A Great and Glorious Adventure (12 page)

While the heavy cavalry component had almost disappeared in English armies, there was still a requirement for light cavalry, and these were the hobelars, shown in the muster rolls as
armatti
, who were lightly armed and mounted on ponies or on what today would be considered light hunter types. Their role was not to charge the enemy but to reconnoitre, patrol, find
routes, forage for rations, collect intelligence and provide communications. With so much of the army now mounted, there was of course a requirement for grooms and farriers to accompany it, to say
nothing of the huge amount of forage that would have to be either shipped with the army or bought or sequestered on the ground. Other specialists would be miners for siegework, armourers to repair
weapons and suits of armour, masons and carpenters to construct defences and build bridges, bowyers and fletchers to repair and replace the archers’ necessities, and even a military band.
Edward III may also have had some early cannon, or gunpowder artillery, although the details are vague.

The army that Edward was gathering was made up of three types of soldier: those belonging to retinues, either the king’s or those of magnates; paid contingents raised by individual
contractors; and men summoned by commissions of array. There were two sorts of retinues: those composed of household troops and those of men who were indentured. Household retinues consisted of
those men who were tenants of the lord and whose families owed a feudal obligation to him. These personal retinues would
become less important as the war went on, but in the
1340s they were still significant. Indentured retinues – sometimes unkindly referred to as ‘bastard feudalism’ – were those raised by an individual, who had to be of the
rank of banneret or above, and its members were employed on contract, occasionally for a specific period but more often to serve the lord in peace and war for life. The contract was written, laid
down the wages and expenses to be paid, stipulated exactly what type of service was to be provided, including whether it was to be within England only or abroad, and usually included the proviso
that a certain proportion of any ransom or plunder acquired was to go to the lord. Service was owed to that particular lord and could not be transferred to anyone else without the agreement of both
parties. The contract was sealed and both parties kept a copy. Members of indentured retinues were required to be of the rank of knight or esquire and to wear the lord’s badge or
uniform.
¹²
The retinues varied in size from that of the earl of Northampton, who in 1341 undertook to provide seven bannerets, seventy-four
knights, 199 men-at-arms, 200 armed men (spearmen and hobelars) and 100 archers, or the earl of Derby, who in 1342 agreed to muster five bannerets, fifty knights, 144 esquires and 200 mounted
archers, both forces a mix of household and indentured retinues; to less well-off members of the gentry like John Beauchamp, who produced one knight (himself), five esquires, six men-at-arms and
four mounted archers.
¹³

As knights still had a feudal obligation, it was in the government’s interest to have lots of them, and there were various regulations to persuade those of means (lands worth £40 a
year) to accept knighthood. To those who were going to war, whether as part of an overlord’s retinue or of their own volition, knighthood was an advantage, for not only did it double the
man’s pay but a captured knight was also more likely to be held for ransom rather than slaughtered out of hand. That said, the expense of armour, horses, servants and the other trappings of
gentility did deter some, and fines were levied against those who turned knighthood down. When the king was strong and admired – Edward I, Edward III, Henry V – there were few who
resisted becoming knights and contributing to the war effort, while when kings were weak or unpopular – Edward II, Richard II, Henry VI – the contrary applied.

Contract forces raised by the king and the government were similar to indentured retinues but without personal loyalty to an individual lord.
They were the first true
professional or career soldiers and might be considered the national army, as opposed to local or private armed bodies. An individual, usually referred to as a captain, contracted to produce a
certain number of soldiers of a stipulated type for a prescribed period of time to serve in a particular area; terms and conditions of service were laid down and agreed. Like indentured retinues,
numbers varied widely, from Edward Montagu, captain, who in 1341 agreed to provide six knights, twenty men-at-arms, twelve spearmen and twelve archers for forty days in Brittany for a total of
£76,
³⁰
to men like Sir Hugh Calveley, who could recruit a thousand soldiers to serve in the same area.

