THE RINGING OF THE tocsin surprised young Edmund, Earl of Kent, as he was lying on the flagstones of a room in the castle, trying vainly to get cool. He had half-undressed and was wearing only cloth breeches as he lay there with outspread arms, motionless and overcome by the Bordeaux summer. His favourite greyhound lay panting beside him.
The dog was the first to hear the tocsin. It rose on its front legs, pointed with its nose, and laid its quivering ears back. The young Earl of Kent woke out of his doze, stretched himself, and suddenly realized that this huge clangour came from the bells of La Réole which were all wildly ringing. In an instant he was on his feet, had seized the thin cambric shirt he had thrown over a chair, and had hastily put it on.
But already there was a sound of footsteps hurrying towards his door. Messire Ralph Basset, the Seneschal, came in, followed by some local lords, the Lord of Bergerac, the Barons of Budos and Mauvezin, and the Lord of Montpezat on whose account – at least he thought so and took pride in it – the war had broken out.
The Seneschal Basset was a very short man indeed; and the young Earl of Kent was surprised by his lack of inches each time he saw him. Moreover, he was as round as a barrel, for he had a prodigious appetite, and was always on the verge of losing his temper, which made his neck swell and his eyes pop.
The greyhound disliked the Seneschal and growled whenever it saw him.
‘Is it a fire or the French, Messire Seneschal?’ asked the Earl of Kent.
‘The French, the French, Monseigneur!’ cried the Seneschal, almost shocked by the question. ‘Come and look; you can already make them out.’
The Earl of Kent bent to gaze into a tin mirror and put his fair curls straight about his ears; then he followed the Seneschal. In his white shirt, open across his chest and falling loose over his belt, with neither boots nor spurs, and his head bare, he gave a curious impression of grace and intrepidity, also perhaps of a certain lack of responsibility, among these armed barons in their iron mail.
As he emerged from the keep, the huge clangour of the bells took him by surprise and the bright August sun dazzled him. The greyhound started howling.
They went up to the top of the Thomasse Tower, the great round tower which had been built by Richard Cœur de Lion. Indeed, what has that ancestor of his not built? The outer fortifications of the Tower of London, Château Gaillard, the Castle of La Réole …
The wide Garonne flowed sparkling at the foot of the almost precipitous hill, its course meandering across the great fertile plain which was bounded by the distant blue line of the Agenois hills.
‘I can’t make anything out,’ said the Earl of Kent, who was expecting to see the French vanguard on the outskirts of the town.
‘Yes, look there, Monseigneur!’ someone shouted above the noise of the tocsin. ‘By the river, upstream, towards Sainte-Bazeille!’
Screwing up his eyes and shading them with his hand, the Earl of Kent was finally able to make out a glittering ribbon advancing parallel to the river. He was told it was the reflection of the sun on breastplates and horse-armour.
The din of the bells was still making the air quiver. The ringers’ arms must have been exhausted. Below, the population of the town was hurrying to and fro, swarming in the streets and particularly about the Town Hall. How small men seemed when observed from the battlements of a citadel! Mere insects. Frightened peasants were crowding down the roads leading to the town, some dragging a cow along, some driving goats before them, some goading their ox-teams. Everyone was flying from the fields; and soon the people from the neighbouring villages would start arriving, their belongings on their backs or heaped in carts. And the whole crowd of them would have to find what lodging they could in a town already over-populated by the troops and knights of Guyenne.
‘We shall be unable to make any proper estimate of the numbers of the French for another two hours, and they won’t be under the walls before nightfall,’ the Seneschal said.
‘Oh, it’s a bad time of year for making war,’ said the Lord of Bergerac peevishly, for he had had to fly before the French advance from Sainte-Foy-la-Grande a few days earlier.
‘Why is it a bad time of year?’ asked the Earl of Kent, pointing to the clear sky and the smiling countryside below.
It was rather hot, of course, but wasn’t that better than rain and mud? Had these people of Aquitaine been in the Scottish wars, they might have complained less.
‘Because it’s the grape harvest, Monseigneur,’ said the Lord of Montpezat. ‘The villeins will be aghast to see their vines trampled underfoot, and they’ll blame us. The Count of Valois knows very well what he’s doing; he did the same in 1294; ravaged the whole country to wear it down the more quickly.’
