The Battle of Crécy

It was Philip VI who now changed the pace of war. Pursuing Edward and his army across the Somme, on 26 August 1346, Philip forced the English to take up a defensive position on high ground, on the right bank of the river Maie, just outside the village of Crécy. Here an undisciplined charge by the French cavalry broke upon the ranks of dismounted English infantry supported by archers, a formation that had become classic English style. The dukes of Alençon and Lorraine were killed in the attack, as was the blind King of Bohemia, who had insisted on being led into battle. Although he had fought against the English, his emblem of an ostrich feather was now appropriated by Prince Edward (later known as the ‘Black Prince’), son of Edward III, destined, in a design of three ostrich feathers with the Flemish motto ‘Ich dene’ (‘I serve’), to become the symbol of all future princes of Wales: African wildlife, Bohemian chivalry, Dutch courage and Welsh pride combined in a most improbable way.

Another of the badges of modern monarchy, the motto ‘Honi soit qui mal y pense’ (‘Shame upon him who thinks ill of it’) was first adopted for Edward’s new Order of the Garter, intended to honour the chief captains who had fought alongside the King at Crécy. Like the order’s blue robes, themselves borrowed from the colours of the Capetian kings of France and ultimately from the blue mantle of the Virgin Mary, France’s chief protector, Edward’s motto was a deliberately Francophile gesture, intended both to justify and symbolize his claims to the French throne. Chivalry, as such incidents reveal, was a matter of conduct and appearances, not at all of the sort of patriotic or nationalistic anti-French sentiment that was to become a feature of later Anglo-French wars. War itself was a means by which the King could display himself to the maximum number of his subjects, no longer locked away in the semi-seclusion of his palaces or Parliaments, but parading through the streets or at the head of his armies, dressed in the most gaudy colours, with Edward himself the proudest peacock in the flock.