Although Edward III., by supporting with troops and officers, and
sometimes even in person, the cause of the countess of Montfort—and
Philip of Valois, by assisting in the same way Charles of Blois and Joan
of Penthièvre, took a very active, if indirect, share in the war in
Brittany, the two kings persisted in not calling themselves at war; and
when either of them proceeded to acts of unquestionable hostility, they
eluded the consequences of them by hastily concluding truces incessantly
violated and as incessantly renewed. They had made use of this expedient
in 1340; and they had recourse to it again in 1342, 1343, and 1344. The
last of these truces was to have lasted up to 1346; but in the spring of
1345, Edward resolved to put an end to this equivocal position, and to
openly recommence war. He announced his intention to Pope Clement IV., to
his own lieutenants in Brittany, and to all the cities and corporations
of his kingdom. The tragic death of Van Artevelde, however (1345), proved
a great loss to the king of England. He was so much affected by it that
he required a whole year before he could resume with any confidence his
projects of war; and it was not until the 2nd of July, 1346, that he
embarked at Southampton, taking with him, beside his son, the prince of
Wales, hardly sixteen years of age, an army which comprised, according
to Froissart, seven earls, more than thirty-five barons, a great number
of knights, four thousand men-at-arms, ten thousand English archers,
six thousand Irish and twelve thousand Welsh infantry, in all something
more than thirty-two thousand men. By the advice of Godfrey d’Harcourt,
he marched his army over Normandy; he took and plundered on his way
Harfleur, Cherbourg, Valognes, Carentan, St. Lô, and Caen; then,
continuing his march, he occupied Louviers, Vernon, Verneuil, Nantes,
Meulan, and Poissy, where he took up his quarters in the old residence
of King Robert; and thence his troops advanced and spread themselves as
far as Ruel, Neuilly, Boulogne, St. Cloud, Bourg-la-Reine and almost to
the gates of Paris, whence could be seen “the fire and smoke from burning
villages.” Philip recalled in all haste his troops from Aquitaine,
commanded the burgher forces to assemble, and gave them, as he had given
all his allies, St. Denis for the rallying point. At sight of so many
great lords and all sorts of men of war flocking together from all points
the Parisians took fresh courage. “For many a long day there had not been
at St. Denis a king of France in arms and fully prepared for battle.”
Edward began to be afraid of having pushed too far forward, and of
finding himself endangered in the heart of France, confronted by an army
which would soon be stronger than his own. He, accordingly, marched
northward, where he flattered himself he would find partisans, counting
especially on the help of the Flemings, who, in fulfillment of their
promise, had already advanced as far as Béthune to support him. Philip
moved with all his army into Picardy in pursuit of the English army,
which was in a hurry to reach and cross the Somme, and so continue its
march northward.
When Edward, after passing the Somme, had arrived near Crécy, five
leagues from Abbeville, in the countship of Ponthieu, which had formed
part of his mother Isabel’s dowry, “Halt we here,” said he to his
marshals; “I will go no farther till I have seen the enemy; I am on my
mother’s rightful inheritance, which was given her on her marriage; I
will defend it against mine adversary, Philip of Valois;” and he rested
in the open fields, he and all his men, and made his marshals mark well
the ground where they would set their battle in array. Philip, on his
side, had moved to Abbeville, where all his men came and joined him, and
whence he sent out scouts to learn the truth about the English. When he
knew that they were resting in the open fields near Crécy and showed that
they were awaiting their enemies, the king of France was very joyful,
and said that, please God, they should fight him on the morrow [the day
after Friday, August 25, 1346].
On Saturday, the 26th of August, after having heard mass, Philip started
from Abbeville with all his barons. The battle began with an attack by
fifteen thousand Genoese bowmen, who marched forward, and leaped thrice
with a great cry; their arrows did little execution, as the strings of
their bows had been relaxed by the damp; the English archers now taking
their bows from their cases, poured forth a shower of arrows upon this
multitude, and soon threw them into confusion; the Genoese falling back
upon the French cavalry, were by them cut to pieces, and being allowed
no passage, were thus prevented from again forming in the rear; this
absurd inhumanity lost the battle, as the young Prince of Wales, taking
advantage of the irretrievable disorder, led on his line at once to
the charge. “No one can describe or imagine,” says Froissart, “the bad
management and disorder of the French army, though their troops were out
of number.” Philip was led from the field by John of Hainault, and he
rode till he came to the walls of the castle of Broye, where he found
the gates shut; ordering the governor to be summoned, when the latter
inquired, it being dark, who it was that called at so late an hour,
he answered; “Open, open, governor; it is the fortune of France;” and
accompanied by five barons only he entered the castle.
