A few months after the accession of EdwardIII., his uncle the king of France died. Edward had a claim in right of his mother, which, if the crown of France had been a bit of land, to be inherited according to the subtleties of English real property law, would have been plausible, if not sound. The conclusive answer to his claim however lay in the fact that France had a right to settle the matter in her own way. If there was a law of succession, which from the jurist's point of view is more than doubtful,[20]it was against Edward: if there was not, the peers of France, who must be taken to constitute France for this purpose, chose Philip of Valois. Edward's pretensions were not seriously urged, and he acknowledged the new king as his suzerain for the duchy of Guienne; but disputed questions were left open both as to the amount of territory belonging to Edward, and as to the nature of his homage for it to the king of France. Peace was not broken for ten years, but PhilipVI.showed himself steadily hostile, assisting Edward's enemies in Scotland, interfering with English commerce, encroaching in Guienne. Philip was entirely unscrupulous, and naturally desirous of carrying on the work of his predecessors, by obtaining effective possession of another of the great feudal domains over which the king of France had titular suzerainty. The south-west had never acknowledged more than the most nominal inferiority: it is no paradox to say thatthe Plantagenets defended the ancient independence of Aquitaine against French aggression.[21]Nevertheless the people of Aquitaine had closer affinities of race and language with France than with England: the ultimate and natural result of the war was to make them French subjects.
Finding war inevitable, EdwardIII.thought to rouse the enthusiasm of his subjects by reviving his claim to the French crown. Without the cordial support of England Edward was weaker than his rival; with it he was, as the event showed, very decidedly stronger. England was, and had been for two centuries, a nation in the true sense of the word: it needed the long agony of the Hundred Years' War to give France real national coherence. HenryII.had given England a strong central administration, with a system of law fairly equal and well enforced. Ever since the barons had extorted Magna Charta from John, not for themselves only but for the whole people, the powers of the Parliament, and its significance as the representative body of the nation, had been growing. No laws could be made, no new taxation could be imposed, without the advice and consent of Parliament. This was only the beginning of political liberty, in the modern sense, but it was a beginning. In France on the other hand the king ruled over a number of vassals who had little or no relation to each other, and each of whom was much more effectually master of his dependents than the king. The political contrast showed itself in the military organisation of the two kingdoms. Though EdwardIII.was deeply imbued with the spirit of chivalry, he was far too sensible to carry into the field the noble's absolute contempt for the villein. Moreover there existed in England a class of yeomen who were in fact completely above villeinage, from which on the whole the archers were drawn. The feudal rule, by which the king summoned his vassals to serve him in war, and they came with their following (or did not come if they were disinclined, and the king lacked force to coerce them), had long been obsolete in England. The Parliament granted the king money for war, to supplement his own resources; andthe king agreed with individual noblemen to bring so many men into the field, who were adequately paid and came voluntarily; hence they tended to make war their business, and to acquire something like discipline.
Edward had not far to look for allies. The commercial relations between England and Flanders were close, and highly important to both. The Flemish cities, then at the height of their prosperity, had recently quarrelled with their count, who appealed to his suzerain the king of France; and they promised Edward much more assistance than in fact they afforded. However Flanders gave him a base of operations as against France, and the first years of the war were occupied in more or less futile efforts at invasion, though they brought an overwhelming victory over the French fleet at Sluys on the Flemish coast. Later, a disputed succession to the duchy of Brittany, in which the candidate rejected by the king of France naturally asked help from England, opened a new field for hostility. In 1345 there was serious fighting in Guienne, in the course of which the earl of Derby won a considerable victory at Auberoche. On the other hand the murder of Jacques van Artevelde, the virtual ruler of Flanders and a strong partisan of England, made the prospects of effectual support from the Flemings worse than ever. The English Parliament, though desiring peace, probably realised that it was hopeless except at the price of abandoning Guienne, and therefore wisely desired that war should be waged in earnest. Great preparations were made for the campaign of 1346, which the king was to conduct in person. The king of France had raised a very large army, which was commanded by his son the duke of Normandy, and which early in 1346 occupied part of the English possessions in the south-west of France. The obvious thing for Edward to do with the large expedition he was fitting out was to defend his own provinces, since Flanders now offered a very unpromising field. Instead of this he decided suddenly to invade Normandy,[22]and on July 12 he landed at Cape La Hogue.
Map IV: Campaigns of Crecy and Agincourt.
