The Edwardian War (Part One)

The Battle of Sluys – The Battle of Saint-Omer – Tournai Under Siege – The Truce of Esplechin – The War of Breton Succession – The Battle of Morlaix – Rennes Under Siege – The Truce of Malestroit – The Scourge of the Routiers – “The Land Desireth to Have Me” – The Chevauchee – The Storming of Caen – The Battle of Blanchetaque

On the evening of 21 June 1340, Edward III bid farewell to the Island and boarded his flagship, the Thomas. His ten-year-old eldest son, Prince Edward of Woodstock, would govern England with an entourage of royal councilors. Before departing Edward III warned the prince’s councilors to keep their eyes on the Scottish to the north, who might take the king’s absence as an incentive for invasion. The king placed the Earl of Warwick in charge of the invasion fleet, at least until the grisly business of combat began, when the king would rightfully take over, and on the morning of 22 June the English fleet caught wind into the Channel. The king knew the French navy was at Sluys and decided to sail straight for them. When the French admirals got wind of Edward’s plan, they decided to dig in at Sluys and wait for the inevitable slugfest, despite Barbavera’s insistence that they would be better off putting to sea where their advantages, both in numbers and quality of ships, could be best put to use to decimate the English invasion force.

The English fleet at sea

After two days of sailing, Edward’s fleet approached the Flemish coast. The French fleet came into sight, and Edward dispatched a party of knights to scout the French positions. The knights disembarked the fleet by long boat, with their horses swimming behind them, and they landed twenty miles west of the Sluys harbor. Their mission was to investigate the French forces, counting their ships and estimating the number of their men, and report back to Edward how they were formed up. The Bishop of Lincoln was sent ashore, too, in order to ride hard and fast to Bruges, about ten miles away, to encourage the town’s inhabitants and, most importantly, its English garrison to assist Edward’s sea attack with their own land assault.

King Edward dropped anchor about three quarters of a mile off Blankenberg and waited for news from his reconnaissance. The scouts returned with the dispositions of the French fleet: the French had blocked the mouth of the River Sluys and arranged their fleet in three lines that stretched from the island of Cadzand to the mouth of the harbor. They had put their largest ships, including the Castilian vessels and the captured English cog Christopher (formerly the flagship of the Royal Navy), on the front lines. The sailors had used planks of wood to board up the ships with makeshift walls to prevent boarding, and in each of the three lines the ships had been chained together in the hope of creating an impermeable barrier. The French and Genoese crossbowmen were largely confined to the first line of titanic ships, crowding the fore and stern castles, and the soldiers and marines filled the decks to prevent any attempts at boarding.

It was June 24, and Edward planned on attacking at midday. At that point the direction of the wind would fill their sails and push them towards Sluys, and the sun would be in the eyes of the French crossbowmen. He determined that his fleet would sail in three lines abreast: the first line would be composed of ships with men-at-arms flanked by ships with archers; the second line would have close to forty vessels carrying mostly men-at-arms; and the third line, or reserve, would carry slightly fewer fighting ships than the second line along with the transport ships and their precious cargo of horses, military stores, treasure, and the wives of officers and ladies-in-waiting en route to Queen Philippa.

Edward's flagship, the Thomas

The commanders of Edward’s fleet made an odd bunch. As was proper for a king, Edward’s Thomas would sail with the first line. Thomas’ master was a former pirate and enemy of England. John Crabbe had made a living early on as a pirate raiding English ships, and during the Scottish wars he had commanded the Scottish navy, winning renown for running the English blockade. When the English withdrew from Scotland he became the Constable of Berwick, but he was eventually captured by the English. Parliament wanted him executed for being a pirate and colluding with the Scots against England, but Edward saw Crabbe’s ability and wooed him into changing sides. Over time Crabbe became the captain of Edward’s flagship. Admiral Thomas Beauchamp, the eleventh Earl of Warwick, was only 26 years old but would command the second line of English ships. The third line—the reserve—was under the command of Robert Morley, who was 45 years old and who had served in Scotland as a man-of-arms in the retinue of his uncle in 1314, bearing witnesses to the English disaster (and Scottish triumph) at Bannockburn. One would think Edward III had a distaste for Morley, since the man had supported Edward II against Edward III, but he was an able commander and had been named Admiral of the North. He had advised Edward III against invading France, but now that he was in the muck of it he would do his part.

