"Keen and low

Doth the Arrow sing The song of the bow, The sound of the string

"Your Majesty, the Prince is in danger. His barons bid you send some men-at-arms immediately!" The messenger, breathing heavily, waited for an answer from the king.

"Oh, he is safe," the monarch thundered, "let the boy win his spurs."

But King Edward III did send a small detachment to help the Prince. However, so well were the English archers doing their duty that His Royal Highness was quite safe from the French that day.

It was a sultry day in August, 1346 a.d., when the French under King Philip caught up with the English at the village of Crecy in northern France. King Edward III had landed his forces at Cherbourg early in July and for a month they had been pillaging French villages. The French were determined to make short work of their enemies and had followed them for several days before the English found a suitable spot and decided to stop and give battle.

The English were outnumbered nearly two to one. King Edward had about 20,000 men: 4,000 men-at-arms or knights, 11,000 archers armed with English longbows, and 5,000 Welsh light troops. The French had 38,000 men, 6,000 of whom were crossbow-men and the rest militiamen and mounted men-at-arms.

Edward chose a low hillside for his battleground. His army was divided into three sections, each having men-at-arms and archers. The men-at-arms stood ready for battle in the center of each section, while the archers stretched out on either side like wings.

So confident were the French of winning the battle that the feudal lords urged Philip to attack without delay, although the day was spent and the French army was still straggling into position. Philip finally consented to an immediate attack and, after waiting for a sudden thunder shower to clear, ordered the crossbowmen to attack, followed by the men-at-arms on horseback.

This was exactly what the English wanted. Their longbows could shoot farther than the crossbows and could send several arrows whistling toward a Frenchman while he was loading and drawing a crossbow. The French archers soon found this out and began to retreat, but the cavalry behind ordered them back into the fray. Soon the French were a milling mass of cursing horsemen and footmen. With cheers, the English poured their deadly stream of arrows home with disastrous effect.