A Distant Mirror_ The Calamitous 14th Century - Barbara W. Tuchman [253]
What lay behind the proposal is unspoken in the chronicles; the only clue is Clisson’s fit of anxiety at the Lys. In a man who could cut off fifteen heads without a twinge, it reflected unusual tension and must have persuaded his equally tense colleagues to turn to Coucy and the extreme expedient of changing Constables in midstream. Win or lose, fighting against other knights changed nothing fundamental, but in this fight the nobles felt their order itself endangered. The sentiment is reflected by Froissart in many variations of his statement that if the French King and “noble chivalry” had met defeat in Flanders, all nobles would have been “dead and lost in France” and “commoners would have rebelled in divers countries to destroy all the nobility.”
Artevelde on the eve of battle now favored the defensive and advised standing in place against the enemy. He had the advantage of terrain, having taken up a good position on the hill, and he believed the French in their impatience and discomfort would grow reckless or careless or even turn back. He was overruled by men still in the pride of their earlier victory over the Count at Bruges and eager for a fight. Accepting the decision, Artevelde ordered the army to give no quarter and take no prisoners other than the King, “for he is but a child who acts only as instructed. We shall bring him to Ghent and teach him to speak Flemish.” As for tactics, he commanded the men to keep always in a compact body “so that none may break you,” and for greater solidarity to hold their weapons with arms intertwined. They were to confound the enemy with the heavy fire of the crossbows and bombards they had used at Bruges and then, advancing shoulder to shoulder, overcome the French line by the sheer weight and solidity of their ranks.
In the tension of the night before combat, Flemish guards reported shouts and clang of arms from the French camp, as if the enemy were preparing a night attack. Others thought it was “the devils of hell running and dancing about the place where the battle was to be because of the great prey they expected there.”
On the morning of November 29, 1382, two hostile halves of society moved toward each other through a mist “so thick it was almost night.” With their horses held at the rear, the French advanced on foot and, contrary to custom, in silence without battle cries, all eyes on the dark mass ahead. Descending the hill in close order with staves upright, the Flemings appeared like a moving forest. They opened with a massive fire of crossbows and bombards, then charged with lowered staves and the force of “enraged boars.” The French plan was for the King’s battalion under the Constable to hold the center while two stronger wings—of which one was commanded by Bourbon and Coucy—closed in on the enemy from either side. Under the force of the Flemish charge, the French center gave way and in the turmoil the Bourbon-Coucy battalion found itself blocked.
“See, good cousin,” cried Bourbon (as reported by his contemporary biographer), “we cannot advance to attack our enemies except through our Constable’s ranks.”
“Monseigneur, you say true,” answered Coucy, here credited with devising a plan of action on the spot. “And it seems to me that if we were to advance as a wing of the King’s battalion and take the hill we should have a good day’s fight at God’s pleasure.”
“Fair cousin, that is good advice,” Bourbon agreed, and so, as 14th century military history is written, they went up the hill and took the enemy from behind with terrible blows of lance, ax, and sword, and “whoever saw the Sire de Coucy break through the press and strike the Flemings, cutting and killing, he will forever remember a valiant knight.” In the respite afforded by this attack, the Constable’s battalion recovered and returned, along with the other wing, to the fray. Heavy battle-axes and maces cut through Flemish helmets with a noise “as loud as all the armorers of Paris and Brussels working