Early in August the English fleet sailed from Southampton, and sixteen hundred ships entered the Seine, passed up between Honfleur and Harfleur, and landed the troops, who proceeded to invest the latter town, which was an important commercial place and the key of Normandy, being a strong fortress surrounded with deep moats and massive walls and towers.[254] It was bravely defended, but as no help came from the French army which was slowly gathering at Vernon, the town surrendered on September 22nd.
King Henry repaired, provisioned, and garrisoned the place, and then began his victorious march through France. Charles, who just then was in his right mind, came to Rouen with the Duc d’Aquitaine and the rest of the princes in October, and at a hurried council it was decided that a battle must be fought, but that the King and his son should not be present for fear of a calamity such as befel King Jean at Poitiers. All over France the nobles were summoned to join the royal standard with their vassals, but the princes were stupid enough to refuse a body of six thousand armed men offered by the city of Paris whose services they disdained.
The Comte de Charolais, who knew there was going to be a battle but did not know when, was wild to get away and join the army. His tutors, however, had been warned by the terrible Duke of Burgundy that he made them responsible for his not doing so, and they were at their wits’ end what to do. They did not like to tell the young Philippe, lest he should find some way of circumventing them, and when a summons arrived for him from the Constable d’Albret, he declared he would go. He was then at Arras, and in much perplexity they pretended to consent, and leaving that city got him to the castle of Aire, where the Constable again sent several seigneurs and Montjoye, King-at-arms, to fetch him. As long as they could the distracted tutors put off his departure, carefully concealing from him the time when the battle was to take place, but most of his people kept escaping secretly to go to the front, and at last they were obliged to tell him, to appease his anger, of his father’s orders, which he dared not disobey but retired to his room in despair and shut himself up there crying. (“_Moult fort pleurant._”)[255]