The Plantagenets: The Three Edwards Part 19

Philip now proceeded to bring things to a head. He sent his son, John of Normandy, with a large army to invade the English provinces of Guienne and Gascony. This was open war. Edward countered by dispatching reinforcements to Gascony under the Earl of Derby. To be sure that there would be good leaders.h.i.+p, he detached Sir Walter Manny from his post in Brittany and sent him with Derby as second-in-command. Manny performed there with his usual boldness and intrepidity, but the French forces were too powerful to be held back. It became apparent that, unless drastic steps were taken, the Aquitanian possessions of the English crown would be swallowed up.

Edward gathered an army to go to Gascony under his personal command and they sailed on July 11. The new army was made up of twenty-four hundred hors.e.m.e.n and twelve thousand foot soldiers, mostly archers, as well as small divisions, including a force of Welsh foot soldiers, a thousand hobilars (mounted spearmen), and the king's personal guard. These figures are more or less arbitrary because many estimates can be found, some as low as eight thousand. All are in agreement, however, that Edward had made one tactical decision. In battle they would fight on foot. He had not forgotten the lessons of Bannockburn and Halidon Hill.

A French knight named G.o.dfrey de Harcourt, who bore the nickname of Le Boiteux (The Cripple), had escaped from France after an altercation with the Bishop of Bayeux. He was the seigneur of St.-Saveur-Bayeux and belonged to one of the oldest families in Normandy, founded before the time of Rollo by Bernard the Dane. To escape punishment, he retired to Brabant, where he had estates, but three friends who had helped him to escape were seized by the king, put to the torture, and then executed; good King Philip having a furious way with him when things went contrary to his royal will. Harcourt was condemned by default and his estates confiscated.

He came to England and offered his services to Edward. This, as it developed, was the greatest possible stroke of good fortune. Harcourt hobbled noticeably, but on a horse he was as good a fighting man as any. More than that, he was a shrewd soldier with a sense of strategy which Edward seems to have lacked. He had, moreover, a keen eye for troop dispositions and a capacity for judging the ground over which cavalry might have to advance, the dips in the land, the advantages and disadvantages of hillsides, the exact danger from soft moss land along small creeks. Edward seems to have appreciated his value at once, being optimistic in his choice of men. The French fugitive rode close to the royal shoulder throughout the campaign, and his advice was acted upon in matters of first importance. He was even given the rank of marshal, which was most unusual. Men attained that honor usually because of being born the son of a son of a marshal.

It was Harcourt who suggested a change in the English strategy. Edward's idea was the simple and obvious one of going direct to the aid of his hard-pressed troops in the south. Harcourt pointed out many disadvantages in this plan. It involved a long and slow sea voyage with heavy losses in men and s.h.i.+ps. The most they could hope to accomplish that way was to check the French advance as long as the army remained there. The force that Edward was taking out was not large enough to make a decisive victory possible in Gascony and any advantage which might be gained would be transitory. On the other hand, if the army landed on the coast of Normandy, which the French had left undefended, they would compel the enemy to withdraw some of their strength from the south to meet this new threat; thus accomplis.h.i.+ng all they could hope to do by landing in Gascony. The rest of the plan seems to have been to march swiftly across the face of northern France, ravaging the country as they went and collecting enough in spoils to pay the cost of the whole operation. Finally they would join the Flemish armies before Bouvines, which might lead to a decisive result. This realistic plan had one other advantage. Edward's army would never be far from the home base and could recross the Channel quickly if the French attacked in force.

Edward saw at once the advantages to be gained by this strategy. Instead of taking his transports on the long and dangerous trip across the Bay of Biscay, he landed on the Cotentin at La Hogue St. Vast. It was apparent at once that Harcourt had been right. An attack had not been expected here and all of Normandy seemed bare of French troops. The English, moving fast at first, swept down on Barfleur, took everything of value in the town, and then pushed on, capturing Valongnes, Carentan, and St. L (a thousand tuns of wine being found in the last-named town, to the great delight of the thirsty troops) and reaching the important city of Caen. Here a small army under the constable of France offered some resistance. It was at Caen, which had played such a part in the life of William the Conqueror, that Edward got his hands on a plan drawn up by the Normans for a second invasion of England. It was a detailed scheme, showing how England would be divided among the victors. Edward was so infuriated that he announced his intention of putting the whole population of Caen to the sword the following day. It was G.o.dfrey de Harcourt who persuaded him to give up this act of revenge, pointing out that the success of the campaign depended on speed.

