the proper understanding of the course of the engagement, been handed down. We do not know how the wind lay that day; we do not know how the land bore; we do not know the particulars of the order of battle on either side. We do know, however, that at sunrise[1] on Saturday, the 24th, the two fleets were not far from one another, and that, owing to the tide, the English could not enter the port until about noon. High water on the day of the fight, on the coast near Sluis, occurred, as was ascertained by Sir G. B. Airy, at 11.23 a.m. and 11.46 p.m. Probably Edward desired to go in on the top of the flood,[2] and had been unwilling, owing to the risks of a night action, to utilise the high tide of 10.58 on the night of the 23rd.
Edward disposed his best ships in his van, filling them with archers; and between each two of these large croft he stationed a vessel full of men-at-arms. The remaining small ships, with archers on board, formed the second division, and acted as reserve.[3] Several ladies of high rank, who intended to join the queen at Ghent, were with the fleet. Three hundred men-at-arms were assigned for their protection. and, in probability, they were transshipped to the transports or storeships, and placed in comparative safety out of the way of the fighting vessels.
The French fleet, which had been in three divisions, was now in four, the ships of each division being fastened to one another by iron chains and by cables.[4] Each had a small boat full of stones triced up to the mast, so that the men in the tops could fling the stones upon the English decks. In the van of the fleet, as if in contemptuous defiance, were the Christopher, commanded by John Heyla,[5] a Flamand, and full of Genoese archers, and three other large cogs, the Edward, the Katherine, and the Rose, all of which were prizes captured from the English.
Upon the whole, the presumption is that, before the action began, the French were under sail in the mouth of the estuary, heading slowly to the north-west, with a gentle breeze from the north-east, and that the English were nearly due west of the foe.[6]
- ↑ Hemingford, ii. 320.
- ↑ Minot is assuredly wrong in saying that the battle began at half-ebb.
- ↑ Froissart, i. 106.
- ↑ Avesbury, 56; Hemingford, ii. 320.
- ↑ Taken, and beheaded at Bruges.
- ↑ Nicolas puts the English "to the westward and to leeward of the enemy," adding "that the wind was about north-east, and that the French bore nearly south-west of them."