The English troops, gathered on their ships, waited for the sun to reach its zenith. Midday came and Edward III gave the order: the English fleet raised anchor and began to move. The raising of the anchor was anticlimactic, as the ships, with the wind in their sails, moved only at walking speed towards the first line of French ships stretched across the mouth of the River Sluys. Edward’s flagship flew the Royal Arms of England, which he had changed to incorporate the French fleur de lys quartered with the lions of England—this was an affront to the French, for it was an unmistakable claim to the French throne. The affront came not by the presence of the fleur de lys (since, by way of genealogy, he was entitled to have it) but by its inferior placement in submission to the lions of England.

Sluys: the Order of Battle

Trumpets sounded from the French fleet, calling the soldiers to order, and the English trumpets responded with hunting calls. When the first line of English ships closed to within 400 yards of the French first line, the English officers began shouting their orders. The archers, positioned in the forecastles and crows nests, had strung their bows and were awaiting the orders. The French crossbowmen could only breathe and hope they survived the coming onslaught of English arrows, since their crossbows were nowhere near within range. Aboard the English ships, the officers shouted the orders.

“Nock!” Each archer chose an arrow and notched it to the bowstring. “Draw!” The archers pulled their bowstrings back level with their right arms and with their left arms fully extended. The French aboard the ships, hearing the orders come muffled across the water, swallowed hard, waiting. “Loose!” At this final order the first volley of arrows streaked into the sky, blotting out the sun. As the arrows reached their zenith in the summer sky, preparing to plummet down into the first line of French ships, the English officers were already repeating their orders: “Nock! Draw! Loose!” Even before the first arrows struck home, the archers were drawing for their next volley.

That first volley gave a foretaste of the carnage that was to come. Nearly 15,000 arrows plummeted down in the first thirty seconds. The crossbowmen, soldiers, and marines aboard the French ships were packed tight, jostling for cover, and hoping that chance favored them. The calculating orders of the English officers were met with screams, shouts, and grunts from the soldiers aboard the French ships. Blood seeped into the decks as soldiers were killed and wounded. Those without plate armor suffered the worst, having no protect against the velocity of the arrows. When the English ships came within 350 yards of the beleaguered French, the crossbowmen could fire back—but the sun was in their eyes, making it nearly impossible to aim. To make matters worse, the crossbowmen could only shoot two quarrels a minute against the rapid-fire rate of the English longbows. A contemporary observer from London noted the butchery of the arrows, poetically recounting that the arrows fell on the French crews “like hail in winter,” while “crossbows had to be lowered and steadied at the stirrup while the wire was strenuously levered back between every firing.” The crossbowmen were greatly outnumbered: 500 crossbowmen couldn’t take on 3000 archers, and because of the differing rates of fire, the crossbowmen at full strength and valor could only release 1000 quarrels per minute compared to the archer’s 10,000 arrows per minute; to match the English barrage, the French would’ve needed to field 15,000 crossbowmen alone.

English archers hard at work

Drawing nearer to the French ships, the English archers, unblinded by the sun behind their backs, began aiming in a flat trajectory at the crossbowmen. Numbers of crossbowmen, blinded and targeted by the superior English weaponry, lost their nerve: they hunkered down behind the planked walls of the ships, refusing to get up despite the hoarse orders of the French men-at-arms. Most of the crossbowmen were Genoese mercenaries, and they weren’t willing to go Above and Beyond what they strict contracts (and equivalent pay) demanded. The French crossbowmen were on the lowest rung of military status, so they didn’t feel they had anything to prove. The first lines of ships closed to 100 yards, and with the crossbowmen cowering down, the archers began targeting the sailors and soldiers on deck. The archers used needle-pointed bodkin arrows that could pierce chain mail and, at close range (such as now) plate armor, and broad-headed arrows with barbs fashioned not only pierce flesh but to cause more damage coming out than going in. Now the French soldiers and sailors caught the panic of the crossbowmen and tried to find cover. The French tried to counteract the slaughter with stone-throwers and springalds, but these were inaccurate and most of the heavy stones and bolts splashed harmlessly into the sea.

