1339-1340 THE FRENCH CROWN CLAIMED 239 pay, and his resources, great as they were, were soon exhausted, and he had to pawn his crowns to satisfy their needs. These lords proved as useless as they were expensive. In 1339 Edward crossed the French frontier, but, as he could not induce Philip to fight, his German allies deserted him, and for lack of their help he was obliged to return to England. He had to fall back on the support of the Flemings, but was told by them that unless he formally took the title of king of France, which he had only occasionally done before, they could not fight for him, as the king of France, whoever he might be, was their superior lord, and as such had a claim to their services. After some hesitation, in the beginning of 1340, Edward satisfied their scruples by reviving the claim which he had formerly abandoned, declaring himself to be, in right of his mother, the lawful king of France; and quartering the French arms with his own. A third territorial question was thus added to the other two. Practically Edward's answer to Philip's effort to absorb all Aquitaine in France was a counterdemand that all France should be absorbed in England. 9. Battle of Sluys. 1340.-Edward had not yet learnt to place confidence in those English archers who had served him so well at Halidon Hill. In 1340, however, he found himself engaged in a conflict which should have taught him where his true strength lay. The French navy held the Channel, and had burnt Southampton. The fleet of the Cinque Ports was no longer sufficient to cope with the enemy. Edward proudly announced that he, like his progenitors, was the lord of the English sea on every side, and called out every vessel upon which he could lay hands. The result was a naval victory at Sluys, in which well-nigh the whole French fleet was absolutely destroyed. It was by the English archers that the day was won. So complete was the victory that no one dared to tell the ill news to Philip, till his jester called out to him, "What cowards those English are!" "Because,” he explained, "they did not dare to leap into the sea as our brave Frenchmen did." 10. Attacks on the West of France. 1341-1345.-If Edward was to obtain still greater success, he had but to fight with a national force behind him on land as he had fought at sea; but he was slow to learn the lesson. Personally he was as chivalrous as Philip, and thought that far more could be done by the charge of knights on horseback than by the cloth-yard shafts of the English bowmen. For six more years he frittered away his strength. There was a disputed succession in Brittany, and one of the claimants, John of Montfort, ranged himself on the side of the English. There was fighting in Brittany and fighting on the borders of Edward's lands in Aquitaine, but up to the end of 1345 there was no decisive result on either side. In Scotland, too, things had been going so badly for Edward that in 1341 David Bruce had been able to return, and was now again ruling over his own people. II. The Campaign of Crecy. 1346. Surprising as Edward's neglect to force on a battle in France appears to us, it must be remembered that in those days it was far more difficult to bring on an engagement than it is in the present day. Fortified towns and castles were then almost impregnable, except when they were starved out; and it was therefore seldom necessary for a commander-on other grounds unwilling to fight-to risk a battle in order to save an important post from capture. Edward, however, does not appear to have thought that there was anything to be gained by fighting. In 1346 he led a large English army into Normandy, taking with him his eldest son, afterwards known as the Black Prince, at that time a lad of sixteen. It had been from Normandy and Calais that the fleets had put out by which the coasts of England had been ravaged, and Edward now deliberately ravaged Normandy. He then marched on, apparently intending to take refuge in Flanders. As the French had broken the bridges over the Seine, he was driven to ascend the bank of the river almost to Paris before he could cross. His burnings and his ravages continued till Philip, stung to anger, pursued him with an army more than twice as numerous as his own. Edward had the Somme to cross on his way, and the bridges over that river had been broken by the French, as those over the Seine had been broken; and but for the opportune discovery of a ford at Blanche Tache Edward would have been 1346 CRECY 241 obliged to fight with an impassable river at his back. When he was once over the Somme he refused-not from any considerations of generalship, but from a point of honour-to continue his retreat further. He halted on a gentle slope near the village of Crecy facing eastwards, as Philip's force had swept round to avoid difficulties in the ground, and was approaching from that direction. 12. The Tactics of Crecy. 1346.