03 Storm of Arrows by Bannister Paul

Author:Bannister, Paul [Bannister, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sharpe Books
Published: 2019-04-14T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15 - Cadzand

Over the next months, my wounds healed, and I was able again to draw my bow to the fullest. I worked hard to recover that strength, spending hours a day at the butts and working with our weapons master. A year, then two, went by and I kept recruiting and training my Cheshire archers and had built a formidable force. Too, I visited Marian several times, but she had little interest in me now, although we both enjoyed our time with our son Hugh, a sturdy, merry six years old.

Marian did agree with my idea to introduce him at court – he was after all the same age as Lord Edward as they even shared their birthdate – and that had gone well. The king had handsomely rewarded all of us in his conroi and we were a practised tournament cadre now. Some of the group entered wholeheartedly into the king’s obsession with Arthurian principles and playacting, but I was less enthused.

We did have an expedition of sorts to the polder lands of the Low Countries, but that first excursion was political, not military. It all began with the enthronement of a new pope, who took the name Benedict XII. The so-called White Cardinal was a rotund imbiber who made popular the phrase ‘To drink like a pope,’ but he was financially scrupulous, and when he found that his predecessor had accumulated chests full of gold intended for even more magnificent buildings at the papal palace in Avignon, he used them to fund a crusade.

I heard that the king wanted us to visit the Low Countries, but was unclear about all the conniving, until John Westwood cleared it up for me: “Edward, knowing that King Philip of France is about to go off on crusade has dusted off an old Lancastrian claim to Provence on behalf of Henry of Grosmont. He has also demanded the return of England’s demesnes in Gascony. He expects that Philip will shrug and go to the Holy Land, so we will take an army and invade in Philip’s absence. Right now, Edward plans to recruit allies in the Low Countries, to defeat the French and claim the throne in Paris.”

Our king acted too quickly. The pope heard of the English claims and did not want England and France at war and imperiling his crusade. He told Philip that peace in Europe must come first, that the French had misused the papal funds for a crusade and the whole thing was cancelled. Philip decided to deal Edward a blow and while we were on an expedition against the Scots he attacked Guernsey and Jersey and moved his great crusader fleet from the Mediterranean back to the Channel ports.

Edward mustered the English navy and lavished honours on his warlords and money men. He created seven new earls, including Henry of Grosmont and turned the vacant earldom of Cornwall into a duchy, of which six years old Edward was made England’s first Duke. The child

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