Whilst Philip, with all speed, was on the road back to Paris with his
army, as disheartened as its king, and more disorderly in retreat than it
had been in battle, Edward was hastening, with ardor and intelligence,
to reap the fruits of his victory. In the difficult war of conquest
he had undertaken, what was clearly of most importance to him was to
possess on the coast of France, as near as possible to England, a place
which he might make, in his operations by land and sea, a point of
arrival and departure, of occupancy, of provisioning, and of secure
refuge. Calais exactly fulfilled these conditions. On arriving before
the place, September 3rd, 1346, Edward “immediately had built all round
it,” says Froissart, “houses and dwelling places of solid carpentry, and
arranged in streets, as if he were to remain there for ten or twelve
years, for his intention was not to leave it winter or summer, whatever
time and whatever trouble he must spend and take. He called this new
town _Villeneuve la Hardie_; and he had therein all things necessary
for an army, and more too, as a place appointed for the holding of a
market on Wednesday and Saturday; and therein were mercers’ shops and
butchers’ shops, and stores for the sale of cloth and bread and all other
necessaries. King Edward did not have the city of Calais assaulted by his
men, well knowing that he would lose his pains, but said he would starve
it out, however long a time it might cost him, if King Philip of France
did not come to fight him again, and raise the siege.”
Calais had for its governor John de Vienne, a valiant and faithful
Burgundian knight, “the which seeing,” says Froissart, “that the king of
England was making every sacrifice to keep up the siege, ordered that
all sorts of small folk, who had no provisions, should quit the city
without further notice.” The Calaisians endured for eleven months all the
sufferings arising from isolation and famine. The King of France made
two attempts to relieve them. On the 20th of May, 1347, he assembled his
troops at Amiens; but they were not ready to march till about the middle
of July, and as long before as the 23rd of June, a French fleet of ten
galleys and thirty-five transports had been driven off by the English.
When the people of Calais saw that all hope of a rescue had slipped
from them, they held a council, resigned themselves to offer submission
to the king of England, rather than die of hunger, and begged their
governor, John de Vienne, to enter into negotiations for that purpose
with the besiegers. Walter de Manny, instructed by Edward to reply to
these overtures, said to John de Vienne, “The king’s intent is that
ye put yourselves at his free will to ransom or put to death, such
as it shall please him; the people of Calais have caused him so great
displeasure, cost him so much money and lost him so many men, that it is
not astonishing if that weighs heavily upon him.” In his final answer to
the petition of the unfortunate inhabitants, Edward said: “Go, Walter,
to them of Calais, and tell the governor that the greatest grace they
can find in my sight is that six of the most notable burghers come forth
from their town bareheaded, barefooted, with ropes round their necks and
with the keys of the town and castle in their hands. With them I will do
according to my will and the rest I will receive to mercy.” It is well
known how the king would have put to death Eustace de St. Pierre and his
companions, and how their lives were spared at the intercession of Queen
Philippa.
Eustace, more concerned for the interests of his own town than for
those of France, and being more of a Calaisian burgher than a national
patriot, showed no hesitation, for all that appears, in serving, as
a subject of the king of England, his native city, for which he had
shown himself so ready to die. At his death, which happened in 1351,
his heirs declared themselves faithful subjects of the king of France,
and Edward confiscated away from them the possessions he had restored
to their predecessor. Eustace de St. Pierre’s cousin and comrade in
devotion to their native town, John d’Aire, would not enter Calais again;
his property was confiscated, and his house, the finest, it is said,
in the town, was given by King Edward to Queen Philippa, who showed no
more hesitation in accepting it than Eustace in serving his new king.
Long-lived delicacy of sentiment and conduct was rarer in those rough and
rude times than heroic bursts of courage and devotion.
The battle of Crécy and the loss of Calais were reverses from which
Philip of Valois never even made a serious attempt to recover; he hastily
concluded with Edward a truce, twice renewed, which served only to
consolidate the victor’s successes.