The Edwardian War (Part Two)

The Battle of Crecy– The Siege of Calais – The Battle of Neville’s Cross – The Black Death – The Battle of Poitiers – A King in Captivity – The Restoration of the Angevin Empire – The Jacquerie – The Treaty of Bretigny

The Black Prince

Having decided to turn and fight, Edward spread his forces along the top of a ridge between the villages of Crecy and Wadicourt. He set his command post at a windmill on the highest point of the ridge. His forces were greatly outnumbered by the French, whose army may have been as large as 80,000 men all told. Edward had around 4000 knights, 7000 Welsh and English archers, and 5000 Welsh and Irish spearmen, along with scattered mercenary bands from Brittany, Flanders, and the Holy Roman Empire. Edward would rely on his longbowmen, knights, and men-at-arms during the battle; the spearmen were more a disorderly mob than a lethal fighting force, lacking discipline and professionalism, and were ill-suited for the complex maneuvering and determination required on the battlefield. Their main function in the campaign was to ransack the countryside in Edward’s chevauchees, and they were excellent at pillaging and murdering the injured in the wake of battle. Edward positioned the reserve behind the windmill, and the baggage train was parked behind the reserve; he ordered the wagons wheeled into a circle with only one entrance, and in the middle he pastured the knights’ horses, whom he ordered to dismount. Before him the dismounted knights and men-at-arms were stationed behind a ragged line of longbowmen. The longbowmen dug pits in front of them to make French horses stumble, and they drove caltrops (spikes) into the ground to splinter any cavalry charges. Edward’s left wing was commanded by the Earl of Northampton, and the right—situated slightly forward down the slope, and thus in position to be the first attacked by the French—was put under the command of his son, Edward of Woodstock, the Prince of Wales (Edward of Woodstock would be known as “The Black Prince” in the annals of history, possibly because of the tarnished color of his armor, but because he didn’t receive that nickname until after his death, he will not be called that here). The Prince of Wales would be assisted by the earls of Oxford and Warwick, and Sir John Chandos. Having entrenched, King Edward ordered his men to rest before the inevitable attack.

Philip VI led contingents of French, Bohemians, Flemings, Germans, Savoyards, and Luxemburgers. The numbers of his army are unknown, though conservative estimates begin around 20,000 and liberal estimates reach as far as four times that number. His foot soldiers were complemented by a strong cavalry, for the French at this time still relied on the classic feudal tactic of well-armored knights smashing enemy formations to bits before hammering it out in face-to-face combat. Also on his roster were some 6000 mercenary Genoese crossbowmen. As the French approached the English, French scouts surveyed the English position. Because it was late in the day, they recommended that Philip encamp and wait until the next morning to give battle, for then the men would be fresh and rested. Philip agreed, but his top commanders were eager to win glory, and they didn’t want to wait. Philip found it difficult to corral them, and they decided to go ahead with the battle. Philip could do little more than concede and try to keep things together. The Genoese crossbowmen formed the van, commanded by Antonio Doria and Carlo Grimaldi. Behind them was a division of knights and men-at-arms, among them the blind King John of Bohemia; he was accompanied by two of his knights, their horses strapped to either side of the Bohemian king’s mount. A second division of knights and men-at-arms followed behind them, and then was the rearguard commanded by King Philip. Herein lies the order at which the French marched to their deaths.

The French storm the English lines

Late in the day, at around 4PM, the Genoese crossbowmen began marching towards the English entrenched along the ridge. The crossbowmen left their pavises (crossbow shields) behind; because pavises were used to hide behind when reloading crossbows, the crossbowmen would have no protection against the English arrows. Making matters worse for them, a sudden rainstorm blanketed both of the armies. The English archers hastily removed their bowstrings and kept them dry under their jackets and hats, but the Genoese crossbowmen couldn’t take such care of their burdensome crossbows. The rains shifted, and the crossbowmen, exposed yet again to the sun, continued their advance, whooping and shouting. Once the English were within range, the crossbowmen loosed their bolts—but the rain had weakened their strings, and the bolts fell short. The longbowmen didn’t have this problem: they re-stringed their bows and began their customary slaughter. The French chronicler Jean Froissart tells us, “The English archers each stepped forth one pace, drew the bowstring to his ear, and let their arrows fly; so wholly and so thick that it seemed as snow.” The barrage inflicted severe casualties on the unshielded crossbowmen, and it wasn’t long before they panicked and broke, routing en masse towards the French knights preparing for their charge against the English lines. The knights, disgusted with the cowardice—and, as they saw it, treachery—of the retreating crossbowmen, didn’t wait for them to pass before charging the English lines. They charged forward, stampeding the crossbowmen into the muddied earth, and continued on their way towards the dismounted knights and men-at-arms positioned along the ridge.