The Earl of Kent shrugged his shoulders. The Bordeaux country would not be affected by the loss of a few barrels, and war or no war, one would still be able to go on drinking claret. An unexpected little breeze was blowing about the top of the Thomasse Tower; it entered the young prince’s open shirt and played agreeably over his skin. How marvellous it felt merely to be alive!
The Earl of Kent placed his elbows on the warm stone of the battlements and allowed himself to dream. At twenty-three, he was the King’s Lieutenant for the whole duchy, that is to say invested with all the royal powers, justice, war, finance. In his own person he was the King himself. It was he who said: ‘I will it’ and who was obeyed. He could give the order: ‘Hang him!’ Not that he was thinking of giving any such order, but he had the power to do so. And then, above all, he was far from England, far from the Court, far from his half-brother and his whims, angers and suspicions, far from the Despensers, with whom he had of necessity to pretend to be on good terms, though he hated them. Here he was on his own, his own master, and master of all he surveyed. An army was coming to meet him, but he would charge it and defeat it, there could be no doubt of that. An astrologer had told him that he would accomplish his greatest actions and achieve renown between the ages of twenty-four and twenty-six. His childhood dreams were suddenly coming true. A great plain, an army, sovereign power … No, indeed, he had never felt happier to be alive in his life. His head was swimming a little with an intoxication which was entirely due to his own feelings and to the breeze playing over his chest, the vastness of the horizon …
‘Your orders, Monseigneur?’ asked Messire Basset, who was becoming impatient.
The Earl of Kent turned and looked at the little Seneschal with a shade of haughty astonishment.
‘My orders?’ he repeated. ‘Have the busines18 sounded, of course, Messire Seneschal, and get your people to horse. We shall go out to meet them and charge.’
‘But what with, Monseigneur?’
‘Good God, with our troops, Basset!’
‘Monseigneur, we have barely two hundred knights here, and there are more than fifteen hundred coming against us according to the figures in our possession. Is that not correct, Messire de Bergerac?’
Reginald de Pons de Bergerac nodded agreement. The little Seneschal’s neck was redder and more swollen than ever; he was aghast and on the verge of exploding at such imprudence.
‘Have we no news of reinforcements?’ asked the Earl of Kent.
‘No, Monseigneur, still nothing. The King your brother, if you will forgive my saying so, is letting us down badly.’
They had been waiting for these long-heralded reinforcements from England for four weeks. And the Constable of Bordeaux, who had troops, made a pretext of their failure to arrive for not moving himself, for he had received an order from King Edward to march when the reinforcements had disembarked. The young Earl of Kent was not so much a sovereign as it might appear.
Owing to the delay and the consequent lack of men – who could tell if the promised reinforcements had ever been shipped? – they had been unable to prevent Monseigneur of Valois strolling across the countryside, from Agen to Marmande and from Bergerac to Duras, as if in a pleasure park. And now that uncle Valois was in sight, with his long ribbon of steel, there was still nothing that could be done about it.
‘Is that also your advice, Montpezat?’ asked the Earl of Kent.
‘I fear so, Monseigneur, I very much fear so,’ replied the Lord of Montpezat, chewing his black moustaches.
For he was obsessed with a longing for revenge. As a reprisal for his disobedience, Valois had ordered his castle to be demolished.
‘And you, Bergerac?’ Kent asked again.
‘It makes me weep with rage,’ said Pons de Bergerac with that strong, sing-song accent that was common to all the minor lords of the region.
Edmund of Kent did not bother to ask the Barons of Budos and Fargues de Mauvezin for their opinions; for they could speak neither French nor English, but only Gascon, and Kent could not understand a word they said. In any case, their expressions were sufficient answer.
‘Very well then, close the gates, Messire Seneschal, and make dispositions for a siege. And when the reinforcements do arrive, they’ll take the French in the rear, and perhaps that will be better still,’ said the Earl of Kent, trying to console himself.
He scratched his greyhound’s forehead with the tips of his fingers, and then leaned on the warm stone again to watch the valley. There was an old saying: ‘Who holds La Réole holds Guyenne.’ They would hold out as long as was necessary.
