Authors: Thomas B. Costain
The fleet was ready by June 10 when the king arrived at Ipswich, accompanied by the queen and a party of ladies who were going to Ghent and would have the escort of the fleet. There was much shaking of heads among the naval authorities over the prospect of meeting the great French armada with such a rag-tag-and-bobtail collection as the English fleet. Sir Robert Morley, who had been made admiral, and John Crabbe, a Scot who shared the responsibility, said they would take the ships out if the king so ordered but that it would mean death for all of them. The king
paid no heed to such lugubrious advice. He boarded the cog
Thomas
, a strongly built vessel with rounded bows, capable of taking much punishment, though not comfortable to sail in. Between two hundred and two hundred fifty vessels followed the
Thomas
out to sea, a strange conglomeration indeed. But make no mistake, this was to be one of the memorable moments in English naval history.
About noon on June 22 the English saw behind a projecting ridge the sails of the French fleet. The rigging of the enemy seemed to tower into the sky and the masts were like a deep forest. The English commanders—except the king, who seems to have been an incurable optimist—conceded with glum nods that the odds would be nothing short of desperate. They were still more convinced of this when a reconnoitering party returned from a hasty survey. The French, it was reported, had many ships of gigantic size, and on board they had at least thirty thousand men, mostly Normans, Bretons, Picards, and Genoese bowmen.
The winds were against them, the tide was out; there was nothing the English could do that day. At dawn the next morning they got under way, the
Thomas
well in the van. There would have been more confidence in the attacking ships if they had known of the grievous, the terrible, error the French had made. Brushing aside the advice of the three experienced naval commanders that they break out into the open where they could smother the English with an excess of power, the French had elected to fight the battle as though they had dry land under their feet. With sandbanks on each side of the bay, the fatuous Gauls were convinced their flanks could not be turned, which seemed to them the most important consideration. Accordingly they had drawn up their fleet in four lines of battle across the mouth of the harbor,
linking the ships together with metal chains!
They had filled the watchout turrets with Genoese crossbowmen, believing them the greatest archers in the world.
Most of the English captains were old salts of long experience and they slapped their thighs in delight when they saw the mighty French ships manacled together like galley slaves. “If one takes fire, they will all go up in flames!” was the general opinion. On the decks of the English vessels, and all the way up into the rigging, were Saxon archers equipped with the first longbows the French had seen. Their bronzed faces were covered with confident grins, particularly when they saw from a distance the Genoese attaching their intricate crossbows to the planking under their feet as an aid in winding them up for use. Three gifts from the feather of the gray goose of England would be hurled into the French ships for every arrow that came back.
The English ships sailed in on the starboard tack with the wind behind them. They dropped grappling irons over the sides as soon as contact was made with the enemy; and now the poor Frenchmen found themselves in
double bondage, chained to each other and also to the English vessels from which emerged madly shouting islanders with long knives in their teeth. The sound of horn and drum which had greeted the boarders from the Gallic decks died down; nothing now to deaden the vicious
zing
of the English arrows as they swept up and across the crowded French decks. The fighting which ensued was bitter and sanguinary but quite one-sided.
The English admiral, Morley, had singled out the greatest of the enemy craft, the
Christopher
, as his opponent, and soon the English colors, flaunting the lilies as well as the leopards, fluttered from the tall masthead. There were three English ships which the French had captured in their coastal forays—the
Edward
, the
Rose
, and the
Katherine
—and these had been put vaingloriously in the first line of battle. The French must have regretted the gesture, for they were recaptured in rapid sequence, the whole English navy lifting a mighty roar each time the colors dipped.
A large part of the English success was due to the inability of the cross-bowmen to compete with the green-jacketed archers from across the Channel. The hail of steel-tipped arrows cleared the decks ahead of the boarders. The first line of French battle crumbled. The crews jumped over the sides or stood in meek clumps with their arms raised in surrender. Babuchet, who had committed atrocities along the English coast, was captured and strung up to a yardarm, which did nothing to repair the sinking French morale. The second and third lines of battle offered little resistance after the destruction of the first.
