5

THE HUNDRED YEARS WAR

PART ONE

THE BEST ONE-PARAGRAPH summary of the Hundred Years War is by Eric Christiansen, a British historian with a dry but rapier-sharp wit:

The Hundred Years’ War was a series of wars conducted from 1339 to 1453 on many different levels, which were rarely combined into one conflict. At the top, kings of England, France and Castille locked horns over claims ranging from possession of one tenth of the French kingdom to the whole of it. At the bottom, teenage thugs beat the brains out of villagers for the sake of a mule and a change of clothes. That was not a pretty sight; but knights and ladies at the top did their best, with tournaments, feasts, festivals, and processions to make their wars look good whenever they could. The contrast has not been ignored by historians and novelists, and will presumably always horrify those who believe that cruelty and civilization are incompatible.

Christiansen’s elegant and funny review of Jonathan Sumption’s The Hundred Years War, volume 2, will delight those who appreciate traditional narratives. The war, as irrational as it was, was an important event and mercenaries were central to its beginnings, its tragic twists and turns, and to its two anti-climactic conclusions.

ORIGINS OF THE WAR

England was in disorder when Edward III became king. His father Edward II (1307–27) had enemies who claimed that he was incompetent as a warrior, an administrator and as a husband. Rumours had swirled around his sexual orientation, which in the England of those days mattered. Edward II had relied on the Despenser family for advice and more personal services, but their policies had not been successful. His unhappy wife, Isabella, had gone back to France, raised a mercenary army, and with the help of her lover, Roger Mortimer, had invaded England. She smothered her husband (malicious rumour had described a more imaginative fate – a white-hot poker in the rectum) and then crowned her teenaged son.

Meanwhile, France was on the move, continuing a long-term policy of whittling away at English possessions in Gascony, the German states to the east, Flanders to the north and Brittany in the west. The war in Flanders especially worried the English, since that could affect the English trade in wool. Also the French king had supported the Scots in their wars with Edward II, occasionally attempting to send his incomparably trained and equipped knights to support them. Since French aid to the Scots might prove fatal to the English monarchy, Edward III’s advisors suggested that his French cousin might benefit from a reminder that France had problem neighbours, too.

This sounded good, but in reality Edward III had little with which to counter French encouragement of the Scots. To be sure, three French kings having died in short order, their sister, Edward’s mother, had a stronger claim to the French crown than her uncle, Philippe VI of Valois (1328–50), who had been passed over earlier as lacking the talents necessary for a monarch. Philippe bargained away royal prerogatives in return for his vassals’ support; then he relied on extending the Salic Law (against a woman governing) to her son. Under less tense circumstances this exclusion would have been relatively unimportant. But at this moment, youthful Edward III seized whatever weapon was at hand – if he could defend his French possessions only by claiming all of France, he would claim everything necessary. Later he would even try to be elected Holy Roman emperor.

Alas for Edward, he had few means of supporting his legalistic quibble. In point of fact, he could not put nearly as many knights into the field as Philippe. In theory, every able-bodied man in England between sixteen and sixty was to present himself for military service, but in practice royal commissioners, usually local knights, would enlist troops according to the categories needed – so many archers, so many spearmen, so many knights. This was, in Sumption’s words, ‘taxation in kind’, but since the draft fell on so few men, it was not unpopular – moreover, ‘some probably relished the chance of wages and plunder’. Local communities paid for their immediate expenses, but the king provided pay on campaign. One result of this system was a higher percentage of infantry than was common in France, and a higher quality of foot soldier. Many of the newly recruited knights and soldiers lacked experience in war, but an even great problem was the lack of strategic vision and proper tactics.

These all came to Edward III in his wars with Scotland. In a few years he would transform a nation despised for producing feeble warriors into a mighty military machine. But that could not be imagined when the Hundred Years War began.

France was meanwhile undergoing strains far more severe than contemporary observers noticed. Neighbours were fearful and jealous, royal authority was diminished by the system of relying on powerful vassals to carry out policy, and the economy was depressed by taxes and inept royal policies. The king’s armies were large, but paying the troops was not easy. Despite high taxes, little money made its way into the king’s treasury – much went to ecclesiastical lords, relatives and the pockets of government officials; and the rich cities of Flanders had managed to drive away both the king’s tax collectors and his armies. Efforts to raise money from the king’s remaining subjects were unpopular and only temporarily effective.

The technical reason for war was Edward’s refusal to do homage for Gascony (Aquitaine, Guyenne and other lands). As Edward’s mother put it, the son of a king does not bow to the son of a count and promise to ‘be his man’. This was the opinion of the well-informed Florentine chronicler, Villani, who noted Edward’s refusal to go through the ritual of handing over his lands to his lord, then receiving them back as a generous gift. But Villani added a more important motive: the French desire to take Gascony and all the English possessions.

At the end of 1330 Philippe had learned that Edward had just overthrown his mother’s government and executed her lover. This was a moment of opportunity – it might take years for Edward to put England back into order. A French army immediately invaded Gascony.

Initially Edward chose to resist indirectly. By giving aid to the count of Flanders and the Flemish cities, and hiring at great expense a host of German lords, he could keep the French army tied down in the north. But eventually he had to come to the Continent himself.

In 1339 King Philippe attempted to make the English monarch similarly look to homeland defence. His Norman subjects were eager to attack their English rivals in fishing and trade, but they lacked ships. Philippe hired an impressive Italian fleet, hoping that the threat of an invasion could force Edward to station so many knights and infantry at the port cities that his army on the Continent would be weakened. Froissart recounted the subsequent events:

King Edward was obliged to remain at Vilvorde, where he maintained daily, at his own cost, full sixteen hundred men-at-arms, that had come there from beyond sea, and ten thousand archers, without counting the other followers of his army. This must have been a heavy expense; not including the large sums he had given to the German lords, who thus paid him back by fair promises; and the great force he was obliged to keep at sea against the Genoese, Bretons, Normans, Picards, and Spaniards … to guard the straits and passages between England and France; and these corsairs only waited for information of the war being commenced, and the English king, having challenged the king of France as they supposed he would, to invade England and ravage the country.

The great naval battle at Sluys, 1340, reduced the threat considerably. The French lost so many men (perhaps 18,000) and ships, that they had to hire Spanish vessels and sailors in order to harass the long English maritime lines of communication with Gascony.

SCOTLAND

Edward had many foreign volunteers for his wars with Scotland. Sumption suggests that a principal attraction was chivalry. Certainly Edward could not offer high wages and Scotland was too poor for profitable looting. But professional warriors like Walter Manny fought in these conflicts and eventually settled down in England, basking in their high reputation and the considerable fortunes they had made in the king’s service. Hainault (a French speaking region north of France, the home of Edward’s queen) provided many knights, but also Holland, Brabant, Germany and even France. There was always some booty to be taken from defeated foes, and ransoms – even from Scots – could be considerable.

Edward’s strategy was to move swiftly and strike hard, using his superior numbers and weaponry effectively. In practice, it was less glorious than it sounded – it meant mounting many of his infantry on cheap horses and living off the land. It was also necessary to hold the Scottish ports, so that French reinforcements could not unload their warhorses safely.

English tactics had proven effective in past encounters with Scots – who often showed more enthusiasm than good sense. In general the English sought to present a line of spearmen on a narrow front, supported by dismounted knights, with archers to the flanks. The Scots would charge, only to be cut down in rows by the hail of arrows. The English, famed for holding their ranks against the fiercest assaults, would eventually drive the demoralised Scots in wild flight from the field. The result was decisive victories at relatively low cost. Or the Scots would break through, routing their numerically superior foe.

In general the Scots preferred to avoid combat, relying on the English inability to occupy the entire country. Then, when the English armies went home, they would retake the castles and cities. It was a strategy of poverty and patience, but it worked often enough. English efforts to stifle these revolts by pre-emptive slaughters of potential enemies only made the clan coalitions stronger and more determined.

Meanwhile, Edward was running out of money. Creditors were wary of loaning him funds for war except when jewels (even the crown!) and hostages were given in pawn.

BRITTANY

Brittany, in Barbara Tuchman’s words, was France’s Scotland. King Philippe could not ignore the disputed inheritance there any more than Edward could his northern neighbour. Great heroism and great tragedies marked this war, and England and France poured huge sums into efforts to prevail. The cost of defeat was too high – 1066 proved that – not to do everything necessary for victory.