There is no evidence that Edward had formed any coherent plan of operations. Able tactician as he showed himself at Crecy, he was no strategist; indeed no one in that age had any idea of strategical combinations, though of course it is easy after the event to see that a particular direction given to an army was or was not judicious from this point of view. This invasion of France might have been an extremely brilliant stroke. The English command of the sea made it feasible to land almost anywhere; the main French army was engaged in the south-west: there were no preparations for attempting to meet invasion anywhere else. Had Edward landed near the mouth of the Seine, at the nearest point to the capital, and marched straight on Paris, he would have had the king of France almost at his mercy, for Paris might have been in his hands before the duke of Normandy could come to its rescue. Instead of this, Edward landed at the extremity of the Cotentin peninsula, and then marched in a leisurely way through Normandy, capturing and plundering town after town, there being virtually no resistance. The absolute vagueness of his intentions may be gathered from his having sent away his fleet, laden with the booty of the Norman towns, thus depriving himself of the means of retreat in case of need. If Froissart is to be believed, he had already determined to march on Calais and attempt to seize it; but if so, it is still more difficult to explain his having landed in the Cotentin, Calais being within a march or two of Flanders, where if he had not met with much support he would have at least found a friendly reception. The only thing which looks as if he really meant to go towards Calais is that having reached Louviers, he seems to have marched some way down the Seine again towards Rouen; but this may have been in the hope of being able to plunder the capital of Normandy. The French meanwhile had broken down all the bridges on the Seine, which can only have been in order to prevent the English from extending their ravages to the right bank of the Seine, as it was obvious that they could reach the coast as easily on one side as on the other. Whatever may have been his original plan, or want of one, Edward, unable to cross the Seine in Normandy, did what he ought to have done weeks before, and marched up theleft bank towards Paris. The king of France had used the breathing time unwisely allowed him to collect an army, which is said to have amounted to 100,000 men. Why he made no attempt to interfere with Edward earlier is a mystery. The English king marched unopposed to Poissy, a few miles below Paris, and there amused himself, while the bridge was being rebuilt, in ravaging the country to the very gates of the capital; he no doubt knew that the city was by this time full of soldiers, and therefore not open to attack. On August 16 the bridge was finished, and Edward crossed the Seine, his advanced guard having a sharp but successful fight with a large body of men coming from Amiens to join king Philip. Seeing that the huge French army was gathered atSt.Denis, on the right bank, nearly half-way to Poissy, it is equally mysterious to find Edward crossing the Seine close to an enormously superior force, and Philip making no attempt to take him at a disadvantage. However Edward had by this time resolved on making for Flanders, and marched hastily northwards, sending out a strong detachment to endeavour to seize some point of passage over the Somme. As was natural, these were all broken or defended; Edward went on down the Somme, with an enemy of four or five times his strength behind him, till on August 23 he came opposite Abbeville, below which the river becomes a tidal estuary. The town was fortified and garrisoned, and there was a large body of troops on the right bank: it looked as if Edward's reckless movements had led him at last into a trap, as if the king of France had achieved a success which his own military management had by no means deserved. In the nick of time a peasant told Edward of a ford some way below Abbeville, broad and firm, but available only at low water. Early on the morning of the 24th the English army crossed by this ford, the archers giving a foretaste of what was to happen at Crecy by completely driving off the French force stationed to defend it. They were barely across when Philip was upon them; but the rising tide prevented pursuit.
Edward was now safe: he had only a short march before him to reach Flanders. Here however the spirit of chivalry took possession of him: he chose to turn and await battle,saying that he was now in his own heritage,[23]and would defend it against the usurper. Accordingly he encamped on August 25 near the little village of Crecy, and selected a position in which to give battle, into which he moved the next morning. The army was divided as usual into three "battles," each consisting of about 800 men-at-arms and 2000 archers, besides light-armed infantry, chiefly Welsh. The prince of Wales commanded the first, the earl of Northampton the second: the king kept the third, which was to act as a reserve, under his own immediate orders. The exact position is not easy to determine: but it was on a piece of sloping ground, with a wind-mill on the upper part of it at which the king took up his station, facing the south-east or nearly so. The French attacked in such a hasty and irrational manner that it is not safe to infer anything from what they did: but certainly they did not attempt, with all their vast superiority of numbers, to turn Edward's position. A competent tactician would most probably have taken care that his flanks were protected in some way; and therefore it is probable that the English right rested on Crecy, through which flows the little river Maye, in which case its left may have been covered by the adjoining hamlet of Wadicourt. This position is shown in the accompanying map, not as ascertained, but as answering well to the conditions.
The essential novelty in Edward's tactics, the fact which makes Crecy an epoch in the history of the art of war, was that having to fight with very inferior numbers he discerned an effective way of combining the two elements of his army. He caused all the men-at-arms to dismount, and placed the horses with the baggage in an enclosed park in rear. The men-at-arms were to serve simply as spearmen, like the Scots at Falkirk and Bannockburn: they were to form the solid line of resistance, while the archers shot down the assailants. There is a certain discrepancy between the accounts, as to the position of the archers. Froissart saysthat they were drawn up in front, after the fashion of a harrow (herse).[24]Baker of Swinbrook says very precisely that they were put on the wings, so as not to be in the way of the men-at-arms, nor meet the enemy in front, but shoot into their flanks. The two may be reconciled, if we bear in mind that the archers would naturally not be drawn up in the same straight line with the men-at-arms, but thrown forward at an angle, so as to allow them to shoot more freely at the advancing enemy. Moreover it is certain that the prince of Wales' "battle" was on the right, in front, Northampton's on the left, a very little further back, perhaps because of some slight irregularity in the ground. If each division had part of its archers on each flank, thrown somewhat forward, the two inner lines of archers would meet at an angle: and the whole front would present an appearance not very unlike a harrow.[25]
Harrow shape
