Saint George for England
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G. A. Henty >> Saint George for England
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Three hundred chosen French men-at-arms mounted on the strongest horses
covered with steel armour, led the way under the command of the Marechals
D'Audeham and De Clermont; while behind them were a large body of German
cavalry under the Counts of Nassau, Saarbruck, and Nidau, to support them
in their attack on the English archers. On the right was the Duke of
Orleans with 16,000 men-at-arms; on the left the Dauphin and his two
brothers with an equal force; while King John himself led on the
rear-guard.
When the three hundred elite of the French army reached the narrow way
between the hedges, knowing that these were lined with archers they charged
through at a gallop to fall upon the main body of bowmen covering the front
of the English men-at-arms. The moment they were fairly in the hollow road
the British archers rose on either side to their feet and poured such a
flight of arrows among them that in an instant all was confusion and
disarray. Through every joint and crevice of the armour of knights and
horses the arrows found their way, and the lane was almost choked with the
bodies of men and horses. A considerable number, nevertheless, made their
way through and approached the first line of archers beyond. Here they were
met by Sir James Audley, who, with his four squires, plunged into their
ranks and overthrew the Marechal D'Audeham, and then fought his way onward.
Regardless of the rest of the battle he pressed ever forward, until at the
end of the day, wounded in a hundred places and fainting from loss of
blood, he fell from his horse almost at the gates of Poitiers, and was
borne from the field by the four faithful squires who had fought beside him
throughout the day.
Less fortunate was Sir Eustace D'Ambrecicourt, who spurred headlong upon
the German cavalry. A German knight rode out to meet him, and in the shock
both were dishorsed, but before Sir Eustace could recover his seat he was
borne down to the ground by four others of the enemy, and was bound and
carried captive to the rear.
In the meantime the English archers kept up their incessant hail of arrows
upon the band under the French marshals. The English men-at-arms passed
through the gaps purposely left in the line of archers and drove back the
front rank of the enemy upon those following, chasing them headlong down
the hollow road again. The few survivors of the French force, galloping
back, carried confusion into the advancing division of the Dauphin.
Before order was restored the Captal De Buch with his six hundred men
issued forth from his place of concealment and charged impetuously down on
the left flank of the Dauphin. The French, shaken in front by the retreat
of their advance guard, were thrown into extreme confusion by this sudden
and unexpected charge. The horse archers with the captal poured their
arrows into the mass, while the shafts of the main body of the archers on
the hill hailed upon them without ceasing.
The rumour spread among those in the French rear, who were unable to see
what was going forward, that the day was already lost, and many began to
fly. Sir John Chandos marked the confusion which had set in, and he
exclaimed to the prince:
"Now, sir, ride forward, and the day is yours. Let us charge right over
upon your adversary, the King of France, for there lies the labour and the
feat of the day. Well do I know that his great courage will never let him
fly, but, God willing, he shall be well encountered."
"Forward, then, John Chandos," replied the prince. "You shall not see me
tread one step back, but ever in advance. Bear on my banner. God and St.
George be with us!"
The horses of the English force were all held in readiness by their
attendants close in their rear. Every man sprang into his saddle, and with
levelled lances the army bore down the hill against the enemy, while the
Captal De Buch forced his way through the struggling ranks of the French to
join them.
To these two parties were opposed the whole of the German cavalry, the
division of the Dauphin, now thinned by flight, and a strong force under
the Constable de Brienne, Duke of Athens. The first charge of the English
was directed against the Germans, the remains of the marshal's forces, and
that commanded by the Constable. The two bodies of cavalry met with a
tremendous shock, raising their respective war-cries, "Denis Mount Joye!"
and "St. George Guyenne!" Lances were shivered, and horses and men rolled
over, but the German horse was borne down in every direction by the charge
of the English chivalry. The Counts of Nassau and Saarbruck were taken, and
the rest driven down the hill in utter confusion. The division of the Duke
of Orleans, a little further down the hill to the right, were seized with a
sudden panic, and 16,000 men-at-arms, together with their commander, fled
without striking a blow.
