4

POITIERS AND BRÉTIGNY

In 1348 a pandemic, the Black Death, reached France and England. Scientific examination of the teeth of plague victims has settled arguments over the nature of the disease, for it has shown that the outbreak was caused by the bubonic plague bacillus, Yersinia pestis. The level of mortality varied from place to place, and between social classes, but in broad terms about half the population of Europe died.

People were terrified by the epidemic. Lancaster, Arundel and the Archbishop of Canterbury refused to travel to Avignon to negotiate an extension to a truce, for they were too fearful. In London it was feared that the air itself was infected, for the streets ‘are so foul by filth that is thrown out of the houses both by day and by night’, and this was leading to ‘mortality by the contagious sickness which increases daily’.¹ Walter Mauny’s reaction was that of the practical soldier: he leased land ‘for a cemetery of poor strangers and others, in which sixty thousand bodies are buried, and built there a chapel’.² Despite the horror and the misery, plague-struck society showed astonishing resilience in the face of the cataclysm. Social order did not break down. Governments continued to operate. The war was not halted. Yet it was impossible to continue to maintain a military effort on the scale of 1346–7, and no major campaign took place until 1355.

In 1350, at the start of the year, a French attempt to regain Calais was thwarted. Plans by both sides for a major campaign came to nothing. Edward, no doubt frustrated, engaged instead on little more than piracy when he intercepted a Castilian fleet, packed with merchandise, off Winchelsea. The English justification was that the Spanish vessels had been engaged in hostile activity in the Channel. Froissart described how with great merriment the king, wearing a black velvet jacket and a beaver hat, made John Chandos sing a tune he had brought back from Germany. ‘Ho, I spy a ship, and I think it’s Spanish’, came the cry. Trumpets were sounded, and the ships were readied for battle. The Castilian vessels, far larger than the English, met the challenge. The king’s own ship almost sank during the fight, but Froissart claimed a great English victory, with the Spaniards losing 14 ships out of 40.³ More plausibly, the French chronicler Giles le Muisit despaired of finding the truth of what had happened, beyond that ‘many were killed and many were drowned on both sides’. He noted sardonically that the Spanish were merchants, not nobles, in complete contrast to the English, and concluded that in all probability the English lost more than the Spanish.⁴

Philip VI died in the summer of 1350, to be succeeded by his son John, duke of Normandy. A cultured man, keen on music, John suffered from ill health and had no great skill in the use of arms. The new regime looked very different from the old. The arrest and immediate execution of Raoul d’Eu, the Constable, was a major shock. The French nobility did not expect to see such treatment of a man who had returned from captivity in England to arrange payment of his ransom. The new king hoped to win support when in 1351 he announced the formation of the Company of the Star, akin to Edward III’s Order of the Garter. He expected that with this new order of 500 knights, French chivalry would bloom.

Financial problems in France at this time were acute. Knightly wages rose by a third. The main forms of tax were aids, the salt tax known as the gabelle, and the fouage, or hearth tax. There were also sales taxes. Central assemblies of the estates-general were less fruitful than local assemblies, which provided grants at a rather higher rate than in the past, but it proved impossible to negotiate any grants from Burgundy. Manipulation of the currency continued. According to Gilles le Muisit, in 1351 everyone complained about the money, and he ‘could never remember such scarcity of all things as in that year’.⁵ In contrast, post-plague England saw no such difficulties. A recoinage in 1351 meant a mild debasement, but there was no brutal manipulation of the currency along French lines. In 1352 Edward III conceded that he would not repeat the experiments in military obligation of the 1340s. There were also concessions over purveyance (the requisitioning of food supplies). In return, parliament granted a tax for three years. A boom in wool exports also brought in welcome customs revenues. Efficient management and budgeting by the treasurer, William Edington, was a huge contrast to the way in which debts had built up in the early stages of the war.

