The Hundred Years War - Desmond Seward [83]
On the left the gallant Salisbury had been almost overcome by the Scots. Moreover 600 Italian cavalry had swept past him to plunder the baggage laager ; the archers in the reserve were still dealing with the Dauphinist men-at-arms who had broken through on the right, and the Italians, despite a brave resistance by the pages, started to rifle the wagons and drive off the horses. Luckily the reserve managed to repel the enemy men-at-arms and came up to beat off the Italians. They then ran forward to help Salisbury, taking the Scots in flank with a loud yell (‘un merveilleu cri’). Meanwhile Bedford had reassembled his weary but triumphant division. He returned to smash into the Scottish rear, overwhelming them. The English troops nursed a particular hatred for their northern neighbours, very few of whom escaped alive; among the slain were Archibald, Earl of Douglas with his son James, Earl of Mar, and John Stewart, Earl of Buchan. Bedford wrote later : ‘The moste vengeance fell upon the proud Scottes, for thei went to Dog-wash the same day, mo than 1700 of cote Armoures of these proude Scottes.’ In addition, over a thousand Dauphinist French were killed including the Viscount of Narbonne, which brought total enemy casualties to more than 7,000. The most important prisoners were the Duke of Alençon and Marshal Lafayette.
Yet although the English had lost only a thousand men, there had been a moment at the beginning when they were nearly beaten. Many had fled from the first Dauphinist charge, shouting that it was all over. A captain called Young was afterwards found guilty of running away and taking 500 men with him ; he was hanged till half dead, then drawn and quartered.
Verneuil was seen as a second Agincourt and the Regent’s prestige soared. The Dauphinists had been completely broken as a fighting force in the field ; the way lay open for an advance on Bourges and perhaps the final reckoning. However, Bedford, true to his brother’s example, preferred the less spectacular but more solid gain of completing the conquest of Anjou and Maine, and began a methodical reduction of enemy strongholds. An additional advantage was the end of the threat of Scots intervention ; the flower of their best fighting-men had fallen. (Ironically, the Dauphinists were not altogether sorry for this ; their chronicler, Basin, tells us that the disaster of Verneuil was offset by being rid of the Scots whose insolence was intolerable.)
At this moment of triumph the Regent’s position was suddenly undermined by events outside France which threatened to ruin his relations with Burgundy. Humphrey of Gloucester, a frivolous and irresponsible intriguer, fell in love with Jacqueline of Hainault, Countess in her own right of Hainault, Holland and Zeeland, who had deserted an unsatisfactory husband and taken refuge in England. After obtaining a dubious dispensation from the deposed anti-Pope Benedict XIII (who still lived at Avignon), Gloucester married her and styled himself Count of Hainault, Holland and Zeeland, which in 1424 he invaded with an army of 5,000 men. The expedition was a farce and ‘ambitious Humphrey’, having made a fool of himself, had to return to England within the year, where he tried to get up a further invasion. Nothing could have been better calculated to infuriate Philip of Burgundy who wanted Jacqueline’s territories for himself. When Philip visited Paris in the autumn of 1424 he shouted insults at Bedford and informed him that he had made a defensive treaty with the Dauphin. Only the influence of Philip’s sister, Bedford’s wife—together with a fear that a complete rupture might provoke his brother-in-law into going to Gloucester’s assistance—prevented the total collapse of the Anglo-Burgundian alliance.
Philip of Burgundy was never an easy ally. During his visit to Paris he mortally offended the Earl of Salisbury. Philip, a notorious lecher with thirty