Having routed the French and German cavalry in advance, the English now
fell upon the Dauphin's division. This had been already confused by the
attacks of the Captal De Buch, and when its leaders beheld the complete
rout of the marshals and the Germans, and saw the victorious force
galloping down upon them, the responsibility attached to the charge of the
three young princes overcame their firmness. The Lords of Landas, Vaudenay,
and St. Venant, thinking the battle lost, hurried the princes from the
field, surrounded by eight hundred lances, determined to place them at a
secure distance, and then to return and fight beside the king. The retreat
of the princes at once disorganized the force, but though many fled a
number of the nobles remained scattered over the field fighting in separate
bodies with their own retainers gathered under their banners. Gradually
these fell back and took post on the left of the French king's division.
The Constable and the Duke of Bourbon with a large body of knights and
men-at-arms also opposed a firm front to the advance of the English. The
king saw with indignation one of his divisions defeated and the other in
coward flight, but his forces were still vastly superior to those of the
English, and ordering his men to dismount, he prepared to receive their
onset. The English now gathered their forces which had been scattered in
combat, and again advanced to the fight. The archers as usual heralded this
advance with showers of arrows, which shook the ranks of the French and
opened the way for the cavalry. These dashed in, and the ranks of the two
armies became mixed, and each man fought hand to hand. The French king
fought on foot with immense valour and bravery, as did his nobles. The
Dukes of Bourbon and Athens, the Lords of Landas, Argenton, Chambery,
Joinville, and many others stood and died near the king.
Gradually the English drove back their foes. The French forces became cut
up into groups or confined into narrow spaces. Knight after knight fell
around the king. De Ribaumont fell near him. Jeffrey de Charny, who, as one
of the most valiant knights in the army, had been chosen to bear the French
standard, the oriflamme, never left his sovereign's side, and as long as
the sacred banner floated over his head John would not believe the day was
lost. At length, however, Jeffrey de Charny was killed, and the oriflamme
fell. John, surrounded on every side by foes who pressed forward to make
him prisoner, still kept clear the space immediately around himself and his
little son with his battle-axe; but at last he saw that further resistance
would only entail the death of both, and he then surrendered to Denis de
Montbec, a knight of Artois.
The battle was now virtually over. The French banners and pennons had
disappeared, and nothing was seen save the dead and dying, groups of
prisoners, and parties of fugitives flying over the country. Chandos now
advised the prince to halt. His banner was pitched on the summit of a
little mound. The trumpets blew to recall the army from the pursuit, and
the prince, taking off his helmet, drank with the little body of knights
who accompanied him some wine brought from his former encampment.
The two marshals of the English army, the Earls of Warwick and Suffolk,
were among the first to return at the call of the trumpet. Hearing that
King John had certainly not left the field of battle, though they knew not
whether he was dead or taken, the prince at once despatched the Earl of
Warwick and Lord Cobham to find and protect him if still alive. They soon
came upon a mass of men-at-arms, seemingly engaged in an angry quarrel. On
riding up they found that the object of strife was the King of France, who
had been snatched from the hands of Montbec, and was being claimed by a
score of men as his prisoner. The Earl of Warwick and Lord Cobham instantly
made their way through the mass, and dismounting, saluted the captive
monarch with the deepest reverence, and keeping back the multitude led him
to the Prince of Wales. The latter bent his knee before the king, and
calling for wine, presented the cup with his own hands to the unfortunate
monarch.
The battle was over by noon, but it was evening before all the pursuing
parties returned, and the result of the victory was then fully known. With
less than 8000 men the English had conquered far more than 60,000. On the
English side 2000 men-at-arms and 1500 archers had fallen. Upon the French
side 11,000 men- at-arms, besides an immense number of footmen, had been
killed. A king, a prince, an archbishop, 13 counts, 66 barons, and more
than 2000 knights were prisoners in the hands of the English, with a number
of other soldiers, who raised the number of captives to double that of
their conquerors. All the baggage of the French army was taken, and as the
barons of France had marched to the field feeling certain of victory, and
the rich armour of the prisoners became immediately the property of the
captors, immense stores of valuable ornaments of all kinds, especially
jewelled baldrics, enriched the meanest soldier among the conquerors.
