The Monks of War (31 page)

The successor of Henry V and Bedford was a lanky, gangling, awkward youth with a pointed chin and mournful, worried eyes, weak in body and mind. Infinitely wellintentioned, gentle, pious and even saintly, he would have been far happier as an obscure monk. Detesting violence and cruelty, averse to any form of bloodshed, no man could have been less suited to late-medieval kingship. But he was as incapable of leading his country in peace as he was in war, for he had no understanding at all of politics or statecraft, and was a liability to the men who tried to govern for him.

The years from 1435 to 1450 constitute a protracted rearguard action by the English in France, and it is astonishing that they managed to hold on for so long after being deserted by the Burgundians. It took a reunited France to drive them out of the Ile de France completely, and when Charles VII at last rode into Rouen, Normandy had been English for thirty years—as though the German occupation of France had lasted until 1970. The English people now regarded Normandy and Calais almost as integral parts of their own country. When the end came it shocked all England and brought down the government of the day. The dynastic dispute had turned into a national struggle.

Soon after the Treaty of Arras there were risings all over Anglo-French territory. Dieppe, Fécamp and Harfleur fell to the enemy, Arques went up in flames. In February 1436 the Constable de Richemont with the Bastard of Orleans, Marshal de L‘Isle Adam and 5,000 men blockaded Paris, still held by the English, and contacted Burgundian supporters inside the city, which was once again threatened with famine. The English garrison under Lord Willoughby —the Bourgeois calls him the ‘Sire de Huillebit’—was weakened at Easter by 300 desertions, and the militia refused to man the walls. The starving Parisians began to riot, and on 13 April let down ladders to admit the Bastard with some picked troops who opened the gates. English archers were too late to stop them ; they had run through the empty streets, trying to cow the city by shooting at ominously shuttered windows, but when they found their way barred by chains and were fired on by cannon, they took refuge with the rest of the garrison in the Bastille. The houses of the English community were broken into and their contents plundered. The Constable replaced the city’s senior officials, though otherwise there was a general amnesty. Shortly afterwards Willoughby—a veteran of Harfleur and Agincourt—was allowed to withdraw with his men ‘by land and water’ to Rouen, departing amid hoots and catcalls.

The French, who began to refer to their foes as ‘English and Normans’, attacked up to the gates of Rouen. Yet Maine held, with a string of fortresses which shielded Normandy. King Charles, still poverty-stricken and as timid as ever, proved incapable of mounting an adequate offensive.

In July 1436 Burgundian troops began a siege of Calais. However, they failed to blockade it and the garrison’s sorties first demoralized the besiegers, then panicked them into flight by the end of the month. On 2 August Humphrey of Gloucester landed with a relief force and led a most effective
chevauchée
against Burgundy, deep into Flanders, before returning in triumph to Calais. Many Flemish towns were encouraged to revolt against Philip, involving him in a struggle which continued until 1438. By then he was only too anxious to make peace with England, and in 1439 he concluded a truce—with commercial clauses—which lasted for many years.

If the English were unable to produce another Bedford or another Salisbury, they still possessed a formidable commander in the dashing Lord Talbot.

John, sixth Lord Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury and Waterford, Knight of the Garter and Count of Clermont, had been born about 1388. A scion of a long line of marcher lords on the Welsh border, he inherited a savage tradition and his first years as a soldier were spent fighting Owain Glynd
r. In 1414 Henry V made him Lord Lieutenant in Ireland where he harried the wild kern amid their bogs and forests. Talbot’s French campaigns began in 1419 ; he was present at the siege of Melun in 1420 and at that of Meaux the following year, and later he fought at Verneuil. After a second term in Ireland he returned to France but, as has been seen, he was taken prisoner at Patay and spent four years in captivity. Since then ‘Old Talbot’ had caught the popular imagination with his string of victories. A portrait at Compton Wynyates shows an oddly modern face with strongly marked features beneath thick black hair. Impressive in manner, he was obviously afraid of nothing and his men worshipped him. While possessing an enviable grasp of strategy he had a curiously erratic sense of tactics. A master of the surprise attack, the raid and the skirmish, who knew just one order—‘Forward !‘—Talbot was really a dashing English version of du Guesclin, though without the Breton’s caution. Indeed he was defeated at the only two full-scale battles where he was in command. Nevertheless his opponents were terrified of him. The Irish lamented ‘there came not from the time of King Herod anyone so wicked in evil deeds’—and his name alone could make the French retreat.

