"This battle was right fierce and terrible; for the battles on the sea are more dangerous and fiercer than the battles by land: for on the sea there is no rescuing nor fleeing; there is no remedy but to fight and to abide fortune, and every man to shew his prowess. " swarmed over the enemy deck, flailing their swords, axes and half-pikes, while divers were sent to bore holes just below the waterline of the French ships. As an accompaniment, English bowmen continued to loose flights of arrows. D eck after deck became a blood-soaked shambles, with bodies piled everywhere. The English tactic of three-on-one was repeated throughout the fleet, with quick advantage to Edward's men, who fought as though on land, scrambling across enemy decks serving as wooden battlefields. While the outcome of the battle was serried early on, the fighting from deck to deck lasted nine hours . The battle was worse than if fought on land since those engaged could only stand and fight, not retreat or run away. U ltimately, Edward's men-at-arms ranged across the enemy decks at will. Before it ended, thousands of Frenchmen (some would guess the number at roughly 10,000) had been killed by arrows, hacked to death in hand-to-hand fighting, or thrown overboard. Some of the enemy knights, desperate to get free of the assault, had stripped off their armor before jump-
ing into the water, hoping to swim to safety. Sadly for them, most were met by Flemish citizen-soldiers on the shore and were clubbed to death in the shallows. By early evening, the English had managed to capture or sink the vast majority of the French fleet. They also recovered two of their ships, the Edward and the Christopher, which had been seized by the French in the previous two years. It turned out that Edward III had been wo unded slightly in the thigh, bur one of the French admirals suffered more severely. H e was hanged from a cross pole crudely fastened to the mast of one of the captured ships. Only thirty of the enemy ships, mainly those rowed and sailed by the Genoese, managed to pull out to sea and escape capture. Edward's captains allowed the plundering of the seized enemy ships to reward their men, and only after this was accomplished were the blood-drenched hulks set afire and abandoned. The floating bonfires lit the night sky for hours, providing a glorious sight for Edward's fleet anchored off shore. Sluys turned our to be so great a victory for the English that no Frenchman dared
inform Philip VI of the outcome for two days. It was left to the king's jester to mention the "cowardly" act of the enemy at Sluys. When Philip asked for an exp lanation, th e jester replied, "Because at Sluys the other day the English had no t the courage to jump into the sea, as did our noble Frenchmen. " Later it was claimed that "If fish could have spoken that day, they wo uld have learned French. " Most important for Edward, by destroying Philip 's fleet, he had gained control of the C hannel and North Sea. T his was crucial to ensuring the flow of English wool to Flanders for years to come, from which Edward derived sufficient tax income to pursue what turned out to be the Hundred Years' War. Just the mention of Sluys was enough to loosen the purse strings of numerous parliaments. !,
Mr. Swain writes from New York City. His article "Henry VIIf's First War at Sea" recently appeared in MHQ: T he Quarterly Journal of Military History. His nautical experience includes sailing in his youth and college summers spent as a merchant seaman.
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