In this year he landed in Normandy, where the English banner had not been seen since the days of King John, and executed a destructive raid through the duchy, and up the Seine, till he almost reached the gates of Paris. This brought out the king of France against him, with a mighty host, before which Edward retreated northward, apparently intending to retire to Flanders. But after crossing the Somme he halted at Creçy, near Abbeville, and offered battle to the pursuing enemy. He fought relying on the tactics which had been tried against the Scots at Dupplin and Halidon Hill, drawing up his army with masses of dismounted men-at-arms flanked on either side by archery. This array proved as effective against the disorderly charges of the French noblesse as it had been against the heavy columns of the Scottish pikemen. Fourteen times the squadrons of King Philip came back to the charge; but mowed down by the arrow-shower, they seldom could get to handstrokes with the English knights, and at last rode off the field in disorder. This astonishing victory over fourfold numbers was no mere chivalrous feat of arms, it had the solid result of giving the victors a foothold in northern France. For Edward took his army to beleaguer Calais, and after blockading it for nearly a year forced it to surrender. King Philip, after his experience at Creçy, refused to fight again in order to raise the siege. From henceforth the English possessed a secure landing-place in northern France, at the most convenient point possible, immediately opposite Dover. They held it for over two hundred years, to their own inestimable advantage in every recurring war. Battle of Neville's Cross. The years 1345-1347 saw the zenith of King Edward's prosperity; in them fell not only his own triumphs at Creçy and Calais, but a victory at Auberoche in Périgord won by his cousin Henry of Lancaster, which restored many long-lost regions of Guienne to the English suzerainty (Oct. 21, 1345), and another and more famous battle in the far north. At Neville's Cross, near Durham, the lords of the Border defeated and captured David Bruce, king of Scotland (Oct. 17, 1346). The loss of their king and the destruction of a fine army took the heart out of the resistance of the Scots, who for many years to come could give their French allies little assistance. Truce with France. The Black Death.