followers of Louis, while on shore, had anything to do with the change which undoubtedly took place in English popular prejudices at about that period; but the treacherous career and evil reputation of Eustace the Monk may well have had stronger and more far-reaching influence than is generally suspected. The peculiar hatred with which he was regarded by Englishmen comes out forcibly in all the accounts of the great naval battle of the South Foreland, presently to be described; and no nation has ever been more prone than ours to form its judgments concerning foreign races on the principle of ex pede Herculem.
The decisive battle fought in the streets of Lincoln, in May, 1217, cut short the hopes of Louis, and crushed the barons who acted with him. Upon the news of the defeat reaching France, Robert de Courtenay, a kinsman of the French king,[1] collected an army wherewith to succour the prince, and embarked with it at Calais on board a fleet of eighty ships, besides galleys and small craft, under the command of Eustace the Monk.[2]
It is impossible to discover exactly what naval preparations had been made in England, as the records contain only two or three notices of naval matters that occurred between the death of John and the battle off the South Foreland.[3] One of these, however, suggests that, in all probability, the patriotic regent had taken measures with a view to cutting the communications of the French expeditionary force; for, soon after the accession Henry III., the king's men from Ireland, who were with their ships on the coast of Normandy, were ordered to Winchelsea for the royal service.[4]
Hubert de Burgh, Justiciary and Governor of Dover Castle, knew of the collection of the fleet of Eustace the Monk and the army of Robert de Courtenay at Calais, and was deeply impressed with the necessity for waylaying it. Addressing the Bishop of Winchester, the Earl Marshal, and other nobles, he said: "If these people land, England is lost. Let us therefore boldly meet them, for God is with us, and they are excommunicated." But his hearers
- ↑ Courtenay was also ancestor of the earls of Devon.
- ↑ The 'Annals of Waverley' put the French fleet at nearly one hundred sail.
- ↑ But, according to some of the chroniclers, there was a naval engagement in 1217, previous to the battle of the South Foreland. In the course of it several French ships were destroyed; but the general result seems to have been unsatisfactory, if it be true, as is alleged, that the French afterwards landed and burnt Sandwich.
- ↑ Patent Rolls, 1 Hen. III., m. 14.
