Ponthieu is a land of low chalk downs, open fields, and dense woods, broken by valleys, through which the small streams that water it trickle down to the sea, and by the waterless depressions characteristic of a chalk country.  The village of Crecy-en-Ponthieu is situated on the north bank of the little river Maye.  Immediately to the east of the village, a lateral depression, running north and south, called the Vallee aux Clercs, falls down into the Maye valley, and is flanked with rolling downs, perhaps 150 to 200 feet in height.  On the summit of the western slopes of this valley, Edward stationed his army.  Its right was held by the first of the three traditional “battles,” under the personal command of the young Prince of Wales.  Its front and right flank were protected by the hill, while still further to the right lay Crecy village embowered in its trees, beyond which the dense forest formed an excellent protection from attack.  The second of the English battles, under the Earls’ of Northampton and Arundel, held the less formidable slopes of the upper portion of the Vallee aux Clercs, their left resting on the enclosures and woods of the village of Wadicourt.  The third battle, commanded by the king himself, and stationed in the rear as a reserve, held the rolling upland plain, on the highest point of which was a windmill, commanding the whole field, in which Edward took up his quarters.  The English men-at-arms left their horses in the rear.  The archers of each of the two forward battles were thrown out at an angle on the flanks, so that the enemy, on approaching the serried mass of men-at-arms, had to encounter a severe discharge of arrows both from the right and the left.  It was the tactics of Halidon hill, perfected by experience and for the first time applied on a large scale against a continental enemy.  The credit of it may well be assigned to Northampton, fresh from the fight at Morlaix, where similar tactics had already won the day.

The English were in position early in the morning of Saturday, August 26, and employed their leisure in further strengthening their lines by digging shallow holes, like the pits at Bannockburn, in the hope of ensnaring the French cavalry, if they came to close quarters with the dismounted men-at-arms.  The summer day had almost ended its course before the French army appeared.  Philip and his men had passed the previous night at Abbeville, and had not only performed the long march from the capital of Ponthieu, but many of them, misled by bad information as to Edward’s position, had made a weary detour to the north-west.  It was not until the hour of vespers that the mass of the French host was marshalled in front of the village of Estrees on the eastward plateau beyond the Vallee aux Clercs.  John of Hainault, who had become a thorough-going French partisan, advised Philip to delay battle until the following day.  The French were tired; all the army had not yet come up; night would soon put an