CHAP. XL.
MENTION MADE OF DIFFERENT ENCOUNTERS BETWEEN THE PICARDS AND GHENT MEN.—THE LATTER ATTEMPT TO SET FIRE TO SOME PARTS OF HAINAULT.—THEY ARE MET BY THE PICARDS SOON AFTERWARD.
On the 2d day of December, sir Philip de Lalain, a young, bold and enterprising knight, made an excursion to the walls of Ghent with the garrison of Oudenarde. Two hundred men on horseback sallied forth out of Ghent, and a combat commenced; when one of the principal townsmen was killed at the onset, who had, a little before, taken a youth of the duke's party prisoner, and made him his page.
The page, seeing his master dead, hastened to surrender himself to sir Philip, and assured him that upwards of four thousand men had sallied out at different gates to surround and make him and his party prisoners: it therefore behoved him to secure a retreat. At this moment, full three hundred men on horseback issued out of the gates, on which sir Philip began to retreat, often wheeling round to skirmish and check the enemy. Sir Philip de Lalain, his brother, having heard of his danger, hastened out of Oudenarde, with all he could collect at the moment, to his succour: he was then within a league of Oudenarde, skirmishing all the time with the ghent men, who pursued him with great caution, that their other divisions might arrive to their support; but the Picards, noticing this, made their retreat good into Oudenarde,—and the ghent men took up their quarters for the night at an abbey half a league from that town, and on the morrow returned to Ghent.
Not long afterward, the Companions of the Verde Tente, to the amount of ten thousand, advanced into Hainault, killed many of the peasantry, and burnt from sixteen to seventeen villages without any molestation. A few days prior to this excursion, about fifty English marched out of Ghent on pretence of attacking the Picards, but they went to Dendermonde and surrendered themselves to sir Anthony, the bastard, who received them very graciously, and enrolled them among his own men.
One of the duke's commanders, hearing that the ghent men were marching back from Hainault, hastened toward Ghent to meet them on their return,—and, being in great force, attacked them, and slew more than two hundred: the rest saved themselves in Ghent, except some prisoners the Picards had made and carried to Dendermonde.