Thus the cavalry charged into a hell-storm of arrows. Though their plate armor offered some protection, at least until they closed to 20 meters at which point the English arrows could penetrate even plate armor, the arrows peppered their horses and brought their mounts crashing down. As they drew nearer to the slope, the arrows did nasty work, and their charge ran ragged, losing impetus. Making it even more difficult was the fact that the terrain had been made muddy and slippery in the sudden thunderstorm, and as the horses reached the ridge’s slope, they were slowed down, losing traction. Still they plowed forward, the horses whinnying and pierced by arrows. Now the arrows could pierce plate armor, and knights toppled shrieking to the ground, only to be trampled by those behind them. The Prince of Wales, in the right wing, prepared to meet the charge, and the archers stationed before them retreated through their ranks, took up position behind them, and continued their relentless barrage, firing over the heads of the English men-at-arms so that the arrows plunged into the onrushing cavalry. Before they could reach the dismounted English, the French horses had to navigate the pits and caltrops: the spikes made the French formation even more ragged, and horses that failed to avoid the pits crashed down with broken legs. The field behind the French lay scattered with dead and dying men, but those lucky enough to reach the English lines lay into the English with all the ferocity they could muster.

Hand to hand combat at Crecy

The ensuing hand-to-hand combat would last for hours, well past sunset and even beyond midnight. The Prince of Wales stood his ground, and his men returned ferocity with ferocity. Adding to the chaos, Edward ordered his five primitive cannon forward, and they began hurling stone (or iron) shot into the flanks of the French knights and men-at-arms. These ribauldequin (or “ribauld” for short) were late medieval volley guns designed with a series of small-caliber iron barrels running parallel on a platform. When fired in a volley, they created a harrowing rain of shot. Soldiers referred to them as “organ guns” because of the multiple barrels’ resemblance to a pipe organ. Giovanni Villani comments on the use of the cannons at Crecy: “The English guns cast iron balls by means of fire… They made a noise like thunder and caused much loss in men and horses… [by the end of the battle,] the whole plain [leading to the ridge] was covered by men struck down by arrows and cannon balls.” Though some historians have cast doubt on the presence of cannon at Crecy, believing it was too early for the ribaulds to make a presence, the discovery of stone cannon balls on the battlefield in the 1850s lends credence to contemporary reports.

The dead and dying heaped up along the front line, and at one point a messenger hurried to King Edward by the windmill and requested that he sent aid to his son.  Seeing that the French could make little headway against the right division, Edward reputedly asked whether his son was dead or wounded. When the messenger told him that neither was the case, Edward responded, “I am confident he will repel the enemy without my help.” And turning to one of his courtiers, he added, “Let the boy win his spurs!” The Prince of Wales was doing just that, refusing to give an inch to the French knights. At one point the blind King of Bohemia charged right at the Prince of Wales’ position, but he and his helpers were struck down. The Prince of Wales, overawed at the monarch’s bravery despite his blindness, would adopt the deceased king’s emblem—three white feathers—along with his motto, “Ich Dien” (“I Serve”). The melee continued well into the night, until King Philip of France, wounded by an arrow to the jaw and having lost two mounts beneath him, decided it best to turn tail and run. He ordered the retreat just past midnight, and he rode hard for the castle of La Boyes, ashamedly leaving the Oriflamme, France’s sacred royal banner, in the hands of the English (this was one of only five times the Oriflamme was ever captured). At La Boyes, a sentry on the wall demanded to know who was banging on the door, and the King called out, bitterly, “Here is the fortune of France!” The king was let inside to safety, but most of his army suffered a worse fate.

