| Siege Of Calais |
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The Siege of Calais in northern France began in 1346 , towards the beginning of what would later be called the Hundred Years' War . King Edward III of England , who was at the time claiming kingship over France as well, defeated the French navy at Sluys in 1340 , then went on to make raids throughout Normandy , culminating at the Battle Of Crécy in 1346 . By this point, the English army could no longer continue without renewed supplies, reinforcements, and aid from Flanders , so they withdrew north. The English ships had already left the shores of Normandy for England, and so Edward needed to seize a defensible outpost where his army could regroup, and be resupplied. Calais suited his purposes perfectly. It was highly defensible, with a double moat and city walls built a hundred years earlier. The citadel in the northwest corner of the city had its own moat, and further fortifications. In addition, the city lay on the English Channel , meaning that once it was taken, it could be resupplied and defended easily by sea. Of course, as attractive as it was for Edward III, as a highly defensible position, this also made it quite difficult to seize. THE SIEGE In September of 1346 , Edward's men approached the city, and immediately began making preparations for a drawn-out siege. The city walls and moats would not be easily breached or crossed. The siege attracted aid from both England and Flanders, and while King Philip ( Philip VI Of Valois ) of France failed to interfere with the English supply lines or their army, Edward likewise failed to interfere with the supplying of the population of Calais by Genoese sailors loyal to France. For over two months little was accomplished by the English army; essentially a stalemate had been reached. In November, the English were supplied with cannon, catapults, and long ladders, but attempts to breach or scale the walls continued to fail. By February, Edward had given up on attacking the city, and decided to simply starve them out. One more French supply convoy succeeded in supplying the citizens, but the English navy repelled all further supply attempts. Still, King Philip's armies did nothing to end the siege. In the spring, both English and French armies enjoyed reinforcements, but Philip still could not hope to defeat the attackers; the marshland surrounding the city also defended its attackers. By June, the supply of food and fresh water within the city was nearly nil. A month later, after another convoy was stymied by the English fleet, 500 children and elderly were expelled from the city, so that the remaining healthy, adult men and women might survive. The English refused to allow these exiles to approach them, and so they starved to death just outside the walls. On August 1 , the city lit fires signalling they were ready to surrender. Philip destroyed the encampment where his army had been planning to attack the English, so that it would not fall into enemy hands. Edward was persuaded by his advisors to allow the remaining citizenry to live, so, after providing them with some provisions, he allowed them to leave the city. Calais fell under English control, and remained as such until 1558 , providing a foothold for English raids in France. A short note on eleven-month siege of Calais by the English (1346-1347) At the beginning 1346, the town of Calais, protected by its location in the middle of marshy land flooded by the sea at each tide, was defended by a garrison under the command of a knight from Burgundy, Jean de Vienne (or de Via(e)ne) and seconded by a certain number of knights from Artois (Pas-de-Calais) named by Froissart as Ernoulz d’Audrehem, Jehan de Surie (or de Sury), Baudouin de Belleborne (or de Bellebrune), Joffroy de le Motte, Pépin de Were (or de Wiere, or de Werie), to which the Normandy Chronicle adds lords de Beaulo and de Grigny. Seeing that the English army was prepared for a siege to the “bitter end”, the captain of Calais, fearing with reason that he would be obliged to surrender through famine, resolved to get rid of all unprofitable mouths and expelled from the town (between 500 and 1700 persons according to the chroniclers) all those who had neither goods nor provisions. There was little in the way of battle in the country around Calais but at sea, the English king had placed 25 ships outside Calais. Genoese boats, in the service of France, did however manage to run the blockade as well as boats from Normandy and sailors from Abbeville (Somme) who resupplied Calais resolved and its besieged inhabitants. Edward III resolved to block the entrance to the channel with all kinds of obstacles and from June 1347 it was impossible for the French to provide supplies for Calais.1 NOTE: After having carried off the victory at Crécy-en-Ponthieu in 1346, King Edward III of England hurried on to continue the siege of Calais: he was looking for a harbour town which would be the key for landing his troops in France. He began investing the area on the 4th September 1346. By June 1347, in desperation, Jehan de Vienne, captain of the besieged Calais, wrote a letter to the King of France, Philippe VI de Valois, asking for him to come to his aid: ''“..the garrison has no other alternative but to attempt a desperate sortie: we would rather die honourably in the field than to eat each other !..”''This letter, sent via the intermediary of a Genoese ship was intercepted by the English navy and therefore never reached Philippe VI. However, on the 27th June 1347, the French army arrived as far as Sangatte. The Flemish and the Germans went over to the English side, the people of Hainaut to the French. Two papal legates were dispatched to Calais and a three-day truce was concluded. All the routes leading to Calais were obstructed by ditches and guarded by the English and the King of France could not intervene. It was at this point that Jehan de Vienne, pressured by the besieged population of Calais, asked to parley with the English king about the surrender of Calais on condition that the population and the garrison were spared. Hearing this, Edward III required that six burghers were to come dressed only in their shirts, barefooted and with a rope around their necks and to be left at his disposal: they were; Eustache de Saint Pierre, Jehan d’Aire, Jacques de Wissant and his brother Pierre, Jean de Fiennes and Andrieux d’Andres. Arriving before Edward III, the six burghers of Calais were spared by grace of an intervention by Countess Philippa de Hainaut, wife of the English King. The town was occupied by the English at the end of August 1347 and the king took ship for England (leaving troops to guard Calais under the command of Jean de Montgomery who was in the service of the English king) with the French knights as his prisoners (amongst whom were the abovementionned Jehan de Vienne and Jehan de Sury): these noble prisoners remained six months in England and were afterwards offered for ransom (in 1348). Philippe VI of France ransomed them. The siege of Calais lasted eleven months. For three years, from 1347, truces were conluded between France and England (Edward III being satisfied with holding Calais). The town did not become French again until 1558. 2 ''G.S. B. ''1 Source : Georges Daumet, archivist at the Archives Nationales, “Calais sous la domination anglaise », p. 4, after the Froissart Chronicles, published by Repressé-Crépel and Sons, Arras (France), 1902.'''' ''2 Source : The Froissart Chronicles, published by Baron Kervyn de Lettenhove, Brussels (Belgium), 1868-1876. –Translation from French, Gr. Henderson.'' REFERENCES
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