1356

by Bernard Cornwell

  The main battle was fought on foot. The Lord of Douglas advised this, knowing that archers were much less effective against foot soldiers than against horses, which makes it ironical that Douglas was probably wounded while on horseback. The archers at Poitiers were decisive in the defeat of the two French cavalry charges, but made little impression on the main battles, who attacked on foot. The arrows were certainly a huge nuisance to the French. The arrow storm forced them to advance with their visors down, and each arrow blow, even if it did not pierce armour, was like being hit with a hammer, but the evidence suggests that the plate armour of the French was sufficient protection. The same thing was to happen at Agincourt. The French attacks there were inundated with arrows, yet still the men-at-arms reached Henry V’s line to engage in hand-to-hand fighting. And, of course, archers were formidable opponents in such fighting. The huge bodily strength needed to draw a longbow made them lethal when they wielded a pole-axe or any other hand weapon.

  The English prevailed at Poitiers. There were two main reasons. First, the Anglo-Gascon command was efficient. The army had mostly been together for more than two years, their commanders were experienced, and though there was undoubtedly some rivalry, those commanders cooperated and, above all, trusted each other. The Earl of Warwick began the day expecting to lead his battle in retreat, but changed his tactics when events dictated a change, and did it quickly and effectively. The young Earl of Salisbury commanded the defence of the English right with admirable stubbornness and a personal display of bravery. The final cavalry charge, ordered by the prince, was timed to perfection and was devastating. In contrast, the French command was clumsy in the extreme. King Jean fed his troops piecemeal into a battle from which many fled without orders, and there was bitter rivalry between some of his senior commanders.

  But the main reason for the Anglo-Gascon success was their discipline. They did not break the line. One man, Sir Humphrey Berkeley, did choose to leave the ranks and pursue the dauphin’s retreating men, presumably in hope of securing a rich prisoner, and was captured himself. His ransom was £2,000, a fortune, but he was the only captive taken by the French, while the English had a glut of high-ranking prisoners: the king himself, his son, the Archbishop of Sens, the Duke of Bourbon, Marshal Audrehem, the Counts of Vendôme, Dammartin, Tancarville, Joigny, Longueville, Eu, Ponthieu, Ventadour, and between two and three thousand French knights. Among the French dead were the Duke of Athènes, the Duke of Bourbon, Geoffrey de Charny (who carried the oriflamme), Constable Walter de Brienne, Marshal Clermont, the Bishop of Châlons, and some sixty or seventy other notables. Statistics for medieval battles are notoriously difficult, but it seems likely that the Anglo-Gascon army was about six thousand strong, of which one-third were archers, and that the French numbered about ten thousand. After the battle, heralds counted two and a half thousand French dead and a mere forty English or Gascons. The figure for the French appears credible, but are so few Anglo-Gascon casualties believable? There may have been some exaggeration by the winners, but the disparity also suggests that the greatest killing occurred after the French panicked. So long as men were in line, protected by their armour and supported by their neighbours, their chances of survival were high, but as soon as the line broke and men fled for their lives they became easy targets. There were certainly far too many bodies to be dealt with by the victors because, apart from those great nobles who could be identified, the rest were left on the field to rot, and stayed there till February when at last their remains were collected and buried.

  Between two and a half and three thousand Frenchmen were captured. The less important prisoners and those who were badly wounded were paroled, meaning they were allowed to go home on a promise not to fight against the English until their ransom was settled, but any man worth a large fortune was taken back to England and kept there till the ransom was paid. Warwick Castle, in its present form, was largely constructed on the ransoms of Frenchmen. Jonathan Sumption, in his indispensable book, Trial by Fire, reckons the total ransoms collected from Poitiers amounted to around £300,000. It is almost impossible to offer an equivalent value in today’s currencies, though one measure might be the price of ale, which today costs three thousand times what it did in the 1350s, so sufficient to say that many men became enormously wealthy. King Jean II’s ransom was set at six million gold écus, much of which was paid before his death in London in 1364.

  The name la Malice is an invention, and her connection with Saint Junien, whose body still lies behind the altar of the abbey church at Nouaillé-Maupertuis, is entirely fictional. All four gospels tell the story of Saint Peter drawing a sword in Gethsemane on the night of Christ’s arrest, then using the blade to slice off the ear of the high priest’s servant. The English have an old tradition that Joseph of Arimathea brought the sword to Britain and gave it to Saint George, but the Archdiocese of Pozna´n, in Poland, has a much better claim to the weapon, indeed the sword is one of their most precious possessions, and is on display in the Archdiocesan Museum. Is it the real thing? A sword in first century Palestine was most likely to have been a gladius, a Roman short sword, while the weapon in Poznan is a falchion, a broad-tipped long sword. Still, there it is, and folk can believe it to be the genuine article if they wish.

