Battles of English History. George Hereford Brooke
of the Hundred Years' War to give France real national coherence. Henry II. had given England a strong central administration, with a system of law fairly equal and well enforced. Ever since the barons had extorted Magna Charta from John, not for themselves only but for the whole people, the powers of the Parliament, and its significance as the representative body of the nation, had been growing. No laws could be made, no new taxation could be imposed, without the advice and consent of Parliament. This was only the beginning of political liberty, in the modern sense, but it was a beginning. In France on the other hand the king ruled over a number of vassals who had little or no relation to each other, and each of whom was much more effectually master of his dependents than the king. The political contrast showed itself in the military organisation of the two kingdoms. Though Edward III. was deeply imbued with the spirit of chivalry, he was far too sensible to carry into the field the noble's absolute contempt for the villein. Moreover there existed in England a class of yeomen who were in fact completely above villeinage, from which on the whole the archers were drawn. The feudal rule, by which the king summoned his vassals to serve him in war, and they came with their following (or did not come if they were disinclined, and the king lacked force to coerce them), had long been obsolete in England. The Parliament granted the king money for war, to supplement his own resources; and the king agreed with individual noblemen to bring so many men into the field, who were adequately paid and came voluntarily; hence they tended to make war their business, and to acquire something like discipline.
Edward had not far to look for allies. The commercial relations between England and Flanders were close, and highly important to both. The Flemish cities, then at the height of their prosperity, had recently quarrelled with their count, who appealed to his suzerain the king of France; and they promised Edward much more assistance than in fact they afforded. However Flanders gave him a base of operations as against France, and the first years of the war were occupied in more or less futile efforts at invasion, though they brought an overwhelming victory over the French fleet at Sluys on the Flemish coast. Later, a disputed succession to the duchy of Brittany, in which the candidate rejected by the king of France naturally asked help from England, opened a new field for hostility. In 1345 there was serious fighting in Guienne, in the course of which the earl of Derby won a considerable victory at Auberoche. On the other hand the murder of Jacques van Artevelde, the virtual ruler of Flanders and a strong partisan of England, made the prospects of effectual support from the Flemings worse than ever. The English Parliament, though desiring peace, probably realised that it was hopeless except at the price of abandoning Guienne, and therefore wisely desired that war should be waged in earnest. Great preparations were made for the campaign of 1346, which the king was to conduct in person. The king of France had raised a very large army, which was commanded by his son the duke of Normandy, and which early in 1346 occupied part of the English possessions in the south-west of France. The obvious thing for Edward to do with the large expedition he was fitting out was to defend his own provinces, since Flanders now offered a very unpromising field. Instead of this he decided suddenly to invade Normandy,22 and on July 12 he landed at Cape La Hogue.
There is no evidence that Edward had formed any coherent plan of operations. Able tactician as he showed himself at Crecy, he was no strategist; indeed no one in that age had any idea of strategical combinations, though of course it is easy after the event to see that a particular direction given to an army was or was not judicious from this point of view. This invasion of France might have been an extremely brilliant stroke. The English command of the sea made it feasible to land almost anywhere; the main French army was engaged in the south-west: there were no preparations for attempting to meet invasion anywhere else. Had Edward landed near the mouth of the Seine, at the nearest point to the capital, and marched straight on Paris, he would have had the king of France almost at his mercy, for Paris might have been in his hands before the duke of Normandy could come to its rescue. Instead of this, Edward landed at the extremity of the Cotentin peninsula, and then marched in a leisurely way through Normandy, capturing and plundering town after town, there being virtually no resistance. The absolute vagueness of his intentions may be gathered from his having sent away his fleet, laden with the booty of the Norman towns, thus depriving himself of the means of retreat in case of need. If Froissart is to be believed, he had already determined to march on Calais and attempt to seize it; but if so, it is still more difficult to explain his having landed in the