The Perfect King

by Ian Mortimer

  In the end the negotiations, the lavish display of wealth and the hopes for peace were all in vain. The entire diplomatic assembly achieved nothing more than a brief renewed alliance with the untrustworthy Charles of Navarre and an agreement to extend the truce until Midsummer's Day 1355. Lancaster left Avignon in a furious mood, loudly declaring that Edward was the rightful king of France. The disappointment in the English camp, and through all of England, was bitter. No one could forgive the French king for this. It might even be said to mark the biggest French diplomatic failure of the war so far. The negotiators between April 1353 and February 1355 had achieved nothing for France but they had focused Edward's mind on the question of what he wanted from the war. Now he had decided, he resolved to do everything within his power to get it.

  FOURTEEN

  The Pride of England

  On 10 February 1355 two students were drinking in the Swindlestock Tavern in Oxford. An argument broke out over the quality of the wine. The students emphasised their dissatisfaction by pouring the unpalatable liquid over the head of the innkeeper. They then broke the jug over his head.1 Tensions had been simmering for some time between the university and the town, and this proved to be the catalyst for a full-scale riot. More than twenty townsmen and sixty-three scholars died over the next three days. Many others were gravely injured. Even after the fighting had come to an end, the bitterness continued, with the result that many scholars fled and at least twenty students' halls of residence were burnt down. The bishop of Lincoln placed the town under an interdict, and Edward issued a royal commission to investigate. After due process, Edward ruled in favour of the university, granted it a charter so that it controlled the assize of bread, ale and wine in the town, and ordered the mayor of the town and sixty-three citizens to pay a penny each in recompense every year thereafter in perpetuity, to atone for the students' deaths.

  Edward had sworn to maintain justice, and in the Oxford 'town v. gown' case he had to show that he would keep that promise. Nor was his favouring the university unexpected: his old mentor Richard Bury was just one of the hundreds of men whose Oxford education had been useful to Edward. What is noticeable about this event is the way in which justice was administered. It was quick, efficient and absolute. In an age when legal disputes could drag on for years, this was dealt with by the king and finalised within a month. It is reminiscent of the argument between two important subjects in 1332 on the eve of the Scottish war. Edward took control of the situation and quickly forced a solution on both parties. There was no time to waste in protracted subtleties and nuances. Edward wanted to remove the issue so he could focus on the forthcoming campaign.

  The collapse of the Treaty of Guines had not just frustrated Edward, it had shocked and enraged him. He had been living the life of the potentate, basking in his glory, and perhaps becoming a little complacent. The failure of the treaty had destroyed his ease of mind. It threatened his policy in Scotland as well as France, and he had no choice but to respond. He ordered David II, who was then at Newcastle, to be taken back to his cell in the Tower, and cancelled the negotiations about his ransom. He made preparations for a fleet to go to Gascony. When two papal nuncios reached England in April, desperately trying to patch up some hope of continuing the truce, Edward took the unusual step of responding in person to their requests. Allowing them to enter his council chamber, while he and his magnates were discussing the proceedings at Oxford, he broke off to tell the nuncios flatly that he had no intention of prolonging the truce. He had frequently been asked for truces by 'those of France' (he did not call John a king), and by the cardinals too, and always the French had broken them when it was expedient for them to do so. He would debate the matter with his council, he told them, but that was all. He would let the pope know his decision in his own time, through his own intermediaries. The nuncios were then politely but firmly shown the door.

