Authors: Thomas B. Costain
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 space 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 assurance on the bronzed faces; they knew their power, these yeomen. The forest of Crécy 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 Crécy 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 space 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 Crécy 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’Alençon, 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 horsemen 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 horsemen 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 fashion 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 shine 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 Crécy 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 assurance 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 nobility 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 Alençon 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 Godfrey 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. “God 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.
Crécy 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 Crécy 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 establishing 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 bloody 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.
E
DWARD 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 Crécy 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.