Froissart was more concerned with acts of courage and initiative than with money, though he understood fully that these were all connected. Froissart was also relatively gender-neutral in assessing courage and tenacity. In 1342, when Jeanne of Flanders, duchess of Brittany, was hard pressed by French forces which held her husband prisoner, he related this story:

I wish now to return to the countess of Montfort, who possessed the courage of a man, and the heart of a lion. She was in the city of Rennes when she heard of the seizure of her lord; and, notwithstanding the great grief she had at heart, she did all she could to comfort and reanimate her friends and soldiers; showing them a young child, called John, after his father, she said, ‘Oh, gentlemen, do not be cast down by what we have suffered through the loss of my lord; he was but one man. Look at my little child, here; if it please God, he shall be his restorer, and shall do you much service. I have plenty of wealth, which I will distribute among you, and will seek out for such a leader, as may give you a proper confidence.’ When the countess had, by these means, encouraged her friends and soldiers at Rennes, she visited all the other towns and fortresses, taking her young son John with her. She addressed and encouraged them in the same manner as she had done at Rennes. She strengthened her garrisons both with men and provisions, paid handsomely for everything, and gave largely wherever she thought it would have a good effect. She then went to Hennebon, near the sea, where she and her son remained all that winter; frequently visiting her garrisons, who she encouraged, and paid liberally.

Her logical alliance was with England. Unless her fishermen could set out in their vessels and her merchants sell the catch, she could not pay anyone to fight for her. English vessels plying the seas often came across her defenceless fishermen. Only Edward could offer her seamen protection.

Froissart wrote a thrilling narration of her resistance to the French invasion:

The countess, who had clothed herself in armor, was mounted on a war-horse, and galloped up and down the streets of the town, entreating and encouraging the inhabitants to defend themselves honorably. She ordered the ladies and other women to unpave the streets, carry the stones to the ramparts, and throw them on their enemies. She had pots of quicklime brought to her for the same purpose.

At critical moment, she sallied out at the head of her knights and broke up the attack.

King Philippe, discouraged by his lack of success in this border wars, authorised private armies to attack his enemies. However, he did not foresee that when a two-year truce was signed, the demobilised soldiers would spread across the embattled territories, some hiring out to the local lords, others forming bands and living from extortion, loot and ransom. As civil order collapsed, propagandists from each party blamed the other side for all the ills of the era.

THE BATTLE OF CRÉCY

As the truce came to an end in 1345, it was clear that the contrasting strategies were leading nowhere except mutual financial exhaustion. The courtiers of France, not impressed by their monarch, were especially snide in their insinuations that his reluctance to give battle to English forces was not prudence, but cowardice. As for Edward, he had not achieved anything more than frustrating Philippe’s efforts at expansion. Patience was running out. More daring strategies were proposed.

In 1346 Edward transported his army across the Channel to Normandy. Though the Normans were strongly anti-English and had not been ruled by Edward’s ancestors since the days of King John, he still considered them his lawful subjects. His announcement that no one in his forces should molest innocent people was, however, ignored from the beginning. Fires of burning villages lit the horizon as far the eye could stand to see; refugees clogged the roads, hurrying ahead of English marauders. Meanwhile, English ships descended on coastal towns, with orders to do as much damage as possible.

The fear that Edward’s mercenary Welsh and Irish troops inspired was shown at the surrender of Caen, when the constable of France and other leading knights expected to be massacred. Seeing an acquaintance from the crusades in Prussia, they called on him for protection – which, with a ransom also in mind, he provided. These notables were lucky. 2,500 others, less wellborn, were not.

As Edward’s plundering expedition moved toward Rouen, the French king dithered. At length, Philippe summoned the forces then employed in attacking Gascony and ordered his Genoese mercenary crossbowmen (who had expected to be employed at sea and were unhappy at not having been paid) to join him; he then gathered his army near Paris and ordered blocking forces on the north bank of the Seine to prevent the English from crossing and making their way safely to Flanders. To be certain that he had the English trapped, Philippe ordered the bridges across the river destroyed.

When Edward was within twenty miles of Paris he realised that a gigantic French army was awaiting him there. His choices were not good. It was unlikely that the French would allow him to withdraw safely to the coast and load his men aboard ships, even if sufficient shipping was available. Most likely the French would wait until the knights were boarding, then massacre them. Moreover, it was late in the season.

It was impossible for Edward to escape south to Gascony – too far and too many rivers. His only hope was Flanders. Happily for him, his men managed to build a makeshift bridge across the meandering Seine and drive away the handful of French knights at the crossing. Meanwhile, by accepting a challenge to a formal battle, Edward lured the French army south of the river, to a camp near the proposed battlefield. It was to be something like a tournament’s mêlée, only on a grander scale, and with infantry involved.

The French knights must have been thrilled. Not only were they well practised for such artificial warfare, but they were better equipped and more numerous. They celebrated their anticipated victory, probably unable to believe their good luck.

Their gullibility gave Edward a head start. He led his forces across the Seine and broke the bridge down behind him, then raced toward the Somme, which was not yet properly defended by the forces of King John of Bohemia. He was followed by the French royal army, now thoroughly enraged at the unchivalrous trickery, moving twenty-five miles a day, a killing pace, but one that closed the distance quickly. Edward feared being trapped at the Somme, caught between more numerous enemy armies, while his own men were exhausted, ill and demoralised. Turning to the coast, he found a marshy ford that his scouts managed to force; his last men crossed just as the tide rolled in to frustrate the French pursuers. The supply ships and reinforcements were not waiting, however. Edward had to make his way north overland, followed closely by the gigantic French array that was now stretching out along the narrow roads so that wagons, supplies and infantry units began lagging behind. Within a day’s march of safety, Edward found the battlefield he wanted – near the village of Crécy in Picardy; there he paused to face the French van. At least now, should the day be lost, there was a good chance that he and many of his men could escape what earlier would have been certain death or capture.

Philippe’s army arrived toward the end of the day, confident that they could finally crush their elusive prey. Once that was done, the war would be won – the English could be completely expelled from the Continent and their allies brought to heel. Philippe had perhaps 12,000 mounted warriors and 6,000 Genoese mercenaries; he had left his 20,000 or more infantry far behind on the road.

The French king had no need to commit his forces to battle immediately, but the criticism of his past caution were still ringing in his ears. No doubt his advisors were warning him against once again missing the opportunity for a decisive victory. Yet there were good grounds to delay other than to bring of the rest of the army and to fight when everyone was fresh: the English seemed to be in a desperate situation from which they could not retreat easily; also, Edward’s position was strong, so that flanking it might be better than a head-on attack; lastly, it was beginning to rain – that gave an additional advantage to defending infantry. If Philippe had announced a plan, it might have been different, but he was apparently still undecided on his tactics until the last moment, at which time some knights, without orders, moved directly against the English. He could have sent units to Edward’s rear, cut off access to food and water, and awaited his rival’s surrender at leisure. But Philippe’s vassals, already enjoying the forthcoming victory and reportedly discussing how to divide up the captives among themselves, remembered that Edward had already slipped out of two traps in this very campaign. Moreover, where would they camp? It was late in the day and the logistical situation was a mess. Better to attack now, eliminate the danger of an English sally against a disorganised, half-erected camp, and worry about supper later. With overwhelming numbers, better equipment, and – in spite of the forced march – more rested forces, how could the French army lose? Froissart, as usual, is an exciting guide:

The English, who were drawn up in the three divisions, and seated on the ground, on seeing their enemies advance, rose undauntedly up, and fell into their ranks. That of the prince was the first to do so, whose archers were formed in the manner of a portcullis, or harrow, and the men-at-arms in the rear …

You must know, that these kings, earls, barons and lords of France, did not advance in any regular order, but one after the other, or any way most pleasing to themselves. As soon as the king of France came in sight of the English, his blood began to boil, and he cried out to his marshals, ‘Order the Genoese forward, and begin the battle, in the name of God and St Denis.’ There were about fifteen thousand Genoese cross-bowmen; but they were quite fatigued, having marched on foot that day six leagues, completely armed, and with their cross-bows. They told the constable, they were not in a fit condition to do any great things that day in battle. The earl of Alençon, hearing this, said, ‘This is what one gets by employing such scoundrels, who fall off when there is any need for them.’ During this time a heavy rain fell, accompanied by thunder and a very terrible eclipse of the sun; and before this rain a great flight of crows hovered in the air over all those battalions, making a loud noise. Shortly afterwards it cleared up, and the sun shone very bright; but the Frenchmen had it in their faces, and the English in their backs. When the Genoese were somewhat in order, and approached the English, they set up a loud shout, in order to frighten them; but they remained quite still, and did not seem to attend to it. They then set up a second shout, and advanced a little forward; but the English never moved.

