Map Group FROISSART 1300s
Froissart, John, Sir & Berners, Lord (translator) & Macaulay, G C (editor): 1895 & 1908 (reprint): Chronicles of Froissart (Globe Edition): Macmillan and Co (London):: edited and abridged
The HUNDRED YEARS WAR started 1337. Hampshire was explicitly involved in only a few incidents, though Portsmouth and Southampton must have been important ports for transport and naval shipping throughout the period. The French sacked Southampton, 1338.
Here begynneth the first volum of sir Johan Froyssart: of the cronycles of Englande, Fraunce, Portyngale, Scotlande, Bretayne, Flau~ders, and other places adioynynge. Translated out of Frenche into our maternal englysshe tonge by Johan Bourchier, knight, lorde Berners: At the co~maundement of oure most highe redouted souerayne lorde kyng Henry the viii., kyng of England and of Fraunce and high defender of the christen faythe, etc. ...
EXTRACTS
Square brackets are either Macaulay's or my comments.
... And as soon as sir Hugh Quieret, sir Peter Behuchet [1] and Barbevaire, who lay and kept the straits between England and France with a great navy, knew that the war was open, they came on a Sunday in the forenoon to the haven of Hampton, while the people were at mass: and the Normans, Picards and Spaniards entered into the town and robbed and pilled the town, and slew divers, and despoiled maidens and enforced wives, and charged their vessels with the pillage, and so entered again into their ships. And when the tide came, they disanchored and sailed to Normandy and came to Dieppe; and there departed and divided their booty and pillages.
... and came to London about the feast of Saint Andrew, ... And the he [2] had complaints made him of the destruction of Hampton, and he said that he trusted a year longer that it should be well revenged.
Now let us speak of king Philip, who greatly fortified his navy that he had on the sea, whereof sir Quieret, Behuchet and Barbevaire [3] were captains; and they had under them a great retinue of Genoways, Normans, Bretons and Piccards. They did that winter great damage to the realm of England: sometimes they came to Dover, Sandwich, Winchelsea, Hastings and Rye, and did much sorrow to the Englishmen, for they were a great number, as a forty thousand men. ... specially they won a great ship called the Christofer, laden with wool, as she was going into Flanders, ...
Midsummer-even in the year of our Lord MCCCXL., all the English fleet was departed out of the river of Thames and took the way to Sluys. And the same time between Blankenberghe and Sluys on the sea was sir Hugh Quieret, sir Peter Behuchet and Barbevaire, and more than sixscore great vessels, beside other; and they were Normans, bidaus, Genoways and Picards about the number of forty thousand: there they were laid by the French king to defend the king of England's passage. The king of England and his came sailing till he came before Sluys: and when he saw so great a number of ships that their masts seemed to be like a great wood, he demanded of the master of his ship what people he thought they were. He answered and said, 'Sir, I think they be Normans laid here by the French king, and hath done great displeasure in England, brent your town of Hampton and taken your great ship the Christofer.' 'Ah,' quoth the king, 'I have long desired to fight the Franchmen, and now shall I fight with some of them by the grace of God and Saint George; for truly they have done me so many displeasures, that I shal be revenged, an I may.'
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. ... 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 the 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 tha he left ever enough 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 othyer lords, earls, barons and knights, with all their companies. They wer in number a four thousand men of arms and ten thousand archers, besides Irishmen and Welshmen that followed the host afoot.
...
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 conrary wind and drave them on the marches of Cornwall, and there they lay at anchor six days. ...
...
... Then there were chosen and named four knights of the prince's [of Wales], that should go into England to the king, that is to say, sir Delaware, sir Niel Loring, sir John and sir Elie of Pommiers.
Thus then departed and brake up this council, and every man went home to their own houses; ... And then the foursaid four knights departed, who were appointed to go into England, and they took shipping and sped so well in their journey by the help of God and the wind, that they arrived at Hampton, and there rested one day to refresh them and to unship their horses and carriages, and the second day they took their horses and rode so long that they came to the city of London. And threre they demande were the ing was, and it was shewd them how he was at Windsor: and thither they went, and were right welcomed ...
[... duke of Bourbon. This last obtained his acquittance by procuring the bishoprick of Winchester for William of Wickham, the king's chaplain. ...]
