CHAPTER XVI
1
THE peace of Bretigny did not end the war in France. It left the soldiers who had been engaged in it without any gainful occupation. The Frenchmen as well as the English and the Gascons proceeded to form themselves into large bodies known as Free Companies for the purpose of indiscriminate looting of the French countryside. Never before had an unfortunate land suffered as much as France in the long black years that the Free Companies were at large.
Two outstanding Englishmen who turned themselves into brigands were Sir John Hawkwood and Sir Robert Knollys. Hawkwood played a short part in the saga of French despair before taking his famous organization, known as the White Company, to Italy, where they sold their swords and their longbows to the warring cities on the Lombardy plain. Knollys, who had risen from the ranks, stands second in prestige to stout John Hawkwood. All France feared him, and he did his work so thoroughly that he returned to a peaceful manor in Norfolk with a large fortune and died at a ripe old age.
King Edward did not openly countenance the activities of the Free Companies, but he did not hesitate to share in their ill-gotten gains. He sent ships with supplies to Knollys—fresh bows and arrows, and armor, and gunpowder—and received back cargoes of loot and French wines, a businesslike arrangement which enabled Knollys to continue his depredations and at the same time filled the pockets of both men. It was fortunate for the English king that such an opportunity arose to supplement his income. After Bretigny, he again stood on the threshold of bankruptcy.
There were other men among the Free Companies who played bold and aggressive parts. The best of them, after the remarkable pair already mentioned, was quite clearly Sir Hugh Calveley. He had fought well all through the wars. He had the head of a giant, with a strong jaw and a receding forehead (the face, in fact, of a born fighting man), with red hair and long teeth like tusks. It was said of Sir Hugh that he could eat as much as four men and drink as much as ten. Calveley was a full partner with Knollys in many spectacular exploits and was always noted for a fearless impetuosity which made him irresistible in the field. He lacked, however, the cool judgment of a good general and so during the campaigns he was never entrusted with an independent command. In the years of the Free Companies, he deferred to the wisdom of Knollys.
Other names which are sprinkled throughout the records of these grim days are Sir James Pipe, Sir Nicholas Dagworth, Sir William Elmham, and a picturesque knight from the Poitevin country named Sir Perducas d’Albret. None of them quite achieved a position with the leaders.
Then there was that loyal and brave Gascon who would not descend to loot and who comes continuously into the history of that time, the Captal de Buch. Jean de Grailly was the perfect knight-errant, particularly in his undeviating adherence to the oath of allegiance he had sworn to the English overlords of Gascony. The Captal was a confidant and invariable companion of the Black Prince and had fought in most of the battles of the long war. It will be recalled that he played a great part in the victory at Poictiers by his bold charge into the French flank with a mere handful of mounted men.
The title of Captal originated in Gascony, where it had a rather loose application, used only by men of the highest rank but referring to degree rather than position. In other words, it meant a great count or an illustrious viscount; a perfect application, therefore, for a man as courageous and fine as Jean de Grailly.
The Captal de Buch wielded a deadly battle-ax in conflict but was unfortunate in his one chance to direct an independent force. It came about this way. He was in command of a considerable body of Gascons and at Cocherel he encountered the redoubtable French constable, Bertrand du Guesclin. The constable was a shrewd leader. After studying the battlefield with a keen eye, he raised his mailed fist and pointed at the open space in front of the Captal de Buch, where the dreaded battle-ax of the mighty Gascon had caused the French to draw back.
“Sirs,” he cried, “there stands the Captal, as gallant a knight as can be found today on all the earth. Set we then a-horseback thirty of ours, the most skillful and the boldest. They shall give heed to nothing but to make straight to the Captal, so they may carry him off amongst them and lead him some whither in safety and hold him till the end of the battle. If he can be taken, the day is ours!”
The plan succeeded. Thirty armed men suddenly broke through the ranks about the Captal. His mighty battle-ax could not prevail against such odds and he was carried off a prisoner. The mighty Du Guesclin proceeded then to shatter his leaderless forces.
