The Magnificent Century

by Thomas B. Costain

  William the Marshal now decided that the time had come for a test of strength. The French army was divided, and he knew enough about the character of the young Count of Perche to feel he could be counted upon to make mistakes. Accordingly the veteran got together all the men who could be rallied to the banner of the boy King and approached Lincoln by a northwesterly route, marching from the Stow road to the Old Roman Way. The marshal knew that he was outnumbered, but this did not cause him too much concern. Early that morning a knight named Geoffrey de Serland had ridden out from Lincoln with a message from the resolute Nicolette. A small postern near the western sally port in the walls was open and unguarded. The marshal planned, therefore, to monopolize the attention of the French while the archers under Falkes de Bréauté slipped into the old walled city.

  Early in the morning of May 20 the marshal’s army appeared on a high ridge to the north. Forgetting his years and his slackening powers, the grand old man rode in the van, his white cross proudly displayed on his breast. He had either forgotten to put on his helmet or had purposely elected to appear without it. At any rate, he led the attack bareheaded, his lank white locks tossing in the breeze. His eyes gleamed with all the old ardor and eagerness for the fray. “God has given them into my hands!” he declared.

  Robert Fitz-Walter and Saire de Quincey, the leaders of the English who still fought with the French, rode out to reconnoiter. They were not alarmed by what they saw. The force advancing to the attack was small and lacking in cavalry. They returned and advised the Count of Perche to meet the English in the open country, where the French cavalry would have freedom to attack. The young count had no respect, however, for the military sagacity of his English allies. He decided to see for himself.

  The old marshal had resorted to a stratagem. Behind the not too numerous body of his armed men he had assembled all the wagons of his train and a large and motley company of camp followers, servants, and peasantry. They had been given standards to carry, and to the inexperienced eye of the young French leader it seemed that a large army was moving against him. Brushing aside the advice of the English leaders, he decided he could not face such a formidable force in the open and ordered, instead, a concentration of his men in the upper level of the old Roman city, a warren of narrow streets between the castle, where the fair Nicolette still held out, and the cathedral. Here cavalry could not be used and the superior numbers of the French would mean nothing.

  In the meantime the archers under Falkes de Bréauté made their way into the city through the unguarded postern. His selection to command the bowmen had been a wise one. Of all the professional soldiers imported into England by John, he was the best, a skilled and cool-headed leader who struck, moreover, with such passionate fury when he got into action that he was sometimes called the Rod of the Lord’s Fury. He seems to have had no difficulty in reaching the postern and gaining access from there to the castle. The Frenchmen, packed in the streets below, were thrown into great confusion when they heard suddenly the English cry of “King’s men! King’s men!” from the battlements and looked up to see the walls crowded with archers. Immediately, it seemed, the air was filled with arrows. The space between the castle and the cathedral was a jumble of alleys and closes and so small that a strong-armed bowman could send a bolt from one end to the other. The French soldiery, having no shelter from the lethal hail and being unable to advance or retreat, began to drop like ripe chestnuts after the first frost. The horses screamed and threshed about savagely when wounded, crushing their riders under them.

  The main attacking force, led by the marshal, who had now donned his helmet, forced an entrance into the upper level at the same time that the Earl of Chester attacked the lower part. Chester had no difficulty in scattering the few French detachments which had been posted below and driving them up the sloping streets into the crowded upper town. The French were now more than ever handicapped by their numbers. Unable to make a sortie, they died under the rain of arrows from the castle walls and gave way before the sharp attack of the marshal in the north and west and the Earl of Chester in the south until they were hopelessly jammed into the maze of lanes about the cathedral.

  The fighting was singularly one-sided. Although the English under the marshal lost very few men, the French suffered wholesale slaughter. The Count of Perche, as valiant as he was stubborn and inept, refused to surrender and was cut down in the street fighting after an exchange of blows with the aged marshal. All the English allies with the French were captured. It is probable that, disgusted with the stupidity which was costing them so dear, they had little stomach for the struggle. Most of the French gave in at the same time, three hundred knights in all laying down their arms.

