In 1337, the Hundred Years’ War began when British King Edward III claimed the throne of France. On July 12, 1346, he invaded Normandy with an army of 4,000 knights, 5,000 men-at-arms with spears, and 7,000 archers armed with longbows. He launched a chevauchee, which was a march through enemy territory doing as much looting, burning, and killing as possible. When you combine this with the French scorching earth to slow the British down, it sucked to be a French peasant. King Philip VI organized an army that consisted of 20-30,000 knights, 8,000 men-at-arms, and 2-6,000 Genoese crossbowmen. (Historians disagree about the size of his army, with some arguing it was much larger.) Edward abandoned his chevauchee and sought a good defensive position. He found one near the village of Crecy. Both of his flanks were protected, so the French would have to attack him frontally. He put his archers in front and his knights in two units with the right one commanded by his 16-year-old son Edward (later called the Black Prince). The King was with the reserve in the rear of the army.
The French arrived at the battle site on August 26. Philip wanted to rest his men and attack the next day, but his knights refused to postpone their glory. The crossbowmen went ahead around 4 P.M. A sudden rainstorm wet their crossbow strings, lessening the distance of their bolts. The longbowmen removed their strings and put them in their jackets or hats. The battle opened with the Genoese shooting, but their bolts fell short. They were then hit by a blizzard of arrows. British archers could fire 10 arrows per minute. The British also used some primitive cannons. The Genoese retreated, but ran into the French knights who were inflamed by the cowardly crossbowmen, some of whom were struck down by the haughty knights. The knights pressed on and assaulted the British position. They would have been yelling the French battle cry: “God and St. Denis!”. The Brits would have responded with: “God and St. George!” They also had to deal with the arrows, which although their plate armor gave some protection at a distance, the same could not be said for their horses. Many knights went down when their horses were hit, sometimes falling on top of them. The muddy field was a factor. The French were persistent (stubborn) and kept coming back. Perhaps as many as 16 times. The last time around midnight. Between attacks, the British archers would move among the downed French killing them with daggers. Normally, noblemen were captured for ransom, but the British had a no quarter policy that day. One of those attacks penetrated all the way to the prince and he sent a message to his father for help. King Edward read the message and asked if the Prince was wounded. When he was told no, he famously said: “Let the boy win his spurs.” One of the attacks was led by King John of Bohemia. He was blind, but insisted on getting a few whacks in. Needless to say, he was killed. Along with about 1/3 of the knights. The battle marked the ascendency of the longbow as the dominant weapon in the first half of the war. The British would use them to win at Poitiers and Agincourt. The victory at Crecy lives on in the crest of the Prince of Wales. The Black Prince adopted the crest of John of Bohemia, so the current Prince of Wales uses three white feathers and “Ich Dien” (I serve).
https://www.britishbattles.com/one-hundred-years-war/battle-of-crecy/
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/battle-of-crecy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cr%C3%A9cy
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