ABSTRACT
Already before the Peace of Calais had been signed, it had become evident that the strategical policy of Edward III.—if policy it can be called—had been tried and found wanting. Devastating raids, however sweeping and prolonged, could not conquer France: and the enemy had given up, after Poictiers, any idea of delivering great offensive battles against the invading English armies. Auray might be quoted as an exception; but this was really no battle of French against a national English force, but a local Breton affair, in which a certain number of English mercenaries (with an unduly low proportion of archers) served as the auxiliaries of one claimant to the Breton duchy against the other—who for his part was supported in a similar way by a large body of French mercenaries. Actually, as well as theoretically, Auray was not a typical conflict between England and France.
