by G. A. Henty
CHAPTER XIII.
THE WHITE FORD.
They made their way without interruption to the wall. This they found,as they expected, entirely deserted, although, no doubt, guards had beenposted at the gates. The Flemings, however, could have felt no fear ofan attack by so small a force as the five hundred English whom they knewto be in the neighborhood.
Walter and his companion soon knotted the ropes together and loweredthemselves into the moat. A few strokes took them to the other side, andscrambling out, they made their way across the country to the spot wherethe English had been posted. They found the Earl of Salisbury, whocommanded, in a great state of uneasiness. No message had reached himduring the day. He had heard the alarm-bells of the city ring, and ascout who had gone forward returned with the news that the gates wereclosed and the drawbridges raised, and that a strong body of men mannedthe walls.
"Your news is indeed bad," he said, when Walter related to him theevents which had taken place in the town. "This will altogether derangethe king's plans. Now that his ally is killed, I fear that his hopes ofacquiring Flanders for England will fall to the ground. It is a thousandpities that he listened to Van Artevelde and allowed him to enter Ghentalone. Had his majesty landed, as he wished, and made a progress throughthe country, the prince receiving the homage of all the large towns, wecould then very well have summoned Ghent as standing alone against allFlanders. The citizens then would, no doubt, have gladly opened theirgates and received the prince, and if they had refused we would havemade short work of them. However, as it has turned out, it is as wellthat we did not enter the town with the Fleming, for against so largeand turbulent a population we should have had but little chance. Andnow, Master Somers, we will march at once for Sluys and bear the news tothe king, and you shall tell me as we ride thither how you and yourman-at-arms managed to escape with whole skins from such a tumult."
The king was much grieved when he heard of the death of Artevelde, andheld a council with his chief leaders. At first, in his indignation andgrief, he was disposed to march upon Ghent and to take vengeance for themurder of his ally, but after a time calmer counsels prevailed.
The Flemings were still in rebellion against their count, who was thefriend of France. Were the English to attack Ghent they would lose thegeneral good-will of the Flemings, and would drive them into the arms ofFrance, while, if matters were left alone, the effect of the popularoutburst which had caused the death of Artevelde would die away, andmotives of interest and the fear of France would again drive them intothe arms of England. The expedition therefore returned to England, andthere the king, in a proclamation to his people, avoided all allusion tothe death of his ally, but simply stated that he had been waited upon bythe councils of all the Flemish towns, and that their faithful obedienceto himself, as legitimate King of France, was established upon a firmerbasis than ever.
This course had the effect which he had anticipated from it. The peopleof Flanders perceived the danger and disadvantage which must accrue totheir trade from any permanent disagreement with England. They wereconvinced by the events which soon afterward happened in France that theKing of England had more power than Philip of Valois, and could, if hechose, punish severely any breach of faith toward him. They thereforesent over commissioners to express their grief and submission. The deathof Artevelde was represented as the act of a frantic mob, and severefines were imposed upon the leaders of the party who slew him, andalthough the principal towns expressed their desire still to remainunder the rule of the Count of Flanders, they suggested that the tieswhich bound them to England should be strengthened by the marriage ofLouis, eldest son of the count, to one of Edward's daughters. More thanthis, they offered to create a diversion for the English forces actingin Guienne and Gascony by raising a strong force and expelling theFrench garrisons still remaining in some parts of the country. This wasdone. Hugo of Hastings was appointed by the king captain-general inFlanders, and with a force of English and Flemings did good service byexpelling the French from Termond and several other towns.
The character of Jacob van Artevelde has had but scant justice done toit by most of the historians of the time. These, living in an age ofchivalry, when noble blood and lofty deeds were held in extraordinaryrespect, had little sympathy with the brewer of Ghent, and deemed itcontrary to the fitness of things that the chivalry of France shouldhave been defied and worsted by mere mechanics and artisans. But therecan be no doubt that Artevelde was a very great man. He may have beenpersonally ambitious, but he was a true patriot. He had great militarytalents. He completely remodeled and wonderfully improved the internaladministration of the country, and raised its commerce, manufactures,and agriculture to a pitch which they had never before reached. Afterhis death his memory was esteemed and revered by the Flemings, who longsubmitted to the laws he had made, and preserved his regulations withscrupulous exactitude.
