A Great and Glorious Adventure (13 page)

At first what was now a civil war did not go well for the Montforts. The French army, commanded by John, duke of Normandy, Philip VI’s son, concentrated at Angers and moved to the Brittany
frontier, capturing Champtoceaux on the Loire and laying siege to Nantes, which capitulated on 18 November when John de Montfort was captured. Negotiations now began – what might Montfort
accept as compensation for giving up his claim? – but, as the anti-French party had other issues besides the question of succession, the war went on and Rennes and Vannes fell to the French
in the spring of 1342. Just when it looked as if the Montfort cause was doomed, Montfort’s wife, Jeanne of Flanders, a formidable woman described by the chronicler Froissart as having
‘the heart of a lion and the courage of a man’, took herself to England and prevailed upon Edward III (who would have needed little persuasion) to intervene with troops. The redoubtable
Sir Walter Manny, with forty knights and 200 archers, was first to land in Brittany in March 1342, followed in July by William Bohun, earl of Northampton, with fifty knights and 1,000 archers.

Northampton now took over command of the entire force and, somewhat ambitiously given the size of his contingent, laid siege to the town of Morlaix. When in September a French army under Charles
of Blois approached to raise the siege, Northampton abandoned his lines, marched his troops by night four miles north-west of Morlaix, and positioned them in a well-chosen defensive position across
the French line of advance, with his back to thick woods and his flanks protected by further woods and by ditches he had his men dig. Adopting the tactics of Bannockburn, he also had his men dig
ditches and pits, concealed by grass, across the front of his position and on all likely avenues of approach, and then formed his men into one dismounted line. Contrary to what had become and would
continue to be the standard English defence tactic, he did not employ his archers on the flanks but included them in the infantry line, presumably because, had he not thus augmented it, the line
would have been too thin to withstand attack. As it was, assuming that all ninety knights and 1,200 archers were still on parade, then he could have presented a two-rank frontage of 600 yards, but,
given the lack of heavy weapons (halberds, two-handed swords, maces) among the archers, it is perhaps more likely that he

formed them in three or even four ranks, offering a frontage of 400 or 300 yards. In any event, when a portion of the French army, which may have been as much as
5,000-strong, appeared on 30 September and launched their usual successive charges of heavy cavalry, the horsemen could not negotiate the ditches and pits and the result was chaos and slaughter. At
least fifty French knights were killed and perhaps 150 captured, and the rest fled the field. Wisely, given the small force under his command, Northampton did not pursue.
¹⁵

Northampton was soon reinforced by the king himself, who landed at Brest in October with 5,000 men. Soon the castles and fortified places along the coast were in Anglo-Breton hands, but both
John, duke of Normandy, and his father Philip VI, who had now arrived in the area with more troops, adopted delaying tactics and refused to give battle, playing for time until Edward ran out of
money or patience or made a major mistake. Vannes was eventually betrayed to Edward, but not before a number of attempts to take it by assault had failed, including one led by Robert of Artois in
which he was wounded and, while supposedly recovering, caught dysentery, which killed him. His body was brought back to England and buried in London. Vannes now became the Anglo-Breton
administrative headquarters, but otherwise the stalemate lasted until January 1343, when a truce was brokered which allowed the status quo to remain and both kings to withdraw so that negotiations
could begin in earnest under papal supervision. Now John de Montfort, no doubt exasperated by the lack of progress, broke his parole, escaped from imprisonment and fled to England, where he did
homage to Edward – who had narrowly escaped shipwreck on the way home – as king of France. John then returned to Brittany in 1345, determined to galvanize the struggle, and promptly
died in September of that year, the cause of death probably gangrene from what had been thought to be a minor wound. In any case, the Montfort hopes now rested in John’s five-year-old son.
From now on it would be the English who kept the war of succession going, partly to ensure a friendly or client Brittany, but also to give Edward another point from which he could attack France
when hostilities were resumed.

