Blood Cries Afar (46 page)

This new expeditionary force began to gather at Calais in early August. At its head was Robert de Courtnay, uncle to the French queen and a high-ranking noble in Louis’s household, who had fought with the Prince in England, and the younger brother of Peter, Count of Auxerre and Nevers. His leading captains were the Parisian Ralph de la Tournelle and Michael de Harnes. The commander of the fleet was, once again, Eustace the Monk, who, Wendover reminds us, was ‘a shameful man and a wicked pirate’. None of this went unnoticed by the English. After the gathering at Oxford over the second week of August, William Marshal made his way to the south coast via Reading on the 14th, Farnham on 15th–16th, Lewes on 17th, and Romney on the 19th. When the regent heard the news that he had feared and long anticipated, he was ‘greatly distraught’ that ‘an army of such strength and might was due to arrive in England’;
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he therefore ordered his admiral Philip d’Albini and John Marshal to lead the sailors of the Cinque port and a large force of men ‘to watch the seas carefully, and to reconnoitre for the French and prevent their arrival’.
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D’Albini had been charged with coastal defence back on 20 January and we have seen his forces in conspicuous action against the French at Winchelsea and Dover.

With both sides preparing for a major encounter, it was not surprising that a number of skirmishes ensued. The English crossed the Channel to harass the French forces at Calais, shooting arrows into the harbour, hoping to keep them penned in. On one day the English sent out a large number of ships – 300 says the Anonymous – and a sizeable engagement occurred. The French, seeing the English approach, set out to meet them, capturing a staggering 140 of the lightly-manned vessels and chasing the others back to port. It seems that the English lost contact with their commander and, leaderless, panicked, abandoning their vessels at full sail and making their getaway in their skiffs. At one point the French fleet embarked and set sail, reaching Dover with the intention of sailing around to the Thames estuary and hence London, but a terrifying storm drove them back across the Channel to Boulogne and Flanders. But all knew this was just a temporary setback.

William Marshal, who spent the night of 23 August at Canterbury, had ordered a full muster of his forces at the port of Sandwich for the 24th. The leaders of the Cinque ports, sensing that the crown’s need of their services and loyalty was greater than ever at this moment of approaching crisis, exploited the situation to gain advantages. The system of naval organisation had broken down during the war, leaving royalist forces to gather maritime forces in something of an ad hoc manner until the Cinque ports felt free enough from French intrusions to renew fully their allegiance to the crown. The royalist need for a coherent assembly of major naval forces was acute. The Cinque leaders complained to the Marshal of the burdens and loss of privileges suffered under John; the regent was not about to disappoint them at this critical juncture and granted them a return to their lucrative franchises as well as healthy compensation from the spoils of the coming battle, including the replacement of lost ships. Thus boosted, the Cinque representatives returned to their ships at Sandwich and prepared for combat in high spirits; the Marshal’s biographer depicts the merry sailors as energetically attending to their ships, as they ‘made ready their ropes, made seaworthy every one of their bowlines, guide ropes and guys, their sturdy anchors and strong cables, so that they would be able to cast anchor off the ports, should it prove necessary for them to fight and crush the arrogance of the French’ and pledging to die or be taken captive before avoiding their duty, for ‘if the French fleet out there were able to put to shore, then the game would have disastrous results and England would be lost’.
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The next day the Marshal was at Sandwich for the muster with Peter des Roches, Hubert de Burgh, who arrived from Dover in a large ship, and his other commanders. De Burgh was given command of the English fleet. The Marshal’s appeals to set out with the fleet and to get stuck into the French were cried down amidst protests that he was simply too valuable to risk losing; as his biographer proudly warns, if he were ‘killed there or taken prisoner, who would then defend the realm?’ While obviously emphasising the central importance of his patron, this was nevertheless a real concern. Thursday 24 August was a beautiful clear day; the French fleet set sail for the mouth of the Thames with a fair and pleasant wind. The English went out to meet them. The fleets were sailing into the deciding battle of the invasion and the occupation of England. It was the day of reckoning.