In February 1436 Talbot was joined by the new Lieutenant-General of France—the enormously rich Duke of York, a young man of twenty-four whose small size and ugly features hardly matched his soaring ambition. If indecisive and a poor soldier, York was none the less an ally of Gloucester and a vigorous proponent of the War, and he co-operated with Talbot to such effect that the latter soon restored order in both Normandy and Maine. York himself managed to recover Dieppe and a number of towns in the Caux.

At the end of 1436 Poton de Xaintrailles and La Hire appeared in front of Rouen with 1,000 troops, but the citizens remained loyal and would not admit them. So they established themselves in the little town of Ris, ten miles away. Talbot, Sir Thomas Kyriell and 400 mounted men galloped from Rouen to Ris as soon as they learnt where the enemy was. They at once overran the French outposts on a small hill above the town and the fleeing survivors spread panic among their comrades ; when Talbot charged into the town there was no one to stop him, and he captured all the enemy baggage and some valuable prisoners. In January 1437 he and the young Earl of Salisbury took Ivry. The following month, despite bitter winter weather and deep snow and with only 400 men, Talbot recaptured Pontoise twelve miles from Paris, sending in troops disguised as peasants to open a gate to a storming-party camouflaged in white. The French garrison fled, led by Talbot’s former brother-in-arms, Marshal de L’Isle Adam. Talbot then appeared before Paris, where his men crossed the frozen moat and threatened to scale the city walls.

In the spring of 1437 the Earl of Warwick replaced the Duke of York as Lieutenant-General. Warwick was nearly sixty, at that time a ripe old age, but he still knew how to use Talbot. He sent him with 5,000 troops to relieve Le Crotoy on the north bank of the Somme estuary, which was besieged by twice that number of Burgundians. Talbot and his men waded across the famous ford of Blanche Taque a mile wide, although the water was chest-deep and the enemy had mounted cannon on the far bank. The Burgundians fled, abandoning their guns and baggage. Talbot also recovered Tancarville. Though Montereau, the last English fortress on the upper Seine, fell to the French in October, Paris was still so unsafe that when Charles made his
joyeuse entrée
he only dared stay there for three weeks.

In 1438 the French attacked Guyenne, the first serious invasion for nearly twenty years. At the same time the Castilian Rodrigo de Villandrando and his
écorcheurs
inflicted hideous devastation throughout the Guyennois countryside. Bordeaux was besieged but the enemy was short of cannon and soon retreated. Next year the Earl of Huntingdon recaptured all their gains.

Both sides again attempted to make peace. Significantly the King’s ships were laid up by the English and left to rot ; between 1437 and 1439 the derisory sum of £8 9s 7d was spent on them. Charles VII, for his part, was also discouraged ; he had only recovered the Ile de France and even then, to the east of Paris, Meaux held out in Champagne. In July 1439 a conference met between Calais and Gravelines, but the English still would not compromise over Henry’s title of King of France, and the War continued.

