Richard II Part 4

"My dear son, G.o.d give you grace to persevere as you have begun. You are my true son, for loyally you have acquitted yourself this day, and well do you deserve a crown."

Edward received these honors in a very modest and una.s.suming manner.

He bowed reverentially before his father, and attributed to others rather than to himself the success of the day. His modesty and generosity of demeanor, connected with the undaunted bravery which he had really evinced in the fight, caused the whole army to feel an enthusiastic admiration for him, and, as fast as tidings of these events extended, all Europe was filled with his fame.

After gaining this great battle Edward marched to Calais, a very important sea-port on the coast, to the northward of the mouth of the Somme, and laid siege to that town; and, although it was so strongly fortified that he could not force his way into it, he succeeded at length in starving the inhabitants into a surrender. He was so exasperated at the obstinate resistance of the people, that at last, when they were ready to surrender, he declared that he would only spare their lives on condition that six of the princ.i.p.al inhabitants should come out to his camp barefooted, bareheaded, and with halters about their necks, in order that they might be hung immediately. These cruel terms were complied with. Six of the princ.i.p.al inhabitants of the town volunteered to give themselves up as victims. They proceeded to Edward's camp, but their lives were saved by the interposition of Philippa, the queen, Prince Edward's mother. The king was exceedingly unwilling to spare them, but he could not resist the entreaties of Philippa, though he said he wished she had been somewhere else, so as not to have interfered with his revenge.

Edward and all his army, with the queen and Prince Edward, marched into Calais with great pomp and parade. Soon after their entrance into the town a daughter was born to Philippa, who was called, from the place of her nativity, Margaret of Calais.

Besides this sister Margaret, Prince Edward had a brother born on the Continent of Europe. His name was John, and he was born in Ghent. He was called John of Ghent, or, as the English historians generally wrote it, John of Gaunt.

After the taking of Calais there were other campaigns and battles, and more victories, some upon one side and some upon the other; and then, when both parties were so exhausted that their strength was gone, while yet their hostility and hate continued unappeased, a truce was made. Then after the truce came new wars, and thus years rolled on.

During all this time the Black Prince distinguished himself greatly as one of the chief of his father's generals. He grew up to full manhood; and while, like the other warlike chieftains of those days, his life was devoted to deeds of rapine and murder, there was in his demeanor toward those with whom he was at peace, and toward enemies who were entirely subdued, a certain high-toned n.o.bleness and generosity of character, which, combined with his undaunted courage, and his extraordinary strength and prowess on the field of battle, made him one of the greatest lights of chivalry of his age.

CHAPTER IV.

THE BATTLE OF POICTIERS.

A.D. 1356-1360

The Black Prince sets out for France.--Plymouth.--The ships of those days.--The prince ravages the country.--Progress of the Black Prince.--The country laid waste.--The King of France comes to meet the Black Prince.--Ambuscade near Romorantin.--Reconnoitring party.--The English troop surprised.--The French surprised in their turn.--The French retreat to the castle.--The castle besieged.--Crossing the ditch.--Engines.--The castle taken.--King John and his four sons.--Attempt of the Pope's legate to make peace.--Negotiations of the Pope's legate.--The English camp.--The cardinal obtains a truce.--The king's pavilion.--King John's demands.--Prince Edward will not yield to them.--Story of the two knights.--Coats of arms.--Quarrel between the two knights.--Preparations for the battle.--English position.--The horses and the barbed arrows.--The English victorious.--Fate of the king's sons.--The victory announced to the prince.--The men called in.--Gathering at the prince's tent.--Two barons sent to look for the king.--The King of France and his son taken prisoners.--Quarrel about them.--The two barons take possession of the prisoners.--Denys.--His previous adventures.--The king's surrender to him.--Prince Edward makes a supper for his prisoners.--Generous demeanor of the prince.--Disposition of the prisoners.--English prisoners.--Douglas's extraordinary escape from his captors.--Prince Edward conveys the King of France to London.--Entrance into London.--Magnanimous treatment of the prisoner.--The war ended.--The king ransomed.--Prince Edward's renown.--Edward the heir apparent to the crown.

