Blood Cries Afar (47 page)

While Fitzjohn’s small ship made little impact by itself on Eustace’s large vessel, the other ships at the back of the French convoy put up a strong resistance against their attackers, inflicting heavy casualties on the English. Wendover describes a battle in which Philip d’Albini takes centre stage: Philip ‘with his crossbowmen and archers directing their missiles into the French soon caused many fatalities among them’. The iron-tipped English galleys rammed into the French ships, sinking many instantly. As the ships came alongside each other, a ‘severe’ battle ensued in which the French were mown down by arrows and javelins. The English held a greater advantage in that their ships were lighter – they were not, unlike the French, weighed down with supplies – and thus stood higher in the water; this made it easier to shoot down on the French. The English made great use of the wind to launch large pots of quicklime at the enemy. On breaking, the pots dispersed burning clouds which were carried away from the English and to the French, ‘which blinded them totally’, says the Anonymous. All four main sources of the battle testify to the efficacy of this tactic.

This made boarding the French ships easier. Now swords and spears were put to work. Wendover even says that the English bored holes in the bottom of the French ships to sink them. The focal point of the battle was Eustace’s flagship. Fitzjohn was soon supported by three other ships, including the cog; Eustace was thus surrounded, with the cog looming high over his deck. His men returned the missile barrage and let loose their arrows at the English, putting up a fierce resistance and preventing the English from boarding them. The author of the
Romance
says they he and his men ‘slaughtered a great many Englishmen and defended themselves courageously’. The enemy attacked him from all sides, using great axes and grappling hooks against the side of the ship. But when the quicklime pots hit the deck, ‘the powder rose in great clouds, and it was this which caused the most damage. After that, they could no longer defend themselves, for their eyes were full of powder.’

As the English boarded, the fighting renewed into a brutal combat that would have been repeated on other ships in the battle. The
Romance
describes the ‘brave and courageous’ pirate leader in the thick of it as he ‘knocked down a good number of them with an oar he was holding’. Elsewhere, ‘some had their arms broken, some had heir heads smashed. This one was killed and that one was laid out; one was knocked down and another wounded, whilst a third had his collarbone shattered.’ This no-holds-barred bludgeoning account is more realistic than that of the biographer of William Marshal, who similarly delights in providing combat detail. This can read somewhat fancifully, falling into the formulaic tradition of depicting battles as duels between leading figures. Here, there is a strong whiff of fantasy in the swashbuckling escapades. Reginald Payn of Guernsey, who ‘had nothing of the coward in him, jumped from the cog onto the French flagship’. Payn’s was a long leap, but his fall was broken by William des Barres; as Payn fell, he also brought down Robert de Courtenay with a well-placed blow. Hardly had he done this when Ralph de Tournelle was on him; Payn struck him with such force he spun around three times. After a tremendous fight de Tournelle was taken. And as if all this was not enough, our medieval Errol Flynn was then set upon by the rabid Theobald (possibly Count Theobald of Blois), the outcome of which the writer does not inform us about, but we can safely assume that had he done so, the remarkable Reginald would have emerged victorious.

The reality was a good deal more deadly. Sea battles were bloodier affairs than land ones; there was less scope for taking prisoners and this proved to be the case here. The flagship and other French vessels eventually succumbed to the sustained aggression and ferocity of the English onslaught; the loss of their principal ship dealt a mortal blow to the French. As an English victory became imminent, French soldiers and sailors threw themselves overboard to take their chances with the sea, rather than the certainties of capture; the Anonymous reports that ‘quite a number of the smaller ships were taken, and much slaughter was carried out on those taken within them.’ As the rest of the French fleet concentrated fully on fleeing rather than fighting, the English gave vigorous pursuit. The biographer of William Marshal reports that the battle became a bloody rout; when the English ‘caught up with a ship, I can tell you that they lost no time at all in killing those they found on board and throwing them into the sea as food for the fish’. Only the knights were spared. He tells of how the sea was turned scarlet with blood and estimates that at least 4000 men were slain in this manner, not counting those who jumped into the sea and were drowned, who ‘sunk like lead in the stormy waters’ says Ralph of Coggeshall.
⁵⁹⁸

On Eustace’s flagship, the first English on board were also at French throats: they would have gladly killed 32 of their knights if the English knights had not prevented them. Such a slaughter would have cost the protectors a fortune in lost ransoms. The
Romance
says the French were treated ‘very cruelly’. The high-ranking prisoners, most of whom who were on Eustace’s ships, provided a rich haul indeed, including Robert de Courtenay, William des Barres, Ralph de Tournelle and Neville d’Arras. But Eustace was not among this haul. While the rest of the French fleet made their escape as best they could, Eustace abandoned the fighting on deck to hide in the hold of his ship. A long search for him was started and, at last, the perennial thorn in the royalist side Eustace the Monk was taken captive. But Eustace did not receive the same consideration as the chivalry of France. It was immediately clear that he was in mortal danger from his captors. He pleaded for his life and liberty, offering 10,000 marks to be spared and promising to serve faithfully the King of England in the future. But Eustace did not have a future: he was not to be spared on any account. Wendover has Richard Fitzjohn berating him: ‘Never again in this world, wicked traitor, shall you deceive anyone with your false promises.’ As he spoke these words he drew his sword and cut off Eustace’s head.