For an army too easy an advance is almost as exhausting as a retreat. Having met no resistance to bring it to a halt, even if only for a day, to draw breath, the French army had been marching unceasingly for more than three weeks, to be precise for twenty-five days. The great host, with its banners, knights, squires, archers, wagons, forges and cookers, with the merchants and brothel-keepers in its train, extended over a league of the plain. Its horses were wither-galled, and every few minutes one of them cast a shoe. Many of the knights had had to give up wearing their armour which, aided by the heat, had given them sores and boils at the joints. The footmen were wearily dragging their heavy nailed boots. Moreover, the fine black plums of Agen, which looked ripe enough on the trees, had violently purged the thirsty, pilfering soldiers. They were continually leaving the column to lower their breeches by the roadside.
The Constable Gaucher de Châtillon slept as much as he could on his horse. He had trained himself to do this through nearly fifty years of the profession of arms and eight wars or campaigns.
‘I shall sleep a little,’ he would say to his two squires.
Adjusting their horses’ pace to his, they placed themselves on each side of the Constable, so as to prop him up should he slip sideways; and the old leader, his back well supported by the cantle, snored inside his helm.
Robert of Artois, though he sweated, grew no thinner; for twenty yards around he diffused the stench of a wild beast. He had made a friend of one of the English in Mortimer’s train, the tall Baron Maltravers, who looked like a horse, and he had even offered him a place in his banner because he was a great gambler and ready to handle the dice-box at every halt.
Charles of Valois’s ill-humour was not improving. Surrounded by his son Alençon, his nephew Évreux, the two Marshals Mathieu de Trye and Jean des Barres, and his cousin Alfonso of Spain, he spent his time swearing at everything, at the intolerable climate, the stuffiness of the nights and the furnace of the days, at the flies, at the greasy food. The wine they served him was but thin stuff and fit for rustics, though they were in a country famous for its wines, were they not? Where did these people hide their good cakes? The eggs tasted bad and the milk was sour. Monseigneur of Valois sometimes woke up in the morning feeling sick and for several days past he had been suffering from a dull pain in the left shoulder which worried him. And then the footmen marched so slowly. Oh, if one could make war with the chivalry alone! And then, had he been right to take the advice of Tolomei, supported though it was by Robert of Artois, and drag these huge bombards on their wooden carriages all the way from Castelsarrasin, instead of relying on the catapults and perriers to which he was accustomed? For though they might take longer to put in position, they had the great advantage of being transported in pieces.
‘I seemed to be condemned to hot suns,’ he said. ‘My first campaign, when I was fifteen years old, was fought in the burning heat of your bare Aragon, of which I was once king for a time, Cousin Alfonso, and against your grandfather.’
He was talking to Alfonso of Spain, heir to the throne of Aragon, reminding him, perhaps not very tactfully, of the enmity that had divided their respective families. But he could do so with impunity, for Alfonso was very easy-going, and ready to do anything to please; he was prepared to go on the crusade since he had been asked to do so, and in the meantime to train himself for the crusade by fighting the English.
‘I shall never forget the capture of Gerona,’ Valois went on. ‘What an oven that was! The Cardinal de Cholet, since he had no crown available for my coronation, crowned me with his hat. I was stifled under that huge red piece of felt. Yes, I was fifteen years old. If my noble father, King Philippe the Bold, had not died of the fever he contracted in those parts on his way home …’
Talking of his father made him feel gloomy. He was thinking that he had died at forty. His elder brother, Philip the Fair, had died at forty-six, and his half-brother, Louis of Évreux, at forty-three. And he himself had turned fifty-four in March! He had clearly shown that he was the most robust member of the family. But how many more years would Providence permit him?
‘And Campania, Romagna and Tuscany, those are hot countries for you,’ he went on. ‘I marched through the whole of Italy, in midsummer, from Naples up to Siena and Florence, to chase out the Ghibellines some – let me see, it was in 1301 – twenty-three years ago. And even here, in Guyenne in the year 1294, it was summer. It always is summer. But when you have to fight in Flanders, it’s always winter and you’re up to your thighs in mud.’
‘You know, Charles, it’ll be hotter still on the crusade,’ Robert of Artois said sarcastically. ‘Do you see us invading the Egyptian Sudan? It seems vines are not much cultivated in those parts. We shall have to drink the sand.’
‘Oh, the crusade, the crusade …’ Valois replied with weary irritation. ‘How can one even tell whether the crusade will ever take place with all the obstacles people put in my way? It’s all very well to devote one’s life to the service of the kingdom and the Church, but in the end one grows weary of expending all one’s strength for such ungrateful people.’