They hooted a third time, advancing with their cross-bows presented, and began to shoot. The English archers then advanced one step forward, and shot their arrows with such force and quickness, that it seemed as if it snowed. When the Genoese felt these arrows, which pierced their arms, heads, and through their armor, some of them cut the strings of their cross-bows, others flung them on the ground, and all turned about and retreated quite discomfited. The French had a large body of men-at-arms on horseback, richly dressed, to support the Genoese. The king of France, seeing them thus fall back, cried out, ‘Kill me those scoundrels; for they stop up our road, without any reason.’ You would then have seen the above-mentioned men-at-arms lay about them, killing all they could of these runaways.

So much for the expensive mercenary crossbowmen of Genoa, the best in all Europe. The Chronicle of Jean de Venette emphasised the rain. The downpour caused the Genoese crossbow strings to shrink, so that the weapons were rendered ineffective; the English archers, in contrast, had taken off their bowstrings and sheltered them under their helmets. No matter. The proud knights of France rode the Genoese down without mercy, trampling some under hooves, slashing others to death. It was the last easy killing the Frenchmen did that day. As the first line of knights approached the English lines, their horses were shot down by flights of arrows. The fallen beasts, many of which must have still been thrashing around in pain and fear, created a barrier beyond which the second line could not easily advance; other horses, perhaps panicked by the booming English cannonfire mentioned in some accounts, bolted. Knights were unhorsed, falling in heaps and unable to rise again – their mail armour was both heavy and awkward, and what might not have been a problem on the bare ground was a death sentence when a knight lay under a pile of wounded and dying men and horses. As the last attackers retreated, English bowmen and Welshmen moved agilely among the fallen, slitting throats and robbing the corpses – frustrating Edward’s hope of collecting ransoms. But the king could not supervise every part of the battlefield. He ordered his knights mounted, then charged. King Philippe fought bravely, having two horses slain under him, and was wounded in the face, but at length he realised that if he did not flee, he would be captured. He abandoned the royal banner, the standard-bearer having been slain at his side, and the sacred Oriflamme of St Denis.

Such is the traditional description of the battle. However, Crécy, like all battles, was more complicated. The French had regrouped repeatedly, each time resuming the attack. This may have been random acts of courage, such as that of the blind king of Bohemia, John, who arrived late and demanded to be led into battle. Or it may have been better coordination than we have been led to believe. Nevertheless, the outcome was the same: a massacre of the French knights.

The French, needing a scapegoat, murdered many of the surviving Genoese.

Edward laid siege to Calais and eleven months later was its master. Once Calais and Rouen were in Edward’s hands, he had Normandy as a base for attacks directly upon his French rival’s heartland.

THE BLACK DEATH

Military activities lessened in the years to follow. The French kingdom was disorganised, first by the loss of so many important nobles, then by the death of the king from natural causes. But even more significant, some think, was the impact of the plague. This epidemic began the next year, spreading from Mediterranean ports inland, striking the urban centres ferociously and rural communities only slightly less hard.

The name ‘the Black Death’ was invented only in the nineteenth century, but it was quickly adopted by popular culture in every European land until today the public accepts it without question. The fearsome ring of the phrase lends itself to the images of people fleeing infected cities, of public prayers and self-flagellation designed to attract the attention and pity of the deity, and carts filled with grotesque piles of rigid corpses. Ring Around the Rosie dates from a later epidemic, but the principle is the same: All Fall Down.

In western Europe as much as a third of the population perished within a few years. Perhaps twice that number. This had a tremendous ripple effect: famine, disruption of trade, lower tax revenues, lessened willingness to put one’s life at risk in hospitals and public service, and a growing callousness toward human life in general.

The immediate impact on the war was minimal, other than the obvious reduction in tax revenues and inflation. Sumption notes that most of the victims were the very young and the very old, so that recruiting was not affected until about 1360; also, it struck the nobility less often than other classes, so the number of knights and ambitious royals was hardly affected.

In the short term the kings of England and France hesitated to take their armies into a plague district; the chances were too good that all the soldiers could fall ill at the same time, with many of them sure to die and the rest unable to defend themselves or care for those who had been struck down – fighting would be out of the question. After a few years, however, it was noticed that no one ever caught the plague twice. Therefore, survivors could safely march through plague-ridden lands, and most likely, the number of disease-free men and women was now sufficiently great that it was difficult for the disease to spread to those who still lacked immunity. New outbreaks of the plague were terrible, but they neither occasioned the number of deaths nor the panic of the original epidemic.

THE FIRST BANDS OF ROBBERS

Edward III faced such financial problems that he could neither take advantage of French weakness nor consolidate his recent conquests; he could not even ward off the French armies that were again striking into Gascony and Flanders. The French king was equally unable to defend his lands. As a result, there was a breakdown of public order along the borders of Flanders, Brittany and Gascony.

Bands of robbers were holding towns and villages to ransom, and some English garrisons were doing the same. Pay was irregular and the captains of companies were more like independent contractors than royal officers. When an area’s resources were exhausted, they would move to places that had not yet been looted into penury.

The most famous of these commanders was Robert Knollys, who had risen from obscurity to occupy several castles in Brittany. Feared for his ruthlessness, but admired for his military and diplomatic skills, he became one of the greatest English captains. This region would produce the most fierce warriors of the next generation, among whom was the French hero, Bertrand du Guesclin.

Similar bands arose in France, most notably the giant company of Arnaud de Cervole, known widely as ‘the archpriest’ because his first career had been in the Church; expelled from his parish by the archbishop of Bordeaux (an English partisan), he enlisted in the French forces and earned fame, wealth and a good marriage.

These independent military units were called routiers. The victims referred to most of them as English because their allegiance was to Edward, but in fact many were Gascons. A favourite tactic was escalade – slipping quietly up to a town’s walls by night, placing tall ladders up to the battlements or simply clambering up like monkeys, and then, by setting fires and making noise, they would confuse and frighten the defenders into flight. They could then sack the town and escape before reinforcements could arrive. Sleepy and bored night watchmen often failed to see their approach – old walls had odd angles and suburban houses obscured the views. Defenders learned only slowly to correct these defects.

A French effort to take Calais by surprise failed when the Italian commander of the garrison, Aimeric of Pavia, agreed to open the gates in return for a large bribe, then informed Edward III. The king hurriedly crossed the channel and set a trap. The French, confident that all Italians were devious and untrustworthy, paid Aimeric the first instalment of the bribe, then, when the French royal banner appeared on the gate, hurried across the drawbridge. There they found themselves trapped – the drawbridge was raised and the portcullis lowered; meanwhile, Edward and his son, the Black Prince, sallied out against the waiting army, routing them into the sands and marshes where many drowned. First lesson: never trust anyone you believe is devious and untrustworthy. Second lesson: almost nobody in this era was anything else.

King John II (1350–64) of France, deciding that low morale among the French nobility was a major problem, created the Order of the Star. This expensive emulation of Edward III’s Order of the Garter may have contributed somewhat to his chief vassals’ willingness to engage the English in battle again.

THE BATTLE OF POITIERS

By 1356 Edward III was busy in Scotland; command on the Continent was exercised by his talented sons, Edward, the Prince of Wales (the Black Prince, so called by the French for his livery, though the term was not used in England for another 200 years), Henry of Lancaster and John of Gaunt. Their strategy was to wear the French down by long plundering raids (chevauchées) through central France.

His opponent was John II, known later as John the Good – the untalented Philippe’s untalented successor. Happy is the country whose peacetime ruler is called ‘the Good’; alas for that same country in wartime. Sumption, looking at John’s efforts to restore order to the kingdom, is highly critical of the devaluation of the currency in 1352, the simultaneous imposition of price controls and non-payment of debts, and the lavish expenditures on the ceremonies for the Order of the Star. In the short term John had enough money to raise armies, but each army went down to ignominious defeat. In the long term the economy was dislocated – and the incomes of those living from fixed rents, the Church in particular, fell dramatically. John was not a lucky monarch – Sumption summarises his policies as ‘inglorious in the north and scandalous in the south’. In 1355 he devalued the coinage eight times and in 1356 he again suspended payments on his debts. Many vassals began to murmur that he was incompetent and should be replaced; rumours of plots and treason abounded.