However, the
History of William Marshal
offers an alternative version of Eustace’s death. This has Stephen of Wincelsea playing the main part. This Stephen may well be the same as the Stephen Crave in the Anonymous’s briefer account of this episode; the Anonymous says that he ‘had been with him a long time’, probably a reference to when Eustace had served John. He harangued Eustace with a litany of the misdeeds on land and sea that he had inflicted upon him (even though the Marshal’s biographer says this was not true and so was undeserved) and then offered him a grim choice: be beheaded on the trebuchet or over the side of the ship. ‘Thereupon,’ says the biographer, ‘they cut off his head.’ Eustace’s head was then stuck on a spear and later paraded through Canterbury and across the land to prove that this black legend was truly dead. The last line of the
Romance of Eustace the Monk
reads: ‘No one who is always intent on evil can live for a long time.’

The sources attest to the wealth of spoils seized in the victory, which the
History of William Marshal
describes as ‘a total rout’: gold, silver, money, horses, provisions, plate, silk cloths, meats, wines, wheat, arms and even a trebuchet, the super weapon of the day. Hubert de Burgh had made himself even wealthier with the capture of two ships. The English fleet returned to shore to the great acclamation of crowds and religious thanksgiving for the nation being spared. The regent oversaw a fair division of the spoils so that all were well contented. ‘What a fine shareout it was!’ beams the Marshal’s biographer: so great was the booty that the English sailors ‘were able to share out the coin in bowlfuls’. With the rest of the money, he ordered the foundation of a hospital dedicated to St Bartholomew, as the day of victory was the saint’s feast day. The following day the ports were awash with sailors finely attired in rich cloths and silks, boasting to each other as to who wore the most costly garments.

While the sailors paraded through the coastal towns, the valuable prisoners were secured in strong prisons. Later they were transferred to Hubert de Burgh’s custody at Dover. The exact number is not known. In addition to the four Frenchmen named above, there were, at least, the other knights from the contingent of 32 on board Eustace’s great ship of Bayonne. The Waverley Annalist is vague but telling in the importance of the rank of the prisoners when saying that ‘ten magnates with many nobles of France were captured.’
⁵⁹⁹
There would have been more from the other ships, but there is not even an approximate number of how many of these were taken or sunk. It is clear that many escaped back to Calais as the
History of William Marshal
indicates; this was to be expected with tactics of fighting from behind the French.
⁶⁰⁰
There was also the sheer impracticality of numbers, for if the English fleet was indeed half the size of the French one, then there simply would not have been the capacity to seize all of the enemy’s vessels. The Anonymous believes that it was only the flagship that was taken and that the others all escaped but this must be incorrect; it may be that he means that this was so of the ten principal ships. This does not tally with Hubert de Burgh’s wins and the ships reported sunk and captured in the other sources. The Waverley Annalist reports that only fifteen ships slipped away. On 1 September William Marshal issued a writ that summoned to the Thames the Cinque ports ‘with your whole navy as well as that which was recently won’, indicating a good number.
⁶⁰¹

It was a great victory, and one which owed much to the strength of the English navy. Wendover believes the English won the battle because they ‘they were skilled in naval warfare’ while the French ‘were not used’ to it; as Philip Augustus had admitted at Damme in 1213, the French ‘do not know the ways of the sea’.
⁶⁰²
The Battle of Sandwich has often been seen as the origins of England’s great maritime reputation and formidable naval achievements,
⁶⁰³
but by 1217 the English navy was already an experienced and effective one.

While it is hard to quantify the scale of the victory in exact terms, it is not hard to appreciate its magnitude in military and political ones. The effects were dramatic and instantaneous. The loss to Louis in terms of men and supplies was irreparable. This was the final push of his campaign. All his resources had been invested in the fleet. Had his substantial reinforcements and supplies reached him in England, the impact on the war would have been significant; that they did not arrive was even more significant again. Financially, militarily and politically, Louis had used up all his military resources. He was ready to think about suing for peace.