This proved to be a great blow to the pride of the gallant Captal. There was not an Englishman with him and he had hoped to demonstrate the greatness of the Gascons.
He was ransomed and had his revenge at the battle of Navarrete, where Du Guesclin was captured and placed in his custody. Years later he was taken by the French and because he refused to break his oath of allegiance to the English prince he was held in a French prison until he died.
Jean de Grailly was chivalrous in every respect and so deserves to be classed with the two English knights who stand at the head of the paladins of that period, neither of whom had taken any part in the peacetime marauding of the Free Companies, Sir John Chandos and Sir Walter Manny.
2
The True Knight
One of the few intimate glimpses that history affords of Sir John Chandos was early in his career. A Spanish fleet had been ravaging the English coast. They were an arrogant lot, the Spaniards, fully convinced they could sweep the seas of any English fleet which might venture out against them. Nevertheless, the ships of the royal navy had come out, with King Edward himself and many of his leading people on the cog Thomas. Having disposed of the French navy at Sluys, the English were not too apprehensive; and yet there was some doubt, for a tradition of invincibility surrounded the Iberian fleet and at close range their ships seemed monstrous and most amazingly equipped. There was tension, a tendency to stiff lips and clenched fists, among the group about the king.
Beside the king stood Sir John Chandos, a tall lath of a man with an extraordinary face; completely clean-shaven, with a hawklike quality and an eye puckered in blindness from a battle wound (not covered with a patch, for there was no hint of vanity in Sir John); an air about him of austerity and a hint of deep spirituality. A band of minstrels had been brought aboard, perhaps to raise the spirits of the crew, and they were pounding out a light tune which Chandos himself had brought back from Germany.
An idea occurred to the king. It would please him much, he said, if Chandos would sing the song with the minstrels. The knight nodded and climbed to the poop deck (or whatever equivalent they had at the time), where he lined up with the musicians. Like a great cavalry leader of a much later date, the Confederate general Jeb Stuart, Chandos was quite an accomplished minstrel himself, with a high, clear voice. He threw himself into the song with complete nonchalance, as though there was not a Spanish sail on the skyline. He could be heard all over the ship and on some of the other vessels of war, for fleets were disposed to sail in close formation. The musicians set themselves to their work, feet began to tap to the tune all over the cog Thomas, and, when the knight had finished, any tendency to tension had vanished.
The brave tars settled to their work with complete confidence and gave the Spaniards a thorough drubbing.
Sir John Chandos was a true knight. He would have been chivalrous if the code had never been invented. It was born in him; but it went much deeper with him because it not only committed him to extremes of bravery but filled his soul with compassion for people in all ranks of life and gave him the inner courage to stand by his beliefs.
Some of his career has already been covered through the preceding narrative, particularly the historic moment when he and the Black Prince mounted their horses and led the drive to victory down the vine-clad slopes of Poictiers. He was probably the closest friend the prince possessed and he was consulted on most matters. Sometimes the heir to the throne listened to the candid advice of Chandos, but on two occasions he did not; and both times it soon became apparent that the austere knight was right.
When the peace of Bretigny had been signed, King Edward rewarded Chandos with the St. Sauvier estates in Normandy and the latter settled down there, believing the wars to be over. He had also been appointed, however, as lieutenant and regent of King Edward in France. This soon involved him in more fighting and, incidentally, led to the greatest achievement of his life.
The succession in Brittany was still unsettled. Charles of Blois, who was not a soldier by choice, had an ambitious and arrogant wife. The latter would not agree to any compromise which did not bring Brittany undivided to her and her heirs. “Either you shall be duchess or I will die in the cause,” declared her husband. So he brought a French force to the castle of Auray which was being besieged by the Montfort adherents under the command of Sir John Chandos. The Blois forces included a remarkable knight, Sir Bertrand du Guesclin, who was destined to become constable of France and the best-remembered figure in French medieval history. A great day, then, in the annals of warfare, England’s true knight and France’s future constable, facing each other for the first time at this little and not too important castle!