In the early stages of the war, soldiers raised by commissions of array – a system of conscription that had changed little since Saxon times – outnumbered those in retinues or under
contract, although as time went on the army would become more and more composed of professionals. With the exception of those living in coastal areas, all males aged between sixteen and sixty were
liable to conscription organized by arrayers, who might be sergeants-at-arms (royal servants and more like mobile inspectors and trouble-shooters rather than the senior non-commissioned officers
they are today), knights of the king’s household or local officials. Using the local authorities to select men was administratively simple but invited corruption, as local arrayers sought or
were offered bribes to exempt those who did not wish to go, and often the men selected were quite unfit for military service. Sergeants-at-arms or the king’s own officials were less
susceptible to corruption, and, because they had military experience themselves and knew the sort of man they wanted, they tended to get a better quality of recruit.

Even then, there were problems. Often the best men had already been recruited either into a local lord’s retinue or into an indentured company. And despite various statutes, not everybody
possessed weapons, which had to be provided or paid for locally, and it was a stipulation that those who did not serve were required to contribute towards the cost of those who did. Because of the
difficulty of finding sufficient men by array, there had to be
incentives. These included assurances to pressed men that they could keep a certain proportion of the value of
goods captured, usually up to £100, which was twenty years’ salary for a foot archer, and pardons for outlaws. If a man who was ordered to appear before the courts on a criminal charge
consistently failed to appear, then he was declared outlaw, or ‘without the law’, which meant that, technically at least, he could be killed with impunity depending on the seriousness
of his alleged offence. Outlawry only applied to the man’s county, so someone on the run had only to escape to the next county to be safe from retribution, but, as an outlaw’s goods and
chattels were forfeit to the crown, it was not a comfortable state. The king, and only the king, could grant pardons in exchange for military service, although sensibly the pardon was usually
withheld until the service was complete and the man’s good behaviour attested to by his commander. In the year 1339/40, a total of 850 charters of pardon were granted for military services
rendered, of which around three-quarters are estimated to have been to murderers. Altogether, perhaps up to one-tenth of an English army was made up of criminals working their passage to
forgiveness.
¹⁴

Men raised by commissions of array were organized into vintenaries, or twenties, under a vintenar or junior officer, usually a knight but, if not, someone of military experience. Five
vintenaries made a centenary commanded by a centenar, who was mounted even if his troops were not. The nearest modern equivalent is the platoon and the company. We have little knowledge of how
these men were trained, but clearly there must have been a training syllabus over and above weekly archery practice. While soldiers of the time did not march in step, they would have been required
to move with a measured pace at a set rate of paces per minute, in order that they could change formation without losing cohesion. The men would have been made to become accustomed to moving and
fighting as part of a team, to obey orders without question, to understand military terminology, and to handle their weapons as the army demanded. Development of physical fitness and training in
living in the field would not have been as important as it is for young British recruits today, but some understanding of field hygiene and first aid would presumably have been instilled.

Soldiers wearing a uniform are recognizable and hence easier to control and discipline – they also find it more difficult to desert. While
there was not as yet a
national uniform in the modern sense, many contingents were equipped to a common standard of dress, and many of the richer magnates, and even localities, vied with each other in the provision of
uniform clothing. Mostly, the men seem to have been clothed in various shades of white, but the Welsh contingents were clothed in hats and quilted tunics that were white on one side and green on
the other, while the men of London wore red and white stripes. But even if units were all uniformed to a greater or lesser extent, recognition in the heat of battle cannot have been easy, given the
number of contingents in the army and the plethora of individual coats of arms on bannerets’ surcoats – to say nothing of the standards and banners displayed by barons, earls and
formation commanders. Edward III eventually reverted to his grandfather’s practice of ordering all to wear an armband of the red cross of St George.

By now, it was recognized that, lingering feudal obligations notwithstanding, officers and men of an army had to be paid. Rates of pay, varying somewhat depending upon the success or otherwise
of recruitment, were expressed as daily rates (as British army rates of pay still are). A duke (and at first there was only one – the Prince of Wales) got thirteen shillings and fourpence
(£0.67); an earl eight shillings (£0.40); a knight banneret four shillings (£0.20); a knight bachelor two shillings (£0.10); a man-at-arms who was not a knight one shilling
(£0.05); an English vintenar, a hobelar and a mounted archer sixpence (£0.025); a Welsh vintenar, a dismounted archer and an English light infantryman threepence (£0.0125); and a
Welsh spearman twopence (£0.0083). Taking the numbers that they might command, then the duke might be a brigade commander, the earl a battalion commander, the banneret a company commander and
the knight a platoon commander. Thus, the ratio of pay was 7:4:2:1, which in terms of responsibility is probably about right.
³¹