In process of time, Philip, the King of France, against whom these wars had been waged, died, and John succeeded him. In the course of the reign of John, the Black Prince, when he was about twenty-five years of age, set out from England, at the head of a large body of men, to invade France on the southern and western side. His first destination was Gascony, a country in the southern part of France, between the Garonne, the Pyrenees, and the sea.[D]

[Footnote D: See map on page 110.]

From London he went to Plymouth, where the fleet had been a.s.sembled in which he was to sail. He was accompanied on his march by an immense number of n.o.bles and barons, all splendidly equipped and armed, and full of enthusiastic expectations of the glory which they were to acquire in serving in such a campaign, under so famed and brilliant a commander.

The fleet which awaited the army at Plymouth consisted of three hundred vessels. The expedition was detained for a long time in the port, waiting for a fair wind and good weather. At length the favorable time arrived. The army embarked, and the ships set sail in sight of a vast a.s.semblage, formed by people of the surrounding country, who crowded the sh.o.r.es to witness the spectacle.

The ships of those times were not large, and, judging from some of the pictures that have come down to us, they were of very odd construction. On the adjoining page is a copy of one of these pictures, from an ancient ma.n.u.script of about this time.

These pictures, however, are evidently intended rather as _symbols_ of ships, as it were, than literally correct representations of them.

Still, we can deduce from them some general idea of the form and structure actually employed in the naval architecture of those times.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ANCIENT REPRESENTATION OF ENGLISH SHIPS.]

Prince Edward's fleet had a prosperous voyage, and his army landed safely in Gascony. Soon after landing he commenced his march through the country to the eastward, pillaging, burning, and destroying wherever he went. The inhabitants of the country, whom the progress of his march thus overwhelmed with ruin, had nothing whatever to do with the quarrel between his father and the King of France. It made very little difference to them under whose reign they lived. It is not at all unlikely that far the greater portion of them had never even heard of the quarrel. They were quietly engaged in their various industrial pursuits, dreaming probably of no danger, until the advance of this army, coming upon them mysteriously, no one knew whither, like a plague, or a tornado, or a great conflagration, drove them from their homes, and sent them flying about the country in all directions in terror and despair. The prince enjoyed the credit and the fame of being a generous and magnanimous prince. But his generosity and magnanimity were only shown toward knights, and n.o.bles, and princes like himself, for it was only when such as these were the objects of these virtues that he could gain credit and fame by the display of them.

In this march of devastation and destruction the prince overran all the southern part of France. One of his attendants in this campaign, a knight who served in the prince's household, in a letter which he wrote back to England from Bordeaux, gave the following summary of the results of the expedition:

"=My lord rode thus abroad in the countrie of his enimies eight whole weekes and rested not past eleven daies in all those places where he came. And know it for certeine that since this warre began against the French king, he had never such losse or destruction as he hath had in this journie; for the countries and good townes which were wasted in this journie found to the King of France everie yeare more to the maintainance of his warre than half his realme hath doon beside, except, &c."=

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP--CAMPAIGN OF POICTIERS.]

After having thus laid waste the southern coast, the prince turned his course northward, toward the heart of the country, carrying devastation and destruction with him wherever he came. He advanced through Auvergne and Berri, two provinces in the central part of France. His army was not very large, for it consisted of only about eight thousand men. It was, however, very compact and efficient, and the prince advanced at the head of it in a very slow and cautious manner. He depended for the sustenance of his soldiers on the supplies which he could obtain from the country itself. Accordingly, he moved slowly from town to town, so as not to fatigue his soldiers by too long marches, nor exhaust them by too frequent battles. "When he was entered anie towne," says the old chronicler, "that was sufficientlie stored of things necessarie, he would tarrie there two or three daies to refresh his soldiers and men of warre, and when they dislodged they would strike out the heads of the wine vessels, and burne the wheat, oats, and barlie, and all other things which they could not take with them, to the intent that their enimies should not therewith be sustained and nourished."