All through the middle of the day (August 26) the English sat in their lines, waiting quietly for the enemy. As evening drew near the French host came in sight: the knights and men-at-arms were divided into nine "battles," but no attempt had been made to form any plan of action, or even to make the commanders of them understand thatthey were expected to obey general orders. There was also a large body, 15,000 it is said, of Genoese cross-bowmen, besides an indefinite number of ill-armed peasants who only served to cumber the space. On hearing from certain knights who had pushed forward that the English were drawn up to await attack, the king of France, in accordance with their advice, ordered a halt, intending his army to bivouac where it was, and to form regularly for battle the next morning. On the word being given, the front halted, but those in rear pushed on, saying they would not halt till they were equal with those in front. Neither the king nor the marshals could assert any authority over the rabble of nobles and knights, and they advanced anyhow till they were close in front of the English position. Then the king, seeing that it was too late to avoid an action, ordered the Genoese forward. Just as the sun was close on its setting, and shining full in the face of the French line, the battle began. The cross-bowmen advanced, shouting, but the English never stirred; presently they began to shoot. The English archers then took one step forward, and shot their arrows with such force and quickness that it seemed to be snowing. The cross-bow bolts fell short: the clothyard arrows totally discomfited the Genoese,[26]already worn out with a long hot march. Therefore the king of France, with the true feudal contempt for all that was not noble, bade the men-at-arms trample down these rascals. The knights, nothing loth, rode over the unhappy Genoese, and charged tumultuously on the English front. Men and horses went down in heaps before the arrows, which were shot from both flanks into the surging mob. Those who escaped fell furiously on the English line, and were with difficulty kept at bay. It shows how blindly the French came on, that the main stress fell on the prince of Wales, who was on the right, and therefore in the part of the line nearest to the French coming from Abbeville: Northampton on his left seems to have had much less to do. Time after time the French charged,with the effect of adding to the heaps of dead and wounded: between the charges the English bill-men slipped out through the front line to kill and take prisoners. Edward, who was watching the whole course of the action from his post on the higher ground, was once appealed to for help for his son: he could see that there was no real need, and refused it, saying, according to the well-known story, "Let the boy win his spurs." One account tells how the king sent twenty knights down, who found the prince and his men sitting on the heaps of slain, resting themselves while the enemy were withdrawn and preparing for a fresh charge. Darkness at length put an end to the battle. Edward was far too prudent to attempt a counter attack: he owed his victory to firmly maintaining the position he had chosen, and could not afford to risk a disaster by quitting it. The slaughter on the French side had been frightful—4000 knights and men-at-arms, and uncounted multitudes besides: the English loss had naturally been but slight.
A tinge of romance is always supposed to be thrown over Crecy by the conduct of the blind king of Bohemia, who caused some of his knights to lead him in one of the charges, the bridles of the whole party being fastened together, with the natural result of all being killed. But as he had no sort of concern with the quarrel, one feels rather inclined to dismiss him with Polonius' epitaph—
"Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell."
"Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell."
"Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell."
"Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell."
It would seem as if, after such a victory, EdwardIII.might have resumed the offensive, with good prospect of reducing the king of France to sue for peace. But it must be remembered that his army was relatively small, that the battle had been won in a defensive position, and that he could not possibly know how soon he might find himself face to face with the duke of Normandy's army recalled from Guienne. It rather speaks well for Edward's military judgment that he should have quietly carried out his previous design, and marched on Calais, which he succeeded in taking after an unexpectedly long siege, and which furnished from that day forth a ready door into France. Small however as the direct and immediate results of the battle of Crecy were, it was in its ultimate consequences ofincalculable importance. Superficially it resembles Bannockburn: a very superior army, badly and presumptuously led, attacks an inferior enemy well posted for defence, and is decisively and deservedly beaten. The difference lies a little deeper, in the fact that the foremost kingdom in Europe in point of national organisation, ruled as it was by a king who was the mirror of chivalry, adopted tactics which could and must overthrow feudal chivalry. All ranks and classes fought side by side, and fought on foot; the men-at-arms, the archers, the bill-men all contributed their share. Such a victory would naturally stimulate national feeling more than twenty won by the knights alone. And such victories, as the event showed, were sure to be repeated, as often as opportunity offered. The French, as will be seen, were slow to learn the lesson: but from Crecy may fairly be dated the preponderance of infantry, though much time elapsed, and many changes in the battle-field were seen, before this was finally established.
Map V: Map of W. Central France. Battle of Poitiers
The capture of Calais in 1347 was followed by a truce, which, largely on account of the frightful ravages of the Black Death in both countries, was renewed again and again. In 1350 PhilipVI.died, and was succeeded by his son John, who continued his father's policy. Year after year there were acts of hostility, chiefly but by no means exclusively on the French side, and abortive negotiations for peace. Edward offered repeatedly to resign his claims to the French crown on terms, but the price he asked was larger than the king of France could be expected to pay. At length in 1355 Edward was led by offered co-operation from the king of Navarre, which however came to nothing, to invade France in earnest once more. Two subsidiary expeditions were foiled by the winds, but the main one was carried out, and led to the great victory of Poitiers. The Black Prince, who commanded it, and who thenceforth was his father's representative in France, led a successful plundering expedition from Bordeaux across the south of France, but avoided serious fighting. Early in July the next year the prince started for a similar expedition on a larger scale, striking this time into the very heart of France. Two or three weeks earlier, the duke of Lancaster had left Brittany to unite with some Norman nobles who had risenin rebellion: and it is supposed by some writers that the two invasions were parts of a concerted scheme, by which the English hoped finally to conquer France. The direction of the Black Prince's march, the leisurely character of his proceedings, and the amount of plunder carried off, make this view highly improbable. Ignorance of topography, and the necessity of avoiding strong places which could not be captured, might account for some deviations from the straight route; the necessity of living on the country might account for the loss of a few days. It is not impossible that, aiming merely at the Loire, he should have gone as far east as Vierzon, instead of taking the direct route by Poitiers to Tours. But it is incredible that with such an object in view he should have consumed about three times the number of days necessary for covering the distance, or that he should have deliberately burdened his march with vast quantities of plunder. The prince was certainly a competent soldier for his age: and all accounts agree that his army was thoroughly under control, and that the plundering was systematic. He doubtless knew of his cousin's enterprise: but that there was intended to be real co-operation between them could only be believed on very good and positive evidence, which does not exist.
