was the profession of arms. The ambition of every high-born young
fellow was to become a knight. Knighthood was something that both
king and nobles regarded as higher in some respects than even the
royalty or nobility to which they were born. No one could be admitted
into an order of the great brotherhood of knights, which extended
all over Europe and formed an independent society, unless he had
gone through severe discipline, and had performed some distinguished
deed of valor. Then he could wear the golden spurs; for knighthood
had its earliest origin in the distinction of fighting on horseback,
while ordinary soldiers fought on foot. Although knighthood changed
afterward, the word "chivalry" always expressed it, from _cheval_,
a horse. And in addition to valor, which was the result of physical
strength and courage, the knight was expected to be generous,
courteous, faithful, devout, truthful, high-souled, high-principled.
Hence the epithet, "chivalrous," which, even to-day, is so often
heard applied to men of especially fine spirit. "Honor" was the
great word which included all these qualities then, as it does in
some measure now.
I have only time to give you the standard, and cannot pause to tell
you how well or ill it was lived up to generally. But I would not
have taken this story in hand if chivalry had to be left out of
the account, for it was chivalry that made my two boys the heroes
they were.
As soon as King Edward landed at La Hague, he gave very clear
evidence of the serious work he had cut out for his son, and of
his confidence that the youngster would be equal to it. He publicly
pledged his boy, beforehand, to some great deed, and to a life of
valor and honor. In sight of the whole army, he went through the
form of making him a knight. Young Edward, clad in armor, kneeled
down before him on the wet sand, when the king touched his shoulder
with his sword, saying: "I dub thee knight. Be brave, bold, and
loyal!" You may imagine how proudly then the young fellow seized
lance and sword and shield, and sprang into his saddle at a leap,
and with what high resolve he rode on beside his mailed and gallant
father to deserve the name which that impressive ceremony had given
him.
The army moved rapidly forward and northward toward Calais, conquering
everything on its way, till when in the neighborhood of Crecy, the
intelligence came that the French king, Philip, with an army of
one hundred and twenty thousand men and all the chivalry of France,
had come in between it and the sea. There was no retreat possible.
Edward had but thirty thousand to oppose this great host. They were
four to one. He was in a dangerous spot also; but after a time he
succeeded in getting away to a good position, and there he awaited
the onset. No one will doubt that he was anxious enough, and yet
what did he do? After arranging his troops in battle order, three
battalions deep, he sent young Edward to the very front of the
brilliant group of his finest barons to take the brunt of the terrible
charge that was now to come! It shows of what stern material the
king and the men of that time were made, for all his present love,
all his future hope, lay around that gallant boy. But he knew that
the value of the glory which might be earned was worth all the
risk. Besides, he was as much under chivalrous necessity to send
him, as the lad was under to go. That pledge to knighthood, on the
sea-shore, had not been either lightly taken or lightly given. If
chivalry was not equal to sacrifice, it was equal to nothing. There
was keen wisdom, too, in the act. The king could count all the
more on the enthusiasm, self-devotion and valor of the knights and
men-at-arms, in whose keeping he had placed so precious a charge.
That whole first battalion would be nerved to tenfold effort
because the prince was among them, for every one would be as deeply
concerned as the father in the boy's success.
Edward carried his feeling of devotion to his son's best interests
to such a chivalrous extent that he made it a point of duty to keep
out of the battle altogether.
He was nowhere to be seen. He went into a windmill on a height
nearby, and watched the fight through one of the narrow windows
in its upper story. He would not even put on his helmet. That was
the way the father stood by his son--by showing absolute confidence
in him, and denying himself all the glory that might come from a
great and important battle. And the young fellow was a thousandfold
nerved and strengthened by knowing that his father fully trusted
in him.
I need not give the details of the battle. It is sufficient to know
that the first line of the French chivalry charged with the utmost
fury. Among these was an ally of note, John, King of Bohemia, who
with his barons and knights was not behindhand in the deadly onset;
and yet this king was old and blind! His was chivalry in another
form! He would have his stroke in the battle, and he plunged into
it with his horse tied by its reins to one of his knights on either
side. A plume of three ostrich feathers waved from his helmet,
and the chroniclers say he laid about him well. After the battle,
he and his two companions were found dead, with their horses tied
together.
