They put their backs into hauling these stakes out by sheer brute force, and I can tell you that it was with great difficulty that they extracted them, so deeply were they planted. Nevertheless, they got them all out in the end and let the timber flow away downstream. Even when all this was done, they still had great difficulty levelling out the banks sufficiently to get all of their carts across. Nobody ever had such a struggle. Now you see, if the
French who were pursuing them and who were eager to engage them in combat had known of this state of affairs, they could have inflicted great harm on them, for those who went first could not have come to the aid of those crossing after them, nor vice versa, on account of the great stretch of marshland they had to cross. Yet the
English made such progress that they got across, carts and all, and arrived that day to lodge at
Noyen-sur-Sarthe.
SHF 2-168 syncThe selfsame day that the
English traversed the
river Sarthe with such great pains as you have heard,
king Charles of France departed this life at his residence of
Saint-Pol-sur-Seine. As soon as his brother, the
duke of Anjou, knew that his eyes were closed for good, he seized all of the jewels belonging to the
king his brother, which he had in infinite number, and had them put in a safe and secure place for him, in the hope that they would come in very useful to him for the journey he intended to make, for he already styled himself
king of Sicily,
Apulia,
Calabria and
Jerusalem.
King Charles of France, in accordance with royal practice, was carried through the city of
Paris, his face uncovered, and his brothers and two sons behind him, to the
abbey of Saint-Denis where he was buried with great honour, according to the dispositions he had made earlier while still alive, with
Sir Bertrand du Guesclin, who had been his constable, lying at his feet. And I tell you that, despite
king Charles having commanded his brothers on his deathbed to keep the government of the kingdom of
France out of reach of the
duke of Anjou, his wishes were completely disregarded, for the duke immediately took possession of it and overruled all the others, save that he made it clear that he wished his nephew
Charles to be crowned king, but wished for governance over the kingdom as much, if not more than anyone else, simply because he was the eldest; and nobody in the realm of
France dared nor desired to contest what he had in mind. The
king of France died around the time of Michaelmas; immediately after his death the peers and barons of
France determined and advised that the
king should be crowned at
Rheims upon the feast of All Saints following. The three uncles,
Anjou,
Berry, and
Burgundy, adhered to this proposal, but insisted on governing the kingdom until such time as the child was old enough, that is to say twenty-one years of age, and they made the great barons and high-ranking churchmen of the kingdom of
France swear to abide by all of this. After that the young
king's coronation was announced in distant lands, to the
duke of Brabant, to
duke Aubert, to the
count of Savoy, to the
count of Blois,
count Jean, to the
duke of Guelders, to the
duke of Juliers, to the
count of Armagnac, and to the
count of Foix.
pb 45 v