by David Green
The siege necessitated a great expansion in the size of the army. Estimates of the numbers of troops involved during the course of the operation range from 26,000 to 32,000.37 Cheshire reinforcements for Calais were demanded on 12 September 1346 and were led by Griffith ap Jor’ap Meyler and William Brereton, who may have died during the siege. Thomas Danyers was ordered to bring further reinforcements on 16 March 1347 as was Richard Baskerville in May. Orders were also sent to Alexander Wasteneys, William Tabley, Ralph Oldington, Ralph Stathum and Richard del Hogh, sheriff of Flint. Sir Rhys ap Griffith (a trusted knight of Edward II, and one-time justiciar of south Wales) led a contingent of Welsh reinforcements. He returned from France to lead them to Winchelsea. Welsh forces at Calais probably totalled 4,572.38 A number of the prince’s retinue returned to England over the winter, but rejoined the siege in May. These included the younger Burghersh, Richard Stafford, Thomas Daniel and Stephen Cosington (a former member of Lancaster’s retinue, and later a member of the prince’s council and bodyguard with additional ambassadorial and diplomatic duties). Philip VI took steps to relieve the siege and began to rally his forces as early as 3 October. There were French attempts to break the naval blockade but this failed and few supplies reached the town after the embargo began. Alternative efforts were made to displace the English. Philip encouraged David Bruce to lead an attack from Scotland. He encountered an army at Neville’s Cross, near Durham, in October 1346 and was captured himself and his army completely defeated. The French and their allies suffered a further loss in June 1347 when Charles de Blois was captured by Thomas Dagworth.
On 27 July 1347, Philip finally rallied his forces and brought an army to relieve the siege. This was offset somewhat by the appearance of Flemish reinforcements for the English. There was some skirmishing between the armies, but little of consequence. Negotiations opened and continued until 31 July, but came to no real resolution. Philip struck camp on 2 August, and with the last hope for rescue gone, the town surrendered two days later.
The Order of the Garter
The Hundred Years War and the victory at Crécy reintroduced the English aristocratic community to positions of military importance that had diminished since the latter years of the reign of Edward II. The Edwardian ‘military renaissance’ had considerable implications for chivalry. Victory reinforced the martial implications of knighthood and strengthened the aristocracy’s taste for war. Such attitudes were enshrined in the foundation of the Order of the Garter, which served as a perpetual memorial to Edward III’s continental aspirations and created a chivalric elite within the ranks of the military aristocracy. The symbol of the order had nothing to do with an embarrassing incident involving the Countess of Salisbury losing a garter at a ball (the lady in question was said by some to be Joan of Kent), but was in fact reminiscent of a belt or arming buckle, with the ‘knot’ symbolizing the ties of loyalty and affection that bound the companionship of the order together. Likewise, the motto, Honi soit qui mal y pense or ‘Shame on him who thinks ill of it’ was a direct reference to those who might doubt the veracity of Edward’s claim to the French throne or the manner by which he sought to make good that claim.39
The Garter was designed to be a chivalric forum of the highest order: recruitment to the twenty-six stalls (including the king and the prince of Wales) in St George’s chapel, Windsor, was international and membership was, at least theoretically, dependent not on political rank but chivalric achievement. However, those who were seen to have obstructed Edward in the early years of the French campaign did not find inclusion in the order’s ranks. The practical benefits of membership of the Garter were very limited, being essentially ceremonial and honorific as were the obligations of the members, but it became the highest achievement of English chivalry. Edward’s policy in melding chivalric values with foreign policy was mimicked in France through the creation of the Company of the Star and with much the same motivation. Due to peculiarities of recruitment and particularly because many of the prince’s close military associates were also members of the Garter, the battle of Poitiers was, at least among the command ranks, a conflict of these two Orders.