The size of the English fleet is not known for certain. The biographer says that the Marshal himself had arranged for 22 ships, the best of their kind, to be fully armed and manned. The Anonymous and the Annalist of Waverley say that there were eighteen big ships present; perhaps this means that four were kept in reserve at port. It seems that these were matched by the same number of other lesser vessels. Matthew Paris, who at this stage in his writing, breaks away from merely repeating Wendover’s chronicle, states that de Burgh was ‘given to his command about sixteen ships well fitted out, plus small support boats numbering twenty’. Wendover corroborates this, declaring that the English had ‘only a few ships, not exceeding forty in number of galleys and ships’. The biggest ship was a cog; standing high out of the water, it provided solid fighting platforms with larger ‘castles’ than smaller vessels for the knights and soldiers on board. No ship was thought to exceed 80 tons.
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The cog was the Marshal’s ship, crewed and garrisoned by his men. The fighting galleys in both navies were reinforced with iron prows by which they could ram enemy ships; they could take on much larger vessel, as Richard I proved in the Mediterranean on the Third Crusade, when his galleys successfully rammed a Muslim ship ‘of enormous size’.
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De Burgh’s captains included some experienced men: Philip d’Albini, who directed military operations in the Channel in the war; Richard Fitzjohn, son of John and nephew to the Earl of Warenne who had fitted out his nephew’s ships with care; and two of Hubert’s trusted knights from Dover, Henry de Trubleville and Richard Suard.

We have good details of the French fleet thanks to the Anonymous of Béthune. He and Wendover agree on a figure of about 80 ships; not, as the Marshal’s biographer claims for dramatic impact, 300. The Anonymous says that these ‘were both big and small’: ten large ones were ready for battle; four were full of knights and six with sergeants; and the others were filled with supplies. The flag ship was ‘the great ship of Bayone’, which was so laden with treasure, horses for Louis and a trebuchet it sat low and heavy in the water, with the waves almost washing over it, and restricted in its manoeuvrability by its great weight. On board were the admiral of the fleet, Eustace, Robert de Courtenay, Ralph de la Tournelle, Neville de Canle and 36 other knights, including William des Barres the younger, a strong knight who took his name from his father, a renowned figure of chivalry and sword-hand of Philip Augustus. Michael de Harnes, William the castellan of St Omer and the mayor of Boulogne commanded the other three ships with knights. The six ships with sergeants were also battle-worthy. With the largest ships carrying some 40 knights, and four ships in all with knights on board, the Anonymous can be seen to offering further credence to both his figure of some 100 knights for the whole army, and the Melrose chronicler’s figure of 125 knights. The English chronicles make much of being outnumbered in ships, but the figures actually reveal a rough balance of fighting vessels, all well-equipped and fitted for war; the extra 40 ships of the French would for the most part have been predominantly supply ships, bringing much needed provisions, equipment, food and wine to Louis. Heavily laden and with a fixed destination plotted, the French lacked the flexibility and manoeuvrability of the English. However, they had a certain strength derived from their numbers and the advantage of a strong wind behind them. Both sides were under experienced and successful leaders; while Eustace’s reputation as an outstanding seaman was clear, Hubert de Burgh had as a chief adviser Philip d’Albini, who, although a less colourful character than his rival, had proven himself an equal match to the demonised pirate. On paper, the French had the advantage of numerical superiority and hence the upper hand, but in 1213 Wendover noted that the English ‘had a superior navy than the French king’.
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The English had two other less tangible advantages, not frequently remarked upon. One was their greater experience of naval warfare, especially in the Channel; remember the French only gained the seaboard of Normandy in 1204. Secondly, and very potently, they had the motivation that comes from defending their homeland. In his battle speech, the Marshal warned his men that the French now ‘return to England to claim the land as theirs’, echoing his battle oration at Lincoln. For the battle that was about to ensue was one in which the enemies were divided by nation. There were no anti-Henrician English barons commanding the French force, muddying the waters of identity and causes. This was an English fleet against a French one.

