A Distant Mirror_ The Calamitous 14th Century - Barbara W. Tuchman [170]
In February 1373 Amadeus at last entered Milanese territory, having reached a pact of neutrality with Galeazzo. The hand of his sister Blanche was clearly active in ending the unhappy family situation in which her husband’s lands were being ravaged by her brother. In their agreement Amadeus promised not to molest Galeazzo’s territory, in return for Galeazzo’s promise not to give aid to Bernabò against him. Galeazzo thus took himself halfway out of the war, leaving Amadeus free to proceed against Bernabò without fear of attack on his rear.
By January 1373 Coucy had joined Hawkwood somewhere east of Parma, from which they continued to move toward Milan. On February 26, just as they were approaching their goal, the Pope in an astonishing about-face instructed Coucy to provide a safe-conduct to the Visconti brothers to appear in Avignon before the end of March.
Gregory had been taken in by an offer of the Visconti to negotiate, which was merely Bernabò’s device for gaining time to assemble his forces. While still rejoicing in his enemies’ anticipated submission, Gregory wrote to commend Coucy for acting “bravely and forcefully to foster the interests of the Church in Italy,” and to thank him for that uncommon commodity, his “undivided loyalty.” Two days later, discovering himself deceived by the Visconti, the Pope expressed his pain and astonishment that Coucy had “entertained peace proposals from the enemies of the Church.” He was ordered to listen to no further propositions of this kind, but to carry out his mission in the assurance that the Pope was resolved “never to negotiate.” In letters to all concerned, Gregory beseeched more energetic action to effect the junction.
Coucy and Hawkwood, after crossing the Po in April, reached the hill town of Montichiari about forty miles east of Milan. By this time Amadeus had circled Milan to the north and after a long pause, supposedly caused by agents of Bernabò poisoning his provisions, had proceeded to a point no more than fifty miles distant from Coucy and Hawkwood. Here he came to a stop, evidently to prepare a defensive position against the advance of 1,000 lances under Bernabò’s son-in-law, the Duke of Bavaria, who was said to be approaching.
Between the two arms of the papal forces, Bernabò had constructed dikes on the river Oglio which could be opened to flood the plain and prevent the enemy’s passage. He had called for reinforcements from Galeazzo to block the threatened envelopment and “requite in good earnest” the Sire de Coucy and Giovanni Acuto, as the Italians called Hawkwood. While precluded from fighting his brother-in-law of Savoy, Galeazzo considered himself free to act against the other arm of the enemy, that is, against Coucy and Hawkwood. He sent his son at the head of a combined force of Lombards and Baumgarten’s mercenaries, numbering altogether more than 1,000 lances plus archers and many foot soldiers. Gian Galeazzo, who was kept informed of the enemy’s strength and route by the lord of Mantua, advanced confidently in the knowledge of numerical superiority.
At Montichiari the Coucy-Hawkwood force numbered 600 lances and 700 archers besides some hastily assembled provisionati or peasant infantry. Seeing himself vastly outnumbered, Coucy is said to have handed the baton of command to Hawkwood on the grounds of his greater experience and knowledge of Italian warfare, but the course of events supports a contrary version—that he himself launched the attack with the furia francesca for which his countrymen were known. As the forces clashed, men-at-arms “tangled so heavily against one another that it was a marvel to behold.” Beaten back with heavy losses, Coucy would have been overcome but for Hawkwood, who, according to Froissart, “came to his aid with five hundred because the lord of Coucy had wedded the kynge of England’s daughter and for none other cause.