When John heard of the Black Prince’s raid into the rich lands along the Loire River, he had to act. He could not allow royal revenues to sink even farther, or what remained of his reputation to vanish. He certainly had men enough to defeat any ordinary feudal army.

Awkwardly, the Black Prince’s forces were not a typical feudal army – England had what amounted to a monopoly on the longbow, and by now it was a rare French army that could defeat a force of properly led English archers. It was also a rare community that did not shudder for generations after being visited by a rapacious force of sturdy islanders. Although the English prided themselves on the accomplishments of these men, which were almost always outnumbered (causing the Duke of Wellington to quip once, late in life, that the English race had deteriorated so far that ten Frenchmen could beat one Englishman). Nevertheless, by no means were all the soldiers and knights born and bred in England. Many were Gascons, English subjects from the time of Eleanor of Aquitaine almost 300 years before; others were Germans and yet others French; a few were Irish and many were Welsh.

John summoned his vassals to assemble at Chartres. He sent home the infantry units – a widely criticised move – partly because he believed that only cavalry could move swiftly enough to catch the Black Prince, partly because infantry were not effective against archers. When he set off southward, the royal array was large and encumbered with many baggage carts. Consequently, it was disorganised. The hurried march to cut off the Black Prince’s escape disorganised it more. Enthusiastic volunteers in search of chivalric adventure could not make up this deficiency.

The Black Prince was unaware of the king’s approach until he was almost upon him. He then sent messengers to search for his brother, Henry, duke of Lancaster, who, with Robert Knollys, had earlier led the king a merry chase through Normandy and was now believed to be just to the west. If they could join forces, it would be safe to offer combat – and the prudent king, according to habit, would probably retreat. However, Henry could not be located. Reluctantly, the Black Prince started south. It soon became apparent that his booty-laden wagons were moving too slowly to leave the French behind, and, rather than be overhauled, he took his column into the woods, certain that the king would hesitate to follow. Ambush would have been all too easy.

John did not worry. By staying on the roads he could easily get in front of his adversary. He could then force the Black Prince to accept combat on French terms.

After John had taken up a blocking position on the old Roman road to Bordeaux, with his prey still struggling thorough the forest, his strategic situation was much better than his father’s at Crécy. However, the king was learning how difficult it was to placate his fire-eating vassals. His men were willing to wait for the Black Prince to straggle down on to the plain, but that was all – he did not have the kind of authority that could impose an unpopular strategy on an unruly army. His vassals wanted to fight – that is, they wanted to ride the enemy down, if possible; if not, they would dismount from their horses and attack on foot – that would avoid having injured or dead mounts interfere with their advance. They obeyed the king for the moment, but they were impatient.

When the Black Prince came out of the woods and looked down the road, he saw that further movement west and then south was impossible; moving east made no sense, since that was the way back into France. Hoping for a French mistake, he took up a defensive position on a wooded slope, with vineyards and a hedge that promised to impede French horsemen in any charge; there was a steep slope and a small marsh on one flank that extended to a small river, and archers dug a deep ditch on the other. But there was no water and the food had been exhausted. The soldiers were complaining about their plight – they were tired, hungry, thirsty, and aware that they were badly outnumbered again. The Black Prince initially welcomed a cardinal sent by the pope to mediate. Hoping to escape without fighting, he offered to free all prisoners without ransom, to surrender all captured castles and towns and to sign a seven-year truce, perhaps even to surrender Calais. But he became suspicious that the prelate was attempting to drag out the negotiations until his supplies were gone. Besides, King John rejected the offer unless the prince accepted further humiliating conditions.

It was not to be. As King John conferred with his vassals, he learned that there were problems with his own supplies and that his men were losing confidence in him. The English had slipped away before. He did not want to attack head-on, but there was no way to flank the English. At least one prominent French noble spoke in favour of starving the English out. But he was hooted down. The king chose to be delighted at his men’s fighting spirit – he would attack, he promised, and attack soon. He ordered his knights to be ready to advance on foot, the hill being steep and one lesson of Crécy being that horses were easy and vulnerable targets. Another prudent measure was to dress nineteen other nobles in black and the royal insignia, thus making it more difficult for the English to concentrate their fire on him. The last moment for sober reflection vanished when scouts saw English supply wagons moving away, across the river and into another forest. The king, fearing that the English forces would follow, ordered his knights forward. That command was unnecessary – some of his commanders, seeing movement in the English ranks, had already mounted and attacked. These met the usual fate of heavy French cavalry charging English archers.

The royal strategy at Poitiers was to advance on foot in three lines. As the first line struggled through gaps in the hedges and vines, they formed protective clumps behind their shields and moved on uphill. The English archers fired into the mass of slow-moving knights from the flanks, but without causing many casualties. The decisive moment came when the heavily armoured men had struggled almost to the top of the hill, only to encounter English knights charging downhill. Many French knights, knocked into piles, were unable to get back on their feet. Meanwhile, the second line had come up. After almost two hours of fighting the French line wavered, and when the dauphin was led from the field, perhaps at the king’s orders, most of the surviving knights followed him. The king then led the third line into the battle, suffering few casualties because the archers had emptied their quivers. These were fresh men, and there was a moment when they might have broken the English line, but the king was unable to direct his men toward a weak point. As the archers threw themselves on to the tiring knights, a small band of English knights galloped in from the flank. The Black Prince, seeing the effect this was having, ordered the horses brought up, mounted as many knights as he could, and charged. The French king and his best knights were surrounded and soon surrendered. Froissart described the scene:

The prince of Wales, who was as courageous as a lion, took great delight that day to combat his enemies. Sir John Chandos, who was near his person, and had never quitted it during the whole of the day, nor stopped to make prisoners, said to him toward the end of the battle; ‘Sir, it will be proper for you to halt here, and plant your banner on the top of this bush, which will serve to rally your forces, that seem very much scattered; for I do not see any banners or pennons of the French, nor any considerable bodies able to rally against us; and you must refresh yourself a little, as I perceive you are very much heated.’ Upon this the banner of the prince was placed on a high bush: the minstrels began to play, and trumpets and clarions to do their duty. The prince took off his helmet, and the knights attendant on his person, and belonging to his chamber, were soon ready, and pitched a small pavilion of crimson color, which the prince entered. Liquor was then brought to him and the other knights who were with him: they increased every moment; for they were returning from the pursuit, and stopped there surrounded by their prisoners.

While the king was escorted to a very pleasant captivity in England, all hell was loosed on his kingdom. Robbers and kidnappers seemed to be everywhere. Though various assemblies attempted to pass regulations for reforms and new taxes, the nobles and clergy rejected the plans – and from captivity the king encouraged resistance to any new taxes.

The citizens of Paris slaughtered the royal officers in the very presence of the dauphin, peasants murdered their lords. The rebel leader, Étienne Marcel, took the dauphin captive and called the Estates-General into session; he was the de facto ruler of France until the dauphin escaped and collected followers to make war on Paris. Marcel, for his part, hired English archers and stationed them around the city, then plotted to put on the throne Charles of Navarre (Carlos the Bad, 1349–87), the husband of John’s daughter Joan. Charles of Navarre, like Edward III, had a claim on the throne from his mother and he hated the Valois family, which had thrown him into prison for various excellent reasons, including murder, until his escape in the midst of the recent administrative chaos. Charles was plausibly more capable of governing than the immature dauphin; he had experienced mercenaries from his own kingdom, and if he could acquire Champaign and Burgundy, he would be powerful indeed. Meanwhile, taxes could not be collected, troops could not be paid, and mercenaries who were dismissed by their employers struck out on their own. That is, as freebooters. As the name implies, their goal was booty and they were free men, going wherever they wished and doing whatever they wanted. Froissart, the lover of chivalry and noble gestures, described this process:

About this period, a knight, named sir Arnold de Cervole, but more commonly called the archpriest, collected a large body of men-at-arms, who came from all parts, seeing that their pay would not be continued in France, and that, since the capture of the king, there was not any probability of their gaining more in that country. They marched first into Provence, where they took many strong towns and castles, and ruined the country by their robberies as far as Avignon. Pope Innocent VI. [1352–62], who resided in Avignon, was much alarmed, as not knowing what might be the intentions of the archpriest, the leader of these forces; and, for fear of personal insult, he and the cardinals kept their household armed day and night. When the archpriest and his troops had pillaged all the country, the pope and clergy entered into treaty with him. Having received with proper security, he and the greater part of his people entered Avignon, where he was received with as much respect as if he had been son to the king of France.