CALAIS AND BRITTANY

Inconclusive fighting continued after John’s accession to the French throne, punctuated by interludes of truce. Calais was defended, but in 1351 the French were successful in one skirmish, in which both sides ‘dismounted on foot, each against the other, and they joined battle most harshly’.⁶ The French were learning from English battle tactics. In Brittany, Thomas Dagworth, the victor of La-Roche-Derrien, was killed in 1350. His successor, Walter Bentley, faced considerable difficulties; freebooting captains and castellans were impossible to control. Living off the land meant taking ransom payments, or appatis, from hard-pressed villages. When he returned to England, expecting royal gratitude for his service, Bentley was imprisoned for allegedly disobeying orders; it took a year or more for him to be exonerated. Some of the great names of the war began their careers in these confused, lawless conditions, notably the two Cheshire men, Hugh Calveley and Robert Knollys, and the Breton Bertrand du Guesclin. In 1351 Calveley and Knollys both took part in an organized fight, ‘the Battle of the Thirty’, seen by Froissart and others as a great chivalric event. It provided an opportunity to display courage and skill in brutal combat, if not to exercise such virtues as courtesy and liberality. The outcome was victory for the French, and death or imprisonment for their English opponents. What was happening in Brittany, with gratuitous violence and the exploitation of villagers by warrior bands, presaged what would happen on a much wider scale as the war developed.

At Mauron in 1352, Walter Bentley, with a small force, defeated a French army. Once again, the English employed the tactics tried and tested in the Scottish wars of the 1330s. There were archers on each wing, and dismounted men-at-arms in the centre. As in the previous year near Calais, the French emulated their opponents, and dismounted the majority of their force. The advance to the English position was tiring and the fighting exhausting. French cavalry had some success against the archers, 30 of whom were later beheaded for abandoning their position. Bentley was badly injured, but the French commander, Guy de Nesle, was killed. Along with him there fell many knights of the Company of the Star, a disaster from which the order never recovered.

Fighting in the south-west achieved little for either side. In 1351 the English won a victory near Saintes, while the French took St Jean d’Angély. Neither French nor English gained a decisive advantage; it was local marauding bands who gained most from the situation.

PEACE NEGOTIATIONS

Given the near stalemate, it made sense for both sides to try to reach a negotiated settlement. Discussions began at Guines early in 1354 and continued at Avignon into 1355. At Guines, a preliminary agreement was reached, that in exchange for abandoning his claim to the French throne, Edward would hold Aquitaine and lands up the Loire, together with Calais, in full sovereignty. Normandy and Brittany were not included in the deal. There was enthusiasm in the English parliament for a peace, but the negotiations fell through. The English certainly took them seriously: headed by Lancaster, Arundel and a couple of bishops, the embassy was over 630 strong, outnumbering the papal entourage. The cost was also substantial, at £5,648. Lancaster’s instructions made it clear that Edward was prepared to give up the claim to the throne in return for Gascony and the other lands in France, provided they were held freely, not subject to French suzerainty. Yet a well-informed chronicle account has it that at the end of the discussions, the Duke of Lancaster stated that ‘the king bore the arms of France upon the advice of his liege men of France, and that he would not give them up for anyone alive’. This has led historians to assume that ‘the duke refused specifically to give up Edward’s claim and title to the throne of France’. However, bearing the fleur de lis quartered with the English lions was not quite the same thing as claiming the French throne; indeed, Edward would continue to display the French symbol on his great seal in the years after 1360, when he no longer termed himself king of France. Lancaster was offering a retort to the French demand that the king of England should do homage to the king of France for Gascony. It did not mean that Edward considered his claim to the French throne to be a sticking point; it was the French requirement for homage that led to the breakdown of the negotiations. One account explained that ‘The French wholly rejected the peace, saying it had not been arranged together in this way, nor would they consent to this kind of peace in any way whatsoever.’⁷

Charles the Bad, king of Navarre from 1349, provided a major complication. An ambitious, clever and disloyal troublemaker, he inherited Navarre through his mother, but it was the title he obtained from his father, that of count of Évreux in Normandy, that represented his main interests. Like Edward III, he had a claim to the French throne through a female line. Married to King John’s daughter, he was in a powerful position. He was responsible for the murder of Charles de la Cerda, Constable of France, in 1354, accusing him of slander, and of ‘great damages, annoyances and impeachments against myself and my friends’.⁸ He then entered into negotiations with the English. However, Charles and John were subsequently reconciled. Consistency was one of the many qualities the maverick Charles lacked, and at Avignon he held discussions with Lancaster. The English were once again tempted by the prospect of a deal with him, and this may help to explain why the negotiations with the French broke down.

