The Perfect King (49 page)

As Philip fled in the darkness towards Amiens, the English regrouped in their positions on the hillside. There was a windmill at the top of the hill; now Edward ordered it to be filled with brushwood and set alight to act as a beacon and a focal point for the English. Still he kept order, wearing his full armour, not even having removed his helmet. Only when he came to the lines of the first
battle
which had withstood the French attacks, and saw his son Prince Edward with his own eyes, did he remove it. He embraced him and kissed him. 'Fair son, God save you! You are my good son, and you have acquitted yourself nobly. You are worthy to keep a realm.' And the prince bowed to his father, honouring him. He had picked up the crest of the fallen king of Bohemia, an ostrich feather, and repeated his motto as he knelt before his father:
'Ich
dien
(I serve). Edward then began to speak about the
battle
to all those present. No one was to boast; everyone was to thank God for their good fortune. And they must be on their guard lest there be a counter-attack by a relief force in the night.

There was no other attack that night. The English rested safely with the burning windmill above them and the mounds of corpses and wounded in the darkness below, lying in the cold. There the unfortunate lay in pain, expiring on the killing field, or unable to move, able only to wait for the dawn and the swift cutting of their throats as die English infantry began to pick over the
battle
field looking for loot. On the day after the
battle
there was another fight, between a second contingent of Frenchmen who arrived too late for the
battle
and who came out of the morning mist to find themselves face to face with the earl of Northampton. Soon they too lay dying When on the Sunday Edward expressed a desire to know how many had died on either side, he ordered Sir Reginald Cobham, Sir Ralph Stafford and the heralds to establish an accurate figure by collecting all the French surcoats worn by the men-at-arms. Edward ordered that his men now ransacking the
battle
field itself could keep all they found as long as they surrendered the surcoats to him. Over the day they covered the whole area of the battle
and all the outl
ying fields and forest, and the site of the battle between Northampton and the reinforcements who had arrived too late for the battle proper. Eleven great princes lay dead, including the king of Bohemia, the count of Flanders, the duke of Lorraine and Philip's brother and nephew, the counts of Alencon and Blois. One archbishop and one bishop lay among the dead, and eight great secular lords. Eighty bannerets - principal knights - were dead, and
1,542
knights and esquires lay just in the area before the English front line, where the prince had been fighting.
A great number - thousands - of uncounted infantrymen's bodies were scattered over the battlefield. A further four thousand French men-at-arms and Genoese crossbowmen had been killed by the earl of Northampton in the attack on the following day. In comparison, English losses amounted to about three hundred men.

The importance of the battle of Crecy cannot be exaggerated. It demands that we look beyond the limits of Edward's own life to understand his achievement in the broader terms of European history. Leaving aside the political circumstances of the fourteenth century, it was the first major
battle
between two well-resourced martial kingdoms in which victory was obtained by projectile weaponry rather than hand-to-hand fighting. In that sense it marks the advent of modern warfare. Since his victory at Halidon Hill in
1333
Edward had pioneered the systematic deployment of archers to win a battle. In the mid
-i330s
he was experimenting with mounted archers. By
1339
he had a projectile-based means of fighting which was exportable, and in
1346
he demonstrated against the best-equipped and proudest military kingdom in Europe that archery could and would defeat the greatest array of chivalry, provided the
battle
field was chosen with care. From now on, groups of well-disciplined commoners with longbows could destroy much larger groups of the richest, most-heavily armoured, bravest and well-trained noblemen in Christendom, even when they were backed up with crossbowmen and huge numbers of infantrymen. The banner of aristocratic military splendour which characterises the middle ages had been shredded, not in a single afternoon by a few thousand archers but by thirteen years of careful experimentation and thought as to how projectile-based warfare could be perfected.