Through propaganda and the example of the king and his eldest son, substance was given to the Arthurian myth, which Edward III had sought to create in the prototype of the Garter, the Round Table (1344).40 The Garter was formed in 1348 and its membership seems to have been primarily dependent on service to the king in the campaigns leading up to the battle of Crécy. All but four, or at most six, did not play some part in the battle or in the 1346 campaign. Of these, many of the founder knights had or developed close connections to the prince. All of the founder members that sat on his side in St George’s chapel had fought with him in the first division at Crécy. They included Richard FitzSimon, who carried his standard, James Audley (the prince’s constant military companion alongside John Chandos), Walter Pavely (household bachelor and annuitant), Henry Eam (bachelor and annuitant), Nigel Loryng (a life retainer and trusted military and political adviser), Lords Mohun and Wale, the captal de Buch, Bartholomew Burghersh, the younger (steward of Wallingford, justice of Chester), John Lord Grey of Rotherfield and Roger Mortimer, earl of March.41 As the Order gained status and stature over the years, many more of the prince’s followers, and those of his wife, found inclusion in this select group such as Walter Mauny and William FitzWaryn. The process continued in Richard’s reign. Lewis Clifford joined the order and was also a member of Philippe de Mézières’ crusading Order of the Passion. John Burley, Simon’s brother, who was retained by the prince in his final years was elected to the Garter in 1381 where he joined Thomas Felton, Nicholas Sarnesfield, John Devereux, Peter Courtenay and John Bourchier, who had also seen service with Richard’s father.42
The original statutes of the order have been lost and the earliest extant version is based on a seventeenth-century transcription. The first regulations may not have been as detailed as those formulated in later years, but it seems very likely that some form of statutes governed the members of the order in the fourteenth century and probably from the outset. The most significant ceremonial occasion fell on St George’s Day (23 April). The companions assembled at Windsor the day before, where matters concerning the order were discussed and they attended vespers. High mass followed the next day and new members might be introduced. A banquet and final service concluded the festivities. A requiem mass was celebrated on 24 April.43
Meetings of the Garter were often accompanied by splendid tournaments, many of which were staged in true Arthurian style with knights fighting incognito or wearing fantastic costumes.44 Both Edward III and the Black Prince are known to have participated wearing disguises or costumes. Such events may have been particularly significant if, as has been suggested, the Garter comprised two tourneying teams headed by the king and his son. Tourneying was a regular and important feature of the prince’s life. At Windsor, perhaps for a Garter tournament in 1352, he purchased 60 buckles, 60 girdle-tips and 120 bars for ‘knights of the prince’s companionship’.45 At Eltham in 1354, he gave Chandos and Audley a pair of plates of armour covered, interestingly, with black velvet: unfortunately for those looking for a reason for his pseudonym, he purchased red velvet covered plates for himself. For the Garter tournament of 1358, the prince gave £100 as a gift to the heralds and minstrels at the jousts. At Smithfield in 1359, he purchased eleven ostrich feathers for the jousts and there are several other records of gifts of shields and other arms being ‘powdered’ with his device.46
Tournaments were becoming increasingly organised and less dangerous although fatalities were still relatively common. The mêlée as a form was becoming increasingly outmoded and with it the role of the tournament as training for military service. It still provided a taste of combat, but little real preparation for a young knight or esquire. Nonetheless, tournaments certainly played an important part in the courtly life of the prince and further enhanced his military reputation. Cuvelier, the biographer of Bertrand du Guesclin, a
ttributed the prince’s military success to his being surrounded by knights hardened in the tourney.47
Arthurian connotations were not only reserved for the tournament and the Garter – they became part of the image and glamour of the royal family. Jean le Bel, on whose account much of the early part of Froissart’s chronicle was based, depicted Edward III as the second Arthur. The Black Prince was described similarly by Geoffrey Le Baker as the ‘Boar of Cornwall’. In time, literary motifs gave way to prophesy such as that of John Erghome, written to encourage Edward III to continue the war, which ended with the ‘reign’ of the Black Prince by then firmly established as the king of France.48 In addition, the prince was said to be in possession of a statue of a golden eagle, which contained a stone flask containing holy oil, presented by the Virgin to St Thomas. The first king to be anointed with it was ‘destined’ to recover Normandy and Aquitaine without force and be the greatest amongst kings. A priest presented it to Henry of Lancaster who in turn gave it to the Black Prince. The eagle was supposedly placed in the Tower of London in a locked chest but, significantly, it was not there when it was looked for in 1377 for Richard II’s coronation.49
In the years from 1345–8, the situation for England, Edward III and his son had changed radically. Triumph on the battlefield had been followed by a major acquisition in the form of Calais, a launching area for further assaults and a permanent base in the north of France to complement Gascony in the south. The opportunity for further campaigns and to capitalise on the situation was, however, prevented in a manner that was utterly terrible and completely unforeseen.