THE BLACK PRINCE AND THE CAMPAIGNS OF 1345–6

The English had overambitious plans for the resumption of hostilities after the failure of the negotiations at Avignon. Henry of Lancaster would campaign in Normandy, the king would lead an expedition from Calais, and the Black Prince would campaign in the south-west. Lancaster’s fleet set off down the Thames on 10 July, but contrary winds meant that it got no further than Portsmouth by the end of August, one of many demonstrations of the problems faced by broad-beamed vessels rigged with a single square sail. When news came that Charles of Navarre had once again changed sides, and had come to terms with King John, the expedition was abandoned.

The weather that had delayed Lancaster meant that it was not until the end of October that Edward himself eventually landed at Calais. He led a quick march south, accompanied by the usual horrors of destruction and burning, and by the conventional and ineffective challenges to battle from both sides. After a couple of weeks, the king returned to England.

The Black Prince’s expedition arrived in Gascony in late September, a couple of months later than had been hoped. He had full powers as the king’s lieutenant in Gascony and commanded a force of some 2,600 men, of whom 1,000 were fully equipped men-at-arms. He led his army south-eastwards. French forces came close, but the English claimed that they were unwilling to engage them in battle. The prince’s men burned Carcassonne, and stormed part of Narbonne, close to the Mediterranean, before returning to Bordeaux. John Wingfield, the prince’s chief administrator, wrote triumphantly, ‘Know for certain that, since this war began against the king of France, there has never been such loss or destruction as there has been in this raid.’⁹ Wingfield went on to explain, with some exaggeration, the impact of the consequent losses on the funding of the war by the French. This was not destruction for its own sake; the pillaging had purpose, putting pressure as it did on French finances, as well as bringing terror to towns and villages. The strategy was deliberate; it echoed advice that had been given to Philip IV in 1300, that ‘all the vines, fruit trees, and plants must be destroyed’. Opposition would collapse ‘when the whole year’s hay, straw, and grain have been destroyed by fire’.¹⁰

Late in 1355, Scottish affairs came briefly to the fore. Edward III had abandoned his support of Edward Balliol and attempted to negotiate a settlement with the Scots that would have seen them acknowledge one of his sons as heir to David II. This was unacceptable to the Scots. In October 1355 a small Scottish force invaded Northumberland. Even worse for the English, Berwick was captured in a surprise dawn attack. Edward retaliated. The Scots in Berwick surrendered in January 1356, and there followed a swift campaign, known as the Burnt Candlemas, which brought all the brutality the English had practised in France to the Scottish Lowlands. Winter storms, which made it impossible for the English ships to bring urgently needed supplies to the army, forced an end to the expedition.

The campaigning in France in 1356, which culminated in the English victory at Poitiers, again raises the question of whether there was a carefully thought out strategy, or whether the English commanders did little more than react to events, seizing opportunities as they arose. One event certainly transformed the situation in Normandy and changed English plans. The French king’s son Charles gave a banquet in Rouen, at which Charles of Navarre was present. In the middle of the meal King John entered, fully armed, backed by impressive force. Navarre was seized and led off to imprisonment in Paris. The Count of Harcourt, two other magnates and Navarre’s squire were executed. John may have been right in thinking that the unstable Charles of Navarre was plotting against him, but the Rouen coup had disastrous results. Navarre’s brother Philip led resistance to John, and sought English assistance.

Edward III’s original intention had been to send Lancaster to Brittany, but the situation demanded that he go to Normandy. In a deliberate propaganda policy, newsletters were sent home to tell of the successes of English campaigns. One provided a detailed account of Lancaster’s expedition. His force was composed of 900 men-at-arms and 1,400 archers. ‘Each day the men took various fortresses, and a great quantity of prisoners and pillage, and on their return they brought with them 2,000 of the enemy’s horses.’ The raid reached as far as Verneuil. The French challenged Lancaster to battle, but received the response that the duke had completed his business and that if ‘King John of France wished to disturb his march, he would be ready to meet him’.¹¹ This was one of the many occasions when no battle took place. In August, Lancaster moved on to Brittany and then to the Loire valley.

