s of piles from the coast line into deep water, and thus cut
off the last means of communication and of supplies. By June the town
was suffering severely from famine.

[1] See for this, _Rotulus Normannice_ in _Cal. Patent Rolls,_
1345-48, especially PP. 473-526. For the vast force gathered
later, see Wrottesley and Morris, U.S.

The French made a great effort, both by sea and land, to relieve
Calais. On June 25 Northampton went out with his ships as far as the
mouth of the Somme, where off Le Crotoy he won a naval victory which
made the English command of the sea absolutely secure. A month later
Philip, at the head of the land army, looked down upon the lines of
Calais from the heights of Guines. The two cardinals made their usual
efforts for a truce, but the English would not allow their prey to be
snatched from them at the eleventh hour. Then Philip challenged the
enemy to a pitched battle, and four knights on each side were appointed
to select the place of combat. The French, however, were of no mind to
risk another Crecy, and on the morning of July 31 the smoke of their
burning camp told the English that once more Philip had shrunk from a
meeting. Then at last the garrison opened its gates on August 3, 1347.
The defenders were treated chivalrously by the victor, who admired
their courage and endurance. But the mass of the population were
removed from their homes, and numerous grants of houses and property
made to Englishmen. Edward resolved to make his conquest an English
town, and, from that time onwards, it became the fortress through which
an English army might at any time be poured into France, and the
warehouse from which the spinners and weavers of Flanders were to draw
their supplies of raw wool. For more than two hundred years, English
Calais retained all its military and most of its commercial importance.
Later conquests enabled a ring of forts to be erected round it which
strengthened its natural advantages.

Crecy, Neville's Cross, Aiguillon, and Calais did not exhaust the
glories of this strenuous time. The war of the Breton succession, which
Northampton had waged since 1345, was continued in 1346 by Thomas
Dagworth, a knight appointed as his lieutenant on his withdrawal to
join the army of Crecy and Calais. The Montfort star was still in the
ascendant, and even the hereditary dominions of Joan of Penthievre were
assailed. An English garrison was established at La Roche Derien,
situated s