The battle between the centres had been proceeding on almost equal terms. At a glance, Baliol took in the situation; refusing to succumb to the temptation of pursuing the beaten High Steward’s division, he wheeled his men and flung them into a charge on the left flank of the Scottish King’s division. The left flank of this formation, through the flight of the left wing, was left practically defenceless and Baliol’s move proved almost completely disastrous to the Scots. Their centre, attacked in front by Neville (whose men had poured through gaps in the enclosures to charge the Scots in a somewhat confused but nevertheless desperate manner) and on the left flank by Baliol’s cavalry, began to waver and slowly give way. The conflict was carried on relentlessly for some time, the English and the Scots hacking away at each other, the archers firing at whatever targets presented themselves and then laying on with their swords. In spite of the King, surrounded by his nobles, fighting bravely, his division began to break up, the fugitives taking off towards the right, where Rokeby was valiantly doing more than hold his own. But here the men of the Scots right division, hampered by the nature of the ground, could not retreat; caught in enclosures and between hedges, they were slain without mercy and died in heaps.
On all sides the Scots had now completely given way, but their King, by his exhortations and example, repeatedly brought masses of them back to the fray. It was in vain and at last, almost a precursor of Flodden, the remaining knights formed themselves in a ring around their monarch and stood at bay. In spite of their gallant defence, at noon the royal banner was seen to be beaten down; seeing it fall, the remnants of the Scottish army in all parts of the field fled in despair. Acknowledging that all was lost, the eighty or so knights remaining around David surrendered and, at last, the King himself was taken. His sword was broken in his hand and he was said to have had at least two severe body wounds, but proud, fiery and in the prime of life, David disdained captivity and tried to provoke his captor, Sir John Copeland, to kill him. Although he smashed his mailed gauntlet into that knight’s face, his action did not bring the death he desired and David II, King of Scotland, was conveyed in triumph through England to the Tower of London.
The English losses are not known, although in such a fiercely contested battle they must have been severe. The Scots undoubtedly lost the more. It is said that, out of 30,000 men, nearly half perished on the spot and many more in the subsequent pursuit.
And so the year 1346 became a year of victories; the Tower of London did not seem to have sufficient rooms to accommodate all its royal and noble prisoners of war. England was a young nation, only recently united and just finding her feet; the victorious exploits of her soldiers, which had given them a fearsome reputation in an amazingly short space of time, had aroused a spirit of national pride and consciousness never to be lost. By methods derived from his grandfather, Edward III had blended with skill and experience tactical methods that were to be forged in the fires of success at Halidon Hill, Morlaix, Crécy, Neville’s Cross and many subsequent victories. To carry out these methods, Edward had at his disposal men of the highest class – men-at-arms who were the pick of the country, and archers who had brought their craft to a peak of perfection by long practice. There are numerous French writings and chronicles that testify to the fearsome and deadly impression that these archers had made upon continental soldiery. It was indeed a time of national rejoicing that the lusty English infant had learned to walk and was now laying about him so that his presence was to be known through his power of arms for many centuries.
Chapter 14
Mauron – 1352
So colourful and vital are the victories of Crécy in 1346 and at Poitiers in 1356 that the intervening years of the Hundred Years War tend to assume interest-lacking qualities so far as battles and engagements are concerned. This is due, in part, to the Black Death in 1348 causing so many deaths in England that it became difficult to reinforce the many English garrisons in France, so that there was an inevitable lull in activities. There was also a truce of sorts signed in 1347 which obviously would have prevented major conflicts, for a short time anyway.
In spite of this, it is true to say that throughout this period in question there was almost constant fighting taking place in Picardy, in Brittany and in Gascony. Nor did France cease to try to assuage her pride by recapturing Calais, that festering wound kept open by England for so long. In 1350, there was another naval battle fought off Winchelsea, when fifty small English ships bearing Edward and the cream of his commanders totally defeated – in the best Sluys manner – a Spanish fleet of forty-four much larger and more powerful ships of war. The Queen, with her ladies, sat upon the cliffs looking down at the battle as if it had been a joust or a tourney. It was a sight worth seeing, for all the best in England was out on the water that day – they went forth in little ships and came back in great galleys. Of the tall ships of Spain, more than two score flew the cross of St. George before the sun had set.
While it is certain that those land engagements that took place were fought in the same pattern as those that had preceded them (reminding one of another war between the two countries to be fought some five hundred years later, when circumstances caused the Duke of Wellington to remark that the French continued to attack in column and the British to defeat them in line!), there is evidence that the French were trying to discover the weak points in this frighteningly successful English tactical method. In the summer of 1349, English and Gascon allies, under the Captal de Buch, were involved in a small battle at Lunalonge in Poitou with a French force under Jean de Lisle. By going round to the rear of the position, the French captured the English horses that had been haltered there when the English men-at-arms dismounted as usual and took up battle formations. Having shown such a spark of common sense, the elated French, still mounted, then attacked the English position from the front in the same old manner and were totally defeated, their commander being captured!