The Black Prince had received reinforcements from England, and on 4 August set out northwards from Bordeaux, with 6,000–7,000 men, advancing at about ten miles a day. The prince later explained that he intended to encounter the Count of Poitiers, King John’s son, at Bourges, and expected to hear that Edward III had landed in France. The count was not to be found, and the prince marched on toward the Loire, hoping to join Lancaster. The Loire, however, could not be crossed, and the French king’s army was close by. The manoeuvrings that followed saw both armies move south, until the French drew up their forces ready for battle near Poitiers, and the English did likewise.

THE BATTLE OF POITIERS

As with the Crécy campaign, a key question is whether the English were trying to avoid battle or were deliberately seeking it. The former is the traditional view; the latter was argued by Henri Denifle at the end of the nineteenth century, and more recently by Clifford Rogers.¹² One issue is whether the route taken by the prince suggests that he was trying to avoid the French army. It seems likely that the English were not in headlong retreat towards Gascony, but were manoeuvring in the hope of bringing the enemy to battle. Food and water were running low, and further delay was out of the question.

Another part of the argument hinges on the negotiations that took place immediately prior to the battle. The Pope had appointed Cardinals Talleyrand and Capocci to try to broker an agreement. Talleyrand conducted lengthy talks prior to the battle, and if Jean le Bel and some other chroniclers are to be believed, he obtained agreement from the prince that he would give up all the places he had taken, release all his prisoners and promise not to bear arms against the French for seven years. If the prince did agree such terms, it suggests that he was desperate to avoid a battle in which his forces would be severely outnumbered. Yet although the cardinal may have suggested terms along these lines, there is no evidence from English sources that the prince was prepared to accept any such agreement. It is more probable, as the English chronicler Baker reported, that a truce until Christmas was the most he was ready to agree to. In the event, the French were not prepared to agree any terms, and demanded unconditional surrender.

On 19 September the two armies faced each other. The French, said to be acting on the advice of the Scot William Douglas, dismounted most of their men-at-arms. This was a tactic they had adopted previously, at Mauron. Their vanguard was flanked by cavalry wings; three divisions were drawn up behind the van. The Anglo-Gascon army was likewise in three divisions, most probably formed up along a road and protected by hedges and a ditch. Numbers estimated by contemporaries are rarely reliable, but Bartholomew Burghersh provided plausible figures in his report of the battle, putting the number of men-at-arms in the French army at 8,000, with 3,000 infantrymen. He put the Black Prince’s army at 3,000 men-at-arms and 2,000 archers, with a further 1,000 infantry he termed sergeants.¹³ The proportion of archers in the English army was lower than had been the case at Crécy, but their role was nonetheless vital. As the Norman chronicle noted, the French had men-at-arms, but ‘few other combatants such as archers and crossbowmen, and because of this the English archers shot more safely when it came to battle’.¹⁴

The terrain was very significant. Hedges, ditches, vineyards, marshy areas and woodland favoured the defensive tactics the English used. In contrast to Crécy, the battle began early, and lasted most of the day. ‘There were far more fine feats of arms there than there had been at Crécy,’ wrote Froissart.¹⁵ Initial French cavalry assaults were driven back; the armoured horses proved vulnerable from the flanks, as the arrows plunged into their rears. The French men-at-arms, advancing on foot, were exhausted by the march toward the English positions. As the battle proceeded, the archers ran out of arrows and were reduced to pulling used ones out of the dead and dying, as well as throwing stones. Whereas, it was said, you would know who was winning after an archer loosed no more than six arrows, here the outcome was still unclear after a hundred. The fight was fierce as the successive French divisions attacked. That led by the 20-year-old Duke of Orléans broke, fleeing the field. The Black Prince had ordered the Gascon Jean de Grailly, the Captal de Buch, to take his force around the French army. When he was in place, he raised the banner of St George. His mounted charge into the rear of the French was an appalling shock to an increasingly demoralized army. The French king was captured, and in the rout that followed the English pursued the remnants of his army to the gates of the city of Poitiers.

The reasons for the English victory were many. The prince’s army may have been tired and hungry, but it was a coherent force that had been together since early August. There was considerable experience among its commanders, men such as the earls of Warwick and Salisbury and John Chandos. In contrast, the French army had only come together in the days before the battle. Some of its leaders, notably Orléans, lacked experience. There was no effective co-ordination between the French divisions, whereas the Black Prince’s generalship was very evident. While it made sense to adopt the English tactics of fighting on foot, the French had limited experience of this. The role of the English archers was perhaps less crucial than it had been at Crécy, but once again, their capacity to terrify horses was important, and their role at the start of the battle was crucial.

