A Distant Mirror_ The Calamitous 14th Century - Barbara W. Tuchman [224]
The combination of Coucy and Rivière reflected the combined military and political strategy to be employed. Against walled towns, siege was slow and costly. For rapid conquest everything depended on a negotiated surrender, but this could be achieved only by a credible show of force and in most cases initial combat. To add to the persuasion of force, Charles of Navarre’s two sons were taken along “to show to the whole country that the war was in behalf of these children for their inheritance.”
Bayeux, “a handsome and strong city” at the base of the Cotentin peninsula where an English landing might be expected (ten miles from a later landing place renamed Omaha Beach), was the first major objective. Bringing up their forces below the walls and exhibiting the young heir of Navarre as the rightful lord, Coucy and Rivière warned the citizens “in impressive language” that if the town were taken by storm “they would all be slaughtered and the place re-peopled by another set of inhabitants.” The problem in each case was that the captains of Navarrese garrisons, who might be charged with treason to their Prince or dishonored if they surrendered without making a defense, had not the same motive to yield as the citizens. And since captains generally shut themselves up in the citadel if besiegers won, thus escaping the slaughter and plunder visited upon the populace, they preferred to risk a siege rather than to surrender.
At Bayeux, the garrison was overruled. Influenced by the rights of Navarre’s sons and the persuasions of their Bishop, the townspeople asked for a three-day truce to negotiate terms, always an intricate business which had to be put in writing with signed and sealed copies delivered to each side. When this was completed, Coucy and Rivière entered the city to take possession in the name of the King of France. After replacing the magistrates with their own appointees and leaving in place a garrison to prevent rebellion, they moved forward up the peninsula toward the next stronghold. Successive towns and castles, bombarded both “by arms and words,” were taken without much loss of time, although not without active siege measures, mining of walls, and sharp combats with killed and wounded on both sides. In the interests of haste, Coucy and Rivière readily granted favorable terms and allowed determined partisans of Navarre to depart if they chose to go. Working effectively with Rivière, Coucy displayed a capacity he shared with the King for cool pursuit of policy, grafted in Coucy’s case upon a man of action.
Charles of Navarre himself, under attack in the south by the King of Castile, was not present, and because of contrary winds no more than a few of his English allies arrived. One group succeeded in occupying Cherbourg, but was hemmed in there by a French siege. Elsewhere, Navarrese captains faced a hard choice, because if they chose to resist they could hope for little help, while if they yielded, Normandy would be lost to the King of Navarre. Evreux, the heart of his Norman possessions, manned by his strongest garrison and a loyal population, gave Coucy and Rivière their hardest fight. “Every day they made assault,” and so tightly encircled the town that it was forced to capitulate. The fall of Evreux delighted the King who came to Rouen to greet the victors who “had so well sped.” Only Cherbourg, which the English could supply by sea, withstood prolonged sieges commanded at different times by Du Guesclin and Coucy, and remained in English hands.
With that exception, by the end of 1378 Charles of Navarre had lost all his estates in Normandy. Walls and fortifications were razed so that his strongholds could not again be held by enemies of France. In the south, the seigneury of