The Black Death
The bald statistics are shocking enough; the reality must have been appalling. Throughout Europe and certainly in England and France, between 30 per cent and 50 per cent of the population died in the years from 1347 to 1349. It was a scale of mortality that Europe had never witnessed and never has subsequently.50 There has been a tendency by later commentators to see a range of mitigating, even beneficial aspects to the plague. It has been viewed as a Malthusian check on a population that had outstretched the ability of the soil to sustain it and thus required some sort of demographic ‘limiter’ The direct role of the plague itself has also been questioned, as the population was already declining after the Great Famine of 1315–17 and so the plague struck a weakened population. The Black Death and its consequences have been viewed as, to use Sellars and Yeatman’s celebrated phrase, ‘A Good Thing’.51 There were great opportunities open to the survivors and socio-economic benefits in land, trade, social mobility and the like; however, such opportunities can have provided little comfort for those who survived this first outbreak of the plague and witnessed the death of 1 in 3 or perhaps half of their friends, family and loved ones. It coloured and shaped the attitudes of at least a generation and its effects were evident for the remaining half of the century.
The endemic incidents of bubonic, pneumonic and possibly septicaemic plague have received widely differing accounts by historians over a long period of time. Some have discounted the impact of the plague seeing it as negligible, whilst others have attributed such diverse events and attitudes as Lollardy, the Peasants’ Revolt, the wool trade, and nothing less than the end of feudalism to the catastrophic consequences of the death of perhaps half of the population. Neither extreme is true, but it is, nonetheless, difficult to underestimate the immediate impact and the long-term consequences of the repeated outbreaks of plague that struck Britain and the continent from 1347 until the early years of Henry IV’s reign. The socio-economic impact cannot be quantified, except in microcosm, and the psychological effects are even more problematic, especially when the vast majority considered the epidemic to be divine retribution on a sinful people. Despite this, the evidence for ‘change’, in concrete terms and in the attitudes and outlook of the survivors and their children, is compelling.
One of the most significant areas, given the ‘God-given’ nature of the epidemic, was religion. As a catalyst, the plague encouraged an increasingly Christocentric form of worship and also strengthened the doctrine of purgatory. The failure of the clergy to foresee or forestall this divine retribution encouraged individuals to seek a more direct and personal link with God and his saints. This took various forms including the foundation of chantries by which benefactors could receive the personal spiritual attention of a number of chaplains and the increasing use of portative altars and licences in order to hear mass in domestic chapels.
Church architecture and features may also have been influenced. This is most apparent in the form of monumental effigies and tombs. The denigration of the body and the barren values of the material world were demonstrated by tombs showing wracked, twisted and tormented bodies.52 Alternatively, it has been suggested that there could have been Arthurian connotations to such effigies and that such examples as the tombs of William Kerdeston, one of the prince’s Norfolk retainers, and Oliver Ingham, the one time seneschal of Aquitaine, depicted lying on stones and pebbles, show an image of the questing knight, lost in a mythical forest.
