Among the knights was the famous
William des Barres, one of the heroes of Bouvines, and Theobald, Count
of Blois. Eustace the Monk, a renegade clerk turned pirate, and a hero
of later romance, took command of the fleet. On the eve of St.
Bartholomew, August 23, Eustace sailed from Calais towards the mouth of
the Thames. Kent had become royalist; the marshal and Hubert de Burgh
held Sandwich, so that the long voyage up the Thames was the only way of
taking succour to Louis. Next day the old earl remained on shore, but
sent out Hubert with the fleet. The English let the French pass by,
and then, manoeuvring for the weather gage, tacked and assailed them
from behind.[1] The fight raged round the great ship of Eustace, on
which the chief French knights were embarked. Laden with stores, horses,
and a ponderous _trebuchet_, it was too low in the water to manoeuvre or
escape. Hubert easily laid his own vessel alongside it. The English, who
were better used to fighting at sea than the French, threw powdered lime
into the faces of the enemy, swept the decks with their crossbow bolts
and then boarded the ship, which was taken after a fierce fight.
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