CHAP. LXXXV.
DURING THE MEETING OF THE CONVENTION AT ARRAS, LA HIRE AND POTON OVERRUN AND FORAGE THE COUNTRY OF THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY.
On the 20th day of this month of August, while the convention was sitting at Arras, La Hire and Poton de Saintrailles, with six hundred combatants, six score being lance-men, whom they had assembled on the frontiers of Beauvais, rode during the night for the river Somme, which they crossed at Cappy; thence they retreated, and fell back on Dourlens and Beauquesne, to forage the country. They divided into smaller bodies, and collected a great booty of peasants, cattle, horses, sheep, and other things, with which they marched back the way they had come to recross the Somme.
Intelligence was brought of this, by the lord de Saveuses, to the duke of Burgundy, who was much troubled thereat, as he feared the matters that were then under discussion in the convention would be greatly retarded. To provide a remedy, he ordered the counts d'Estampes, de St Pol, de Ligny, with the greater part of his chivalry, to mount their horses, and repel the French. With them went some of the English lords, to the amount of about three hundred horsemen,—so that they were in the whole full sixteen hundred, but most of them were without armour.
They hastened toward Mailly and Attinghen, having sent forward the lord de Saveuses, with some scouts, to collect intelligence of the enemy. They soon learnt the line of march the French were following with their plunder to cross the water, and pressed forward with so much diligence that they overtook them near to Corbie, at a town called Boumay, on the water of Helly.
The French, hearing of this pursuit, detached a party of their men at arms to guard the passage of this river, and marched to draw up in battle-array on a hill between Corbie and Helly. In the mean time, sir John de Croy was dispatched, with a certain number of men at arms, to gain this passage,—but he was defeated and made prisoner: ten or twelve of the French were slain, but the rest retreated to their main body on the hill.
The Burgundians and English, having crossed the river, advanced and drew up in order of battle at the foot of the hill, where they remained for a good half-hour, without any intention of combating the French, for they were too slightly armed.
While this was passing, the duke of Bourbon, and the constable of France, sent from Arras messengers to the French, to order them to retreat, and restore the plunder they had taken; so that when the two parties had been for some time drawn up in battle against each other, they separated without coming to action, and returned the way they had come; for the French, in obedience to the orders they had received from their ambassadors at the convention, restored the greater part of their prisoners, and the pillage they had collected,—but it was sorely against their will. They lost about twenty men in killed and prisoners.