Now was the time for the royalists to take the war decisively to Louis. In the months after Lincoln they had been seemingly moribund and reluctant to take resolute action against Louis in London. With the crushing victory at Sandwich, that hesitancy was now gone and they planned to capitalise on their success by a full investiture of London. Guala and the young King were already outside of London, but now William Marshal was prepared to consider joining all his forces to invest the capital fully. The writ he issued on 1 September for the southern fleet to gather on the Thames was part of his plan to blockade tightly Louis and his forces in London. He could do so now as the threat of the long-expected relief force from France had been conclusively eliminated. There was no more help coming to Louis now: with many barons in captivity after Lincoln, and no French reinforcements either, royalist forces could encircle London in security and free from outside attack. This was the endgame.
⁶⁰⁴

News of the disaster at Sandwich reached Louis in the capital two days later on the evening of Saturday 26 August. His reaction was to be expected: ‘Louis was rightly very angry,’ says the Anonymous; he was ‘very dejected and grieved’, reports the Marshal’s biographer. Wendover’s estimation of the effect on him rightly gauges the scale of the defeat: ‘it caused him much more pain than the misfortune at Lincoln’. The Dunstable Annalist says that Louis was ‘destitute of present help and despairing of the future’. As Ralph Coggeshall comments: ‘Louis, when he heard this, did not know where to turn … and so, compelled by necessity, he asked for peace.’ The implications of the defeat were thus immediately apparent to him: his campaign in England was over.

On 28 August he sent his trusted cousin Robert, Count of Dreux, to the Marshal at Rochester under a safe-conduct to open peace negotiations. When Robert reached Rochester, he was exchanged with Robert de Courtenay, who thereby finally made it to London, but alone and without his army. No doubt the Henricians wanted Louis to be fully appraised of the scale of his defeat. As at Lincoln, the royalists held another council in the wake of victory, this time to discuss how to respond to Louis’s overtures. Some royalists, especially those who had missed the recent battle, urged a full investiture of London; sensing that Louis’s campaign was mortally wounded, they perhaps wished to gain their share of spoils that they had missed at Sandwich. They did not wish for a negotiated settlement. Others, however, counselled that now was the time for the French finally to be ‘thrown out of the land’, says the Marshal’s biographer, and urged parleying to bring this about. The regent opted for talks, but very much kept the military option open by pressuring Louis with a full blockade of London of his combined forces complete with a huge naval presence on the Thames. Wendover says that the royalist force besieging London was a huge one; Louis was hemmed in by land and water, ‘thus cutting off all supplies of provisions from the garrison’. William Marshal was making clear to Louis the overwhelming strength of the victors’ bargaining position. If Louis did not come to terms, he would be starved out of London.

Louis was huddled in deep discussions with his own council. After his consultations with Robert de Courtenay and his other advisers, he decided to meet with William Marshal in face-to-face talks. These occurred just outside London on Tuesday 5 September with Louis and de Courtenay on the one side, and William Marshal and Hubert de Burgh on the other. Both sides assured the other that they would strive hard to make an honourable peace. The regent and the justiciar returned to Windsor and the Frenchmen to London. Louis waited there anxiously, expecting to hear proposals from William Marshal on how to move the peace process forward. But no word came from the regent. Louis suspected that the negotiations were being strung out to weaken his position further – and he could only grow weaker with every passing day. On Saturday 9 September he held another council privately in his chambers. Painfully aware of his deteriorating military position in the capital, and greatly troubled by the erosion of support within London, the decision they came to was a dramatic one: to make one great sortie out of the city with all their men and take on the enemy in one last great battle. This neglected episode was indeed a desperate measure, but perhaps not as desperate as it may sound. Such sorties could be remarkably effective; I would suggest that Louis had very much to the forefront of his mind the spectacular success of Simon de Montfort exactly four years earlier almost to the day. At Muret in 1213, de Montfort and his Albigensian crusaders found themselves besieged and in similarly desperate straits. Although greatly outnumbered, they sallied from the town and took on their besiegers to win a spectacular victory that left the enemy King dead and the crusaders’ fortunes completely reversed. Louis’s insecurity in London prompted him to act; Ralph of Coggeshall describes his predicament: he ‘did not know which way to turn, for he had no safe place to rest in.’
⁶⁰⁵
If the royalists were to suffer substantial losses, with prominent leaders either killed of taken prisoner, then the whole situation would be turned radically on its head. Louis still had a substantial, if somewhat reduced, force with him in London. He had in his service many of Europe’s best knights and, in London, a large population from which to draw on for auxiliary infantry. Louis and his captains steeled themselves for the great attack and made ready their men for battle.