On the Count of Flanders devolved the duty of bearing the King’s sword, but although he was present, with four-score knights, when the royal heralds called on him to perform his duty, he made no sign. Thrice they summoned him, and still he was silent. All men were filled with wonder, and the King demanded an explanation. ‘Sire,’ he replied, ‘they ‘summoned the Count of Flanders; I am Louis of Nevers.’ ‘What,’ said Philippe, in feigned astonishment, ‘art thou not also Count of Flanders?’ ‘Such men call me,’ was the reply, ‘but I hold not this office in fact. In no Flemish city save Ghent do I dare show my face.’ ‘Fair cousin,’ replied the King, ‘by the Holy Unction which hath this day flowed on our head, we will not go back to Paris until we have established thee in the peaceful possession of thy realm.’ Some of his counsellors would have persuaded him to defer the expedition. France, they said, was unprepared, and to invade Flanders in the autumn was to risk disaster; but the King, who saw the importance of himself beginning the campaign, refused to hear them. He consulted Gauthier de Châtillon, who had served seven kings in their wars in the Netherlands. ‘For the man who has a stout heart,’ he answered, ‘this is no inopportune season for battle.’ ‘Good,’ replied the delighted King, as he embraced the old soldier. ‘Let those who love me follow.’
With all speed he set about his preparations, and the great army which two months later (August 1328) assembled at Arras, collected from all parts of Europe, was such that the like of it had been never seen there before, and Arras had beheld the armies of Philippe IV. and Louis X.
Nicholas Zannekin, with ten thousand Karls, occupied Cassel, a fortified town some six miles inland from Dunkirk, perched on the top of a hill which rises well-nigh a thousand feet above the level of the sea, and stands solitary in the midst of the low land which surrounds it. Sohier Jansonne had brought him reinforcements to the number of six thousand men, and though messengers had been despatched to Bruges, to warn them of the French invasion, these men believed themselves strong enough to alone save Flanders.
During three days the French King sat down before Cassel awaiting the retreat of his foes. His knights’ heavy chargers, weighted as they were with their own trappings, and the armour of the men who bestrode them, were unable to climb the steep sides of the mountain, and thus the cavalry were forced to remain idle spectators of the skirmishes which succeeded one another without ceasing. In vain the footmen multiplied their efforts; they were in each case driven back, till at length Philippe in despair gave the word to burn the surrounding country, and presently the fertile plain was filled with flames and desolation, and all the land re-echoed with the wailing of old men and women and the shrieks of frightened children; but the Karls in their lofty fortress were as stable as the hill on which they stood, and at last, weary with slaughter, the French returned to camp, took off their heavy armour, and gave themselves over to revelry.
Whilst these things were going on at the foot of Mount Cassel, the Karls at its summit were holding council of war. The wisest of them would have waited until the Bruges burghers had had time to bring them help, others would have gone down under cover of night, and surprised the French in their tents, but Zannekin dismissed their words with disdain. ‘What,’ he cried, ‘with the French King before us, not fight! Shall we, then, who know not what fear is, tremble at this man’s fierce looks? Let us rather thank God that the foes we have so long waited for are now here, and profit by their confusion to slay them forthwith.’ ‘Ay, ay,’ answered a thousand voices, and the Karls made ready for battle. ‘They were brave men and free,’ notes Villani, ‘and they feared not to assail this most redoubtable host.’
The long summer’s day was mingling with night when the Karls went down into the French camp, and before any one was aware of their presence they were in the midst of the barons, who, ‘without armour and arrayed in gorgeous apparel, were going from tent to tent to gossip together of the day’s doings.’[29] Presently a knight, one Rénaud of Loire, came forth to upbraid them for thus ‘presuming to disturb the privacy of gentlemen.’ He had taken the intruders for a company of his own troops returning late to camp. In less than the twinkling of an eye Rénaud was a dead man. Some of his comrades had essayed to defend him, but they shared his fate, and the Flemings marched on, not far now from the object of their quest—the royal pavilion. Philippe, like his knights, had lately dined, and now, replete with rich dishes and strong drink, he was dozing in his tent. Suddenly his chaplain plucked his sleeve. ‘Mark ye, sir,’ he whispered, as he peeped through the curtains, ‘the Flemings are upon us.’ ‘A monk’s nightmare,’ muttered Philippe, and he was turning again to sleep when Miles of Noyers rushed in and confirmed the chaplain’s fears. In a moment Philippe had buckled on his mail, and almost alone, for the greater number of his attendants had fled, went out to face the foe. The first man he met was Zannekin. His battle-axe was raised to strike, and in another moment it would have split open the King’s skull had not Miles dexterously drawn Philippe aside. Then the tide of fortune turned, and soon all that was left of the Saxon host were three great heaps of corpses.
Zannekin was the last to fall, ‘and his death cry was mingled with the voices of the royal chaplains intoning the antiphon of St. Denis.’
Of the sixteen thousand Flemings slain not one had attempted flight, not one of them had budged an inch. Each man fell where he had stood at the beginning of the conflict. If courage could have given the Karls victory, the day would have been theirs, but so great were the odds against them, that from the first they had but one ground for hope—that panic inspired by the suddenness of their coming would fight for them. On this poor chance Zannekin had ventured his all, and he paid the price of his temerity.
If the townsmen of Flanders had been made of the stuff of their country cousins disaster might have yet been averted, but these latter were full-blooded Saxons, and in all the cities, save haply Furnes, the burghers’ power of resistance was in some measure rendered nugatory by their grandams’ Celtic nerves.
So was it at Ypres. When the news of the disaster reached them the burghers were for instant submission if only Philippe could be prevailed on to guarantee their lives and their limbs. One man alone kept cool, and strangely enough that man was a clerk. From the pulpit of his own church (he was parish priest of St. Michael’s) this sturdy representative of the Church Militant implored his fellow-citizens, ‘for God’s sake and the sake of the fatherland,’ to show fight. But it was too late. That very day Miles Noyers entered the town with an overwhelming force, and the handful of labouring men who had been moved by their priest’s appeal were cut to pieces.