Edward's temper was considerably improved when, in January
1340,
the people of Flanders — natural allies of England because of the mutually profitable wool trade - recognized his claim to the French crown. He immediately quartered the arms of France with his own, ordered a new seal complete with
fleurs-de-lys
and adopted a surcoat of scarlet and blue, embroidered with the leopards and lilies that remain to this day on the royal escutcheon. But the Flemings, happy as they were to be an English rather than a French dependency, were merchants first and foremost, with a clear understanding of the value of money. When the King returned to England soon afterwards to hasten the delivery of the provisions and supplies he needed, they politely insisted that his wife and children should be left behind as security for the payment of his debts, Queen Philippa's own crown being put in pawn to the merchants of Cologne.
Meanwhile the French were giving increasing trouble in the Channel. Already in
1338
their privateers had raided Portsmouth and Southampton; that October, Edward had ordered a line of stakes to be driven across the Thames to prevent similar assaults on London. The following year Dover and Folkestone had been attacked. Finally, by midsummer
1340,
the King was ready to sail from the Thames estuary with the navy that he had long been preparing: some
200
vessels, carrying perhaps
5,000
archers and men-at-arms, together with hones and stores. Also accompanying him were what a contemporary described as 'a large number of English ladies, countesses, baronesses, knights' ladies and wives of London burgesses, who were on their way to visit the Queen of England at Ghent'. But just before Edward gave the order to weigh anchor there came ominous news: scouts who had been patrolling the Channel reported that a French fleet at least twice the size of his own was awaiting him at the mouth of the river Zwin near the little town of Sluys - in those days the port of nearby Bruges. His Chancellor, the Archbishop of Canterbury John Stratford, urged him even at this late stage to cancel the expedition: in such conditions, he argued, to continue would be suicide. But the King remained firm - whereupon Stratford resigned his seal of office on the spot, handing it over to his brother Robert, Bishop of Chichester - and, shortly after midnight on
22
June, gave the order to sail.
On the afternoon of the day following, as his fleet approached the Flemish coast, Edward saw for himself the strength of the huge armada that Philip had drawn up against him:
400
sail or more — 'so many', writes Froissart, 'that their masts resembled a forest'. Nineteen of them were larger than any that the English had ever seen. Characteristically, however, the King decided to attack at once. Pausing only to ensure the protection of the ladies, he spent what remained of the day deploying his ships, one carrying men-at-arms between every two with archers. Then, early in the morning of Midsummer Day,
1
he led his fleet straight into the harbour mouth.
What followed was a massacre. The French fought valia
ntly
, but were so tightly crowded together in the narrow inlet that they could barely move. Edward bore down upon them with the wind behind him, his archers - o
perating from platforms or 'castl
es' mounted high above the decks - loosing volleys of arrows high into the air to rain down a moment later over the enemy ships, while the sharp English prows shattered the motionless French hulls like matchwood. Only when sufficient damage had been done did the longbowmen pause in their work, to allow the men-at-arms to grapple, board and fight to the death. For nine hours the battle continued; when it was finished,
230
French ships, including the flagship, had been captured and the rest destroyed, the two admirals dead among the wreckage. The fish in the harbour drank so much French blood, it was said afterwards, that had God given them the power of speech they would have spoken in French.
The last three acts of
Edward III
are devoted to the King's victories in France, and are based principally on the accounts by Froissart and Holinshed of the battles of Sluys and Crecy, respectively in
1340
and
1346;
of the siege and conquest of Calais in
1346-7;
and of the battle of Poitiers in
1356.
We would expect Act III to begin with Sluys, and so in a way it does; but although its first scene is clearly set somewhere on the Flemish coast within sight and earshot of the battle, lines
33-61
are more suggestive of the preparations for Crecy six years later. The entire action is represented from the French point of view - presumably in order to introduce us to Edward's chief antagonists, now appearing for the first time. They are identified in the stage directions as 'King John of France, his two sons Charles [Duke] of Normandy and Philip'. We have already noted the dramatist's refusal to recognize King Philip VI, whom he confuses with John II, his son and successor.
2
This
1.
Although the title is nowadays given to the longest day of the year, 21 June, the
Feast of St John the Baptist on the 24th was then generally accepted as Midsummer
Day.
2.
See pp. 18—19 and note.
now leads him into still greater confusion. The Duke of Normandy in
1340
was not Charles but that same John, the future King: while the 'Philip' cannot possibly be John's son - the future Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, who was born only in
13
41
or
1342
- and can be identified only with his brother, Philip Duke of Orleans.
In his reference to 'our navy of a thousand sail', the King appears somewhat prone to exaggeration: Holinshed puts the number at
400,
while Froissart speaks of
'mo
re
than six
score great vessels, besyde other'. But we are given no further information about the French fleet: the conversation shifts to the character of the English, 'Bloodthirsty and seditious Catilines', and their allies,
the 'frothy Dutchmen, puff
'd with double beer' - no match, clearly, for the allies of the French: 'The stern
Polonian, and the warlike Dane, ‘
The King of Bohemia, and of Sicily'. Obedie
ntly
on cue, John of Luxemburg, King of Bohemia, enters with a Polish captain; they are, however, jumping the gun. As we shall shortly see, the blind King John was to fight — and die — at Crecy, in which both Poles and Danes fought as mercenaries; but that was still six years in the future.
