The Hundred Years War (17 page)

There was now a new Chancellor, Sir Michael de la Pole —son of the great Hull merchant—and a new policy of appeasement. Pole saw that the monarchy was sinking further and further into debt because of the War, that in consequence it might lose control of central government which would pass to Parliament. He was right about the cost of war, but his attempts to secure peace were to prove disastrous ; at home he divided the English into a war party and a peace party, while abroad he abandoned England’s most loyal allies.

When Ghent asked for an English Prince of the Blood to come and be her
ruwaert,
Pole merely sent Sir John Bourchier with a derisory force of 400 men. Ghent gave in to Philip of Burgundy at the end of 1385 and the Duke soon controlled most of the Low Countries, acquiring the reversion of Brabant, a territory as big as Flanders, by marrying his younger son to its heiress. England now had to fear economic blockade and the disruption of the wool trade. Pole then infuriated Duke John IV of Brittany—Edward III’s protégé—by releasing the Blois claimant to the duchy from captivity in England; in 1386 John’s troops invested the English garrison at Brest. By then the policy of detente had not only cost England all her allies in Flanders and Brittany, but was encouraging her enemies to attack her. A Franco-Scottish army had already raided northern England and there was obviously worse in store.

Pole, now Earl of Suffolk, still did not appreciate the extent of the danger. He allowed John of Gaunt to lead an expedition to Castile, in pursuit of the crown which he claimed by right of his second wife, Pedro the Cruel’s daughter. Gaunt’s departure in July 1386 was sheer madness, as England was facing the greatest invasion threat of the century. A French army 30,000 strong had gathered in and around Sluys ; men came from all over France—‘Let us now invade these miserable English folk who have caused such mischief and destruction in France, and avenge ourselves for our fathers and mothers and friends whom they have killed.’ Vast amounts of food, munitions and horses were collected at special depots ; there was even a collapsible wooden fortress made in sections, with keep, watchtowers and curtain walls, to be used in establishing a bridgehead. To transport this enormous concentration of men and material, an armada of 1,200 cogs, galleys and sailing-barges assembled in the harbour at Sluys.

When the English realized the threat they were terrified. The people of London, ‘as though maddened by wine’, demolished the suburbs to make the City defensible, although the French had not even landed ; many went on a spending spree, wasting ‘thousands of pounds’, so certain were they that England was lost. The troops called up by the commissioners of array were not paid and roamed through the countryside robbing and looting to such an extent that they were forbidden to go within fifty miles of London ; many northern units were disbanded and sent home as soon as they reached the south, though the French were expected hourly. England was in uproar.

Nevertheless the English Council had an excellent plan of defence. The King’s Ships were to lie in the Thames until the enemy troops had been lured inland and then attack their fleet to cut off any hope of escape. Meanwhile small English forces scattered along the coast were to retreat before the French until they could rejoin the main English army near London.

However, the invasion was delayed until the autumn because of the illness of Philip of Burgundy. When the time came the sailing-masters told the French high command that the weather was by now too unreliable. ‘Most dread and powerful lords : of a truth, the sea is foul and the nights be too long, too dark, too cold, too wet and too windy. We are short of victuals, while we must have a full moon and a favourable wind with us. Moreover the English coast and the English havens are dangerous. Too many of our ships are old and too many are small and might be swamped by those that are large. And the sea is at its worst between 29 September and 25 November.’ In mid-November 1386 the French decided to call off the invasion.

No doubt had the French managed to land they would have perpetrated atrocities like those of the English in France. Some historians emphasize that French troops behaved just as badly to their own people as the English, and in this context it has been argued that late medieval France was not a nation but a collection of nations. However, there is plenty of evidence to show that Frenchmen of every region blamed the anarchy and bloodshed of the War exclusively on the English ; it is significant that throughout France the routiers were known as ‘the English’, although there were many Frenchmen among them. This hatred gave rise to such strange legends as the story that the English had tails (probably due to Welsh footmen hanging their long knives from the back of their belts).