But although the French were brave they were not wise. For not only
had they brought on the fight with headlong energy before they were
prepared, but they had allowed Edward to place himself so that the
afternoon sun, then near its setting, blazed full in their eyes
and faces. Edward's army fought in the shadow. The terrible English
bowmen sent their deadly cloth-yard arrows so thick and fast into
the dazzled and crowded ranks of fifteen thousand Genoese archers
and the intermingled men-at-arms, that the missiles filled the air
like snow. The Genoese were thrown into confusion, and this spread
throughout the whole French army. The French king, with some of
his dukes, flew foaming over the field in the rear, trying in vain
to get up in time to swell the onset upon the English front.
But the onset had proved bad enough as it was. The knights around
the young prince were frightened for his safety. One of them, Sir
Thomas of Norwich, was sent hack to Edward to ask him to come to
the assistance of the prince.
"Sir Thomas," said the king, "is my son dead or unhorsed, or so
wounded that he cannot help himself?"
"Not so, my lord, thank God; but he is fighting against great odds,
and is like to have need of your help."
"Sir Thomas," replied the king, "return to them who sent you, and
tell them from me not to send for me, whatever chance befall them,
so long as my son is alive, and tell them that I bid them let the
lad win his spurs; for I wish, if God so desire, that the day should
be his, and the honor thereof remain to him and to those to whom
I have given him in charge."
And there he stayed in the windmill till the battle was over. Soon
the cry of victory reached him as the French fled in the darkness,
leaving their dead strewn upon the field. Now the young prince
appeared covered with all the glory that his father had coveted
for him, bearing the ostrich plume which he had taken from the dead
King of Bohemia. The boy rode up with his visor raised,--his face
was as fair as a girl's, and glowed under a crown of golden hair.
He bore his trophy aloft, and when it was placed as a knightly
decoration above the crest of his helmet, he little thought that
the triple tuft was to wave for more than five hundred years, even
to this day, on England's front, for such it does, and that, next
to the crown, there shall be no badge so proudly known as the
three feathers which nod above the coronet of the Prince of Wales.
Edward Albert, son of King George V, now wears it because Edward,
the Prince of Wales, when still in his teens, won it at Crecy. We
will leave him there, and go on ten years.
Philip, the French king, had passed away about six years before,
and John, a wild character for such a trying time, had ascended
the throne. He was always plunging himself into difficulties, and
was often guilty of cruelty; and yet was of such a free, generous
nature, and had so many of the virtues of chivalry in that day,
that he was known as "John the Good." He was the extreme opposite
to the grave, prudent, sagacious Edward III, who was still alive
and well, and King of England.
Some time after the victory of Crecy, Calais had been taken, and then
both nations were glad to arrange a truce. Nine years of this had
gone by, when Edward thought it necessary to make another attempt
on France. As soon as might be, therefore, young Edward, his son,
now twenty-five, came over alone, landing at Bordeaux. He had,
meantime, gained great fame. He was now known as "the Black Prince,"
because he had a fancy for having his armor painted as black as
midnight, in order, they say, to give a greater brightness to his
fresh blond complexion and golden hair. Marshaling his little army
of 12,000 men, he set out into the interior of France. When he had
reached the neighborhood of Poitiers, he was astounded by the news
that King John was both after him and behind him, with a force of
60,000 men--five to one! Here was Crecy over again as to numbers,
but there was one thing made it worse; for, as Edward III not long
before had instituted the famous "Order of the Garter" which is
even now one of the foremost orders of knighthood in Europe, so
John, not to be behindhand, and in order to give a new chivalrous
impulse to his nobles, had just instituted the "Order of the Star."
He made five hundred knights of this new order, every one of whom
had vowed that he would never retreat, and would sooner be slain
than yield to an enemy.
