The Perfect King

by Ian Mortimer

  Edward was now on home soil, in a manner of speaking. He was in the county of Ponthieu, which was his mother's inheritance, given to him by his father more than twenty years earlier. Froissart specifically attributes the arrival of the army in Ponthieu as the reason Edward stopped near Crecy: to go further would have been to relinquish land he rightly claimed as his own. This is probably correct; keeping the war on French soil was his highest priority. But it needs to be noted that Edward was on familiar ground. He had been here before, on his journey to see Philip in 1329. He had almost certainly been along the road from Abbeville to Saint-Riquier before, and perhaps more than once, for he was in the vicinity in 1325-26 and 1331. How well he could remember the land is another matter. In 1329 he had been a seventeen-year-old on his way to swear fealty to his cousin. Now things were very different. He was twice as old, and had about ten thousand tired men dependent on him; they were hungry, and their shoes were beginning to disintegrate after marching several hundred miles. And they were all about to be attacked by the largest and best-equipped army in Europe.

  On Friday 25 August, Edward sent scouts towards Abbeville to find out whether Philip was going to attack that day. They returned to say they could see little sign of action. Sir Hugh Despenser had meanwhile attacked Le Crotoy and returned with plenty of victuals. Edward remained uneasy, concerned that Philip would attack that following night. He gave orders for the army to camp in the open, and to prepare a defensive formation. With still no sign of the French advance, he held a dinner for his nobles and captains. The men remained in their armour. Froissart states that when the lords had retired from the king's pavilion, the king spent several hours in a makeshift orator)', praying for victory, or at least honour. Without honour, he would be nothing, not even self-respecting. At around midnight he went to bed.

  Next morning - Saturday 26 August - he was up before dawn. He summoned the prince to him, and together father and son heard mass and received Holy Communion. Then, as the rest of the camp was stirring, they rode out to survey the surrounding area with Edward's principal commanders, including Northampton, Warwick, Cobham and de Harcourt. One can imagine Edward looking over the ground with care, lines from Vegetius echoing in his head. Perhaps he repeated some of them for the benefit of his son, or tested the prince on what he could remember. 'The nature of the ground is often of more consequence than courage.' Or 'if your forces are few in comparison to the enemy, you must cover one of your flanks either with an eminence, a city, the sea, a river or some similar protection'. Edward did not have the sea, and he did not want a river, far less a city. But there was the forest of Crecy. With that to cover one flank he chose to place his standard at the top of a hill. He positioned his men in three battalions in front of it, across the hill. The first would be under the command of the Prince of Wales, and would include Warwick, de Harcourt, Cobham, Sir Thomas Holland, Sir Bartholomew Burghersh, Sir Thomas Clifford, Sir John Chandos and many other outstanding knights, with eight hundred men-at-arms and the surviving thousand Welshmen. The second would be under Northampton, with the earl of Arundel in support and a further eight hundred men-at-arms. To himself he reserved the remaining seven hundred men-at-arms, who would hold the rear, and about two thousand archers. It went without saying that the other four thousand or so archers would be on the flanks. Trapping the enemy was the essence of their power.

  The baggage wagons were carefully positioned. Some were used to make a corral around the horses, who were placed at the rear of the army, near a windmill at the top of the hill. But some of those carts which had rumbled over the rough roads of France all the way from Saint-Vaast-La-Hougue were placed with the archers. King Philip was about to discover why his army had been able to cover thirty miles in a day and the English could only manage half that. They had been protecting these carts. Strapped beneath them were about one hundred small cannon. Now we can see how meticulous Edward's planning and preparation had been. The powder for these artillery pieces had been made at the Tower of London in March, long before landing in France. It had been hauled across the ford at Blanchetaque still dry. Until now gunpowder had only been used in sieges, with the sole exception of Mortimer's use of 'crakkis of war' on the Stanhope campaign. Those had been dangerous exploding buckets by comparison with Edward's refined guns. As well as small cannon with calibres of roughly four inches (the shot were still stone) he brought his newly developed 'ribalds' - series of bound gun barrels designed to shoot metal bolts, like crossbow bolts. And Edward not only had developed them, he had thought of how to use them too. That was why they were with the archers: to catch the advancing French in the deadly crossfire.

