await your coming. For my part, my
counsel is that you halt all your men, and rest them in the fields
throughout this day. Before the hindermost can come up, and before your
lines of battle are set in order, it will be late; your men will be tired
and in disarray; and you will find the enemy cool and fresh. To-morrow
morning you will be better able to dispose your men and determine in what
quarter it will be expedient to attack the enemy. Sure may you be that
they will await you." This counsel was well pleasing to the King of
France, and he commanded that thus it should be. "The two marshals rode
one to the front and the other to the rear with orders to the bannerets,
'Halt, banners, by command of the king, in the name of God and St.
Denis!' At this order those who were foremost halted, but not those who
were hindermost, continuing to ride forward and saying that they would
not halt until they were as much to the front as the foremost were.
Neither the king nor his marshals could get the mastery of their men, for
there was so goodly a number of great lords that each was minded to show
his own might. There was, besides, in the fields, so goodly a number of
common people that all the roads between Abbeville and Crecy were covered
with them; and when these folk thought themselves near the enemy, they
drew their swords, shouting, 'Death! death!' And not a soul did they
see."

"When the English saw the French approaching, they rose up in fine order
and ranged themselves in their lines of battle, that of the Prince of
Wales right in front, and the Earls of Northampton and Arundel, who
commanded the second, took up their place on the wing, right orderly and
all ready to support the prince, if need should be. Well, the lords,
kings, dukes, counts, and barons of the French came not up all together,
but one in front and another behind, without plan or orderliness. When
King Philip arrived at the spot where the English were thus halted, and
saw them, the blood boiled within him, for he hated them, and he said to
his marshals, 'Let our Genoese pass to the front and begin the battle, in
the name of God and St. Denis.' There were there fifteen thousand of
these said Genoese bowmen; but they were sore tired with going a-foot
that day more than six leagues and fully armed, and they said to their
commanders that they were not prepared to do any great feat of battle.
'To be saddled with such a scum as this that fails you in th