A Distant Mirror_ The Calamitous 14th Century - Barbara W. Tuchman [60]
Camping too far from the enemy on the night before combat, his troops did not reach the battlefield until four P.M., with the sun in their faces and at the enemy’s back. The crossbowmen were tired and complaining after the long march, and their bowstrings were wet from a sudden storm, whereas the English archers had protected their bowstrings by rolling them up under their helmets. What followed on the French side was a chaos of mindless audacity, bad luck, mistakes, indiscipline, and the knights’ chronic disease of bravado, intent on proving valor devoid of tactical sense or organized plan.
Seized by last-minute advice to postpone action until the next day, Philip issued orders for the vanguard to turn back and the rear guard to halt, but he was not obeyed. Without giving the crossbowmen a chance to soften the English line, the forward knights plunged uphill against the enemy. Out of range of their targets and pierced by English arrows, the Genoese crossbowmen fell back, throwing down their bows. The King, who on sighting the English changed color “because he hated them,” lost control of the situation. Seeing the Genoese flee, either he or his brother, the Count d’Alençon, shouted, “Slay these rascals who get in our way!” while his knights “in haste and evil order” slashed at the archers in their effort to cut a way through. Out of this terrible tangle in their own ranks, the French launched attack after attack upon the enemy but the disciplined line of England’s longbowmen, stiffened by the long practice their weapon required, held firm and sowed confusion and death by their missiles. Then English knights advanced on foot, preceded by archers and supported by pikemen and murderous Welsh with long knives who went among the fallen and slew them on the ground. The Prince of Wales fought at the head of one battle group while King Edward retained command from a windmill on the hilltop. Through the failing light and on through darkness until midnight the melee continued until King Philip, wounded, was led away by the Count of Hainault, who said to him, “Sire, lose not yourself willfully” and, taking his horse’s bridle, pulled him from the field. With no more than five companions, the King rode through the night to a castle whose seneschal, summoned to open his gate, demanded the name of the summoner. “Open your gate quickly,” said the King, “for this is the fortune of France.”
Dead upon the field lay some 4,000 of the French army, perhaps including Enguerrand de Coucy VI. Among the fallen were the greatest names of French and allied chivalry: the Count d’Alençon, brother of the King, Count Louis de Nevers of Flanders, the Counts of St. Pol and Sancerre, the Duke of Lorraine, the King of Majorca, and, most renowned of all, King John the Blind of Bohemia, whose crest of three ostrich feathers with the motto “Ich dien” was taken by the Prince of Wales and attached to his title thereafter. Charles of Bohemia, the blind King’s son and future Emperor, less rash than his father, saw what was coming and escaped.
It was no lack of prowess that defeated the French and allied knights. They fought as valiantly as the English, for knights were much the same in all countries. England’s advantage lay in combining the use of those excluded from chivalry—the Welsh knifemen, the pikemen, and, above all, the trained yeomen who pulled the longbow—with the action of the armored knight. So long as one side in the contest made use of this advantage while the other side did not, the fortunes of war were to remain unbalanced.
Pursuit for the strategic purpose of destroying the enemy’s armed forces did not belong in the medieval lexicon of war. Evidently somewhat stunned by his own victory, Edward made no effort to