The fourth line, however, showed a sterner spirit. By some ridiculous error of judgment the fourth line, shut up behind all the rest of the fleet and in danger of grounding on the mudbanks, had been put under the command of Barbenoire, the ablest and most daring of sea fighters. With a fine display of seamanship, the Genoese commander managed to take some of his ships out through the chaos in front of him and into the open water. Here he engaged in a running battle with the English which lasted through the night. He succeeded in getting away with twenty-four of his ships and in capturing two English craft.
Although the fighting seems to have been one-sided, it was actually a bitter and long-drawn-out affair. The French lost twenty-five thousand men in the conflict, the English four thousand. The ships with the ladies aboard had not remained as far back as prudence should have dictated; it is recorded that twelve of them were among the killed. The king’s first cousin, Thomas de Monthermer, died. Edward himself was supposedly wounded in the thigh but, if that were true, it must have been a slight matter, for he went ashore on a pilgrimage of thanksgiving soon after. One Nele Loring, a squire, was knighted on the spot for conspicuous bravery and granted a pension of £20 a year. On such an occasion, with death
and destruction everywhere and valor the order of the day, young Loring
*
must have performed some extraordinary feat to be singled out in this way.
Philip of France was inland with his army. When word of the disastrous defeat reached the court, his officers and ministers did not relish the task of telling the king. His temper was like tinder, and no one wanted to be the first to bear the brunt of it. Then someone had the happy thought of sending the court jester in with the news.
The wearer of the cap and bells undertook the task and entered the royal presence in a state of apparent indignation.
“Majesty!” he cried. “These cowards of English! These dastards! These fainthearted sons of sheep!”
“What has come over the fool?” asked the king, looking about him in surprise.
“Majesty!” explained the jester. “They would not jump off their ships into the water as our brave Frenchmen did!”
But despite this brilliant victory and the destruction of the French fleet, Edward saw the year end in defeat and humiliation. He could not capture either Cambrai or Tournai and finally he concluded a truce for one year with the French, to the great dismay and mortification of his Flemish allies.
Philippa came back with him on this occasion, the royal family making the voyage in a small vessel and with very few servants in attendance. With them was an infant son who had been born the day after the great sea victory at Sluys and named John. He would be called John of Ghent, because it was in that city he uttered his first feeble sounds of life, and common usage would in time corrupt this to John of Gaunt. This infant was destined to play a part in history second only to the first-born son, Edward the Black Prince. The homecomers encountered such stormy weather that it was feared for a time the ship would founder and it actually took nine days to cross the narrow neck of sea and come to anchor at Towerwharf in London.
The queen had been in Flanders a considerable time awaiting the arrival of Master John, some say maintaining a court in the city of Ghent, others declare as a guest in the home of Jacob van Artevelde. If she had
been a guest of King Edward’s “gossip,” as van Artevelde was often called, she would have enjoyed as much comfort as could be found at any royal court. The wealthy residents of the tall cities on the plains had established a high degree of luxury. “Liberty never wore a more unamiable countenance,” an English historian would write centuries later, “than among these burghers who abused the strength she had given them by cruelty and violence”; and this was true enough, for the wealthy weavers and goldsmiths and fishmongers were men of dour habit, close-fisted and unscrupulous. But they liked to live well, to sit down at tables groaning with good things to eat, to sleep in the softest of feather beds. The houses of the
poorters
of Ghent were many stories high. The ground level was usually the shop, behind which the apprentices lived and slept. All the floors above were devoted to the most luxurious living. Most of these imposing stone structures had round towers at one corner and, as a measure of safety, the upper story in the tower could be reached only by a ladder. A burgher who desired seclusion could climb the ladder and draw it up after him, and it would be impossible to reach him without demolishing the floors and walls.