Edward now hastened to get together a great army. Every means wereadopted to raise money and to gather stores, and every man betweensixteen and sixty south of the Trent was called upon to take up armsand commanded to assemble at Portsmouth in the middle of Lent. Atremendous tempest, however, scattered the fleet collected to carry theexpedition, a great many of the ships were lost, and it was not untilthe middle of July, 1346, that it sailed from England. It consisted ofabout five hundred ships and ten thousand sailors, and carried fourthousand men-at-arms, ten thousand archers, twelve thousand Welsh, andsix thousand Irish.
This seems but a small army considering the efforts which had been made;but it was necessary to leave a considerable force behind for thedefense of the Scottish frontier, and England had already armies inGuienne and Brittany. Lionel, Edward's second son, was appointed regentduring his father's absence. On board Edward's own ship were Godfrey ofHarcourt and the Prince of Wales. Walter, as one of the personal squiresof the prince, was also on board.
The prince had been greatly interested in the details of Walter's escapefrom Van Artevelde's house, the king himself expressed his approval ofhis conduct, and Walter was generally regarded as one of the mostpromising young aspirants at the court. His modesty and good temperrendered him a general favorite, and many even of the higher noblesnoticed him by their friendly attentions, for it was felt that he stoodso high in the good-will of the prince that he might some day become aperson of great influence with him, and one whose good-will would bevaluable.
It was generally supposed, when the fleet started, that Guienne wastheir destination, but they had not gone far when a signal was made tochange the direction in which they were sailing and to make for La Hoguein Normandy. Godfrey of Harcourt had great influence in that province,and his persuasions had much effect in determining the king to directhis course thither. There was the further advantage that the King ofFrance, who was well aware of the coming invasion, would have made hispreparations to receive him in Guienne. Furthermore, Normandy was therichest and most prosperous province in France. It had for a long timebeen untouched by war, and offered great abundance of spoil. It had madeitself particularly obnoxious to the English by having recently made anoffer to the King of France to fit out an expedition and conquer Englandwith its own resources.
The voyage was short and favorable, and the expedition landed at LaHogue, on the small peninsula of Cotentin, without opposition. Six dayswere spent at La Hogue disembarking the men, horses, and stores, andbaking bread for the use of the army on the march. A detachment advancedand pillaged and burned Barfleur and Cherbourg and a number of smalltowns and castles.
In accordance with custom, at the commencement of the campaign a courtwas held, at which the Prince of Wales was dubbed a knight by hisfather. A similar honor was bestowed upon a number of other youngaspirants, among whom was Walter Somers, who had been highlyrecommended for that honor to the king by Sir Walter Manny.
The force was now formed into three divisions--the one commanded by theking himself, the second by the Earl of Warwick, and the third byGodfrey of Harcourt. The Earl of Arundel acted as l
ord high constable,and the Earl of Huntingdon, who was in command of the fleet, followedthe army along the sea-coast. Valognes, Carentan, and St. Lo werecaptured without difficulty, and the English army advanced by rapidmarches upon Caen, plundering the country for six or seven leagues oneach side of the line of march. An immense quantity of booty wasobtained.
As soon as the news of Edward's landing in Normandy reached Paris,Philip dispatched the Count d'Eu, Constable of France, with the Count ofTankerville and six hundred men-at-arms, to oppose Edward at Caen. TheBishop of Bayeux had thrown himself into that city, which was alreadygarrisoned by three hundred Genoese. The town was not defensible, andthe only chance of resistance was by opposing the passage of the riverHorn, which flowed between the suburbs and the city. The bridge wasbarricaded, strong wooden towers were erected, and such was theconfidence of the inhabitants and their leaders that Edward's promise ofprotection for the person and property of the citizens was rejected withscorn, and the whole male population joined the garrison in the defenseof the bridge. Marching through the deserted suburbs the English armyattacked the bridge with such vehemence that although the enemy defendedthe barricades gallantly they were speedily forced, and the Englishpoured into the town. Before the first fury of the attack was over nearfive thousand persons were slain. The Count of Tankerville, one hundredand forty knights, and as many squires were made prisoners. The plunderwas so enormous as to be sufficient to cover the whole expenses of theexpedition, and this with the booty which had been previously acquiredwas placed on board ship and dispatched to England, while the kingmarched forward with his army. At Lisieux he was met by two cardinalssent by the pope to negotiate a truce; but Edward had learned thefallacy of truces made with King Philip, and declined to enter intonegotiations. Finding that Rouen had been placed in a state of defenseand could not be taken without a long siege, he left it behind him andmarched along the valley of the Eure, gathering rich booty at everystep.
