The Perfect King (35 page)

This process of creating legislation - responding to social demands in return for extraordinary taxation - was effectively selling laws. As a result, it has
frequently
been attacked as a haphazard legislative programme. It certainly suggests that Edward had no domestic legislative agenda of his own. But we have to ask whether a responsive approach to lawgiving was a negative thing. After all, most modern laws are passed in reaction to changing social circumstances. In April
1340
Edward was in no position to know what was required in England; he had been overseas for almost two years. All he knew was that he had to restore his standing in parliament. So the relatively free hand he gave to representatives to set the legislative agenda was not simply due to his need for taxation. It follows that he cannot be credited with the reforms of
1340
except in one important respect: he allowed these statutes to be enrolled. For this his contemporaries were prepared to give him some credit. They knew it was something his father would not have done.

*

On
16
April
1340
Edward was jousting at Windsor
Castle
. Unexpectedly, a messenger arrived from Flanders. Five days earlier, two of Edward's closest companions - the earls of Salisbury and Suffolk — had left the main army and set off to spy out the defences of Lille. They had had with them thirty men-at-arms, and some mounted archers. They were spotted, however, and as they moved around the town, they were gradually surrounded. When the garrison closed in, they were trapped, with their backs to the moat. They had drawn their weapons and fought furiously, even until dark. But when sixty or more men lay dead on the ground, the last seven were overpowered. One - a renegade French knight - was dragged over to a nearby tree and hanged there and then. Both earls and the remaining four
men-at-arms were taken captive.

Salisbury and Suffolk - his friends, Montagu and Ufford - to Edward this must have come as a shock. But there was worse news to follow. The earl of Salisbury had been his principal commander in the Low Countries, and his capture flung the whole region into d
isarray. The French destroyed th
e towns of Haspres and Escaudoeuvres and many villages in Hainault. In May they attacked Valenciennes itself, the capital of Hainault, burning and destroying everything in the vicinity.'
4
Sir Walter Manny's brother, Giles, was captured and killed. An allied attack on Tournai failed. Incursions into England from Scotland meant that now, unable to spare troops to defend the border, Edward had to sue for a lasting peace in
Scotland
, against his wishes. In addition to all this, Philip's fleet was so strong that Edward had to prohibit the export of wool for fear of
it being stolen by the French.

To Edward there was only one solution. He had to return to France as quickly as possible and lead an attack on the French army. If he did not, Flanders would be lost to him, and his wife too, still a hostage in Ghent, recovering from giving birth to John, later known as John of 'Gaunt' (Ghent). Edward needed ships, particularly the large Mediterranean galleys which Philip had been able to requisition from the Genoese. He wrote to the pope exhorting him to make sure Niccolinus Fieschi was released from prison so he could arrange for the commissioning of vessels. He also wrote to the Venetians, asking them specifically for forty galleys.

It seems that Edward was just beginning to panic. In his letter to the Venetians he was at pains to point out why they should supply him with galleys and not Philip. He explained the cause of the war - that Philip had occupied his lands in France - and added that:

On this account, King Edward calls upon the said Philip to fight a pitched battle. But for the avoidance of reproach hereafter on account of so much Christian bloodshed, he at the commencement of the war offered, by letter, to settle the dispute either by single combat or with a band of six or eight, or any number he pleased on either side; or that, if he be the true king of France as asserted by him, he should stand the test of braving ravenous lions who would not harm a true king, or perform the miracle of touching for the evil; if unable, to be considered unw
orthy of the kingdom of France.

It all sounds very self-confident, bragging even. Edward was portraying himself as a leader prepared to risk his life for his political beliefs. But on reflection it is all a little too bombastic; these after all were very distant and very dignified correspondents on the Adriatic. This need to justify himself, personally, in a request for ships to a distant state, was inappropriate. This is especially so when one remembers that Philip was much older than Edward. Edward's need to show that he was a brave and divinely chosen king, brave enough to challenge Philip to single combat, protected by God from the hunger of beasts, hints at a self-conscious need to convince others of his greatness. Such a protest of bravery suggests self-doubt.

The reason for Edward's worry is not hard to find. His whole strategy was collapsing, economically and militarily. On
27
May Edward arranged for his son again to act as regent during his absence overseas. The council of regency was to be headed by the archbishop of Canterbury and the earl of Huntingdon. But they had only been appointed for a few days when the archbishop heard from a messenger of the count of Guelderland that the French were gathering their ships in a great fleet in the Channel to trap Edward when he returned to Flanders. Genoese, Picard, Spanish and French vessels were all drawing together to present an impenetrable wall. Philip had decided that Edward was the cause of, and the solution to, his problems. To capture him now became his highest priority. The archbishop conscientiously told Edward straightaway, but in so doing he made the mistake of telling him what he should and should not do. There were too many ships, he explained, for Edward to consider attacking them. He must remain in England. At this Edward's already-frayed nerves gave way. He exploded in rage at the archbishop, accusing him of being against the war and dictating to him. Faced with this onslaught, the archbishop immediately resigned his office of Chancellor. Edward coldly accepted his resignation, and called two of his most trusted naval advisers to him, Robert Morley, admiral of the northern fleet, and John Crabb. They confirmed what the archbishop had said, saying it was too dangerous to cross the Channel. Edward was furious. 'You and the archbishop are in league, preaching me a sermon to stop me crossing! Let me tell you this: I will cross, and you who are frightened where there is
no fear, you may stay at home.’
The two naval advisers then said that if the king were to cross, then he and those who crossed with him would be facing almost certain death. But they would follow, even if it cost them their lives.