The greatest luxury indulged in by these “unamiable” citizens was their handsome, voluptuous women. The air of the Low Countries seemed to supply a freshness of complexion to the ladies they bred and a roundness of contour which made them desirable in all male eyes. On the streets they bundled themselves up in an excess of modesty, but in their luxurious rooms above the shop level they dressed themselves in the finest cloth their husbands produced and in the sheerest of silks from the East. It was at this exact period that they began wearing diaphanous garments to bed instead of slipping under the covers in a state of nature as had been the universal habit. The nightgown may have been conceived in Paris, where most styles originated, but the fragile materials were made in Flanders, and it was the plump ladies of that corner of the world who first made use of them in this way; and so perhaps the credit belongs to Ghent and not to the capital of style on the Seine.
Whether or not Queen Philippa lived in the van Artevelde household, her fourth son, John, was baptized there. A short time afterward a son, their first, was born to the Arteveldes and the queen acted as godmother, naming him Philip. The Countess of Hainaut, Philippa’s mother, was with her during this residence in Ghent, and it was rumored that her interference had something to do with the failure to capture Tournai. She went to the King of France, who was her brother, and beseeched him to agree to a cessation of hostilities. Then she made the same request to her son-in-law.
It is doubtful if this had anything to do with the failure of the campaign. The two armies came face to face before Tournai, but nothing happened.
Edward sent a challenge to “Philip of Valois” to meet him in single combat or accompanied by parties of knights numbering no more than one hundred. Philip contended that the letter was not addressed to him. As a result not a blow was struck.
Edward was falling more deeply in debt all the time. Queen Philippa’s crown was pawned for twenty-five hundred pounds and all her jewels were put up as security for loans. It was even necessary to leave the Earl of Derby behind as security for the money Edward owed the good burghers.
It proved unfortunate for Jacob van Artevelde and for the Flemish alliance that the partnership had not prospered. The other cities began to complain of the engagement into which they had been drawn by his efforts, and even in Ghent a steady chorus of criticism was heard. It was charged that he had made himself a dictator and that he was putting purely personal interests above the welfare of the states. A rumor spread that he was negotiating with Edward to give the Black Prince the title of Count of Flanders. Were the great cities of the lowland plains to be absorbed into the realm of England? The stout burghers liked that idea as little as the thought of being absorbed by the French. In thus finding fault with their truly inspired leader, the rank and file were blind to their own interests. They were listening to the nobility and the
buyten-poorters
, who thought their privileges were being infringed, and to the unreasoning voice of the mob. Behind the disaffection could always be found the hand of Count Louis, who believed he had been deprived of his hereditary rights; as indeed he had, and a good thing it was.
History, which at first accepted this view that Jacob van Artevelde was ambitious and dictatorial, has since reversed its decision. It is now realized that his intentions were patriotic and that what he aimed to achieve, an enduring union of the Dutch people, was far-seeing and wise. That he did not seek personal aggrandizement was made clear when he resigned his post at Ghent two years after the naval victory at Sluys. His fellow citizens promptly voted him back into office, to share the responsibility with three of his former colleagues.
Returning from a conference with Edward at Sluys, which had been attended by representatives of most of the leading cities, Jacob van Artevelde found a strained atmosphere in his native city. There was no welcome for him. The citizens stood about in silent groups and stared at him, as though to say, “This is the man who thinks to make himself master of us all.” A leader of men is always sensitive to public moods, and the great weaver of Ghent knew what the attitude of his one-time friends meant. He rode at once to his stone house on the Calanderberg and ordered the servants to lock the doors and close the shutters.
Taking his post behind one of the windows, he watched through a small
aperture the frightening speed with which a mob was collecting in the street below. It was made up almost entirely of the dregs of the population from the crooked lanes of the slums. No effort was being made to retain control or to restrain the noisy people. His white-hooded guards had not come to escort him through the town, and there was no sign of the other
hooftmen
and their armed bands.