  Nobody attending that council had any intention of trying to dissuade Edward from his set path. Therefore the next act was to consider how to conduct the approaching war. Edward's experience told him that a dual attack through Gascony and Normandy was likely to prove most effective, with a third advance through Calais if necessary. Lancaster had had discussions with the king of Navarre at Avignon, and on the strength of their agreement Edward appointed him commander in Normandy, to join forces with the Navarrese. At the same time the Gascon lords asked for the prince of Wales to lead them against the French. This would mean that Lancaster would be in charge in Normandy, although his experience had been obtained in Gascony, and the prince would lead in Gascony, although he had so far only seen conflict in Normandy. But Edward had confidence in both his son and the duke. Besides, the prince would not be alone with the Gascon armies. He would be supported by the earls of Warwick, Suffolk, Salisbury and Oxford, Sir Reginald Cobham, a thousand men-at-arms, a large number of Welshmen and two thousand archers. And the general plan was that both leaders should advance to a point in central France at which they would meet up. By then it would matter much less where each had landed.

  By 24 June - the end of the truce - Edward's plans were nearing completion. But then the weather intervened. The prince found himself becalmed off Plymouth, and Lancaster was stuck off Sandwich. During the delay Edward decided that he too would lead an army, and throughout August he was watching his ships bobbing up and down on the waves outside Portsmouth, held up by the wind. But the prolonged bad weather tossed the English one major piece of good fortune. Lancaster's spies discovered that Charles of Navarre had concocted a secret agreement with King John to betray Lancaster, and to ambush the army after it had landed. Once more

  the duplicitous Charles had upset Edward's plans. So Edward redirected Lancaster to Brittany. A few days passed, and then he changed his mind again. He would lead both his own force and Lancaster's to Calais. Lord Manny and the earl of Northampton would accompany him. They would leave at Michaelmas, after his seasick men had had time to rest. And I want it known throughout France', he declared, 'that soon I will arrive there and do battle with John, and lay waste the land as far forward as I can see.

  More delays followed. Edward and his army disembarked at Calais at the end of October. Despite the count of Flanders siding with John, and the collapse of the alliances with Brabant and Germany many years before, news of his arrival attracted volunteers from those countries. This brought the total number of his troops up to about ten thousand. Edward himself was in an exceedingly confident and aggressive mood. When told that a large French force was gathering at Amiens he declared that he would go there directly 'and show King John the smoke and flames of his country'.

  On 2 November Edward set out on the road to Amiens. Three days later, burning the country and villages all around him, he approached Therouanne. On the way he was met by a French knight, Sir Jean le Maingre, better known by his nickname Boucicaut. Boucicaut had previously been captured in Gascony and was on parole, and so could not take part in the fighting until he had paid his ransom. But that also meant he was safe from further punishment. He was led to Edward, who demanded to know where King John was. Still at Amiens, Boucicaut replied. Edward expressed his surprise. 'Holy Mary! Why is he waiting for me there, when he has so great a force and sees his land burned and devastated by so few men?'

  Edward knew that Boucicaut had come mainly to spy on the size of his army, so he showed his confidence in his troops by allowing him to survey them. Boucicaut saw that the English were well-equipped, well-armed, experienced and high in morale, even if the army was smaller than that mustering at Amiens. Some accounts say that he thought the English were too few in number to accomplish Edward's objectives. This is unlikely, given later events, but, whatever Boucicaut actually thought, Edward levelled with him the following day. As the two men watched the English army destroy the countryside around Hesdin, Edward told him that he knew that he was spying, although he was on parole. He added that, given this, he could demand an increased ransom for him. But nevertheless he would let him go, a
nd forgive him his ransom. The condition was that he would go to King John and tell him that Edward expected to see the French arrayed for battle within three days.

  Boucicaut did as he was told. But the three days passed, and John did not give battle. He may have been unprepared to do so, awaiting a larger army, or he may simply have been too scared to risk his throne by a head-on confrontation with an English army of ten thousand men. Edward was disappointed. He was also beginning to regret his haste in marching south, for he had left his supply lines prone to attack from the French troops stationed around Calais, and his men had now run out of wine. As soon as the army was reduced to drinking local water from wells and streams, they were prone to illnesses and poisoning. With no sign of a French attack, Edward conferred with his fellow war leaders and decided to try the ploy which had worked at Crecy, to encourage the French to attack them in retreat. He accordingly gave the order to withdraw and encamp outside Calais, destroying everything on the way.