Sir John, who had become accustomed to the bad generalship of the French, was astonished to discover at once that this young Du Guesclin knew what war was about. The French lines were vigorously directed, but in the end Chandos prevailed. Charles of Blois, absurdly conspicuous in a white ermine cloak, was killed and his men fell into a panic. Bertrand du Guesclin, armed with a huge iron hammer, continued the fight almost singlehanded until Chandos, finding his way through the melee, cried to him: “Messire Bertrand, the day is against you. Yield to me.”
Later Du Guesclin was asked to set the amount of his own ransom. To the astonishment of everyone, he named the enormous sum of one hundred thousand crowns. It was not pride which caused him to agree on this figure. “I know a hundred knights in my native land who would mortgage their last acre rather than Du Guesclin should languish in captivity or be rated below his value.” This may have been true, but it is said that Queen Philippa, when informed of what had happened, cut the figure in half; and he was brought out of captivity for fifty thousand crowns. Another lady had figured in the story of the battle of Auray, Du Guesclin’s beautiful but fay wife, Typhaine, who tried to prevent the clash because her tablets of the stars said it would be a bad day for him. Chandos had no wife to play any part in this, his greatest military achievement. He remained single all his life because he had no time for matrimony and perhaps also because of an admiration for the fair sex so general that he could not find one to exclude all others from his mind.
It was three years after the victory at Auray that the Black Prince involved himself in the dynastic struggles in Castile. Pedro the Cruel, a beast in human guise, had so alienated his subjects that they rose in rebellion, as already told, under Henry of Trastamara. Thrown off the throne, Pedro appealed to the Black Prince. Edward was not in the best of health and his life might have been prolonged had he remained peacefully at Bordeaux, the home he loved above all others. But it was not hard to convince him that it was his duty to support a rightful king against his rebellious subjects. This was the first occasion when the fervent arguments of Chandos were disregarded. He had good company in opposition, for the one-time Fair Maid of Kent, now the Princess of Wales, was also against any interference; even though Pedro, to win her over, presented her with a table of gold so large that it had to be carried on the shoulders of four men.
Chandos was Edward’s man, however, so he went along in command of one division of the army which the Black Prince led across the Pyrenees and he had his part in the defeat of the army of Henry of Trastamara at the battle of Navarrete.
The second occasion for disagreement between them arose soon after. Chandos realized how unpopular the hearth tax would be and begged the prince to change his mind. Sick and disappointed, the latter would not relinquish his plan and asserted his intention so sharply that Chandos left the palace at Bordeaux and returned to his estates in Normandy.
Chandos had been right. The nobility of Aquitaine took such umbrage over the tax that they carried the case to the King of France. War broke out again, and the Black Prince thought immediately of his faithful friend. Appointed seneschal of Poitou, Chandos encased his aching limbs in armor once more and came back into service. He was badly outnumbered in a skirmish at the bridge of Lussac. Tripping on the hem of a long white traveling cloak he was wearing, not expecting to meet the French, he fell on the planking of the bridge and one of the French soldiers stabbed him through the eye. The true knight passed away the next morning. He was the first to die of that remarkable galaxy of Englishmen.
If the prince had listened to his wise and honest lieutenant, they would both have been allowed a longer span of life.
3
The Complete Knight-Errant
The young Hainauter known as Sir Wantelot de Mauny but later as Sir Walter de Manny was of the class of chivalrous knights who excited Don Quixote to his frenzies of admiration. He abided most rigorously by all the rules of the code. Before a campaign he would wear a red patch over one eye and not remove it until he had performed a suitably brave deed. He was always ready to take the most desperate chances. A lost cause drew him like iron filings to a magnet. A resourceful leader as well as a rash participant, he could be described best, perhaps, as a combination of Launcelot and Galahad.