English strategy was simple: the objective was to prevent the French from landing. If this sizeable force made it to London, the war could continue indefinitely. As it was, the royalists were already hesitant to besiege the capital; these significant reinforcements from France would make London unassailable and once again would have caused shifting in political movements and further realignments. This maritime strategy was an established one. During the invasion threat of 1213, John was ‘determined to engage his enemies in battle at sea, to drown them before they set foot on land’. It is worth recalling Wendover’s comments here on England’s superior navy: in 1213 it was this in which John ‘placed his chief defence’.
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The English were doing so again. The chroniclers give the impression that William Marshal was sending out the fleet for a decisive battle; but, as with the Spanish Armada in 1588, the overriding intention was to prevent foreign troops disembarking on English soil. The assertion by one historian that ‘no medieval admiral ever sailed with the explicit intention of seeking out an enemy fleet and destroying it’ has to be questioned, though.
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The most effective way to keep the enemy from landing was, as was planned in 1213, simply to destroy the French fleet and drown their army at sea.

The English went out to meet them on an oblique course from the north-east, against the wind and tide. Emboldened by the victory at Lincoln, Wendover says they dared to take on the larger force. Hubert de Burgh’s ship was leading the small fleet, probably in column behind. Not far off the coast off Sandwich, he made a feint against the French, so that they thought he was approaching to engage with them head-on. The French, emboldened on their part by their recent victory over the English in the Channel, and confident in their numbers against the few vessels sent against them, hastened to meet the challenge, furling their sails and eager either to gain spoils that would pay for their expenses or to send the English to ‘the bottom fishing for flounder’.
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It is sometimes thought that naval battles were merely replications of a cavalry charge,
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but this was not the case at Sandwich. De Burgh veered away to starboard at the last moment, as he had intended. The French then cried out ‘La hart, la hart!’, a call given in deer-hunting when the prey is spotted.’ The term can also mean ‘noose’, which offers a darker, more serious interpretation of the call.
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William the Breton offers a unique perspective when he describes how Robert de Courtenay ordered the French flagship, Eustace’s great ship of Bayonne, to make for the smaller English vessels passing by, ‘thinking it would be easy to capture them’.
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However, William says that no other French ship followed him, leaving him isolated away from the main fleet. This may have been the case, but there must be some doubt over this. Yes, the flagship was the biggest in the French fleet, and the prospect of profiting from an easy catch was always tempting; but the French priority of supplying Louis was paramount, and Eustace’s vessel, laden with treasure, trebuchet, horses and knights, was the most important of all. The very fact that the English’s overwhelming aim was to prevent the French fleet from reaching London, meant, in turn, that reaching London was the central aim of the French. It is hard to imagine Eustace the Monk being diverted from this task. If de Courtenay, an experienced commander, had ordered the diversion it would have been an uncharacteristic display of over-confidence and of diversion from the task with which he was charged. It is only the author of
History of William Marshal
that supports William the Breton’s version. While the biographer was always eager to demonstrate the arrogant presumptuousness of the French, William was no doubt trying to spare the blushes of a noble so closely related to the French royal family, demonstrating his bravery but blaming others for not supporting him and insinuating that if they had, his decision would not have been a mistake. William’s account, brief as it is, also reveals his lack of detailed knowledge of the battle, as he says Robert Fitzwalter was captured during the battle; Fitzwalter was captured at Lincoln and his release was not granted until 8 October later that year. So while it is possible that de Courtenay did launch into an attack, it is far more probable that he held his course.

What is certain is that the flagship was soon fighting for its survival. The English plan involved the same tactics as the naval encounter on 29 May: to get windward of the enemy. Thus de Burgh’s feint was to mislead the French and get behind them. One of the dangers in this was that if the attempt failed, the English ships could be run down.
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But the last moment manoeuvring of de Burgh’s ships worked and the English side-stepped the French. The somewhat neglected
Romance of Eustace the Monk
at this juncture confirms the tactical plan of the English: ‘more than twenty ships passed in front of him [Eustace], and they attacked his fleet fiercely.’ Once past, they turned about and, with a strong wind in their sails, attacked vigorously from the rear. Rather than de Courtenay making contact with the English column and engaging with Richard Fitzjohn’s ship, as has been suggested by one authority, the
History of William Marshal
is probably right to say it was Fitzjohn’s ship, or at least an English one, that initiated the encounter.
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This was decapitation strategy: take the head off the enemy and its torso will collapse. We have seen how close such a strategy came to working at Bouvines, when the allies formed a cavalry unit with the sole intention of targeting Philip Augustus. In the event, infantry dragged Philip from his horse and would have killed him but for the self-sacrifice of his bodyguard.