In the spring of 1351 a French army under the command of two marshals of France – Guy de Nesle (Sire d’Offrement) and Arnaud d’Endreghem – drove back the weak English garrisons in the province of Poitou and laid siege to Saintes. Seeing that the French King evidently intended to recapture the province, Edward sent Sir John Beauchamp to combat the threat. Beauchamp’s army advanced north and the French came to meet them, the two armies approaching each other near St. Georges-la-Valade. In their usual manner, the English dismounted and formed line of battle, their horses being sent to the rear under guard of pages. On this occasion the French did the same, but retained two mounted bodies, one on each wing. On foot, like their enemies, the French now attacked frontally and were beaten back, suffering a most decisive defeat and losing 600 men, including the two marshals with 140 esquires and gentlemen. There are no details available of this battle, although it indicates that, in desperation, the French were endeavouring to counter the English tactics by similarly dismounting. Their efforts bore no fruit because they obviously failed to appreciate the full implications of the move.
Marshal de Nesle, having been ransomed after his capture at St. Georges-la-Valade, led a French invasion of Brittany in early August 1352, his ultimate objective being Brest. Rennes fell to the French and the English commander, Sir William Bentley, decided to advance northwards towards the Brest road in order to meet the enemy. He decided upon this course of action although he knew himself to be heavily outnumbered, an indication of the confidence with which the English commanders approached the business in hand.
By noon on the 14th of August both armies were approaching the small town of Mauron from different directions; an encounter seemed certain. The dust clouds rising in the northeast indicated to Sir William Bentley that the enemy were approaching. At once his training and experience came into play and he began to seek a position where he could defensively face the enemy in the traditional English dismounted manner. He was fortunate that such a site existed in his vicinity – it was not ideal but good enough to be taken up with reasonable confidence.
The town of Mauron was situated on a ridge, from which a spur ran eastwards with a slope running down to a small rivulet, on the far side of which the ground sloped upwards in gentle fashion, except to the north-east, where it became very steep. The English formed up on the commanding ground of the spur, their centre midway between a narrow belt of trees that ran across the top of the spur and the rivulet; their right rested on a small chateau where the slope was most gentle; there was steeper, almost precipitous, ground near the Rennes road and in front of their left flank. For a force of only about 3,000 men it was a long frontage – nearly 700 yards – and, as at Agincourt in later years, they lacked sufficient men to form a reserve. The country around was open and lacked hedges, ditches or woods; immediately in front of the English position lay a profusion of rank, long undergrowth in full summer flower.
The formation adopted by the English was the one invariably successful in the war – men-at-arms in the centre, and archers in ‘herces’ or bastions, on the flanks. The centre of the line was about 200 yards from the belt of trees and the flanks curved back slightly towards them, thus conforming to the contours of the ground. This meant that the archers could not cover the whole of the English frontage with their fire.
On the opposite side of the valley, in full view of the English, Guy de Nesle deployed his army; they quite obviously outnumbered the English considerably. He sent across a herald with terms for a withdrawal, terms which were scornfully rejected by Sir William Bentley. So the French carried on dismounting, Nesle evidently retaining confidence in the method that had brought him defeat when last he had met the English, although he retained a mounted body of about 700 men, under command of the Count Hangest, who were to operate on the left wing. This body began the action at four o’clock, when they came into brisk contact with the English archers on the right flank, who immediately gave way and fled! This not only meant that the men-at-arms on their left had no covering fire, but it also exposed their right flank, so they, in their turn, had to fall back up the slope until they reached the belt of trees.
The archers on the left, with no mounted attack to face because of the steeper ground to their front, stood their ground and used their weapons to such good effect that the French men-at-arms did not even reach them but broke and fled under the hail of arrows, scattering pell-mell down the slope. This meant that the right flank of their centre column lay exposed. Then came an example of the great initiative and offensive spirit that hallmarked the English archers throughout the Hundred Years War – the left wing bowmen dropped their bows, drew their swords and charged nimbly down the hill after the retreating French men-at-arms. Some of them swung to the right and attacked the exposed flank of the French centre column, causing disorder and panic.
The English men-at-arms on the right wing, who had formed a defensive line along the edge of the belt of trees, had brought to a partial halt the French horsemen who were pursuing the fleeing archers. Now, encouraged by the English success on the left, they took heart and, fighting fiercely every inch of the way, gradually advanced to push their opponents down the slope before them. Now openly retreating, the French were forced back until they reached the bottom of the valley; as they lumbered laboriously back in the hot summer sun, they were caught in a murderous crossfire of English arrows and suffered heavily. The fleeing French right wing reached the bottom of the valley to find themselves confronted with steep, rearing slopes that formed the only route to safety. Frantically they tried to claw their armoured way up these slopes. Like stricken beetles, their movements became progressively slower until, almost motionless except for feeble movements of their arms, they were shot down unmercifully from short range.
With the exception of Hangest and his cavalry, the French army had dissolved like a piece of ice left in the hot sun. Their leader dead along with most of his senior captains, the rest fled in all directions, intent on saving themselves, leaving more than 2,000 dead on the field.