At length, while the prince was advancing through the province of Berri, and approaching the River Loire, he learned that the King of France, John, had a.s.sembled a great army at Paris, and was coming down to meet him. Large detachments from this army had already advanced as far as the banks of the Loire, and all the important points on that river had been taken possession of, and were strongly guarded by them.

The king himself, at the head of the main force, had reached Chartres, and was rapidly advancing. The prince heard this news at a certain castle which he had taken, and where he had stopped some days to refresh his men.

A council of war was held to determine what should be done. The prevailing voice at this council was in favor of not attempting to cross the Loire in the face of such an enemy, but of turning to the westward toward the province of Poitou, through which a way of retreat to the southward would be open in case a retreat should be necessary.

The prince determined to accept this advice, and so he put his army in motion toward the town of Romorantin.

Now the King of France had sent a detachment of his troops, under the command of three famous knights, across the Loire. This detachment consisted of about three hundred hors.e.m.e.n, all armed from head to foot, and mounted on swift chargers. This squadron had been hovering in the neighborhood of the English army for some days, watching for an opportunity to attack them, but without success. Now, foreseeing that Edward would attempt to enter Romorantin, they pushed forward in a stealthy manner to the neighborhood of that town, and placed themselves in ambush at the sides of a narrow and solitary gorge in the mountains, through which they knew the English must necessarily pa.s.s.

On the same day that the French knights formed this ambush, several of the commanders in Edward's army asked leave to take a troop of two hundred men from the English army, and ride forward to the gates of the town, in order to reconnoitre the place, and ascertain whether the way was clear for the main body of the army to approach. Edward gave them permission, and they set forward. As might have been expected, they fell into the snare which the French knights had laid for them.

The Frenchmen remained quiet and still in their hiding-places, and allowed the English to pa.s.s on through the defile. Then, as soon as they had pa.s.sed, the French rushed out and galloped after them, with their spears in their rests, all ready for a charge.

The English troop, hearing the sound of the galloping of horses in the road behind them, turned round to see what was coming. To their dismay, they found that a troop of their enemies was close upon them, and that they were hemmed in between them and the town. A furious battle ensued. The English, though they were somewhat fewer in number than the French, seem to have been made desperate by their danger, and they fought like tigers. For a time it was uncertain which way the contest would turn, but at length, while the victory was still undecided, the van of the main body of the English army began to arrive upon the ground. The French now saw that they were in danger of being overpowered with numbers, and they immediately began to retreat.

They fled in the direction of the town. The English followed them in a headlong pursuit, filling the air with their shouts, and with the clanking of their iron armor as the horses galloped furiously along.

At length they reached the gates of the town, and the whole throng of hors.e.m.e.n, pursuers and pursued, pressed in together. The French succeeded in reaching the castle, and, as soon as they got in, they shut the gates and secured themselves there, but the English got possession of the town. As soon as Edward came in, he sent a summons to the people in the castle to surrender. They refused. Edward then ordered his men to prepare for an a.s.sault on the following day.

Accordingly, on the following day the a.s.sault was made. The battle was continued all day, but without success on the part of the a.s.sailants, and when the evening came on Edward was obliged to call off his men.

[Ill.u.s.tration: STORMING OF THE CASTLE OF ROMORANTIN.]

The next morning, at a very early hour, the men were called to arms again. A new a.s.saulting force was organized, and at sunrise the trumpet sounded the order for them to advance to the attack. Prince Edward himself took the command at this trial, and by his presence and his example incited the men to make the greatest possible efforts to batter down the gates and to scale the walls. Edward was excited to a high degree of resentment and rage against the garrison of the castle, not only on account of the general obstinacy of their resistance, but because, on the preceding day, a squire, who was attendant upon him, and to whom he was strongly attached, was killed at his side by a stone hurled from the castle wall. When he saw this man fall, he took a solemn oath that he would never leave the place until he had the castle and all that were in it in his power.