The Black Prince thought it almost impossible to fight his way
through such a desperately determined host. So he offered to restore
all he had just conquered and to make another truce, if he might
pass by unmolested. But John would not consent. He must have Calais
back again, and the prince, with one hundred of his best knights,
into the bargain. "This will never do," thought the prince. "Better
try for another Crecy."
On the morning of September 19,1356, the battle began. John had
with him all four of his sons, Charles, Louis, John and Philip; the
eldest only nineteen, and the youngest fourteen. The three former
were put under good guardianship in different portions of the field;
but why the hair-brained monarch took the youngest boy with him
into the very front and thickest of the fight, it is hard to guess,
unless it was another imitation of Edward, and he had also good
reason to think that the lad was unusually well able to take care
of himself, having been trained at arms and pledged to knighthood.
But young "Sir Philip," as he was called, proved quite equal to
the occasion.
King John himself led the van, moving down through a defile, into
which, after a time, his whole army found themselves crowded.
Meantime, the Prince of Wales had planted his army just where he
would tempt John into that trap and had set his archers in good
position. These men were clad in green, like Robin Hood's men, and
carried bows seven feet long and so thick that few men of modern
days could bend them. A cloth-yard shaft from one of these would fly
with tremendous force. Edward had placed these archers in ambush,
behind green hedges, and crouching in the green of the vineyards.
Just as the French king, with all his new chivalry around him, dashed
down the narrow valley--the white standard of France on one side
of him, his keen-eyed little son on the other--and began to deploy
the whole advance battalion, preliminary to a grand charge--whiz!
whiz! whir! whir! from both sides came the arrows, as thick as hail
and as terrible as javelins, from the hidden archers. The astonished
Frenchmen fell back. That crowded still more those who were yet
wedged in the narrow space behind. Now came the English onset.
Then a panic. Then a rout. Then a general flight. Dukes, barons,
knights of all sorts fled with the rest; also Charles, Louis, John,
the three elder sons of the king. The king was in great danger of
being slain; but he did not move, and Philip stood fighting by his
side. The standard-bearer fell, and the white ensign lay in the
dust. Many a faithful knight was cut down, or swept away a prisoner.
But Philip flinched not.
The assailants--some of whom knew the king, while others were
wondering who he might be--pressed them fiercely on every side,
striking at them, but more anxious to take them captives than
to kill them, for they were worth a heavy ransom. The Englishmen
shouted all together, "Yield you! Yield you, else you die!" Little
Sir Philip had no yield in him, as long as his father held out. He
kept close to him, trying to ward off the blows which were aimed
at him, and warning him in time, as his quick eye caught a near
danger on either hand. Every instant he was heard calling out,
"Father, ware right! Father, ware left!" Suddenly a mounted knight
appeared, who hailed the king in French. It was a French knight,
who was fighting on the English side.
"Sir, sir!" he shouted, "I pray you yield!"
"To whom shall I yield me?" said John, "Where is my cousin, the
Prince of Wales?"
"Sir, yield you to me; I will bring you to him."
"Who are you?" said the king.
"Denis de Morbecque, a knight of Artois; I serve the King of England,
not being able to live in France, for I have lost all I possessed
there."
"I yield me to you," said John, handing him his steel glove.
Then the whole crowd began to drag at him, each exclaiming: "I
took him!" Both the king and the prince were sadly hustled, until
two barons broke through the throng by dint of their horses, and
led the two to the tent of the Prince of Wales, "and made him a
present of the King of France!" says an old chronicler. "The prince
also bowed full low before the king, and received him as a king,
properly and discreetly, as he well knew how to do."
In the evening he entertained him and Philip at supper, "and would
not sit at the king's table for all the king's entreaty, but waited
as a serving man, bending the knee before him, and saying: 'Dear
sir, be pleased not to put on so bad a countenance, because it hath
not pleased God to consent this day to your wishes; for, assuredly,
my lord and father will show you all the honor and friendship he
shall be able, and he will come to terms with you so reasonably
that you shall remain good friends forever.'"
