THE NORMAN CONQUERORS AND THEIR SUCCESSORS 



been given to the French by the Pope, King Philip of France did not 

 feel inclined to relinquish his prize simply because King John and the 

 Papacy had made up their quarrel. The Count of Flanders withdrew 

 from his alliance with France, and King Philip promptly entered the 

 port of Damme — now some miles inland, but then an important harbour 

 near Bruges — with a huge fleet. John had collected a big navy and 

 saw his opportunity to deal his enemy a serious blow. The Earl of 

 Salisbury, a natural son of Henry II, was given the command of the 

 fleet, and with five hundred sail he came on them at a time when the 

 greater part of the French crews had landed and were plundering the 

 Flemish mainland. He attacked instantly, first of all with his boats, and 

 therefore the action is memorable also as being the first large scale 

 cutting-out expedition. Three hundred vessels loaded with arms were 

 captured, another hundred were burned, and King Philip destroyed 

 the remainder. Salisbury was then rash enough to land in an attempt 

 to pursue the fugitives from the fleet and was promptly routed. 



De Bove's Invasion. 



Within a few months of King John accepting the Magna Carta 

 and promising to dismiss all his foreign mercenaries he hired Sir Hugh 

 de Bove, a Norman adventurer, with a bribe of big tracts of land in 

 Norfolk and Suffolk, to help him against his rebellious subjects. So 

 sure was the invader that he brought with him all the women and 

 children of his fighting men when he sailed from Calais with a force that 

 was estimated by contemporary historians as forty thousand souls in all. 

 Whether this was an exaggeration or not, it was a very serious danger to 

 the realm, but a sudden gale destroyed the entire armada with 

 practically every soul on board. 

 The Campaign of 1216-17. 



Eustace the Monk, who has already been mentioned, had by this time 

 complete control of the narrow seas, and when Louis of France decided 

 on an invasion he collected six hundred ships at Calais, Gravelines, and 

 the nearby ports for the transportation of his force. A storm scattered 

 the invading ships, but King John had no fleet at sea to take advantage 

 of their confusion and they were able to rendezvous in peace on the 

 Thanet coast, and soon had the whole of the south-east coast at their 

 mercy with the exception of Dover Castle, which was held by Hubert de 

 Burgh. This commander enjoyed the trust of the Earl of Pembroke, 

 appointed Regent of the Kingdom immediately on the death of John, who 

 soon rallied the country against the foreign invader. As Justiciary and 

 Governor of Dover Castle de Burgh had command of the narrow seas, 

 and made up his mind that the reinforcement under Eustace the Monk 

 must be cut oflf at sea. The character of the corsair commander helped 

 him, for the people of Kent knew that they would get no mercy if he 

 landed, and were bound to de Burgh by their interests of self-preserva- 

 tion as much as by patriotism. The British Fleet, consisting of sixteen 

 big ships and twenty smaller, sailed from Dover on August 24th, 1217, 

 when the French had already left Calais on their way to the Thames.. 



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