The Hundred Years War (11 page)

King John made ready to attack at dawn next day. But it was Sunday and the Papal envoy, the Cardinal de Perigord, persuaded the King to let him try and negotiate. The Cardinal spent the entire day riding hopefully between the two armies. The Black Prince offered to return the towns and castles he had captured during his
chevauchée
together with all his prisoners, and to swear not to take up arms against the French King for seven years. He also offered a large sum of money. But John would accept nothing else than the unconditional surrender of the Prince and a hundred English knights—‘the which the Prince would in no wise agree unto’. Meanwhile the English spent the holy day frantically improving their defences, making ‘great dykes and hedges about their archers’. Even so, the Prince still hoped to avoid a battle and to escape to Bordeaux.

What happened remains a matter of controversy. However, it seems that next morning the English began to steal away, leaving the rearguard under Salisbury to cover their retreat. King John had not yet finished drawing up his troops. His plan was to send a small advance force of 300 mounted men-at-arms to charge through the one gap in the hedge where four knights could ride abreast, and to deal with the dreaded archers before he mounted his main attack. His first division, or ‘battle’, consisting of his foot soldiers and some German mercenaries who retained their mounts, were to follow. Then would come the second division under the Dauphin (4,000 men), the third under the Duke of Orleans (3,000) and the fourth under the King himself (6,000) ; the men-at-arms in these last three divisions were all to march on foot in their heavy armour, apparently at the suggestion of a Scots knight, William Douglas.

When at about 10.00 a.m. John realized that the English were trying to escape, his divisions had not yet formed up. Nevertheless he launched his 300 carefully chosen mounted knights, under Marshals de Clermont and d‘Audrehem, at the hedge which protected the English front. The archers, safe behind the hedge, shot steadily at the Marshals’ battle, which had split in two, ‘and did slay and hurt horses and knights, so that the horses, when they felt the sharp arrows, they would in no wise go forward but drew back and reared up and took on so fiercely that many of them fell on their masters’; many of the Marshals’ men were slain as they lay on the ground by Salisbury’s knights, who came out from behind the hedge. Clermont was killed and d’Audrehem taken prisoner, while William Douglas fled. The Germans and footmen who followed them belatedly were disorganized by the broken ground but reached the hedge where the English managed to hold them. By this time the Black Prince had seen what was happening and brought his troops back to relieve Salisbury. The Germans were finally driven off when a body of archers came out from far along the hedge and, protected from heavy troops by standing in marshy ground, shot murderously into the enemy flank.

The bulk of the enemy still remained, 13,000 dismounted men-at-arms. The first of their three divisions, that of the Dauphin, advanced towards the hedge, toiling on foot up the slope, through the scrub and brambles. Nevertheless they reached the English line, crossed the ditch and tried to break through the hedge ‘with a clamour that rose to the skies of “St George!” or “St Denis!”.’ The French attacked with such ferocity that the Prince had to bring up to the hedge everything he had, with the exception of a final reserve of 400 crack men-at-arms. At last the Dauphin’s troops reeled back from the hedge in full retreat.

The English were in scarcely better case. ‘Some of our troops laid their wounded under bushes and hedges out of the way, others having broken their own weapons took spears and swords from the bodies of the men they had killed, while archers even pulled arrows out of enemy wounded who were only half dead.’ Apart from the Prince’s tiny reserve, ‘there was not one who was not unwounded or not worn out by hard fighting’. Then they saw that the battle of the Duke of Orleans (King John’s brother) was about to attack. But to the astonishment—and relief—of the English the Duke’s division turned and marched off the field with the Dauphin’s broken troops. If Orleans had not despaired, the English—even though they might have repelled him—would have been so worn down that they would have been overwhelmed by the final French attack.

As the last enemy division trudged towards the hedge—6,000 fresh troops led by King John—the exhausted English wondered where they would find the strength to meet this final assault. An experienced knight standing next to the Black Prince muttered that there was no hope. The Prince angrily shouted at him, ‘You lie, you miserable coward—while I am alive it is blasphemy to say we are beaten!’ None the less the rank and file felt they were doomed. The English archers, ‘moved to fury because they were desperate’, shot better than ever but the French managed to ward off the arrows by holding shields over their heads. The Prince brought in his last reserve, the 400 men-at-arms, shouting to Chandos, ‘John, get forward—you shall not see me turn my back this day, but I will be ever with the foremost.’ He ordered his standard-bearer, Walter of Wodeland, to bear his banner straight towards King John and then, ‘courageous and cruel as a lion’ charged at the King. ‘The Prince of Wales suddenly gave a roar and attacked the Frenchmen with his keen sword, breaking spears, warding off blows, slaying those who sprang at him, helping up those who had fallen.’ The battle was now on the open ground in front of the hedge from behind which the archers, who had used up their last arrows, came out with swords and axes to help their men-at-arms. This was the fiercest fighting of the entire day—the clash with which the two sides met, the hammering of weapons on helmets, could be heard in Poitiers seven miles away.

Suddenly the banner of St George was seen behind the French. The Prince had sent the Captal de Buch with sixty men-at-arms and a hundred archers down a hidden track, through a hollow, which came out behind the enemy. The French, not realizing how small was the Captal’s force, began to falter, whereupon the Prince led a final charge. (They were still on foot and
not
on horseback, whatever Froissart may say—there would simply not have been time to bring up the horses and remount.) The French formation was broken, ‘the banners began to totter, the standard-bearers fell ... dying men slipped on each other’s blood’. Although the Prince, hacking his way in the direction of King John, met with ‘valiant resistance from very brave men’, the rest of the French were leaving the field.