Nor did all this end in words, but it went on for years during all
the captivity of King John and Prince Philip,--first at Bordeaux and
afterward at the then new Windsor Castle, in England, where galas,
tournaments, hawking and hunting, and all sorts of entertainments
were devised for them. When King John was brought from Bordeaux
to England, where King Edward had prepared to meet him in great
state, the French king was mounted on a tall, cream-colored charger,
and young Philip rode by his side in great honor also, while the
Prince of Wales sat on a small black horse, like an humble attendant
on them both. The two royal fathers met midway in that London street,
the houses which lined the way were hung with rich tapestries, the
trades were out in companies of many colors, the people thronged
round the steelclad cavalcades as they came together, and they
filled the air with shouts--but what two figures now most fill
the eye when all that pageant has passed away? Not the father who
stood by his son with such chivalrous faith, nor the father whose
son stood by him with such chivalrous devotion, but the fair youth
who carries that tuft of feathers upon his helmet, with its motto,
"I serve," and the lad whom all have heard of as "Philip the Bold";
the boy-hero of Crecy doing chivalrous honor to the boy-hero of
Poitiers!
THE NOBLE BURGHERS OF CALAIS
By Charlotte M. Yonge
Nowhere does the continent of Europe approach Great Britain so
closely as at the Straits of Dover, and when the English sovereigns
were full of the vain hope of obtaining the crown of France, or
at least of regaining the great possessions that their forefathers
had owned as French nobles, there was no spot so coveted by them
as the fortress of Calais, the possession of which gave an entrance
into France.
Thus it was that when, in 1346, Edward III had beaten Philippe VI
at the battle of Crecy, the first use he made of his victory was to
march upon Calais, and lay siege to it. The walls were exceedingly
strong and solid, mighty defenses of masonry, of huge thickness
and like rocks for solidity, guarded it, and the king knew that it
would be useless to attempt a direct assault. Indeed, during all
the middle ages, the modes of protecting fortifications were far
more efficient than the modes of attacking them. The walls could
be made enormously massive, the towers raised to a great height,
and the defenders so completely sheltered by battlements that they
could not easily be injured, and could take aim from the top of
their turrets, or from their loophole windows. The gates had absolute
little castles of their own, a moat flowed round the walls full of
water, and only capable of being crossed by a drawbridge, behind
which the portcullis, a grating armed beneath with spikes, was
always ready to drop from the archway of the gate and close up the
entrance. The only chance of taking a fortress by direct attack was
to fill up the moat with earth and faggots, and then raise ladders
against the walls; or else to drive engines against the defenses,
battering-rams which struck them with heavy beams, mangonels which
launched stones, sows whose arched wooden backs protected troops
of workmen who tried to undermine the wall, and moving towers
consisting of a succession of stages or shelves, filled with soldiers,
and with a bridge with iron hooks, capable of being launched from
the highest story to the top of the battlements. The besieged could
generally disconcert the battering-ram by hanging beds or mattresses
over the walls to receive the brunt of the blow, the sows could
be crushed with heavy stones, the towers burnt by well directed
flaming missiles, the ladders overthrown, and in general the besiegers
suffered a great deal more damage than they could inflict. Cannon
had indeed just been brought into use at the battle of Crecy, but
they only consisted of iron bars fastened together with hoops,
and were as yet of little use, and thus there seemed to be little
danger to a well guarded city from any enemy outside the walls.
King Edward arrived before the place with all his victorious army
early in August, his good knights and squires arrayed in glittering
steel armor, covered with surcoats richly embroidered with their
heraldic bearings; his stout men-at-arms, each of whom was attended
by three bold followers; and his archers, with their cross-bows to
shoot bolts, and long-bows to shoot arrows of a yard long, so that
it used to be said that each went into battle with three men's lives
under his girdle, namely the three arrows he kept there ready to
his hand. With the king was his son, Edward, Prince of Wales, who
had just won the golden spurs of knighthood so gallantly at Crecy
when only in his seventeenth year, and likewise the famous Hainault
knight, Sir Walter Mauny, and all that was noblest and bravest in
England.