But while he was marching forward a great army was gathering in hisrear. The Count of Harcourt, brother of Godfrey, called all Normandy toarms. Every feudal lord and vassal answered to the summons, and beforeEdward reached the banks of the Seine a formidable army had assembled.
The whole of the vassals of France were gathering by the orders of theking at St. Denis. The English fleet had now left the coast, and Edwardhad only the choice of retreating through Normandy into Brittany or ofattempting to force the passage of the Seine, and to fight his waythrough France to Flanders. He chose the latter alternative, and marchedalong the left bank of the river toward Paris, seeking in vain to find apassage. The enemy followed him step by step on the opposite bank, andall the bridges were broken down and the fords destroyed.
Edward marched on, burning the towns and ravaging the country until hereached Poissy. The bridge was as usual destroyed, but the piles onwhich it stood were still standing, and he determined to endeavor tocross here. He accordingly halted for five days, but dispatched troopsin all directions, who burned and ravaged to the very gates of Paris.The villages of St. Germain, St. Cloud, Bourg la Reine, and many otherswithin sight of the walls were destroyed, and the capital itself throwninto a state of terror and consternation. Godfrey of Harcourt was thefirst to cross the river, and with the advance-guard of English fellupon a large body of the burghers of Amiens, and after a severe fightdefeated them, killing over five hundred. The king himself with hiswhole force passed on the 16th of August.
Philip, with his army, quitted St. Denis when he heard that the Englisharmy had passed the Seine, and by parallel marches endeavored tointerpose between it and the borders of Flanders. As his force was everyhour increasing he dispatched messengers to Edward offering him battlewithin a few days on condition that he would cease to ravage thecountry; but Edward declined the proposal, saying that Philip himself bybreaking down the bridges had avoided a battle as long as he could, butthat whenever he was ready to give battle he would accept the challenge.During the whole march the armies were within a few leagues of eachother, and constant skirmishes took place between bodies detached fromthe hosts.
In some of these skirmishes Walter took part, as he and the other newlymade knights were burning to distinguish themselves. Every day theprogress of the army became more difficult, as the country peopleeverywhere rose against them, and several times attempted to make astand, but were defeated with great loss. The principal towns were founddeserted, and even Poix, which offered great capabilities of defense,had been left unguarded. Upon the English entering, the burghers offeredto pay a large ransom to save the town from plunder. The money was to bedelivered as soon as the English force had withdrawn, and Walter Somerswas ordered by the king to remain behind with a few men-at-arms toreceive the ransom.
No sooner had the army departed than the burghers, knowing that theFrench army was close behind, changed their minds, refused to pay theransom, and fell upon the little body of men-at-arms. Although takenquite by surprise by this act of treachery Walter instantly rallied hismen, although several had been killed at the first onslaught. He, withRalph and two or three of the stanchest men, covered the retreat of therest through the streets, making desperate charges upon the body ofarmed burghers pressing upon them. Ralph fought as usual with a mace ofprodigious weight, and the terror of his blows in no slight degreeenabled the party to reach the gate in safety, but Walter had no idea ofretreating further. He dispatched one of his followers to gallop at fullspeed to overtake the rear-guard of the army, which was still but twomiles distant, while with the rest he formed a line across the gate andresisted all the attempts of the citizens to expel them.