He came to England as a squire in the train of Queen Philippa in 1326 and was knighted soon thereafter, having served with distinction in the current Scottish campaign. As soon as the wars with France began he was completely in his element, as has already been made clear. In 1338 he went to Flanders after taking the Oath of the Heron, swearing to capture a town or castle. This vow he fulfilled in quick order. Taking only forty lances with him, he rode through Brabant and Hainaut and right on into French territory. Coming to a strong castle called Thun l’Evêque, he captured it with a surprise attack. It was one of those bold and strategically useless feats in which the good knights of the day delighted. Tearing off his red patch, the well-pleased Sir Walter rode back to the English lines.
He was with King Edward at the great naval victory at Sluys and was among the first to follow the grappling irons over the side and board the chained French ships.
The bold Sir Walter is seen at his best in his entry into the wars in Brittany. It will be recalled that there were two contestants for the title of duke and that England was backing Jean de Montfort while France espoused the cause of Charles of Blois. Jean de Montfort was taken prisoner, but his wife, who came of the ruling family in Flanders and was known in Brittany as Jannedik Flamm, was courageous enough to assume his place. She threw herself into Hennebonne and withstood a siege by a large French force. She hung on grimly but was compelled finally to promise the garrison she would give in if the help promised from England did not arrive in three days. The third day was nearly over, and the besieging force had come up to the gates in expectation of a surrender. The courageous Jannedik had gone up to the highest turret of the castle and was keeping a still hopeful eye on the waters of the Channel. Suddenly she sprang to her feet, uttering cries of joy. The harbor below had filled with ships carrying English pennons.
Sir Walter Manny was in charge of the English troops. He came ashore without a red patch but with a burning desire to accomplish something spectacular. The happy countess had a splendid meal ready for him and his officers, but they had barely taken their places at the table when a loud noise was heard. A large rock had come sailing over the top of the wall and had landed in the town. A mangonel clearly was at work in the enemy lines.
Manny’s face lighted up. “I think, madame,” he said, “that we must take some action about this at once.”
Leaving the meat to grow cold on the table, he collected a few of his knights and some archers, all volunteers, and made a sudden sally from the nearest gate. The French troops operating the siege machine were scattered easily and the huge mangonel was destroyed, as well as several smaller ones which were not in use. Before the party could get back behind the town walls, a large force of French knights came clattering up, breathing fire.
“My vows compel me,” cried Manny, “to unhorse at least one of these good fellows before I return to the hospitality of our kind lady.”
Laying his lance in rest, he rode headlong into the ranks of the oncoming French. It is possible that Don Quixote had this episode in mind when he charged, lance down, at the windmill; but the outcome was more useful for the records of chivalry. The tip of Manny’s lance caught one French knight squarely on the shield and sent him down under the hoofs of the galloping horses. Swinging about, he realized that some of his own men had followed his example and that a brisk encounter was under way. The English were badly outnumbered, but the sheer audacity of their attack so startled the French that they turned about and rode away even faster than they had approached.
This incident is perhaps more typical of Sir Walter Manny than anything else that happened in all the years of the French wars. There was, of course, his determination to reach Edward’s army in time for the battle of Crécy, which led him to ride through the heart of hostile France and to fall into the hands of the French king. His most successful display of leadership was evident in 1345 when he shared the command of an army with the Earl of Derby and captured nearly sixty castles and towns on the outer edges of Gascony in rapid succession.
The great regret of his life was that he missed both Crécy and Poictiers. He was engaged in the relief of Berwick when the Black Prince marched to the Loire and came face to face with the huge French army of King John. Having accomplished the relief of the city on the Scottish border, Manny reached Westminster just in time to hear of the amazing victory of the prince. However, he accompanied the army of Edward to France after the repudiation by the French dauphin of the treaty arranged with John in his English captivity. He led the scouting party which came closest to the gates of Paris. Never before had mad desire tugged so insistently at his heart strings as on this occasion. Rising in his stirrups, he gazed under a cupped hand at the high walls of the great city. If he had been free to act, he undoubtedly would have tried some rash enterprise, such, perhaps, as scaling the outer wall and hoisting the leopards of England over the gate, if only for an hour. But he was there on strict orders from the king which precluded any foolhardiness of this kind. Regretfully he turned back and rejoined the royal army.