  King John rose to the bait. Anxious that he should not be seen in the same light as his father, always shirking battle, he sent his marshal to issue a challenge to Edward. Edward responded with the proposal that he had first made to King Philip in 1340: that the two kings should fight alone, the loser surrendering his claim on the throne of France to the victor. If that was unacceptable, Edward suggested that they each be joined in their struggle by their eldest sons, or perhaps a small number of their chosen knights. Once more, he was pitching his family's divine right against that of the de Valois, a trial by battle in all but name. This was very unattractive to King John, for how could he and the dauphin, Charles, be expected to take on King Edward - the paragon of knighthood - and the Black Prince, who had won his spurs so dramatically at Cr6cy? He turned him down. He also turned down the next English proposal, and the next. The strategic initiative had to all intents and purposes become the battle. Neither side was prepared to fight on terms suggested by the other. Neither side was prepared to attack the other on ground which their enemy had chosen.

  Outside the walls of Calais, Edward was more anxious to fight than ever, for he now knew that he had made a second miscalculation in his preparations for the campaign, more serious even than jeopardising his supply lines. On 6 November, while he had been boasting to Boucicaut, a group of Scotsmen led by a French knight had broken into Berwick and destroyed much of the town. Suddenly Edward was aware that he was exposed. And it was his own fault. In 1345 he had been much more careful, arranging the defence of the northern border in anticipation of a Scottish attack timed to coincide with his invasion of France. This time he had rushed things, had changed his mind too often, and had not made adequate arrangements, assuming that David II's custody was a guarantee of peace. He certainly had not foreseen the dangers of small numbers of Frenchmen helping to lead a Scottish attack. Nor did he anticipate that Robert Stewart, the Guardian of Scotland, might want to renew hostilities during King

  David's imprisonment, even though that was what the Scots were bound by treaty to do if France was attacked.

  Cursing himself, Edward gave the order from Calais for parliament to assemble at Westminster, and issued one last challenge to King John. This too was rejected. The temptation to march forward and attack the French then and there must have been great, but he resisted it. Despite the bravado declarations that he would show John the smoke and flames of his realm, and that he would destroy everything he could see, and despite his showing off to Boucicaut, he was about to leave France hastily, without any reward for his efforts. The thousand volunteers from Germany and the Low Countries were dismayed to see Edward slink away, back to Calais, and back to England, without doing battle. This was not the great warrior-king whose victory they had expected to share.

  The 1355 campaign in Normandy was a failure. Edward was not humiliated by the French, but by his own neglect of the necessary strategic precautions. The very fact that he had not covered himself in the glory of another victory was something of a humiliation for the most respected warrior-king in Christendom. Nevertheless, in the circumstances, he did the wise and correct thing Tactical retreats are rarely glorious but they are often as important as successful battles. If we look at the broader picture, Edward's fundamental approach to the war had not changed since he first went to the Low Countries in 1338. The strategic bedrock of his entire foreign policy (and it is not inappropriate here to use this term) was, in his own words, that 'the best way to avoid the inconvenience of war is to pursue it away from your own country'. The attack on Berwick threatened that policy. It brought war back on to English soil, and that was something Edward could not and would not tolerate. He had to stand by his policy of maintaining the war on foreign territory above all else. Therefore, in considering his campaign of 1355, we have to say that Edward was forced to retreat as a result of his own strategic miscalculations but, having acknowledged his failures, he did the wise thing in withdrawing from France to protect his kingdom's borders.

  *

  Ten days after challenging King John, Edward was sitting in the Painted Chamber at Westminster, with his magnates and representatives around him. He was in no mood for trifling with merchants or bargaining for a grant. There was a real threat to the kingdom in the north, and he wanted simply to make sure he had the means to attack the Scots and secure the border. He was also still smarting from his enforced withdrawal from France, and determined to ensure financial support for a renewal of his disappointing campaign. The heroic champion Lord Manny was therefore given the task of addressing the assembly and making clear why Edward was demanding a renewed grant of no less than six years' continuation of the wool subsidy.

