A Distant Mirror (37 page)

24. Knights. Seals of Amadeo V of Savoy (right) and Louis I, Duc d’Anjou
.(
illustration credit 7.24
)

25. Peasants
. Labors of the Twelve Months.
Manuscript of Crescenzi li Rustican, c. 1460
.(
illustration credit 7.25
)

26. The slaughter of the Jacques on the bridge at Meaux. From Froissart’s
Chronicles,
Louis de Bruges copy, c. 1460
.(
illustration credit 7.26
)

27. Murder of the marshals. From the
Grandes Chroniques,
copy executed for Charles V, c. 1375
.(
illustration credit 7.27
)

28. The alaunt as war-dog, used against the horses of mounted brigands or men-at-war. From the 14th century manuscript
Tractatus de Pauli Sanctini Ducensis de re militari et machinis bellicis.(
illustration credit 7.28
)

29. The Battle of Slays. From Froissart’s
Chronicles,
Louis de Bruges copy, c. 1460
.(
illustration credit 7.29
)

30. Widowed Rome
.(
illustration credit 7.30
)

31. Florence, 15th century
.(
illustration credit 7.31
)

Chapter 8

A
ll this time efforts in London to conclude a permanent peace treaty had not succeeded. When the French balked at the terms of a settlement reached in 1358, Edward responded by raising his demands. In March 1359 when the truce was about to expire, King Jean yielded, trading half his kingdom for his own release. By the Treaty of London he surrendered virtually all of western France from Calais to the Pyrenees, and agreed to an augmented and catastrophic ransom of
4
million gold écus, payable at fixed installments, to be guaranteed by the delivery of forty royal and noble hostages, of whom Enguerrand de Coucy was designated as one. In case of obstruction to the transfer of ceded territories, Edward retained the right to send armed forces back to France, whose cost was to be borne by the French King.

Desperate for peace though France was, shame and anger rose when the terms became known. Dragged to maturity in the grim years since Poitiers, the Dauphin had learned greater stewardship than his father. Neither he nor his Council was prepared to yield what the King of France had agreed to. Facing a fearful choice between accepting the treaty and renewal of the war, they summoned the Estates General with a request for “the most substantial notable and wise men” bearing full powers to represent the communes.

In this somber hour, one of the darkest in French history, the few delegates who braved the bandit-infested roads to come to Paris were in earnest. When the text of the Treaty of London was read to them on May 19, they deliberated briefly and made their response to the Dauphin without dispute. It was for once laconic. “They said the Treaty was displeasing to all the people of France and intolerable, and for this they ordered war to be made on England.”

Edward prepared to launch a supreme effort to consummate victory. He laid the cause to French “perfidy” in rejecting the treaty, thus
establishing grounds for a “just war” and allowing bishops to offer indulgences in aid of recruitment. Determined to assemble an expeditionary force that should lack nothing to make it invincible, he spent all summer gathering the components. An immense convoy of 1,100 ships carrying 11,000 to 12,000 men and more than 3,000 horses (to be joined by as many more at Calais) was assembled, with 1,000 carts and some four-horse wagons for the baggage train, plus tents, forges, hand mills, horseshoes and nails, bows and arrows, arms and armor, cooking utensils, initial stocks of wine and food, leather boats for fishing in the rivers, not forgetting, for the hunt, thirty falconers with hawks, sixty couple of hounds, and sixty of harriers.

By the time the King embarked, taking with him his four eldest sons, it was the end of October, ensuring a winter campaign. All military experience, including his own, knew this to be ruinous to a force away from its home base, but the impetus of great preparations is hard to halt, and possession of many garrisons in France gave Edward confidence in a quick victory.

England’s fortunes were at the crest. A dynamic King had attracted the aid of an extraordinary group of able soldiers—Chandos, Knollys, Sir Walter Manny, Sir Hugh Calveley, the Captal de Buch, and not least the Prince of Wales—such a group “as the Starres have an influence to produce at one time more than another.” Success was tangible. “A woman who did not possess spoil from France,” wrote the chronicler Walsingham, “garments, furs, bed covers, silver vessels and cloth of linen, was of no account.” Ebullience had reached a perfect moment in 1350 when King Edward sailed forth to meet a Spanish challenge. On board the cog
Thomas
in August, as described by Froissart, the King, in a black velvet doublet and round beaver hat “which became him well,” sat in the forecastle enjoying talk and song with the Prince and a group of nobles. “The King was that day, as I was told by those present, as joyous as ever he was in his life and ordered the minstrels to play before him an Almaine dance which Sir John Chandos had lately introduced.” He commanded Sir John to dance and sing with the minstrels, “which delighted him greatly,” while from time to time he glanced up at the lookout on the mast who was watching for sight of the Spaniards. Needless to say, when sighted, they were met and conquered, confirming Edward’s boast to be “Lord of the Sea.”

From Calais in 1359 the English set our for Reims, where Edward intended to be crowned King of France. Trailing an enormous baggage train said to cover two leagues, they crossed Picardy in three separate lines of march in order to spread their foraging, and even so found scant provisions in a country already devastated by the companies
Horses starved, pace slowed, rain fell daily, progress contracted to three leagues a day. Worst of all, Edward’s goal of decisive battle eluded him. The English marched through a deliberately created vacuum. No glittering armed force came out to meet them. The French concentrated their defense in fortified towns and castles that could withstand attack.

Avoidance of pitched battle—the strategy that was to save France—evolved, like most military innovations, from defeat, ignominy, and paucity of means. The person who perceived what the situation demanded was the Regent, a ruler who harkened to necessity, not glory.

In respect of his hostile brother-in-law of Navarre, the Regent’s position had improved, because in August Charles of Navarre had deserted his alliance with Edward and, in yet one more elaborate ceremony of reconciliation, promised to be “a good friend to the King of France, to the Regent and the kingdom.” Though his promise was widely thought to be inspired by God, the King of Navarre could not live without plotting, and within months was engaged in a new plan to dispose of the Dauphin.

Edward reached Reims in the first week of December, presumably expecting the city to admit him after what was to have been his victorious advance. Forewarned of his intention, Reims had been strengthening its walls during the long preparation and remained stubbornly closed, forcing the English into a siege. The French had emptied the countryside of everything that could serve the enemy and had destroyed buildings that could shelter him. At the gates of Reims, Edward saw the monastery of St. Thierry, which he had intended to use as his headquarters, burning before his eyes. Foiled of provisions as they had been of battle, and reduced by cold and hunger, the English were forced to lift the siege after forty days. They headed south for the rich land of Burgundy, looting and destroying for two months until Edward allowed himself to be bought off for 200,000 moutons d’or by the then Duke of Burgundy, Philip de Rouvre.