ht that there
was anything to be gained by fighting. In =1346= he led a large
English army into Normandy, taking with him his eldest son, afterwards
known as the Black Prince, at that time a lad of sixteen. It had been
from Normandy and Calais that the fleets had put out by which the
coasts of England had been ravaged, and Edward now deliberately
ravaged Normandy. He then marched on, apparently intending to take
refuge in Flanders. As the French had broken the bridges over the
Seine, he was driven to ascend the bank of the river almost to Paris
before he could cross. His burnings and his ravages continued till
Philip, stung to anger, pursued him with an army more than twice as
numerous as his own. Edward had the Somme to cross on his way, and the
bridges over that river had been broken by the French, as those over
the Seine had been broken; and but for the opportune discovery of a
ford at Blanche Tache Edward would have been obliged to fight with an
impassable river at his back. When he was once over the Somme he
refused--not from any considerations of generalship, but from a point
of honour--to continue his retreat further. He halted on a gentle
slope near the village of Crecy facing eastwards, as Philip's force
had swept round to avoid difficulties in the ground, and was
approaching from that direction.

[Illustration: Shooting at the butts with the long-bow.]

12. =The Tactics of Crecy. 1346.=--Great as was Edward's advantage in
possessing an army so diverse in its composition as that which he
commanded, it would have availed him little if he had not known how to
order that army for battle. At once it appeared that his skill as a
tactician was as great as his weakness as a strategist. His experience
at Halidon Hill (see p. 234) had taught him that the archers could
turn the tide of battle against any direct attack, however violent. He
knew, too, from the tradition of Bannockburn (see p. 226), that
archers could readily be crushed by a cavalry charge on the flank; and
he was well aware that his own horsemen were in too small numbers to
hold out against the vast host of the French cavalry. He therefore
drew up his line of archers between the two villages of Crecy and
Vadicourt, though his force was not large enough to extend from one to
the other. He then ordered the bulk of his horsemen to dismount and to
place themselves with levelled spears in bodies at intervals in the
line of archers. The innovation was thorough