It was on this expedition that he was given the honor he desired above all others. Lord Grey of Rothersfield had died and his place in the Order of the Garter was given to Manny, who had not been included among the original members.
Manny married into the royal family, becoming the husband of Margaret, daughter and heiress of Thomas of Brotherton, the oldest son of Edward I by his second wife, Marguerite of France. It must have been a love match, for Margaret had succeeded to the honors of her father (she would later be created Duchess of Norfolk) and was one of the great catches of the kingdom. Manny himself had been given much property, but he was relatively a poor man.
The picture of him that emerges from the brief references in the chronicles of the day is that of a soldier of unusual qualities, friendly and likable, and of much lighter spirits than most of his countrymen. He was a generous man and spent a fortune in the formation of the Charterhouse in London, beginning with the donation of land for a cemetery during the Black Death.
It was characteristic of him that in his will he stipulated that a penny was to be paid to every poor person who had attended his funeral.
4
The Knight with the Iron Fist
When things were blackest for the French and the freebooters were ravaging the countryside, the English soldiers had a saying, “Sir Robert Knollys all France controls.” Sir Robert seems to have had a good opinion of himself, as well, for he carried on his device of a ram’s horn the words:
Qui Robert Canolle prendera
Cent Mille moutons gagnera.
Which can be translated as follows:
Who captures Robert Knollys most surely gains
A hundred thousand muttons for his pains.
This stocky soldier of low degree, with his lowering brow and split upper lip, became to the French what the Black Douglas had been to the English, a figure of dread. And yet he was in no sense bloodthirsty as some of the freebooters seem to have been. He did not kill for the sake of killing, although he burned and ravaged the country when it suited his purpose. But inside his steel glove there was a fist of iron.
Stout John Hawkwood with his White Company had departed from France and was on his way to the Lombardy plains before Knollys and his close friend, Sir Hugh Calveley, started what they called the Great Company. It was made up of all the best Englishmen left and a fair sprinkling of Gascons. They established themselves in the valley of the Loire, calling that province their “chambre,” and in a very short time they had forty castles in their hands, and the personal share of Knollys in this colossal accumulation of booty was said to be a hundred thousand crowns, a constable’s ransom. It was at this time that the two daring leaders threw Avignon into a panic by announcing their intention to burn the papal city. Calveley, who was a man of mad impulses, would perhaps have undertaken this feat, but Knollys saw no profit in it; so they did not go nearer than thirty miles and contented themselves later with burning the suburbs of the great city of Orleans. These depredations were so thorough that soon the naked gables of burned houses became known as the “mitres of Knollys.”
He had married early and his wife, Constantia, was reported to have been “a woman of a dissolute living before marriage.” She was of good birth, however, and had a crest of her own, a fess dancette between three pards’ faces sable. From this, heraldic authorities concluded she belonged to the family of Beverly in Yorkshire. She was, at any rate, a woman of spirit and was a perfect mate for a soldier of fortune. At one stage, when he needed recruits, she got together three shiploads of men of an adventurous turn and took them over to Brittany personally.
Knollys and Calveley, who run through the freebooting saga like twin brothers, were at the battle of Auray and were given credit in some accounts for the capture of Bertrand du Guesclin. Early in 1364 Calveley was holding the castle of Le Pont d’Onne against a besieging force led by the great Bertrand. Several assaults had been repulsed and then the marshal decided to try a mining operation. His purpose was discovered by the defenders when a flagon of water, left on a parapet, was upset. Every member of the garrison swore not to have touched it and so it was filled a second time. Soon after it was found on the ground again. This made it clear that tremors in the masonry had been the cause. Calveley put his ear to the ground and heard sounds deep in the earth which he identified as digging.