  The victory was so complete, and had been won with such small loss, that it was called thereafter the Fair of Lincoln. The exultant marshal, feeling no fatigue after a day of riding and fighting in the saddle, galloped that night to Nottingham, where the legate and the boy King were stationed, to give them the glad news that the largest part of the French army of invasion had been destroyed.

  The fact that many of the English barons, including Robert Fitz-Walter, Saire de Quincey, Robert de Ros, and William Mowbray, were captured in the narrow and blood-drenched streets adds a note of ironic regret to this otherwise splendid victory. They had been among the leaders of the popular party at Runnymede, and their names should never be forgotten as long as man has memory for the great deeds of the past; but at Lincoln they were fighting for the invader, they stood under the lilies of France and strove against the English. They had been driven to this course in the first place by the tyranny of John, who threatened not only their possessions but their lives, and they were held by their oaths to the support of the alien they had invited over to help them. If they had prevailed at Lincoln new chains would have been forged for their wrists and Magna Charta would have been disregarded and forgotten.

  The victors were men who, for the most part, had stood aside in the earlier struggle for freedom, and some of them had ridden in the small train which accompanied John to Runnymede. It is doubly ironic that at Lincoln they fought for the Charter against the men who had conceived it.

  Louis realized the extent of the disaster and expressed a willingness to enter into negotiations for peace. He gave up his interminable and futile siege of Dover and in a mood of the deepest discouragement returned to London. A meeting to discuss terms was held near Brentford and, as the marshal was persuaded to moderation by the desperate need of England for peace, they came close to an agreement. The legate, however, was unwilling to stretch the amnesty to cover four ecclesiastics without instructions from the Pope, and nothing could be signed. Louis in the meantime was hearing encouraging reports from the energetic Blanche of the strength she was gathering for him, and his will was stirred to further efforts.

  Hoping that the tide of fortune would still turn for him, Louis settled down in London to wait for the reinforcements that Eustace the Monk would convoy across the Channel.

  The Start of Sea Power

  JOHN, that bad man and most execrated of monarchs, must be given credit as the founder of the British navy. While Normandy was under the rule of the English kings and the Channel was a national strait which did not require guarding, there had been no royal navy and no need of one. The necessity for transportation to and from the Continent had been solved by the creation of the Cinque Ports, a federation of the sea towns of Kent and Sussex. In return for certain privileges these towns undertook to supply the kings with ships and men. They were allowed to govern themselves by portmotes and to take flotsam and jetsam (which turned them into more or less open nests of piracy), and a cluster of lesser rights which need not be enumerated, although it is interesting to mention some of them for the color of the words—den and strond, tol and team, blodwit and fledwit, infang and outfang, soc and sac, and mundbryce. This was a convenient arrangement but hardly adequate after John lost all the northern possessions in France. With hostile ports so close at hand
, he was compelled to get together the first semblance of a national fleet.

  His navy was quite small. In addition to a limited number of fighting ships, none of which exceeded eighty tons, he had available many smaller vessels for the carrying of supplies and troops. They were called sornakes, passerettes, schuyts, and nascellas. Being a methodical man and a first-rate organizer, John devised a plan for the management of the royal ships which led in due course to the formation of the Admiralty. He appointed one William de Wrotham as the head. It is not recorded that William de Wrotham had displayed any great proficiency at polishing up the handles of front doors, but it is almost certain that he had never gone to sea. He was a churchman, as were all state officials, holding the archdeaconery of Taunton. He confined himself to the details of management, and it was his responsibility to supply the silk and canvas for the sails, to purchase or seize the stores of food, and to impress the men needed for the crews. He seems to have been a capable official and to have given his capricious master full satisfaction, but it is recorded that at one time he paid twenty-three hundred marks for the King’s favor, benevolentiam regis. Probably the post gave ample opportunities for the feathering of personal nests.

