TIIE CAREER OF SIR THOMAS TRIVET (1330-88)

them. As a result, the forces were split, Calveley marched to Gravelines and the rest under Trivet and Elmham went to Bourbourg. Charles VI of France arrived outside Bourbourg on the 12th September and the siege began. There are two detailed accounts of the events in the city, that of Froissart and a brief narrative in Knighton's Chronicle. The latter blatantly favours Trivet's role in the siege suggesting that he perhaps either received his account from Trivet himself or from someone in the latter's retinue. He writes of Trivet being besieged by the King of France, with incidentally no mention of Despenser or even Elmham (although Elmham was at Bourboug when the town eventually surrendered). The King, Knighton reports, threw his forces at Bourbourg but they were 'well-beaten' and forced to withthdraw.¹⁸ Charles VI then invited Trivet and his men to surrender, to which Trivet gallantly replied; 'that if the King of France and his men wished to continue the assault against them as they had begun it, at the end of fourteen days he would find a smaller number of Englishmen

He was grateful, he said, that so noble a king, with so powerful an army, should have done such an honour to a handful of Englishmen as to grant them the favour off a battle’.¹⁹ The end of the siege is glossed over quickly, the chronicler explaining that they agreed to surrender on the provision thm they would be allowed to leave unharmed.

Froissart, in far more detail, records how all-out battle was avoided in favour of a peaceful settlement. On the 14th September 1383. he states that Charles VI. the Count of Flanders and the Dukes of Berry, Burgundy, Bourbon and Brittany received an English envoy consisting of 14 knights, including Trivet and Elmham, in the royal tent outside the city walls. An agreement was made in which the English force would withdraw back tc Gravelines and evacuate from there, taking with them their weapons and luggage. Accordingly the army, under Trivet and Elmham, left Bourbourg on the 16th and by the next day they were at Calais having sacked Gravelines on their way through.²⁰

The Bishop of Norwich, his captains and their men returned to England to a less than favourable welcome. Anger was voiced not so much because the crusade had been an overall disaster, but because the leaders of the force had denied an English victory in favour of personal gain. Of all the chroniclers, the Westminster Chronicler is most critical. He states that Trivet, Elmham and Farringdon who led the army at Bourbourg surrendered the town to the King of France because they had been 'lured by bribes’.²¹ The Chronicler is incensed by their actions; 'we are aware of no occasion when this' infamous thing has been done by the knights'of England... Will not the action of these knihts redound to the everlasting future humiliation qf Englishmen? It will indeed.’²² He states that the captains received the total of 28.000 francs between them in bribes but this has been slightly exaggerated. In total they received 13,000 francs with Trivet curiously singled out as receiving an additional amount of money.²³ However, Trivet was eventually fined the total sum of 1,400 francs. with no evidence of any extra sum given to him by the French.²⁴