Casualties were heavy. The French lost one of their Marshals, Jean de Clermont, in the early stages of the fighting; the Constable, Jean de Brienne, was also killed. The deaths of the Duke of Bourbon and the Bishop of Châlons were serious blows, as was that of one of the most notable knights of the age, Geoffroi de Charny. Bartholomew Burghersh put the French losses at 2,000 men-at-arms and 800 others. English casualties were much lighter. At Crécy, both sides had decreed that no quarter would be given. At Poitiers only the French made such a declaration by displaying a red banner; the English took an astonishing number of prisoners, notably King John himself and his son Philip. The Black Prince in a newsletter gave a list of 42 important prisoners, and claimed that a further 1,993 had been taken.¹⁶

THE AFTERMATH OF POITIERS

The capture of so many prisoners created problems as well as opportunities. For individuals, there was the expectation of big financial profits; for the crown, political as well as financial advantage beckoned. Many of the lesser captives were released promptly after the battle, after promising payment. Thirteen important prisoners, however, were bought from their captors by the crown at a cost of about £44,000. Later, Edward III bought a further three from his son for £20,000. It does not seem that the king made any significant profits from ransoming these men; rather, he aimed to hold them as a means of putting pressure on the French in any negotiations. The noble prisoners were well treated. The Duke of Bourbon’s son, according to his biographer, impressed all by his manner and his lineage. Full of gracious words, ‘he could not bear to be anywhere where ladies or young women were ill-spoken of’. At court, he would enjoy a game of dice with the queen.¹⁷

The capture of King John himself was a prize the English can only have dreamed of. Yet though it transformed the situation, it did not bring Edward III all he might have expected. Instructions to the Prince of Wales in December 1356 had made it clear that a fundamental requirement in any agreement would be ‘remaining firm in every way on the point of having perpetual liberty’ in the lands the English held in France. The issue of Edward III’s claim to the French throne was not mentioned, though King John was merely referred to as ‘the adversary’.¹⁸ There was a difficulty, as with David II of Scotland, of negotiating the release of a ruler whose right to his throne the English refused to recognize. The ransom of King John was set at four million écus, about £666,666. Two draft treaties were agreed at London in 1359. While Edward did not specifically state that he would renounce the title of king of France, this was the clear implication. The English lands in France were to be held in full sovereignty. According to the second treaty, Edward would hold a vast swathe of territory in western France, from Normandy to the Pyrenees, as well as Calais and Ponthieu in the north. Furthermore, the French would cease their support of the Scots.¹⁹

It was one thing to negotiate in London, but quite another to persuade the government in France to agree to the terms. The issue of King John’s release was the least of the problems that the Dauphin, Charles, faced. There were difficult discussions with the estates-general. In Paris the provost of the merchants, Étienne Marcel, led opposition to him, supporting the claims of the King of Navarre. Early in February 1358, Marcel and his supporters, wearing red and blue, forced entry to the palace, and murdered the Marshals of France and Normandy in the Dauphin’s presence. He claimed that they were evil councillors, slain for the good of the realm. Later in the month, Charles of Navarre entered Paris. The country was moving rapidly towards civil war.

THE JACQUERIE AND THE ROUTIERS

In May 1358 a peasant revolt, the Jacquerie, broke out to the north of Paris. This was not a region that had suffered badly from the depredations and pillaging of war; the anger of the peasants there was directed at their lords. Froissart told of a knight roasted on a spit, whose wife was forced to eat his flesh. After being gang-raped, she was killed. There were close links between the rebels and the Parisians; Étienne Marcel lent them his support. The rising barely lasted a month, Charles of Navarre doing much to restore order. In June he faced a peasant army at Mello. Interestingly, Jacques Cale, the rebel leader, drew up his men in a manner which suggests he had experience of Crécy. The Jacques ‘made two battles, putting 2,000 men in each. They put those who had bows and crossbows in front, and the carts in front of them.’²⁰ Another division was formed of 600 horsemen. The armies faced each other for three days; no battle took place. Cale was invited to discuss a truce, but was seized and taken off to be executed. The peasant army was routed. A bloodbath followed, as the nobility took revenge. A massacre took place at Meaux. In June, Charles of Navarre entered Paris, to general acclaim. He became captain of the city, but his triumph did not last. Étienne Marcel, suspected of pro-English sympathies following the release of some English prisoners, was killed on 31 July. Two days later the Dauphin Charles entered Paris by the very gate where Marcel had been assassinated.