  Edward had another surprise, also long in preparation. Beside his usual royal arms he unfurled another banner: a painted dragon clothed in his own arms. It was his answer to the Oriflamme. As the troops marched to their positions, they all saw this new symbol of English power and confidence: 'Drago' they called it, recalling the prophetic symbol of his grandfather, Edward I.

  The English captains passed on the orders for pits, one foot deep, to be dug in front of their lines to break the charge of the French men-at-arms. As they worked, four French knights appeared in the distance, surveying the English array. Edward gave orders that they were not to be bothered or interrupted. Let them report to Philip how few they were in number! Let them see Drago! Let them tell the French army to come to them. For Edward was still dependent on being attacked. If his troops were drawn out and down to fight Philip and the French lords on their terms, the battle would be lost. Discipline was everything. He jumped on to a small palfrey and went among the ranks of men, carrying a white wand with which he made his gestures and directives clear to all those who could see him. And they listened. His words were words of honour, he spoke of the glory which they would win, and of the rights they would uphold. Never again would the French king be able to hold the English people in contempt, no, nor the pope. Froissart states that all who heard him, even those who were feeling afraid, were cheered by his presence, so positive and optimistic he seemed. He filled them with self-belief. And he did this as he rode at walking pace through all the ranks. Until ten o'clock he rode among them, exhorting them to do their utmost. He commended them to the protection of God and the Virgin Mary. Then he gave orders for the army to sit down, and rest some more, and have food distributed so that they might be strong when the French came on the scene.

  Edward and his leaders met together for one last time in his pavilion. Those who were hungry ate, and they all drank a little. Then the pots and pans were packed up, and sent away to the carts at the rear, and each lord resumed his place with his men, said his prayers, and waited.

  Edward might have been unfortunate with the weather at sea, but he surely would have gladly weathered all those storms again for the luck that came upon him now. It began to rain. The English sat or stood and waited in their positions as the summer grass beneath their feet was soaked. And as the grass grew damp so did the crossbow strings of the Genoese who were being force-marched to the front of the French army somewhere beyond their sight. Exhausted, and insulted by their French employers, these Genoese had been chosen to lead the assault on the English, using archers against archers. But these crossbowmen needed time to shoot and reload, and they usually fired from behind their great shields. These shields were still in the wagon trains, somewhere behind them. No time for those, they were told; they would have to fight without them.

  It was mid-afternoon when the first ranks of Genoese archers came into view. Behind them, in a long disorderly mass, came the army of France: about thirty thousand men, roughly three times the size of the English force, with more following, yet to arrive. The English ranks were ordered to their feet. The archers restrung their bows. And they waited. The Genoese advanced, and shouting insultingly at the English. Local people had lined the road all the way to the battlefield, and chanting Kill! Kill! Kill! as the French army passed. Now the time to kill had come. Line after line advanced, shouting abuse,
their bolts primed for the first volley. They yelled for a third time at the English, hoping to scare them. But the English did not move. Then with the boom of the first cannon, the Genoese loosed their volley of bolts. And with dismay they watched them die up on the air, and fall short. Hurriedly they began to reload in the open, as the next line advanced, taking up the shouting. Still there came nothing from the English but the occasional sighting shot from the cannon. Only when the bulk of the Genoese were in range and about to shoot did the English trumpets ring out for the attack to begin.

  If Genoese pride had died in the air with the falling short of those first crossbow bolts, then English pride struck home hard and true with the first English volley. The Genoese were ripped to shreds: 'these arrows pierced their arms, heads and through their armour', said Froissart. Each archer in the English camp could fire between six and ten arrows per minute. If each man fired at the slower rate, to ensure accuracy, and if there were only five thousand archers in the English army, the Genoese -who numbered no more than six thousand - were suddenly struck by thirty thousand arrows per minute, each of which was potentially deadly. We do not know how long they could have kept this up, but if Edward had brought supplies on the same scale as he had ordered them in 1341 (a single order of three million arrows for seven thousand bows) then we may reckon that this rate of fire was sustainable for at least an hour. Chroniclers describe the effect in terms of arrows falling like snow.

