Louis: The French Prince Who Invaded England (24 page)

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Louis had reached London, but there was to be no rest. While Louis’s attention had been centred further westwards, Hubert de Burgh had taken advantage of his absence to break the truce at Dover: as more of Louis’s reinforcements had arrived in the port Hubert had launched an unexpected and violent sortie from the castle and killed many of them, taking others prisoner.

This was not to be borne. Louis had been in London only two nights, no doubt glad of the opportunity for him and his men and horses to rest after the speed of their campaign across the south, but with no hesitation he donned his armour once more and marched his troops to the coast. Dover had been a thorn in his side for too long, and he was now determined that whatever it took he would stay there until it was captured and under his control once and for all. He arrived there on 12 May 1217 and settled in for the long haul.

Establishing the camp for a siege which was expected to last several weeks or even months was a very different proposition to setting up a short-term or overnight camp; it was a complex logistical operation that needed to be carefully planned. We have already seen that Louis transported his dismantled siege machinery around the country with him, and that the engines would be rebuilt at a suitable distance from the walls by a team of engineers, but this was only one of many aspects of the siege which needed to be organised.

Firstly, the basic needs of the men and their animals needed to be catered for. The lords, knights and troops all needed somewhere to sleep so shelters of differing size and quality were erected, calculated to be situated outside the range of any arrows or other missiles which might be shot from inside the castle. These might vary from luxuriously appointed tents with beds, hangings and furniture for those who could afford them, down to basic bivouac-style shelters for those lower down the social scale. Some suitable point would be designated as the command centre which housed the leader of the host and served as a place for meetings; we do not know whether in this case Louis used the priory building as he had before or whether he lodged in a tent, but he would certainly have travelled with the appropriate equipment for a man of his rank.

Next, everyone needed to be fed. A supply of clean water was essential, as was adequate provisioning. An army would carry a reasonable quantity of victuals with it, but it would be impossible to transport enough for everyone in the host for several weeks, so the troops would use the resources of the surrounding area, either by foraging and requisitioning (in friendly territory) or by stealing and ravaging (in enemy lands). This needed to be kept up on an almost daily basis, which meant that the longer a siege continued, the wider the area which had to be covered to find food, or the siege would fail. The dangers of a castle running out of food and being starved into submission are evident, but if the fortification was well provisioned, as Dover was at this time, the besiegers could well starve before the besieged. Food would be cooked and shared by small groups of men from each household (each lord being expected to feed and provide for his own men), with the nobles again benefiting from the best of the available resources.

Another very important consideration was sanitation; disease could sweep through a camp otherwise, causing large numbers of casualties. For this purpose latrine trenches would be dug behind the lines. Also behind the main encampment would be an area for the host’s animals: warhorses, riding horses, packhorses, oxen for pulling baggage carts, and also any livestock which the army had brought with it or procured. They needed picketing, feeding and cleaning out on a daily basis, with regular exercise for the horses if the siege was prolonged. There may also have been ancillary facilities such as for washing or caring for the wounded. Not everyone in the host was a combatant; the nobles would have brought squires, servants, cooks and grooms with them, and of course any long-term siege camp would have attracted hangers-on, including entrepreneurs with merchandise to sell, and camp followers. In this case the French had been away from their homes for over a year and in addition to the inevitable casual liaisons some of the lords had taken mistresses. Louis was not one of them: despite having the suggestion put to him, he steadfastly remained faithful to his wife.

Life in a siege camp is likely to have been characterised by nervousness and boredom punctuated by short periods of frenetic and dangerous activity. Each part of the host had its part to play, but the knights were out of action while the miners and engineers were at work, and vice versa. Only a full-on assault would involve most of the army at once. In the meantime guards needed to be posted constantly against the possibility of sorties from inside the castle, and to look out for the danger of a relief army arriving from the rear. Becoming trapped between two enemy forces would be a very dangerous position.

A siege would often start with delegations going back and forth with offers and counter-offers, but in this case Louis was already aware that Hubert de Burgh would not agree terms or surrender lightly, so he set up his siege machinery and his mighty trebuchet straight away. The trebuchet did its work, causing damage to the castle, but Louis did not have a sufficient number of men with him to risk an all-out assault: the loss of the portion of his army sent north with Saer de Quincy, and the necessity of leaving a garrison in London, had depleted his forces. Much as he and his knights would have preferred the excitement and energy of hand-to-hand fighting, Louis was an experienced commander and he knew there was no point in launching an assault which would be easily beaten back by the well-armed and well-provisioned defenders and which would cost him many casualties.

His hope for a swift resolution to the siege now resided in the groups of reinforcements being sent across the Channel: a small fleet of forty ships was even now nearing the English shore. But, as the
History of the Dukes
tells us, the sea was heavy and the wind was great and against them, so they were blown back out to sea without being able to dock and unload their troops and supplies. It was another two days before they could make a further attempt to land at Dover, two days which gave Henry’s supporters time to prepare: when Louis’s fleet approached again it was ambushed by eighty ships under the command of Philip d’Albini.