The helmet which the French king had worn, which bore a small coronet of
gold beneath the crest, was delivered to the Prince of Wales, who sent it
off at once to his father as the best trophy of the battle he could offer
him.
Its receipt was the first intimation which Edward III received of the great
victory.
As the prince had no means of providing for the immense number of
prisoners, the greater portion were set at liberty upon their taking an
oath to present themselves at Bordeaux by the ensuing Christmas in order
either to pay the ransom appointed, or to again yield themselves as
prisoners.
Immediately the battle was over, Edward sent for the gallant Sir James
Audley, who was brought to him on his litter by his esquires, and the
prince, after warmly congratulating him on the honour that he had that day
won as the bravest knight in the army, assigned him an annuity of five
hundred marks a year.
No sooner was Audley taken to his own tent than he called round him several
of his nearest relations and friends, and then and there made over to his
four gallant attendants, without power of recall, the gift which the prince
had bestowed upon him. The prince was not to be outdone, however, in
liberality, and on hearing that Audley had assigned his present to the
brave men who had so gallantly supported him in the fight, he presented Sir
James with another annuity of six hundred marks a year.
CHAPTER XXI: THE JACQUERIE
ON the evening after the battle of Poitiers a splendid entertainment was
served in the tent of the Prince of Wales to the King of France and all the
principal prisoners. John, with his son and six of his highest nobles were
seated at a table raised above the rest, and the prince himself waited as
page upon the French king. John in vain endeavoured to persuade the prince
to be seated; the latter refused, saying, that it was his pleasure as well
as his duty to wait upon one who had shown himself to be the best and
bravest knight in the French army. The example of the Black Prince was
contagious, and the English vied with each other in generous treatment of
their prisoners. All were treated as friends, and that night an immense
number of knights and squires were admitted to ransom on such terms as had
never before been known. The captors simply required their prisoners to
declare in good faith what they could afford to pay without pressing
themselves too hard, "for they did not wish," they said, "to ransom knights
or squires on terms which would prevent them from maintaining their station
in society, from serving their lords, or from riding forth in arms to
advance their name and honour."
Upon the following morning solemn thanksgivings were offered up on the
field of battle for the glorious victory. Then the English army, striking
its tents, marched back towards Bordeaux. They were unmolested upon this
march, for although the divisions of the Dauphin and the Duke of Orleans
had now reunited, and were immensely superior in numbers to the English,
encumbered as the latter were, moreover, with prisoners and booty, the
tremendous defeat which they had suffered, and still more the capture of
the king, paralysed the French commanders, and the English reached Bordeaux
without striking another blow.
Not long after they reached that city the Cardinal of Perigord and another
legate presented themselves to arrange peace, and these negotiations went
on throughout the winter. The prince had received full powers from his
father, and his demands were very moderate; but in spite of this no final
peace could be arranged, and the result of the conference was the
proclamation of a truce, to last for two years from the following Easter.
During the winter immense numbers of the prisoners who had gone at large
upon patrol, came in and paid their ransoms, as did the higher nobles who
had been taken prisoners, and the whole army was greatly enriched. At the
end of April the prince returned to England with King John. The procession
through the streets of London was a magnificent one, the citizens vying
with each other in decorating their houses in honour of the victor of
Poitiers, who, simply dressed, rode on a small black horse by the side of
his prisoner, who was splendidly attired, and mounted on a superb white
charger. The king received his royal prisoner in state in the great hall of
his palace at Westminster, and did all in his power to alleviate the
sorrows of his condition. The splendid palace of the Savoy, with gardens
extending to the Thames, was appointed for his residence, and every means
was taken to soften his captivity.
During the absence of the Black Prince in Guienne the king had been warring
in Scotland. Here his success had been small, as the Scotch had retreated
before him, wasting the country. David Bruce, the rightful king, was a
prisoner in England, and Baliol, a descendant of the rival of Robert Bruce,
had been placed upon the throne. As Edward passed through Roxburgh he
received from Baliol a formal cession of his rights and titles to the
throne of Scotland, and in return for this purely nominal gift he bestowed
an annual income upon Baliol, who lived and died a pensioner of England.
