Midnight in Westminster Abbey

by Sean Dennis Cashman

  “Of course,” said the king matter-of-factly. "My side can always say I got the wound from a man-to-man fight with the French commander. It makes for a good story.

  “Besides, this battle gives England command of the Channel. Parliament is to call me ‘King of the Sea’. It’s to be a surprise. We’ve cleared a sea-path for our invading army. Once on land, our troops will be swelled by the Flemings who are, as I said, in revolt against their nobles.”

  Ginny realised that Edward III was utterly single-minded. He would use anything to get his way. That was the secret of his military success—not to mention his indifference to wounds.

  With the king’s passing mention of nobles, Ginny remembered that her father had told her that the Hundred Years War between England and France was initially popular with the English nobility for various reasons. In England, barons held land on the understanding that, when called upon they would supply the king with a fixed number of men for military service. By the time of Edward III, the nobles had become very greedy. They were—in a common phrase of the time—‘covetous and envious’ of one another’s property and wealth. And so, war seemed to benefit the royal realm of England (from the king’s point of view) because it exported the barons’ competitiveness and anarchy to France.

  A few moments ago, Ginny had been so cold and wet that she thought she would never be warm and dry again. But now she was. The ground under her no longer swelled up and down. Without her realising it, she saw that she and the king were on a sloping bank beside a copse. They must have moved seamlessly from the first book of illustrations to the second and from a sea-pictures pop-up to a landscape pop-up.

  “Now we are about to taste victory on land,” Edward III told her. He was apparently recovered from the temporary inconvenience of the arrow wound. “The French did not see that coming. You see, in France, a military caste has imposed itself on society. Its way of waging war has become rigid—unable to change to changing circumstances. But our own long experiences of war in Scotland and Wales have taught us lessons in military tactics. Not just me but all the English commanders look on our campaigns in France with a justified sense of superiority.”

  SPITTING FEATHERS

  Within this new illustrated book of hours with its set of land pictures, it was still difficult for Ginny to tell what she saw. This was because the sun was setting and she had to adjust to its waning light. Then she noticed something on the back of the king’s handsome cloak. There Edward III carried a longbow—a particular design of bow for shooting arrows.

  “You’re admiring our secret weapon, aren’t you?” asked King Edward rhetorically. "It wasn’t really so secret—like the massive bombs of the twentieth century before they were detonated. We used a smaller version of the longbow at Sluys. But it’s true our enemies abroad hadn’t taken stock of our new capability.

  "The wood comes from ash and poplar trees. The feathers are white goose feathers. That may be why people sometimes describe a hail of arrows as like a snowstorm. To draw these heavy bows requires a man’s full strength. He has to bend his body right back to let fly a missile that could be as heavy as 160 pounds.

  “And another thing, it’s vital that our men learn how to use it: practice makes perfect. No nonsense about Englishmen playing football for recreation instead of putting in archery practice—and that’s on pain of death. Our enemies can’t say they weren’t warned.”

  Somewhere in the second book of Edward’s famous victories, Ginny now stood in the midst of a battalion of soldiers besieging who-knows-what with their formidable longbows and some cannons on wheels. The meadow where they stood had yellow gentians and yellow-and-white anemones among its wild flowers on the edges.

  “When I began my history—immodest I admit—I told you I was re-telling it,” said Edward III who did not want Ginny distracted by inconvenient flowers no matter how lovely. "Yes. Another secret weapon I had—this time for spreading my legend—was that I had the ear of Jean Froissart. He was a French historian, chronicler and poet. At one time, he was in the service of Philippa, my dear queen. He became what you would call a publicist or spin doctor.

  “Take yourself back to the situation. After we landed in France, my men and I got trapped near Crecy. This is where we are now. You will see the battle from the inside and watch as we turn the tide with a massive show of force, notably our 6,000 skilled archers. The French, led by the pretender, their self-styled king, Philippe, had between 30,000 and 40,000 men. However, the forest on our flanks gave us protection and a big advantage should it come to a final stand.”