While of less importance after the Battle of Sluys, it was still necessary to guard against sea-borne raids, and this was the responsibility of the Keepers of the Maritime Lands, officials in
the counties bordering the sea. Appointed by the king, they organized and commanded the Garde
de la Mer, which combined dedicated coastal observers with a warning system and
a call-out in the event of a French landing. The warning system consisted of a line of beacons along the shore and stretching inland, which were to be ignited if a landing was about to take place;
pitch was preferred to twigs in the beacons as being less likely to be affected by rain. Each beacon was attended by between four and six men, who manned an observation post consisting of two or
three wine barrels filled with sand and stacked on top of each other, with a watcher perched on top looking out to sea. Churches were ordered that under normal circumstances only one bell was to be
rung, as the ringing of all the bells was the signal that a landing was happening. Men living in the Maritime Lands – defined as the coastal strip extending three leagues (nine miles) inland
– were exempt from military service outside that area, while owners of estates within the area were reminded that they must live on them, as they provided the officers in the event of a
call-out of the militia to counter an invasion. There were also arrangements whereby the militia of inland counties could be deployed to coastal counties if invasion threatened. One of the
difficulties was the need to prevent residents of the Maritime Lands from leaving them, as many who lived on the Isle of Wight and in Portsmouth and Southampton – areas regularly raided by
the French – not unnaturally tried to do. The arrangements had changed little from pre-Norman times, and, while such a system could cope with minor raids, it is doubtful whether it could have
done very much to counter a full-scale invasion. Fortunately, after Sluys, it did not have to.

While Edward was raising money and an army to return to France, which he would do in 1346, the English military machine was not idle, for there were momentous happenings in Brittany that England
could not ignore. Brittany had always been important to England: strategically placed between Normandy and Aquitaine, it controlled the coastal sea route between England and Bordeaux, one along
which the lucrative trade in grain one way and wine the other could flow and thereby avoid the treacherous storms of the Bay of Biscay. It was very much in England’s interests that Brittany
should be at best an ally, and at worst neutral, in any struggle with France. Although technically vassals of the king of France, dukes of Brittany issued their own coinage and underwent a ceremony
suspiciously similar to coronation; they had always managed to retain
independence to a greater or lesser degree, depending on how much control French kings could exercise
over a relatively remote province. When Bretons aggrieved by a decision of the duke or his courts appealed to the
parlement
in Paris,
³²
as they
were legally entitled to do, dukes generally ignored the findings, and there was very little that the king could do.

Duke Arthur II, who ruled from 1305 to 1312, married twice. By his first wife, Marie, viscountess of Limoges, he had two sons: Jean III, who succeeded him in 1312, and Guy, who died in 1331. By
his second wife, Yolande, countess of Monfort, he had one son, John de Montfort. Duke Jean III died in 1341 without legitimate issue. Guy, who predeceased him, had a daughter, Jeanne de Penthieve.
The candidates for the succession, therefore, were Jeanne and her half-uncle John de Montfort. Both John de Montfort and his mother Yolande had always felt that they had not been granted the
landholdings to which their position and birth entitled them. John had spent most of his time out of the duchy as a vexatious litigant pursuing lawsuits in the Paris courts and in Flanders, where
he believed that he was entitled to certain landholdings by virtue of having married a daughter of the count of Flanders. On hearing of the death of Duke Jean III, John de Montfort accepted the
support of Edward III – whether at his initiative or at Edward’s is disputed – but if Edward was king of France, as he said he was, then he was entitled to decide the succession.
Philip VI, however, called an assembly in Paris which decided in favour of Jeanne. As she had been married since 1337 to Charles of Blois, a stout supporter of the Valois, this came as no great
surprise, even if only a few years previously Philip had argued strenuously against inheritance through the female line. John intended to press his claim by force of arms, but at first few Bretons
rallied to his cause – after all, he had hitherto shown little interest in his claimed birthright. It was the advance of a large French army towards Brittany to assist Charles of Blois to
take possession that forced the population to take sides. In general, the leading nobles supported the French candidate, while the lesser, Breton-speaking gentry supported Montfort, probably
because they resented French encroachments on their independence. In addition, many of the merchants and those who lived
near the ports and profited from trade with England
also threw in their lot with him.