Those French soldiers who could flee did so, but many were too wounded to follow or trapped beneath fallen horses. Though the English soldiers wanted to give chase, Edward wisely held them back; they would remain entrenched on the slope among the dead and dying throughout the night and into the next day. Come sunrise the Welsh and Irish spearmen did what they did best: they pillaged the battlefield and murdered any wounded Frenchmen who looked too poor to fetch a ransom worth any trouble. The English had taken eighty French standards and displayed them in triumph along the ridge; French country folk, seeing the standards flying and believing that the French had been victorious, hurried to Crecy to praise the soldiers and celebrate victory. They learned the truth too late, as Edward’s blood-drunk spearmen robbed and murdered them in droves. The Battle of Crecy, a stunning and crippling defeat for the French, had cost Philip around 30,000 men, including the blind King John of Bohemia, the King of Majorca, the Duke of Lorraine, ten counts, and three archbishops. The English casualties were trifling.

The Siege of Calais

With the remnants of Philip’s army in tatters, Edward marched unopposed to the walled French port city of Calais. Edward had set his eyes on Calais because his army needed supplies and reinforcements, and in order to receive them they needed a defensible port from which they could be supplied across the Channel. Calais fit the bill: it had a moat, massive walls, and the northwest citadel had its own moat and walls for further defense. The siege began on September 4^th, and Philip VI—lacking men and money after Crecy—lacked the ability to relieve the city. In November Edward’s army received much needed cannon, catapults, and ladders that could be used to scale the city’s walls, but this combination of tactics and weaponry wasn’t enough to bring Calais into English hands. The people of Calais refused to give up the city, even after the English navy blockaded her port. By June of 1347 Calais’ food and water had nearly run out, and in order to stretch what provisions they had, the leaders of Calais forced five hundred children and elderly from the city. Some chroniclers tell us that Edward refused to let the refugees pass through the English lines, confining them to misery and starvation in the “dead zone” between the English and the city walls. Perhaps Edward hoped that those remaining in the city would be moved by compassion to capitulate. However, other chroniclers tell us that Edward was gracious towards the refugees, granting them free passage, feeding them, and even giving each and every one of them a small gift of money to help them rebuild their lives. Calais held out for another two months, and in August the city’s leaders lit signal fires informing Edward that they were ready to surrender. Legend has it that Edward, knowing their plight, sent a messenger informing the people of Calais that he would accept their surrender only if six citizens volunteered to give up the keys to the city gates—and their lives. Six volunteers, ready to sacrifice their lives for the survival of their friends and family, strode out of the city gate and presented Edward with the keys—and their necks. But Edward’s counselors advised him to allow the volunteers to live, and he did so. Thus the city fell to the English, and it would serve as a base for which Edward could refit his army and from which he could launch raids and campaigns into France without risking invasions by sea. Calais would remain in English hands for over two centuries until it was retaken by the French in 1558 during one of their many wars with the Italian city-states (the English port was seized in order to prevent the English from launching an army against the weakened French nation).

While Edward and his army were laying down for a long siege against Calais in October 1436, the Scots under King David II decided to capitalize on Edward’s absence (and the absence of his most professional fighting men) by launching an invasion of northern England. They were duty bound by the Auld Alliance to support the French, and an invasion of England fit that responsibility; besides, the 22-year-old David II had a bone to pick with Edward, who had supported Edward Balliol’s usurpation of his throne when he was but a toddler. He invaded northern England on 7 October with 12,000 men. His goal was Durham and Yorkshire, but he was determined to seize English towns and raze the countryside all along his march. He seized Liddesdale but bypassed Carlisle when the city leaders paid him a protection ransom. When his forces reached Hexham they burned the priory, wasting valuable time—and unbeknownst to them, the English were marching to meet them. Upon receiving word of the Scottish incursion, the Archbishop of York threw together a ragtag force of 3000-4000 men from Cumberland, Northumberland, and Lancashire, with another 3000 slated to join them. Because most of England’s able-bodied fighting men were besieging Calais across the Channel, the Archbishop couldn’t raise anymore men. On 14 October, when the Scots were pillaging the Hexham priory, the Archbishop, restless and impatient, decided not to wait for his Yorkshire reinforcements and made a hurried march to confront David II. On 16 October the Scots encamped at the village of Beaurepaire (modern Bearpark). On the morning of the 17^th, William Douglas, leading a contingent of 500 men, went on a raiding expedition into the nearby countryside. The morning was foggy, so he didn’t realize how close the English were until it was too late. His small force, outnumbered eight to one, suffered more than fifty percent casualties, losing 300 men, before Douglas could extricate himself. He made a mad dash to the encampment at Bearpark, rousing the sleeping Scots from their blankets and waking David II. He informed the Scottish king of the English whereabouts, and David ordered his camp to get ready for battle. About this time two black-robed monks arrived from Durham to discuss a ransom, but David, believing them to be spies, ordered them beheaded (they were able to escape in the camp’s chaos). David got his army together and marched them to the high ground at Neville’s cross, the site of an Anglo-Saxon stone cross, and prepared his men to face the English.