It is particularly interesting in the context of the prince and his retinue that the lead in a range of innovatory forms of religious patronage was taken by militarily active knights. For example, Hugh Calveley and Robert Knolles, two of the most celebrated and hated mercenary captains of the fourteenth century, were among the founders of St Thomas’ (Becket) hospice in Rome, as was a certain John Hawkwood. Both men have been described as ‘well-known philanthropists’ and Knolles ‘appears to have been genuinely conscientious in religious matters’.53
Support for the Carthusians also became popular, at least partly because of their interest in and respect for the contemplative life. They were one of the few orders to remain free of criticism from such commentators as Langland and Wyclif. Amongst those close to the Black Prince, Walter Mauny and Michael de la Pole founded the Charterhouses at London and Hull respectively. Mauny’s interest in the order may have been prompted by his association with Grosmont and Gaunt, both of whom had dealings with Beauvale priory, (Notts), and he was assisted with the foundation costs by the bishop of London, Michael Northburgh.54 Previously Mauny had provided a graveyard for plague-stricken Londoners and founded a college for twelve secular priests to pray for the dead.55 One of those who requested their prayers in his will was William Lord Latimer. De la Pole’s motives for founding the charterhouse in Hull are clear. His father had been the first mayor of the town (1331–5) and had represented it in parliament. Michael was granted the custody of the town with the manor of Myton in 1366.56 Peter Veel, the prince’s retainer and later MP for Gloucestershire and constable of Gloucester castle, in 1387 granted the advowson of Norton FitzWarren, Somerset, to the London charterhouse. Such gestures may well have had origins in a group mentality.57 Richard II gave the order one tun of Gascon wine annually after 1382 and was associated with the foundation of the Coventry charterhouse. The prince himself granted the Selwood charterhouse five marks a year on 6 August 1362. The prior and order of Hinton received ten marks a year in lieu of a tun of wine on 3 March 1362, and the prior of Witham five marks.58
Alongside such ideas were more radical movements for spiritual reform. Wyclif and the Lollards concerned themselves with issues concerning predestination, transubstantiation, the role of pilgrimages, and the illusory value of sumptuous tombs and elaborate requiems.
The Black Death both shaped English and French society and restricted Edward III’s ability to prosecute the war on any scale. However, military activity did not cease entirely. In 1349, plans were made in France for the recapture of Calais. Geoffrey de Charny tried to bribe Aimery of Pavia, the galley-master of the town and commander of one of the gate towers of the citadel, to allow Charny and his troops to enter secretly at night. Aimery, however, reported the plan to Edward III, who hurried across the Channel at Christmas with a small force including the Black Prince, the earl of March, and a number of their retainers and servants.
Charny approached Calais
on the night of New Year’s Day 1350. Before dawn the following morning, he and several of his companions entered, but the drawbridge was closed behind them. Some of those remaining outside and led by Charles de Montorency fled, but the rest held firm until caught between the forces of the king and prince of Wales who both fought incognito under the banner of Walter Mauny. Among those captured were Charny himself, Eustace de Ribemont and Oudart de Renti.59
Geoffrey de Charny was one of the pre-eminent knights of his and perhaps any other generation to be placed alongside Henry of Lancaster, Bertrand du Guesclin, the Black Prince, Edward III and, in later years, Marshal Boucicault. He was the first known owner of the Shroud of Turin and died bearing the Oriflamme at Poitiers. He wrote a number of military and chivalric treatises, and his Livre de Chevalerie was most likely composed for King Jean’s Company of the Star. The raid on Calais was not the jewel in the crown of an otherwise glittering career, but it serves to demonstrate the wide range of skills and abilities required of the military aristocracy and the mutability of the chivalric code by which they lived.
Limited action also continued at sea and the prince’s first naval encounter was at Winchelsea in 1350. On 29 August, the English fleet, numbering something over 40 vessels, intercepted about 24 much larger Castilian ships led by Charles de la Cerda, who had been raiding in English waters. Despite the Anglo-French truce, the Castilians had continued to raid and attack English shipping, and preparations had been made to counter their threat. Ships were requisitioned and fitted out for action at Sandwich, the commanders of which included the king himself, his eldest son, the duke of Lancaster and the earls of Northampton and Warwick. During the battle, the prince’s ship tried to ram another vessel, but was itself holed. The earl of Lancaster boarded the Prince’s intended target from the other side and pulled the prince and the young John of Gaunt, who was with him, to safety as their ship sank. Losses on both sides were very considerable and the Castilians were able to inflict great damage before they were boarded.60