Meanwhile, in England, preparations for the next expeditionary force to France continued. While the army would attempt to live off the land in enemy territory and by local purchase in the
country of an ally, the men would
have to be fed while they waited to embark, while they were at sea, and on landing until other arrangements could be made. Royal
commissaries would purchase the necessary rations in bulk and have them delivered to the muster stations or ports of embarkation, or this might be delegated to the admiral in command of a fleet.
Meat would usually be salted beef, pork, bacon and mutton, although beef on the hoof could also be bought and transported, while vegetables would be peas, beans and oats. Wheat would be bought but
ground into flour before delivery; cheese was bought by the ‘wey’, a wey being twenty-six stones; and large quantities of dried fish, mainly herring, were also supplied. The potato was,
of course, unknown and its equivalent was bread, which was the staple for medieval man, who did not (unless he was very rich) eat from a plate but from a ‘trencher’, a flat, boat-shaped
piece of bread. As wheat, which produced white flour, would only grow in ground that was well manured, white bread was restricted to the rich (the officers), while the lower ranks made do with
black bread made from rye, or loaves made from barley or even from ground peas. Water was generally contaminated, unclean and the bearer of all sorts of diseases, and so was only drunk
in
extremis.
Instead, people drank ale, which was brewed from barley.
³³
The barley was soaked until it germinated and produced malt, which was dried
and ground and then mixed with hot water and allowed to ferment. The result was only very mildly alcoholic – certainly not of strength to have any effect – and the ration for a soldier
or a sailor was one gallon per man per day. Many households brewed their own ale, and, although brewing was one of the few commercial activities open to women, there were very few brewers who could
supply the quantities needed by an army or a fleet. In 1340, when Yarmouth contracted to supply thirty ships for forty days to ply between England and Flanders, the 60,400 gallons of ale for the
1,510 men of the ships’ crews came from just three suppliers at a cost to the treasury of one penny a gallon.
³⁴

From late 1345 and into the spring of 1346, soldiers were ordered
to muster points and then to the ports of embarkation, while the king’s sergeants-at-arms were
ordered to ‘arrest’ shipping and have it prepared to transport the army to France. The requisition of ships in this way was not popular with owners or merchants, as it interfered with
trade. Nor could it be done quickly: the ship would have to unload its cargo, often in an unintended port, and then be moved to Portsmouth, Winchelsea or Sandwich, prepared for the transport of
troops and horses, and then loaded with rations and equipment to await the arrival of the troops. Ships that were to become horse transports had to have extra-wide gangways installed and stalls
built on board for the horses. In Hampshire alone, orders were placed for twenty gangways and 1,000 hurdles to make the partitions for the stalls, plus nails, rings to tie the horses to and rope
for halters.

Soldiers conscripted by commissions of array were to be from the counties ‘citra Trent’ – south of the River Trent – only, as the Scottish threat could not be discounted.
The men were ordered to muster points in their own localities and then, when enough had reported to justify detaching an officer or vintenar to command them, sent off to one of the embarkation
ports. On 2 January 1346, thirty men from Salisbury were despatched to Sandwich and took six days to cover the 130 miles; men from Stafford took seven days to cover the 140 miles to the same port;
and men from Shaftsbury took twelve days to get to Winchelsea via Southampton, a distance of 155 miles. Men were therefore expected to march up to twenty miles a day along rough roads and tracks
while carrying their weapons and personal kit. In an age when the only means of locomotion was by horse or on foot, physical fitness was not a problem. When the arrayed soldiers arrived at a muster
point and waited there, and again while they were on the march to a port, their wages were the responsibility of their counties, but, once they arrived at that port, they went onto
‘king’s wages’. As in some cases they had to wait for long periods until other contingents arrived or until the weather was suitable, their presence was no doubt welcomed by
prostitutes and tavern-keepers, although perhaps not so enthusiastically by others. Modern-day Aldershot is not so very different.

