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By Root 1338 0

half men-at-arms and half archers, the English rode through Artois and northern Picardy keeping close order in case of French attack. “They shall have battle before they finish their march!” Coucy assured French knights who brought him intelligence of the enemy’s route, although he knew well enough that battle was enjoined by the King. Charles V was not to be swerved from his philosophy of war. Not being a fighter himself, he was not prevented by personal pride from employing the lessons of experience, nor did he hesitate to hurt the pride of chivalry by reminders of past defeats. His own initiation into war on the awful day of Poitiers had left a permanent mark. If a mystique of success enveloped the English in the conviction that “they could not lose,” Charles suffered from the opposite psychology. From the major clashes of the early part of the war, he had concluded that the delivery of armed force could not be reliably directed and that war was too important to be left to the chances of battle.

From headquarters at Péronne on the Somme, Coucy issued a general summons to all knights and squires of Artois and Picardy. The documents show him moving from place to place, at Hesdin, Arras, Abbeville, and St. Quentin, holding reviews and deploying units for defense of towns, “for he was anxious that no loss should be suffered from any negligence on his part.” How far Coucy, as a man of the sword, agreed with the King’s policy is moot; he carried out orders to avoid battle while following Buckingham’s march, even when it left a trail of burning villages through his own domain, but certain actions show that he shared the knights’ impatience to break through the agony of restraint.

Parties of French knights kept close to the English line of march to hamper foraging, and this proximity opened tempting opportunities for combat. Although one report describes the French as immobilis quasi lapis (immovable as stones), skirmishes were unavoidable, from which on the whole they did not carry off the honors. In one case, a fierce fight lasting an hour on horse and foot, the English took eighteen prisoners from a French party of thirty; in another the French, perceiving the enemy stronger, sounded retreat and fled. “The horses felt the effect of the spurs and very opportunely did these lords find the barriers [of their town] open,” but not before fifteen had been captured. Another party of thirty English, “seeking to perform some deed of arms,” set forth at dawn with their foragers, but were meanly frustrated of their main purpose when a group of important French lords escaped them. “God!” they cried, “what fortunes would have been ours if we had taken them, for they would have paid us 40,000 francs.”

When the countryside was stripped, the English demanded food from the towns under threat of attack. Refused by Reims, secure behind its walls, they retaliated by burning sixty surrounding villages within a week. Discovering several thousand sheep herded into ditches outside the city walls, the English sent men to drive them out under cover of their archers, who shot so keenly that no one from Reims dared to venture out or even appear on the bulwarks. Under renewed threat by the English to burn the fields of ripe grain, the citizens now delivered to them sixteen loads of bread and wine.

In this manner Buckingham advanced to Burgundy, where 2,000 French knights and squires had assembled in a mood to throw off the King’s restraints and fight. The leading nobles of the realm—Bourbon, Coucy, the Duc de Bar, the Comte d’Eu, Admiral Jean de Vienne—were present under the command of Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. Armed head to foot and with battle-ax in his hand, the Duke in bellicose spirit reviewed his forces. Heralds rode out from both sides with challenges to deeds of valor. Still the King from his chamber prohibited battle unless the French found themselves in decisive superiority. Burgundy did not dare defy his wishes, but the restraints broke when an English squire was killed in a fracas. In answer to the enemy’s challenge, a body of