The Archpriest could never have risen this high if he had remained in holy orders. He dined with the pope and his cardinals, received absolution for all his sins, and enjoyed other honours until he finally promised to lead his army away. He took 40,000 crowns from the pope to pay his men, who then dispersed to various locations.

At this time, also, there was another company of men-at-arms, or robbers, collected from all parts, who stationed themselves between the rivers Loire and Seine, so that no one dared to travel between Paris and Orleans, nor between Paris and Montargis, or even to remain in the country; the inhabitants on the plains had all fled to Paris and Orleans. This company had chosen for their leader a Welshman named Ruffin, whom they had knighted, and who acquired such immense riches as could not be counted. These companies advanced one day near to Paris, another day toward Orleans, another time to Chartres; and there was no town nor fortress but what was taken and pillaged…They rode over the country in parties of twenty, thirty, or forty, meeting with none to check their pillage; while, on the sea-coast of Normandy, there were still a greater number of English and Navarrois, plunderers, and robbers. Sir Robert Knollys was their leader, who conquered every town and castle he came to, as there was no one to oppose him. Sir Robert had followed this trade for some time, and by it gained upward of 100,000 crowns. He kept a great many soldiers in his pay; and, being very liberal, he was cheerfully followed and obeyed.

France fell into chaos. Upstart bands took control of the countryside. Peasants who had been robbed and burned out could not pay taxes, and without taxes royal officials could not hire troops to restore order. It was a cycle of increasing violence and impoverishment that would last, with several short interruptions, for years.

Most of these companies, Fowler notes in Medieval Mercenaries, organised themselves much as they had been when in royal service, but others, such as the Gascons – who supplied a disproportionate number of warriors and brigands – were more loosely organised. Many lords from the foothills of the Pyrenees brought their volunteers north.

There were oddities, Sumption notes, such as Étienne Marcel accusing the dauphin of being ineffective in fighting the English, then hiring English bowmen to hold St Denis and other strong points around Paris against him. The heir to the absent king, who was beginning to see the connections between foreign enemies, the free companies, his uncooperative vassals, the refusals to pay taxes, the peasant uprisings, the machinations of the pope and the interests of the merchants, was powerless to do more than ride the wave of patriotism that was sweeping the country. Marcel and Charles of Navarre were on the eve of a coup, after which they would murder all their enemies and declare Charles king, but the Parisians struck first. Marcel was among their first victims.

Charles of Navarre then established a base just outside Paris and sent out a call for men-at-arms. Soon mercenaries from Brabant, Germany, Hainault and Bohemia were flocking to him. Froissart says that these warriors came willingly to serve under him because he could pay them out of the fortune he had amassed thanks to his connection with the late provost. As freebooters spread across northern France, demanding food and money, they soon had the dauphin’s men confined to their castles; they were so secure that they could ride around the countryside unarmed, visiting one another, just as if France were at peace.

Eliminating these pests became a high priority for the dauphin – right after coming to some accommodation with Charles of Navarre. But he could not raise an army without money; the country had been stripped clean by the foreign locusts, and there was simply nothing left to take. The mercenaries had, without planning to do so, almost guaranteed their own safety – the lords who wanted to destroy them lacked the means to do so, and the rest wanted to hire their services.

The most common answer was to hire more mercenaries and use them to suppress the competition. This was not easily done, because the mercenaries were smart enough to see through whatever rhetoric attempted to disguise the strategy. You might use a thief to catch a thief, but it was much harder to persuade one mercenary to kill another. Still, that was the only method the royal advisors could think of. They hired mercenaries, put them under the command of the Archpriest, then gave him the task of ridding the country of freebooters. He failed miserably.

Large towns proved almost impossible for the freebooters to capture. Their armies, so formidable in the field, were too small for sieges. The technology was still ineffective, and the defenders too numerous and determined. But cities were willing to pay the companies off. Already suffering from the cost of building new walls and hiring garrisons, the ever-heavier taxes and the floods of refugees who had to be housed and fed, cities could not afford to have commerce interrupted.

This seemed to be Charles of Navarre’s strategy for taking Paris. He had stationed English troops in small forts all around the great city, all living off the countryside. The defenders eventually realised that they could capture these small forts while the garrisons were away pillaging. That prevented the companies from flitting from one undefended stronghold to another, but it did little to crush them. In 1359, when Charles of Navarre abandoned his claims to the crown, saying that he wanted to prevent the destruction of France, he was unable to persuade his troops to disperse; the bands remained in their lairs and preyed on the communities round about. Only in the Champagne region were local forces able to crush the companies and execute their leaders. Elsewhere the companies prevailed and prospered until they had stripped the country bare.

One bizarre plan to rid France of the mercenaries was to hire the king of Denmark, Waldemar IV (1340–75) to invade England and free King John; Waldemar dreamed of re-establishing Danish rule over the island kingdom, to match the empire he was trying to create in the Baltic. But the French lacked the money to pay him and Waldemar had wars sufficient to keep any monarch busy. Another plan was for the king of Hungary, Louis the Great (1342–82), to hire the free companies to fight the Turks, but that war was far away, the opportunities to collect booty would be few, and the chances of being slain great; moreover, the Germans in the Rhineland resisted the archpriest’s efforts to lead east the forces he had hired with papal and imperial money – Charles IV (1347–78), a close friend of Pope Urban V, had grand plans for strengthening imperial authority, reviving the crusades and restoring order in France. The problem was that nobody in Germany wanted the companies to pass through their lands, because the routiers might decide to ravage them rather than fight Turks. Fowler calls the entire venture ‘misconceived and badly handled’. The pope, hiding behind his stout fortifications at Avignon on the Rhône River, then tried to send the free companies into Italy, but the mercenaries considered his treasury a better prize. He was saved by local resistance along the way – but those Frenchmen had fought to protect themselves, not to save the pope.

These freebooters were often called ‘Englishmen’, as many were. But it was a thoroughly international force, as Froissart informs us:

During all this time, the king of England was making such great preparations for his expedition into France, that the like was never seen before; on which account, many barons and knights of the German Empire, who had formerly served him, exerted themselves much this year, and provided themselves handsomely in horses and equipage in the best manner they could, each according to his rank, and hastened as fast as possible, by the frontiers of Flanders, to Calais, where they remained, to wait for the king of England. It happened that the king could not come thither with his army by the time appointed, which caused such numbers to remain at Calais, that there were no lodgings for them, nor stables for their horses. In addition to this, bread, wine, hay, oats, and all sorts of provisions, were so scarce, that none could be had for money.

Thus did these mercenary Germans, Bohemians, Brabanters, Flemings, Hainaulters, both poor and rich, wait from the beginning of August until St. Luke’s day [18 October]; so that many were forced to sell the greater part of their jewels. If the king had arrived then, they would not have known where to have lodged him and his people, except in the castle, for the whole town was occupied. There was also some doubt if these lords who had spent their all, would have quitted Calais, for the king or any one else, if their expenses had not been allowed out of good-will to him, in hopes of grace and favor; others, with the expectation of gaining from the plunder of France.

One small community, Peronne, decided that it could defend itself if it could attract a competent commander with a disciplined force. Asking around whether a trustworthy Frenchman existed who was not yet engaged, they learned that Galahaut de Ribemmont was nearby. They sent him a letter offering him twenty livres per day, ten livres for each knight under his command, and for any ‘lance’ (a man-at-arms and a squire) seven livres. He set out for Peronne the next day with thirty lances, but his numbers increased along the way. Not long afterward we learn that these mercenaries had as much difficulty telling one another apart as we do. Froissart tells us:

The same morning, sir Reginald de Boullant, a German knight belonging to the duke of Lancaster’s division, had rode forth since daybreak, and, having made a large circuit without seeing any one, had halted at that spot. The two squires, being come thither, imagined they might be some persons of the country, who had placed themselves there in ambuscade, and rode so near that each party saw the other. The two Frenchmen, therefore, consulted together, and said, ‘If they be Germans, we must pretend we belong to them: if they be of this part of the country, we will tell them who we are.’ When they were so near each other that they could speak, the two squires soon perceived, by their uniforms, that they were Germans and their enemies. Sir Reginald de Boullant spoke to them in German, and inquired whose soldiers they were. Bridoul de Tallonne, who well understood that language, answered, ‘We belong to sir Bartholomew Burghersh.’ ‘And where is sir Bartholomew?’ ‘He is,’ replied he, ‘in the village.’ ‘For what reason has he stopped here?’ ‘Sir, because he has sent us forward, to see if we can find anything to forage in this part of the country.’ ‘By my faith, there is not,’ answered sir Reginald; ‘for I have been all over it, and have not been able to pick up anything. Return to him, and tell him to advance and we will ride together as far as St. Quentin, and see if we cannot find out a better country, or some good adventure.’

