Chronicle and Romance | Page 2

of a style which is always vivacious if
sometimes diffuse, accounts for the vividness and picturesqueness of
his work. The pageant of medieval life in court and camp dazzled and
delighted him, and it is as a pageant that we see the Middle Ages in his
book.
Froissart holds a distinguished place among the poets as well as the
historians of his century. He wrote chiefly in the allegorical style then
in vogue; and his poems, though cast in a mold no longer in fashion,
are fresh and full of color, and were found worthy of imitation by
Geoffrey Chaucer.
But it is as the supreme chronicler of the later age of chivalry that he
lives. "God has been gracious enough" he writes, "to permit me to visit
the courts and palaces of kings, ... and all the nobles, kings, dukes,
counts, barons, and knights, belonging to all nations, have been kind to
me, have listened to me, willingly received me, and proved very useful
to me.... Wherever I went I enquired of old knights and squires who had
shared in deeds of arms, and could speak with authority concerning
them, and also spoke with heralds in order to verify and corroborate all
that was told me. In this way I gathered noble facts for my history, and
as long as I live, I shall, by the grace of God, continue to do this, for the
more I labour at this the more pleasure I have, and I trust that the gentle
knight who loves arms will be nourished on such noble fare, and
accomplish still more."_

THE CAMPAIGN OF CRECY
HOW THE KING OF ENGLAND CAME OVER THE SEA AGAIN,
TO RESCUE THEM IN AIGUILLON
The king of England, who had heard how his men were sore
constrained in the castle of Aiguillon, then he thought to go over the
sea into Gascoyne with a great army. There he made his provision and

sent for men all about his realm and in other places, where he thought
to speed for his money. In the same season the lord Godfrey of
Harcourt came into England, who was banished out of France: he was
well received with the king and retained to be about him, and had fair
lands assigned him in England to maintain his degree. Then the king
caused a great navy of ships to be ready in the haven of Hampton, and
caused all manner of men of war to draw thither. About the feast of
Saint John Baptist the year of our Lord God MCCCXLVI., the king
departed from the queen and left her in the guiding of the earl of Kent
his cousin; and he stablished the lord Percy and the lord Nevill to be
wardens of his realm with (the archbishop of Canterbury,) the
archbishop of York, the bishop of Lincoln and the bishop of Durham;
for he never voided his realm but that he left ever enough at home to
keep and defend the realm, if need were. Then the king rode to
Hampton and there tarried for wind: then he entered into his ship and
the prince of Wales with him, and the lord Godfrey of Harcourt, and all
other lords, earls, barons and knights, with all their companies. They
were in number a four thousand men of arms and ten thousand archers,
beside Irishmen and Welshmen that followed the host afoot.
Now I shall name you certain of the lords that went over with king
Edward in that journey. First, Edward his eldest son, prince of Wales,
who as then was of the age of thirteen years or thereabout,[1] the earls
of Hereford, Northampton, Arundel, Cornwall, Warwick, Huntingdon,
Suffolk, and Oxford; and of barons the lord Mortimer, who was after
earl of March, the lords John, Louis and Roger of Beauchamp, and the
lord Raynold Cobham; of lords the lord of Mowbray, Ros, Lucy, Felton,
Bradestan, Multon, Delaware, Manne,[2] Basset, Berkeley, and
Willoughby, with divers other lords; and of bachelors there was John
Chandos, Fitz-Warin, Peter and James Audley, Roger of Wetenhale,
Bartholomew of Burghersh, and Richard of Pembridge, with divers
other that I cannot name. Few there were of strangers: there was the
earl Hainault,[3] sir Wulfart of Ghistelles, and five or six other knights
of Almaine, and many other that I cannot name.
[1] He was in fact sixteen; born 15th June 1330.
[2] Probably 'Mohun'.
[3] The usual confusion between 'comté' and 'comte.' It means, 'of the
county of Hainault there was sir Wulfart of Ghistelles,' etc.

Thus they sailed forth that day in the name of God. They were well
onward on their way toward Gascoyne, but on the third day there rose a
contrary wind and drave them on the marches of Cornwall, and there
they lay at