  John was the first also to perceive the need for adequate dockyard facilities. Although the law of eastern drift had not yet seriously filled with silt the harbors of the chalk cliffs, he seems to have been aware that it would be wise to go farther west for permanent ports. At any rate, he issued orders to William de Wrotham to take over the docks at Portsmouth and to build around them a strong wall with penthouses for stores and tackle. The work was not carried very far because John, as usual, could not bring himself to supply the funds for the purpose.

  This curiously contradictory ruler, who, it must be said, was always popular with sailors because of his wry humor and the rough and sardonic edge of his tongue, was the first, moreover, to score a conclusive triumph at sea. The destruction of the French fleet at Damme (in which he had no personal part) toward the end of his reign was the first in that long succession of naval battles which over the centuries built up the tradition of invincibility at sea.

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  All that was left of John now lay in the Norman choir at Worcester between two splendid Saxon saints, Wulfstan and Oswald, as he had requested with his last breath. If the Evil One had taken possession of his soul in spite of the protection thus afforded him, it would neither have surprised nor distressed the men who faced the consequences of his bitter wrongheadedness. Not only did the French standard float over Calais, but above the towers and walls of London as well. Most of the castles of the southeast were in the hands of Louis. Transports filled the ports of Normandy to bring across the reinforcements which Blanche of Castile had collected for her husband. The small group on whom the responsibility of undoing what that worst of English kings had done contained, fortunately, such courageous and shrewd men as William the Marshal, Hubert de Burgh and Philip d’Aubigny, who had been warden of the Channel Islands and was now in charge of the defense of the southeastern coast On them the lesson of the victory at Damme had not been lost. They were convinced it would be folly to wait and use their ships only to contest a landing. Better to venture out and challenge the power of France in the open waters of the Channel. Accordingly, when Eustace the Monk led his armada from Calais on St. Bartholomew’s Day, August 24, 1217, the relatively small English fleet was ready to go into action.

  The chronicles agree that it was a bright and sunny day, one of those clear days, in fact, when keen eyes from the chalk cliffs could catch a glimpse of foreign soil across the Channel. The anxious watchers, who had taken possession of rooftops and trees and spires, had a good view of the French ships as they gained mid-Channel, and of what then transpired.

  Eustace the Monk was in the first and largest ship in the line, and it would have been obvious to anyone who saw the condition of his vessel that the dreaded sea captain was suffering from overconfidence. He had, at any rate, loaded it so heavily that the water washed over the gunwales with each movement. In addition to thirty-two knights with the bluest of blood in their veins and enough steel on their proud backs to weigh down any ship, there was a trebucket on board (a cumbersome siege engine) and a string of horses intended for the use of Prince Louis. Eustace had collected and equipped the ships, but the commander was Robert de Courtenai. The latter had distributed the 120 knights who made up his personal following in the four vessels which came next in line. There were six other vessels, so loaded with knights and men-at-arms that they swerved and luffed erratically into the wind and were at times almost out of control. Following the troopships were seventy smaller craft carrying supplies.

  The English fleet consisted of smaller vessels in the main. They were all under one hundred feet in length, high in bow and stern, flat-bottomed, and stoutly clinker-built, which means that the planks in the hold overlapped each other. They had one mast only, in the exact center, a single square sail of no great size, made of silk with reinforcements of canvas, and were steered by an oar fixed on the starboard. In battle they were maneuvered by sixteen oars on each side. For this crisis they had been “bearded,” the bows strengthened by bands of iron for use in ramming. There were sixteen ships of battle and many more smaller craft.

  William the Marshal had contributed one of the largest in the fleet, a cog, which was a stoutly constructed type of vessel with rounded bow and stern. Never having avoided a fight in the whole of his life, he intended to go aboard the cog and take charge of the operations. His attendants knew, however, that the splendid old paladin lacked the seaworthiness of leg needed for participation in the hurly-burly of a naval battle. They persuaded him, with great difficulty, to stay ashore. Hubert de Burgh took his place in command.