The chronicler who recorded the above lines was probably trying to accentuate Edward's bravery. However, he did not need to alter the facts to portray Edward as a brave man. Edward was all the braver because he did what he did despite his fear. The inappropriate stresses in the letter to Venice, his lack of money, elements of political misjudgement, his shortage of troops, his giving up of the Scottish war, his admission that the seas were too dangerous to risk the export of wool, the capture of two of his best friends by the French and the risk of losing his wife and son at Ghent, all suggest that now he was under extreme pressure. Given this it is truly impressive that Edward not only gathered a fleet but instilled in his men the belief that they were sailing to Flanders to engage and defeat the enemy. That he was able to inspire them, despite knowing the scale of the task facing them, is astonishing. There were two hundred ships and galleys in the enemy fleet at the mouth of the River Zwin, with nineteen thousand fighting men aboard. Two of the French ships - the
Christopher
and the
Edward -
had once been the pride of his own navy. He himself had only about
120-147
ships and they were mostl
y much smaller than the large galleys and warships of the French fleet, and fewer than twelve thousand fighting men when he
gathered them all at Harwich.

On
20
June, one week late, Edward stepped aboard his largest remaining ship, the
Thomas
and received his new great seal from the archbishop of Canterbury. The archbishop apologised to Edward. Edward accepted the apology and reinstated him as Chancellor, but the prelate, having thought over his position, would not accept. He was too old, he said. He could have added that he was too old to argue politics with a twenty-eight-year-old king who annually made a pilgrimage to see the point of the sword which had killed Thomas Becket, an earlier archbishop of Canterbury. For a second time Edward accepted his resignation. He appointed the archbishop's brother, Robert Stratford, instead. Then, resolved to fight the French, he gave the order for his fleet to sail towards Flanders.

The ships of the fleet all came together over the next two days, keeping close. Small wooden vessels bobbed up and down around Edward's cog: tiny by comparison with some of the vessels they would be facing. Nineteen of the French ships - including a few giant galleys hired from the Genoese - were said to have been larger than anything hitherto seen in the Channel.

Late on the next day, Friday
23
June, as the English approached the Zwin estuary, they all saw for themselves. There was no more arrogant bragging or self-delusion. Every man in the fleet could see what stood between them and their purpose. Masts like a forest rose up before them in the evening light. The ships' prows were all armoured with wooden
castle
s, one after the other, all in a row, totally blocking the mouth of the River Zwin.

Edward gave the order for the fleet to drop anchor, and wait the night. The next few hours cannot have been easy for him or his men, trying to sleep with the movement of the ship, each half-listening for a surprise night attack. No sound but the waves lapping at the side of the boat and the low voices of those talking about strategies for the morning. No refuge from the thoughts of the danger that lay ahead. For the women Edward had brought to attend to his wife and newborn son, it must have been a troubling experience. They knew the horrific consequences if they were captured. Aware of their fears and vulnerability, the king ordered them to be kept well back from the
battle
.

In the morning Edward saw that the enemy ships had not moved overnight. As the sun came up, he and his men waited for them to leave the estuary, to sail towards him. He probably hoped that they would do what the mounted knights at Dupplin Moor had done: charge into the sights of his archers on the flanks. But the French did not move. Their greatest and largest ships were placed at the front, defensively. If Edward wanted to land in Flanders, he would have to take the fight to them.

Still he waited. It was
24
June, the feast of St John the Baptist. Facing the French, the English archers would have looked into the sun. So Edward continued to wait, close to the coast. He knew that if he sailed north, the French could sail between him and the midday sun. Only in the early afternoon, when he knew that the sun would be behind his ships for the rest of the day, and the wind and the tide were with him, did he give the signal to advance. The first of the three lines of English ships sailed forward, the
Thomas
in their centre, with Edward on board and with the new royal banner of England and France, resplendent in red, blue and gold above him.

Slowly he came within arrowshot of the huge French ships. The French and Genoese crossbowmen waited. The English loosed their arrows. The greater range and the faster speed of the English longbows swept the decks of the French vessels. The crossbowmen were powerless to put up a line of fire. Even with the rising and falling of the boats, the English arrows tore through the lines of men on the French vessels. Realising that the impetus lay with them, the English sailed their ships into the French line and hurled their grappling hooks over the sides, drawing them together. The French responded, sending galleys forward to pick off some of the leading English ships. Four great galleys armed with springalds (giant catapults) sailed towards one English ship, the
Oliver,
and fired large amounts of stone shot into its sails and across the decks of the vessel. Soon many aboard the
Oliver
were killed or wounded. But Edward gave orders to respond to the challenge, and several English ships reached the beleaguered boat, driving off the galleys.

Over die next few hours it became clear that to judge the armies by the numbers of ships and men had been misleading. The first line of the French fleet blocked the second line from attacking, and the
y blocked the third line. All th
e English ships massed in an attack on the leading French vessels. The men who now rushed from the English on to the French and Spanish ships were hardened fighters. Foremost among them were the earl of Huntingdon, Sir Walter Manny and John Crabb: men used to warfare at sea as well as on land. The men they commanded had marched with Edward against the Scots. They had marched with Edward against Philip at La Flamengrie. They had thought, talked and dreamed of war for the last ten years. Now, at last, they saw that a momentous victory was within reach. It was as if Edward was a sacred leader who could only lead them to victory, like Alexander. He stood on the deck of the
Thomas,
shouting orders, undaunted, even when a French spear struck him through his thigh. Very soon the
Christopher
had a grappling iron hurled on to its deck, and as the English archers on an adjacent vessel let loose volleys of arrows to pin down the Genoese crossbowmen and to curb the sailors throwing down stones from the mastheads, the English men-at-arms scrambled on board.
21
A great shout went up from the English when they saw the French flag torn down from the
Christopher.
It was all the inspiration they needed.