tire host
was marshalled upon the northern bank of the river, and was safe. The
whole story forms one of the most striking details in the history of
medieval warfare.

What followed the discomfiture of Godemard's command and Edward's passage
with his forces intact, is not easy to gather in the authorities
themselves, though it is easy enough to reconstruct with the aid of the
Kitchen Accounts, and by the help of the analogy of Edward's action
throughout the campaign. The King's tent, his domesticity, and what we
may by an anachronism call his staff, proceeded to the edge of the forest
of Crecy, which lies upon the inland heights north-eastward of the ford, a
distance of five miles. But it did not proceed there directly. In company
with the whole army, it first turned north-westward down the bank of the
estuary to the capture of the castle and town of Noyelles, rather more
than two miles away. This castle it took, and it is characteristic of
these wars that the mistress of it was English in sympathy, and, what is
more, had married her daughter to the nephew of one of Edward's principal
generals. From Noyelles on the same day, Thursday, Edward and the staff
turned back north-eastward towards the forest. There was a skirmish at
Sailly Bray with Godemard's command, which, though defeated, was not yet
broken, and which had hung upon the flanks of the English army. But the
belated struggle was of little importance, and Edward camped that night
upon the edge of the forest in the neighbourhood of Foret L'Abbye to the
west of the little railway line and station which mark those fields
to-day.

Meanwhile, during the remaining hours of that Thursday, the customary
raiding and pillaging parties which had been characteristic of all this
great raid were being sent out. The chief one under Hugh the Dispenser
took Crotoy and thus provisioned his own force and perhaps some of the
neighbouring detachments, but the bulk of Edward's army "went famished
that day," and, for that matter, were insufficiently provided during the
ensuing Friday as well.

The host camped upon that Thursday night somewhat widely spread around its
King, with foraging parties still distant and appointed to return upon the
morrow.

Upon that morrow, the Friday, the advance north-eastward was continued. It
was organised in a fashion whose exactitude and forethought are worthy of
note, considering the haphazard conditions of most medieval fighting, and
of Edward's