The implications of this for European society were profound. It is easy to point to the effects of the approaching plague as a reason for the socioeconomic changes by which the medieval peasant was freed from his feudal bonds in the period
1350-1450.
Fewer peasants to work the land meant more could sell their labour, and move away from their original manor and its obligations. It is less
frequently
noted that this socioeconomic shift was
acc
ompanied by a huge change in outl
ooks and attitudes after the
battle
of Crecy. Previously medieval society had understood that it was composed of three 'estates' of people: those who fought (the nobility and knightly class), those who prayed (monks and the secular clergy), and those who worked (the peasantry). In reality, 'those who worked' also provided the infantry levies to support their lords; but infantry were raised through a feudal hierarchy, were not well-trained, and they did not generally win
battle
s by themselves. At Crecy all that changed. From now on, 'those who worked'
were
'those who fought'. A thousand well-trained and well-equipped peasants with longbows were more than a match for a thousand of the best-equipped knights in Christendom. The consequent effect on the pride and military confidence of the English peasantry should not be underestimated.

The effect on the political situation was every bit as profound. Edward had not just won a victory over the French, he had turned many of society's values upside down. He had overturned the common understanding that France was the greatest military power in Christendom, and he had done it in such a way that all could see that this was not a lucky or accidental victory. It was a carefully planned and well-executed systematic destruction of an enemy which could be repeated again and again. This upset the commonly held understanding of God's natural order - the assembled fighting nobility were demonstrably weaker than the peasantry - and paved the way for that combination of political authority and large armies which would eventually see feudalism give way to absolutism. It also threatened papal influence: what help had a French pope been for the French king? If the pope's prayers on behalf of France had so little effect on divine providence, and had not even saved the sacred Oriflamme from being trampled into the mud, how could a papal interdict on England be a sign of divine will? How could it be anything other than a sign of French bitterness?

For Edward, Crecy was a mark of personal glory. He had done what had been prophesied at his birth. He had won a military victory on the Continent and, in so doing, had done something absolutely remarkable. No English army had ever previously won a
battle
on this scale against the French on French soil. After the long campaigns and the heavy taxation, the news in England that Edward had triumphed was sensational, and the credit went
directly
to the king. Victory meant that the years of taxation, the strategy, the planning and the very policy of taking the war to France were all seen as a complete success.

For us, looking back on Edward as a man and as a king, it is not just the victory but the Crecy campaign as a whole which is remarkable. If we peel away the concretions of anti-Edwardian polemic written in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries - especially that Edward had been scared into flight by the approach of Philip's army and had been forced to do
battle
at Crecy against his will, and was lucky - we may see that the entire campaign leading up to the
battle
had been planned meticulously, managed effectively and led superbly. Today few scholars would deny that in
1346
Edward demonstrated all the qualities for which he was to remain famous for the next four centuries. His courage has to stand high in any list of these.
If he had lost his nerve at Cre
cy or at any time earlier in the campaign - if he had been trapped at Poissy or Blanchetaque, for example - he would have lost not one but every chance of greatness. Great kings do not lose important
battle
s. His reputation at home would have been severely dented, and his ability to raise money to further his firm anti-French policy would have been undermined. Then there is the matter of his leadership. Edward's personal courage would have meant nothing if he had not had men willing to fight for him in extremely difficult situations at Poissy and Blanchetaque. His generalship thus commands respect. But in masterminding the whole policy of an aggressive response to Philip's infringements of his sovereignty, in bringing the English parliament around to support his war, in organising the taxation to pay for it, and in devising the strategy which would ensure victory, Edward proved himself much more than a mere general. The
battle
of Crecy might have been won by English archers, but the archers by themselves would never have found themselves in France, still less in a position to have won the
battle
, if it had not been for the king's inspired leadership. All Edward's positive attributes - courage, leadership, strategic thinking, tactical brilliance, discipline, innovation and political astuteness - came together in the Crecy campaign. Together they gave his kingship a touch of greatness.