After Edward's return to England negotiations were carried on with the
Scots, and a treaty was signed by which a truce for ten years was
established between the two countries, and the liberation of Bruce was
granted on a ransom of 100,000 marks.
The disorganization into which France had been thrown by the capture of its
king increased rather than diminished. Among all classes men strove in the
absence of a repressive power to gain advantages and privileges. Serious
riots occurred in many parts, and the demagogues of Paris, headed by
Stephen Marcel, and Robert le Coq, bishop of Leon, set at defiance the
Dauphin and the ministers and lieutenant of the king. Massacre and violence
stained the streets of Paris with blood. General law, public order, and
private security were all lost. Great bodies of brigands devastated the
country, and the whole of France was thrown into confusion. So terrible was
the disorder that the inhabitants of every village were obliged to fortify
the ends of their streets, and keep watch and ward as in the cities. The
proprietors of land on the banks of rivers spent the night in boats moored
in the middle of the stream, and in every house and castle throughout the
land men remained armed as if against instant attack.
Then arose the terrible insurrection known as the Jacquerie. For centuries
the peasantry of France had suffered under a bondage to which there had
never been any approach in England. Their lives and liberties were wholly
at the mercy of their feudal lords. Hitherto no attempt at resistance had
been possible; but the tremendous defeat of the French at Poitiers by a
handful of English aroused the hope among the serfs that the moment for
vengeance had come. The movement began among a handful of peasants in the
neighbourhood of St. Leu and Claremont. These declared that they would put
to death all the gentlemen in the land. The cry spread through the
country. The serfs, armed with pikes, poured out from every village, and a
number of the lower classes from the towns joined them. Their first success
was an attack upon a small castle. They burned down the gates and slew the
knight to whom it belonged, with his wife and children of all ages. Their
numbers rapidly increased.
Castle after castle was taken and stormed, palaces and houses levelled to
the ground; fire, plunder, and massacre swept through the fairest provinces
of France.
The peasants vied with each other in inventing deaths of fiendish cruelty
and outrage upon every man, woman, and child of the better classes who fell
into their hands. Owing to the number of nobles who had fallen at Cressy
and Poitiers, and of those still captives in England, very many of their
wives and daughters remained unprotected, and these were the especial
victims of the fiendish malignity of the peasantry. Separated in many
bands, the insurgents marched through the Beauvoisis, Soissonois, and
Vermandois; and as they approached a number of unprotected ladies of the
highest families in France fled to Meaux, where they remained under the
guard of the young Duke of Orleans and a handful of men-at-arms.
After the conclusion of the peace at Bordeaux, Sir Walter Somers had been
despatched on a mission to some of the German princes, with whom the king
was in close relations. The business was not of an onerous nature, but
Walter had been detained for some time over it. He spent a pleasant time in
Germany, where, as an emissary of the king and one of the victors of
Poitiers, the young English knight was made much of. When he set out on his
return he joined the Captal De Buch, who, ever thirsting for adventure, had
on the conclusion of the truce gone to serve in a campaign in Germany; with
him was the French Count de Foix, who had been also serving throughout the
campaign.
On entering France from the Rhine the three knights were shocked at the
misery and ruin which met their eyes on all sides. Every castle and house
throughout the country, of a class superior to those of the peasants, was
destroyed, and tales of the most horrible outrages and murders met their
ears.
"I regret," the Count de Foix said earnestly, "that I have been away
warring in Germany, for it is clear that every true knight is wanted at
home to crush down these human wolves."
"Methinks," the Captal rejoined, "that France will do well to invite the
chivalry of all other countries to assemble and aid to put down this
horrible insurrection."
"Aye," the Count said bitterly; "but who is to speak in the name of France?
The Dauphin is powerless, and the virtual government is in the hands of
Marcel and other ambitious traitors who hail the doings of the Jacquerie
with delight, for these mad peasants are doing their work of destroying the
knights and nobles."
