THE Englishmen within, which in number passed not six hundred men, manfully defended the daily assaults of the fierce Frenchmen. The Englishmen consulted together what way was best to be taken: and after long debating, they determined to issue out of the town and to fight with their enemies. So on a day, when the Britons were wearied with along assault, towards the evening the Englishmen came out of the town, one part by the postern of the Castle, and another part by the gate of the town, crying ‘Saint George’, ‘Salisbury’:* and set on their enemies both before and behind.
The Frenchmen seeing the courage of the Englishmen, and hearing their cry, thinking that the Earl of Salisbury was come to raise the siege, ran away like sheep, and there were taken, slain and drowned in the water, of them four thousand men and more. Besides this, these holy gallants left behind them for haste, all their tents, fourteen great guns, and forty barrels of powder, three hundred pipes of wine, two hundred pipes of biscuit and flour, two hundred frailes* of figs and raisins, and five hundred barrels of herring.
spelling modernised
Abridged, modernised and emended from ‘Hall’s Chronicle’, originally compiled by Edward Hall (?-1547) and republished in 1809 under the supervision of Sir Henry Ellis (1777-1869), drawing on the editions of 1548 and 1550. It is sometimes known by the name of its first publisher, Richard Grafton (?1506/7 or 1511-1573). See also Raphael Holinshed’s account in ‘Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland: Henry Sixt’ (1577, revised 1587) by Raphael Holinshed (1529-1580).
* They were shouting for Thomas Montagu (1388-1428), 4th Earl of Salisbury. Other accounts add the name of the Earl of Suffolk.