Harcourt's plan, as has been said, was to sweep the northern coast of France before the French could organize any effective opposition. This was a thoroughly sound strategic conception, but they had not figured on such weak resistance and such chances for loot. The wagon train was already filled with chairs, beds, statues, suits of armor, and tapestries. Each man in the ranks had his own booty-gold and silver flagons, crucifixes, silver candlesticks-which he suspended around his neck. Many of them had feather beds strapped on their backs. It was not strange that twenty-eight days were consumed from the landing until they came in sight of Poissy and knew that Paris lay only twelve miles ahead. Even though they knew that French forces were now gathering everywhere, there was an intense desire to push on. Reports were received that, behind the gates of Paris, Philip had fallen into a panic and was preparing the city to stand siege, tearing down all buildings which touched the walls. Later word reached them that Philip was also gathering a huge army on the plain of St. Denis, and this led to a wiser decision. A small force was sent on to threaten Paris while the main body set to work to build a pontoon bridge across the Seine. This was accomplished in three days and the English leader sighed with relief to have this serious obstacle behind him.

Now the safety of the English army depended on the fleetness of their heels. Only desperate haste could undo the damage of that slow processional through Normandy and the Isle-de-France, with everyone searching for loot. Edward was thoroughly sensitive to the danger and in four days he drove his heavily laden troops at top speed, covering nearly sixty miles through the Vexin of Normandy. All the roads behind them were black with French troops. Clouds of dust raised by cavalry seemed to fill the horizon. The most serious obstacle had still to be surmounted, the broad Somme which rolled sluggishly through peat bogs on both banks. Edward, in something approaching a panic, sent his two marshals, Warwick and Harcourt, to secure a crossing ahead. They found all the bridges down and the fords guarded by Picardy troops. Four attempts to seize fords were unsuccessful. To add to the jeopardy of the invaders, the French king now had a huge army in movement and was marching parallel to the English. French hors.e.m.e.n were already in Amiens, which meant that Edward was being shoved into a triangle formed by the seemingly impa.s.sable Somme, the waters of the Channel (where there would be no s.h.i.+ps yet to take them off), and the French army. The French were so close on the English heels that at Airnes they found meat simmering on the spits. Edward's men had left their dinner behind them in their haste.

The English king now found it necessary to change his plans. It was no longer possible to join forces with the allied troops from Flanders. Instead he must by some means get across the Somme into his own province of Ponthieu and maintain himself there until the fleet could arrive to get the army back to English soil. Edward summoned all his prisoners before him and offered liberty to anyone who would lead the way to a navigable spot, together with the release of twenty other prisoners. A peasant named Gobin Agace finally came forward and said he knew of a ford called the Blanche Taque close to the mouth of the Somme where it was possible to cross at low tide.

Darkness had fallen, but the order to march was given and by midnight the vanguard reached Blanche Taque. The tide was in and this necessitated a delay of several hours. The prospect seemed a grim one, for on the other side of the water was a body of two thousand Picards under the command of a resourceful knight named G.o.demar de Fay.

BATTLE OF CReCY 1346.

It was to prove as close a thing as the crossing of the Red Sea by the children of Israel. After several hours of tense waiting, the dawn began to break and the tidal waters receded. While the English bowmen drove the men of Picardy back with a storm of arrows, the army tramped waist-deep over the solid white stones of the Blanche Taque and reached the far sh.o.r.e just as the van of the pursuing hors.e.m.e.n appeared through the morning mists. The French got their hands on a few of the English wagons but that was all. In a mood of intense relief Edward ordered that not only should Gobin Agace be set at liberty but that he was to have a horse and one hundred crowns in gold.

From the ford the English marched to the village of Crecy, which lay some miles north and east and within a very few miles of the sea. It was August 25, with a prospect of rain in the skies. It did not seem likely that the French would be able to cross in time to offer battle that day. The possibility of a rest was welcome to the foot-weary English.