A bold defense was decided upon. The defense ran out a mine of then own and destroyed the shaft of the attacking force. Du Guesclin found it advisable then to raise the siege.
Knollys had his great chance in 1370 when he was summoned to Windsor and given command of one of two armies which were being sent across the Channel to forestall a French attempt at landing a force in Wales. With an army of fifty-five hundred men, mostly archers but with a certain number of knights among them, Knollys proceeded to cut quite a swath. Landing at Calais, he marched so close to Paris that the watch over the city gates could see the smoke of burning villages. The French king was in Paris at the time but he would not allow any attempt to offer battle. Knollys waited long enough to become convinced that Fabian tactics were prevailing in the councils of the king and then marched westward. The booty secured on this bold foray was almost incalculable. Sir Robert was not having an easy time in his command, however. The knights serving under him disliked taking orders from a man who had risen from the ranks. They called him “the old brigand.” Finally a party of them took things into their own hands and set off with a considerable part of the force. Meeting with a French troop, they took a good shaking up and were glad to get on board their transports for home. Here the ringleader laid charges against Knollys, but at the court-martial which resulted the leader was exonerated. The accuser was arrested later and executed as a traitor.
It is on record, nonetheless, that the king had to be placated by a personal gift of a very large sum of money.
For ten more years Knollys was in the middle of things, sometimes in an official capacity, sometimes on personal ventures, and always doing well. Once the Duke of Anjou, a brother of the French king, was trying to capture Knollys’ own castle of Derval and executed some English hostages. The old brigand retaliated by chopping off the heads of an equal number of Frenchmen and throwing them out over the walls.
He retired in 1383, after more than thirty years of continuous fighting and a consistent record of success. Settling down at his manor house at Sculthorpe in Norfolk, he devoted himself to charitable work. He had wide estates and so much wealth that he built a chantry at Rochester and a hospital at Pontefract, large enough for a master, six priests, and thirteen people of the poor. This became known as Knollys’ Almshouse and it continued in existence until the Reformation.
In 1389 he went to Rome on a pilgrimage and met Hawkwood there. Between them they established an English hospital at Rome. What a meeting that must have been between the two most successful freebooters produced by a country with a remarkable record in that direction: the once black-a-vised but now grizzled Knollys, who was still called in France le vêritable demon de guerre, and old John Hawkwood, who had just retired after leading the armies of Florence to a conclusive victory over Milan! Brigands they were, but they were more than that: they both had been supremely able leaders. Abstemious in their habits (for no drunkard could keep control of a freebooting company) and not much given to talk, their tongues must have wagged nevertheless with tales of this and that, of the new cannon and the deadly longbow, of comrades dead and gone, and in general of the futility of war, a lesson which must have been very plain to them.
Hawkwood was to have no more than four years of peaceful retirement, but the burly Knollys outlived him by thirteen years, dying finally in his bed at Sculthorpe at an age in the proximity of ninety years. His wife died a few days later and they were buried side by side, the once dissolute lady and the always realistic gleaner of the spoils of war. He had not received the supreme honor of membership in the Order of the Garter.
5
The Finest General of Them All
Sir John de Hawkwood differed in two respects from all the other great military leaders on the English side. First, there was not a chivalrous bone in his body. He did not fight for the sheer love of conflict, for the admiration of fellow knights, for the love of a beautiful lady; he fought for wealth and power, and he became the greatest condottiere of his time, perhaps of all time. Second, he did not treat common people with scorn or unnecessary cruelty. In fact, he preferred when possible to levy on the nobility and the clergy.
Students of his campaigns declare him to be the first general of the modern type and, further, that he has never been equaled at his kind of warfare.
Some say he began life as a tailor in London, and one Italian historian calls him Granni della Ginglia (John of the Needle). The truth is that he was the second son of Gilbert de Hawkwood, a holder of land and a tanner at Hedingham Sibil in Essex.
