A Great and Glorious Adventure (14 page)

The sea-borne journey from England to Normandy in 1944 was highly unpleasant for the men involved, but it was far worse in 1346.
In 1944, the journey took much less time,
and, although the men had to try to avoid being sprayed by each other’s vomit – for just about everyone was sea-sick to a greater or lesser degree – at least they were not
surrounded by ever larger piles of horse droppings, nor did they have to try to feed and groom the increasingly fractious animals. One consolation in 1346, however, was that horses have no facility
to regurgitate. Bad weather blew Edward’s fleet back almost all the way to the coast of Cornwall before the winds changed, and, although the ships had left the English ports on 5 July, it was
not until 12 July that they sighted the Norman coast and began to disembark in the bay of La Hougue (now Saint-Vaast la Hougue) on the eastern side of the Cotentin peninsula. It took three days to
land the men, horses and stores, and, while unloading was going on, ships that had discharged their cargo moved to Barfleur, three miles up the coast. Here the sailors found and destroyed seven
French warships, before setting fire to the town itself, having first removed all portable valuables.
³⁵
A few disaffected Norman knights appeared and
threw in their lot with the English, and their local knowledge would be useful, for time was now of the essence.

Edward was intending to embark upon a
chevauchée
, literally a ‘mounted raid’, which involved moving rapidly through enemy territory doing as much damage as possible
but avoiding pitched battle. The purpose was partly economic and partly to terrorize. The destruction of property, the levelling of buildings, the reduction of fortifications, the burning of crops,
the removal of gold and silver, and the killing of people all damaged the economy by reducing the amount of tax that could be levied, while at the same time enriching the invading army. Terror
could persuade the population to change its allegiance and spelled out a message to the enemy ruler: come to terms or this goes on and will be repeated. Particularly relevant too, at this period in
history, was the damage to Philip’s honour and reputation if he could be shown to be incapable of defending his subjects. Leaders of such raids usually aimed to start from a secure base and
slash and burn their way to another secure area, or to a port where they could
re-embark, before an avenging army caught up with them. Edward would have been intending to
sweep up from Normandy to the English county of Ponthieu, at the mouth of the River Somme, and then, depending upon the French reaction, either to return to England or to move into friendly
Flanders. At the time, there was little distinction between enemy soldiers and enemy civilians – indeed, the line between them was blurred when most males had a military obligation –
and, although there was still a vestige of chivalry present in the relations between the nobility of either side, this was rarely extended to their inferiors. The peasants were always the victims
in these raids, and nobody, whether English or French, cared very much about them.

By 18 July, the English army was all ashore. That day it moved to Valognes, eleven miles away, and on the next day struck for Carentan, another twenty miles away, but was held up at the River
Douvres, where the locals had destroyed the only bridge. Infantry and cavalry could, of course, cross the river without too much of a problem, bridge or no, but, for the baggage train of wheeled
vehicles which carried the tentage, stores, rations and accumulated loot, a bridge was needed. Many of the Norman bridges were of stone, which would have taken time and energy to destroy, so many
had one span in wood that could easily be demolished when necessary – and as easily repaired. Edward’s engineers rebuilt the bridge during the night, and on 20 July the English were in
Carentan, where a large quantity of provisions and wine fell into their hands. They then burned the town, although Edward is said to have attempted to prevent it, and next day reached the River
Vire, where again the bridges giving access to Saint-Lô had been torn down. Once more, the engineers repaired one of the bridges, and on 22 July Saint-Lô was in English hands and again
was put to the torch, but not before 1,000 butts of wine had been confiscated. Edward made no attempt to save Saint-Lô, for he was particularly infuriated to find the heads of three Norman
knights on pikes above the main gate – they had been captured fighting for Edward in Brittany and executed as traitors. Edward’s view was, of course, that they had been fighting for
their rightful king – him – and in any event one just did not execute captured knights.

Bayeux escaped the fate of the other towns on the army’s route: its citizens had taken the precaution of sending emissaries pledging allegiance
to Edward well before
the army got anywhere near the town. By 25 July, the army was approaching Caen, a city bigger than any in England except London, having covered ninety miles in seven days – very fast going
when the delays in bridging the rivers and plundering the towns and villages for miles either side of the route are considered. The advance would have been led entirely by mounted knights,
men-at-arms and archers, while the foot-borne elements would have followed on, and if the engineers (carpenters and masons) were on foot, as they probably were, then they had made excellent
progress indeed. A portion of the dismounted troops had been left behind to support the fleet, which now sailed along the coast with the soldiers moving parallel to it, looting and burning every
coastal village and farmstead until from Cherbourg to Ustrem (Ouistreham) there was not a house standing nor a farm animal alive, while any stores of grain or other provisions not loaded onto the
ships were burned. The purported reason for this devastation was to destroy French naval power in the Channel, to which it undoubtedly contributed, but there was a personal profit motive too.
Discipline in the navy was clearly not what it should have been, for, despite orders that all ships were to remain in Norman waters, some of the crews – some sources say as many as a hundred
– loaded their ships to the gunwales with loot, then took off for England to realize their newfound wealth.

