Louis: The French Prince Who Invaded England (25 page)

THE END OF THE ADVENTURE

W
ITHOUT
L
OUIS TO
take personal charge, his representatives in Lincoln would have to prepare themselves for the forthcoming attack by the regent and his army, and deploy their resources to best effect.

The city was built on a hill, with the castle near the top (at the western edge of the northern half of the city) and the river at the bottom. The castle consisted of two fortified mounds with a large bailey encircled by walls, and was in a superb position: to the south the defenders could command the steep streets leading down towards the south city wall and the river, and to the west they could look out over a valley of open fields. The castle was surrounded by a deep ditch and had two principal gateways: one in the east wall leading into the city, and the other to the west, giving access to the open country. The fine position of the castle is one of the reasons it was able to hold out for so long; Nicola de la Haye was still energetically organising the defences, supported by experienced garrison commander Geoffrey de Serland and those knights and sergeants who had survived the dangers and illnesses of a three-month siege.

Louis’s forces were spread throughout the city with the majority near to or surrounding the castle, which they had been bombarding from the south and east with siege machinery set up in spaces cleared by the razing of other buildings. In total they numbered some 600 knights and an unspecified but larger number of other men, including sergeants and the engineers who were working the siege machinery. But they themselves were inside the city walls, which were rectangular in design and included gates to north, south, east and west, so they ran the risk of being trapped between their two sets of opponents in steep and narrow streets, the only real open ground in the city being the siege area and the yard to the front of the cathedral. The best options available to Louis’s men were therefore either to take the castle (without destroying so much of it that it became indefensible) so that they themselves could take shelter behind its walls, or to sortie outside the city and meet the regent’s host on open ground, which would make fighting much easier for mounted knights than it would be in the confined and slippery streets. The leadership group – Thomas count of Perche, Saer de Quincy, Gilbert de Gant and Robert Fitzwalter – redoubled the assault on the castle, and waited to see from which direction the hostile force would arrive.

Marshal’s forces did not take the most direct route from Newark, as this would have brought them to the south side of Lincoln where they would have had to cross the river and then access the city through or over the south wall before fighting their way up the steep slopes towards the castle. Instead they marched via Torksey, which brought them to open ground to the west of the city; the castle wall here formed the outside wall of the city so some communication might be possible with those trapped inside. The regent had a large force: 406 knights and 317 crossbowmen, according to the
History of William Marshal
, while Roger of Wendover says 400 knights and 250 crossbowmen. Although this appears fewer than the number of Louis’s men inside the city, the chroniclers do not include firm numbers for the foot sergeants and assorted others who would form part of the host; and of course Marshal could count on the assistance of those inside the castle, so the two armies were in fact fairly evenly matched.

At this point there is some confusion in the contemporary accounts over whether a representative from the regent’s host was able to meet up with someone from inside the besieged castle. According to Roger of Wendover, a messenger was sent out to tell the newly arrived army of the situation inside and to offer them entry via the postern (a narrow door in the castle wall which would admit one or two men at a time). According to the
History of William Marshal
, the regent’s nephew John Marshal met outside the castle with Geoffrey de Serland, who told them of a door they could use; John was then attacked by a party of French as he tried to return to the host. However, the
History
then goes on to say that Peter des Roches, the bishop of Winchester, managed to enter the castle and then the city, where, on a highly improbable walkabout while disguised as an ordinary citizen, he found a gate of great antiquity that was blocked but that could be cleared to allow the host entry. Whatever the exact details, it seems clear that some communication took place, which gave an advantage to the Henrician forces to the eventual detriment of Louis’s men.

The events that followed are described in some detail (although also with some further conflicting points) in the
History of William Marshal
and by Roger of Wendover, and in shorter accounts by the Dunstable annalist, the Waverley annalist, William the Breton and the Minstrel of Reims. Therefore we can create a reasonable reconstruction of the momentous course of 20 May 1217.

* * *

Once his whole host had arrived and assembled, shortly after daybreak, the regent split his army into four divisions of knights and foot sergeants. The first was led by the earl of Chester, as per their earlier agreement; the others by Marshal himself with the support of his son, by William Longsword the earl of Salisbury, and by Peter des Roches. The crossbowmen were under the command of Falkes de Bréauté.

Meanwhile, having been informed of the direction from which the army was approaching, a reconnaissance party led by Robert Fitzwalter and Saer de Quincy left Lincoln and rode out to assess the force. Their initial conclusion was that they should sortie from the city and meet their opponents in a pitched battle, as Roger of Wendover describes:

When they [de Quincy and Fitzwalter] had made a careful survey of the approaching enemy they returned to the city with their companions, telling them, ‘The enemy are coming against us in good order, but we are much more numerous than they are; therefore, our advice is that we sally forth to the ascent of the hill to meet them, for, if we do, we shall catch them like larks.’

Battle was a hazardous tactic, as we have noted previously, but under these circumstances probably less so than risking being trapped in the streets between two hostile forces. And after several years of campaign, sieges, attacks, counter-attacks and withdrawals all over England the barons and their French allies were no doubt itching to spring into action in a mounted charge, to fight in hand-to-hand combat as they had trained to do all their lives.