Crecy: an inconspicuous village, the home of a few dusty peasants, a miller, a faithful priest; it boasted one church, a manor house, one smithy. It lay between two small streams, the Maye and the Authie. This was a country of gently rolling downs and at an equal distance of two miles, forming an irregular square, were three other villages. Between one of the three, Wadicourt, and that which would give its name to the battle, there was a ridge of no great height, spa.r.s.ely wooded but susceptible of defense against attack from the plain below. Back of this ridge was a windmill, its arms almost still in the humid air.

There is a legend that Edward placed some small cannon or cracys around this mill, but there is no proof of this. Certainly no effective use was made of gunpowder in the battle which followed. The French knights, who came tilting like so many Don Quixotes against this unattainable windmill, would encounter only the usual hazards and would not be subjected to a first taste of the powder which was to revolutionize warfare.

South of the Maye stretched the forest of Crecy, a thick and almost impenetrable wood which covered the landscape for ten miles. This natural barrier lay between Edward's army and the city of Abbeville, where Philip was making his headquarters. To reach Crecy from Abbeville, it was necessary to take either one of two roads leading around the forest, a matter of eighteen miles. Through the heart of the forest, however, ran a narrow path leading north to the sea, and this was the route the English would take if a final retreat became necessary.

A quiet and sleepy country, this, each village rather solemn in a setting of orchards and scattered elm trees. The inhabitants had realized what lay ahead as soon as the English vanguard came tramping through their fields at midday. Already, in crude carts and on muleback, these innocent bystanders and their families were fleeing as fast as creaking wheels would take them.

The English king raised his standard close to the windmill, in front of his azure and gold silk pavilion. It may not seem necessary to say again that the always ostentatious Edward did everything with a splendid gesture and that his pavilion was of grand dimensions, large enough, in fact, for scores of guests to sit down to a meal and for minstrels to play as the flagons were drained.

Back of the pavilion, on a stretch of land which leveled off, were the wagons and the camp followers. The campfires were being lighted and trenches dug for the roasting of meat.

As the day wore on, word reached the king that Philip of France was at Abbeville and had occupied the bridge across the Somme. His army was said to be one hundred thousand strong and it was further said that the Oriflamme had been hoisted above his headquarters. This meant they would neither give nor accept quarter. Allowing for exaggeration, it was still certain that the French would outnumber the English at least four to one. Could they face such desperate odds?

There was a deep frown on the brow of the Frenchman, Harcourt, whose advice had brought Edward to this pa.s.s. He kept his eyes on the dark path in the forest of Crecy as though he now favored a retreat to the coast, where a last stand could be made, an opinion in which most of the others concurred. But not Edward. Only a great man faces such danger as this without fear, and there was no hint of uncertainty in the king's eye as he glanced across the treetops beyond which the French might already be advancing with their blood-red flag.

"This is land of my lady mother's," he said, motioning about him. "We will wait for them here."

2.

That night the French king supped in the monastery of St. Peter's at Abbeville with a large and distinguished company. The rain still threatened and there was a damp wind which beat about the windows with a mournful insistence. The company was rather subdued, for they would be in mortal conflict the next day and there was much on the minds of all of them. The king, who was in a particularly dark mood, had many violent sins on his conscience and for that reason, perhaps, had little to say.

The company about Philip included the blind King of Bohemia, who had no reason to be there save a love of war which he could scent from afar and which had brought him to the French banner with a division of German knights and mercenaries. There were also the king's son, Charles of Luxemburg, King Jayme of Majorca, the Duke of Lorraine, the Count of Flanders. Between the lot of them they commanded at least eighty thousand men from all parts of the continent, so it was little wonder that the town was packed to the eaves and that grumbling men-at-arms were sleeping in the markets and the churchyards and under the porches of houses.

Perhaps Philip sensed the dangers in such a situation as this: so many proud and jealous leaders, so many quarrelsome men of all races. It is recorded that he spoke seriously of his fear of disunion. He begged his allies to be friends and eschew all jealousy and to be courteous one to another. It was a sound observation, for even as he spoke, frowning over his flagon of wine, they could hear loud altercations in French and German and Wendish, and the shrill complaints of the Genoese that they were soaked to the skin and had no way of keeping the strings of their intricate crossbows from getting wet.