The Battle of Neville's Cross

The English, with the walled city of Durham behind them, marched towards the Scottish position. The Archbishop’s force, around 4000, was outnumbered three to one by the Scottish host. Both armies divided themselves into three battalions. The English battalions were led, respectively, by Sir Henry Percy, Sir Thomas Rokeby, and the Archbishop of York. David II took command of the second battalion, the Earl of Moray was placed over the first, and the Earl of March was given command of the third. David had offered March the honorable command of the first division, but March, for reasons known only to him and a few others, declined; thus Moray was given the place of honor, and March was placed over the reserves. With their defeats at Dupplin Moor and Halidon Hill fresh in their minds, the Scots determined to take a defensive stance and wait for the English to come to them; but the Archbishop, knowing that the impetus lie with the Scots, decided not to charge. It was the Scots who wanted Durham; they would have to come and take it. The two armies stared across the field at each other for hours until, in the late afternoon, the irritated Archbishop decided to try and provoke the Scots to attack. He ordered the longbowmen forward, and they unleashed several volleys on the Scottish ranks. The Scots, peppered with arrows and enraged, charged at the English position—and the longbowmen kept up their fire, withering their charge and making it ragged. By the time the Scots reached the English front line, their charge had been so disheveled that the outnumbered men-at-arms were able to stand their ground. For hours the opposing armies were locked in fierce hand-to-hand combat, with the longbowmen showering their arrows into the Scottish morass.

It became clear that the battle favored the English, and Robert Stewart, the nephew of David II and heir-apparent to the throne, decided to cut his losses and run—leaving David alone. He and the Earl of March fled the battle, leaving the Scottish king to fend for himself. March’s refusal to command the first battalion, coupled with his subsequent rout with the heir to the throne, smacked of treachery; it’s no small wonder, then, that the Lanercrost chronicler describes his flight this way: “If one was worthless, the other was nothing… The Steward was overwhelmed by cowardice, broke his promise to God that he would never wait for the first blow in battle, and he fled with [the Earl of March]. Turning their backs, these two fled valiantly with their force and entered Scotland unscathed, and so they led the dance, leaving David to his own tune.” Though abandoned, David kept up a valiant fight for three hours until his army broke and fled, leaving him and his bodyguard surrounded by the English. Knowing his fate was sealed, David ordered his guard to lay down their arms, and he submitted to the English as their prisoner. He was imprisoned in the Tower of London and would spend over a decade in English captivity. He would be transferred to Windsor Castle upon Edward’s return from France, and then he would be shipped to Odiham Castle in Hampshire to serve out the duration of his imprisonment. He would be released in 1357 when the Scottish regency council agreed to pay 100,000 marks (10,000 a year) for his release. By capturing David II at the Battle of Neville’s Cross, the English guaranteed a secure border for the duration of the monarch’s imprisonment; and upon being freed, David spent the rest of his reign trying to make peace with England rather than war. France’s hopes of a solid ally in Scotland were dashed to pieces on the field by the old Anglo-Saxon stone cross.

an artistic portrayal of the Black Death

By the end of summer 1347, England had tasted a string of victories against the French and the Scottish. English pride soared, Edward’s popularity skyrocketed, and it seemed like a Golden Age was on the doorstep. This elation would be broken, however, by an enemy no one had foreseen; indeed, it was an enemy no one could see, for the microscope had yet to be invented. This enemy was a bacterium called Bacillus pestis (though DNA tests on human remains conducted between 2010 and 2011 suggest that the bacterium may have been Yersinia pestis, which could manifest itself in various forms of plague). The so-called Black Plague raised its head in western Europe in 1348, and it would continue to devastate Europe up through the 15^th century. This wasn’t the first time, however, that the Plague made an appearance: it had struck the Mediterranean and western Europe in AD 542, during the reign of Justinian the Great in the Byzantine Empire, and it would make another major landfall in 1665 in the aptly-named Great Plague of London. The effect of the 14^th and 15^th century Black Plague on Europe’s overall population and economy cannot be overstated; almost every region in Europe shows a drastic population decline (Provence in southern France shrank to a third of its former size; England’s population of around 3.7 million people in 1347 bellied out at 2.2 million by 1377, over a mere thirty year period). France by 1328 may have reached fifteen million people, but it wouldn’t reach this population again for another two hundred years. Historians estimate that Europe altogether in 1450 likely had no more than half (or even a third!) of the population it’d enjoyed in 1300; Europe’s population wouldn’t begin to right itself until the tail-end of the 15^th century. And this was all because of a bacterium.