The need to deal with these ruffian bands was obvious to everyone, but there was also a desire to have mercenaries available. This meant that serious efforts to disband the free companies was possible only at those rare moments when the kings agreed upon a general peace.

The treaty of 1360 confirmed Edward III’s conquests in the south of France. While Edward sent Chandos and others to restore order there, the French king brought in Prince Henry of Castile (Enrique, 1369–79), who employed Spanish mercenaries to eliminate perhaps half of the free companies. Further plans to lure the free companies out of France, hopefully to some distant war in which most of them would die, all came to naught. Anarchy ruled over wide areas, as Froissart explained:

While the commissioners and deputies of the king of England were taking seisin and possessions of the aforesaid lands, according to the articles of peace, other commissioners and deputies were on the frontiers of France with commissioners from that king, ordering all men-at-arms, who were garrisoned in the different castles and forts of France, to evacuate and surrender them to the king of France, under pain of confiscation and death. There were some knights and squires attached to England who obeyed, and surrendered, or made their companions surrender such forts as they held; but there were others who would not obey, saying that they had made war in the name of the king of Navarre. There were also some from different countries, who were great captains and pillagers, that would not, on any account, leave the country; such as Germans, Brabanters, Flemings, Hainaulters, Gascons and bad Frenchmen, who had been impoverished by the war; these persons persevered in their wickedness, and did afterwards much mischief to the kingdom.

When the captains of the forts had handsomely delivered them up, with all they contained, they marched off, and when in the plain, they dismissed their people; but those who had been so long accustomed to pillage, knowing well that their return home would not be advantageous for them, but that they might perhaps suffer for the bad actions they had committed, assembled together, and chose new leaders from the worst disposed among them …Their numbers were perpetually increasing; for those who quitted the castles and towns on their being surrendered, and who were disbanded by their captains, came into those parts; so that by Lent they amounted to at least sixteen thousand combatants.

The result of discharging the mercenaries from English and French service thus resulted in the creation of new armies, not peace. These armies, moreover, lacked the few restraints that their royal employers had put upon them – Froissart, in fact, suspected that Edward encouraged them to remain in France rather than return home, where they might become a nuisance. To make the matter worse, the free companies were reinforced by what Froissart called Tard-Venus (latecomers). The sole goal of these impromptu soldiers was to enrich themselves.

The crisis came in April of 1362, when a French army of 6,000 horsemen went in pursuit of a body of routiers at Brignais on the Rhône River. The French commander, hearing that these newcomers were undisciplined and only half-armed, led his knights toward an equal number of brigands, pennons flying, in expectations of an easy victory. His scouts located the companies on a plateau at Brignais, but reported them to be less numerous and more poorly armed than expected. The greatest difficulty was reaching the enemy atop a steep hill, but since the foe seemed more like desperate peasants than warriors, he ordered his men to clamber up to them despite the barrage of rocks and stones. Thus occupied, he did not see the freebooters’ main force come through the woods until it struck his rear. The French army was quickly overwhelmed, only a handful of men escaping.

Fowler’s more reliable description of the battle is more complex – the French divided their forces, part assaulting the hill, the rest fighting a ‘set-piece battle on a plain’. When the companies on the hill routed their opponents and came down to strike the main army in the rear, they surrounded, then killed or captured almost the entire force.

The routiers then spread out, ravaging, collecting ransom, growing ever larger. It would be years before they were brought under control. As Froissart recounted:

They collected their companies together, and kept advancing toward Avignon, at which the pope and cardinals were much alarmed. These companions had chosen, at the Pont du St. Esprit, a captain to command the whole of their forces, who was commonly styled the friend of God, and the enemy of all the world.

There were at that time in France, besides these companies, many other pillagers, English, Gascons, and Germans, who were desirous of living there, and who maintained many garrisons in fortresses. Although the commissaries from the king of England had ordered them to evacuate these castles, and to leave the country, they had not obeyed, which was very displeasing to the king of France, as well as to his council.

These new latecomers, spurred by the hope of looting the papal treasury, hurried to join the victors of Brignais to form what became known as the ‘Great Company’. In their imagination, they were already sacking Provence, the richest part of southern France.

When the Pope Innocent VI. and the Roman college saw themselves thus threatened by these accursed people, they were exceedingly alarmed, and ordered a croisade to be published against these wicked Christians, who were doing everything in their power to destroy Christianity (like Vandals of old, without right or reason) by ruining all the countries whither they resorted; by robbing, wherever they could find anything; by violating women, both young and old, without pity; and by killing men, women, and children, without mercy, who had done no ill to them; for he was reckoned the bravest, and most honored, who could boast of the most villainous actions.

The pope and the cardinals had therefore a croisade publicly preached. They absolved from every crime and sin all those who should take the cross, and voluntarily give themselves up to destroy these wretches. The cardinals elected the lord Peter de Monstier, cardinal d’Arras, by some called cardinal d’Ostia, to be the chief of this croisade; who, upon his nomination, immediately left Avignon, and went to Carpentras, seven leagues distant, where he fixed his quarters. He retained all soldiers, and others, who were desirous of saving their souls, and of gaining the foresaid pardons; but he would not give them any pay, which caused many of them to depart and go into Lombardy; others returned into their own countries, and some divided themselves into several companies, over each of which they nominated captains, and took up their quarters in different places. Thus they harassed the pope, the cardinals, and the merchants in the neighborhood of Avignon, and did a great deal of mischief until the summer was far advanced of the year 1361.

Jean de Venette was more forthright: ‘Those sons of Belial and men of iniquity, warriors from various lands who assailed other men with no right and no reason other than their own passions, iniquity, malice and hope of gain and yet were called the Great Company’. Many were Bretons, hardened by the cruelties of their own civil war.

The Great Company was the largest force of freebooters ever assembled. Thoroughly international and professionally organised, it included young English fighters like John Hawkwood, who accompanied part of the army to Italy when the pope made arrangements for it to fight on the other side of the Alps. This ‘White Company’ was employed by the enemies of the Visconti of Milan, among whom the pope was prominent. The remainder of the army continued to plunder southern France.

The French king, desperate to pay his ransom, agreed to marry his daughter to the Visconti upstart, Gian Galeazzo. 600,000 gold florins flowed into the royal coffers, Chaucer went to Milan with the bride, Petrarch came north to praise the wise king, and Froissart, with the queen’s encouragement, began to write his chronicle. But it was not enough and it was quickly spent. King John, unable to pay his ransom, returned voluntarily to England, where he died in 1364.

Charles V (1364–80) was luckier. When civil war broke out in Spain in 1365 – Henry of Castile against his reigning half-brother, Pedro the Cruel (1350–69) – the English and French naturally took opposing sides. Sumption does his best – which is pretty good – to explain this confusing situation which must have puzzled contemporaries almost as much as it confuses us. Fowler’s reconstruction of the campaign is less ambitious, and therefore clearer.

Henry was the eldest son of his father’s prolific mistress; failing in his effort to displace Pedro, he had fled for his life and taken up the profession of mercenary soldier. He had the support of Aragon, which had been fighting Pedro for a decade, and France, since Pedro seemed to have murdered his queen, the sister of the French monarch. Charles of Navarre, declaring himself neutral, closed his borders; though this did not stop Chaucer and friends from touring his kingdom, it prevented Pedro from hiring Gascon and English mercenaries.

To draw the free companies out of France and into Spain, Charles V signed a peace treaty with Edward and began to hire routiers. Jean of Vedette recorded of this, ‘the thieves and robbers who in time of war had heaped ill upon ill and loss upon loss … began little by little to decrease and diminish in numbers’. The wealth they had stolen, he noted, melted away like snow in the sun. A few must have shrugged – easy come, easy go. But most dragged themselves home in disgrace or signed on to the Spanish expedition.