Caen was a much more formidable obstacle than the towns captured so far, which had been defended only lightly or not at all. The city itself was centred on William the Conqueror’s castle.
This was an immensely strong fortification, but the town below it was not well suited to defence, as its eleventh-century walls were by now in disrepair and in some places falling down. To the
north-east and south-west of the castle and about 800 yards from it were respectively the Abbaye aux Dames and the Abbaye aux Hommes, the latter the burial place of William the Conqueror. The
commercial heart of the city and its most prosperous suburb lay 600 yards south-west of the castle on the Île Saint-Jean, centred round the church of Saint Jean, which is still there, and was
unwalled but entirely surrounded by the waters of the Rivers Odon and Orne and their branches. Those rivers are still there too, but their courses have changed, particularly that of the Odon, which
is now underground for much of its traverse of Caen, while the minor branches of both rivers have long dried out. Then the Odon ran from south-west to north-east along what
is now the Rue des Alliés, with the church of Saint Pierre, which still survives, on the north side and a bridge, the Porte Saint-Pierre, crossing the river beside the church.
The axis of the Île was the road now named the Rue Saint-Jean, which runs, as it did then, south-east to north-west. On the southern side, the Orne ran pretty much as it does now, although
the Bassin Saint-Pierre was not built until 1845.

For days, refugees had been pouring into Caen, and by the time the English army had reached Fontenay-le-Pesnel, just east of Tilly-sur-Seulles – about twelve miles from Caen and on a ridge
that would become frustratingly familiar to another British army during the Normandy campaign of 1944 – the constable of Caen, the garrison commander, knew that death and destruction was
coming his way, and coming soon. He had perhaps 1,200 soldiers, men-at-arms and mercenary crossbowmen recruited from Genoa, and decided to hold only the castle and the Île Saint-Jean. To
abandon the old city was sensible enough – its walls would not have withstood an assault even if he had had sufficient men to cover all the approaches, which he did not – and, while
both abbeys were stoutly walled, he considered that he could not afford to attempt to hold them. The bishop of Bayeux, with around 200 men-at-arms and 100 crossbowmen, was placed in the castle,
while the remainder of the garrison withdrew to the Île and prepared to defend it with the help of those citizens who could bear arms. As the bridge at the Porte Saint-Pierre had been
designed to defend against an assault coming towards the castle from the south-east, not away from the castle from the north-west, a barricade of upturned farm carts, church benches and blocks of
stone from building sites was constructed on the north bank to prevent the English from crossing the bridge, and barges were moored along the bank of the Odon with crossbowmen on the decks and in
the fore and stern castles. That night, an English friar and professor of theology, the Augustinian Geoffrey of Maldon, arrived at the old walls with a letter from Edward. In it the king promised
to spare the lives and goods of the citizens if the city would surrender to him. The council of Caen rejected the demand, the bishop of Bayeux tore up the letter, and the wretched Geoffrey was
flung into the castle jail.

The English army, divided as was customary into three divisions or
batailles
(literally, ‘battles’), marched at first light and drew near to Caen
at
mid-morning. The vanguard, commanded in theory by the Prince of Wales, took possession of the Abbaye aux Dames to the north-east, while the main body, commanded by the king, formed up around the
Abbaye aux Hommes, with the third division somewhere north of the castle. Edward was preparing to reconnoitre the city prior to formulating a plan for its capture, when events overtook him. Some
soldiers of the Prince of Wales’s division saw an undefended gate in the eastern walls of the old city, made a rush for it and, having got there, realized that beyond it the city itself was
deserted, all the garrison and most of the occupants having decamped to the Île Saint-Jean. The earl of Warwick, supposedly the Prince of Wales’s adviser but in reality the commander of
the division, led more troops into the old city and was unable to prevent the men from beginning to loot the empty houses and setting on fire those that did not look as if they offered rich
pickings. As they advanced further within the old walls, the leading soldiers spotted the French men-at-arms manning the barricade on the north side of the Porte Saint-Pierre and a scuffle
developed. At this point, the king, watching from the Abbaye aux Hommes, realized what was happening and sent an aide to tell the earl of Warwick to pull back until a coordinated attack could be
mounted. The earl duly had his trumpeter sound the retreat, and, when that was ignored, the earl, on the principle that, if you can’t stop them, you might as well join them, threw himself
wholeheartedly into the battle for the bridge.

What had begun as an accidental encounter now developed into a full-scale assault. As the Odon was low at that time of year, archers and Welsh spearmen began to wade across the river and attack
the crossbowmen on the barges moored on the opposite bank. That line of defence gave way, the English infantry were in, and the French defenders of the bridge, realizing that they were about to be
cut off and attacked from the rear, abandoned the bridge and withdrew back into the Île. Now the slaughter began. Once the bridge was open, the English men-at-arms and spearmen swarmed across
and began killing anyone they met, soldier or civilian. The fighting was particularly brutal in the narrow streets and inside houses, and, while the men-at-arms would accept the surrender of a
nobleman or an obviously prosperous civilian, the archers and spearmen were in a bloodlust and killed indiscriminately. French knights, conspicuous by their armour and rich trappings, would seek
out an English knight to surrender to, knowing that only then would their lives be assured.

The castle was never captured and simply ignored, and by late afternoon it was all over and the looting began. The chronicles differ widely over the casualty list. It was said that 5,000 French
were killed; that 2,500 French bodies lay on the streets and in the houses, stripped and disfigured so that they were unrecognizable; that 500 bodies were buried in a mass grave in the grounds of
the church of Saint Jean; that 250 knights and esquires and a large number of rich merchants were taken prisoner; and that only one English esquire died of wounds some days later.
¹⁷
The figure of the French dead is almost certainly too high, although the sources do agree on the number of prisoners taken. The number of English dead is
similarly almost certainly too low; there must have been losses among the archers and spearmen who waded across the Odon to get at the crossbowmen on the boats, and the Lanercost Chronicle tells of
civilians hurling stones and beams on the advancing English from the upper storeys of their houses.