The great business of 1440 was the release of the Duke of Orleans who had been a prisoner in England since Agincourt. Henry V had told Bedford never to release him, so that his services would be lost to France ; and Gloucester was still fiercely opposed to letting him go, writing a long and angry ‘declaration’ to the King. Though most of the letter consisted of abuse of the Cardinal, his chief argument was that Orleans would become Regent and a most able one, as it was rumoured that Charles VII was ill. But Beaufort hoped Orleans might work for a general peace, and he may also have thought that the return of such a magnate would make France harder to govern. Moreover Orleans would fetch a valuable ransom—£40,000, one-third to be paid in advance. The money was collected by the Duchess of Burgundy who set up a fund and approached the entire French nobility; significantly King Charles did not contribute. Orleans was released in November 1440, promising to do his best to secure peace. The occasion was celebrated by a pontifical Mass on All Saints’ Day, from which Gloucester stormed out angrily. In the event Orleans’ political influence proved negligible and he retired to his châteaux to devote himself to his exquisite poetry and to good living. The English gained nothing apart from the ransom.

The War dragged on. The English had neglected to exploit Charles’s weakness when the magnates rebelled against him in the Praguerie earlier in 1440. Warwick had died in April 1439, worn out by anxiety. He was buried in the splendid chapel he had built at Warwick, no doubt paid for by monies won in France, where his superb effigy in its Italian armour may still be seen. After a brief tenure by the Earl of Somerset, the Duke of York began a second term as Lieutenant-General in July 1440. Talbot, who in a brilliant night-attack had repulsed a French attempt to take Avranches the previous December, besieged Harfleur in August 1440 with only 1,000 men and captured it in October.

In 1441 King Charles took Creil and Conflans, and in June laid siege to Pontoise which still threatened Paris. York and Talbot at once marched to relieve Pontoise with 3,000 men. Talbot, the real commander, manœuvred brilliantly, unexpectedly crossing the Oise on a pontoon bridge of portable leather boats and frightening Charles into abandoning first his headquarters at Maubuisson and then Pontoise. After marching and counter-marching, crossing and recrossing the Seine and the Oise, and only just failing to trap the French, Talbot relieved and revictualled Pontoise which he is said to have ‘refreshed’ five times. But as soon as Talbot returned to Normandy, Charles and his gunner, Maître Bureau, recommenced the siege in September, quickly breaching the wall with their cannon. Pontoise finally fell on 25 October; Lord Clinton, the garrison commander, survived to be ransomed but 500 of his men were put to the sword. The last English stronghold in the Ile de France had gone.

In the summer of 1442 King Charles invaded Guyenne. He captured the castle of Tartas and the towns of Saint-Sever and Dax, and took prisoner Sir Thomas Rempston, the Seneschal of Gascony. La Réole also fell, but its garrison held out in the citadel. However, the French failed to take Bayonne, let alone Bordeaux as they had hoped, although they menaced the capital until the end of the year. The English Council could not make up its mind whether to send reinforcements to Guyenne or to Normandy. Eventually Talbot was sent to the northern duchy with a new army of 2,500 troops, but Bordeaux was left to fend for itself.

Talbot had been in England where he had received an enthusiastic reception and was made an Earl. He had been a national hero for many years ; when he was captured at Patay in 1429 the fund for his ransom was widely subscribed. His triumphs in France were known throughout the land. Ordinary English people seem to have been surprisingly well informed about the progress of the War. Bishops were usually asked to pray for the success of major campaigns and then to hold services of thanksgiving or intercession (depending on the outcome); these were repeated at parish level and no doubt brought a certain amount of news. Great victories were celebrated by processions at St Paul’s and other cathedrals. There were proclamations read out in market-squares and at county courts. Then there were the ballads, such as that composed on the discomfiture of the Burgundians at Calais in 1436. Nor must ‘ale-house gossip’ be despised ; and a good deal of information must also have come via the retinues of the magnates, who kept open house. From the chroniclers it is clear that rumours were circulated by returned soldiers and were absorbed with avid interest.

The contemporary chroniclers’ pride in English victories is (by way of Holinshed) echoed by Shakespeare. He makes a French nobleman ask :

Dieu de batailles!
whence have they this mettle?

Is not their climate foggy, raw and dull?