Louis: The French Prince Who Invaded England by Catherine Hanley Page B

such a close melee that those who are striking and those who are being struck are so close to each other that they barely have room to raise their arm to strike another blow.
Lances are shattering, swords and daggers hit each other, combatants split each other’s heads with their axes, and their lowered swords plunge into the bowels of horses.
Loose horses are running here and there across the field, some giving out their last breaths, some with the entrails spilling out of their stomachs, some kneeling and falling to the ground … there is hardly one place where you cannot see dead men and dying horses.
    By the end of the day the allies were in disarray. Otto had fled the field; William of Salisbury had been taken prisoner after being bludgeoned to the ground, his helmet broken by the mace of the warlike bishop of Beauvais; Ferrand of Flanders and, after what even his enemies recognised as a heroic rearguard action, Renaud of Boulogne were captured.
    The battle of Bouvines changed the course of medieval European history; it is as legendary in France as Agincourt is in England. But Philip’s great victory would not have been possible without Louis’s contribution in the south: it was father and son working in tandem that had defeated their massed enemies. Matthew Paris even goes so far as to say that ‘the French rejoiced less in the victory at Bouvines than in the defeat inflicted on the king of England by Louis, because they hoped that in him they would have a valiant sovereign who would outshine his father’. While we must make allowances for Matthew’s hindsight, it is clear that neither success would have been possible without the other.
    While Philip was rejoicing in his victory, giving thanks to God and making arrangements for the detention of his prisoners, Louis stayed in Anjou until September, recapturing the castles taken by John and subduing resistance. Over the summer he suffered a loss when the gallant marshal Henry Clément died of a fever, possibly an after-effect of wounds sustained. He was much mourned, but his death did not halt Louis in his campaign: the twenty-six-year-old prince could take charge of his own army as an experienced and competent commander. Following his retreat and the defeat of his allies, John caused little trouble; ‘Woe is me!’, Roger of Wendover has him lament. ‘Since I became reconciled to God, and submitted myself and my kingdoms to the Church of Rome, nothing has gone prosperously with me, and everything unlucky has happened to me.’ John and Philip sealed a truce at Chinon on 18 September 1214, after which Louis was finally free to return to Paris and meet his new son Louis, who had been born in April.
    The repercussions from the victories at La-Roche-aux-Moines and Bouvines were profound for all concerned. Otto abdicated in 1215, leaving Philip’s ally Frederick of Hohenstaufen as Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, and France free from fear of attack from that direction; Otto himself died in internal exile in 1218. The two French counts who had traitorously taken up arms against their rightful king were dragged away from Bouvines in chains and imprisoned. Ferrand remained in captivity until he was eventually released in 1227. Renaud was stripped of his lands and titles in favour of his twelve-year-old daughter Matilda, who, handily (and perhaps inevitably), was married to King Philip’s thirteen-year-old son Philip Hurepel, who became count of Boulogne. Renaud was imprisoned in arduous conditions for thirteen years, chained to a heavy log and unable to take more than a pace in any direction. When Ferrand was eventually released and he was not, he finally gave up hope and committed suicide in 1227. Some months after Bouvines there was a slightly tardy exchange of prisoners, at which point Robert de Dreux was swapped for the earl of Salisbury, who was none too pleased that brother John had appeared in no hurry to pay his ransom.
    John returned defeated to England with