  Within a few minutes there were very few Genoese who were not dead or dying. Those that survived the attack retreated, shouting, some throwing down their crossbows. But the appalled French commanders refused to allow them to flee. The count of Alencon (King Philip's brother) set spurs to his horse and charged some of them down, slashing at them as an example. Philip himself gave the order to kill anyone who retreated from the battlefield as he saw the Genoese run: 'Kill these scoundrels, kill them all!' were his actual words, reported on good authority. But as his own men realised, killing Genoese crossbowmen would not help them against the English.

  Despite this appalling start, the reputation of France as leading all Christendom in arms was much more than mere posturing. Pride ran very deep in the French psyche; military honour was integral to the identity of the French nobility. Even as the French knights saw their mercenaries run, they rallied and readied themselves. These men knew the purpose of their privileges, and recognised the time had come for them to do their utmost duty. They cannot have failed to understand at that moment that they were facing a test as severe as any previously encountered by a French army. Trumpets blared. Wave after wave of knights set their spurs to their horses and charged up the hill in a furious attempt to drive the English from their position, only to suffer humiliating and catastrophic losses on the hillside as their polished armour and surcoats were torn open by the humble arrows of the English archers. Each time they fell back, but, as befitting the flower of European chivalry, they regrouped and charged again. Fifteen charges were thrown against the English. At one point they broke the line, and fought through to reach the first battalion of English men-at-arms. Seeing the standard of the prince of Wales, they made a concerted effort to seize him. The prince, although only sixteen, was strong and brimful of confidence, and as soon as the French knights came to him he rushed at them, slashing at their horses, bringing down their riders, stamping on their helmets and cutting through their lances. As a result, he ran the risk of being surrounded, and briefly it seemed the French had managed to seize him. But they failed to disarm him, and he fought on, while his bodyguard ferociously fought back to save him. At one point he was struck to his knees, and his standard-bearer, Sir Richard Fitzsimon, resorted to the desperate measure of actually laying down the prince's standard in order to draw his sword to defend his master. Another of his men rushed back to Edward to ask for help for the prince. Edward sent it, but by the time it arrived the prince was far from needing it. With Fitzsimon's help he had regained his feet, and started fighting more furiously than ever, so that by the time the twenty knights from Edward's own bodyguard had reached him, they found him laughing and leaning on his sword beside a long pile of corpses, catching his breath before the next onslaught.

  With the chaos of the hand-to-hand combat, and the volleys of arrows still being coordinated by the captains, the trumpets, the whinnying of horses, the cannon booming away, the arrows and the cannon bolts and cannonballs, and the yells, the shrieks and screams, the scene must have been truly terrifying. But one thing was clear to all, no matter where they stood: the English position was holding. Against all the odds, ten thousand were holding back thirty. When he was told of the developments on the battlefield, the fifty-year-old blind King John of Bohemia asked to be led forward. He had demanded to be given command of the French vanguard, for he too had believed they would easily pick off the English. They had even selected in advance who was to have which prisoners. Now he realised that his presumption had contributed to the rout. If he had not demanded the command of the vanguard - if the man in charge of the French advance had at least been sighted - they might have stood a chance. He asked his knights to do him one last service. Would they tie the bridle of his horse to theirs, and lead him to the front line so that he might, for one last time, lift his sword and charge into battle. He was asking them to lead him to his death, and for them to die with him. Solemnly they did what he asked. When the next trumpets blared, and the next great charge against the English rode at full tilt, the closest household knights of the king of Bohemia rode with them, all in one line, stretched out on either side of their king, shouting his war cry for one last time, lances couched and swords aloft. For them there could be no retreat. It was a matter of fighting with the knights and men-at-arms of the first battalion of the English until they were all dead. After the battle their dead horses were found, all still tethered together, with their corpses scattered near the body of their king.