The
battle
of Crecy undermined Philip's authority but in itself it was a symbolic and strategic demonstration of superiority; it was not a conquest. On the second day after the
battle
, as the body of King John of Bohemia and the other great men were solemnly buried by the English, and as Philip was issuing orders for all the Genoese archers who had retreated from the
battle
field to be hanged, Edward prepared to press home his advantage. Had he seriously wanted to make himself the sole king of France at this time, he should have advanced on Paris. But such an advance would have carried with it many problems, not least the task of trying to persuade more than a hundred thousand Parisians to accept that the Louvre might be occupied by an Englishman. It would have been just as hard in the long term to persuade the English that their royal family might remove itself to Paris and patronise French merchants and craftsmen as much as English ones, and administer French justice, hear French pleas, and attend French parliaments. The idea of a single monarchy might have been militarily viable at this point but it was not a realistic political proposition.
Had Edward tried it, no doubt he would have had the same problem as he had in
Scotland
: a legal monarchy fighting a rival 'nationalist' one, without the means to support an inevitable succession of French campaigns, each of which would probably be organised to coincide with the Scots' harrying of Northern England. It is therefore not surprising that Edward refused to countenance a march on Paris. On
29
August Edward ordered the army to take the road north, towards Calais.

Edward's policy in
Scotland
had not been to occupy the whole country but to be able to march through the country at will. This was what he now decided to do in France. But to enable himself to bring an English army across the Channel whenever he wished required a permanent bridgehead on the northern coast. For this purpose, Brittany was too distant, too often subject to bad weather, and too hostile to the English. Normandy had been originally intended as a place to build such a bridgehead but victory at Crecy allowed Edward many more options. Calais was the strongest defensive town on the coast - it was practically impregnable — and the nearest port to England, the safest from the weather and the most easily supplied. Edward knew he would never have a better opportunity to set about the long siege which would be necessary to force it to submit.

The siege of Calais is today remembered largely for the story of Queen Philippa begging for the lives of the six burghers who surrendered the town, but this small detail masks a victory as politically important and as strategically significant as that of Crecy itself. It also masks the not-inconsiderable fact that the task of attacking the town was every bit as difficult as engaging a superior French army on French soil and winning. The town was surrounded by water and marshes. It was built on a concentric plan with two strong curtain walls between mighty towers, and ditches also protecting it. It could not be attacked by siege engines or mining, due to the marshes and water. That left Edward only two options: he could try to attack the outer defences using boats and scaling ladders and overwhelming numbers, or he could starve the inhabitants into submission, in conjunction with a slow attempt to break down the walls with stone and iron missiles, and wear down their will. He opted for the latter.

The reasons for this decision continue to be debated by historians. One view is simply that the place was too strongly defended: the walls, for example, being too high. But we have to wonder; given sufficient numbers and a
little
time, surely every fortified place is vulnerable. And Edward did have sufficient numbers at his disposal. A recently suggested alternative is that Edward was trying to provoke another full-scale
battle
with Philip. The truth is probably a combination of the two positions, Edward's preferred strategy changing as circumstances around him changed. Yes, he would have relished the chance to fight Philip again on his own terms, and so may have placed himself ostentatiously at Calais to lure him to attack. He certainly stayed there expecting him to do so. But even before Edward arrived at Calais he had sent an order to England to send across all the remaining cannon at the Tower, so he clearly anticipat
ed an assault on the town. Howev
er, no full-scale onslaught on the walls took place.
Instead Edward built elaborate siege defences around the town, with shops and a marketplace and incorporating stone houses for his leaders and a fine palace for himself. 'Villeneuve-le-hardi', he called it mockingly, 'Brave New Town'. Perhaps he thought that a concerted effort to take Calais would result in the complete destruction of the walls, which he wanted to avoid if he could help it. But with more sombre warning for the besieged, he declared he was prepared to stay there twelve years, if it should take so long to gain the town. And he populated Villeneuve-le-hardi with a very substantial force, up to thirty-two thousand men. If this figure - drawn from army pay records, not the exaggerations of chroniclers - is correct, it would amount to the largest English army raised for an overseas expedition before the eighteenth century.