Edward dined in his pavilion, surrounded by his barons and captains. Most of them showed concern for what the morrow held, but it is said that the king himself wore an air of confidence. After the meal he rose and went out through the curtain which screened off a corner of the s.p.a.ce for an oratory. Here he remained alone until midnight.

Edward might be weak as a strategist, but as a tactician he was above reproach. Soon after dawn he and his oldest son, the latter wearing the black chain mail which would fasten on him the sobriquet of the Black Prince for all time, emerged from the royal pavilion. They made a survey of the field, the king riding on a white palfrey and carrying a wand in his hand. He went slowly up and down the line. The green-jacketed archers, he perceived, still had their bows in the cases provided to keep them dry, and there was nothing but a jaunty a.s.surance on the bronzed faces; they knew their power, these yeomen. The forest of Crecy guarded the flank of the English right, and here Edward stationed the prince with many of the best English knights, including the two marshals and a very brave and honorable warrior named Sir John Chandos, of whom much will be told later. This division consisted of eight hundred men-at-arms, at least two thousand archers, and half as many lightly armed Welshmen. A second battalion of equal strength covered the rest of the hilly crest as far as Wadicourt. Because there was some danger of being outflanked beyond Wadicourt, the king had seen to it that a formidable barricade of wagons and tree trunks had been raised where the enemy would have to penetrate. A third brigade of equal strength was being held as a reserve under the command of the king himself. For the time being they were stationed in front of the windmill and could be dispatched swiftly to any part of the field where a need for them might arise. The horses had been taken back to where the wagons were placed. For on this day, in accordance with a new conception of warfare, all Englishmen would fight afoot.

Nothing was amiss. The king was keenly aware that the thick forest of Crecy provided him with his greatest advantage. The French, approaching from Abbeville, had to follow a winding road around the forest which would bring them abruptly to the battlefield. There would be neither time nor s.p.a.ce for them to form a proper array before finding themselves involved in conflict. The larger the French force, the greater this difficulty would become.

The rain began to fall early and continued intermittently through the morning and the early part of the afternoon. It was about three o'clock when the scouts placed on the Abbeville road brought word to Edward that the French were coming. Half an hour later the first of them appeared around the end of the forest and began to debouch in the direction of Etrees, the most southerly of the four villages enclosing the Crecy plain.

"Bowmen!" cried the men about Edward. This was a surprise, for it was known that Philip of France had nothing but scorn for new ideas and regarded archers as a necessary evil. The reason was soon clear: the crossbowmen would cover the arrival of the knights and permit the latter to form in proper battle array.

The Genoese archers were weary, having marched eighteen miles over muddy roads, carrying their heavy equipment. Their reluctance to begin the battle had no weight with the French high command. The Count d'Alenon, who was a very chivalrous gentleman, cried scornfully, "This comes of making use of scurvy cowards!" The Italian archers were literally forced across the wet field by the weight of hors.e.m.e.n behind them, until they came within range of the English bows. At this moment the rain stopped, the dark clouds parted, and the sun came out. It shone on the backs of the English and on the faces of the attackers.

A new kind of battle began. The bowmen of England with their outlandishly long weapons, according to the French, had been placed on the flanks of each division so ingeniously that they could face in any direction. When the tired Genoese halted to wind up their crossbows, the air was filled suddenly with English arrows. It was, witnesses declared later, as though a snowstorm had come to take the place of the rain, for the arrows which filled the sky were feathered with white. They were propelled with such violent power that the breastplates of the Genoese offered no protection. In a matter of minutes their ranks were decimated and the survivors, screaming with terror, were trying to force their way through the armed knights behind them.

King Philip, aware that something was seriously amiss, rode out on the field. When he saw what was happening he cried, "Kill me these cowardly rogues!" The cavalry, nothing loath, spurred their horses forward and rode the archers down, at the same time cutting at the Genoese with their swords. Never had war produced a more ghastly spectacle, the brave knights destroying their own men with no mercy or concern.