The total numbers assembled by Edward for his 1346 invasion of France are not easy to come by: many original records, pay rolls and the like have been lost and chroniclers seem to have plucked a
number out of the
air, nearly always wildly exaggerated. The best guess is that Edward’s army totalled around 16,500 combatants,
¹⁶
perhaps slightly more, plus specialists (standard-bearers, trumpeters, chaplains, physicians, farriers, miners, gunners, artisans various and the bishop of Durham, whose pay
rate was six shillings and eight pence, or £0.33 a day). Of this figure, some 7,700 were men of retinues, either feudal or indentured or contracted companies, while around 8,600 were men
raised by commissions of array. With eight earls, fifty-five bannerets, 599 knights and 1,821 esquires, it was somewhat over-officered by modern standards, but, as only the earls, bannerets and
some of the senior knights would actually command sub-units of any size, the ratio of officers to soldiers is not too different from present-day arrangements. The army contained around 2,500
men-at-arms and 2,200 mounted archers, all in retinues or contracted, 5,000 foot archers, 3,000 Welsh spearmen and 1,200 hobelars, all arrayed. Each Welsh vintenary had an interpreter, as many of
the men spoke no English. Given that in battle only the earls and the bannerets would be mounted (so that they could see what was happening) and that all others would fight on foot, then the army
would field nearly 8,000 infantry and, with the royal bodyguard (of Cheshire bowmen), about the same number of archers.

Edward had originally ordered that ships and men be assembled at Portsmouth and the subsidiary embarkation points by 14 February 1346. However, when it became apparent that the ships would not
be ready in time, this was extended to the middle of Lent (23 March in 1346), then to two weeks after Easter (30 April), when another, supposedly final delay of two weeks was ordered. Even then,
high winds and foul weather meant that embarkation could not begin until July, and the process of loading something in the order of 20,000 horses and the last of the fresh rations took several
days. As the king was responsible for replacing or paying for horses lost in battle, each horse as it was loaded had its description (height and markings such as star on forehead, white
off-pastern, and so on), owner and value noted. This latter could vary from a hobelar’s hack at £1 to a knight’s warhorse at £10. Before the king embarked, the ceremony of
handing over the Great Seal took place on the altar of the church in Fareham, Hampshire, and at last, on 5 July, the ships with their cargo of men, horses, equipment and stores set sail from their
respective ports to rendezvous off the Isle of Wight. Once the entire fleet was assembled,
messengers were sent to London, Dover, Winchelsea and Sandwich with the royal
command that no one was to be permitted to leave the country for eight days – a measure intended to prevent French spies from reporting the movement of ships, something that could hardly be
concealed from watchers on land. The fleet now headed for France. Edward III was about to earn his place as one of England’s greatest soldier kings.

The Battle of Crécy, 1346. A highly stylised version from the Chronicles of Froissart, where neither the ground nor the dress of the combatants has any
similarity to reality. It does, however, show how the crossbowman winding his windlass could not approach the rate of discharge of the archer. The Oriflamme of St Denis, indicating no quarter, was
present as shown.

When Edward with his army and fleet left the Isle of Wight, he had a number of possible courses open to him. He could have landed in Flanders, where since the Battle of Sluys
the inhabitants were firmly allied to the English; or in Aquitaine, where Henry, earl of Derby and Lancaster, was holding out against French depredations; or in Brittany to join Sir Walter Manny
and the Montfort party. In all of those locations friendly troops could have ensured an unopposed landing and a secure base whence to advance inland, but in the event Edward chose none of these
obvious courses but instead elected to land where there were no friendly troops in a province that was steadfastly French and whose ruler was Philip VI’s son. Edward would, of course, have
been well aware that Philip would be expecting an invasion, but, like General Sir Frederick Morgan planning for his D-Day nearly 600 years later, it was imperative that he concealed the actual
landing zone and so he headed for Normandy. To land in Normandy was certainly taking a chance, but not so much of a chance as might initially appear. For, while there would be no friendly troops to
meet him, there would be no enemy ones either, as most had been sent off to Aquitaine, and, by opening up yet another front, he would force the French to disperse their forces even more and prevent
them from concentrating. Added to that, there was the richness of the Norman countryside and of its cities. The former, with the harvest just in, would provide provisions in plenty, while the
latter would yield rich pickings in plate, jewels, coin and ransom.