The Hundred Years War - Desmond Seward [32]
During such a chevauchée the English killed every human being they could catch (apart from those worth good money), so people unable to reach a town or castle had to hide. Some took refuge in caves or elsewhere underground—many castles and fortified churches had a network of cellars and tunnels dug beneath them. Others fled to the forest where they built huts, though the English searched the woods systematically. The peasants who dwelt in the plat pays—the flat, open plains which are the typical terrain of so much of France—were particularly at risk.
The rest of France was so shaken by the news from Languedoc that when the Estates met at Paris in October 1355 they agreed to taxes—including the extension of the gabelle on salt throughout the entire realm—which would enable John to maintain 30,000 troops for a year, although they tried to keep control of tax collection. In the event the exhausted taxpayers refused to pay. Nevertheless the desperate King summoned a great army, which began to assemble at Chartres in the spring of the following year.
Meanwhile Charles the Bad had not been idle, extracting even more concessions from John by spreading rumours that he meant to join Edward in England. But the King of Navarre pushed his luck too far. He ingratiated himself with the Dauphin who, fascinated by his charming cousin, spent so much time with him that the boy’s father began to suspect that the pair were plotting to depose him. In April 1356, in a frenzy of paranoia, King John galloped to Rouen, burst into the hall where Navarre and the Dauphin were dining, arrested the entire party and had four beheaded, including the Count d’Harcourt and three other Norman lords. King Charles of Navarre was incarcerated in a dungeon in the Louvre.
Edward was far from discouraged by King John’s preparations, even if he may have guessed that the Frenchman was determined to avenge Crécy. Towards the end of the summer he sent the Duke of Lancaster from Brittany with an army of perhaps 6,000 men to raise Navarre’s supporters in Normandy and then to attack in Anjou, his ultimate orders being to link up with the scarcely larger force of the Prince of Wales. The latter set out from Bergerac on 4 August 1356 on a long chevauchée north-east through the Limousin and Berry, besieging and capturing—by the use of Greek fire or flaming naphtha—the castle of Romorantin, where a French detachment who had tried to ambush him had taken refuge. He then swung north-westward and advanced on Tours where he began to burn the suburbs. By now he had become the main target of the French. King Edward had hoped to distract King John, but he had again been forced to return to England after only a day or two in France by the news that the Scots had taken Berwick. Similarly, although Lancaster had led the French army a dance, he failed to cross the Loire and join forces with the Prince.
Even if the Duke of Lancaster had succeeded in linking up with the Black Prince their combined army would still have been hopelessly outnumbered. Neither had any intention of seeking battle, but only meant to wage the chevauchée. In the early days of September, when he was before Tours, Prince Edward suddenly learnt that an army of 40,000 men was in hot pursuit of him and his plunder-laden troops. He made a run for it, retreating as fast as he could down the road to Bordeaux.
However, King John managed to outflank the Prince and reached Poitiers first, cutting the road to Bordeaux. He had with him perhaps 16-20,000 soldiers, most of them men-at-arms, though there were also a number of light troops including 2,000 crossbowmen. The two commanders only realized how near they were to each other when on 17 September the English advance guard suddenly collided with the rear of the French army at La Chabotrie. After a brief skirmish, the Prince marched on to camp at a village then called Maupertuis, which was some seven miles south-east of Poitiers.
The Black Prince was desperately anxious not to fight,