Before reaching western Europe, the Black Plague spread along the caravan routes of central Asia to arrive at ports in the Black Sea. In 1347 a merchant ship from Caffa picked up the plague (which was thriving in fleas on rats) and traveled to Messina in Sicily. The Plague consumed Messina and began leapfrogging throughout Europe. Because medieval doctors didn’t know the cause of the Plague, all they could do was stitch up the bubos (swellings in the lymph nodes) and offer comfort. Priests and physicians who tended to the sick often died themselves. Clueless as to the cause of the sickness that was empting towns, eradicating entire families, and bringing civilization to its knees, grief-stricken Europeans sought scapegoats: many believed the Jews had poisoned their wells, and others—known as Flagelants—believed this was the wrath of God washing over mankind, and they beat themselves with whips to do penance before the Almighty. Eventually people realized that the plague spread city to city, and many cities closed their doors to foot-traffic and merchants. Those secluded in the countryside fared far better than those living cramped and unsanitary lifestyles in the crowded urban centers.

Death and Distress during the Black Plague

The Plague took a variety of forms. The most common was the Bubonic Plague. Though normally a disease of rodents, the Bubonic Plague spread to humans via flea bites: fleas picked up the bacterium on rats, and when the fleas bit humans, the bacterium rooted in a new host. Bubonic Plague has an incubation period of about two to ten days, and its classic symptoms include chills, high fever, a nasty headache, and vomiting. But those are just the first symptoms: next come swellings of the lymph nodes in the groin (bubos) and blood clotting under the skin (from whence came its trademark name, The Black Death). Bubonic Plague, if untreated by modern medicine, has a death rate of about ninety percent. Another form was Pneumonic Plague, which is human-to-human spread of the bacterium passed by droplets in the air. Compared to Bubonic Plague, Pneumonic Plague is quicker and bubos may not form before the bacterium travels through the bloodstream to the lungs, causing pneumonia and death within three to four days. Though Bubonic Plague gets the most fanfare in medieval sources, modern physicians believe Pneumatic Plague was probably the main killer; it could spread through coughing and had close to a one hundred percent mortality rate. A third form of Plague, the Septicaemic Plague, happens when the bacteria enters the bloodstream directly rather than through the lymphatic system. This type of Plague, like Bubonic, is spread by flea bites, and has the same death rate as Pneumonic Plague.

In 1348 the Black Death rampaged through western Europe, devastating France and leaping across the Channel into England. Leaving a garrison in the newly-won port of Calais, Edward returned to the island to try and keep the government intact. More than a third of England’s population would be wiped out over the next several years, but Edward—with the help of trusted and brilliant advisors—was able to keep the government functioning and the people fed. As English farmers died in droves, food shortages became widespread, and food prices soared. The big landowners, having lost much of their workforce, struggled to stay afloat—and since they weren’t putting out as much food as usual, those who survived the Black Plague faced starvation. Edward and parliament worked together to regulate wages, enabling people to take care of themselves, with the Ordinance of Labourers in 1349 and the Statute of Labourers in 1351. Though the Black Plague decimated England, the government stayed afloat, and when the Plague receded, nation-wide recovery was swift. The war against France was, by necessity, put on hold, but there wasn’t much risk in that: Philip faced the Plague in his own country, and France was doing just as bad, if not worse, than their rival across the Channel. During the years of the plague, in 1350, Philip VI died, and the French throne passed to his son John.