30,000 arrows a minute had wreaked havoc on the first line of French ships, but then the real bloodletting began: at close to 3:00 PM, the ships of the English line crashed into those of the French first line. Now the brutal work of hand-to-hand fighting would join with the death-dealing arrows. The French, knowing that the English would try to use grappling hooks to bind their ships together before boarding with ladders and grappling irons, had built up extra walls out of planked wood. The hope was to put English boarders at a distinct disadvantage: the English men-at-arms would have to awkwardly scale the walls and then drop down to the decks of the French ships. Upon landing they would be at a momentary disadvantage, and the French soldiers could set upon them with savage butchery. But the French hadn’t taken into account England’s most feared weapon: the longbow. The English crows nests were vaulted higher than the makeshift French walls, and the longbowmen could look down on the French deck. English archers had good aim, and from such close quarters not even plate armor could protect against their arrows. Having collided, the English threw their grappling hooks over the walls, and the longbowmen targeted anyone daring enough to try and dislodged the hooks. Under cover of the archers, the English soldiers boarded the French ships and held off their attacks until reinforcements could come up behind them. Then the decks of the French ships became little more than tight-packed land battles on the water: the English men-at-arms faced off against the French militia led by handfuls of French men-at-arms.

English and French ships locked in combat

This was Slaughter 2.0. Jean Froissart, a medieval chronicler who composed a prose of the Hundred Years War up to 1400, tells us that this phase of the battle was “cruel and horrible. Sea-battles are always more terrible than those on land, for those engaged can neither retreat nor run away; they could only stand and fight to the bitter end, and show their courage and endurance.” The English were professional soldiers hardened not only by training but by experience: they had fought and bled against the Welsh, the Scots, and the French before. The French soldiers and marines were largely inexperienced, and the French militia was mostly composed of farmers who didn’t have the stomach nor skill for what was about to transpire. Crammed onboard the ships, the panicked militia had nowhere to run, and the English gave no quarter (farmers wouldn’t fetch a ransom, and France herself couldn’t afford to pay out ransoms for her more well-to-do soldiers). Thus the English men-at-arms, blood-crazed and glorying in the uneven odds, cut a swathe across the French decks. The decks ran red with blood and the bodies piled up. The only escape was the sea, and militiamen threw down their weapons and made a mad and bunched dash for the fore and aft castles, where they could launch out into the water. The militiamen, largely unarmored, fared the best at sea. Many soldiers decked out in armor were driven senseless by the sight of the carnage and dove absent thought into the ocean, where they promptly drowned under the weight of their armor. Though the militiamen fared better at sea, when they climbed ashore they were met with a second slaughter: Flemish citizens from the nearby countryside, who viewed the French as interlopers, noted that the English were winning and decided to lend a hand. The French who made it off the ships, through the water, and onto the shore were butchered like cattle, their blood staining the beaches red. 

Hand to hand combat amidships

After nearly three hours of vicious hand-to-hand fighting, the French ships in the first line began striking their colors, and the English were through. The English celebrated the recapture of the Christopher along with three other formerly English ships that had been seized by France. Edward, wounded with cuts to his thigh and hand, beckoned an English knight and gave him orders for Beauchamp in the second line: the men under Beauchamp were to take possession of the defeated and blood-drenched French ships of the first line. Beauchamp did as he was told, and the second line of ships poured crews onto the captured French decks, and they began tossing the dead French overboard. Edward’s first line, with their blood up and passions high in their victory in this first phase of the battle, would spearhead the attack into the second line of French ships.

The second French line had witnessed the slaughter of their first line, and when they saw Philip of Valois’ colors on the mainmast of the Christopher replaced with the lions of England, their panic reached a crescendo. The French second line consisted of smaller French vessels than those in the first, and their decks were lower rather than higher than the English decks. This, along with their disintegrating morale, put them at an undeniable disadvantage, and it made the work of the English that much more efficient: the massacre of the arrows and the boarding of the French ships went quicker and smoother. Taking control of the second line of French ships, the English men-at-arms tossed the corpses into the water. The Flemings onshore, who had already bloodied their hands on the French attempting to swim to safety, saw the second French line fall and made for their own ships, intending to attack the third French line from the rear. At the same time the citizens and garrison of Bruges, encouraged by the political preaching of the Bishop of Lincoln, arrived. They took over for the Flemish civilians who were boarding their boats, and the people of Bruges continued the dirty work of the Flemish against survivors scrambling onto the beaches.

