Defending The Island by Norman Longmate

Author:Norman Longmate
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pimlico

22

DESTROYING THE ENGLISH

And upon this was shown an ordinance made by the enemy … to destroy and abolish all the nation and language of the English.

Rolls of Parliament, September 1346

For 20 years after Edward III’s great naval victory at Sluys the shores of England remained inviolate. Under papal pressure a peace treaty was signed with France at Malestroit, near Vannes, on 19 January 1343, and when it expired three years later, Edward III launched a major cross-Channel expedition, which landed unopposed at St Vaast de la Hogue on the east side of the Cotentin peninsula, captured Barfleur, from which William the Conqueror had sailed nearly three centuries earlier, and, in the subsequent march along the coast destroyed 61 large ships and many smaller ones. On 26 July 1346, after the first real resistance so far encountered, Caen was captured, yielding an unexpected prize: the plans drawn up for the invasion of England in 1339 or 1340. These were shipped back to England to be read out in parliament in September, and at St Paul’s Cross, their impact being increased by misleadingly suggesting that the invasion was contemplated for that very year, instead of six or seven years earlier.

The Rolls of Parliament record how this unusual document, the earliest surviving plan for the invasion of England, was presented to the House, in words calculated to generate patriotism if not panic:

And upon this was shown an ordinance made by the enemy and various Frenchmen and Normans to destroy and abolish all the nation and language of the English. And to execute his ordinance, the enemy had appointed the Count of Eu and the Chamberlain de Tankerville, with a multitude of men-at-arms, Swiss [i.e. Genevois] and foot soldiers to come over. But, as God wished, the said count and Chamberlain were taken at Caen, and many of their men killed and others captured, so they failed in their plan, thanks be to God.

The operation order which followed, while describing how the troops were to be raised and financed, was suspiciously vague on how the invaders were to get ashore and defeat the enemy army.

The French plan had certainly turned up at a remarkably convenient moment for Edward III, so convenient that some authorities dismiss it as a forgery. If forged, however, it had clearly been done with some care, as the detailed rates of pay which it included indicate, and it seems readily to have been accepted as genuine at the time. Before parliament could meet, however, Edward III at last achieved the major victory he was seeking. At the village of Crécy-en-Ponthieu, ten miles [16 km] north-east of Abbeville, on Saturday 26 August 1346, the two sides finally faced each other in the first of the great land battles of the Hundred Years War. The result demonstrated once again the effectiveness of the English archers, their skill being aided by the weather. A violent thunderstorm left the Genovese crossbowmen with damp bowstrings; the English longbowmen had successfully protected their weapons, while the Genovese found what bolts they did manage to fire falling short.

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