The ungrateful people were in the first place Pope John XXII, who was still reluctant to grant the subsidies, almost as if he really wished to discourage the expedition; but above all King Charles IV, who had not only failed to send the commission for the lieutenancy to Charles of Valois, a dereliction which was now becoming offensive, but had also taken advantage of his uncle’s absence to put himself forward as a candidate for the Empire. And the Pope, of course, had given him his official support. And so all Valois’s splendid arrangements with Leopold of Hapsburg had fallen to the ground. King Charles was considered a fool and, in fact, was one; but on occasion he was competent enough to deal a foul blow. Valois had received the news that very day, August 25. It was an unsatisfactory Feast of Saint Louis, to say the least. He was in such a bad temper and so busy chasing the flies from his face, that he had forgotten to look at the landscape. He saw La Réole only when they were before it, within four or five bowshots.
La Réole stood on a rocky spur above the Garonne, but was dominated by a circle of green hills. Etched against the pale sky, enclosed within her ramparts of fine yellow stone, now turning gold in the setting sun, with her steeples, her castle’s turrets, and the high roof of her Town Hall with its open belfry, and all her crowded roofs of red tiles, she resembled the miniatures of Jerusalem you can find in Books of Hours. A pretty town. Furthermore, owing to the height on which La Réole was set, she was an ideal stronghold. The Earl of Kent had made no error in shutting himself up within her walls. She would be no easy fortress to take.
The army had come to a halt, awaiting orders. But Monseigneur of Valois issued none. He was sulking. Let the Constable and the Marshals take what decisions seemed good to them. Since he was not the King’s Lieutenant and had no power, he refused to take any responsibility.
‘Come, Alfonso, let us go and refresh ourselves,’ he said to his Spanish cousin.
Waking up, the Constable twisted his head inside his helm and stuck out an ear to hear what the leaders of his banners were saying to him. He sent the Count of Boulogne to reconnoitre. Boulogne returned an hour later, having ridden round the town by the hills. All the gates were shut, and the garrison showed no signs of making a sortie. It was therefore decided to make camp where they were, and the banners selected their areas pretty much as they liked. The vines, their branches trailing between trees and tall vine-props, made agreeably sheltered tunnels. The army was exhausted and fell asleep in the clear twilight as the first stars appeared.
The young Earl of Kent was unable to resist the temptation and, after a sleepless night, of which he spent the waking hours playing trémerel19 with his equerries, he sent for Seneschal Basset, ordered him to summon his knights to arms and, before dawn, without sound of trumpet, left the town by a sally-port.
The French, snoring among the vines, wakened only when the galloping Gascon knights were among them. They looked up in astonishment only to lower their heads again as they saw the charging hooves go by. Edmund of Kent and his companions had it all their own way among the sleeping host; they hewed with their swords, struck with their maces and their leaded flails at naked ribs and legs, unprotected by greaves or breastplates. There was a cracking of bones as they drove a path, leaving screams in their wake, through the French camp. Some of the great lords’ tents collapsed. But soon a loud voice was heard above the hubbub shouting: ‘Rally to Châtillon!’ And the Constable’s banner – gules, three pales vair, in chief or, a dragon for crest, and supporting lions – was floating in the rising sun. Old Gaucher had prudently made his own vassal knights camp a little in the rear, and now came to the rescue. Cries of ‘Artois to the fore!’ and ‘Rally to Valois!’ responded from either hand. Only half-equipped, some on horseback and some on foot, the knights hurled themselves on the enemy.
The camp was too big and too scattered, and the French knights too numerous, to enable the Earl of Kent to pursue his ravages for long. The Gascons soon became aware of a pincer-movement being mounted against them. Kent had only just time to turn aside and retreat at a gallop to the gates of La Réole behind which he could take refuge. Then, having complimented his followers, he took off his armour and went to bed, his honour vindicated.
The French camp was echoing with the groaning of the wounded; consternation reigned. Among the dead, who numbered about sixty, were Jean des Barres, one of the Marshals, and the Count of Boulogne, who had made the reconnaissance the evening before. It was much deplored that these two lords, both valiant warriors, should have met so sudden and so absurd an end. Slaughtered on awakening!
But Kent’s prowess inspired respect. Charles of Valois himself who, the evening before, had been asserting that he would make mincemeat of the young man, if he encountered him in the lists, had now changed his opinion and almost took pride in saying: ‘Well, Messeigneurs, after all he’s my nephew, don’t forget that!’