The Great Raid of 1355

By the 1350s England was able to go to war again. King Edward wouldn’t lead the next campaign; he entrusted it to his son Edward of Woodstock, the Prince of Wales, who had proved himself at Crecy in 1346. In 1355 the Prince of Wales gathered an army in English-owned Gascony and launched a chevauchee into France. His goal, like his father’s, was to terrorize the French people; discredit the new King of France, John II, by showcasing his inability to protect his people from English raids; and to drain the already-depleted French treasury. An observer of the Prince’s chevauchee tells us that “as he rode to Toulouse there was no town that he did not lay waste.” His chevauchee has gone down in history as “The Great Raid of 1355,” and he laid waste to French towns in the Aquitaine-Languedoc region. His success is seen by the crippling effect it had on the French economy. He raided again in 1356, much to the same effect, but this time the French king, whose army far outnumbered that of the Prince, was determined to beat him. John II, well aware of his father’s decimation at Crecy, vowed to return to France the glory she had lost on that bitter battlefield. The Prince of Wales, knowing that he was outnumbered and that his men were short on provisions and exhausted from the chevauchee, made a dash for the sea, where he could find transport to Calais. But John II, whose army was fresh, caught up with him before he could make good his escape. Cornered, the Prince of Wales tried to negotiate with the French king, offering to abandon all their booty and forge a seven-year-truce. John II would have none of it: he wanted vengeance for all the noble French who had died at the Prince’s hands. With his back against a wall, Edward of Woodstock turned to fight—and the ensuing Battle of Poitiers on 19 September 1356 solidified the Prince of Wales’ place in the annals of history.

Prince Edward—with 2000 longbowmen, 1000 Gascon infantry, and 3000 men-at-arms—arranged his army among the hedges and orchards in front of the forest of Nouallie. He placed the front line of longbowmen behind a thick hedge to protect them from John II’s cavalry. John’s army, composed of mostly French soldiers with a large contingent of Scottish allies and a spattering of German knights, numbered nearly twice that of the Prince of Wales: he had 8000 men-at-arms and 3000 infantry. The main bulk of his army, about 20,000 men, had been left behind; the king had abandoned them so as not to impede his chase after the Prince of Wales. He arranged his army into three divisions: the first division was led by the Dauphin Charles, the second by the Duke of Orleans, and the third (and largest) by King John himself. The Earl of Douglas, leading the Scottish contingents in the French army, advised the king to deliver his attack on foot. Horses, Douglas knew, were particularly exposed to arrows, and who could forget the tragedy of France’s cavalry at the Battle of Crecy? John concurred, leaving his baggage behind and forming his men on foot before the English.

Hand to hand combat at Poitiers

The Prince of Wales removed his baggage train from the field, and the French, believing he was retreating, ordered the charge. 300 German knights stormed towards the English lines, but it was a disaster: most were struck down by the English arrows and men-at-arms. As the German charge fell apart, the longbowmen turned their arrows upon the French infantry following up the forlorn hope of the German knights. The Dauphin’s division, exhausted by a long march under heavy late medieval armor, fought against the English for two hours before retreating. As they retreated they passed through the advance of the Duke of Orleans; Orleans’ men, dispirited by the bloodied retreat of their predecessors, choked on their courage and turned around. The French king, hoping to stem the tide of panic, ordered the third and largest division forward. The two retreating divisions were swallowed up by the king’s division, and inspired by his presence, they turned back around to face the English yet again. As they neared the first line of the Prince’s men-at-arms, they received a rude shock: the front line seemed to break apart as the English cavalry surged through their own lines, bearing down on the weary French infantry.

The French knew that the English liked to fight on foot; knights dismounted before battle, leaving the horses for raids. The French were the ones who were supposed to charge on horseback; they’d dismounted to meet the English mettle-for-mettle, but now the roles seemed completely reversed! Stunned and stalled by the sight of the English cavalry bearing down on them, the men in the front of the French advance couldn’t offer any defense, and the Prince’s cavalry tore through them, raining havoc on the French foot. The Prince had decided on this course of action after seeing the Dauphin and Orleans’ men retreating; he had ordered a small force under Captal de Buch to pursue the refugees, but the Prince’s advisor, Sir John Chandos, had urged him to send that small picked force after the French king instead. Modifying that idea, the Prince ordered all his men-at-arms and knights to mount for a charge into the French lines while de Buch’s men, already mounted, advanced around the French left flank and rear. As the French closed in, the Prince ordered his counter-charge. As the French infantry broke under the English charge, de Buch’s mounted force tore into the French flank and rear. Fearing encirclement, the French army disintegrated, and most tried to flee the field. The longbowmen, out of arrows, drew their side arms and plunged into the thick of the fight. King John II and his son, Philip the Bold, were soon surrounded. The chronicler Jean Froissart reports that an exiled French knight fighting with the English approached the king and requested the king’s surrender. The King replied, “To whom shall I yield? Where is my cousin, the Prince of Wales? If I might see him, I would speak with him.” The exiled knight told him the Prince of Wales wasn’t present but that he could take him to him. The king threw down his sword and surrendered.