The Slaughter of the French

Knowing all hope was lost, the ships in the third line—mostly Norman merchantmen and barges—attempted to make a break into the north sea by sailing east of Cadzand. As the third line disintegrated, the battle turned into a flurry of skirmishes that lasted throughout the evening. Some of the Norman barges made it into the ocean, but most of the ships were overtaken by the English and hooked. Come nightfall things had settled down, but a few skirmishes continued throughout the night. The Battle of Sluys went down as a smashing victory for the English, who captured 190 of the 200-odd French ships deployed. Barbavera, who had been shouted down by the French generals, managed to escape in style: his six galleys made it into the north sea, and to top it off he took two English ships as prizes. Here was a man who knew how to fight at sea, and the cost of ignoring him had become apparent. Thirteen more French ships were able to escape the English vice in the early hours of June 25, but most Frenchmen (and their Genoese mercenaries) weren’t so lucky: for days after the battle, waterlogged bodies, slashed and butchered but washed bloodless by the sea, floated ashore.

Precise numbers of the French slain are impossible to calculate, but because the English massacred everyone onboard—and because the Flemish civilians and people of Bruges added their finishing touches ashore—estimates run as high as sixteen to seventeen thousand. The French admirals, who had rejected Barbavera’s wide sage advice, paid the price for their pride, insolence, and refusal to put French strength to use: Quieret was either killed in the battle or executed afterwards (by beheading, as fitted his rank) and Behuchet was taken prisoner. The English, recognizing his prisoner, hoped for a fat ransom from King Philip, but Edward had different ideas. Behuchet had raided English ships and coastal towns, and he had to pay for his violence: he was hanged from the yardarm of his own ship.

The English weren’t without losses, though they paled in comparison to those suffered by France. The English fleet lost around half a thousand men, most falling during the deck battles against the more formidable French ships of the first line, and nearly three times that number were wounded. The French had been decimated, but Edward’s casualties—including both wounded and killed in action—accounted for only about ten percent of his forces. Thus the celebrations aboard the Thomas and across the fleet were deserved. Men-at-arms who had gone above and beyond were knighted, others were paid handsome dues for their services rendered, and prayers and praises of thanksgiving were given. The next morning Edward warmly received the mayor and aldermen of Bruges, who had done what they could to assist him in his battle. Edward didn’t waste time: two days after reunion with the men of Bruges, Edward marched his forces to Ghent, where he was reunited with Queen Philippa.

The English had won the Battle of Sluys, but it needn’t been so. The French had the bigger and better ships, and had they paid heed to Barbavera’s wisdom and put to sea where they could capitalize on their strengths, they very well could have turned the tide of the burgeoning war. The French excelled on water and the English excelled on land, and by chaining their ships together in static formations, the French admirals provided the English with a land battle on the decks of the French fleet. The Battle of Sluys was the linchpin of the Hundred Years War, and the French had bumbled—and bumbled badly. Edward III’s victory ensured that the war would be fought on French rather than English soil, and thus it would be French peasants who would suffer the ravaging of the countryside. Having not only gained a toehold in France but also having decimated the French fleet, the threat of a French invasion of England was eradicated until the Seven Years War 700 years later.

Had things gone differently for the French, the Hundred Years War may not have lasted long. Speculative history is more an exercise of the imagination than anything else, but historian Gordon Corrigan is willing to engage in such flights of fancy. He wages that if the French had won, the English fleet would’ve suffered decimation, and Edward may have been killed or captured and imprisoned in Paris. Having cleared the English fleet from the Channel, the French invasion would’ve suffered few obstacles and could have landed all but unopposed on the English soil. It would’ve been English peasants rather than French ones suffering the burnings, pillages, and massacres. The English forces at home would’ve been hard-pressed between the French invaders and the Scots to the north. If the French could take London, Corrigan muses, they could have deposed Edward III and put someone else on the throne (such as David of Scotland, son of Robert the Bruce, who was amicable towards the French). Thus France would dominate the Channel and England proper.