Fitzwalter and de Quincy reported back to the count of Perche, who then rode out himself but managed to come to a different conclusion. In his inexperience he appears to have miscounted the number of troops, not realising that each knight had two banners (one with him and one in the baggage train) and so thought that the force was twice as big as it actually was. A pitched battle was one thing; a pitched battle against what he perceived as overwhelming odds was quite another. Amid several dissenting voices he overruled his compatriots and so Louis’s men remained within the city; one part of their force was set to defending the city walls and gates, while the rest continued their attack on the castle. Had Louis been there in person, would he have acted differently? It is difficult to say, but on balance it is more likely that he would have elected for battle: nobody ever accused him of timidity in the face of an enemy, and by this stage he might have felt that all-out attack was the best form of defence, especially given the unpredictability of fighting in the city streets – a situation which had nearly cost him his life at Bailleul in 1213. This is a point to which we will return later. But certainly, leader-ship by one strong individual rather than by a group was preferable in a complex military situation such as this one, as events would demonstrate.

The French and barons prepared for the attack as they saw the regent’s army split. The earl of Chester’s division assailed the city’s north gate and William Marshal’s the west gate, each led by the earls in person; more troops had to be pushed into the confined spaces there to stop them, which meant less attention could be paid to the castle. But even if more men had been stationed around the south and east walls of the castle they could have done nothing about the tactic which was to swing the battle: Falkes de Bréauté and his crossbowmen entered the castle via the postern (which, as we have noted, opened outside the city and was defended by the outside wall of the castle, meaning that Louis’s men had no control over it) and stationed themselves up on the castle walls, looking down on the besiegers and the streets.

The sheer press of men pushing at the north and east gates of the city meant that the French and baronial troops were forced to give ground as Chester’s and the regent’s men forced their way in. Fighting in the constricted streets was extremely difficult, with those on horseback too close together to mount a proper charge, so there were chaotic scenes as each man sought to defend himself as best he could, swords and daggers proving more effective than lances. The momentum was with the attackers, who were moving as they pushed their way in, while the French and barons were standing still or being forced backwards. The citizens, meanwhile, huddled in their homes and tried to stay out of the way of the furious combat.

As Louis’s men gave ground from the north and the east many of them ended up in the open space around the castle, where the crossbowmen on the ramparts were able to rain their bolts down on men and horses, as Roger of Wendover tells us: ‘By means of the crossbowmen, by whose skill the horses of the barons were mown down and killed like pigs, the party of the barons was greatly weakened.’ The knights in their mail armour and padding were able to survive, although many of them lost their mounts; the more lightly armoured sergeants and the men operating the siege machinery were slaughtered. The dead men and horses clogged the ground still further; Falkes and his men took advantage of the chaos and made a sortie out of the castle to join the hand-to-hand fighting. The
History of William Marshal
provides a flavour of the combat:

Had you been there, you would have seen great blows dealt, heard helmets clanging and resounding, seen lances fly in splinters in the air, saddles vacated by riders, knights taken prisoner. You would have heard, from place to place, great blows delivered by swords and maces on helmets and on arms, and seen knives and daggers drawn for the purpose of stabbing horses.

Slowly the French were forced east and south, down the hill. Their leaders were in different places, so there was no one focal point, but the count of Perche did the best he could by rallying his men in the flat open space in front of the cathedral where there was more room to fight; according to the
History of William Marshal
he ‘performed many great feats of arms that day’. He must have been quite a sight: young (he was twenty-one or twenty-two) and tall, his surcoat and shield of a striking red and white chevron design, he would have been recognised by allies and foes alike as the ranking nobleman among the French as he fought furiously from horseback. This, of course, made him a target for every enemy knight who could potentially make a fortune out of capturing and ransoming him, so the press around him grew thicker and thicker as he battled on. He was called upon to surrender several times, not least by William Marshal, who had by now fought his way from the west gate to the cathedral. But Perche refused, bellowing that he would never surrender to those who were traitors to Louis, their lawful king and his. As he defended himself desperately against the multiple enemies closing in, a thrust from the sharp point of a sword or dagger entered the eye-slit of his helmet, stabbing through his eye and piercing his brain. Blinded and in agony, he managed three wild blows at Marshal before his body gave out and he crashed down from his horse, dead.

The loss of their leader and the focal point of their resistance in front of the cathedral was a crushing blow to morale for Louis’s men, and they began to retreat in earnest southwards. There was another brief rally in a space at the top of what is now known as Steep Hill, but with the Henricians now having the significant advantage of fighting downhill, it did not last long. The earl of Chester’s men, having finally fought their way through from the city’s north gate, added to the Marshal’s forces and the remaining French and barons were overwhelmed. Many tried to flee but Lincoln’s south gate was very narrow, which caused a bottleneck of men who had no choice but to turn and make a last stand. Sergeants and footsoldiers were killed where they stood, while the knights and barons were captured for ransom. Saer de Quincy, Gilbert de Gant and Robert Fitzwalter were all among the prisoners, as well as Henry de Bohun, the earl of Hereford, and Richard de Clare, the earl of Hertford. Of the others, Roger of Wendover notes simply that there were so many that it would be ‘tedious’ to mention them; the Barnwell annalist says 380 knights were captured; while the Anonymous of Béthune’s
History of the Dukes
says only ‘a few’ barons escaped.

In one day, Louis had lost half his army.

If the citizens of Lincoln were initially delighted that the regent’s forces had defeated the army that had occupied their city for months, they were to be disappointed: on the pretext that they had been excommunicated by Guala and that they had collaborated with the enemy – or at least that they had not put up enough of a fight against the original attack in the spring – Marshal permitted not only the seizure of the belongings of the French and barons, but also the looting of civilian houses and shops. Indeed, as Guala had also excommunicated the entire clergy of Lincoln, even the cathedral was plundered.