By about 3.00 p.m. King John, wielding a large battle-axe to considerable effect, was left fighting alone with his fourteen-year-old son Philip. He was recognized and surrounded by a great crowd of soldiers anxious to take so fabulous a ransom. Although he surrendered to a knight of Artois he was still in peril, for the brawling mob of Gascons and Englishmen began to fight for him. Finally he and his son were rescued by the Earl of Warwick and Lord Cobham who took him to the Prince.

The latter had already stopped fighting, as Chandos had told him that the battle was over. Sir John advised the Prince to set up his banner on a bush as a rallying-point for his scattered troops—‘I can see no more banners nor pennons of the French party, wherefore, Sir, rest and refresh you for ye be sore chafed.’ Trumpets sounded. Then the Prince took off his helmet and his gentlemen helped him off with his armour. A red tent was erected and drink was served to the Prince and his friends.

Meanwhile ‘the chase endured to the gates of Poitiers’, so Froissart tells us. ‘There were many slain and beaten down, horse and man, for they of Poitiers closed their gates and would suffer none to enter; wherefore in the street before the gate was horrible murder.’ It was reported by the Black Prince that at the end of the day nearly 2,500 French men-at-arms had fallen, including many great lords. ‘There was slain all the flower of France,’ says Froissart. The English losses were obviously much smaller, but there is no reliable record—some English knights, pursuing too impetuously, were taken prisoner.

As many French were captured as were killed, among them seventeen counts together with other lords. ‘You might see many an archer, many a knight, many a squire, running in every direction to take prisoners,’ writes the Chandos herald who was there, while Froissart says : ‘There were divers English archers that had four, five or six prisoners.’ Indeed there were so many that it was impossible to keep them under guard and the English had to release some solely in return for a promise that they would come to Bordeaux with their ransoms before Christmas. Fortunes were made. The Earl of Warwick who rounded up the Archbishop of Sens did particularly well, later obtaining £8,000 for him; he also made a large sum out of the Bishop of Le Mans in whom he had a three-quarters share. The squire who actually captured the Bishop, Robert Clinton, was able to sell his own small share to King Edward for £1,000. Edward purchased three of the Black Prince’s personal prisoners for £20,000, while the Prince bought another fourteen on his father’s behalf for £66,000.

‘All such as were there with the Prince were made rich,’ Froissart informs us, ‘as well as by ransoming of prisoners as by winning of gold, silver, plate, jewels.’ There was so much that valuable armours were ignored. Many of the splendid pavilions of the French lords were still standing at their camp, where looters reaped a rich harvest. Some Cheshire archers found a silver ship—no doubt a
nef
or large salt-cellar—which belonged to King John and sold it to their Prince. The latter also acquired John’s jewel-casket.

Nevertheless, it must be appreciated that Poitiers was a very near thing. Victory might easily have gone to the French. Even with the masterminding by that brilliant chief-of-staff Sir John Chandos, the English defence would have been overwhelmed but for Orleans’s cowardly refusal to attack.

The unlucky King of France gave his enemy an opportunity to demonstrate his chivalry. On the evening of the battle, the Black Prince entertained John and his son to dinner, together with the leading noblemen among the prisoners, and personally served the King on his knees. (English monarchs were always served like this, down to the time of Charles I.) The food came from the French provision wagons, as the English had had none for nearly three days. The Prince told his royal captive : ‘Sir, for God’s sake make none evil nor heavy cheer,’ assuring him that King Edward would treat him with the utmost consideration. He also congratulated John on his bravery, saying that he had fought better than anyone, that even in defeat he had brought honour upon himself. This must have been small consolation to John II as he rode to Bordeaux with the English, who were ‘laded with gold, silver and prisoners’. Nor, for all his captor’s beautiful manners, did the King ever see his jewels again.

Across the Channel ‘there was great joy when they heard tidings of the battle of Poitiers, of the discomfiting of the Frenchmen and taking of the King; great solemnities were made in all churches and great fires and wakes throughout all England.’ Next spring the Black Prince brought John and his son home to London in triumph. On 24 May 1357 the captive French King rode into London on a white thoroughbred, accompanied by the Prince who tactfully rode a little black pony. John was given the palace of the Savoy for his lodging, where there ‘came to see him the King and the Queen oftentimes and made him great feast and cheer’. Edward III took a strong liking to his unfortunate cousin and brought him to Windsor where he ‘went a-hunting and a-hawking thereabout at his pleasure’. John can hardly have been cheered to meet the King of Scots, David II, who had been a prisoner for eleven years.

Meanwhile there was chaos in France, where the central government collapsed. It was all too much for the Dauphin Charles, a sickly boy of eighteen whose very real talents had not yet emerged. He was quite overwhelmed by his father’s misfortunes and by the difficulties of his position. Not only did the King of Navarre’s followers rise in Normandy, but all over France the Free Companies or
routiers
—bands of English and Gascon deserters and even Frenchmen—seized castles and set themselves up as robber barons, terrorizing large tracts of country and levying the
pâtis.