  Ginny found herself, blue jeans and halter top, riding on a pony behind Edward III who was being borne forth on a small palfrey. He was wearing a splendid surcoat of crimson and gold on top of his armour and he had a white wand in his hand. He rode along the ranks, encouraging his men to defend his right to the French crown. He urged them on with such enticing confidence that even those who felt out of sorts were comforted as well as fired up.

  Ginny heard two armed horsemen talking.

  One with a dark moustache said, “Our spies found out that Philippe wants to delay battle in order to rest his troops. But he’s afraid that if they do delay, we might break camp and vanish.”

  New moustache or not, Ginny would have known her handsome man anywhere. She thought her heart skipped a beat. It was the adorable Walter.

  His friend with dark flaxen hair said, “That’s where we have them. The French hate us so much that any delay in the fighting seems unendurable. It’s odd. They’re more afraid of being deprived of victory than of actually losing the battle—the fools. I can’t wait to be up and at ’em.”

  “Well, young Edward, sir, whatever pretender Philippe himself wants, he can’t control his officers’ determination to press forward,” said Walter.

  “Walter, Walter, it’s me,” interrupted Ginny. "I thought I saw you at Sluys—but I couldn’t be sure."

  “Why,” replied Walter, as formally if he were saying hello to a neighbour, “it’s Miss Virginia. How do you do, young lady?”

  Ginny who had been ecstatic a moment ago now felt crushed.

  “It’s me, Ginny. Surely you remember me?”

  “Of course I do,” he answered courteously. Yet he looked at her uncomprehendingly. Ginny sensed in this very icy courteousness that this was the reply of a young man who did not want to be shown up in any way before his fair-haired friend. Ginny was struck dumb by Walter’s indifference. But if she was now some warrior maiden in the service of Edward III, it must be her duty to keep her mind on the military route ahead and not on some unfulfilled romance.

  Then Ginny caught dark horseman Walter darting a quick look at her when he thought—wrongly—that she would not notice. But Ginny had noticed all right.

  “Well, two can play at that game,” she thought. “Besides, if two’s company, three’s a party.”

  With an amusing take on romantic signals beyond her years, Ginny decided to play it nonchalantly by fixing her sidelong gaze on Walter’s equally handsome friend, young Edward. So each time Walter sneaked a look at Ginny, she cast doe-eyed glances at the fair-haired horseman. Ginny was determined not to give in to Walter first. “Even if it’s the last time I ever see him,” she resolved. She did not want to think of herself as a teenager in love.

  Fair horseman Edward sensed the simmering tension between Ginny and Walter. He understood that Ginny was using him. Royal to his fingertips, he was not used to being a pawn. He saw a way of defusing the tension. And so, Ginny realised that Walter’s good-looking companion was staring at her puce-coloured hearing aid.

  “Is it a new sort of pearl earring?” he asked hesitantly in case this was being too forward.

  “No,” she replied with an ironic smile. “It’s a hearing aid. I don’t hear like you—as well as you. I need help from this little machine. Look.” And as the three horses and their riders slowed down, she took out the hearing aid. “This is a British version. It has three little knobs: one for no
rmal speech, one for a loop where there’s a sound-sensitive system in a shop, or a lecture hall or at a concert or a play and the third is for music in a wider environment.”

  Ginny sensed that the horsemen had no idea about lecture halls or concerts but she handed them her hearing aid to inspect, fair Edward first. Walter bit his lip.

  Ginny realised that she was relieved—no, glad—not to have to explain to the two men—and centuries-old men at that—that she was not ‘deaf-and-dumb’. Nor would she have to trawl through a history of hearing aids (including ear trumpets and the telephone); nor even to have to try and get her new friends to say ‘disabled people’ rather than use such depersonalised terms as ‘handicapped’. Best of all, she was delighted that these ghostly strangers did not stigmatise her. After all, in this imaginary, if far from fairy-tale context, she was no more disabled than they were. Underneath their handsome finery, they could only be spirits resurrected from decaying bones.