Entering the army under John de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, he came to the attention of the Black Prince and was knighted. When the truce had been made after the capture of the French king at Poictiers, Hawkwood turned his eye to personal gain and became the leader of a body of Free Companions. France was the sorriest land in all Christendom, for even the French soldiers turned to freebooting and the rape of their own home. Hawkwood seems to have been the most successful of all, even though he often acted on the principles imputed to Robin Hood. Certainly he was the first to see that France had been bled white and that the return of the plague, which was beginning again, would complete the work the Free Companies had begun.
He was a handsome man, above the average in height, with the shoulders of a woodsman and the deep chest of a runner. His eye was that of a born leader, keen, luminous, firm. Because of the confidence he inspired among Englishmen who were at loose ends in France, he got the very best of them. He could pick and choose, and his picking and choosing were so expert that he gradually gathered about him a band of superlative strength known as the White Company. Some writers think the name arose from the splendor of equipment they used, but there must have been some more tangible reason. They may have worn cloaks of white, or at least of light gray, or perhaps they had white cockades in their riding hats. It might even have been that the baldrics they wore crosswise on their chests were of that color. Whatever the reason, the White Company, or the Compagnia Bianca as it was called in Italy, became the most talked about and the most feared of the Free Companies.
Hawkwood trained his men with a thoroughness equal to that of Oliver Cromwell in a later century and in accordance with his own theories. The company consisted of a thousand lances, a misleading count which came of considering three mounted men as one lance; a thoroughly trained man-at-arms, a squire, and a page, the latter having to be content with riding a palfrey. Both the man-at-arms and the squire rode heavily armed. Their chief weapon was a long lance of such weight that it took two men to handle it. The lance, however, was only for use when fighting on foot, when the stout companions would form themselves into a square or circle and receive the enemy on the lance points. For use in the saddle, they had heavy swords and daggers. Five lances constituted a company, five companies a troop.
With the thousand lances were two thousand foot soldiers, or perhaps it would be more accurate to call them bowmen. Most of them had carried a longbow on the fields of Crécy and Poictiers and they were supremely expert with it. In fact, they had learned a better way of handling that deadly weapon. They would place one end in the ground, which kept the bow firmer and made a steadier aim possible. It may be taken for granted that Hawkwood placed his greatest reliance on his bowmen; having nothing of the Bourbon in him and being quick to learn. These strong-limbed sons of Albion could make twenty miles a day and would be in camp before the weary horses, with their heavy loads, hobbled in on stiff limbs.
Well, here was a France as bare as a bone on a dust heap. And here was the White Company, fit to battle any force in Christendom and avid for spoils. And here was John Hawkwood, the best leader in all the armies. What to do?
Hawkwood knew what to do.
Over the mountainous barrier between France and Italy lay the Lombardy plains, bounteous and fertile and dotted with cities fairly bursting with wealth; all of them fighting with bitter jealousy among themselves. In Lombardy, moreover, was the great family of the Visconti, the dukes and absolute rulers of Milan. The present head of this great family was the ambitious Bernabò Visconti, who was determined to get all of the plain under his rule and to oust the Avignon popes at the same time. Hawkwood decided that the White Company would have a fine future in this warm and luscious land. After capturing the city of Pau as a final gesture (and robbing only the clergy), he made an arrangement with another band of freebooters under the command of Bernard de Salle by which the newcomers enrolled themselves in the company.