In 1366 du Guesclin led Breton mercenaries out of Normandy, which they had been looting from end to end, and marched south to Avignon, where Pope Urban V gave them absolution and money, then on to Aragon, where Prince Henry was waiting. In an effort to make this venture seem to be a crusade – against a tyrant surrounded by Jews and Muslims – the pope excommunicated Pedro and Henry crowned du Guesclin king of Granada. This implied that war against the Moors would follow the conquest of Castile. It was a reasonable cover story that paralysed English efforts to stop the campaign. The troops did not care. Muslim Spain was known to be fabulously wealthy. Similarly, the people of Aragon could approve of that more than expanding a wearying regional conflict.

Du Guesclin’s men, whose gleaming armour greatly impressed Spanish observers, were quickly hustled across Aragon, lest they decided to tarry and enrich themselves from the local population; they were followed by packs of Germans and Frenchmen eager to loot defenceless villages and towns. So great was du Guesclin’s force, perhaps 12,000 men, that King Pedro fled from place to place without fighting and at length sailed away.

Henry, imagining that the kingdom was firmly in his grip, dismissed most of his mercenaries. By allowing most du Guesclin’s victorious troops to return home, Henry made a serious mistake – no king was ever securely on his throne, and certainly not Henry. The mercenaries would have liked another war, but they were already rich beyond belief.

The defeated king of Castile, now a fugitive, called on the Black Prince. This seemed the opportunity for English intervention, since there was no secret that du Guesclin would eventually move against Charles of Navarre, then cross the Pyrenees into Gascony. But the Black Prince was short of money and, moreover, at the moment needed every man he had to suppress banditry. Froissart related the principal arguments for him to act:

Great complaints were daily made to the prince of the bad conduct of the free companies, who were doing all possible mischief to the inhabitants of the countries where they were quartered. They pressed the prince to hasten his march, who would willingly have complied, if he had not been advised to let Christmas pass over, so that he should have winter in his rear.

Du Guesclin’s forces were, meanwhile, slowly disappearing. Some, paid off, went home. The English and Gascons, perhaps 4,500 of them, joined the Black Prince. The rest were dispersed as an army of occupation, and not all of the commanders were trustworthy – du Guesclin had to hang several for conspiring against his life.

When the Black Prince ordered an army to be raised, Chandos hurriedly sent word to the free companies: the game was afoot. There was no way the French could prevent him from leading his army into Navarre – Charles having had himself taken ‘prisoner’ as an excuse for not attempting resistance. The Prince of Wales, still only thirty-six, was at the height of his power and popularity. Troops swarmed to him.

Du Guesclin, recruiting locally, may have raised an army of 66,000 men, an incredible size for that era. If true, he had six to ten times the number of the Black Prince. The army’s fighting qualities, however, being questionable, du Guesclin concluded that it would be wiser to defend the passes and avoid a general engagement.

The Black Prince’s army, in contrast, resembled, in Venier’s words, a veterans’ reunion – all the great names of the past twenty years were there. Even so, the campaign was not an easy one. He set out early in 1367, having waited for the mountain passes to be snow free, yet hoping to avoid the intense heat of a Spanish summer. There were obstacles to overcome – rivers to cross in the face of resistance, the lack of food and fodder, disease – but eventually the Black Prince brought his array to a place between Najera and Navaretta where du Guesclin had to fight or give way altogether. Then came one of those unforgettable moments that soldiers so often remember vividly, whether it is the assembling of forces at Waterloo or the vast armada at Normandy. Just before the desperate work of fighting begins, there is the spectacle of battle, or impending battle, the inspiring rituals of parade and display, and a rare glimpse of the commanding officers. Froissart described this with breathtaking prose:

When the sun was risen it was a beautiful sight to view these battalions, with their brilliant armor glittering with its beams…The prince, with a few attendants, mounted a small hill, and saw very clearly the enemy marching straight toward them. Upon descending this hill, he extended his line of battle in the plain, and then halted. The Spaniards, seeing the English had halted, did the same order of battle; then each man tightened his armor, and made ready as for instant combat.

Sir John Chandos advanced in front of the battalions, with his banner uncased in his hand. He presented it to the prince, saying: ‘My lord, here is my banner: I present it to you, that I may display it in whatever manner shall be most agreeable to you; for thanks to God, I have now sufficient lands to enable me so to do, and maintain the rank which it ought to hold.’

… The English and Gascons soon after dismounted on the heath, and assembled very orderly together, each lord under his banner or pennon, in the same battle array as when they passed the mountains.

It was delightful to see and examine these banners and pennons, with the noble army that was under them. The two armies began to move a little, and to approach nearer each other; but, before they met, the prince of Wales, with eyes and hands uplifted toward heaven, exclaimed: ‘God of truth, the Father of Jesus Christ, who has made and fashioned me, condescend, through thy benign grace, that the success of the battle of this day may be for me and my army; for thou knowest, that in truth I have been solely emboldened to undertake it in the support of justice and reason, to reinstate this king upon his throne, who has been disinherited and driven from it, as well as from his country.’ After these words, he extended his right arm, took hold of don Pedro’s hand, who was by his side, and added, ‘Sir king, you shall this day know whether you will have anything in the kingdom of Castille or not.’ He then cried out, ‘Advance, banners, in the name of God and St. George!’

It was a hard-fought battle, but more complicated than any one medieval chronicler described. Fowler’s reconstruction in Medieval Mercenaries emphasises the English achieving tactical surprise by a flanking march, the ineffective formation thrown up by the defenders, and the low morale of Henry’s men. The Black Prince overwhelmed the few warriors willing to fight for du Guesclin. The French hero was soon a prisoner again.

This made little difference in the long run. The most that can be said was that the free companies were out of France for a period, that some mercenaries did perish, the Navarre forces were quieted, and many English bowmen and cavalry became rich enough to contemplate going home and investing their earnings.

Otherwise, Najera was a disappointing victory. King Pedro made himself so unpopular that only Englishmen wept when du Guesclin (‘needing a war’, in Venier’s phrase, to repay 100,000 gold coins to the king for his ransom and revitalise his career) promised to recover Henry’s kingdom. The immensely popular Chanson de Bertrand du Guesclin credited him with pausing on his way back to Castile to give the duke of Anjou victory in his contest with Joanna of Naples, one of the tougher women of medieval history, and the pope excommunicated him for extorting money from communities along the way. No one doubts he was acting the mercenary soldier then. He had little difficulty in capturing the northern cities of Castile, but the process of taking the southern towns was slow. The apparent stalemate (Pedro was accused of having hired Muslims and Jews) ended when Henry confronted Pedro in du Guesclin’s lodgings – lured there, perhaps, by a promise of a negotiated surrender – and, after a shouting match, murdered him. Although chroniclers’ accounts differ, Pedro seems to have started the scuffle and might well have killed his half-brother if Henry had not had friends present.

England had been unable to improve its strategic position. Gascony had already suffered a severe decline in population and subsequent French invasions would make that even worse. That once rich wine land would become a drain on the English Exchequer.

In the years to come, Bertrand du Guesclin would rally the French forces and retake towns and castles from the English one by one. By the end of 1370, Fowler says, the year du Gueslin was named constable, he had eliminated the great companies from most of France. His victory at Pontvallain, a minor combat compared to great battles of the past, was the turning point – he surprised the English forces, then ran the surviving units to ground. This native of Brittany, with a name no Frenchman could pronounce, became a national hero. He would ransom Englishmen who could pay, but executed French captives as traitors. There was nothing soft or sentimental about him. He was a war machine. Naturally, he used mercenary troops in his liberation of French provinces from ‘foreign’ rule.

This was possible because Charles V, known as ‘the Wise’, persuaded his subjects to accept new taxes on salt and on each hearth. In time these taxes would produce great revenues and would remain the mainstay of the royal government until the French Revolution. Also, John II had installed Charles’s brother, Philippe the Bold (1363–1404), in Burgundy – a vast territory which stretched from the south of France into the Low Countries – restoring order in those lands. Unfortunately, like all the king’s nearest relatives, Philippe yearned to be an independent monarch or – yet better – to become king of France himself in place of Charles’s unhappy successor, Charles VI (1380–1422), who was periodically insane.

MORE WAR

When the conflict resumed, the French generally had the better of the fighting. England was experiencing domestic unrest, and the new young king, Richard II (1377–99) was an ineffective leader. Worse, some of those he selected to fight on his behalf were no better.

Take, for example, the 1383 ‘crusade’ of Bishop Henry Despenser. All that demonstrated was that each of the two rival popes (Rome and Avignon) were quite willing to use whatever means were available to defeat the other. In short, not even the Church could be trusted to work for peace. Though all parties listened politely to papal representatives, no secular ruler and few ecclesiastical ones were willing to sacrifice themselves on the altar of someone else’s vision of peace.