  “Let’s get back to basics,” she said as she retrieved her hearing aid and put it back in her outer ear. “The troops must be getting ready to fight.”

  She looked at young Edward more carefully. At first, she had just assumed that the two men must be of equal age. Their armour certainly made them look similar. But she now realised that this Edward was not only younger than Walter but also younger than she was. He might be fifteen or sixteen but no more. She guessed that his hair would darken by the time he was in his twenties. She also sensed that by his manner Walter was slightly deferential to the youngster. He must be some prince, she concluded.

  Just then, from the hillock, Ginny saw a mighty horde of Frenchmen moving relentlessly from Abbeville to Crecy. The marching columns were black, the men’s armour glittering as they caught the sun’s rays. The French mass at the rear surged forward, pressing through their stationary troops near the front where they faced the English army on the slope of Crecy.

  Ginny heard young Edward say, “It’s going to work out just like our esteemed King Edward has calculated: Philippe is now just as carried away as his troops.”

  And just as the two commentators had predicted, Philippe decided to begin. His plan was to get his hired mercenaries—the Genoese cross bowmen—to move through his other troops and to break up the English with various missiles. His intention was first to scatter the English here and there and then have his French cavalry cut them to shreds.

  Bad weather came to help the English. Ginny saw a sudden storm drench the Genoese bowmen. The storm was short. But when the sun reappeared, it shone directly into the eyes of the French troops and their Genoese mercenaries. But it shone on the backs of the English soldiers. They saw everything clearly and knew what they had to do.

  Edward III understood what would happen next. “Now we really do have them,” he said to himself as he savoured victory.

  He ordered his English archers, ranged in portcullis formation, to advance. Ginny saw them draw their bows. Then they shot their arrows with amazing speed, power and accuracy.

  “Like King Edward said, it’s just like a heavy snowstorm,” she thought.

  But Ginny’s admiration turned to horror when she saw the fallout. The arrows sped farther than the French and Genoese could have imagined. Their own arrows could not make an effective reply. And so, the Genoese were killed in their hundreds. The ground was covered with bodies, the heaps of men bizarrely decorated with the feathers of their own useless arrows.

  Ginny heard a voice from somewhere. She could not see the speaker or identify him.

  “Oh yes, indeedy,” said the polite voice with what sounded like smiling insistence, “their armour flashes and their battle thunders with primitive cannons belching missiles. The troops charge senselessly backwards and forwards. Their devoted horses fly by in terrified confusion—poor brutes.”

  Ginny realised that this sinister voice-over was coming from her hearing aid.

  “Streams of blood flow merrily along as the raging sun above us burns with fierce sarcasm. And the battle rages on and on in these tiny men’s hearts and minds.”

  Ginny found this commentary creepy. Edward III had not heard it. When he was back with her, he started to explain:

  “This sort of bombardment has never been seen before in the entire history of warfare,” he said in triumph, his voice echoing the cawing noise made by crows circling above. “The French have put themselves in double jeopardy.”

  Indeed. Their move forward had brought the French into ever closer and ever more deadly sight of the English longbows.

  Ginny was aghast. The next arrow snowstorm from the English cut right through the French soldiers’ chain mail and mowed down men and horses in terrible carnage. But it did not end there. Philippe ordered more French troops from behind into the confusion. Now it was their turn to feel another hail of arrows. The frightened horses juddered, throwing their scared riders onto the mushy, splattered ground.

  “O bon Dieu!” Philippe cried out in terror at the massacre. “Les anglais sont pleines de tromperies.”

  “What’s he saying?” Ginny asked, unsure of her limited French.

  “That with their misleading military tactics, the English are full of de-sheets,” explained the deceitful deathly voice in her ear.

  As if to prove that indecent remark true, Philippe now deprived of his horse cried out, “Merde! Au secours! Je suis dans la merde jusqu’au cou!”

  The inner voice said to Ginny, “You’re American. I don’t think you need a translation.”

