of over fourteen miles, but the next day’s march, that of Thursday the 20th, to Carentan was a short one of not more than eight or nine (allowing in both cases for the windings of the side-road). On Friday the 21st the King lay at Pont Hébert. This is another example of something very like a long march followed by a short one upon the morrow. St Lô was the halting-place of the Saturday, and Pont Hébert is but four miles from St Lô. Of a total, therefore, of nearly seventeen miles, over thirteen are covered upon one day, and but four upon the next.

At this point it is worth noticing the character of all the advance with which we are dealing. Edward had been blamed for sluggishness. He was not so much sluggish as apparently without plan. He did not know quite what he was going to do next. His general intention seems to have been to make sooner or later for his allies in Flanders, and meanwhile to take rich towns and loot them, and to bring pressure upon the King of France by ravaging distant and populous territories which the French army could not rapidly reach. He therefore often makes a good and steady marching in this advance, but he also lingers uselessly at towns, and intercalates very short marches between the long ones. Thus he deliberately struck inland to St Lô on his way to Caen, because St Lô was a fine fat booty, instead of making by the short road which runs from Carentan through Bayeux. The whole character of the advance clearly betrays the point I have already made, that this early part of the Hundred Years’ War was essentially a series of raids.

At this stage it is well to point out to the reader two difficulties which have confused historians. The first is the fact that the Clerk of the Kitchen often takes a shot at a French name which he has either heard inaccurately or which he attempts to spell phonetically, so that we have to interpret him not infrequently to make sense of his record.

The second is the fact that the chronicler will give some particular spot quite consonant with the marching powers of troops for one day, but different from that given by the Clerk of the Kitchen.

This apparent discrepancy is due to the fact that an army marches if it can upon parallel roads involving various halting-places for various sections of it on the same night. An army upon a raid such as this also throws out foraging parties and detachments, which leave its main body for the purposes of observation or of plunder.

Again, we must always regard the King’s household (and therefore the Kitchen Accounts) as moving with what may be called “the staff.” Often, therefore, it will go much faster than the rest of the army, while at other times it will lie behind or to one side of it. Thus, at the very end of this campaign you have a transference of the King’s quarters, twenty miles to the north in one day, which would be a terribly long march for the army as a whole, and which, as a fact, we can discover on other evidence the army as a whole did not take.

With so much said, we can proceed to build up an exact account of the advance and the retreat.

Upon Sunday the 23rd of August Edward advanced from St Lô to a place which the Clerk of the Kitchen calls “Sevances.” The spelling is inaccurate. The place intended is Sept Vents, twelve miles to the south and east of St Lô. But other portions of the army halted elsewhere in the neighbourhood, as we know from Baker. The next halt, that of the 24th, is at Torteval, only five miles away, but a portion of the army got south of Fontenay le Pesnel, which the King did not reach till the 25th, and which the Clerk calls “Funtenay Paynel.” Three days are thus taken between St Lô and Caen, and the whole army arrives before the latter large town, the capital of West Normandy, upon Wednesday, July 26th.

The town of Caen was not properly defended. It had no regular walls, and was a very rich prey indeed. The Constable of France and the Chamberlain were in the town, and the castle was held by a handful (300) of Genoese mercenaries. There was an armed force of militia and of knights in the streets of the town, of what exact size we do not know. The Prince of Wales with the advance guard occupied the outskirts of the city which lie beyond the branches of the Orne (the northern branch now runs mainly in sewers under the streets from the Hôtel de Ville to the Church of St Peter). There was sharp fighting at the bridge, at one moment of which the King ordered a retreat, but the Earl of Warwick disobeyed the order. The King followed him, and the bridge was taken. There was considerable slaughter in the streets of the city; the Constable and the Chamberlain were taken prisoners, and about one hundred of the wounded knights. The English loss, which was not heavy, fell mainly upon the Archers and Spearmen, and the total, including wounded, was but five hundred, and was mainly due to the resistance of the inhabitants of the houses. The town was given over to pillage, and Edward thought of burning it, but was restrained. It is characteristic of the march that a delay of four days from the morning of the 5th was occupied in the loot of Caen, from which town (in communication with the sea by its river) Edward sent back his plunder on board the Fleet which he dismissed.

The army marched out of Caen on Monday, the 31st of July, and undertook its three days’ march to Lisieux, the next rich town upon this random advance, now deprived of support from the sea. Edward probably intended to force some passage of the Seine, preferably, it may be surmised, at Rouen, or a little higher up, with the vague object of making for the north-east and Calais. We are not certain of this. It is more than possible that the capture of Calais later on in the campaign gave rise to the story that some such plan was intended. Anyhow, we get two halts and three marches between Caen and Lisieux, a distance of only twenty-five miles, which could easily have been accomplished in two days had there been a really definite plan in the commander’s head. We may be pretty certain that there was not.

The halts of the King himself on the 31st of July and the 1st of August were made at two places which read in the MS. as “Treward,” and an abbreviated name which stands for “Leopurtuis.” The first of these is Troarn at the crossing of the Dives river. Other forces halted on that night at Agences, four miles to the south. The second is Léaupartie, a mile or so from Rumenise, where one other column halted, while a second column camped about five miles to the south. Lisieux was entered upon the 2nd of August after a march of ten miles on the part of the King, and of eleven and twelve on the part of the other two bodies.

At Lisieux two Cardinals who were despatched to offer terms met King Edward and proposed this arrangement to complete the war: that he should have the Duchy of Aquitaine upon the same tenure as his ancestors had held it. He refused those terms, and, after wasting a day at Lisieux, continued his march eastward.

Leaving Lisieux on the morning of the 4th, he pitched his tent that evening at Duramelle, a march of nine miles, with at least one column a mile ahead at Le Teil. On Saturday the 5th he got something better out of his troops, or at any rate out of the vanguard, and made something like seventeen miles to Neubourg.

I confess here to a very considerable doubt. The entry in the Accounts of the Kitchen is hopelessly misspelt, but the “Lineubourg” does not correspond to any other possible place, and Le Neubourg would be a very convenient halting-place for the King himself, well provisioned and lodged. We cannot believe, of course, that the army