Philip had been of two minds before, being partly convinced it would be wiser to delay the battle another day. But having ventured within sight of the English lines and thus having a glimpse of the banner of his enemy stamped with the lilies of France, he fell into such a black rage that nothing could suit him but an immediate start. And so began a battle which has never been equaled for sheer disorder and lack of discipline. As fast as the French hors.e.m.e.n could swing onto the plain, they rode up the slightly sloping ground, which was already choked with the bodies of men and horses and slippery with blood, to meet in their turn that frightening rain of steel-tipped arrows against which the strongest of armor offered no defense.

It did not seem possible for the French marshals to check this madness; or perhaps, being of the old school, they did not try very hard. If the chivalry of France could have been kept in hand long enough to form a battle line and then attack the full English position at once, there might have been a different story to write. But the frenzy continued unabated, and at no time was the French strength fully engaged. Ill-supported companies were striking in hit-and-miss fas.h.i.+on without plan or sequence and were being wiped out; not death from knightly sword or chivalrous mace, but a mean ending with vulgar arrows in their throats.

The blind King of Bohemia came riding onto the field between two devoted companions, and this same madness seized him. "Sirs," cried the veteran, "do me this much favor! Lead me where I may strike one clean blow!" The two knights tied their bridles to his and the three of them rode up the hill together. All three were killed.

It seems that once only did the furiously attacking French get through the line of archers. Against the English right they managed a temporary break and came to grips with the men-at-arms stationed around the Prince of Wales. The danger was so great that Sir Thomas Norwich was dispatched to ask aid from the reserve. King Edward, bareheaded, was standing at his windmill. He seemed in no hurry to comply.

"Is my son dead?" he asked.

"No, Sire."

"Is he wounded?"

Sir Thomas shook his head. "No, Sire. But he is full hardly matched."

"Then go back and tell those that sent you hither not to send again as long as my son is alive. Tell them my son must have the chance to win his spurs."

The danger was over when the messenger returned to the confusion and turmoil on the right flank. The prince had been wounded, not seriously, and one of the Welsh light troops had thrown the dragon standard of Wales over him as he lay on the ground. With the resilience of youth (he was only sixteen at the time) Edward got quickly to his feet and continued to take his part in the struggle for the rest of the day.

History is like a slate, and there is generally something to be written on each side. This story of the seeming nonchalance of the king and his willingness to let the heir to the throne take his full share of risks is something to be entered to the credit of chivalry.

The confusion on the field grew worse as the few hours of daylight wore away. The French army continued to arrive piecemeal; never any break in the ranks of the knights who rode on to the field, singly, two abreast, never more than three at a time, for the road was as narrow as the ramp to a slaughterhouse; always a fluttering of pennons and a blasting of trumpets and the monotonous cry of Montjoye St. Denis! They came, they charged, they died. The king shouted orders which no one heard, for his marshals had fallen. The sun disappeared and the clouds were too heavy again to let a single star s.h.i.+ne through. The Welsh and Cornish foot soldiers did not hesitate to venture out into the French lines. They even crept into the path of the oncoming knights and did great execution with their long knives. The French royal standard-bearer went down and another Frenchman ripped the Oriflamme from its staff and carried it off the field. It would be raised on many occasions thereafter, but never with such dire results.

Philip watched the carnage with grim intentness but finally was persuaded to leave the field. "You have lost this battle," said one of the knights who left with him. "You will win the next." But there was to be no next for the first king of the Valois dynasty. His fleet had been destroyed at Sluys and now his army had been vanquished. No monarch had ever before been so humiliated.

Philip rode first to the castle of Broye and was admitted when he hailed the watch from the outer gate. "Open!" he cried. "This is the fortune of France." A curious employment of terms. There was no fortune for France that day, nor for a long time thereafter. Philip died in 1350 before anything had been done to brighten the prospects of the kingdom.

The night after Crecy the small English army remained in their lines along the crest. No effort had been made to pursue the broken enemy. When the scouts brought a.s.surance that the French army had dissolved, the victorious English lighted campfires on the field. The king came down from his post sat the mill and sought Prince Edward. He did not recognize his heir at once, for the fine apparel of the prince had suffered in the melee. His crimson and gold surcoat was ripped to shreds and blackened with mud. He was indeed a black prince in every sense of the word.

