The Three Edwards (49 page)

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 horsemen 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 Godfrey 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 ships. 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 accomplishing 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. Lô (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 Godfrey 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 horsemen were already in Amiens, which meant that Edward was being shoved into a triangle formed by the seemingly impassable Somme, the waters of the Channel (where there would be no ships 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 Godemar de Fay.

BATTLE OF CRÉCY 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 shore just as the van of the pursuing horsemen 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 Crécy, 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.

Crécy: 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, sparsely 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 Crécy, 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 Crécy 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 pass. He kept his eyes on the dark path in the forest of Crécy 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.”

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.