Fig. 3: The slaughter of the peasant rebels at Meaux, 1358

France faced yet more problems. Bands of soldiers known as routiers, under no control, marauded, robbed and raped their way through a countryside already ravaged by the darkest aspects of war. Arnaud de Cervole, a renegade minor cleric known as the Archpriest, had fought at Poitiers. In May 1357 he struck out on his own, leading a brigand band into Provence, to the great alarm of the papacy. By 1359, the force he led was known as the Great Company. It included Gascon and English soldiers as well as French. The Archpriest was completely out of control, and his men had no regard for the chivalric conventions of war. Troops loyal to Charles of Navarre conducted a reign of terror in northern France. Eustace d’Auberchicourt, a Hainaulter long in English service and a knight of the Garter, led a powerful band. ‘We are enough to fight all of Champagne; let us ride out in the name of God and St George.’²¹ However, at Nogent-sur-Seine his force was defeated in battle, in a rare instance of English archers breaking formation.

Castle-building was one response to the chaos. Local communities responded to the menace presented by the English and the routiers as best they could, with an explosion of small-scale fortification. Tower-houses combined residence with protection. A great many church towers were fortified. No doubt some marauding bands were deterred by such fortifications, but some defences proved to be a threat for the local populace, serving as engines of oppression rather than as a protection. There was also some building on a grand scale. Magnificent towers, the most notable being Charles V’s impressive six-storied one at Vincennes, were an expression of royal and lordly prestige, rather than being the product of a defensive strategy.

These were hard times for the French populace. According to Jean de Venette, ‘The wretched peasants were oppressed on all sides, by friend and foe alike, and could cultivate their vineyards and fields only by paying tribute to both sides.’²² A pardon issued to the Archpriest explained that he and his men had ‘taken and ransomed men, towns and places, beaten, distressed and put to death men and women, raped matrons, maids and nuns, burned and destroyed towns, manors and houses, both property of the church and of others’.²³ Parts of France suffered more than others, but in general the rural economy was hard hit, though it proved capable of surprising recovery later in the century. Towns suffered less than the countryside, but they had to bear the cost of building and restoring their walls, a particularly heavy burden in the 1350s.

Fig. 4: The Chateau de Vincennes. The central tower was largely built by Charles V

THE 1359–60 CAMPAIGN AND THE TREATY OF BRÉTIGNY

With France apparently prostrate, it is not surprising that it proved impossible to pay the first instalment of King John’s ransom. Nor were those around the Dauphin prepared to accept the peace terms agreed in London. The estates-general agreed on fresh taxation to finance a renewed war. Weak as the Dauphin’s position was, amidst all the bad news there was one remarkable volte-face in the summer of 1359. In August, negotiations took place with Charles of Navarre. Declaring his patriotism and loyalty to the Valois dynasty, of which he was of course a part, Charles changed sides. ‘I will be a good Frenchman henceforth, your subject and friend and close supporter and defender against the English and all others.’²⁴

For Edward III, a new campaign was the obvious option. There seemed little hope that King John’s ransom would be paid, or the terms negotiated in London accepted by the Dauphin. The recruitment of archers was ordered in January 1359. In July the exchequer was ordered to be ready to pay the soldiers’ wages for three months, and orders went out to take ships and crews into royal service.²⁵ It was not until October that Lancaster, with about 1,000 men in his personal retinue, led a swift chevauchée from Calais, in advance of the main army. This departed early in the next month, in three main divisions. The nobility of England were out in force, with a duke, ten earls and 70 bannerets in the army, which numbered almost 12,000. In addition, many men-at-arms from the Low Countries and elsewhere joined the army. If Edward was seeking battle, however, he had a problem, for there was no French army for him to fight. The Dauphin’s strategy was to avoid engagement. Further, French intelligence was good. The regent wrote to the authorities at Reims in July, warning them that trustworthy people had informed him that Edward III was preparing an expedition, and that there was a list of cities he aimed to besiege, ‘among which Reims is especially named’. Edward’s aim was indeed to take Reims, where by tradition kings of France were crowned. He hoped to make good his claim to the kingdom.