1
Suddenly, the mood changes. A 'mariner' arrives to describe the splendour of the English fleet:
Majestical the order of their course,
Figuring the horned circle of the moon:
And on the top-gallant of the admiral,
And likewise all the handmaids of his train,
The arms of England and of France unite
Are quarter'd equally by herald's art.
A few moments later, the battle has begun. The King and Philip hear it in the distance, and the mariner returns with a description that borders on the macabre:
Purple the sea; whose channel fill'd as fast
With streaming gore that from the maimed fell
As did her gushing moisture break into
The crannied cleftures of the through-shot planks.
Here flew a head, dissever'd from the trunk;
There mangled arms and legs were toss'd aloft,
As when a whirlwind takes the summer dust
And scatters it in middle of the air
.
1.
King Robert the Wise, of Naples and Sicily, is briefly mentioned by Froissart as having warned the French King not to fight the English; but he was not present at Sluys, and died three years before Crecy.
Five years at the most separate the writing of
Edward III
and the defeat of the Spanish Armada; and it is hardly surprising that echoes of the recent victory can be heard in the mariner's two speeches. In the first — an unmistakable warning of what is to come — he describes 'The proud Armado of King Edward's ships'; the reference to 'the horned circle of the moon' would also have struck a chord with contemporary audiences, the Armada having sailed in crescent-shaped formation up the Channel before being engaged by the English fleet.
1
In the second speech, immediately after the battle, he gives the King the grim news in the clearest possible terms:
Much did the Nonpareille, that brave ship:
So did the Black-snake of Bullen [Boulogne], than which
A bonnier vessel never yet spread sail:
But all in vain; both sun, the wind and tide
Revolted all unto our foemen's side,
That we perforce were fain to give them way,
And they are landed: thus my tale is done;
We have untimely lost, and they have won.
The battle of Sluys - the first great naval victory in English history -gave Edward command of the Channel and ensured a moderately satisfactory bridgehead for his expeditionary armies for several years to come. The French army, however - in marked contrast to its navy — remained unscathed, still refusing to join battle; the Flemish allies, bored with the war, were growing ever more obstreperous; and when, at the approach of autumn, the elderly Countess of Hainault — Edward's mother-in-law and Philip's sister — emerged from the convent to which she had retired and proposed a truce, the two monarchs agreed. It was
signed on
25
September
1340
at Esplechin near Tournai, extending until midsummer of the following year. Thus, for the King of England, the first phase of the war had been only moderately successful. He had, it was true, destroyed the French fleet and acquired new allies in Flanders. On the other hand he suffered from the inherent disadvantage of all invaders of foreign territory: dangerously extended lines of communication and supply, not only inconvenient in themselves but a constant brake on progress and all too easily cut by an enemy fighting on home ground. Quick and decisive victories like that of Sluys were what he needed; he could not afford a war of slow attrition or of protracted sieges. Thus he had proved powerless against Philip's defensive strategy, and his ultimate victory over the French King seemed as far away as ever it had been.
The five years after the treaty of Esplechin saw a good deal of inconclusive fighting in Brittany and Gascony, where two of the ablest of the younger English commanders, Sir Walter Manny and the King's cousin, Henry Earl of Derby, recovered a good many important towns and
castles
before losing them again to Philip's eldest son, John Duke of Normandy. In the early summer of
1346,
however, Edward prepared an army of some
4,000
men-at-arms and
10,000
archers, with a navy of about
700
sail which he assembled at Portsmouth. The destination of this expeditionary force - by far the greatest ever raised in England — was deliberately not revealed, obliging the French to keep their own ships widely dispersed; even the English captains were given their orders under seal, to be opened only after they had left harbour. But there seems little reason to doubt Froissart when he tells us that it was intended for Gascony, where Derby was putting up a stout resistance at Aiguillon.
1
At any rate the fleet set sail and headed westward down the Channel; but after three days the wind changed and drove the ships north against the Cornish coast. There they lay nearly a week at anchor, and it seems to have been only then that Sir Godfrey d'Harcourt, a French knight banished from his native land who had spent the past two years at the English court, persuaded the King to change his entire plan. 'Sir', he is quoted as saying,
the country of Normandy is one of the richest in the world. I promise you on my life that, if you land there, none shall resist you; for its people have no experience of arms and the greatest of its knights are all at Aiguillon with the Duke. Thus will you find great towns and fortresses completely undefended, wherein your men shall have such gain as to make them rich for twenty years to come. Moreover your fleet will be able to follow you almost as far as Caen. If you therefore see fit to heed my advice, you and we shall all profit thereby.
Sir Godfrey spoke the truth, and Edward knew it. He saw too that such a landing in Normandy might well divert French troops from Gascony, thereby helping the hard-pressed Derby almost as much as if he had sailed directly to his relief. The principal danger would be that of interception by King Philip — whose army was far larger than his own - before he could link up with his Flemish allies; but his past experience of Philip's cautiousness suggested that the risk was well worth taking, and he gave the order to turn about. The fleet sailed back the way it had come, and landed at the
little
port of St Vaast-la-Hougue, on the eastern side of the Cotentin peninsula,
1
on
12
July.