Yet another victory had been gained by the English archer in the continuous series of contests between himself and the French men-at-arms, a success marred only by the exceptional flight of the right-flank bowmen. The reasons for this flight can only lie in the realms of conjecture – it might have been that Hangest’s cavalry were of vastly exceptional quality or, more likely, that the archers themselves were of a lower standard than usual. The huge death roll of the Black Death had meant that the very bottom of the barrel had had to be scraped to reinforce the English armies in France. It must be taken into account that Hangest himself, the French cavalry leader, had shown himself to be a reasonably able commander in the manner in which he had led his men over favourable ground towards the English right flank. By such a move he had prevented more than half the English archers from bringing fire to bear upon his approaching cavalry – this is assuming that they were in the ‘herce’ formation. Sufficient to say that Bentley had thirty of the archers executed for cowardice on the following day!
As a link between the battles of Crécy and Poitiers, the affair at Mauron forms a very interesting connection in that it confirmed the superiority of the English archer in a frontal attack. It also oddly foreshadowed Poitiers, to a certain extent, in that it contained a mounted flank attack and a downhill counterattack – both successful in each case.
Chapter 15
Poitiers – 1356
The Battle of Poitiers (spelt ‘Peyters’ by the Black Prince) was the second of the great trinity of memorable victories, of which Crécy was the first and Agincourt the third. Although its details are somewhat controversial, it is fair to claim that it is easily the most interesting and instructive of them all from a military point of view. King Edward had left Bordeaux on the 6th of July 1356, with the intention of carrying fire and sword into the enemy’s domains, endeavouring to meet and destroy the French army in the process and, finally, to join hands somewhere on the line of the river Loire with his brother, the Duke of Lancaster. But, by early September, the tryst had failed to materialise and the Black Prince had King John of France on his heels with a much larger army than his own. Nevertheless, he sought battle with the French because he correctly reasoned that only by dispersing the numerically superior French army could he get back to Bordeaux with the substantial booty collected during the raid he had made into the heart of France. He was also aware of the high state of his army’s morale after ten years of superiority in France; he knew that they had unbounded confidence in him, in fact they held him in holy awe; in return he had no less faith in them.
On the night of Saturday, 17th of September, the French army encamped just outside the walls of Poitiers; the English army lay three miles to the west, in the forest near the little village of Chabotrie. Most of the following day was spent in fruitless discussions between emissaries of the two armies, during a truce period engineered by the Cardinal de Périgord. The terms proposed by King John were too humiliating for the Prince to accept; he fell back on the plea that he was not authorised by his father to so arrange a truce. With nothing concluded, darkness fell and both armies lay on their arms within bowshot of each other. During this night the English held a war council to decide upon a course of action should King John decline indefinitely to attack them. Such a course would inevitably mean that they could be starved into surrender in a few days, whilst the French army steadily increased in size as fresh reinforcements arrived. Prince Edward, although wishing for battle, had seriously to consider the advisability of slipping away, and, in fact, moved the booty-wagons during the night over the Nouaille bridge.
From earliest dawn the camp was alive with the neighing of horses and the clank of armour being donned. In his pavilion, the Black Prince himself was being arrayed for battle; over his head was drawn the shirt of chain mail, reinforced with breastplate and backplate with shoulder- and arm-guards of burnished steel plates. Next he donned waist-piece and loin-guard, and thigh-pieces, knee-guards, greaves and shoes of jointed mail – the whole an ingeniously fitted combination of chain m
ail and steel plates. Later, when action was imminent, the great visored helm would be placed over his head, with a coif of flexible mail to protect the neck, and the iron gauntlets would be drawn upon the hands. Piece by piece the jointed plates were fixed to shoulder, elbow, hip, knee and instep, so as to permit of the greatest freedom of movement possible; and all was securely made fast with buckles, locks and rivets. Over all was drawn a jupon or sleeveless tunic of cloth, emblazoned with the heraldic insignia of the Black Prince.
On the morning of the 19th, after the end of the truce at 7.30, the rest of the wagons and their escort began to move off. From their vantage point on the North Ridge, the French vanguard spotted the movement and, fearing that the English were going to escape, the two marshals commanding the force decided to attack at once.
The English position had been carefully selected on a ridge facing towards Poitiers; it also covered the road or roads by which the ultimate retirement to Bordeaux would have to be carried out – both these roads are still in existence. There were two ridges, the foremost lying 400 yards to the north-west of Maupertuis, called the North Ridge, the rear one being 400 yards south of it and occupied by the English army for about a thousand yards. It was an uncultivated hill-top, thick with scrub and undergrowth bounded by a hedge, the lower left-hand end of which fell away to a marsh that ran down to join the Moisson river; the upper or right-hand end rested on open ground on top of the plateau and was strengthened by a leaguer made up of the wagons. There were two gaps in the hedge, where the tracks ran through it, the upper gap being left open and the lower barricaded with stakes interlaced with vine branches. Between this ridge and the North Ridge, occupied by the French, lay cultivated land partly vines and partly fallow. At the highest point of the English ridge were two tall trees probably marking the approximate situation of the Black Prince’s command post, from where a good view of the whole position and the French line of attack could be obtained. Behind the position the ground sloped up gently for some 500 yards to a large wood, the Nouaille Wood, which in turn dipped down to the valley of the Moisson, 100 feet below.
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