But this wasn’t to be. The French fleet had been destroyed, the English armies were entrenched on French soil, and no one wanted to give King Philip the news for fear that he would execute the messenger. Legend has it that the court jester, who could get away with much that others could not, managed to turn the outcome of the battle into a joke. “Why are French knights braver than English knights?” he asked. The king didn’t know. “Because English knights don’t jump into water in full armor.”The joke didn’t go over well, and the king looked this way and that for a scapegoat. Was Behuchet to blame for being greedy and not spending the money needed for men-at-arms? Were the Normans at fault, since they fled at the last hours of the battle? Was Barbavera a treacherous bastard who should be arrested for treason? Philip’s nerves would settle (though it took over a year), and the appearance of Norman survivors, badly mauled, showed him that they weren’t cowards who tucked tail and ran. He stopped trying to find fault and enabled himself to feel pity for those who had lost their lives—and livelihoods—in the battle. Not once, however, did he dare to believe that the crippling defeat was the fault of the French military system; all his life he held that the true fault of defeat was the treachery and incompetence of France’s lower tiers of society.

While Philip’s court jester risked life and limb bearing ill tidings, the news of Edward’s victory swept across England like an inferno. The first ships bearing the official news reached the island on 28 June, and churches held thanksgiving services while the victory dispatch was proclaimed in town squares. Though England’s populace had been upset over the heavy taxes needed to get Edward’s invasion underway, victory at Sluys made it all worth it. Doubts about Edward’s kingship and abilities were expunged, and this was good news for the king: now he could more readily get parliament to raise new taxes to further finance the war effort. Furthermore, money from the sale of captured ships and the few ransoms Philip paid out would serve to offset the current cost of the invasion. Things were looking up for Edward, and he hoped to capitalize on his victory in a set-piece battle with Philip; he hoped by besieging the French city of Tournai he could draw the French king into his clutches.

The Siege of Tournai

Edward decided to split his army. One force was given to Robert Artois, but he lost most of his force at the Battle of Saint-Omer just two days after the victory at Sluys. On the same day that Robert Artois retreated in shame, Edward laid siege to the city of Tournai. Winter would come soon enough, and he needed a place to quarter his men. The siege dragged on, and in the meantime Philip marched towards a showdown with the English—but he refused to meet the Edward in battle. He welcomed a different solution—intervention by the papacy. Pope Benedict XII urged the belligerents to cease hostilities. Edward knew the pope was pro-French, being the third in a line of “Avignon Popes” who served from France rather than Rome and had deep ties with the French aristocracy, so he wouldn’t be fair and just; but he also knew that the pope was powerful. Excommunication was not a thing to be trifled with, as it would ruin your reputation and cripple your authority within your own territory. Edward knew his position at the gates of Tournai was untenable: if he didn’t capture the city before winter, his army would be suffering and exposed. Furthermore, with fractures beginning to show within his alliance, a hard winter and a failed attempt to take the city could lead to mass desertions. Besides all that, starvation looked likely even if they managed to take the city: Tournai was running out of food, too, and would have nothing to offer once the English were inside the walls. And to make it all the more enraging, he couldn’t purchase more food for his army because Parliament was holding up his funds! Limited monarchy was not working in his favor: he was faced with hoing home or watching his army crumble. Despite Pope Benedict XII’s political leanings, he offered Edward an honorable way out. The cost of peace backed by the Avignon pope was, without surprise, steep for the English: they were to lift the siege of Tournai, pack up their things, and get out. The pope was a lot like a dad ripping his squabbling kids apart and sending the instigator to his room for a time-out. This Truce of Esplechin, signed on 25 September 1340, was set to last five years—but it wouldn’t last ten months.