But, notwithstanding all the efforts of his soldiers, the castle still held out. Edward's troops thronged the margin of the ditch, and shot arrows so incessantly at the battlements that the garrison could scarcely show themselves for an instant on the walls. Finally, they made hurdles and floats of various kinds, by means of which large numbers succeeded, half by swimming and half by floating, to get across the ditch, and then began to dig in under the wall, while the garrison attempted to stop their work by throwing down big stones upon their heads, and pots of hot lime to eat out their eyes.

At another part the besiegers constructed great engines, such as were used in those days, in the absence of cannon, for throwing rocks and heavy beams of wood, to batter the walls. These machines also threw a certain extraordinary combustible substance called Greek fire. It was this Greek fire that, in the end, turned the scale of victory, for it caught in the lower court of the castle, where it burned so furiously that it baffled all the efforts of the besieged to extinguish it, and at length they were compelled to surrender. Edward made the princ.i.p.al commanders prisoners, but he let the others go free. The castle itself he utterly destroyed.

Having thus finished this work, Edward resumed his march, pa.s.sing on to the westward through Touraine, to avoid the French king, who he knew was coming down upon him from the direction of Chartres at the head of an overwhelming army. King John advanced to the Loire, and sending different detachments of his army to different points, with orders to cross at any bridges that they could find, he himself came to Blois, where he crossed the river to Amboise, and thence proceeded to Loches. Here he learned that the English were moving off to the westward, through Touraine, in hopes to make their escape. He set off after them at full speed.

He had four sons with him in his army, all young men. Their names were Charles, Louis, John, and Philip.

At length the two armies began to approach each other near the town of Poictiers.

In the mean time, while the crisis had thus been gradually approaching, the Pope, who was at this time residing at Avignon in France, sent one of his cardinals to act as intercessor between the belligerents, in hopes of bringing them to a peace. At the time when the two armies had drawn near to each other and the battle seemed imminent, the cardinal was at Poictiers, and just as the King of France was marshaling his troops in the order of battle, and preparing for the onset, the cardinal, at the head of his suite of attendants, galloped out to the king's camp, and, riding up to him at full speed, he begged him to pause a moment that he might speak to him.

The king gave him leave to speak, and he thus began:

"Most dear sire," said he, "you have here with you a great and powerful army, commanded by the flower of the knighthood of your whole kingdom. The English, compared with you, are but a handful. They are wholly unable to resist you. You can make whatever terms with them you please, and it will be far more honorable and praiseworthy in you to spare their lives, and the lives of your gallant followers, by making peace with them on such terms as you may think right, without a battle, than to fight with them and destroy them. I entreat you, therefore, sire, that before you proceed any farther, you will allow me to go to the English camp to represent to the prince the great danger he is in, and to see what terms you can make with him."

"Very well," replied the king. "We have no objection. Go, but make haste back again."

The cardinal immediately set off, and rode with all speed into the English camp. The English troops had posted themselves at a spot where they were in a great measure concealed and protected among hedges, vineyards, and groves. The cardinal advanced through a narrow lane, and came up to the English prince at last, whom he found in a vineyard. The prince was on foot, and was surrounded by knights and armed men, with whom he was arranging the plan of the battle.

The prince received the cardinal very graciously, and heard what he had to say. The cardinal represented to him how overwhelming was the force which the King of France had brought against him, and how imminent the danger was that he and all his forces would be totally destroyed in case of a conflict, and urged him, for the sake of humanity as well as from a proper regard for his own interest, to enter into negotiations for peace.

Prince Edward replied that he had no objection to enter into such negotiations, and that he was willing to accept of terms of peace, provided his own honor and that of his army were saved.

The cardinal then returned to the King of France, and reported to him what the prince had said, and he entreated the king to grant a truce until the next morning, in order to afford time for the negotiations.

The knights and barons that were around the king were very unwilling that he should listen to this proposal. They were fierce for the battle, and could not brook the idea of delay. But the cardinal was so urgent, and he pleaded so strongly and so eloquently for peace, that, finally, the king yielded.