The duke of Lancaster had in fact effected nothing: he had been obliged to retreat before the vastly superior armies brought to bear against him: but king John was still occupied in reducing the rebellious towns, when he heard somewhat tardily of the Black Prince's march. He instantly went to Chartres, and there gathered a large army, besides garrisoning every town on the Loire, to guard against the Black Prince crossing that river and making his way into Normandy.
The prince had by this time reached Vierzon, after plundering and destroying unresisted across Angoumois, La Marche and Berri. He there heard that the king of France was assembling a large army on the Loire, and therefore gave up all thought of continuing his elaborate raid. One would have thought that the necessity of prompt action, seeing that he had only from 8000 to 10,000 men, would have been sufficiently obvious: but the chivalric point of honour was of so much importance that he wastedseveral days in taking the castle of Romorantin, which had offered unexpected resistance. It was a fortunate piece of rashness, for otherwise the French king would not have compelled him to fight at Poitiers.
There seems to be no doubt that the Black Prince thought of crossing the Loire; but this gives no real support to the theory that his whole expedition was made in concert with Lancaster. Of course each was generally aware that the other was going to move, which would imply the possibility, if both succeeded, of their meeting somewhere thereabouts; but this is a very long way from deliberate co-operation. He might well have thought that if he could pass the Loire he would have as safe a refuge, would harass and perplex the French king more, and would not seem to have been driven to retreat; otherwise he would certainly have never gone near Poitiers, but would have followed a line of retreat as straight on Bordeaux as possible, every march in which would take him further from king John's overwhelming army. Some of the authorities trace his route, some do not; the places named do not always agree, and are not all to be certainly identified. The most precise of them says that he went straight to Tours, remained near that city several days hoping to cross the river there, and decamped south on hearing that the French king was crossing at Blois. The same account states that king John through his scouts was acquainted with the prince's movements: if so, one would think he ought to have made a little more haste. When he did move however the French king marched not straight towards his enemy, but in a direction intended to intercept his retreat, a piece of strategy which may seem obvious enough, but not so common in the middle ages. From Loches he directed his army on Poitiers, the main part with the king in person crossing the Vienne at the bridge of Chauvigny, fifteen miles east of that city. The slight information which each side had of the other, seems to have failed totally at the critical juncture. On Friday September 16 king John slept between Chauvigny and Poitiers, in complete ignorance where the Black Prince was. The same night the prince was a few miles north of the Chauvigny-Poitiers road, in equal ignorance that his enemy was between him and safety. Starting early on the17th, the prince took, none too soon, the precaution of sending a small troop of men-at-arms forward to reconnoitre. These fell in with the last of king John's great army to cross the bridge of Chauvigny; it would be an abuse of language to call them a rearguard. Outnumbered four to one, the English[27]fell back on the main body, and the French pursuing heedlessly were nearly all killed or captured. The prince, thus warned of the proximity of his enemy, pushed on a few miles further, till he was well on the Bordeaux side of Poitiers, and there halted. King John, on hearing the news, ordered his forces to retrace their steps, and passed the night of the 17th about three miles south-east of Poitiers.
The locality of the battle of Poitiers, or Maupertuis as the French name it, has now been ascertained. Documentary evidence shows that the spot formerly called Maupertuis is La Cardinerie, a farm near the Limoges road, about five miles south-east of Poitiers. This disposes of the theory of the battle, based upon expressions of the chroniclers to the effect that the Black Prince could not help fighting, that the French army was between him and Bordeaux. It also destroys all ground for the charge against king John of wasteful folly in attacking his enemy strongly posted, when that enemy had no choice, unless he would starve or surrender, but to attack an enormously superior force. The Black Prince, it is clear, was not cut off: he had the choice between standing to fight, and attempting to escape from the French, who were within two or three miles of him, and several times his strength. There is no doubt, further, that the Black Prince selected the strongest position available, fortified it to the best of his power, and there awaited attack. He evidently thought that it was scarcely possible to get away in safety, or else he would certainly not have halted comparatively early in the day.
The position was a strong one, for the arms of that age.Like his father, the Black Prince, though his strategy might be faulty, possessed great tactical skill, and coolness in encountering danger. The essentials for his situation were, ample scope for his archers, all possible impediments to the French horsemen, and some security against being attacked on all sides at once, seeing how great were the odds against him. All these conditions he managed to fulfil, and all would hardly have sufficed to save him from destruction, but for the disastrous blunder of the French, in dismounting to attack.
