HOW SIR GODFREY OF HARCOURT FOUGHT WITH THEM OF AMIENS BEFORE PARIS


Thus the king of England ordered his business, being in the town of
Caen, and sent into England his navy of ships charged with clothes,
jewels, vessels of gold and silver, and of other riches, and of
prisoners more than sixty knights and three hundred burgesses. Then he
departed from the town of Caen and rode in the same order as he did
before, brenning and exiling the country, and took the way to Evreux
and so passed by it; and from thence they rode to a great town called
Louviers: it was the chief town of all Normandy of drapery, riches,
and full of merchandise. The Englishmen soon entered therein, for as
then it was not closed; it was overrun, spoiled and robbed without
mercy: there was won great riches. Then they entered into the country
of Evreux and brent and pilled all the country except the good towns
closed and castles, to the which the king made none assault, because
of the sparing of his people and his artillery.

On the river of Seine near to Rouen there was the earl of Harcourt,
brother to sir Godfrey of Harcourt, but he was on the French party,
and the earl of Dreux with him, with a good number of men of war: but
the Englishmen left Rouen and went to Gisors, where was a strong
castle: they brent the town and then they brent Vernon and all the
country about Rouen and Pont-de-l'Arche and came to Mantes and to
Meulan, and wasted all the country about, and passed by the strong
castle of Rolleboise; and in every place along the river of Seine they
found the bridges broken. At last they came to Poissy, and found the