Forgetting the wounds to his vanity, his physical ills and the heat of the season, he set himself, when sufficiently magnificent funeral honours had been rendered to the Marshal des Barres, to prepare the siege of the town. And in this he displayed singular activity and competence for, though he was excessively vain, he was none the less a very remarkable soldier.
All the roads leading to La Réole were cut, and the whole region controlled by posts set up in depth. Entrenchments, gabions, and other earthworks were undertaken within a short distance of the walls to give cover to the archers. While, in the most suitable places, the army began constructing emplacements for the bombards. It also started to build platforms for the cross-bowmen. Monseigneur of Valois seemed to be everywhere, inspecting, encouraging and issuing orders. To the rear, the knights had set up their round tents, from the summits of which floated their banners. Charles of Valois’s tent, placed in a position from which it could dominate both the camp and the beleaguered town, was a veritable palace of tapestried hangings. The whole camp was situated in a huge amphitheatre under the flank of the hills.
On August 30 Valois at last received his commission as the King’s Lieutenant. His mood changed at once, and from then on he seemed to have no doubt that the war was as good as won.
Two days later, Mathieu de Trye, the surviving Marshal, Pierre de Cugnières and Alfonso of Spain, preceded by sounding busines and the white flag of envoys, advanced to the foot of the walls of La Réole to summon the Earl of Kent, on the order of the most high and puissant Lord Charles, Count of Valois, Lieutenant of the King of France in Gascony and Aquitaine, to yield and surrender into their hands the duchy in its entirety, in default of loyalty and the rendering of homage due.
To which Seneschal Basset, who had to stand on tiptoe to look over the battlements, replied, on the order of Edmund, Earl of Kent, Lieutenant of the King of England in Gascony and Aquitaine, that the summons could not be accepted, and that the Earl would not leave the town, nor hand over the duchy, unless he were dislodged by force.
Now that a state of siege had been declared in accordance with the rules, each side went to its tasks.
Monseigneur of Valois put to work the thirty miners lent him by the Bishop of Metz. They were to tunnel underground galleries beneath the walls and place in them barrels of powder which would later be exploded. Engineer Hugues, who belonged to the Duke of Lorraine, guaranteed miraculous results from this operation. The walls would burst open like a flower in spring.
But the besieged, becoming aware of the muffled sounds of tunnelling, put tanks of water on the ramparts. Whenever they saw the surface of the water ripple, they knew the French were digging a sap below. They dug saps from their side too, but at night, for the Lorraine miners worked by day. One morning, the two galleries met and an appalling butchery took place underground by the dim light of lanterns. The survivors emerged covered with sweat, black dust and blood, their eyes as wild with horror as if they had returned from Hell.
But now the firing platforms were ready and Monseigneur of Valois decided to use the bombards.
They were huge tubes of thick bronze bound with iron hoops, mounted on wooden wheelless carriages. Ten horses were needed to move each one of these monsters, and twenty men to load, aim and fire it. Each was surrounded with a sort of box-like structure of heavy beams to protect the gunners should the bombard explode.
These engines, which came from Pisa, had been delivered first to the Seneschal of Languedoc, who had sent them on to Castelsarrasin and Agen. The Italian crews called them bombarda because of the noise they made.
All the great lords and the commanders of banners were assembled to see the bombards work. The Constable Gaucher shrugged his shoulders and said with a growl that he did not believe in the destructive effects of these engines. Why place your trust in such new-fangled things, when you could use good mangonels, trebuchets and perriers, which had proved their worth over the centuries? What need had he, Châtillon, of the founders of Lombardy to reduce the towns he had taken? Wars were won by valour and the strength of men’s arms, not by having recourse to the powders of alchemists which stank rather too much of the Devil’s sulphur.
Beside each bombard the gunners lit a brazier and set an iron rod to become red-hot. Then, having loaded the bombard by the muzzle, introducing the powder with huge spoons of beaten iron, followed by a wad of tow and then a huge stone ball weighing approximately a hundred pounds, they placed a little powder on the top of the breech in a groove which communicated with the charge inside by a touch-hole.
The spectators were asked to withdraw to a distance of fifty paces. The gunners lay down with their hands over their ears; only one remained standing by each bombard to set fire to the powder with the long iron rod which had been heated in the brazier. As soon as they had done so, they threw themselves to the ground and lay flat against the beams built round the carriages.
