It remained without dispute a part of the county of Ponthieu until 939, when, as related by the monkish historian Richer, it was coveted by the Count of Flanders and captured through the treachery of the governor, Robert le Chepier. (One of the towers of the existing fortifications still bears his name). The children of the Count of Ponthieu were taken captives and sent to the English Court to be held as prisoners—giving rise to one of the first of the many grudges that the good Montreuillois had against England. The Count of Ponthieu appealed for help to the then Duke of Normandy (William of the Long Sword). The help was given, Montreuil was wrested from the Flemings, and handed back to the Count of Ponthieu according to some accounts, held by the Normans according to other accounts, which have a greater air of reasonableness, for the Normans were good at taking and slow at giving back.
OUTSIDE THE RAMPARTS
But all disputes as to the possession of Montreuil between the Counts of Ponthieu and Flanders and the Duke of Normandy were settled by the King of France, Hugo Capet, who made the town part of the Royal Domain of France and built a great fortified château by the side of the old citadel. A part of this château still remains, "the Tower of Queen Bertha," so-called from the unhappy fate of Bertha, Queen of Philip I. of France. She was the daughter of the Count Florent I. of Holland, and had borne Philip three children when he became enamoured of the wife of the Count of Anjou and shut his own wife up to die in Montreuil. To quote the old chronicle: "Il la mist en prison en un fort chastel qui a nom Monstereul-sur-la-mer." The poor lady seems to have been most harshly treated, and was left dependent on the charity of the townsfolk for her food. The children of Montreuil recall the story to this day when begging for money for the churches with the cry "Give, give, to your Queen."
By this time the Norman Conquest had given England a place in European politics. The 13th Century brought Montreuil under the English Crown. Jeanne, Countess of Ponthieu and Montreuil, had married the King of Castille and Leon. Their daughter Eleonora of Castille married Edward I., King of England, and part of her dowry was Montreuil. Edward I. came over in 1279 to take over his new possession, and promised the Montreuillois to safeguard all their local rights and privileges. But the good folk of the town did not like the English of that day, and disputes were constant. They rejoiced when war broke out between France and England (a war in which the French had the Scots as allies and the English the Flemings); for the King of France exempted Montreuil from her feudal duty to the English King.
That war was stopped by the intervention of Pope Boniface, and a Peace Conference assembled at Montreuil. One of the peace conditions was that the Prince of Wales should marry the daughter of the King of France, and this marriage was celebrated with great magnificence at Boulogne, the young princess passing through Montreuil to the wedding. She received as her pin-money from her husband the revenues of Ponthieu and Montreuil.
But that marriage did not make for peace. On the contrary its fruits were a new series of wars interrupted by an occasional truce or brief peace. Crécy and Agincourt were both fought almost in sight of Montreuil. The district round was ravaged again and again by the English forces, and several times the town itself was besieged in vain. After Crécy, Edward tried to take it and failed. An incident of one of the peace treaties was the visit of Chaucer, the poet, to Montreuil as an English plenipotentiary. An incident of one of the wars was the passage through Montreuil of the funeral procession of King Henry V.
So through the years Montreuil was in the very heart of the struggle between English and French. It was in a manner the border town between the territory in France which was admitted to be English, and the disputed territory. Thus it learned a deep hatred of the English. Often as a condition of peace it was handed over to English domination; never was it content with that destiny. Finally, the ambition of the English Kings to add France to their realms—an ambition which was as bad for England as it was for France—was definitely frustrated. Montreuil, passionately French in spirit, "the most faithful town in all Picardy," as Henry of Navarre called it, was no more to be vexed either by English governors or English marauders.
But Montreuil cherished its dislike of the English, and probably had never been so happy for centuries as when in 1804 it was the headquarters of the left wing of Napoleon's Army for the invasion of England. General Ney was the officer in command at Montreuil, and his brilliant receptions brought back to the town some of its Middle Ages pomp. It was from Montreuil that in 1804 General Ney addressed to Napoleon a memorial begging him to take the Imperial Crown for the sake of France. Napoleon himself visited Montreuil more than once, and a house in which he slept is still shown in the Place Verte.