  I could not have written the novel without the help of several books, chief among them Jonathan Sumption’s Trial by Fire, which is the second volume of his history of the Hundred Years War. Peter Hoskins gallantly walked the complete length of both the Black Prince’s chevauchées, and his story of those campaigns is told in his book In the Steps of the Black Prince. The best biography of Edward of Woodstock is Richard Barber’s The Black Prince. By far the most authoritative account of the longbow and its effect is The Great Warbow by Matthew Strickland and Robert Hardy. Robert Hardy was generous in pointing me towards J. M. Tourneur-Aumont’s massive La Bataille de Poitiers, 1356. The most intimate picture of everyday life in fourteenth-century France is provided in Ann Wroe’s enchanting book A Fool and His Money. Other notable books are David Green’s The Battle of Poitiers, 1356, The Black Prince’s Expedition by H. J. Hewitt, The Reign of Edward III by W. Mark Ormrod, and Edward III by the same author. I owe thanks to all those historians.

  The Prince of Wales owed thanks to his men and offered it in annuities and outright gifts of money. Many of the archers received grants of timber or rights of pasturage. In France there was shock and outrage at the battle’s outcome, which was vented on the nobility. Poitiers was a disaster, propelling France into bankruptcy, chaos, and revolution. No wonder that Edward III, receiving the news of his son’s triumph, proclaimed ‘We rejoice in God’s bounty’.

  The war would continue, through Agincourt in 1415 and beyond, until eventually the French prevailed. But that is another story.

  Two Chronicles of Poitiers

  It was the Duke of Wellington who remarked that one might as well try to write the story of a battle as write the history of a formal ball; every dancer will have a different recollection of the event, and rarely will two such recollections match. The difficulty of discovering what happened in a medieval battle is compounded by the dearth of memoirs. No participant of the battle of Poitiers left a description, though there are letters from such men, but the letters tend to announce the result of the battle rather than its course. The most interesting of those letters are reprinted in Richard Barber’s book Life and Campaigns of the Black Prince (Boydell Press, 1979), and that book also has long excerpts from the era’s chroniclers. It was those chroniclers who tried to record the history of their own times, but sadly none was present at the battle of Poitiers and so their descriptions are coloured by their sources (and possibly by their imaginations too).

  Jean Froissart, a Frenchman, is the most famous of such chroniclers. He wrote an enormous amount and is an important source for the history of western Europe between 1320 and 1400, but the modern consensus is that he made frequent mistakes! He wrote for an aristocratic audience and so accentuates chivalr
y, and his description of Poitiers was written long after the event. It might not be accurate, but it does illustrate how the battle was perceived by literate Europeans in the fourteenth century. So here, in a shortened and edited version, is his account of the battle of Poitiers:

  When the prince saw that he should have battle he said to his men: ‘Now, sirs, though we be but a small company (compared) to the puissance of our enemies, let us not be downhearted; for the victory lies not in the multitude of people, but as God will send it. If fortune says that the (day) be ours, we shall be the most honoured people of all the world; and if we die in our right quarrel, I have the king my father and brethren, and also ye have good friends and kinsmen; these shall revenge us. Therefore, sirs, for God’s sake I require you do your duty this day; for if God be pleased and Saint George, this day you shall see me a good knight.’

  Then the battle began and the battles of the marshals of France approached, and they sent forth those who were appointed to break the array of the archers. They entered on horseback into the gaps where the great hedges were full of archers on both sides. As soon as the men at arms entered, the archers began to shoot on both sides and did kill and wound horses and knights, so that the horses would not go forward when they felt the sharp arrows, but drew back and many of them fell on their masters, so that for press they could not rise again; which meant that the marshals’ battle could never come at the prince. The battle of the marshals fell into disorder because of the archers with the aid of the men at arms, who came among them and killed them.

  So within a short space the marshals’ battles were discomfited, for they fell one upon another and could not go forward; and the Frenchmen that were behind recoiled back and came on the battle of the duke of Normandy, which was large and on foot. The archers gave their army great advantage that day because they shot so fast that the Frenchmen did not know on what side to take guard, and little by little the Englishmen won ground on them.

  And when the men at arms of England saw that the marshals’ battle was discomfited and that the duke’s battle began to fall into disorder, they leapt then on their horses, which they had ready, and they assembled and cried, ‘Saint George! Guyenne!’ The prince said, ‘Let us go forth; ye shall not see me this turn back today,’ and said, ‘Advance the banner, in the name of God and of Saint George.’ There was then a fierce and dangerous battle, with many a man slain and cast to the earth. As the Frenchmen fought they cried, ‘Mountjoy! Saint Denis!’ and the Englishmen, ‘Saint George! Guyenne!’ Soon the prince with his company met with the battle of Almains, but in a short while they were put to flight: the archers killed many men. When the duke of Normandy’s battle saw the prince approach, they thought to save themselves, and so the duke and the king’s children, the earl of Poitiers and the earl of Touraine, who were right young, left the field, and with them more than eight hundred spears, that struck no stroke that day. Then they met also the duke of Orleans and a great company with him, who had also departed from the field.

