A Distant Mirror_ The Calamitous 14th Century - Barbara W. Tuchman [124]
23. A Cardinal. Detail from the Nine Hours Tapestries, French, late 14th century.(illustration credit 7.23)
24. Knights. Seals of Amadeo V of Savoy (right) and Louis I, Duc d’Anjou.(illustration credit 7.24)
25. Peasants. Labors of the Twelve Months. Manuscript of Crescenzi li Rustican, c. 1460.(illustration credit 7.25)
26. The slaughter of the Jacques on the bridge at Meaux. From Froissart’s Chronicles, Louis de Bruges copy, c. 1460.(illustration credit 7.26)
27. Murder of the marshals. From the Grandes Chroniques, copy executed for Charles V, c. 1375.(illustration credit 7.27)
28. The alaunt as war-dog, used against the horses of mounted brigands or men-at-war. From the 14th century manuscript Tractatus de Pauli Sanctini Ducensis de re militari et machinis bellicis.(illustration credit 7.28)
29. The Battle of Slays. From Froissart’s Chronicles, Louis de Bruges copy, c. 1460.(illustration credit 7.29)
30. Widowed Rome.(illustration credit 7.30)
31. Florence, 15th century.(illustration credit 7.31)
Chapter 8
Hostage in England
All this time efforts in London to conclude a permanent peace treaty had not succeeded. When the French balked at the terms of a settlement reached in 1358, Edward responded by raising his demands. In March 1359 when the truce was about to expire, King Jean yielded, trading half his kingdom for his own release. By the Treaty of London he surrendered virtually all of western France from Calais to the Pyrenees, and agreed to an augmented and catastrophic ransom of 4 million gold écus, payable at fixed installments, to be guaranteed by the delivery of forty royal and noble hostages, of whom Enguerrand de Coucy was designated as one. In case of obstruction to the transfer of ceded territories, Edward retained the right to send armed forces back to France, whose cost was to be borne by the French King.
Desperate for peace though France was, shame and anger rose when the terms became known. Dragged to maturity in the grim years since Poitiers, the Dauphin had learned greater stewardship than his father. Neither he nor his Council was prepared to yield what the King of France had agreed to. Facing a fearful choice between accepting the treaty and renewal of the war, they summoned the Estates General with a request for “the most substantial notable and wise men” bearing full powers to represent the communes.
In this somber hour, one of the darkest in French history, the few delegates who braved the bandit-infested roads to come to Paris were in earnest. When the text of the Treaty of London was read to them on May 19, they deliberated briefly and made their response to the Dauphin without dispute. It was for once laconic. “They said the Treaty was displeasing to all the people of France and intolerable, and for this they ordered war to be made on England.”
Edward prepared to launch a supreme effort to consummate victory. He laid the cause to French “perfidy” in rejecting the treaty, thus establishing grounds for a “just war” and allowing bishops to offer indulgences in aid of recruitment. Determined to assemble an expeditionary force that should lack nothing to make it invincible, he spent all summer gathering the components. An immense convoy of 1,100 ships carrying 11,000 to 12,000 men and more than 3,000 horses (to be joined by as many more at Calais) was assembled, with 1,000 carts and some four-horse wagons for the baggage train, plus tents, forges, hand mills, horseshoes and nails, bows and arrows, arms and armor, cooking utensils, initial stocks of wine and food, leather boats for fishing in the rivers, not forgetting, for the hunt, thirty falconers with hawks, sixty couple of hounds, and sixty of harriers.
By the time the King embarked, taking with him his four eldest sons, it was the end of October,