Edward abided by the terms of the truce, abandoning Tournai and crossing the Channel back to England. There he fought with Parliament and kept both eyes on the goings-on in the land he thought should be his. Seven months into the Esplechin truce, in April 1341, the Duke of Brittany died without an heir. From this story alone we know how these things can go. Though the Duke was childless, there were two candidates for his dukedom: his half-brother John, the Count of Montfort, and his niece Jeanne of Penthievre. Because Jeanne was of purer family blood than John of Montfort, the Count’s supporters relied heavily on the principle of Salic law. Jeanne of Penthievre couldn’t inherit Brittany because she was a woman. But Jeanne had an ace up her sleeve: her husband, Charles of Blois, was Philip VI’s nephew. The king’s hold on Brittany would tighten if he had a nephew as its ruler. Feudal law demanded that all duchy inheritances be approved by the king, so Philip VI was a token indeed. Montfort, realizing that Philip VI might have motivations other than Salic law, decided to just go ahead and seize Nantes, the Breton capital on the Loire River, and order Brittany’s knights to hail him as Duke of Montfort. By the tail-end of summer, Montfort had captured most of Brittany, including two more major cities, Rennes and Vannes. By this time Philip VI had come out in favor of Charles of Blois, and Montfort knew he couldn’t stand up to the French army—at least not without help. He fled to England and sought out the king, and Edward was picking up what he was laying down. With Montfort’s help, Edward’s second invasion wouldn’t get them a toehold; it would get them a foothold. And, hopefully in time, a chokehold.

But there was a hitch in the plan: the king would have to get approval from Parliament. Edward promised Montfort that he would get Parliament to approve, and Montfort sailed back to Brittany to keep things together before the English arrived. Philip hadn’t been inactive, and by November the French had trapped Montfort in the riverside town of Nantes. The people of Nantes weren’t particularly loyal to the man who had made himself their overlord just months before, so they shrugged their shoulders and handed him over to the French army. Why should they suffer a long winter siege because of his ambition? He was an impostor, after all. So Nantes was liberated and Montfort marched to Paris in chains. His cause would’ve ended there if it weren’t for his wife, Joanna of Flanders: she set up her headquarters in southern Brittany and spent the whole winter repelling French attacks. She had two goals: keep her husband’s movement alive and keep the road to the sea open for the English. She did both, and when the English landed in the port town of Brest, they joined forces with Joanna’s resistance and drove the French army away, recapturing territory in western Brittany.

This was just the beginning of what would be known as the War of Breton Succession: another English force was en route. The Earl of Northampton landed at Brest and set out to reclaim more territory. He advanced across Brittany and sacked the city of Vannes. With help from a Robert Artois eager to cleanse his name, the Earl defeated the French at the Battle of Morlaix on 30 September 1342. Though Robert Artois was wounded, he had balanced the scales of his reputation. He sailed back to England happy that this last encounter had ended with victory, but that happiness wouldn’t last long—he died from his wounds. Had he survived, his happiness would’ve been blunted when news arrived of the fall of Vannes to a French force commanded by “The Butcher,” a Breton soldier named Olivier de Clisson (in less than a year the Butcher would himself be butchered by the French for suspicion of having made backroom deals with the English). In October Edward arrived at Brest and marched to undo The Butcher’s handiwork. He retook Vannes and then hurriedly marched east to besiege Rennes. He hoped the city would capitulate before winter became deep-set in her ways, but he had no such luck. The siege dragged on into the new year. A French force moved to unseat him, but battle was avoided by the last minute arrival of two Avignon cardinals.

Despite the successes of the three English invasions, Edward found himself on familiar ground: he was now deeply in debt and running out of money. The English people were heavily taxed to pay for the war effort, and the wool trade—upon which English merchants relied—wasn’t doing hot, either. He had matters to attend to back home, and with a string of victories in England’s lap, he wouldn’t be going back empty handed. The Truce of Malestroit would last for two years, but it wouldn’t usher in peace. Though Edward returned to England a victor, those left to rule the English gains were faced with a threat much different—and one would argue deadlier—than the French army. Feudal customs dictated that most of France’s provincial assemblies didn’t have to pay taxes during a truce, and thus Philip had spent most of the last two years surviving off a strangled purse, and things didn’t get any better after the passing of the second truce. He tried to manipulate the coinage to make up for the losses, introducing a number of wildly unpopular taxes (the hearth tax and, later, the salt tax). Though these taxes helped keep him afloat, they were disastrous on his subjects—and their unhappiness (and the frustrations of the English garrisons) was multiplied by the routiers.