The English still had heroes such as John Chandos. But it is one thing to be a hero, another to be a heroic king. In this age, in England, it took a king to win a war. And the Black Prince, uncrowned, had gone to an early grave in 1376, a year before his father, the great Edward III. Fifty years of national triumph would be followed by decades of defeat.

THE WAR SLOWS … AND STOPS

Local forces continued to make headway against bands of robbers and thieves, partly because, with the end of the English raids, farmers did not have to turn to plundering themselves to avoid starvation. Siege operations against frontier fortresses continued, because these could be mounted relatively quickly and perhaps even terminated before a relief army could be gathered.

Even important castles were vulnerable, because financial restraints kept the garrisons small. Without troops to sally out and drive away the forces filling the moats and digging tunnels, to destroy siege machinery and drive away besiegers’ horses and cattle, the most any commander could do was to send for help.

A typical siege did not actually involve significant fighting. The two sides sized up each individual situation, then made a practical agreement, as in the case of the castle at la Roche sur Yon, a key fortress in Anjou. After the English had surrounded the stronghold, they set up the catapults and cannons, brought up provisions and sent out raiders to bring in more food. When ready to attack, they approached the enemy commander, Sir John Blondeau. Froissart described the scene:

In the army of the earl of Cambridge, with sir John Chandos and the other barons, were some knights from Poitou well acquainted with the governor, and who in former times had been his companions in arms. These knights advanced to the barriers, and upon their faith and assurances held a conversation with him, and talked the matter over so ably (for he was not a sensible man, though a valiant knight,) that he entered into a treaty to deliver up the castle, if he were not succored, nor the siege raised, within a month; when he was to receive the sum of six thousand francs for the provisions in it. The treaty thus entered into was ratified; and the garrison remained quiet, under condition, that if the castle was not relieved within a month, it should be surrendered. This being done, the knight sent information of it to the king of France, the dukes of Anjou and of Berry, and to all the lords from whom he expected assistance, in order that he might be secure from any reproaches they might cast upon him. Notwithstanding these informations … no relief was sent; so that, when the month was expired, the English lords summoned the governor to perform his promise, for which he had given good hostages. Sir John… said to his companions, ‘Since the king of France and the duke of Anjou are determined to lose this castle, I cannot defend it alone;’ he therefore delivered it up to the English, who took possession with great joy. The governor received the sum of six thousand francs, as agreed upon for the provision in the castle, which was well worth it; and he and his garrison were escorted to the town of Angers.

The duke of Anjou, who was among the most effective French leaders, accused his governor of having (literally) sold out. According to one story, he threw him into prison; according to another, he sewed him into a sack and cast him into the river. The duke’s contention was that the castle had supplies for a year and should have held out that long. One might wonder why the duke had appointed a dolt as commander. But quite likely the problem was not the commander, who was acknowledged to be valiant, but the garrison, which might have been grumbling at the prospect of enduring a lengthy siege by dangerous enemies.

Leadership is a complicated matter, of course. If it were only question of courage and technical knowledge, of calculating supplies and planning routes of march, almost anyone could be a leader. The most difficult aspect of leadership is to persuade or coerce one’s followers to follow. The man or woman who can make troops risk their lives, either in pitched battle or lengthy campaigns, often without food, drink or rest, is usually a successful commander no matter how little he or she knows about the details of army life. Details are what officers and NCOs are for.

There is usually a dearth of truly talented leaders, those who can tell instinctively what the mood of an army is, who sense when daring becomes foolhardiness. Since feudal society insisted that only nobles be considered as military commanders, this meant that the pool of potential generals was small. When a gifted commander died, it could be a disaster, as Froissart informed his readers:

Sir John Chandos, who was a strong and bold knight, and cool in all his undertakings, had his banner advanced before him, surrounded by his men, with the scutcheon above his arms. He himself was dressed in a large robe which fell to the ground, blazoned with his arms on white sarcenet, argent, a pile gules; one on his breast, and the other on his back; so that he appeared resolved on some adventurous undertaking; and in this state, with sword in hand, he advanced on foot toward the enemy.

This morning there had been a hoar-frost, which had made the ground slippery; so that as he marched he entangled his legs with his robe, which was of the longest, and made a tumble: during which time a squire, called James de St. Martin (a strong expert man), made a thrust at him with his lance, which hit him in the face, below the eye, between the nose and forehead. Sir John Chandos did not see the aim of the stroke, for he had lost the eye on that side five years ago, on the heaths of Bordeaux, at the chase of a stag; what added to his misfortune, sir John had not put down his vizor, so that in stumbling he bore upon the lance, and helped it to enter into him. The lance, which had been struck from a strong arm, hit him so severely that it entered as far as the brain, and then the squire drew it back to him again.

From that moment on, English warriors lost heart. How sad, everyone thought, that such a great hero should die in such an ignominious manner. But how much sadder, for the English, that Chandos had no equally capable successor.

English soldiers were good, but they were only as good as their commanders allowed them to be. Like everyone else, English soldiers and mercenaries wanted to survive the wars, to return home in honour with pockets full. If their commanders lacked talent or luck, they could do neither.

Meanwhile, the king of France had named Bertrand du Guesclin constable of France. One by one this ugly but extraordinarily courageous and talented commander began to win back cities and castles that had been lost. The public mood changed. While Englishmen saw little point to fighting across the sea, the French could envision victory, and, with victory, peace. The English had already learned national pride in the course of the conflict. Now the French were doing the same.

The importance of nationalism, even in its primitive medieval form, is that patriots are willing to risk their lives, even to die, for their nation; this gives any national army an advantage over mercenaries, who are left with mere technical superiority over their more enthusiastic foes.

Du Guesclin, man and legend, personified this feeling, and his armies were ultimately successful because French mercenaries preferred to serve him and the distant king than the English commanders and their even more distant ruler, as is apparent in this excerpt from Froissart:

The English remained in battle-array in the plain, and the constable of France in his quarters, for he imagined that the English had placed a large ambuscade in a coppice on his rear. The English had brought with them a rout of pillaging Poitevins and Bretons, amounting to about two hundred, whom they sent forward to skirmish with the French. As soon as these pillagers came opposite to the battalion of the lord constable, they declared themselves loyal Frenchmen, and, if he pleased, would serve under him. The constable immediately assented, commanding them to wheel on one side, when he learnt from them the arrangement of the English force, and that there was not any ambuscade. On hearing this, the constable was more easy than before; and having ordered his men to form, he advanced with his banner, marching on the wing of the two battalions. They had dismounted, and pushed toward the palisadoes, which they had allowed to remain standing, every one shouting, ‘Notre Dame Guesclin!’

The English on seeing them issue out of their fort, drew up also on foot, and advanced with great alacrity. Their first onset was against the battalion of the constable, which was fierce and desperate. The English drove quite through this battalion, and overthrew many. But the Bretons had wisely drawn up their army: there were two battalions on the wing, who, being quite fresh, followed the constable, and, falling upon the English who were tired, beat them most dreadfully. They, however, like men of courage, turned about, without shrinking from their ill fortune, and combated most valiantly with the arms they had, such as battle-axes and swords of Bordeaux, with which they dealt many hard blows. Several excellent knights of each side adventured boldly, to exalt their renown. This battle was as well fought, as many gallant deeds performed, and as many captures and rescues took place as had been seen for a long time in all that country; for both armies were on foot, on a plain, without advantage to either. Each labored to perform his duty well, and many were slain outright or desperately wounded. In short, all the English who had marched thither were so completely discomfited that not one escaped death or captivity.

THE PEACE OF EXHAUSTION

Du Guesclin died of an infectious fever in the summer of 1380 during a siege of a free company stronghold. Bad water was suspected. After what remained of the body after botched jobs at preservation (in Venier’s phrase, it was ‘cut, boiled and parceled out like relics of the saints’) was buried near the royal vaults in St Denis, the war slowly wound down. The English and French had other occupations to fill their time and ambitions. As Eric Christensen said, ‘not very much was happening between 1386 and 1414’.

But that did not last. In 1415 the Hundred Years War resumed, more fiercely than ever. By that time the spirit of chivalry was gone; there was little pleasure left in war, not even for those powerful nobles who could afford to have ideals. The second half of the war was more exclusively business. Chivalry hardly existed, even as cover for the coarse realities of international politics.