The scene of the battle is slightly undulating country, the variations of level being only a few feet. The chroniclers, to whom language for expressing minute differences was wanting, talk of hills and deep valleys, and have thereby misled writers who have not seen the ground, nor examined with attention a contoured map. South-eastwards from Poitiers runs the modern Limoges road, almost parallel to an ancient Roman road, which may have been still the working road of the fourteenth century. A small rivulet, the Miosson, flows at the bottom of a ravine, about 100 feet below the level of the battle-field, and joins the Clain just above Poitiers. The bottom is presumably muddy, and the quantity of water varies greatly with the season. But there is a ford (theGué de l'Hommemarked on the map) to which a narrow road, believed on good evidence to be ancient, leads from close to La Cardinerie. That farm itself is not so old as the battle, having taken the place of the hamlet of Maupertuis, which stood somewhere in the same neighbourhood, and is said to have been destroyed at the time of the battle. Maupertuis was[28]supplied with water from a pond, now almost filled up, which used to beknown as "la mare aux Anglais," and out of which sundry relics of the battle have been taken. The overflow of this pond, and doubtless the surface drainage of the immediate neighbourhood, which in rainy weather might be considerable, passed down a very slight hollow running nearly north and south on the Poitiers side of La Cardinerie. As the soil is soft, and the slope very gentle till near the Miosson, the bottom of this hollow may well have been boggy. It is a good illustration of the exaggerated impression conveyed by the defective vocabulary of the chroniclers, that this depression of a very few feet is the place best answering to theprofunda vallis, and thetorrensof Baker of Swinbrook, the chronicler whose narrative of the battle has a far greater air of precision in details than any other.
Not far on the east side of this little depression was the Black Prince's position. His front was covered by a hedge with a ditch in front: Baker expressly mentions asepes subterfossata, and it was the usual custom in Poitou to fence in this way. Behind it was a space partly planted with vines, but by no means clear of bushes, on which the English encamped. The hedge was apparently on rather lower ground, for the French knights sent to reconnoitre were able to bring back a pretty accurate report of the position and numbers of the enemy. Somewhere in this hedge was a gap left for carts to reach the upper level, the hedge apparently curving up to it so as to form a sort of funnel-shaped opening. There is now no long hedge anywhere east of the wood of Nouaillé, half a mile to the south-eastwards; but hedges and ditches disappear easily in a fertile soil under continuous cultivation. It is most probable, though it cannot be said to be certainly known, that the Black Prince's hedge ran from very near La Cardinerie towards the hamlet of Les Bordes, and that through the gap passed the road to theGué de l'Homme.
On the morning of Sunday September 18, king John, according to Froissart, sent some knights to reconnoitre the English position, which he proposed to attack at once. On hearing their report, the king, we are told, asked them in what way the attack should be made; and Eustace de Ribeaumont, their chief, advised the king to make all his men-at-arms dismount, except a few who were to charge andbreak the English archers. According to Baker of Swinbrook the advice was given by a Douglas, who had fought many times against the English, and affirmed that the English always dismounted their men-at-arms, ever since their defeat at Bannockburn. Whoever gave the advice, it was suicidal folly. A little learning is proverbially a dangerous thing; probably the most dangerous form which a little learning can assume is to know a fact, and to draw utterly baseless and absurd inferences from it. EdwardII.was not routed at Bannockburn because his men-at-arms fought on horseback, but because they attacked in a confused and tumultuous manner on ground too narrow for their numbers. EdwardIII.did not win Crecy merely because his men-at-arms fought on foot, but because he had learned, alike from the victory of Falkirk and from the defeat of Bannockburn, how to combine the destroying force of archers with the defensive firmness of spearmen on foot. Moreover the difference between offensive and defensive tactics is fundamental. Horsemen obviously by dismounting lose most of theirmomentumfor attack; as obviously, they cannot in any other way stand firm to sustain a charge. Want of numbers compelled the English, at Crecy and at Poitiers alike, to stand on the defensive: therefore, and therefore only, their men-at-arms abandoned their natural mode of fighting.
Reminiscences of Crecy may well have inclined king John to try whether some other tactics would not succeed better than the tumultuous rush of mailed horsemen straight on a front better protected than at Crecy: but the choice he made, whether inspired by sheer stupidity, or dictated by the insane class pride which refused to see in the plebeian archers the real victors over noble knights, was the worst possible. With his overwhelming numbers he could have surrounded the English; he could have kept them fully occupied in resisting attack while detaching a superior force to cut their retreat; he could have done anything he pleased. His defeat was even more crushing than his father's, and was all the more discreditable, in that it was due to his own deliberate orders, and not to the undisciplined rush of nobles too vain-glorious to obey.
Before the battle could begin, however, the cardinal ofPerigord begged John to let him try to arrange terms with the Black Prince. There was some division on the subject in the French councils, some of the king's advisers thinking that the English could not escape destruction, and that therefore any concession was folly. The king ultimately consented, and the whole day was spent by the cardinal in going to and fro between the two camps. The accounts vary as to the exact course of these negotiations: very possibly several offers and counter offers were exchanged. The king, if he thought his enemies in his power, may reasonably have proposed very severe terms as the price of their lives; the prince was apparently ready to concede a good deal; but all the efforts of the cardinal were unavailing to bring about an agreement. Whatever the terms finally offered by the king of France may have been, they were such as the prince felt he could not honourably accept, while an appeal to the arbitrament of battle was still open. The delay enabled the English to improve their defences, probably by intrenching on their right flank and rear, which had been protected on their first taking up the position by alagerof waggons. It was injurious in another way, as they were very short of food; but this mattered little, as the morrow must bring victory or destruction.