  The tactics of the English had been planned with the audacity which alone wins battles afloat. They waited until the French armada had passed Sandwich and then issued out behind it. Eustace, standing in front of his tent on the raised platform called a bellatorium, boomed out his delight when he saw what was happening. He was certain that the English were hoping to divert him by a feint at Calais. He was too old a fighting cock, he averred, to be caught by any such transparent device as this. Let them attack the port from which he had just sailed! They would find he had left it strongly guarded and would get well singed for their pains; and in the meantime he would proceed with his task of landing the men and supplies so badly needed by the French army of invasion.

  His satisfaction, however, was short-lived. The English had no intention of attacking Calais. They had swung about into the wind and were coming fast after the French transports. By this one move they had accomplished the prime objective of all the maneuvering which precedes a brush at sea; they had gained the windward position and were pounding on after him with a brisk breeze at their backs. Eustace, no doubt, swore many loud nautical oaths as he strove to bring his ships about to meet them. The French vessels floundered and pitched and fell out of line and were, as a result, badly disorganized when the battle was joined. With Hubert de Burgh and Richard Fitz-John, a bastard son of the late King, in the van, the small English ships came on to make the most of the situation, their sails bellying in the western wind, the sailors seated at the oars in readiness, the constables with their archers in the waists, even the grummets (the boys who made part of all crews in ships of the Cinque Ports) clambering up the masts and cheering wildly, and above them the most skilled of the bowmen in the gabies.

  The wind played a big part in the English plan of attack. As soon as they came within range, the constables gave orders to the archers to begin. The feather-tipped shafts gained increased speed from the sustained breeze into which they were launched, and took murderous toll of the Frenchmen, still frantically engaged in the task of turning. As the islanders came abreast, moreover, they opened pots of finely powdered lime and the wind carried it into the eyes of the French. As a result the steel-trussed knights were unable to put up any effective resistance when the English,
their eyes filled with battle fire above the daggers held in their teeth, their pikes slung loosely on their backs, came swarming over the rails. Even Eustace, that veteran of many sea fights, could not organize a front against them, for both the cog and the ship commanded by Richard Fitz-John had elected to attack him, one on each side. The struggle here was short and the slaughter of the French was tremendous. Only the knights were spared (because of the ransoms they could pay), and Robert de Courtenai was among the prisoners taken.

  Eustace valued his life and he disappeared when he realized that the fight was a hopeless one. A search was made for him as soon as resistance ceased, and he was found burrowing down under the ballast sand and bilge water in the hold, surely the largest and least willing frog ever fished out of that malodorous scum. Brought on deck with arms lashed behind his barrel-like torso, the doughty pirate pleaded for his life and offered to pay a ransom of ten thousand marks. This was proof that piracy pays, because few noblemen would have been able to buy their freedom at such a price.

  It was a tempting offer, but the feeling against this double renegade ran higher than the cupidity of his captors. “Base traitor!” cried Richard Fitz-John, putting into words the sentiment of the other leaders. “Never shall you again seduce anyone by your fair promises.”

  It was decided he must die, and accordingly he was strapped down on his grufe along the rail of the ship, still pleading frantically for his life. A man named Stephen Crabbe, who had once served with Eustace, volunteered to act as executioner.

  In later years the legend of the monkish pirate grew and it was believed that, after breaking his monastic vows, he had studied black magic in Spain and had the power to make himself and his ships invisible. If Eustace ever possessed such power this surely was the time to display it. Nothing happened, needless to state, to obscure the body over which Stephen Crabbe hovered with his blade suspended in the air. Perhaps an old grudge put skill and dispatch in the sailor’s arm. At any rate, he severed the head from the body with one stroke and the gory locks of Eustace floated from the end of a pike when the victorious fleet put in later at Dover. The pirate’s head was a prized exhibit for a long time and was carried about England, still on the end of the spear, to be gazed at and exulted over.