Hawkwood spent the rest of his life in Italy, thirty years of almost continuous fighting. To tell the whole story of those sanguinary years while the White Company marched and countermarched across the rich plains would fill a long volume. Hawkwood, whose word was law, changed sides often, sometimes fighting for the Visconti, sometimes against them, at intervals in the employ of the Pope, as often against him. Once he received 180,000 florins as ransom for the Count of Savoy. The city of Pisa paid the company as high as 23,000 florins a month. Sometimes he lost a battle (when pitted against heavy odds), but generally he was the victor. The warring cities bid against each other for his services. When the second son of Edward of England, Prince Lionel, the handsome young giant who stood nearly seven feet in his harlots (as the pointed dress shoes of the period were called), arrived to marry a daughter of Bernabò’s, Hawkwood took his band back into the Milanese service and was rewarded by being made, by the left hand, a brother-in-law of the English prince. At least Bernabò gave him in marriage the handsome Donnina, one of his illegitimate daughters. It is not known if the Englishman made this a condition of his services, but it is certain that it was a love match. Bernabò was at war at this particular moment with Pope Urban V, who had braved the wrath of the French cardinals by taking the papal court back to Rome. Perhaps the pontiff began to show signs of weakening and thus stirred the ire of the Milanese ruler. Whatever the cause, the Englishman found himself chasing the Pope out of Montefiascone and all the way to Viterbo.
The largest amount Hawkwood was ever paid was 220,000 gold florins from a combination of five of the richest cities to leave them alone for five years. Once, when fighting for Rome, the name of the band was changed to the Holy Company, a misnomer which the realistic leader accepted with a wry smile.
The fame of this truly remarkable man as a general rests largely on the campaign he fought on the side of Florence against the almost overpowering strength of Milan. By this time his original company had changed in personnel. Thirty years of continuous fighting had thinned out the Englishmen in the ranks, although a few of the original members were still in harness; the toughest and bravest of the lot, bronzed beyond recognition and still capable of shooting off the finial on a stone gate at a distance of a hundred yards. The armies of Milan, under the command of the Count of Virtue (so called because he was a most villainous fellow), a nephew who had murdered Bernabò, were large and powerful. As commander-in-chief of the forces of Florence, the Englishman won an initial victory. When a second Florentine army, which was supposed to attack Milan from the west, failed to move, Hawkwood found himself alone against the Visconti might. He had less faith in his band now, having no archers save crossbowmen (what a step down from the longbowmen of Crécy!), and he had to stage a quick retreat. The Florentine historian Bracciolini calls his generalship in this extremity the equal of anything in the annals of Roman history. He crossed the Oglio and the Mincio and then had to get his troops across an inundated area caused by the breaking of the ditches on the Adige, a feat of the utmost daring. In the meantime the second Florentine army had been soundly beaten and Hawkwood found himself alone to face the strength of the Visconti.
By the use of brilliant hit-and-run strategy he kept the Milanese armies from uniting and finally succeeded in hammering their main force so resoundingly that they all turned back and sought sanctuary in Liguria. Milan was happy to make an honorable peace with Florence on the strength of this.
During the rest of his life, four brief years, Hawkwood lived in peace in Florence in a fine house called Polverosa in the suburb of San Donato de Torre. He was regarded as the savior of the city and was cheered whenever he appeared on the streets. Knowing that he had little time left, he transferred all his castles and holdings to the government of Florence for sums of money, intending to return to England. His beloved Donnina was still alive and his three daughters were married to high-ranking captains in the Florentine armies; but he longed for the cool breezes and the green fields of his native land. Death forestalled him and the grateful republic did honor to his memory with a magnificent funeral.
The one anecdote about him which seems to have survived is that he encountered one day at Montecchio two wandering friars and was accorded the customary greeting of “God give you peace.” The leader of the White Company stared at them in silence for a moment before responding, “May God take your alms away!” The poor friars stammered in surprise and had nothing more to say. “You come to me,” declared Hawkwood, “and pray that God will make me die of hunger. Do you not know that I live by war and that peace would undo me?”
He had indeed lived by war, but the brief peace which came to him in his final years did not undo him. He left a comfortable fortune to his family when the grateful republic laid his body in a splendid tomb in the choir of the Duomo. His one son had returned to England and later saw to it that the bones of the old warrior were brought home and buried at Hedingham Sibil in a chantry which friends had raised to his memory.