Down to the morning of September 19, the day of the battle, every detail can be determined, if not with certainty, yet with reasonable probability. At this point, however, we encounter very serious difficulties. The two authorities which describe the battle minutely, Froissart and Baker, differ from one another in points too important to be called details, though they agree in representing the Black Prince as having remained in his position. The Chandos Herald, whose testimony isprimâ faciedeserving of the highest respect, affirms that the prince had in the night made up his mind to retreat, that he had sent off his vanguard to convey the baggage across the stream, and would have followed with his whole army, had not the French made haste to attack the rear-guard. The discrepancy is obviously fundamental;[29]one side or the other must start from a total misconception, and if so, it is hardly worth while to speculate as to what rags of truth may be left in the narrative.
The Black Prince's army was as usual divided into three parts, under the earl of Warwick, the prince himself, and the earl of Salisbury. The numbers are disputed, the French being naturally inclined to raise the total, the English to diminish it. The authorities on the English side agree in giving about 8000, and they obviously would have the best means of knowing. A real element of uncertainty is, however, always present, in the doubt whether the attendants on the knights are to be added, or are meant to be included in the number given of other soldiers besides the men-at-arms and archers. Probably it would be safe to affirm that the number did not exceed 10,000 of all arms. Having to fight adefensive action against very superior forces, the prince necessarily resorted to tactics much like those of Crecy. The earl of Warwick's division, comprising comparatively a large proportion of archers, lined the hedge in front. Salisbury's men-at-arms, dismounted, were drawn up in line, a stone's-throw back from the gap in the hedge, with archers on their flanks, who would naturally be thrown forwards. The prince's own "battle" he moved[30]up on to a gentle eminence on one flank; this was at the spot marked Bernon on the map, and on the left flank, assuming Colonel Babinet to be right in his identification of the position. From this point he returned after the battle had begun, to sustain Warwick and Salisbury, except that he throughout kept some hundreds of men-at-arms mounted, in reserve.
The numbers on the French side are stated with much greater discrepancy than on the English. Froissart gives no less than 60,000, but there seems reason to believe that the real amount was about 40,000, or fully four times the Black Prince's total. A picked body of 500 horsemen, under the two marshals Audrehen and Clermont, was to lead the attack. This was followed by the first of the main "battles" under the duke of Normandy, John's eldest son. The second was commanded by his brother the duke of Orleans, the third by the king in person; both of these remained apparently at some distance. As the marshals advanced up the funnel-shaped opening leading to the gap, which was itself only wide enough for four horsemen abreast, the archers, protected by the hedge, poured in volleys of arrows. Thanks to their armour, the French were not all shot down, and engaged in a hand-to-hand conflict with Salisbury's men, ranked beyond the gap. The first French line, as they followed, engaged with Warwick's troops along the whole line of the hedge.
Seeing that many arrows were broken on the stoutarmour, or glanced from it, the earl of Oxford bade the archers, who were closing round the flank and rear of the mounted force, aim at the horses, which were less protected. In this way the horsemen were soon routed; one marshal was killed, the other taken prisoner, their immediate command was nearly destroyed, and the whole first line was driven back in confusion. The temptation to pursue must have been strong: but the English leaders knew that their work was only begun. They reformed their ranks, and awaited a fresh attack, which was not long in coming. The French second line under the duke of Orleans advanced in its turn, and after a similar struggle was repulsed even more completely. Still the English commanders would not allow pursuit, though Sir Maurice Berkeley[31]charged on his own private account into the retreating mass, and was, as might be expected, taken prisoner, desperately wounded, after performing prodigies of valour. The breathing time was spent in carrying back the wounded into safety behind the hedges, and in gathering as many arrows as possible, for the stock was running short. It speaks volumes for the deadliness of the shooting at that short range, that the chronicler speaks of the archers drawing the arrows out of the bodies of the dead and wounded, not picking them up from the ground. The French king, on hearing that his son had been beaten back, swore solemnly that he would not leave the field that day, unless dead or a prisoner, and led on the third line. The English, all of whom, except the prince's small reserve, had now been fighting for hours against heavy odds, were nearly worn out; a great many had been wounded, and the numbers left seemed too small to withstand another onset. At this juncture some dismay was caused by the Captal de Buch, a Gascon noble who won a great reputationin the latter part of the war, riding off the field followed by a handful of men-at-arms and a hundred archers. It was naturally imagined that he was flying or deserting: instead of this, he had obtained the prince's permission to make a bold stroke for victory, by circling round the French flank and attacking them in their left rear. This third conflict was the severest of all, the more so as the archers, their arrows being exhausted, had to resort to their bills. At length the Captal de Buch was seen emerging from beyond the slightly rising ground which had masked his movements from the French, displaying the red cross ofSt.George as a signal: thereupon the Black Prince charged with his reserve of mounted men-at-arms. The day was finally won: though the king of France fought on desperately for awhile, showing himself as good soldier as he was bad general, he was at length obliged to surrender himself prisoner.
A long list of nobles and knights interred in the churches of Poitiers, another long list of distinguished captives, mark the overwhelming nature of the defeat which the French had sustained. So great was the number of prisoners that the Black Prince released a very large part, on their undertaking to pay their ransom at Bordeaux. The English loss must have been severe, relatively to the force engaged, though no authoritative figures can be given. The French of course lost much more heavily; but the mere number of slain was as nothing compared to the crushing effect of the unexpected blow. Had there been any spirit of resistance left in the French, the Black Prince could hardly have reached Bordeaux in safety. The relics of the army defeated at Poitiers must have amounted to several times his diminished force: yet he carried off his noble prisoners, with all the spoil of the royal camp and of his previous raid, without a trace of opposition.
