henry V, who built great ships and dealt firmly with those who were causing trouble to English shipping. Action for the good of England was something which the writer admired, and he demanded it to forestall the enemy.
The French tract, while not primarily concerned with the sea and the exercise of sea power, none the less tried to show not merely France’s equality but its superiority over England in matters maritime. No longer might the English call themselves ‘roys de la mer’, for France had not only good rivers but good ports, too, the list given including the new port of Granville. Moreover, France had good ships in quantity and merchandise in plenty with which to trade. To the author, French superiority in this respect was only one aspect of the more general superiority of his country over the other. It was a conjunction of war and natural conditions which had brought this about. It should not escape our notice that it was not only successes on land but those associated with aspects of the war at sea which had contributed towards the satisfactory situation which he described.