Battle of Crécy (1346): English Longbows Defeat French Knights

The Battle of Crécy, fought on 26 August 1346 near Crécy-en-Ponthieu in northern France, was one of the most famous English victories of the Hundred Years’ War. Edward III’s army of longbowmen and dismounted men-at-arms destroyed a larger French army led by Philip VI. The battle killed a large part of the French nobility, made the reputation of Edward’s sixteen-year-old son, the future Black Prince, and opened the way to the English capture of Calais.

Background

The Hundred Years’ War had begun in 1337, when Philip VI confiscated Edward III’s duchy of Aquitaine and Edward claimed the French throne. The English had won control of the Channel at the Battle of Sluys in 1340, but early campaigns in the Low Countries were costly and indecisive.

By 1346 English forces were fighting in Gascony and Brittany, and a large French army was besieging the town of Aiguillon in the south-west. Edward decided to strike directly into northern France. On 12 July 1346 he landed at Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue on the Cotentin peninsula in Normandy with an army of perhaps 12,000–15,000 men.

The Normandy campaign

Edward’s campaign was a chevauchée, a large mounted raid designed to burn, plunder and weaken the enemy’s economy and prestige. His army sacked Caen on 26 July and marched towards Paris, burning towns and villages along the Seine.

Philip VI raised a great army at Saint-Denis, near Paris. Edward, needing to cross the Seine, repaired the bridge at Poissy and turned north towards Flanders, where allied Flemish forces were active. The French pursued him. Edward found the bridges over the River Somme broken or guarded, but on 24 August his army forced its way across the tidal ford of Blanchetaque, defeating a French force under Godemar du Fay.

Edward then chose to stand and fight. On 25 August he reached Crécy, in the county of Ponthieu, a territory that had belonged to the English crown since the late thirteenth century. He placed his army on a gentle ridge between Crécy and the village of Wadicourt, with a wood behind it.

The armies

Numbers at Crécy have been argued over for centuries. The English army is usually estimated at about 10,000–15,000, including perhaps 5,000–7,000 archers, together with men-at-arms and Welsh spearmen. The French army was clearly larger, often put at 20,000–30,000 or more, with a large force of heavily armoured cavalry and several thousand Genoese crossbowmen, though some historians believe the French advantage was smaller than chroniclers claimed.

The battle

Edward divided his army into three divisions. The vanguard was commanded in name by the sixteen-year-old Edward of Woodstock, the Prince of Wales, guided by the Earls of Warwick and Oxford. The second was under the Earl of Northampton, and the king kept the third in reserve near a windmill from which he could watch the field. Most men-at-arms fought on foot, with archers placed on the flanks.

The French army arrived late on 26 August after a long march, strung out along the road. According to the chroniclers, Philip’s commanders wanted to wait until the next day, but the leading troops pressed forward and the battle began in the early evening. A brief rainstorm passed over the field before the fighting started.

The Genoese crossbowmen, led by Ottone Doria and Carlo Grimaldi, advanced first. Tired from the march and, according to some accounts, without their large protective shields, which were still with the baggage, they were overwhelmed by the much faster shooting of the English longbowmen and fell back. French knights, believing them cowardly or simply impatient, rode through and over them.

What followed was a series of perhaps fifteen or sixteen French cavalry charges up the slope towards the English line, lasting into the night. Arrows brought down horses and riders, and the charges arrived broken and disorganised. The Prince’s division was hard pressed at one point. According to Froissart, when asked for help, the king replied that his son should be left to win his spurs; the story may be embellished, but the Prince’s division held.

Among the dead was the blind King John of Bohemia, who had insisted on being led into the fighting with his reins tied to those of his companions. Also killed were Philip VI’s brother Charles, Count of Alençon; Louis, Count of Flanders; and Rudolph, Duke of Lorraine. Philip VI was wounded and left the field late at night, taking refuge at the castle of La Broye.

Why the English won

Several factors combined. Edward chose the ground, arrived early and had time to rest his men and prepare the position; according to some accounts, small pits were dug in front of the line to trip horses. The slope, softened by the rain, slowed the French charges, and the narrow front meant the French could not use their numbers.

The English army was also more cohesive. It was largely made up of paid, contracted soldiers who had fought together through the campaign, and its leaders worked closely with the king. The French army, by contrast, had been assembled quickly from many separate lords’ retinues, and Philip VI struggled to control its eagerness to attack.

Finally, the combination of archers and dismounted men-at-arms, already tested by the English against the Scots at Dupplin Moor in 1332 and Halidon Hill in 1333, proved devastating. Archers broke up the charges, and the armoured men on foot held the line against the horsemen who reached it.

Key people

Edward III (1312–1377) planned the campaign and chose the battlefield. Crécy established him as one of the leading soldiers of his age.

Edward of Woodstock (1330–1376), the Black Prince, fought in his first great battle at Crécy. He would later win the Battle of Poitiers in 1356. The tradition that he adopted the ostrich feathers and the motto “Ich dien” (“I serve”) from John of Bohemia is old but not proven.

Philip VI of France (1293–1350), the first Valois king, suffered a defeat that badly damaged his authority.

Consequences

The English counted the dead the next day. Heralds reported about 1,500 French knights and squires killed in front of the Prince’s division alone, and on 27 August further French troops arriving on the field were also defeated. English losses were light, perhaps a few hundred at most.

Edward did not march on Paris. Instead, on 4 September 1346, he began the Siege of Calais, which ended with the town’s surrender on 3 August 1347. Calais remained English until 1558 and served as a vital base and trading port.

Meanwhile, on 17 October 1346, an English army in the north defeated the Scots at Neville’s Cross and captured King David II, who had invaded England in support of France. Together, these victories made 1346 one of the most successful years in English military history.

Myths and facts

Myth: Crécy marked the end of the armoured knight. Fact: knights remained central to European warfare for more than a century. What changed was how they fought; English men-at-arms at Crécy were themselves armoured knights fighting on foot.

Myth: the French crossbows failed because rain had soaked their strings. Fact: this explanation comes from later chroniclers and is uncertain. The longbow’s rate of shooting, the Genoese lack of shields and the disorder of the French army are more widely accepted reasons.

Myth: Crécy was the first battle in Europe where guns were fired. Fact: guns were already known in Europe by the 1320s. Crécy is one of the earliest battles in which their use is reported, but their effect there was probably small.

Timeline

• 1346, 12 July: Edward III lands at Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue in Normandy.
• 1346, 26 July: The English sack Caen.
• 1346, 24 August: The English force the Somme crossing at Blanchetaque.
• 1346, 26 August: Battle of Crécy; the French army is defeated.
• 1346, 4 September: Edward III begins the siege of Calais.
• 1346, 17 October: The Scots are defeated at Neville’s Cross; David II is captured.
• 1347, 3 August: Calais surrenders to Edward III.

Legacy

Crécy made the English longbow famous. Archers trained from childhood, shooting perhaps ten or more arrows a minute, became the core of English armies for the next century, and similar tactics won at Poitiers and later at Agincourt.

The battle also shaped chivalric memory. The death of the blind King of Bohemia became a celebrated example of knightly courage, and the Order of the Garter, founded by Edward III around 1348, drew on the prestige of the 1346 campaign. Today a memorial stone and a viewing tower on the site of the windmill mark the battlefield near Crécy-en-Ponthieu.

Why it matters

Crécy was the first great land battle of the Hundred Years’ War. It proved that a smaller, well-organised army of archers and dismounted men-at-arms could destroy a larger force of mounted knights, gave England the momentum to capture Calais, and remains one of the best-known battles of the Middle Ages.