Calais Under English Rule (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: MILITARY HISTORY There is much in the military history of Calais during the English occupation which recalls the wild Border warfare which raged round Carlisle and the Northern Marches during the same period. To the historian it presents for the most part a disconnected and wearisome series of raids, counter-raids, and broken truces. To the novelist it might afford a fruitful theme, but even by the novelist it has been neglected. It is needless to attempt a detailed survey of the constant fighting between French and English, which practically continued throughout the whole English occupation. It will suffice to illustrate a few characteristic phases of this incessant warfare, the secret of which may be found in the fact that the French never lost hope of recovering Calais, while the English ever sought to increase their territory, or at least to enrich themselves with French booty. On both sides there were raids by land and piracy by sea. Thus, in 1352 the French tried to retake Guisnes, succeeded in burning the suburbs, but were finally repulsed by the garrison of Calais and Hammes; while in the same year Aymery de Pavia, in command of an English force, attempting to surprise St. Omer, was overwhelmed, captured, and quartered by de Charney, Governor of that town. All this occurred during a nominal truce.1 1 Lefebvre, ' Histoire Generate et Particuliere de Calais et du Calaisis," vol. ii., pp. 21, 22. In the following year, while peace conferences still continued, the English depredations resulted in huge booty and the burning of more than 500 vessels in the French coast ports. The evasive tactics of Charles V. encouraged this guerilla warfare, and in 1373 an ambuscade at Licques, when the French were badly cut up, and the repulse of several direct attacks on Calais, ...