"Sweet son," said the king, "you have acquitted yourself well this day."

A prayer was said, with every fighting man on his knees, before any sounds of jubilation were allowed. The feasting did not begin until it was certain that not a single straggling French knight was left on the weary road from Abbeville.

The next day, which was Sunday, a party made up of several of the n.o.bility and a staff of heralds and secretaries examined the dead on the bloodstained field and brought back a report which the victors found hard to believe. One king lay dead in his armor, the blind John of Bohemia, still strapped to the bodies of the two knights who had led him into the fray. Ten princes had died. The body of Alenon was found among the Genoese bowmen for whom he had expressed such contempt. The Count of Flanders, who had deserted the English alliance, had paid the penalty for his change of coat. The Earl of Blois, nephew of the king, and the Duke of Lorraine, his brother-in-law, were among the slain. A brother of Sir G.o.dfrey de Harcourt was found on the slope of the hill. More than a thousand knights in all had died during those few sanguinary hours and as many as thirty thousand common soldiers. Eighty banners had been captured.

The English losses were negligible. A few hundred only had fallen.

The Abbot of St. Denys had seen the French as they rolled by his walls in all their pride and glory. "G.o.d has punished us for our sins!" he cried when he was told that this mighty host had been destroyed in a few hours of fighting. He could think of no other explanation.

But there were two reasons for the French defeat. The command of that mighty army had been hopelessly bungled, and the English had made supreme use of a great new weapon.

3.

Crecy is not counted among the decisive victories of history. It did not bring the war to an end, certainly; but it had a significance far in excess of the importance attached to the fall of a curtain on any clash of national interests. It was the end of an epoch.

The princes who commanded at Crecy did not realize this fully. King Edward had so disposed his forces that all the fighting fell on the shoulders of the bowmen, but when he returned to England he devoted himself to establis.h.i.+ng the Order of the Garter, a glorification of chivalry. The Black Prince would continue to win fame by his adherence to the code. But the men who fought on that b.l.o.o.d.y field had no doubts. These yeomen of England, with their clear sight and their bronzed cheeks, who dipped with such coolness into the endless stock of lethal bolts and then sent them flying among the French with the velocity of death, these men in green knew that they were fighting, and winning, the battle. They knew that the day of the knight would soon be over.

CHAPTER XI.

The Aftermath of the Victory

1.

EDWARD made no effort to capture Paris, although some of his advisers clamored for action to that end. The French powers of resistance had been so shaken at Crecy that he could have won the city, but it would have been no more than a temporary triumph. Instead he made the wise decision to establish a bridgehead on French soil for use in future operations and, for that purpose, marched to the siege of Calais.

In the meantime French aggression in Gascony had come to a standstill, thus vindicating the judgment of the Frenchman G.o.dfrey de Harcourt. As soon as Edward landed on the Cotentin, Philip sent word to his son, John of Normandy, to come to his a.s.sistance. Six days before the battle of Crecy was fought the French forces in the south began their march north. They arrived to find the great French army destroyed and Philip himself at Amiens in a state of bitterness and gloom. So deep was the beaten monarch's dudgeon that no one cared to go near him and no plans could be discussed with him for the relief of Calais. John did not hesitate to beard the defeated lion because he had a grievance to air. Before leaving for the north he had given a safe-conduct to Sir Walter Manny, who wanted to make an overland march to join the English royal forces. Philip had refused to honor his son's promise. Manny and his party had been laid by the heels at Orleans and were still being held in rigorous confinement.

The prince gave his bitterly depressed father an ultimatum. If Manny was not released at once, he himself would not strike another blow in the French cause. Philip, still in a state of intense irritation, was reluctant to give in; but he finally yielded and even gave Sir Walter some jewelry to the value of a thousand florins for the ill treatment he had received. The English knight accepted on condition that his own king approved. As soon as he reached the English camp before Calais, Sir Walter informed the king of what had happened.

"Send them back!" commanded the English monarch. "You have no right to keep them. We have enough, the Lord be praised, for you and for ourselves."

