LITMIR.BIZ

      But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all “We died at such a place;” some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle; for how can they charitably dispose of any thing, when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the king that led them to it; whom to disobey were against all proportion of subjection.

       —William Shakespeare, Henry V

       Edwardian War (1337–60)

      Ever since the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, England had been ruled by—and let’s not mince words here—Frenchmen. Historians call them English, but most of the English nobility spoke French as their primary language. The laws of England were written in French. The English nobility had major fiefs and summer homes in France, and the king of England often owned as much of France as did the French king. They were French in everything but geography.

      When the king of France died childless in 1328, his first cousin, King Edward III of England, put in a claim to be his replacement. Instead, the French nobility picked a weakling they could dominate, rather than a powerful king, such as Edward would be. Of course this infuriated Edward.

      Because local wars and intrigues kept him busy, Edward didn’t launch his war to assert his claim for ten years. By that time, he had an exciting new weapon in his arsenal. He had first encountered the longbow while fighting peasants in the wild borderlands alongside Wales. Made from the yew tree and tall as a man, the longbow required enormous strength to pull, but with it, a trained archer could put an arrow through an inch of solid oak at two hundred yards and plate armor at one hundred yards. Impressed at how easily the longbow killed his best knights and disrupted his attacks, Edward made these archers an integral part of his own army.

      Since medieval warfare was rarely secret, the French, aware of the impending war, had assembled a fleet and were getting ready to attack first, but the English fleet cornered the French ships at Sluys, the port of Bruges, in 1340. Archers crammed aboard the English fleet swept the crews off the French ships and left the English in control of the channel. “The fish drank so much French blood, it was said afterward, that if God had given them the power of speech they would have spoken in French.”¹

      After the English landed in France in 1346, the two armies maneuvered around each other in the north of France for several months, trying to corner the other in the most advantageous battlefield. King Edward realized that the best tactical use of his strengths was to set up dismounted knights, foot soldiers, and archers in a defensive hedgehog bristling with spears, swords, and battle-axes, and then to get the French to attack. Finally, at Crecy, the English took a strong position atop a hill and waited for the French to come. As the battle was joined, the French knights were so eager to get at the English that they rode over their own retreating crossbowmen to get to the front lines. In the first round, their big heavy warhorses were ideal targets for the English arrows. Then the dismounted and heavily armored French knights slogged, slipped, and struggled up the muddy slopes, all the while being cut down by English archers. When it was all over the French losses were staggering, leaving their nobility badly depleted.

      To solidify their control over northern France, the English brought the English Channel port of Calais under a long and frustrating siege. Finally, the leading citizens of the starving town offered to surrender. The English were planning the customary massacre of the defenders as the penalty for causing them so much trouble, but the town’s leaders willingly offered themselves up to be killed if only the people would be spared. Their courage moved the heart of the English queen, who obviously did not know the first thing about the proper way of waging war. She pestered her husband to show mercy. Edward relented—probably with a weary sigh—so the leaders and people of Calais were expelled instead of killed. Then the city was thoroughly Anglicized.

      With the north secure, the war moved south. In 1356, King Edward’s son, Edward the Black Prince, marauded inward from English-controlled Aquitaine on the western coast of France, leading his army 260 miles across the center of France, burning towns and castles in order to provoke the French king into coming to stop him. When the English arrived at the Loire River, however, they discovered that the French had destroyed the bridges, stranding the English 160 miles from the safety of the English Channel. They turned around to go home, but the French army caught up at Poitiers in September. The 7,000 Englishmen were outnumbered by as many as five to one.

      Because horses were large, vulnerable targets for the English archers, the French chose to advance on foot. Their first wave arrived exhausted and was cut to pieces. While trying to retreat, they blundered into the second wave, which was thrown into chaos as well. Finally King John I of France regrouped and led the third and largest wave toward the English position, just as the English charged out to press their advantage. The English overwhelmed the French nobility and drove them into headlong retreat toward the safety of the town of Poitiers, but when the fleeing French arrived, they found the gates shut. The English cavalry caught up and easily massacred the tired survivors of the battle. France was running out of knights and options.²

      Among the captives from the Battle of Poitiers were King John of France and his son, who were taken to England, where the Black Prince gave them a royal tour and they were cheered by the populace. (Just because they were at war, that was no reason to be uncivil to a guest.) Negotiations for his release never quite worked out, and the French king died still captive in London in 1364.

      After a truce was negotiated in 1360, the English army was supposed to pack up and go home, but huge numbers of suddenly unemployed mercenaries didn’t have nice homes to return to. They had enjoyed living off the conquered French and refused to give it up. Instead, they stayed behind and roamed the countryside in predatory armies, looting, raping, and extorting.

       Caroline War (1369–89)

      As King Edward of England grew old and feeble, he began to neglect the English position on the continent. After a nine-year truce, the new French king, Charles V, decided to resume the war and see if history had shifted in France’s favor.

      The pendulum of chance was definitely swinging back toward the French. England’s Black Prince came down with a wasting disease and died in 1376. When his father the king followed one year later, the English throne went to Richard, the ten-year-old son of the Black Prince, rather than to a battle-tested warrior. The French pressed their growing advantage, and except for a few coastal enclaves, they cleared the English off the continent. By the 1380s, the French had fixed their English problem and were raiding ports along the English coast.

       Interlude of Insanity and Peace (1389–1415)

      After the death of Charles V in 1380, the French throne went to his twelve-year-old son, Charles the Mad. He didn’t start with that nickname, but in 1392 a mysterious illness made his hair and nails fall out. While still feverish and slightly delirious, Charles VI went riding with his entourage. A sudden noise startled him into drawing his sword and hacking through

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