f
the traitor Earl of March. At last, on July 18, the English army began
to move by slow stages to the south. It met with little resistance, and
plundered and burnt the rich countryside at its discretion. The English
marvelled at the fertility of the country and the size and wealth of its
towns. Barfleur was as big as Sandwich, Carentan reminded them of
Leicester, Saint-Lo was the size of Lincoln, and Caen was more populous
than any English city save London.

[1] On the details of this force, see Wrottesley, _Crecy and
Calais,_ in _Collections for a History of Staffordshire,_ vol.
xviii. (1897); _cf._ J.E. Morris in _Engl. Hist. Review, xiv.,_
766-69.

[2] Besides the sources for this campaign mentioned in Sir E.M.
Thompson, _Chronicle of Geoffrey le Baker,_ pp. 252-57, the
disregarded _Acta bellicosa Edwardi, etc.,_ published in
Moisant, _Le Prince Noir en Aquitaine, pp._ 157-74, from a
Corpus Christi Coll. Cambridge MS., should be mentioned. It has
first been utilised in H. Pientout's valuable paper, _La prise
de Caen par Edouard III. en 1346, in Memoires de l'Academie de
Caen_ (1904).

It was only at Caen that any real resistance was encountered. On July
26 Edward's soldiers entered the northern quarter of the town without
opposition, to find the fortified enclosures of the two great abbeys of
William the Conqueror and his queen undefended and desolate, the _grand
bourg_, the populous quarter round the church of St. Peter open to
them, and only the castle in the extreme north garrisoned. Caen was not
a walled town, and the defenders preferred to limit themselves to
holding the southern quarter, the _Ile Saint-Jean_, which lay between
the district of St. Peter's and the river Orne, but was cut off from
the rest by a branch of the Orne that ran just south of St. Peter's
church. There was sharp fighting at the bridge which commanded access
to the island; but the English archers prepared the way, and then the
men-at-arms completed the work. After a determined conflict, the Island
of St. John was captured, and its chief defenders, the Count of Eu,
Constable of France, and the lord of Tancarville, the chamberlain, were
taken prisoners. Meanwhile the English fleet, which had devastated the
whole coast from Cherbourg to Ouistreham, arrived off the mouth of the
Orne, laden with plunder and eager to get back home with its spoils.
Edward thought it prudent to avoid a threatene