The approach to the gate was narrow, and the overwhelming number of theburghers were therefore of little avail. Walter had dismounted his forceand all fought on foot, and although sorely pressed they held theirground until Lords Cobham and Holland, with their followers, rode up.Then the tide of war was turned, the town was plundered and burned, andgreat numbers of the inhabitants slain. Walter gained great credit forholding the gate, for had he been driven out, the town could haveresisted, until the arrival of Louis, all assaults of the English.
The river Somme now barred the passage of Edward. Most of the bridgeshad been destroyed, and those remaining were so strongly fortified thatthey could not be forced.
The position of the English was now very critical. On one flank and infront were impassable rivers. The whole country was in arms againstthem, and on their rear and flank pressed a hostile army fourfold theirstrength. The country was swampy and thinly populated, and flour andprovisions were only obtained with great difficulty. Edward, on findingfrom the reports of his marshals who had been sent to examine thebridges, that no passage across the river could be found, turned andmarched down the river toward the sea, halting for the night atOisemont.
Here, a great number of peasantry attempted a defense, but were easilydefeated and a number of prisoners taken. Late in the evening the Earlof Warwick, who had pushed forward as far as Abbeville and St. Valery,returned with the news that the passages at those places were asstrongly guarded as elsewhere, but that he had learned from a peasantthat a ford existed somewhere below Abbeville, although the man washimself ignorant of its position.
Edward at once called the prisoners belonging to that part of thecountry before him, and promised to any one who would tell him where theford lay his freedom and that of twenty of his companions. A peasantcalled Gobin Agase stepped forward and offered to show the ford, whereat low tide twelve men could cross abreast. It was, he said, called LaBlanche Tache.
Edward left Oisemont at midnight and reached the ford at daylight. Theriver, however, was full and the army had to wait impatiently for lowtide. When they arrived there no enemy was to be seen on the oppositebank, but before the water fell sufficiently for a passage to beattempted, Sir Godemar du Fay with twelve thousand men, sent by KingPhilip, who was aware of the existence of the ford, arrived on theopposite side.
The enterprise was a difficult one indeed, for the water, even at lo
wtide, is deep. Godemar du Fay, however, threw away part of his advantageby advancing into the stream. The English archers lined the banks, andpoured showers of arrows into the ranks of the enemy, while the Genoesebowmen on their side were able to give comparatively little assistanceto the French.
King Edward shouted to his knights, "Let those who love me follow me,"and spurred his horse into the water. Behind him followed his mostvaliant knights, and Walter, riding close to the Prince of Wales, wasone of the foremost.
The French resisted valiantly and a desperate battle took place on thenarrow ford, but the impetuosity of the English prevailed, and step bystep they drove the French back to the other side of the river. Thewhole army poured after their leaders, and the French were soon entirelyrouted and fled, leaving two thousand men-at-arms dead on the field.
King Edward, having now freed himself from the difficulties which hadencompassed him on the other side of the river, prepared to choose aground to give battle to the whole French army.
Louis had advanced slowly, feeling confident that the English would beunable to cross the river, and that he should catch them hemmed in byit. His mortification and surprise on finding, when he approached LaBlanche Tache, that twelve thousand men had been insufficient to hold aford by which but twelve could cross abreast, and that his enemy hadescaped from his grasp, were great. The tide had now risen again, and hewas obliged to march on to Abbeville and cross the river there.
King Edward now advanced into the forest of Cressy.
Hugh de le Spencer, with a considerable force, was dispatched to Crotoy,which he carried by assault after a severe conflict, in which fourthousand of the French men-at-arms were slain. The capture of this cityremoved all danger of want from the army, for large stores of wine andmeal were found there, and Sir Hugh at once sent off a supply to thetired army in the field.
The possession of Crotoy and the mouth of the Somme would have nowrendered it easy for the English monarch to have transported his troopsto England, and to have returned triumphant after the accomplishment ofhis extraordinary and most successful march through France. The army,however, was elated by the many great successes it had won, he was nowin Ponthieu, which was one of his own fiefs, and he determined to make astand in spite of the immense superiority of the enemy.
Next morning, then--Friday, the 25th of August, 1346--he dispatched theEarl of Warwick, with Godfrey of Harcourt and Lord Cobham, to examinethe ground and choose a site for a battle.
