Chapter LIX

THE DUKE OF NORMANDY RAISES THE SIEGE OF AIGUILLON.

The Duke of Normandy, whom we left before Aiguillon, which he was besieging, while Sir Walter Manny and the other knights were within it, made, about the middle of August, a skirmish before the castle, which increased so much that almost his whole army was engaged in it. Near about this time, the Lord Philip of Burgundy, Earl of Artois and of Boulogne, and cousin-german to the duke, arrived. He was a very young knight. As soon as this skirmish commenced, he armed himself, and, mounting a handsome steed, stuck spurs into him in order to hasten to the combat; but the horse, taking the bit between his teeth, ran off with him, and in crossing a ditch fell into it, upon the knight, who was so grievously bruised that he never recovered, and in a short time died. Soon afterwards the King of France sent to his son the Duke of Normandy, to lay all other things aside, and raise the siege, in order to return directly into France to defend his inheritance against the English. The duke upon this demanded advice from the earls and barons there present, for he had vowed he would never move from thence until he had the castle, and all within it, in his power; but they assured him, since the king his father had so expressly ordered him to return, he might comply without any forfeiture of his honor. On the morrow at break of day, therefore, the French decamped, and, trussing up tents and baggage with great haste, took the road for France.

The knights who were in Aiguillon, seeing this, armed themselves, and, mounting their horses, sallied forth (the pennon of Sir Walter Manny taking the lead), fell upon the French, who were scarcely all marched off, cut down and slew numbers, and took upward of forty prisoners, whom they brought back to the castle. From them they learned the successful campaign the King of England had made in France, and that at present he was laying siege to Calais. Before the King of France left Amiens, after the battle of Crecy, to go for Paris, he was so much enraged against Sir Godémar du Fay, for not having done his duty in defending the ford of Blanchetaque, by which means the English had entered Ponthieu, that he had determined to hang him; to which many of his council also were inclined, for they were desirous that Sir Godémar should make some amends, by his death, for the defeat the king had suffered at Crecy, and called him traitor. But Sir John of Hainault excused him, and averted the king’s anger, by saying that it would have been difficult for him to have resisted the English army, when all the flower of the French nobility could do nothing. Soon after this the Duke of Normandy arrived in France, where he was joyfully received by his parents the king and queen.