The captains of Louis’s ships were not all of the same calibre or the same opinion on the best course of action: thirteen of them turned about and sailed back to Calais, while the other twenty-seven manoeuvred themselves into a tight formation in an attempt to force their way through the much bigger English fleet and drive through to the safety of the harbour. As we saw earlier, one of John’s few successes had been the building and equipping of a proper navy, and this now paid off. The
History of the Dukes
tells us that twenty of the English ships were large and fully equipped for combat; in conjunction with three times as many smaller vessels, they were a fearsome proposition. Miraculously, nineteen of the French ships managed to get through and reach the port to discharge their men on to dry land; the other eight were captured, their sailors and the sergeants they carried being immediately put to death while the knights were thrown into holds to be kept for ransom.

And so Louis was reinforced by less than half of the fleet which had set out, but the worst news was that there would be no more: Philip d’Albini stationed his ships at sea just outside the port of Dover to ensure that no further reinforcements or supplies could reach Louis from the sea. Until Blanche could send a larger fleet which might stand some chance of breaking through, Louis would have to sink or swim with whatever resources he possessed already.

As the stakes in the war were raised, mercy became more of an unaffordable luxury, and in retaliation for the blockade of his fleet and the loss of his men Louis had no hesitation in using his military superiority on land. He sent troops to burn Hythe and Romney to the ground, which they did despite some resistance from William of Kensham and his men, still waging their guerrilla war. With the wasted and therefore safer area of land around him Louis dug in at Dover, determined this time to grind the castle and its defenders into submission whatever the cost.

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On the same day Louis was setting up his engines at Dover, 12 May 1217, William Marshal learned from his scouts that the French forces at Lincoln had been greatly reinforced and that the castle was in danger of falling, which would give Louis a huge boost in morale as well as a major stronghold in the region and the opportunity to thrust further north and west. Up until now the tactics of the Henrician camp (and of John before his death) had been a cat-and-mouse affair of strikes and withdrawals, but Marshal now realised that the fall or otherwise of Lincoln could mark a turning point from which there would be no recovery. He sent out a summons to every lord in his faction, as well as the notable waverers, to muster at Newark. He probably did not make the long and impassioned speech which the
History of William Marshal
attributes to him, in which he calls upon them to fight for the sake of their wives, children and loved ones, and to defend the honour of the Holy Church, and claims that it was God’s will that they should be triumphant, but he was certainly persuasive enough to gather a large and powerful force. In Marshal’s favour was the news, specifically included by the author of the
History
in his speech, that Louis was not there in person.

To Newark rode the Marshal, little Henry himself, the papal legate Guala, Peter des Roches the bishop of Winchester, Ranulf the earl of Chester and a veritable glut of Williams: Marshal junior, the earl of Salisbury, the earl of Derby, the earl of Aumale and Williams d’Albini and de Cantelupe senior and junior, among others. With them were Falkes de Bréauté and one John Marshal, an illegitimate nephew of the regent who had served his uncle and King John loyally since the Normandy campaign in the early 1200s and who had been among those sent to Rome by John in the immediate aftermath of the sealing of Magna Carta. The Church was also heavily represented: as well as Guala and Peter des Roches the host included the bishops of Bath, Salisbury, Lincoln, Exeter, Worcester and Hertford. Guala took the opportunity to remind everyone that they were engaged in a holy crusade; he re-excommunicated those besieging the castle, and this time also specifically included the citizens of Lincoln, a point to which we will return later. He made sure that the Henrician forces all wore white crosses on their clothes, and according to Roger of Wendover:

To those who had undertaken to assist in this war personally, he, by the power granted to him from the omnipotent God and the apostolic see, granted full pardon for their sins, of which they had made true confession, and as a reward to the just he promised the reward of eternal salvation.

The host remained at Newark for three days to allow time for everyone to reach them and to rest their men and horses, but during this time a spat arose between Marshal and the earl of Chester which threatened their enterprise. The regent had not been overly impressed by Chester’s abrupt withdrawal from Mountsorrel without a fight (possibly conveniently forgetting that he had done much the same at Winchester), and he felt that Chester needed to redeem himself. Chester, as we have seen, was already smarting from the distribution of the regency arrangements, and he in turn was displeased that Marshal was being seen as their glorious leader and being begged by the other lords to have the honour of leading the attack and striking the first blow; there was also the question of Marshal’s advanced age making him unsuitable as the physical spearhead. The
History of William Marshal
tells us: ‘The earl of Chester … was not one bit pleased, and, indeed, he told them plainly, without mincing words, that if he were not given the right to launch the first attack he would not join them in the army and they would not have his support.’ As Chester’s forces made up a good proportion of the host, the proposed attack to relieve the siege might well have been put in jeopardy if he were to withdraw in a sulk and take his men with him. The
History
, perhaps not liking to go into too much detail about an argument lost by its hero, notes a little tersely that ‘the Marshal and those present did not like this dissension at all, so they granted his every wish’. The host now prepared in earnest: on 19 May 1217 Guala and Henry, as non-combatants, retired to Nottingham while the rest of the force started its march on Lincoln.

Inside the city, the joint forces of Gilbert de Gant, Saer de Quincy, Robert Fitzwalter and Thomas count of Perche were still bombarding the castle night and day, trying their utmost to take the fortification and get inside it themselves before the regent’s host reached them. If they could do that, they stood a much better chance of holding out and keeping Louis’s flag flying in the region. But how would they fare when the attack came? Military leadership by committee was seldom a great success, and they were about to face their biggest challenge yet without the presence of their most important weapon – Louis himself.

CHAPTER SEVEN