The plan of the fight was drawn out by the king and his councilors, andthe king yielded to the Black Prince the chief place of danger andhonor, placing with him the Earl of Warwick, Sir John Chandos, and manyof his best knights.
The ground which had been chosen for the battle was an irregular slopebetween the forest of Cressy and the river Maie near the little villageof Canchy. The slope looked toward the south and east, from whichquarters the enemy was expected to arrive, and some slight defenses wereadded to the natural advantages of the ground.
On the night of the 25th all the principal leaders of the British hostwere entertained by King Edward. Next morning mass was celebrated, andthe king, the prince, and many knights and nobles received thesacrament, after which the trumpets sounded, and the army marched totake up its position. Its numbers are variously estimated, but the bestaccount puts it at about thirty thousand men, which, considering thatthirty-two thousand had crossed the Channel to La Hogue, is probablyabout the force which would have been present, allowing that twothousand had fallen in the various actions or had died from disease.
The division of the Black Prince consisted of eight hundred men-at-arms,four thousand archers, and six thousand Welsh foot. The archers, asusual, were placed in front, supported by the light troops of Wales andthe men-at-arms; on his left was the second division, commanded by theEarls of Arundel and Northampton; its extreme left rested on Canchy andthe river, and it was further protected by a deep ditch; this corps wasabout seven thousand strong.
The king himself took up his position on a knoll of rising groundsurmounted by a windmill, and twelve thousand men under his personalcommand were placed here in reserve.
In the rear of the prince's division an inclosure of stakes was formed;in this, guarded by a small body of archers, were ranged the wagons andbaggage of the army, together with all the horses, the king havingdetermined that the knights and men-at-arms on his side should fight onfoot.
When the army had taken up its position, the king, mounted on a smallpalfrey, with a white staff in his hand, rode from rank to rankexhorting his soldiers to do their duty gallantly. It was nearly noonbefore he had passed through all the lines, and permission was thengiven to the soldiers to fall out from their ranks and to takerefreshments while waiting for the coming of the enemy. This wasaccordingly done, the men eating and drinking at their ease and lyingdown in their ranks on the soft grass, with their steel caps and theirbows or pikes beside them.
In the mean time the French had, on their side, been preparing for thebattle. Philip had crossed the Somme at Abbeville late on Thursdayafternoon, and remained there next day, marshaling the largereenforcements which were hourly arriving. His force now considerablyexceeded one hundred thousand men, the number with which he had marchedfrom Amiens three days previously.
Friday was the Festival of St. Louis, and that evening Philip gave asplendid banquet to the whole of the nobles of his army.
On the following morning the king, accompanied by his brother the CountD'Alencon, the old King of Bohemia and his son, the King of Rome, theDuke of Lorraine, the Count of Blois, the Count of Flanders, and a greatnumber of other feudal princes, heard mass at the abbey, and thenmarched with his great army toward Cressy. He moved but slowly in orderto give time to all the forces scattered over the neighborhood to comeup, and four knights, headed by one of the King of Bohemia's officers,went forward to reconnoiter the English position. They approached withinvery short distance of the English lines and gained a very exactknowledge of the position, the English taking no measures to interruptthe reconnaissance. They returned with the information they hadgathered, and the leader of the party, Le Moyne de Basele, one of themost judicious officers of his time, strongly advised the king to halthis troops, pointing out that as it was evident the English were readyto give battle, and as they were fresh and vigorous, while the Frenchwere wearied and hungry, it would be better to encamp and give battlethe next morning.
Philip saw the wisdom of the advice and ordered his two marshals, theLord of St. Venant and Charles de Montmorency, to command a halt. Theyinstantly spurred off, one to the front and the other to the rear,commanding the leaders to halt their banners. Those in advance at onceobeyed, but those behind still pressed on, declaring that they would nothalt until they were in the front line. All wanted to be first, in orderto obtain their share of the honor and glory of defeating the English.Those in front, seeing the others still coming on, again pressedforward, and thus, in spite of the efforts of the king and his marshals,the French nobles with their followers pressed forward in confusion,until, passing through a small wood, they found themselves suddenly inthe presence of the English army.