  And at that, Philippe slid into a mile of mud and slime.

  Both Walter and young Edward had disappeared. They must have been caught up in the fight, Ginny thought. Her sight was interrupted by a hefty splat of blood on her forehead that matted her eyebrows and trickled down her nose. The sinister someone or other whom she could not identify said, “We’re all in this together—ha, ha.”

  “Where have I heard that before?” Ginny asked herself.

  Once again, the ground was carpeted with slain warriors. Ginny noted how weird it was to see so many dead men so richly attired. Their showy clothes had proved no more protection than their empty titles. Into this horrid muddle, King Edward’s Cornish and Welsh light infantry slipped amongst the English archers and fell upon what remained of the French soldiers, slashing counts, knights and squires, with dangerous long knives.

  “Our campaign exalts chivalry,” asserted Edward III. His boast made Ginny realise that whatever the king said the war undermined chivalry. In such a battle, the victor won by brutality. When the French applied—or thought they applied—the rules of chivalry at Crecy the result had been inevitable: humiliating defeat. Ginny understood that it was just as her dad had once told her: there was nothing remotely chivalrous in armies at war—what with their marauding and looting and burning towns and villages—not to mention attacking women and killing local people who got in their way.

  “What about the horrible deaths of so many innocent people?” Ginny asked King Edward angrily.

  “J’en ai rien a foutre,” Edward III answered contemptuously in French. “Pardonnez-moi,” he added before saying in English, “You can work out the English meaning yourself. Put politely, I don’t give a fig.”

  But it seemed Edward III did give a fig. For in the midst of all the slaughter in a battle he was winning, Edward III himself got exasperated because in the English soldiers’ deadly assault he lost the chance of many lucrative ransoms.

  “Damn and blast them to blazes!” he exclaimed. “If my officers had captured and held these precious French officers instead of killing them off, I would have got ransoms from their families for their release. We would then have had enough funds for future campaigns without my needing to go cap in hand to Parliament for funds. How could my English fools have been so short sighted? But it’s too soon for recriminations now. Blast them all to hell, I say!”

  Yet one important English commander was in real danger from French attack and capture. This was Edward III’s own son, youn
g Edward, the Black Prince, only fifteen years old. In the melee, that might have seen young Edward captured or killed, King Edward did nothing for his eldest son and heir by sending men from his own reserves to help him.

  “Let the boy win his spurs,” was King Edward’s taciturn comment.

  And this is what the young Black Prince did.

  Ginny was again with King Edward when he came down from his post. Supported by his immediate troops, he went right up to his prince. He embraced young Edward and kissed him. Another set of scales fell from Ginny’s eyes. “Of course,” she exclaimed, “Edward the Black Prince was Walter’s companion, the young guy to whom he deferred.”

  Edward the father and Edward the son broke apart. The king said, “Sweet son, God give you good perseverance. You are my son, for most loyally have you acquitted yourself this day. You are worthy to be a sovereign.”

  Ginny clapped her hands along with the surrounding soldiers as the Black Prince bowed down low before his father. This was to signal that the honour of victory belonged to the king alone. Ginny was gratified that as young Edward waved to the crowd, he darted a stunning smile at her.

  Initially touched by this plaintive little scene between father and son, Ginny had deep doubts about the Hundred Years War. Recalling what her dad told her about American politicians in US elections, she reinterpreted the Black Prince’s stunning smile as no better than what her dad called ‘the robotic smile’ American candidates assume when they were fighting an election.

  Sensing that Ginny was holding something critical back, Edward III cut across her thoughts: “I don’t think I should like America,” he observed laconically in order to put her in her place. But of course Ginny was ready for this. Looking at the scattered debris across the field of battle, she replied, “I suppose that’s because we have no ruins and no curiosities.”

  “No ruins,” exclaimed the king. “You have your ‘All men are created equal’. No curiosities? You have your American way of death—funeral parlours, if you please. More carriages for the flowers than for the casket if the dead man is a gangster in the Roaring Twenties!”