The War played an important role in the growth of English nationalism. As the English began to regard the French as their natural prey, they developed feelings of hatred and contempt; in a poem Eustache Deschamps (who died in 1410) credits an English soldier with the words:

‘Dog of a Frenchman, you do nought but drink wine.’ As with the French, a common hatred came to override local loyalties.

Even so, some of the noblest English minds of the time rejected the War. In De
Officio
Regis the Lollard heresiarch John Wyclif condemned all warfare as contrary to God’s Commandment to love one’s neighbour ; he also questioned any man’s right to claim a kingdom and to hazard lives in pursuit of such a claim. The Dominican John Bromyard, by no means a heretic, was concerned in his
Summa Predicantium
(Points for Preachers) with the corruption caused by warfare—the greed, contempt for life and lack of scruple which it engendered, especially among ill-paid troops.

Hatred of the French was much in evidence at the Parliament of October 1386, which met when England still thought itself threatened by invasion. The absence of the moderating influence of John of Gaunt, away in Castile, was only too apparent. The King’s uncle Buckingham, now Duke of Gloucester, led the opposition to the Chancellor, Suffolk. Richard reacted with characteristic arrogance, saying that his people were in rebellion and he would ask ‘our cousin, the King of France’ to help put them down. This provoked the retort that if a monarch ’rashly in his insane counsels exercise his own peculiar desire‘, it was lawful for lords and magnates ‘to pluck down the King from his royal throne and to raise to the throne some very near kinsman of the royal house’. Gloucester, who seems to have meant himself by this, also reminded his nephew of Edward II’s fate. He warned Richard that: ‘The King of France is your chief enemy and the mortal foe of your realm. And if he should set foot on your land, he would rather work to despoil you, seize your kingdom, and drive you from your throne, than lend you helping hands ... Recall to your memory therefore how your grandfather King Edward III and your father Prince Edward worked untirely all their lives, in sweat and toil, in heat and cold, for the conquest of the realm of France, which was their hereditary right and is yours by succession after them.’ Gloucester continued, saying how innumerable Englishmen, lords and commons, ‘have suffered death and mortal peril in that war‘, and ‘how the commons of the realm have ceaselessly poured out countless treasures’ to wage it.

Obviously the Duke had plenty of support-if the English disliked paying for war, they liked the prospect of invasion even less. Reluctantly Richard yielded, dismissing Suffolk who was impeached for crimes ‘committed to the grave prejudice and injury of the King and kingdom’. A new Council was appointed, dominated by the fire-breathing Gloucester and his chief ally, the Earl of Arundel-Richard’s detested former governor—and embarked on a year’s campaigning against France. In March 1387, at Cadsand off Margate, Arundel and only sixty ships attacked a Flemish wine-fleet which was sailing from La Rochelle to Sluys. The Earl captured fifty Flemish ships with 19,000 tuns of excellent wine which was immediately sent back to England and sold at a token price, to the joy of the public and brief popularity of the new Council—‘The praises of the Earl grew immensely among the commons’. However, Arundel went on to raid the Flemish coast and missed the opportunity of occupying Sluys which would have put all maritime Flanders at his mercy. He then went to Brittany, to relieve Brest and to try to effect a reconciliation with Duke John, suggesting an Anglo-Breton attack on France. But John remained hostile and Arundel was forced to return to England.

In August 1387 Richard II announced his intention of ruling in his own name and appointed a Council from his favourites. Gloucester and Arundel thereupon raised an army and defeated the favourites at Radcot Bridge. Next year the Lords Appellant (accusers), among them Gloucester and Arundel, condemned them to death in the Merciless Parliament, despite Richard’s pleading. Gloucester and Arundel then mounted a supreme effort against the French, having at last obtained a promise of assistance from Brittany. But John of Gaunt, who had returned from Castile and was Lieutenant in Guyenne, refused to attack in the south-west, which so alarmed the Duke of Brittany that he too decided not to fight. Unaware of their defection, Arundel sailed in June 1388, but all he could do was raid the Isle of Oléron and the region round La Rochelle ; he was unable to advance inland because the Bretons would not supply him with horses. Even this petty skirmishing was only done by ignoring the Council’s order to return. The campaign’s dismal failure, together with astronomical demands for fresh subsidies, finally antagonized the Commons, while a crushing defeat inflicted by the Scots on the Percys at Otterburn in August terrified all northern England. Gaunt and other magnates grew more disposed again to make peace.

