To do our country loss
C. J. Tyerman TRIAL BY FIRE: THE HUNDRED YEARS WAR, VOLUME II by Jonathan Sumption Faber, £30, pp. 704 The Hundred Years war provides some of the most memorable and familiar scenes from English history, or used to. Tradition- al national history was illumined by the sight of the Black Prince winning his spurs and his motto on the battlefield of Crecy, the drama of Queen Philippa begging her husband Edward II to spare the lives of the burghers of Calais, the capture of the French king at Poitiers and the heroism of Henry V at Agincourt. Patriotic myth entwined with genuine royal aspirations for centuries after Edward III claimed the French throne, with the Black Prince's armour at Canterbury and Henry V's bat- tered helmet in Westminster Abbey con- tinuing reminders of what contemporaries saw as noble deeds of arms. Later, even schoolchildren knew that Mary I died with Calais engraved on her heart. Yet, as Jonathan Sumption makes clear in this remarkable new volume of his narrative of the war, the Anglo-French conflict was ruinous rather than glamorous, petty, self- interested and vicious, its course tortuous, its politics intricate, its effects devastating. Although characterised by nationalist rhetoric and by its bitter end in the 15th century inspiring a greater sense of nation- al identity, particularly in France, in the 14th century patriotic loyalty was less con- spicuous than personal gain and private greed. As the author observes, The English were not much interested in Edward's personal ambitions.'
The task of chronicling the events of war that, a generation after its outbreak in 1337, had touched almost every corner of France, spilt over into Spain, exported deadly mercenaries to Italy and provbked a political revolution in Paris and a serious popular uprising in the Ile de France, pre- sents massive challenges, not least in the assembly and control of evidence. It is a tribute to Sumption's energy as well as intellect that he has read so much, includ- ing archival material in libraries from Lon- don to Rome, Paris to Pamplona, Lille to Pyrenean Pau. That this labour is com- bined with a famously successful practice at the commercial bar is extraordinary. Where does he find the time?
This is no common enterprise. The author has determined to tell the story of the Hundred Years war in all its facets, in every theatre of operation in minute detail, sometimes in a day-by-day account. This volume covers the years 1347 to 1369 in almost 600 pages of dense but never con- fusing narrative, supposedly a dying art among professional historians. Sumption's narrative leaves little room for generalisa- tions and some may find the lack of analyti- cal comment bland, the weight of facts indigestible. Yet he is nothing if not scrupulous. Although avoiding showing the mechanics of his craft by discussing why he has reached his conclusions and interpreta- tions, he is both judicious and incisive, his forensic skills put to expert use. His tone is dry, his style lucid, his eye for detail sharp, his sense of place vivid. He takes his posi- tion where the events themselves unfolded, in France, for which these years were of almost unrelieved disaster and misery: the aftermath of the loss of Calais; incipient aristocratic civil wars; the defeat and the capture of King John II at Poitiers in 1356; revolution in Paris; the semi-permanent occupation and exploitation of large parts of the French countryside by aggressive English captains; the emergence of lethally effective private armies or 'free companies' who compounded extortion with sadism; the cession of south-western France to Edward III in 1360. The book ends with the renewal of the war in 1369 when the French had begun to recover materially and had developed a strategy for dealing with the English on the battlefield.
There are some serious general observa- tions that emerge. The central theme is of public waste, private profit and personal tragedy. Soldiers became habituated to war and would fight for the highest bidder with or against countrymen and comrades. Active chivalry and the laws of war operat- ed in the context of grim atrocities and bes- tial violence. Warfare became endemic and self-sustaining, with many, from all sta- tions, acquiring a vested interest in its con- tinuance. Rule by protection racket replaced civil government in many areas.
Loyalty was to self, lord or region, not nation, witness the ease with which many parts of the French kingdom placidly accepted English rule after the treaty of Bretigny in 1360. Sumption suggests that France, clearly revealed as a nation of provinces, coped unevenly with the attacks of English, Navarrese and independent mercenary armies. Where royal govern- ment had been strongest, local resistance was feeblest, emasculated by the centre. - Where regional autonomy had been more robust, defence met with greater success.
Sumption is especially good in unravelling how private captains profited from terror- ism and in exposing the malleable loyalties of some of even the grander warriors, notably during the incursions of French- and English-led forces into Spain in 1366-7. This is the second volume of Sumption's magnum opus. It appears almost ten years after the first, a rate that suggests that the complete work may take almost as long as the events it studies. It is a very long book and not for the easily daunted, as the com- plexity of detail renders dipping and skip- ping unprofitable. For those with the time and stamina to read it all the way through, the rewards are considerable, well worth the effort expended — unlike most of the campaigns described so compellingly.
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