Free A Great and Glorious Adventure by Gordon Corrigan Page A

disbanded when the threat had passed. It was not that the English were unaware of the security of their sea routes
– ships plying between Bordeaux and England hugged the coast rather than cross the Bay of Biscay, hence the importance of a friendly Brittany – it was just that they could not afford to
spend much on it. Edward III owned but a handful of ships, with masters (often unpaid for long periods) but no crews, and in the event of a naval threat the defence of the nation at sea depended,
in theory at least, upon the Cinque Ports. By ancient decree these ports were required, in exchange for various customs and taxation privileges, to provide fifty-seven vessels between them for
fifteen days. In fact, most of the ports had silted up, many of the ships they could provide ostensibly for war were in fact fishing vessels, and evasion of their obligations was widespread. In
practice, the king would have to requisition ships from elsewhere – Great Yarmouth was now far more important as a port than any of the Cinque Ports and most of the ships would come from
there.
    Command of English navies was vested in two admirals, that of the North and that of the South. The posts were usually held either by soldiers, who knew a lot about fighting on land but little
about war on the sea, or by influential magnates, who might know very little about any sort of war. Most of the ships impressed for the English navy were cogs, thought to have originally developed
from Viking longships. Cogs were wide-beamed,shallow-draught merchant vessels with one mast and a square-rigged sail, built of oak and with a stern rudder. Divided into
various sizes ranging from ‘up to 10 tons’ to ‘over 120 tons’, most were relatively small, although there were cogs of 300 tons. 22 Being square-rigged, the cog could not sail into the wind, nor was it very manoeuvrable, but it could carry a considerable quantity of cargo, was reasonably resistant to bad
weather and heavy seas, and could put in to estuaries and bays that a ship with a deeper draught could not. Most of those assembled to counter the threat of the French fleet were of 100 tons
displacement, sixty feet long and twenty wide, with a crew of twenty-five sailors and a fighting element of archers or men-at-arms. Once the cogs were taken into the king’s service, fore and
stern castles – wooden towers front and rear – and crows’ nests were added. These were manned by archers and stone-throwers, for English naval tactics were simple: ram any enemy
ship, sink it or board it, attack the crew and chuck their bodies overboard, dead or alive.
    On 24 May 1337, King Philip announced the confiscation of Aquitaine, stating this to be as punishment for Edward’s failure to fulfil his obligations as a vassal of the French king and for
his sheltering of Robert of Artois. It is this act that can be taken as marking the beginning of the Hundred Years War. The English response was to despatch an advance party to the Low Countries to
prepare for the reception of an English army which Edward intended to land there later in the year. Eighty-five ships crewed by 2,000 seamen and carrying 1,500 soldiers and a large cargo of wool,
which would be sold to pay for the escapade, set sail from Sandwich in November under Sir Walter Manny.
    Admiral of the North and responsible for all ports from the Thames to Berwick, Manny was an early example of the sort of men who would make their reputations and fortunes in the coming war. A
younger son of minor Hainault aristocracy, he originally came to England as a page to Queen Philippa. Having progressed from being her carver, responsible for her food, to looking after her
greyhounds, he was knighted in 1331 and came to prominence as an up-and-coming soldier in Edward Balliol’s army of the Disinherited that invaded Scotland in 1332. He then served in all of
EdwardIII’s Scottish campaigns, did well, and received honours and lucrative appointments as a