-Great as was Edward's advantage in possessing an army so diverse in its composition as that which he commanded, it would have availed him little if he had not known how to order that army for battle. At once it appeared that his skill as a tactician was as great as his weakness as a strategist. His experience at Halidon Hill (see p. 234) had taught him that the archers could turn the tide of battle against any direct attack, however violent. He knew, too, from the tradition of Bannockburn (see p. 226), that archers could readily be Shooting at the butts with the long-bow. crushed by a cavalry charge on the flank; and he was well aware that his own horsemen were in too small numbers to hold out against the vast host of the French cavalry. He therefore drew up his line of archers in a position in which they would be protected on their flanks by the two villages of Crecy and Wadicour, and also, to provide against all accidents, ordered the bulk of his horsemen to dismount and to place themselves with levelled spears in bodies at intervals in the line of archers. The innovation was thoroughly reasonable, as spearmen on foot would be able to check the fiercest charge of horse, if only the horse could be exposed to a shower of arrows. The English army was drawn up in three corps, two of them in the front line. The Black Prince was in command of one of the two bodies in front, whilst the king himself took charge of the third corps, which acted as a reserve in the rear. R 13. The Battle of Creçy. August 26, 1346.—When Philip drew nigh in the evening his host was weary and hungry. He ordered his knights to halt, but each one was thinking, not of obeying orders, but of securing a place in the front, where he might personally distinguish himself. Those in the rear pushed on, and in a few minutes the whole of the French cavalry became a disorganised mob. Then Philip ordered 15,000 Genoese crossbowmen to advance against the enemy. At the best a crossbow was inferior to the English long-bow, as it was weaker in its action and consumed more time between each shot. To make matters worse, a heavy shower of rain had wetted the strings of the unlucky Genoese, rendering their weapons useless. The English had covers for their bows, and had kept them dry. The thick shower of their arrows drove the Genoese back. Philip took their retreat for cowardice. "Kill me those scoundrels!" he cried, and the French knights rode in amongst them, slaughtering them at every stride. Then the French horsemen charged the English lines. Some one amongst the Black Prince's retinue took alarm, and hurried to the king to conjure him to advance to the son's assistance. Edward knew better. "Is he dead?" he asked, "or so wounded that he cannot help himself?" No, sire, please God," was the reply, “but he is in a hard passage of arms, and he much needs your help." Return," answered the king, "to those that sent you, and tell them not to send to me again so long as my son lives; I command them to let the boy win his spurs." The French were driven off with terrible slaughter, and the victory was won. It was a victory of foot soldiers over horse soldiers-of a nation in which all ranks joined heartily together over one in which all ranks except that of the gentry were despised. Edward III. had contributed a high spirit and a keen sense of honour, but it was to the influence of Edward I.—to his wide and far-reaching statesmanship, and his innovating military genius--that the victory of Crecy was really due. 14. Battle of Nevill's Cross, and the Siege of Calais. 1346-1347. -Whilst Edward was fighting in France, the Scots invaded England, but they were defeated at Nevill's Cross, and their king, David Bruce (David II.), taken prisoner. Edward, when the news reached him, had laid siege to Calais. In this siege cannon,' which had been used in earlier sieges of the war, were employed, but they were too badly made and loaded with too little gunpowder to do much damage. 1 It has been said that they were used at Creçy, but this is uncertain. 1337-1347 SURRENDER OF CALAIS In 1347 Calais was starved into surrender, and Edward, who regarded the town as a nest of pirates, ordered six of the principal burgesses to come out with ropes round their necks, as a sign that they were to be put to death. It was only at Queen Philippa's intercession that he spared their lives, but he drove every Frenchman out of Calais, and peopled it with his own subjects. A truce with Philip was agreed on, and Edward returned to England. 15. Constitutional 1337-1347. Progress. - Edward III. had begun his reign as a constitutional ruler, and on the whole he had no reason to regret it. In his wars with France and Scotland he had the popular feeling with. him, and he showed his reliance on it when, in 1340, he consented to the abolition of his claim to impose tallage on his demesne lands (see p. 221) the sole fragment of unparliamentary taxation legally retained by the king after the Confirmatio CartaIn 1341 the two rum. Contemporary view of a fourteenth-century walled town. 243 |