There was no exaggeration in this. The English camp was filled with the loot of northern France. For a long time thereafter the English people would luxuriate in the spoils which were carried home. Every mother or wife of a soldier who fought at Crecy had a bracelet on her arm or a silver cup for her table. Many of them had feather beds, which were regarded as among the very choicest of all the spoils of war. The castles of the n.o.bility were filled with rare things and there were blooded horses in all their stables.

The siege of Calais took a long time. It was a strong position and could be reduced only by starvation. Edward built a town of small wooden huts around it and, to make his men comfortable, had a market place in the center which was open three days a week for the sale of food and clothing from England. Philip of France got an army together from what was left after Crecy and came up behind the English with the intention of compelling them to raise the siege. But back of the English camps were wide marshlands, and the phlegmatic and unimaginative Philip could not find any way to get across. He squatted down with his men beyond the marshlands and, no doubt, spent his time bemoaning the defeat at Crecy. Finally the townspeople, having eaten all the horses and dogs and every rat they could catch in the city, reached the stage where they must yield or starve to death. They had been watching the campfires of Philip's army at night and hoping against hope that he would do something to help them.

There were only two ready-made approaches to the beleaguered city, and the French king did not propose to try either one. The first was a road along the coast where his troops would be under arrow fire from the English fleet (and they did not want any more of that violent medicine), and the other was a bridge across the marshes called Neuillet, and this was strongly guarded by the English. William the Conqueror had found ways of taking his army across the fens at Ely, a much more difficult feat, but there was no such resourcefulness in Philip. He sulked a little longer while his people in Calais starved, and then broke up camp and returned with all his troops to Amiens.

The governor of the besieged city, Sir Jean de Vienne, had to ask for terms. Edward would listen to nothing at first but unconditional surrender. Calais had been a hotbed of piracy in the past and had sent out s.h.i.+ps to prey on English commerce. Now the citizens had cost the English monarch much in time and lives by the stubbornness of their defense. They must, he declared, be punished as befitted their crimes.

The king's advisers were against too much severity and Edward finally compromised by demanding that six of the most notable men of Calais come out to him in their s.h.i.+rts and bare feet and with ropes around then-necks. They must bring the keys of the town and castle and place them in his hands.

"On them," he declared, "I shall work my will. The rest I will receive to my mercy."

Six of the most highly respected and richest burghers volunteered to be the victims, and they were sent out in their s.h.i.+rts as stipulated, all of them so weak from famine that they could barely walk. They were brought into the presence of the king, who had surrounded himself with the queen and her ladies and all of his captains and best soldiers. There the six old men knelt down before him.

"We bring you the keys," said one of them, "and put ourselves at your mercy to save the rest of the people who have suffered so hardly."

The king, whose handsome face was suffused with anger, had his headsman ready. He motioned to him to begin.

Up to this point the story is a familiar one. Many kings in different countries and at divers times had butchered the common people of cities which had resisted too bravely and too long. Edward I had ordered the killing of all the men of Berwick, and the work of extermination was well under way before he relented. Casting ahead some years, Edward the Black Prince would provide a cla.s.sic example of this kind of savage behavior. He would put all the common people of a captured town to the sword but would pardon the knights. The story of Calais is, therefore, one of many such. It would not have been selected for particular remembrance if all the people around the angry king had not urged that he show mercy, Sir Walter Manny acting as spokesman. The latter did not prevail over the vicious Plantagenet temper, and it remained for Queen Philippa to add her voice. Although she was close to her time with a tenth child, she went down on her knees before Edward and begged earnestly that he show mercy.

The king took a long time to make up his mind and once at least he raised his hand as though signaling to the headsman. Finally, however, and with obvious reluctance, he granted the queen's request and allowed the hostages to go free.

That this became one of the favorite stories of the period was due, in all likelihood, to the intimate picture of the queen which emerges. Following so soon after the beautiful Eleanor of Castile, to whose memory the costly Eleanor Crosses dotted the great northern road as proof of the undying love of Edward I, and the spectacular and pa.s.sionate Isabella of France, who was still living in seclusion at Castle Rising and of whom men in the taverns spoke in whispers as "the she-wolf of France," Queen Philippa had seemed rather colorless. She was pretty, sweet, and domestic, a typical Dutch girl. But at Calais she showed herself to be brave as well as understanding and compa.s.sionate (it took courage to beard Edward in one of his Plantagenet tempers), and the people of England rolled the story over their tongues and kept it green in their memories.

