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By Root 1553 0

a savage French raid carried out in that month on Winchelsea, on the south coast of England. Its ultimate object was the rescue of King Jean, which would have spared France his ruinous ransom. As originally planned, the raid was also intended, by “making a show of remaining there,” to frighten the English into withdrawing forces from France in self-defense. Costs were raised by the major towns. A bold ship captain named Enguerrand Ringois of Abbeville, renowned for his courage and indomitable character at the siege of Calais, was chosen as naval commander. The land forces, numbering 2,000 knights, archers, and foot soldiers from Picardy and Normandy, suffered from the usual absence of single command. They were led by a triumvirate of nobles who were at odds with each other. Pierre des Essars, the man who had disposed of Etienne Marcel, led a body of Parisian volunteers.

Rumor preceding the attack had caused Jean to be moved on March 1 from Lincolnshire to a castle nearer London and subsequently to the Tower of London itself. Despite reconnoitering of the coasts, the French, misled by false information, landed on the south coast on March 15. Seizing Winchelsea without difficulty, they made no effort to establish a foothold, but plunged into the usual frenzy of pillage, murder, and rape, including massacre of a group of citizens attending mass in the church. While alarm flew over the countryside, the French sacked the neighboring town of Rye, then met and repelled a hastily assembled force of 1,200 English who came against them. Fearing greater reinforcements, they decided against the “show of remaining there” and, returning to the beachhead after a 48 hours’ invasion, re-embarked in the light of the burning town.

England was thrown into a panic by news that the enemy were “riding over the country, slaying, burning, destroying and doing other mischief,” and that worse might be expected “unless they be speedily and manfully opposed.” While that proved unnecessary, the panic left a persistent fear of invasion that was to exert some restraint on future activities against France. Otherwise the raid, bravely planned and badly led, accomplished nothing except to provoke Edward’s wrath and reprisals on discovering that the French could act as viciously in his realm as the English did in France.

Surrounding Paris early in April, the English sent heralds to challenge the defenders to battle, but the Dauphin, relying on Marcel’s improved fortifications, forbade any response. After a week of burning and killing outside the walls failed to provoke a fight, Edward turned away, baffled as he had been at Reims, though not yet ready to give up. He took the road for Chartres, not for the coast. For the past two months papal legates had been shuttling between the Dauphin and the English, attempting to reopen negotiations, always blocked by Edward’s refusal to reduce his terms. The Dauphin himself had sent envoys with peace proposals. Seeing “how the realm could not long endure the great tribulation and poverty” the English were inflicting, “for the rents of the lords and churches were nigh lost in every part,” he and his Council offered to settle on the basis agreed to in 1358 before Edward had raised his demands. The Duke of Lancaster advised Edward to accept, for if he persisted he might have to make war “all the days of your life” and might “lose in one day what it has taken us twenty years to win.”

The anger of the heavens supported the Duke. On Monday, April 13, a “foul dark day” of mist and bitter cold, as the army camped on the approach to Chartres, a violent hailstorm struck with the force of a cyclone, followed by cloudbursts of freezing rain. Horses and men were killed by the prodigious hailstones, tents were torn up by the wind, the baggage train was dragged through mud and floods, and scores died of the fearful cold, “wherefor unto thys day manye men callen it Black Monday.” In half an hour Edward’s army took a beating that human hands could not have inflicted and that could hardly be taken as other than a celestial warning.