The villages through which they passed were deserted save by women, and in
the small towns the people of the lower class scowled threateningly at the
three knights; but they with their following of forty men-at-arms, of whom
five were followers of Walter, fifteen of the Captal, and twenty of the
Count de Foix, ventured not to proceed beyond evil glances.
"I would," de Foix said, "that these dogs would but lift a hand against us.
By St. Stephen, we would teach them a rough lesson!"
His companions were of the same mind, for all were excited to fury by the
terrible tales which they heard. All these stories were new to them, for
although rumours had reached Germany of the outbreak of a peasant
insurrection in France the movement had but just begun when they started.
As far as the frontier they had traveled leisurely, but they had hastened
their pace more and more as they learned how sore was the strait of the
nobles and gentry of the country and how grievously every good sword was
needed. When they reached Chalons they heard much fuller particulars than
had before reached them, and learned that the Duchess of Normandy, the
Duchess of Orleans, and near three hundred ladies, had sought refuge in
Meaux, and that they were there guarded but by a handful of men-at-arms
under the Duke of Orleans, while great bands of serfs were pouring in from
all parts of the country round, to massacre them.
Meaux is eighty miles from Chalons, but the three knights determined to
press onward with all speed in hopes of averting the catastrophe. Allowing
their horses an hour or two to rest, they rode forward, and pressing on
without halt or delay, save such as was absolutely needed by the horses,
they arrived at Meaux late the following night, and found to their delight
that the insurgents, although swarming in immense numbers round the town,
had not yet attacked it.
The arrival of the three knights and their followers was greeted with joy
by the ladies. They, with their guard, had taken up their position in the
market-house and market-place, which were separated from the rest of the
town by the river Maine, which flows through the city. A consultation was
at once held, and it being found that the Duke of Orleans had but twenty
men-at-arms with him it was determined that it was impossible to defend the
city walls, but that upon the following morning they would endeavour to cut
their way with the ladies through the peasant hosts. In the night, however,
an uproar was heard in the city. The burghers had risen and had opened the
gates to the peasants, who now poured in in thousands. Every hour increased
their numbers.
The market-place was besieged in the morning, and an hour or two afterwards
a large body of the ruffians of Paris, under the command of a brutal grocer
named Pierre Gille, arrived to swell their ranks.
The attack on the market-house continued, and the Duke of Orleans held a
consultation with the three knights. It was agreed that against such a
host of enemies the market-place could not long be defended, and that their
best hope lay in sallying out and falling upon the assailants. Accordingly
the men-at- arms were drawn up in order, with the banners of the Duke of
Orleans and the Count de Foix, and the pennons of the Captal and Sir Walter
Somers displayed, the gates were opened, and with levelled lances the
little party rode out. Hitherto nothing had been heard save yells of
anticipated triumph and fierce imprecations and threats against the
defenders from the immense multitude without; but the appearance of the
orderly ranks of the knights and men-at-arms as they issued through the
gate struck a silence of fear through the mass.
Without an instant's delay the knights and men-at-arms, with levelled
lances, charged into the multitude. A few attempted to fight, but more
strove to fly, as the nobles and their followers, throwing away their
lances, fell upon them with sword and battle-axe. Jammed up in the narrow
streets of a small walled town, overthrowing and impeding each other in
their efforts to escape, trampled down by the heavy horses of the
men-at-arms, and hewn down by their swords and battle-axes, the insurgents
fell in vast numbers. Multitudes succeeded in escaping through the gates
into the fields; but here they were followed by the knights and their
retainers, who continued charging among them and slaying till utter
weariness compelled them to cease from the pursuit and return to Meaux.
Not less than seven thousand of the insurgents had been slain by the four
knights and fifty men, for ten had been left behind to guard the gates of
the market-place.
History has no record of so vast a slaughter by so small a body of men.
This terrific punishment put a summary end to the Jacquerie. Already in
other parts several bodies had been defeated, and their principal leader,
Caillet, with three thousand of his followers, slain near Clermont. But the
defeat at Meaux was the crushing blow which put an end to the insurrection.
On their return to the town the knights executed a number of the burghers
who had joined the peasants, and the greater part of the town was burned to
the ground as a punishment for having opened the gates to the peasants and
united with them.
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