April 13th and 14th, 1360 A.D.: English Commander and King Edward III Gets Crushed by God...And Wisely Kneels On the Battlefield In Contrition
The 100 Year War (1337 - 1453) was really about 116 years in duration and was primarily a conflict between France and England though there were alliances. One of England's longer reigning kings, Edward III (b. 1312 A.D. - d. 1377 A.D.) who reigned as King of England and Ireland from 1327 A.D. to 1377 A.D. was a key player during a fair part of it. He had ambitions of being not only King of England, but King of France as well. Yet just as God sets the boundaries for the seas, so also, He takes action when and as He wishes to fix the destinies of nations in accordance with His plans. Edward III encountered this fact in a startling manner in on April 13th and 14th, Easter Monday as it happened, in the year 1360 A.D. The term 'Easter Monday' referred back then to the Monday following Easter Sunday. The event, not so widely remembered anymore, has become known in English history as Black Monday.
Edward's goal was to take about 10,000 choice troops across the English Channel and invade France. He would try to induce the French in Paris to come out of their gates and meet him in battle and he felt he would crush them. As it turned out, when he arrived the French wisely stayed within the well-fortified walls of Paris and would not rise to the bait of meeting King Edward III and his English troops in open battle. After a frustrating period of trying to taunt them out, with no success, Edward's army marauded about the Paris countryside and then marched off to beset another walled city about 56 miles to the south-west of Paris...a city named Chartres...which Edward felt might be less impregnable.
Arriving there in the open fields around Chartres on the evening of the 13th of April, the army began to make camp and set itself up for the anticipated siege, as Chartres watched from over their walls. There is a very beautiful and prominent cathedral - the Cathedral of our Lady of Chartres - there in that city. Here is how it looks today:
As the English began arranging themselves around the praying and preparing city of Chartres the weather suddenly took a dramatic turn: icy cold winds came down along with freezing rain. Early into the event two of the English leaders were struck by lightning and killed. Terribly high winds struck immediately sending equipment flying in many directions. Great hail stones came down as well, striking everyone and everything, for there was no real overhead shelter in the fields around the city.
Within 1/2 hour the great invading English army had suffered the death of around 6,000 horses, and about 1,000 men. Though certain battles of antiquity such as Cannae between Hannibal and the Romans in the 3rd century B.C. had losses closer to 60,000 men and dwarf this later incident in terms of casualties, this loss of 1,000 stout English soldiers was greater than the losses of any single battle that had occurred in the 100 Year War up to that point in time. And some unknown number of other soldiers were left wounded to varying degrees by the hail. Soldiers and armies long used to outdoors campaigns are no stranger to a storm. But whatever sort of tempest these men encountered was of an entirely new level of ferocity. It was terrifying. By its end King Edward III was off his horse and on his knees praying to God to spare their lives and saying that he saw that God was highly displeased with his plan to try to attack these cities. Turning towards the French cathedral it is reported that he pleaded with God, pledging to turn back and return to England if only God would relent.
The storm subsided, and Edward was true to his word...basically...though he took what advantage he could. He negotiated a peace treaty in which the French ceded valuable lands in the north of France to him, but in return he agreed to give up his plans to become King of France. For about 6 or 7 years the truce held up before it was broken and the 100 Years War continued.
God could then and can now make an instant joke and a shambles out of any army mankind could possibly ever form. As the Bible puts it 'the horse is made ready for battle, but victory rests with the Lord.' Proverbs 21:31. We have nothing new - no new weapons - that the Lord God Almighty and His Son Jesus cannot render instantly obsolete and pointless. Biological weapons, lasers, chemical weapons, nuclear...each of these types of weapons are based on principals and fundamentals that God has absolute mastery over. Absolute mastery. Absolute complete knowledge of these topics. All things have their being through God and all things are sustained, held together, through God's allowance.
There should be no war in a loving Christian world. But where and when there is the tragedy of war, God is sovereign over its outcome as He is with all other things that occur in His Creation. Edward III may or may not have been a very good man as men and kings go. We never met him in our day and time, right? And those were warlike times. And we are not the judge of men. But he had true fear of God; we can give Edward credit for having the good sense to recognize exactly Who was effortlessly destroying his army and when he showed humble remorse God had mercy on his pleas and contrition...and on the remains of his army. It is, it would seem, yet another great deed of God that is known of by far too few people in our present day.