Across the Channel Charles VI was maturing, in his own way—growing into a lover of luxury and magnificence like his grandfather John II. He was encouraged in his taste for pleasure by his beautiful, sluttish wife, Isabeau of Bavaria. In November 1388 he dismissed his uncles from his Council, much to their anger, and reinstated his father’s ministers (who were popularly known as the Marmosets, their old gnarled faces being said to resemble doorknockers of that name). There were some extremely able and cool-headed men among the Marmosets and they decided on peace.

Overruling Gloucester and Arundel, the English Council began to negotiate. In May 1389 Richard II was able to assume power and govern for himself, and he too wanted peace. The King had little taste for battles; the Monk of Evesham says specifically that he was ‘timid and unsuccessful in foreign war’. Richard also seems to have genuinely admired the French; as an aesthete he may well have respected the most civilized society in northern Europe. Furthermore his treasurers must have shown him the enormous cost of the War, and how much this exceeded ordinary royal revenues and made him dependent on the Lords and Commons.

On 18 June 1389 French and English envoys signed a truce at Leulinghen near Calais. Henceforward Richard did his best to keep the peace. Cherbourg was sold back to the new King of Navarre in 1393 (who promptly resold it to the French), Brest to the Bretons in 1396. Both sides tried to find a lasting settlement. King Charles and his lords wanted one so that they could go on crusade against the Turks. Even Philip of Burgundy was enthusiastic, as he was well aware of what a price his subjects set on good commercial relations with England.

But there was still an English war party. On hearing that France was ready to cede lands in Aquitaine for English territories elsewhere, Gloucester protested: ‘The French want to pay us out of what is already ours. They know this : we hold charters sealed by King John and all his children, that all Aquitaine was given over to us to hold in sovereignty, so that which they have since retaken they have obtained by fraud and trickery; for they are constantly plotting both night and day to deceive us. If Calais and the other lands which they are demanding were given back to them, they would be masters of all their maritime frontiers, and all our conquests would be lost. So I shall never agree to peace for as long as I live.’ Arundel likewise declared that he would never change his views.

But Richard was determined and saw Guyenne as the key. John of Gaunt had by now abandoned all hope of Castile but he still wanted a throne. One way of establishing peace between France and England would be to settle Guyenne on Gaunt and his heirs, separating the duchy from the English crown. Even Gloucester supported the idea if only to keep Gaunt abroad, after which Gloucester ‘would have shifted well enough in England’—at least that was Froissart’s impression. In 1390 Richard created Gaunt Duke of Guyenne for life and in 1394 gave him the succession as well. But the Guyennois had unhappy memories of the Black Prince and were also afraid that Gaunt’s heirs might marry into the Valois and that the duchy would be absorbed by France. They rose in rebellion and Gaunt was unable to bring them to heel. In 1398 the English and French reluctantly settled for a truce of twenty-eight years.

Richard had gone ahead with his marriage to Charles VI’s nine-year-old daughter Isabel in 1396, accepting a dowry of nearly £170,000. At the wedding near Calais, an earlier Field of Cloth of Gold, he was obviously deeply moved by his meeting with Charles, so much so that he made the disastrous mistake of promising to persuade the English Church to submit to Avignon and to try to make the Urbanist Pope at Rome abdicate. It is probable that historians have underestimated the shock and horror which this caused Richard’s subjects. Some English clergy murmured, ‘Our King is become French; he intendeth to do nothing but dishonour and destroy us, but he shall not !’ Ordinary Londoners grumbled how Richard ‘had a French heart’.