  With the last of the French charges failing on the front line, Edward gave the order for the English horses to be led forward. The pages ran to get their masters' steeds and led them out of the enclosure. When the fifteenth charge had fallen back into the mass of men on the slopes of the hill, the trumpets sounded the English attack and the mounted chivalry of England poured around the limits of the front line. When the French infantry saw the standards of Northampton, Warwick, Dagworth, Burghersh and Cobham bearing down towards them, they came to a horrified halt on the slope, and quickly turned and fled. King Philip - a tyrant but certainly not a coward - saw his men desert him in their thousands. And as he watched, on came the English knights. Philip's bodyguard rallied around him, so too some infantry and some of his closest friends and supporters, but the battle they now fought was not for victory, it was for their king's survival. Bitterly they exchanged blows until evening gave way to night. His standard-bearer was killed as he stood beside him. The king's own horse was killed beneath him. An arrow flew into the fray from one of the English archers and struck Philip in the face. The English raised a great shout, and then another as the Oriflamme went down. The sacred war banner of France lay in the mud of the battlefield. John of Hainault realised that nothing now could save the day, and forcing the long on to a spare horse, and keeping hold of the reins, he and a few knights dragged the king from the battlefield. As Edward had previously given strict orders not to pursue the enemy into the night, Philip escaped. Of all the knights and great men who had come with him to Crecy, he had only five barons with him when he departed.

  As Philip fled in the darkness towards Amiens, the English regrouped in their positions on the hillside. There was a windmill at the top of the hill; now Edward ordered it to be filled with brushwood and set alight to act as a beacon and a focal point for the English. Still he kept order, wearing his full armour, not even having removed his helmet. Only when he came to the lines of the first battle which had withstood the French attacks, and saw his son Prince Edward with his own eyes, did he remove it. He embraced him and kissed him. 'Fair son,
God save you! You are my good son, and you have acquitted yourself nobly. You are worthy to keep a realm.' And the prince bowed to his father, honouring him. He had picked up the crest of the fallen king of Bohemia, an ostrich feather, and repeated his motto as he knelt before his father: 'Ich dien (I serve). Edward then began to speak about the battle to all those present. No one was to boast; everyone was to thank God for their good fortune. And they must be on their guard lest there be a counter-attack by a relief force in the night.

  There was no other attack that night. The English rested safely with the burning windmill above them and the mounds of corpses and wounded in the darkness below, lying in the cold. There the unfortunate lay in pain, expiring on the killing field, or unable to move, able only to wait for the dawn and the swift cutting of their throats as die English infantry began to pick over the battlefield looking for loot. On the day after the battle there was another fight, between a second contingent of Frenchmen who arrived too late for the battle and who came out of the morning mist to find themselves face to face with the earl of Northampton. Soon they too lay dying When on the Sunday Edward expressed a desire to know how many had died on either side, he ordered Sir Reginald Cobham, Sir Ralph Stafford and the heralds to establish an accurate figure by collecting all the French surcoats worn by the men-at-arms. Edward ordered that his men now ransacking the battlefield itself could keep all they found as long as they surrendered the surcoats to him. Over the day they covered the whole area of the battle and all the outlying fields and forest, and the site of the battle between Northampton and the reinforcements who had arrived too late for the battle proper. Eleven great princes lay dead, including the king of Bohemia, the count of Flanders, the duke of Lorraine and Philip's brother and nephew, the counts of Alencon and Blois. One archbishop and one bishop lay among the dead, and eight great secular lords. Eighty bannerets - principal knights - were dead, and 1,542 knights and esquires lay just in the area before the English front line, where the prince had been fighting. A great number - thousands - of uncounted infantrymen's bodies were scattered over the battlefield. A further four thousand French men-at-arms and Genoese crossbowmen had been killed by the earl of Northampton in the attack on the following day. In comparison, English losses amounted to about three hundred men.