Cotentin, Calais being within a march or two of Flanders, where if he had not met with much support he would have at least found a friendly reception. The only thing which looks as if he really meant to go towards Calais is that having reached Louviers, he seems to have marched some way down the Seine again towards Rouen; but this may have been in the hope of being able to plunder the capital of Normandy. The French meanwhile had broken down all the bridges on the Seine, which can only have been in order to prevent the English from extending their ravages to the right bank of the Seine, as it was obvious that they could reach the coast as easily on one side as on the other. Whatever may have been his original plan, or want of one, Edward, unable to cross the Seine in Normandy, did what he ought to have done weeks before, and marched up the left bank towards Paris. The king of France had used the breathing time unwisely allowed him to collect an army, which is said to have amounted to 100,000 men. Why he made no attempt to interfere with Edward earlier is a mystery. The English king marched unopposed to Poissy, a few miles below Paris, and there amused himself, while the bridge was being rebuilt, in ravaging the country to the very gates of the capital; he no doubt knew that the city was by this time full of soldiers, and therefore not open to attack. On August 16 the bridge was finished, and Edward crossed the Seine, his advanced guard having a sharp but successful fight with a large body of men coming from Amiens to join king Philip. Seeing that the huge French army was gathered at St. Denis, on the right bank, nearly half-way to Poissy, it is equally mysterious to find Edward crossing the Seine close to an enormously superior force, and Philip making no attempt to take him at a disadvantage. However Edward had by this time resolved on making for Flanders, and marched hastily northwards, sending out a strong detachment to endeavour to seize some point of passage over the Somme. As was natural, these were all broken or defended; Edward went on down the Somme, with an enemy of four or five times his strength behind him, till on August 23 he came opposite Abbeville, below which the river becomes a tidal estuary. The town was fortified and garrisoned, and there was a large body of troops on the right bank: it looked as if Edward's reckless movements had led him at last into a trap, as if the king of France had achieved a success which his own military management had by no means deserved. In the nick of time a peasant told Edward of a ford some way below Abbeville, broad and firm, but available only at low water. Early on the morning of the 24th the English army crossed by this ford, the archers giving a foretaste of what was to happen at Crecy by completely driving off the French force stationed to defend it. They were barely across when Philip was upon them; but the rising tide prevented pursuit.
Edward was now safe: he had only a short march before him to reach Flanders. Here however the spirit of chivalry took possession of him: he chose to turn and await battle, saying that he was now in his own heritage,23 and would defend it against the usurper. Accordingly he encamped on August 25 near the little village of Crecy, and selected a position in which to give battle, into which he moved the next morning. The army was divided as usual into three "battles," each consisting of about 800 men-at-arms and 2000 archers, besides light-armed infantry, chiefly Welsh. The prince of Wales commanded the first, the earl of Northampton the second: the king kept the third, which was to act as a reserve, under his own immediate orders. The exact position is not easy to determine: but it was on a piece of sloping ground, with a wind-mill on the upper part of it at which the king took up his station, facing the south-east or nearly so. The French attacked in such a hasty and irrational manner that it is not safe to infer anything from what they did: but certainly they did not attempt, with all their vast superiority of numbers, to turn Edward's position. A competent tactician would most probably have taken care that his flanks were protected in some way; and therefore it is probable that the English right rested on Crecy, through which flows the little river Maye, in which case its left may have been covered by the adjoining hamlet of Wadicourt. This position is shown in the accompanying map, not as ascertained, but as answering well to the conditions.
The essential novelty in Edward's tactics, the fact which makes Crecy an epoch in the history of the art of war, was that
This is said by Froissart to have been done on the advice of Godfrey of Harcourt, who was certainly one of the king's most trusted officers during the campaign, habitually leading the advanced guard.
He was in the county of Ponthieu, which had been the portion of Margaret of France, second wife of Edward I. He was not descended from her, but from Eleanor of Castile: there does not however seem to have been any provision for Ponthieu being inherited by Margaret's children.