Read Online The Monks of War by Desmond Seward - Free Book Online
Authors: Desmond Seward
Tags: History
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a carefully arranged order of battle, told Philip: ‘My own counsel, saving your displeasure, is that you and all your company rest here and lodge for this night for ... it will be very late and your people be weary and out of array, and ye shall find your enemies fresh and ready to receive you.’ The knight continued that next morning the King would be able to form up his troops and look for the right place to attack the English, ‘for, Sir, surely they will abide you’. Philip thought this excellent advice and gave orders for his troops to halt and make camp.
But there was always a problem in controlling excessively large medieval armies, and by now ‘the flower of France’ was completely out of control. While those in front tried to halt, the men-at-arms behind kept on coming and the front had to move on again. ‘So they rode proudly forward without any order or good array until they came in sight of the English who stood waiting for them in fine order, but then it seemed shameful to retreat.’ At the same time all the roads between Abbeville and Crécy were jammed with peasants and townsmen waving swords and spears, yelling ‘Down with them! let us slay them all !’ Eventually Philip, who was up in front, realized that he had lost any hope of restraining his troops. In desperation he ordered an attack—
‘Make the Genoese go on before, and begin the battle, in the name of God and Saint Denis.’ By then it was evening. The sun was beginning to set.
Trumpets, drums and kettledrums sounded, and a line of Genoese crossbowmen advanced to within 200 or even 150 yards of the English. As they did so they were drenched to the skin by a short but violent thunderstorm. At the same moment that they began to discharge their quarrels the English archers stepped forward and shot with such rapidity that ‘it seemed as if it snowed’. The Genoese had marched long miles carrying their heavy instruments, and it is probable that they had discarded the pavises or large shields which crossbowmen normally used to protect themselves while reloading. Highly vulnerable, they at once began to drop beneath the arrow-storm, which they had never before experienced. Tired, demoralized—even the setting sun, which had reappeared, was in their eyes—the survivors started running. This stage of the engagement may have lasted no more than a minute.
A panel of the Wilton Diptych, c . 1390. Richard II kneels before three saints. It is possible that Edward the Confessor (centre) is an idealized portrait of Edward III, and that Edmund of East Anglia (right) is a similar portrait of Edward II. John the Baptist may be the Black Prince.
The noble King Edward III. 1312-1 1377) whose face was said to be like the face of a god’.
The Count of Alençon was so shocked by what he considered to be cowardice on the part of the crossbowmen that he shouted, ‘Ride down this rabble who block our advance!’ His fellow men-at-arms immediately responded to his appeal with a hopelessly disorganized charge. The shrieks of the miserable crossbowmen trampled under horses’ hooves made the French in the rear think that the English were being killed, so they too pressed forward. The result was a struggling mob at the very foot of the slope where the English archers were positioned and from where they shot with murderous precision, not wasting a single arrow; each one found its mark, piercing the riders’ heads and limbs through their mail and above all driving their mounts mad. Some horses bolted in a frenzy, others reared hideously or turned their hindquarters to the enemy. ‘A great outcry rose to the stars.’ Jean le Bel, who had spoken to men who were there, tells of horses being piled on top of one another ‘like a litter of piglets’.
Almost certainly Edward’s guns added to the confusion. At least one chronicler says that the King’s cannon—only three are mentioned—terrified the horses. If of little use as weapons, their noise and
But there was always a problem in controlling excessively large medieval armies, and by now ‘the flower of France’ was completely out of control. While those in front tried to halt, the men-at-arms behind kept on coming and the front had to move on again. ‘So they rode proudly forward without any order or good array until they came in sight of the English who stood waiting for them in fine order, but then it seemed shameful to retreat.’ At the same time all the roads between Abbeville and Crécy were jammed with peasants and townsmen waving swords and spears, yelling ‘Down with them! let us slay them all !’ Eventually Philip, who was up in front, realized that he had lost any hope of restraining his troops. In desperation he ordered an attack—
‘Make the Genoese go on before, and begin the battle, in the name of God and Saint Denis.’ By then it was evening. The sun was beginning to set.
Trumpets, drums and kettledrums sounded, and a line of Genoese crossbowmen advanced to within 200 or even 150 yards of the English. As they did so they were drenched to the skin by a short but violent thunderstorm. At the same moment that they began to discharge their quarrels the English archers stepped forward and shot with such rapidity that ‘it seemed as if it snowed’. The Genoese had marched long miles carrying their heavy instruments, and it is probable that they had discarded the pavises or large shields which crossbowmen normally used to protect themselves while reloading. Highly vulnerable, they at once began to drop beneath the arrow-storm, which they had never before experienced. Tired, demoralized—even the setting sun, which had reappeared, was in their eyes—the survivors started running. This stage of the engagement may have lasted no more than a minute.
A panel of the Wilton Diptych, c . 1390. Richard II kneels before three saints. It is possible that Edward the Confessor (centre) is an idealized portrait of Edward III, and that Edmund of East Anglia (right) is a similar portrait of Edward II. John the Baptist may be the Black Prince.
The noble King Edward III. 1312-1 1377) whose face was said to be like the face of a god’.
The Count of Alençon was so shocked by what he considered to be cowardice on the part of the crossbowmen that he shouted, ‘Ride down this rabble who block our advance!’ His fellow men-at-arms immediately responded to his appeal with a hopelessly disorganized charge. The shrieks of the miserable crossbowmen trampled under horses’ hooves made the French in the rear think that the English were being killed, so they too pressed forward. The result was a struggling mob at the very foot of the slope where the English archers were positioned and from where they shot with murderous precision, not wasting a single arrow; each one found its mark, piercing the riders’ heads and limbs through their mail and above all driving their mounts mad. Some horses bolted in a frenzy, others reared hideously or turned their hindquarters to the enemy. ‘A great outcry rose to the stars.’ Jean le Bel, who had spoken to men who were there, tells of horses being piled on top of one another ‘like a litter of piglets’.
Almost certainly Edward’s guns added to the confusion. At least one chronicler says that the King’s cannon—only three are mentioned—terrified the horses. If of little use as weapons, their noise and
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