Red flames gushed forth and the ground shook. The noise rolled down the valley of the Garonne and was heard from Marmande to Langon.
The whole air about the bombards turned black with smoke. The back ends of them had sunk into the light soil with the recoil. The Constable was coughing, spitting and swearing. When the dust had dissipated a little, it was discovered that one of the balls had fallen among the French; it was a wonder no one had been killed. Nevertheless, it could be seen that a roof in the town had been holed.
‘A great deal of noise for very little damage,’ said the Constable. ‘With the old ballisters with weights and slings, all the balls would have reached their target without one’s being asphyxiated into the bargain.’
In the meantime, within La Réole, no one could at first understand why a great cascade of tiles should suddenly have fallen into the street from the roof of Master Delpuch, the notary. Nor could the people make out where the thunderclap that reached their ears a moment later came from, since there was not a cloud in the sky. But then Master Delpuch came rushing out of his house, shouting that a huge stone ball had fallen into his kitchen.
Then the population ran to the ramparts only to discover that there were none of those great engines which were the normal equipment for sieges in the French camp. At the second salvo, which was less well aimed, the balls starred the walls, and the defenders were forced to the conclusion that the noise and the projectiles came from the long tubes lying on the hillside with a cloud of smoke hanging over them. They were seized with panic, and the women rushed to the churches to pray against these inventions of the Devil.
The first cannon-shot in a Western war had been fired.20
On the morning of September 22 the Earl of Kent was asked to receive Messires Ramon de Labison, Jean de Miral, Imbert Esclau, the brothers Doat and Barsan de Pins, the Notary Hélie de Malenat and all six jurats of La Réole together with several burgesses who were accompanying them. The jurats presented to the Lieutenant of the King of England a long list of grievances, and in a tone that was far from being one of submission and respect. The town was without food, water or roofs. The bottoms of the cisterns were showing, the floors of the granaries were being swept, and the population could no longer stand the hail of balls which had fallen on it every quarter of an hour for more than three weeks now. People had been killed in their beds and children crushed in the streets. The hospital was full to overflowing with sick and wounded. The dead were lying in heaps in the crypts of the churches. The steeple of the church of Saint Peter had been hit and the bells had fallen with a sound like the last trump, which was clear proof that God was not supporting the English cause. Moreover, the time for the grape-harvest had come, at least in the vineyards the French had not ravaged, and the grapes could not be left to rot on the vines. The population, encouraged by the landowners and merchants, was ready to rise in revolt and fight the soldiers of the Seneschal, if necessary, to force the surrender of the town.
While the jurats were talking, a ball whistled through the air and they heard the sound of a roof caving in. The Earl of Kent’s greyhound began howling. Its master silenced it with weary irritation.
Edmund of Kent had known for several days past that he would have to surrender. He had continued his obstinate resistance for no valid reason. His few troops were exhausted by the siege and in no condition to repulse an assault. To attempt another sortie against an adversary who was now solidly entrenched would have been mere folly. And now the townspeople of La Réole were threatening rebellion.
Kent turned to Seneschal Basset.
‘Do you still believe in reinforcements from Bordeaux, Messire Ralph?’ he asked.
It was not the Seneschal, but Kent himself who had believed, against all the evidence, in the arrival of these promised reinforcements, who were to take Charles of Valois’s army in the rear.
Ralph Basset was at the end of his tether and had no hesitation in accusing King Edward and his Despensers of having let the defenders of La Réole down to a degree that amounted to a betrayal.
The Lords of Bergerac, Budos and Montpezat looked no happier. No one felt like dying for a king who showed such little concern for his most faithful servants. Loyalty seemed to be far too ill-rewarded.
‘Have you a white flag, Messire Seneschal?’ asked the Earl of Kent. ‘Very well, have it hoisted on the top of the castle.’
A few minutes later the bombards fell silent; and there reigned over the French camp that profound stillness of surprise which tends to greet an event that has been much longed for. Envoys emerged from La Réole and were conducted to the tent of Marshal de Trye, who informed them of the general terms of surrender. The town, of course, would be handed over; but the Earl of Kent must also sign and proclaim the handing over of the whole duchy to the Lieutenant of the King of France. There would be no pillage nor prisoners taken, merely hostages and an indemnity to be fixed later. Furthermore, the Count of Valois invited the Earl of Kent to dinner.