  Then the king’s battle came on the English: there was a great fight and many a huge blow given and received. The king and his youngest son met with the battle of the English marshals, the earl of Warwick and the earl of Suffolk, and with them the captal of Buch, and also in the king’s battle there was the earl Douglas of Scotland, who fought valiantly for a time, but when he saw the discomfiture, he left and saved himself; for in no wise he would be taken of the Englishmen. On the French party king John was that day a valiant knight: if a quarter of his men had done their duty as well as he did, the day had likely been his. However those that were with the king were all killed or captured except a few that saved themselves.

  Truly this battle, which was near to Poitiers in the fields of Beauvoir and Maupertuis, was great and perilous, and many deeds of arms were done which are unknown. The fighters on both sides endured much suffering: king John had an axe in his hands wherewith he defended himself. The pursuit lasted to the gates of Poitiers: there were many slain and beaten down, horse and man, for the citizens of Poitiers closed their gates and so in the street before the gate was horrible murder, men hurt and beaten down. Then there was a great crowd to take the king, and those who recognised him cried, ‘Sir, yield, or else you are dead.’ There was a knight called sir Denis Morbeke, who had served the Englishmen for five years because in his youth he had forfeited the realm of France because a murder that he did at Saint-Omer’s. It happened that he was next to the king when they were about to capture him: he stepped forward and by strength of his body and arms he came to the French king and said in good French, ‘Sir, yield you.’ The king beheld the knight and said: ‘To whom shall I yield me? Where is my cousin the prince of Wales? If I might see him, I would speak with him.’ Denis answered and said: ‘Sir, he is not here; but yield you to me and I shall bring you to him. ‘Who be you?’ quoth the king. ‘Sir,’ quoth he, ‘I am Denis of Morbeke, a knight of Artois; but I serve the king of England because I am banished the realm of France and I have forfeited all that I had there.’ Then the king gave him his right gauntlet, and said, ‘I yield me to you.’

  But the French king was on foot and in great danger because Englishmen and Gascons had taken him from sir Denis Morbeke, and those who were strongest said, ‘I have taken him.’ ‘No,’ cried another, ‘I have taken him’: so they struggled which should have him. Then the French king, to avoid that peril, said: ‘Sirs, strive not: lead me courteously, and my son, to my cousin the prince, for I am so great a lord to make you all rich.’ The king’s words somewhat appeased them, but still they brawled for the capture of the king. Then the two lords entered into the crowd and caused every man to draw back, and commanded them in the prince’s name on pain of their life to make no more noise nor to approach the king unless they were commanded. Then every man gave room to the lords, and they alighted and did their reverence to the king, and so brought him and his son in peace to the prince of Wales.

  The same night of the battle the prince made a supper

  in his lodging to the French king and to the most part of

  the great lords that were prisoners, and always the prince served the king as humbly as he could, and would not sit

  at the king’s table, but he said he was not sufficient to sit at the table with so great a prince as the king. Then he said

  to the king: ‘Sir, for God’s sake make none evil nor heavy cheer, though God this day did not consent to follow your will; for, sir, surely the king my father shall bear you as much honour and friendship as he may. And, sir, I think you ought to rejoice, though the day be not as you would have it, but this day you have won high renown of prowess and have surpassed in bravery all others of your party.’

  Sir John Chandos was a close friend of the Black Prince. Sir John’s herald, now known simply as Chandos Herald, wrote a life of the prince which includes a description of Poitiers. Almost certainly Sir John was his source, or perhaps another man who was close to the prince during the battle. The account is brief, but useful. It might be from the English perspective, but it includes conversations from the French side, which were probably inventions or perhaps were gleaned from the many prisoners taken on the field:

  The Prince broke up camp because on that day he did not think to have battle, I assure you, but wanted, most certainly, to avoid the battle. But on the other side the French cried out loudly to the King that the English were fleeing and that they would speedily lose them. Said the Marshal d’Audrehem: ‘Soon we shall have lost the English if we don’t attack them.’ Said the Marshal de Clermont: ‘Fair brother, you are in too much haste. Do not be so eager, for we shall surely come there in time, for the English do not flee.’ Said d’Audrehem: ‘Your delay will make us lose them at this time.’ Then said Clermont: ‘By Saint Denis, Marshal, you are very bold.’ And then he said to him angrily: ‘Indeed you will not be so bold as to acquit yourself to-day in such wise that you come far enough forward for the point of your lance to reach the rump of my horse.’ Thus infla
med with wrath they set out towards the English.