Four hundred miles away in Flanders, the king’s half-brother was almost ready to commence his attack. Although he had been conducting raids into French territory throughout the spring, rallying all the members of the coalition for a major invasion had taken longer than anticipated, and at the start of July they were still awaiting the arrival of the Holy Roman Emperor, Otto IV. At last, however, Otto mustered his forces from the Rhineland and, around 23 July, linked arms with Salisbury and his companions at Valenciennes, about thirty miles south-east of Lille.
The delay of his opponents had given Philip plenty of time to marshal all the military strength he could find to resist them. The problem, from the French king’s point of view, was that it was still insufficient. Estimates of the size of medieval armies are always hazardous, but it seems clear that the combined forces of the coalition were bigger, possibly by as much as forty per cent. Philip therefore had good reason to be cautious as he marched his army northwards. William the Breton portrays him as eager for combat, but it may be that he was actually intending to shadow the movements of his enemies, hoping that they would eventually run into logistical difficulties and be forced to retire. When the two armies unintentionally came within ten miles of each other on 26 July, the French king, then at Tournai, decided this was too close for comfort, and set out early the next morning for Lille, eighteen miles to the west.
It was probably around midday on 27 July, roughly halfway through this journey, that Philip was warned that his enemies were pursuing him and were about to attack. This was surprising, for it was a Sunday, a day when even the most devious medieval commanders usually tried to avoid bloodshed. It was also deeply alarming, for the French army was marching in a column several miles long, and was at that moment crossing a river by means of the bridge in the village of Bouvines. The warning gave Philip just enough time to avert what could have been a disastrous ambush. Those troops that had already crossed the bridge were recalled, and those that had not were able to array themselves. As a result, they turned the tables on their pursuers, who were themselves faced with the sudden difficulty of converting their own column into a line of battle.
What followed was one of the most decisive and momentous clashes in European history. William the Breton, who was an eyewitness, devoted many pages to describing the action. It was, he said, a melee so thick that the combatants scarcely had room to swing their weapons. The silk surcoats of the knights, emblazoned with their coats of arms, were cut to shreds, so that it became difficult to distinguish friend from foe. The day was searingly hot, and the clouds of dust kicked up by the two armies added to the sense of chaos. Everywhere across the field lay horses, dead or terribly maimed, having been targeted by knights seeking to unhorse and capture their opponents. Philip Augustus was brought down by the count of Boulogne but rescued by one of his household knights, while Otto reportedly had three of his mounts killed beneath him. The number of human casualties, given that there were also thousands of infantry involved, must have been huge. ‘There was hardly anywhere’, said William the Breton, ‘that one did not find a body stretched out or a horse dying.’
Despite the confusion, it eventually became apparent that Philip’s forces were having the best of the fighting. The coalition, because they had been forced into a hasty deployment, could not make use of all their troops, and their cavalry were too disorganized. ‘I must tell you’, says the Anonymous of Béthune, ‘that they did not ride so well and in such an orderly manner as the French, and they became aware of it.’ The duke of Brabant was the first to flee, and his departure seems to have triggered a general collapse. Otto decided to retreat, abandoning his army and his imperial banner. Others fought on doggedly against dwindling odds. The count of Boulogne was surrounded and captured, as was the count of Flanders. The earl of Salisbury was clubbed from his horse by a notorious fighting cleric, the bishop of Beauvais, with such force that it shattered his helmet. He too was taken prisoner.
The Battle of Bouvines was a historic turning point. It signalled Philip’s God-given triumph over his rivals, and ensured the survival of the French monarchy. When news of their king’s victory reached Paris, the students there are said to have danced for seven days; today Bouvines is recognized as being as important in the making of France as Hastings is in the making of England. At the same time, the battle signalled the end for Otto IV, who rapidly lost ground to his rival, Frederick II.
It also marked the end of the road for King John. In early August, as yet oblivious to what had happened, he was once again advancing rapidly northwards, skirting around Poitiers, perhaps planning to attack the city of Tours. But on 6 August his advance came to a sudden halt, suggesting that he had heard the disastrous news, and registered its catastrophic implications. The project to recover the lands of his ancestors, planned for so long, and for which he had governed England so relentlessly, was over – and, despite his massive expenditure, he had almost nothing to show for it. A few hours of bloody mayhem at Bouvines had confirmed that his loss of Normandy, Brittany and Anjou would be permanent. All he could hope for now was to salvage something from the campaign’s wreckage by tightening his tenuous grip on his territories south of the Loire. In the last days of August Philip brought his army south and the two sides agreed to a two-week ceasefire. By 18 September they had agreed a five-year truce. In early October John returned to La Rochelle and took ship for England. He was not expecting a hero’s welcome.
Taken from King John: Treachery, Tyranny and the Road to Magna Carta, pp. 233-6
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