CHAP. CVII.
SIR FLORIMONT DE BRIMEU, SENESCHAL OF PONTHIEU, CONQUERS THE TOWN OF CROTOY.
While the duke of Burgundy was employed on the expedition against Calais, sir Florimont de Brimeu, seneschal of Ponthieu, Richard de Richaumes, governor of the town of Rue, Robert du Quesnoy, governor of St Valery, and others in the neighbourhood of Crotoy, collected together about four hundred combatants, and marched them by night to an ambuscade on the shore near the town and castle of Crotoy.
Robert du Quesnoy ordered about thirty of his men to embark very early in a boat and row towards the town, to induce the English to pursue them. This they executed,—and when they thought that they were within sight of the enemy, they made pretence as if their boat were aground, and that they could neither advance nor retire, notwithstanding the efforts ten or twelve of the crew pretended to make to get her afloat.
The English, observing this from the ramparts, thought to take advantage of their situation, and made a sally, in hopes of taking them prisoners; but they were immediately surrounded by those in ambush, who attacked them with vigour, killing on the spot more than sixty-four, and making prisoners from thirty to forty. The party of the seneschal lost several. Thus was the garrison of Crotoy much weakened,—and when the seneschal learnt from his prisoners that but few men at arms were in the town, he collected a reinforcement of men from the adjoining parts, and within a few days made an attack on Crotoy, which he took by storm with little loss of men.
The townsmen retreated to the castle,—before which the seneschal fixed his quarters, and pointed his engines against it, but without doing any damage, for it was wonderous strong. When the seneschal had remained before it some length of time, finding his attempts to conquer it vain, he dislodged, after he had destroyed the fortifications of the town, and marched back his men to the places they had come from, carrying with them all the plunder they had gained in Crotoy.
The English had afterward at Crotoy two boats, called 'Gabarres,'[42] with which they much harrassed the town of Abbeville, and especially the fishermen. In consequence, the inhabitants of Abbeville sent by night a party toward Crotoy in a boat, whence some of the crew by swimming fastened grappling irons to each of these gabarres,—the cords of which being fixed to the Abbeville boat, they towed them to Abbeville, to the vexation of the English.