  Sir Walter was an eloquent man. He related the whole history of the struggle for peace, from the treaty discussed at Guines to the failure to ratify the treaty and the duplicity of Charles of Navarre. He told those present about the problems with the weather, and the attempts to do battle, and the French refusal. To his statement Chief Justice Shareshull added the loss of Berwick and the pressing need to respond to the Scots' incursion. After these speeches, the commons withdrew, and shortly afterwards assembled in the White Chamber, and responded with the magnates that they had unanimously decided to grant a subsidy on all wool and leather for the full six years. This was an extraordinarily long period of taxation, never previously known. Edward had been given the purse strings of the kingdom.

  Of course there were conditions. The grant was followed by a number of petitions for the redress of injustices and other grievances. To most of these Edward gave a cursory answer. But one in particular caught his attention. It was a petition from his second cousin, Lady Wake, the sister of the duke of Lancaster. She claimed that the bishop of Ely had allowed his men to burn down some of her houses. She had taken legal action against him, and he had been ordered to pay £900 in damages. Edward already knew this, and had rebuked the bishop at the time. But since then the bishop's thugs had murdered one of her servants, William Holm, in a wood near Somersham. Gangs of ruffians were notorious in the early fourteenth century, and Edward had done his best to stamp out organised crime. He had almost entirely eradicated the pattern of magnate-sponsored violence and maintenance (although Sir John Molyns did his best to keep the tradition alive). But it was unheard of for a bishop to be implicated in repeated acts of gang violence. Edward, roused by the threat to law and order, the dignity of the church and the insult to the royal family, ordered that he himself would deal with the case. He further decreed that he would confiscate the bishop's temporal possessions, and demanded that the bishop humble himself before him.

  One week later Edward began his long ride north. His mind was set on wresting Berwick from the Scots and then punishing them for their rebellion. He was also angry with the bishop, who had refused to humble himself or even to apologise for his wrongdoing. He was at Newcastle by the end of December, and the army reached Berwick in the second week of January. Even before they arrived, the Frenchmen who had led the attack on the town had abandoned the S
cottish cause, leaving the defenders to beg Edward for their lives. Robert Stewart had not anticipated Edward's immediate return and defence of his Scottish possessions. Nor had his men anticipated his wrath. The shame Edward felt in retreating from France only increased his anger. When he heard that his Chancellor and Treasurer had hesitated to confiscate the lands of the defiant bishop of Ely, he was pushed to the point of fury. Now Scotland stood to pay the price.

  The campaign which followed became infamous in Scotland as 'Burnt Candlemas'. On 25 January, near Roxburgh Castle, Edward summoned Balliol before him and demanded that he resign the tide of King of Scots which he had borne uselessly for the last twenty years. Balliol was given a pension and had his debts paid, and then left Scotland ignominiously, never to return. Edward then set about organising a destructive march across Scotland modelled on those he had used in France. An advancing front - twenty miles wide, in which everything was destroyed and burnt - was now employed to punish the Scots. It began at Roxburgh on 26 January and continued day by day until Edward marched into Edinburgh, the lower parts of which he burnt on Candlemas Day (2 February). Then he moved on to Haddington, which he burnt, allowing the fires to consume the friary there. A bitter winter campaign followed as Edward destroyed everything in his path on the way across the lowlands to Carlisle. His men suffered from hunger and thirst, as the Scots destroyed their own stores to prevent the English having them. The situation was made worse by the loss of his supply fleet in bad storms, but Edward made sure he punished the Scots. A plot to ambush him in Ettrick forest failed when another contingent was sent through the danger zone ahead of his own force. The many Englishmen killed in his place were the only consolation for the desperate Scots whose most ardent supporters were now beginning to see the alliance with France as more of a benefit to the French than to themselves.