A great feast was prepared in the tent embroidered with the lilies of France in which Monseigneur had been living for nearly a month. The Earl of Kent arrived in his best suit of armour, but pale and doing his best to conceal beneath an air of dignity his humiliation and despair. He was accompanied by the Seneschal Basset and a number of Gascon lords.
The two Royal Lieutenants, conqueror and conquered, conversed with a certain coolness, though calling each other ‘Monseigneur my Nephew’ and ‘Monseigneur my Uncle’, as if even war could not break family ties.
Monseigneur of Valois made the Earl of Kent sit opposite him at dinner. The Gascon knights began gorging themselves as they had had no chance of doing for many weeks.
Everyone did his best to be courteous and compliment the adversary on his valour as if it were question merely of a tournament. The Earl of Kent was congratulated on his spirited sortie, which had cost the French a marshal. Kent replied by showing great admiration for his uncle’s dispositions for the siege and his use of the bombards.
‘Listen, Messire Constable, and all of you, Messeigneurs,’ cried Valois, ‘to what my noble nephew says! Without our bombards the town could have held out for four months! Remember that, all of you!’
Kent and Mortimer watched each other across the platters, goblets and flagons.
As soon as the banquet was over, the principal leaders went into conference to negotiate the act of surrender, which had numerous articles. Kent was, in fact, prepared to yield on every point, with the exception of certain clauses, of which one cast a doubt on the legitimacy of the King of England’s power and another placed Seneschal Basset and the Lord of Montpezat at the head of the list of hostages. For since these last had arrested and hanged officers of the King of France, their fate would be only too certain. But Valois insisted that the Seneschal and the man responsible for the rebellion at Saint-Sardos should be handed over to him.
Roger Mortimer was present at the negotiations. He suggested he should have a private conversation with the Earl of Kent, but the Constable opposed it. You really could not allow the terms of an armistice to be negotiated by a deserter from the opposing camp! But Robert of Artois and Charles of Valois trusted Mortimer. So the two Englishmen went apart into a corner of the tent.
‘Are you really anxious, my lord, to return to England at once?’ Mortimer asked.
Kent made no reply.
‘Are you so desirous of confronting King Edward, your brother, with whose fits of passion and injustice you are so familiar?’ Mortimer went on. ‘He’ll reproach you with a defeat for which the Despensers are alone responsible. You must be aware, my lord, that you have been betrayed. We have known all along that you were promised reinforcements were on the way to you, when in fact they had never even been embarked. And the order given the Seneschal of Bordeaux not to come to your assistance before the reinforcements arrived – reinforcements that, in fact, did not exist – was surely nothing but a betrayal? You need not be surprised to find me well-informed, for I owe it merely to the Lombard bankers. And have you not asked yourself the reason for so criminal a negligence towards you? Do you not see the object of it?’
Kent still remained silent, his head inclined a little to one side, gazing at his fingernails.
‘Had you won this war, you would have been a danger to the Despensers, my lord,’ Mortimer went on, ‘and would have achieved too important a position in the kingdom. They have quite naturally preferred to subject you to the discredit of a defeat, even at the price of Aquitaine, which has but little importance for men who have no care but to steal the baronies of the Marches one after the other. Do you not realize that my rebellion of three years ago was for England against the King, or perhaps for the King against himself? How do you know that you will not be accused of criminal negligence and immediately cast into prison on your arrival home? You are still young, my lord, and have no idea of what those wicked men are capable.’
Kent smoothed his fair curls back behind his ears and replied at last: ‘I’m beginning to know it, my lord, and to my cost.’
‘Would you be entirely reluctant to offer yourself as the first hostage, on the guarantee, of course, that you would be treated as a prince? Since Aquitaine is now lost, and I fear for ever, our duty is to save the kingdom itself, and we can do that best from here.’
The young man looked at Mortimer in surprise, but he was already half-prepared to consent.
‘But two hours ago,’ he said, ‘I was still the Lieutenant of my brother the King, and are you asking me so soon to join a rebellion?’
‘Without its being apparent, my lord, without its being apparent. Great decisions are made in a few seconds.’
‘How many seconds do you give me?’
‘There is no need, my lord. You have already made your decision.’
Roger Mortimer scored no little success when young Edmund, Earl of Kent, came back to the council table and announced that he was prepared to offer himself as the senior hostage.
Mortimer leaned towards him and said: ‘And now we must work to save your cousin and sister-in-law, the Queen. She deserves our love and can be of the greatest help to us.’