It would almost seem as if EdwardIII.and his son never seriously contemplated the subjugation of France: for instead of attempting to take advantage of the virtual dissolution of all government resulting from the defeat of Poitiers and the king's capture, the Black Prince returned to England with his prisoner. The treaty of Bretigny, by which Edward resigned his claims to the French crown, and the French king abandoned all suzerainty over the south-west, was areasonable solution of the difficulty, if nothing had been at stake but the personal pretensions of the two monarchs. But the national feelings of the French were too strongly roused: the treaty was never carried out. John's son and successor CharlesV., or rather his military adviser the Constable Duguesclin, learned wisdom from the crushing defeats of Crecy and Poitiers, and steadily abstained from confronting English armies in the field. All the arts of minor warfare, raids, surprise of castles, cutting off of small parties, were adopted against the English, and the success though slow was steady, and was twofold. Outnumbered from the nature of the case, the English could not but lose in a war thus carried on; and the French subjects of the Black Prince were alienated, through being exposed both to injury at the hands of their own countrymen, and to heavy demands on their resources made by the prince to help him fight a losing game. Gradually things went more and more against the English, until by the time the Black Prince's health failed, and he went home to die, little was left beyond a few towns, which were bound to England by commercial ties. Nor was this all; in the second active stage of the great war, when HenryV.was formally accepted as heir to the French crown, the south-west was the region in which the cause of the Dauphin, the national cause, was most steadily supported.
For nearly forty years after the death of the Black Prince the English pretensions against France lay dormant. Something like friendly relations existed from time to time between the two countries: RichardII.even contracted a marriage with a French princess, though he was deposed before his child bride was grown up. Cordial peace however was impossible: the English possessions in Guienne were a standing temptation to French ambition and patriotism: the English claim to the French crown was a standing provocation. That claim had by no means been forgotten: the glories of Crecy and Poitiers had made a deeper impression than the slow failure of the following years, the burden of which had fallen much more heavily on Guienne than on England. To the English mind the pretensions of their kings to the throne of France had become a national rather than a personal matter. It was England that considered herself entitled to dominate over France, rather than an individual claiming an inheritance for himself. RichardII.had been succeeded by his cousin the duke of Lancaster, who reigned by a perfectly valid national title, formally voted by Parliament, and substantially accepted by the country as a whole. He was, as it happened, the heir male of EdwardIII., heir according to the theory embodied in the Salic law which France had made her rule of succession: but he was not the heir of EdwardIII.according to the theory which alone could render valid EdwardIII.'s claim to France. What is commonly said in relation to Edward is strictly true of HenryV.: if his contention was based on a sound theory, it held good in favour of some one else.There is no trace of this being recognised in England: HenryV.was the lawful king of England, lawful successor of his great-grandfather, and might reasonably urge his great-grandfather's pretensions.
The state of France at the date of the accession of HenryV.was deplorable. The king, CharlesVI., had long been mad; his occasional lucid intervals, when he was supposed to resume the reins of government, only served to make confusion worse. The queen was one of the worst of women, without the great abilities which went some way towards atoning for the wickedness of Catharine de Medicis or her namesake of Russia. The Dauphin was a dissolute and reckless boy. All good government was lost: for power was disputed by two bitterly hostile factions, each of which used it in turn for its own purposes. One was headed by the duke of Burgundy, cousin of the king, son of the boy who was taken prisoner at Poitiers beside his father king John. The other, which bore the name of Armagnacs,[32]was headed by the young duke of Orleans, the king's nephew, between whom and John of Burgundy there was an irreconcilable blood-feud. The statesmanship of France was not ill-represented by the Dauphin's insult to HenryV., in sending him a present of balls at his accession, with a message implying that he deemed the young king, perhaps the ablest man of his age, little better than a child. Shakespeare makes much of the story that the archbishop of Canterbury urged Henry to undertake war with France, in order to divert his attention from ecclesiastical affairs at home. Whatever weight this may have had, the opportunity was obvious, and Henry was very well competent to use it.
In August 1415 HenryV.landed at the mouth of the Seine, with a well-equipped army of about 30,000 men. No better point for an invasion could be chosen: there was a good harbour for his base, and almost the shortest distance from the sea-shore to Paris is straight up the Seine. Before however he could advance Harfleur must be taken, and this cost an unexpectedly long time. More than amonth elapsed before the town surrendered; and then it is suggested that dysentery, which was raging alike inside and outside the walls, was largely answerable for the surrender. The siege was conducted entirely by battering, like a siege of three or four centuries later: probably the comparative slowness and inadequacy of the cannonade was more or less balanced by the inferiority of the defensive works to those of later times. When the town had fallen (or was on the point of falling, for the date is not quite certain), Henry sent a message to the Dauphin, offering to settle the dispute by single combat with him, as his father was incapacitated. The proposal is altogether in the style of chivalry, and was doubtless considered the right and proper thing to do: but seeing that the Dauphin was a weak and debauched lad, and Henry in the very prime of vigour, there was nothing really high-minded about it. Henry deemed himself bound to wait for an answer, and during the interval resolved on his course of action. His army had been frightfully reduced by illness as well as by the losses in the siege: we are told that 5000 men had to be sent home invalided, besides the large number who died. A garrison was also wanted for Harfleur; altogether the king could not move with above a third of his original force. The accounts given from the English side, which are numerous and unusually circumstantial, vary only slightly: and one French writer, who expressly says that he saw the English army, agrees pretty closely with them. French writers in general had only hearsay to guide them, and had every motive to exaggerate the English numbers. Of men-at-arms Henry had left from 800 to 1000, of archers five or six thousand, besides other foot-soldiers who were probably about half as numerous. Whatever the number was, it had suffered no material change before the battle of Agincourt.
