regulated the waters of the ship canal, which bore to the great mart of Bruges the merchantmen of every land.  It was in this harbour that Edward, on arriving off Blankenberghe, first spied the fleet of Quieret and Behuchet.  He anchored at sea for the night, and on the afternoon of June 24, the anniversary of Bannockburn, he bore down on the French, having the sun, the tide, and the wind in his favour.  On his approach Barbavera urged that the French should take to the open sea; but Quieret and Behuchet preferred to fight in the harbour.  As an unsatisfactory compromise, however, the French moved a mile or so towards the enemy.  Then they lashed their ships together and awaited attack.

    [1] For this see Professor Tait’s inset map of the district in
    Oxford Historical Atlas, plate lvi.

The English, unable to break the serried mass of their enemies, feigned a retreat, whereupon the Normans unlashed their ships and hurried in pursuit into the open water.  At once the English turned and met them.  The battle began when the English admiral, Robert Morley, lay alongside the Christopher, which, after its capture, had been taken into the enemy’s service.  Soon the ships of both fleets were closely grappled together in a fierce hand-to-hand fight which lasted until after nightfall.  The desperate eagerness of the combatants strangely contrasted with the slackness of the campaign in the Thierache.  “This battle,” says Froissart, “was right fierce and horrible, for battles by sea are more dangerous and fiercer than battles by land, for at sea there is no retreat nor fleeing; there is no remedy but to fight and abide fortune, and every man to show his prowess.”  In the end the English won an overwhelming victory, which was completed next morning after more hard fighting.  During the night Barbavera and his Genoese put to sea and escaped, but the magnificent Norman fleet was in the hands of the victor.  The English loss was small, though it included Thomas of Monthermer, a son of Joan of Acre, and Edward himself was wounded in the thigh.  The Norman force was almost annihilated.  Quieret fell mortally wounded into Edward’s hands; Behuchet was captured unhurt.  A later Norman legend tells how Behuchet, when brought before the English king, answered some taunt by boxing the king’s ears, whereupon the angry monarch hanged him forthwith from the mast of his ship.[1] But the tradition is unsupported by English authorities, and, with all his faults, Edward was not the man to deal thus with a captive knight who had fought his best.  Master at last of the sea, Edward landed at Sluys amidst the rejoicings of the Flemings, and made his way to Ghent, where he greeted his wife, and first saw his infant son John, born during his absence, to whom Artevelde stood as godfather.

    [1] Luce, Le Soufflet de l’Ecluse, in La Frame pendant la
    Guerre de Cent Ans, 2nd serie, pp. 3-15.