Must a sequel be told, even if it takes much of the gloss from this picture of the fair (and rapidly becoming buxom) queen and shows that she had other qualities common to the hardheaded burghers of the Flanders cities? Edward, with a careless gesture, had given her the six old men to deal with as she pleased. This included their properties as well as their bodies, and she did not scruple to take advantage of the chance thus offered. It is on record that she took over the houses of one of the six, John Daire. As he chose not to become an English citizen and had to leave the city as a result, it is highly improbable that he ever got the property back.

2.

The saga of the border warfare became in this reign a story of the struggle between the strong son of a weak father and the weak son of a strong father. David the Bruce had inherited little of the great quality of his father, Robert. He proceeded, however, to carry out Scotland's treaty obligation to France when the word spread that Edward III had led an army of invasion into France. He got together a force of fifteen thousand men and led them across the Tyne above Newcastle and down into Durham. The northern barons, under the leaders.h.i.+p of the Archbishop of York, a.s.sembled in force to meet him and on October 17, 1346, they came face to face at Neville's Cross. It proved a repet.i.tion of a now familiar story. The English archers cut the charging Scots to pieces and scored a complete victory. Many of the n.o.bles of Scotland were killed in the battle and David himself was made a prisoner by an English north-country squire by the name of John Copland.

Following the lead of Froissart, the historian of the Middle Ages, there has been a tendency to give the credit of this victory to Queen Philippa. Circ.u.mstantial stories are told of her bravery and coolness; how she rode out on a white charger and inspired the troops with a rousing speech, and how she returned to the battlefield afterward on the same charger. Hearing the story of David's capture, she is supposed to have demanded of Copland that the royal prisoner be turned over to her. Copland refused and rode forthwith to Calais to explain himself to King Edward. "I hold my land of you and not of her," he declared. The king is said to have told him to return to England forthwith and deliver the royal prisoner into the hands of the queen. With this command went a promise of lands to the value of five hundred pounds a year for the great service rendered the crown.

The reliability of this story has always been questioned because no mention is made of it in the English chronicles; and a gentle queen riding to battle on a white horse is not an episode that any monkish chronicler would overlook, or any kind of historian, in fact. It must be taken into consideration also that the battle of Neville's Cross was fought on October 17 and that Edward did not land at Sandwich with his queen and family until October 12. The queen could not have been at Durham in time for the fighting.

The captive king was brought to London and paraded through the streets on a handsome black war horse and was then lodged in the Tower of London. He spent the next eleven years as a prisoner in England.

He was not kept in close confinement all the time. His wife, who was Edward's sister, Joanna (Little Joan Makepeace), was allowed to join him. They lived in various places close to London, always under guard, of course, and at Odiham in Hamps.h.i.+re. As negotiations over the amount of the ransom took an endless time, he was permitted on one occasion to return to Scotland to talk the estates into agreement. All this time there were secret understandings between the two kings about which the estates knew nothing, although they suspected much. David, in fact, was willing to sacrifice Scotland as a condition to his release, and several of the Scottish leaders were partners with him in what was called "the business." Finally, on July 13, 1354, the ransom was fixed at ninety thousand marks, to be paid in nine yearly installments. Now Scotland was not a rich country and ten thousand marks was a great deal of money to be raised and paid out each year, particularly for a king who was not regarded highly. David ruled for fourteen years after his return and was in debt all the time, sometimes paying nothing, sometimes as little as four thousand marks. Finally he and Edward reached an understanding by which the balance of the ransom could be liquidated without further payments. David was to agree to the transfer of the Scottish crown at his death to an English prince, the one chosen being Edward's very tall son, Lionel. The Scottish Parliament refused to accept this arrangement, so the two royal conspirators put their heads together on a still more drastic agreement. David promised to settle the succession on Edward himself, with certain precautionary provisions to maintain the independence of Scotland. In consideration of this the balance of the ransom was written off, although David continued to keep up a desultory correspondence with the English chancellery in order to conceal the truth from the dour Scottish parliamentarians, who would have raised the roof of Edinburgh Castle in their wrath had they known.