This whole glittering army, at their head the king's great
royal standard bearing the golden lilies of France quartered with
the lions of England, and each troop guided by the square banner,
swallow-tailed pennon or pointed pennoncel of their leader, came
marching to the gates of Calais, above which floated the blue
standard of France with its golden flowers, and with it the banner
of the governor, Sir Jean de Vienne. A herald, in a rich long robe
embroidered with the arms of England, rode up to the gate, a trumpet
sounding before him, and called upon Sir Jean de Vienne to give up
the place to Edward, King of England, and of France, as he claimed
to be. Sir Jean made answer that he held the town for Philippe,
King of France, and that he would defend it to the last; the herald
rode back again and the English began the siege of the city.
At first they only encamped, and the people of Calais must have
seen the whole plain covered with the white canvas tents, marshalled
round the ensigns of the leaders, and here and there a more gorgeous
one displaying the colors of the owner. Still there was no attack
upon the walls. The warriors were to be seen walking about in the
leathern suits they wore under their armor; or if a party was to
be seen with their coats of mail on, helmet on head, and lance in
hand, it was not against Calais that they came; they rode out into
the country, and by and by might be seen driving-back before them
herds of cattle and flocks of sheep or pigs that they had seized
and taken away from the poor peasants; and at night the sky would
show red lights where farms and homesteads had been set on fire.
After a time, in front of the tents, the English were to be seen
hard at work with beams and boards, setting up huts for themselves,
and thatching them over with straw or broom.
These wooden houses were all ranged in regular streets, and there
was a market-place in the midst, whither every Saturday came farmers
and butchers to sell corn and meat, and hay for the horses; and
the English merchants and Flemish weavers would come by sea and by
land to bring cloth, bread, weapons, and everything that could be
needed to be sold in this warlike market.
The governor, Sir Jean de Vienne, began to perceive that the king
did not mean to waste his men by making vain attacks on the strong
walls of Calais, but to shut up the entrance by land, and watch
the coast by sea so as to prevent any provisions from being taken
in, and so to starve him into surrendering. Sir Jean de Vienne,
however, hoped that before he should be entirely reduced by famine,
the King of France would be able to get together another army and
come to his relief, and at any rate he was determined to do his
duty, and hold out for his master to the last. But as food was
already beginning to grow scarce, he was obliged to turn out such
persons as could not fight and had no stores of their own, and so
one Wednesday morning he caused all the poor to be brought together,
men, women, and children, and sent them all out of the town, to
the number of 1,700. It was probably the truest mercy, for he had
no food to give them, and they could only have starved miserably
within the town, or have hindered him from saving it for his
sovereign; but to them it was dreadful to be driven out of house
and home, straight down upon the enemy, and they went along weeping
and wailing, till the English soldiers met them and asked why they
had come out. They answered that they had been put out because they
had nothing to eat, and their sorrowful famished looks gained pity
for them. King Edward sent orders that not only should they go
safely through his camp, but that they should all rest, and have
the first hearty dinner that they had eaten for many a day, and he
sent every one a small sum of money before they left the camp, so
that many of them went on their way praying aloud for the enemy
who had been so kind to them.
A great deal happened whilst King Edward kept watch in his wooden
town and the citizens of Calais guarded their walls. England was
invaded by King David II of Scotland, with a great army, arid the
good Queen Philippa, who was left to govern at home in the name of
her little son Lionel, assembled all the forces that were left at
home, and sent them to meet him. And one autumn day, a ship crossed
the Straits of Dover, and a messenger brought King Edward letters
from his queen to say that the Scots army had been entirely defeated
at Nevil's Cross, near Durham, and that their king was a prisoner,
but that he had been taken by a squire named John Copeland, who
would not give him up to her.
King Edward Sent letters to John Copeland to come to him at Calais,
and when the squire had made his journey, the king took him by the
hand saying, "Ha! welcome, my squire, who by his valor has captured
our adversary the King of Scotland."
Copeland, falling on one knee, replied, "If God, out of His great
kindness, has given me the King of Scotland, no one ought to be
jealous of it, for God can, when He pleases, send His grace to a
poor squire as well as to a great lord. Sir, do not take it amiss
if I did not surrender him to the orders of my lady queen, for I
hold my lands of you, and my oath is to you, not to her."