John II of France surrenders

The captured (and humiliated) John II was shipped to England, where he signed a truce with Edward III. In the absence of their king, the French government began to implode. John’s ransom was set at two million, but the prideful prisoner insisted he was worth more than that and had the ransom doubled. King Edward didn’t see any problem with that, and the Treaty of London 1358 set the French king’s ransom at four million. The first payment was to be made on the first of November that year, but the French defaulted, as they had their hands tied up with a peasant revolt. The Jacquerie, a commoners’ revolt spawned by the miseries resulting from the Black Plague, the ongoing war, and the criminal activities of routiers, began north of Paris and saw atrocities committed against nobles and their property. The nobles, fixated on preserving their lives and property rather than freeing their king who had gone and gotten himself captured, didn’t have time to make payments to England. The nobles banded together and defeated the rebels by the end of 1358, but discontent remained rampant throughout beleaguered France. Back in England, having not received the first installment of the ransom money, a new treaty—unoriginally dubbed the Second Treaty of London—was signed in 1359, and it allowed high-ranking French hostages to stand in place of John. Some of the hostages included two of John’s sons, a number of princes and nobles, and two citizens from each of France’s nineteen major cities. These hostages weren’t thrown in the Tower; rather, they were held in “honorable captivity,” which under chivalric code allowed them to move around English territory freely at will. Once the hostages arrived, John II returned to France to try and raise the money, but before he could make headway towards his ransom, in 1362 his son, Louis of Anjou, escaped captivity in Calais and refused to return. John, ashamed at his son’s conduct, abandoned Paris and surrendered himself to the Captain of Calais. He was shipped back to England, and he would remain a prisoner there until his death on 8 April 1364. His funeral was a lavish affair, and the English honored him as a king on par with the revered Plantagenets.

The Black Prince capitulating to God on Black Monday

The Second Treaty of London in 1359 had also cemented England’s hard-won possessions in Normandy, Brittany, Anjou, Maine, and all the coastline from Flanders to Spain—effectively resurrecting the Angevin Empire lost by Bad King John at the turn of the 13^th century. Having secured his gains, and with the French king no longer a sizeable threat, Edward III hoped to take advantage of the widespread unhappiness in France with another campaign. In 1359 he gathered his army in Calais and moved on the city of Rheims, France’s classic coronation city; but the city was well garrisoned and defended with stout walls, and Edward abandoned the siege after five weeks. He marched towards the capital of France, but though he sacked Paris’ suburbs, he couldn’t take the city. By that point his army was short on provisions and disheartened: they were suffering harassment from French guerilla fighters, and disease was cutting swathes through his companies. Edward decided to abandon Paris and moved on to another key French city, Chartres. He and his ten thousand men reached the city on Easter Monday, 13 April 1360. Chartres’ outnumbered defenders refused to give battle, bunkering down behind their fortifications. Edward ordered his army to make camp on an exposed plain outside the city, and that night his army suffered its worst defeat in the whole campaign—and this, like the Black Plague, was by an enemy of nature. Come nightfall a nightmarish storm swept over them. Lightning struck and killed numerous soldiers; huge hailstones fell, scattering the horses and terrifying the men; tents were ripped apart by the fierce winds, and the baggage train was overturned. The temperature plummeted, and freezing rain blanketed the troops. An eyewitness reported that it was “a foul day, full of mist and hail, so that men died on horseback.” By the time the storm had moved on, nearly 600 horses and a tenth of the army—1000 men—had been killed by the lightning, the hail, the cold, and the chaos. Edward shared the conviction of many of his men: the freak hailstorm was nothing less than a sign from God against his campaign. Rumor has it that at the tail-end of the hailstorm, he got off his horse, knelt before the gates of Chartres in the freezing rain, and recited a vow of peace and promised God that he would negotiate peace with the French.

Edward kept his promise to God. The heir to the English throne sought counsel with the Dauphin, the heir to the French throne, and representatives of the two monarchs met at the town of Bretigny and, within a mere week, drafted a treaty to cease hostilities. The Treaty of Bretigny would be ratified by King Edward III of England and King John II of France on 24 October 1360. Edward renounced his claim to the French crown and received full sovereign rights over Aquitaine and Calais.

The Edwardian War had come to a close…

But the Hundred Years’ War was far from over.