With such an insignificant force, offensive operations were out of the question. Prudence obviously suggested, while honour forbade, a direct return to England. Henry determined to march through the coast districts of Normandy, and so gain Calais. Doubtless he was encouraged to take this venturous course by his knowledge of the distracted state of France, and in particular by the factthat, while he had now been six weeks in the country, no attempt had been made to disturb him, though there was by this time a hostile army gathering at Rouen. About October 8 the English army started, carrying with them provisions for several days, with no waggons to delay their march, and under strict orders that there should be no plundering. Henry aimed at crossing the Somme as his great-grandfather had done, by the ford of Blanchetaque below Abbeville: but on coming within a few miles he was informed that it was very strongly held by the enemy. One French writer says that this information was false, and that it was the cause of the subsequent disaster, as otherwise Henry would have reached Calais without fighting. True or false, Henry believed it, and marched up the Somme, finding bridge after bridge broken, and naturally feeling that the chance of a French army barring the road was hourly increasing. At length, on October 18, fords were found near Nesle, and the English made their way safely across. Two days later Henry received a message from the dukes of Orleans and Bourbon to the effect that they proposed to fight him before he reached Calais, and asking him to appoint a meeting-place. Henry's reply was that of a general, not of a knight-errant: he was marching straight to Calais, and they might meet him where they pleased.
The proceedings of the French as reported are somewhat difficult to interpret. We are told, and there is no reason to disbelieve it, that D'Albret, the Constable of France, had been against attempting to relieve Harfleur: the tradition of the great defeats at Crecy and Poitiers, and of the success which had attended the subsequent policy of not fighting in the open field, might well account for this. For the same reason, doubtless, the army under his command was withdrawn behind the Somme on the news of Henry's march having begun, though why the river was not better guarded it is difficult to imagine. On the other hand we are told that the king of France came to Rouen with the Dauphin, after the fall of Harfleur, and that all the chief nobility of France came thither at his summons. So numerous were their forces, and so confident were they, that they refused the offer of a contingent from the city ofParis of 6000 men, one of them saying, "What do we want of the assistance of these shopkeepers, since we are three times as many as the English?" Most of these nobles must have marched with the Constable: it can only have been from his army that the challenge to Henry, above referred to, can possibly have been sent. Then an unintelligible story is told, of a royal council having been held at Rouen on October 20 (this date is clearly impossible), at which it was decided to fight a battle, and orders were sent accordingly to the Constable. But the same account goes on to speak of summons for all who were fit to bear arms to join the Constable's army, which from the nature of the case would have fought and (as was assumed) destroyed the English, long before any fresh troops could reinforce what was already far larger than necessary. Then follows a statement that an invitation was sent to the duke of Burgundy's son, who was only prevented from joining by his father's express orders, and that he never to his dying day forgot the humiliation of being kept away from the battle. Seeing that the youth in question was afterwards duke Philip called the Good, whose co-operation with HenryV.put France, officially speaking, into the hands of the latter, it is scarcely possible to accept this as true. Equally out of keeping with the prevalent feeling of the French at the time is the story that the king and the Dauphin wanted to join the army, and were prevented by the old duke of Berri, the king's uncle, who said, remembering Poitiers, "Better lose the battle than the king and the battle too." Why, if there was anything of an army in Normandy, and the council at Rouen were so bent on a battle, no attempt was made to harass Henry's march, when the Constable was ready to stop him in front, does not appear. From the English accounts, one of which was written by Henry's own attendant chaplain, it is perfectly certain that their march was nowhere really impeded by encountering enemies. The whole conduct of the French, alike in strategy and in the tactics of the actual battle of Agincourt, was ill judged: the explanation doubtless being that the great nobles could not be controlled effectually by the Constable.
When Henry crossed the Somme, the French army wasapparently at Bapaume, twenty miles to the northward. Why they made no attempt to attack the English, who marched past them in a line parallel to the river, but a few miles to the north-east of it, can hardly be conjectured. At any moment, during two or three days, the Constable might have fallen upon them, and the English if defeated must have been destroyed, for the Somme would have been at their back. Perhaps the Constable thought it wiser to let Henry go to Calais unimpeded, and only moved in deference to positive orders from the king. Whatever the reason, it was not till Henry was passing him that he moved: then he marched in the same direction, the two routes gradually converging towards each other. On October 24, just after crossing the little river Ternoise, called in the English narratives the river of swords, Henry came almost into collision with the French, whose swarming bands covered the country on his right, and almost in front. The French halted, as if to tempt him to attack. Henry knew better than so to throw away his best chance: having the advantage of the ground, he halted and formed his line for battle. The general feeling in the English army, if one may trust Henry's chaplain, was one of deep despondency. Nor was this unreasonable, seeing that they must cut their way through an army several times the size of their own, unless the enemy threw away his advantage. The king alone was cool and confident. When Sir Walter Hungerford in his hearing uttered a wish for 10,000 more archers, Henry uttered the famous rebuke which Shakespeare[33]has immortalised.