The truce meant a lot of soldiers were unemployed, and to make ends meet they banded together in free companies who roved the countryside and lived off robbing and looting. The financial depression caused by the truce and Philip’s crippling taxes moved more and more soldiers towards banditry. The routiers were the scourge of the countryside, raping, torturing, and killing as they made ends meet—or got rich. A favorite tactic of theirs was to seize castles or towns with strategic value and use them as bases for plundering surrounding areas. Like the Vikings centuries earlier, they would use up the place’s resources, gather their winnings, and move on to the next pearl-o’-plenty. Both the English and French figured that if you couldn’t beat them then join them, and the rivals hired out routiers as mercenaries and sent them against one another. Routiers weren’t just unemployed French soldiers, either: though they were mostly from Gascony, a lot came from Brittany and others from different parts of France, England, Spain, and even the German states. The men in charge of England’s continental holdings—first Oliver Ingham and then, in 1343, Nicholas de la Beche—did their best to uphold the Malestroit truce while combating the routiers in an attempt to restore peace in their newly-won territories. That the countryside was saturated with lawlessness is evident in that Nicholas de la Beche traveled the territories with an escort of forty men at arms.

a depiction of routiers ransacking a church

Back in England, Edward bolstered his forces and paid on his debt from his French invasion. Neither he nor the king of France were under any delusions—it wasn’t peace that was purchased but breathing room. That breathing room ended on 5 July 1346 when Edward set sail from Portsmouth with about 750 ships and anywhere between seven and ten thousand men. The recently-created Prince of Wales—Edward’s oldest son and claimant to the throne, Edward of Woodstock—was now 16 years old, and he crossed the Channel with his father to taste war in France for the first time. The invasion fleet landed in the Cotentin peninsula of Normandy, and Edward’s return to France has gone down in legend. The French court reporter Jean Froissart recounted the tale: “When the king of England arrived… the king issued out of his ship, and the first foot that he set on the ground, he fell so rudely, that the blood [burst] out of his nose. The knights that were about him took him up and said: ‘Sir, for God’s sake enter again into your ship, and come not [on land] this day, for this is but an evil sign for us.’ Then the king answered quickly and said… ‘This is a good token for me, for the land desireth to have me.’”

The Chevauchee

A bloody nose wouldn’t stop the English king, and he and his army carved a swathe through Normandy. Philip gathered an army to oppose him, but Edward decided to lead the French on a merry little chase. He began his chevauchee heading northward, towards the Low Countries. Though Tecumseh Sherman often gets credit for inaugurating the “scorched earth” policy of total war, he was just borrowing it from the ancients. Edward’s chevauchee (or, literally, “horse charge”) was designed to weaken France’s economy by disrupting her productivity—basically ravaging her without relying on sieges or toe-to-toe battles. Edward’s first stop was the French city of Caen, where the English stormed the city and engaged in vicious house-to-house street fighting.

Though the English failed to take the city’s castle, the Storming of Caen was nevertheless a success, and its sacking lasted for five days. Edward abandoned the ravaged city and continued cutting his way through French territory. His supplies began running low, and his best bet was to reach the sea where he could get provisions. But by this point he was deep in enemy territory and wedged between the Seine and Somme rivers. The French knew where he was and had stationed heavy guards at all the crossings. Edward had to break through the Somme to reach the Atlantic, but in order to do so he would have to find a way to get across the river without exposing himself to the enemy. River crossings are notoriously dangerous, especially to soldiers who could drown under their heavy armor. With his army wearing thin, he desperately probed for a way across the Somme. His attempts to cross were repelled, but his luck turned when he received information—from either a French captive or a local is unknown—of a lightly guarded ford just miles away. The ford was named Blanchetaque for the white stones lining the riverbed, and on 24 August 1346 Edward’s army battered its way through the French guardsmen in the Battle of Blanchetaque. Now that he was on the right side of the river, Edward tried hurrying his men to reach the sea before the French caught up with them. But Philip was fresh and provisioned, and Edward found himself outmaneuvered. He had no choice but to turn and fight. He positioned his forces for the inevitable battle near the town of Crecy in northern France. The ensuing Battle of Crecy (26 August 1346) would become one of England’s three greatest successes in the Hundred Years War.

The Storming of Caen