The march was grim, for it poured with rain, and food was hard to find in areas ravaged by war. The army, with its huge baggage train, averaged less than six miles a day. Nor was Reims captured. Earlier, there had been worries about its defences. Instructions to Gauchier de Chatillon, captain of the city, issued earlier in 1359, pointed out that ‘the enemy could easily descend into the castle’s ditches, and then climb into the town without being hindered by any appropriate and defensible walls or palisades’.²⁶ By the time the English arrived, the defences were in a better shape. The city was blockaded for over five weeks, with no success. The army then moved to Burgundy. In March an agreement was reached with the young Duke of Burgundy, who promised to support Edward should he be crowned king of France, and to pay a huge ransom of 200,000 moutons d’or (£40,000) to be free of English troops. Edward evidently still had genuine hopes of a French coronation. The army then marched towards Paris, burning and pillaging. Challenges to do battle were ignored by the Dauphin. Edward then turned his forces south-west. On Monday, 13 April a ferocious storm lashed the army. There was no defence against huge hailstones, and many horses died, no doubt panicked. The effect on morale was more serious than the physical damage; the storm was regarded as a sign from God. By 8 May peace negotiations at Brétigny had been concluded.

The agreement reached at Brétigny was not very different from what had been agreed in London. King John’s ransom was reduced to 3 million écus, and was to cover the other French prisoners held by Edward. The English were to hold an enlarged Aquitaine, Poitou, Saintonge and Angoumois, with Ponthieu, Calais and the county of Guines in the north. Normandy and Brittany, however, were not to be English. Edward was to renounce his claim to the French throne. The French would cease supporting the Scots, and the English abandon support of the Flemings. Historians have put very different interpretations upon the treaty, some seeing it as a victory for the French, and some for the English.²⁷ The 1359–60 campaign had been a failure for Edward, in that he had not been crowned at Reims and had not defeated the Dauphin in battle. On the other hand, he had apparently achieved his fundamental aim, that of holding his possessions in France in full sovereignty. In addition, England would not be exposed to French attacks; there were very real fears over this, which had seemed fully justified when a French fleet raided Winchelsea in March 1360.

Agreeing peace terms was one thing, implementing them quite another. King John’s release took place on 24 October 1360, later than had been agreed. The major problem was over the transfer of territories, which could not be achieved quickly. Following an English suggestion, the relevant clauses of the treaty were shifted to a separate agreement, setting a final deadline of November 1361. This was impractical, and the failure to carry out the terms agreed at Brétigny meant that the French could still claim sovereignty over the lands the English held in France. Also, though Edward ceased using the title of king of France, he was within his rights to resume it. Nor did he cease using the French arms, quartered with those of England. It is likely that neither the French nor the English appreciated the complexities of putting the Brétigny agreement into effect, and that both were content to see that there would be ways of going back on it in the future.

Though the negotiations that followed the Treaty of Brétigny were not completed, almost half of King John’s ransom, about £166,600, was paid by early 1364. English finances were transformed; this sum was the equivalent of five annual subsidies. There was more to come, with at least £50,000 paid after 1364. Further, Edward III had the proceeds of the ransoms of King David of Scotland and Charles of Blois, together with the payment from Burgundy, at his disposal.

In one sense, payment of King John’s ransom was disastrous for French finances. Yet it resulted in a transformation of fiscal structures, strengthening the monarchy in the long run. An ordinance promulgated late in 1360 set out the system of direct and indirect taxation, as well as attempting to stabilize the currency. Though there was no fiscal uniformity across all France, the precedents were set for the establishment of an effective financial system, with both indirect and direct taxes. The fouage, or hearth tax, of 1363, agreed by the estates-general, was particularly significant, for it was paid both by towns and countryside, without the need for local ratification. Further negotiations over the treaty and the payment of the ransom saw King John permitted to return to France. In January 1364 he returned to England, in an attempt to achieve a settlement and to deal with the fallout from the breaking of parole by his son, the Duke of Anjou. In April, John died. He had been an ineffective king and a poor soldier; in his son, Charles V, the English would face a very different kind of opponent.