Crécy was the first fight which taught the rulers of the continent the worth of the English bowman. When the vast French army came up against them, they easily repelled every attack. First, they riddled with arrows the Genoese cross-bowmen, who could make no stand against them, for the archer could shoot six times before the Genoese could wind up their clumsy arbalests for a second discharge. Then when the French chivalry advanced, they shot down men and horses so fast that it was only at a few points that the enemy ever succeeded in reaching their line, and coming to handstrokes with the Prince of Wales and his dismounted knights. At evening the French fled, routed by less than a third of their numbers, before King Edward and his reserve had occasion to strike a single blow. Edward knighted his son on the field--the first victory of the celebrated "Black Prince," who was to prove as good a soldier as his father. When the French dead were counted, it was discovered that the English archery had slain 11 dukes and counts, 83 barons, 1200 knights, and more than 20,000 of the French soldiery. John, King of Bohemia, who had come to help Philip VI., though he was old and weak of sight, was also among the slain. On the other hand, the English had lost less than a thousand men (August 26, 1346). [Illustration: BATTLE OF CRÉCY, 1346.] After this splendid victory, King Edward was able to march unmolested through the land. He resolved to end the campaign by taking Calais, the nearest French seaport to the English coast, and one which, if held permanently, would give him an ever-open door into France. [Sidenote: =Capture of Calais.=] Accordingly, he sat down before Calais, and beleaguered it for many months, till it fell by famine in the next year. The King of France could do nothing to relieve it, and the town had to yield at discretion. The men of Calais had made many piratical descents on England, and Edward was known to bear them a grudge for this. Therefore seven chief burgesses of the place gallantly came forward to bear the brunt of his wrath, and offered themselves to him with halters round their necks, begging him to hang them, but spare the rest of their townsmen. Edward was at first inclined to take these patriotic citizens at their word, but his wife Queen Philippa urged him to gentler counsels, and he let them go. But he drove out of Calais every man who would not own him as king and swear him fealty, and filled their places with English colonists. Thus Calais became an English town, and so remained for more than 200 years, a thorn in the side of France, and an open gate for the invader from beyond the Channel. [Sidenote: =Scottish invasion.--Battle of Neville's Cross.=]