Hubert's English fleet of forty ships sailed from Dover on the 24th of August, 1217, and steered towards Calais; for the wind was south-south-east and Hubert wished to keep the weather gage. For six hundred years to come, (that is, till, after Trafalgar, sails gave way to steam), the sea commanders who fought to win by bold attack always tried to keep the weather gage. This means that they kept on the windward side of the enemy, which gave them a great advantage, as they could then choose their own time for attacking and the best weak spot to attack, while the enemy, having the wind ahead, could not move half so fast, except when running away. Hubert de Burgh was the first commander who understood all about the weather gage and how to get it. Even the clever Eustace was taken in, for he said, "I know these clever villains want to plunder Calais. But the people there are ready for them." So he held his course to the Forelands, meaning to round into the mouth of Thames and make for London. Then Hubert bore down. His fleet was the smaller; but as he had the weather gage he succeeded in smashing up the French rear before the rest could help it. As each English vessel ranged alongside it threw grappling irons into the enemy, who were thus held fast. The English archers hailed a storm of well aimed arrows on the French decks, which were densely crowded by the soldiers Eustace was taking over to conquer England. Then the English boarded, blinding the nearest French with lime, cutting their rigging to make their vessels helpless, and defeating the crews with great slaughter. Eustace, having lost the weather gage, with which he had started out that morning, could only bring his fleet into action bit by bit. Hubert's whole fleet fought together and won a perfect victory. More than a century later the unhappy Hundred Years War (1336-1431) broke out. All the countries of Western Europe took a hand in it at one time or another. Scotland, which was a sort of sub-kingdom under the King of England, sided with France because she wished to be independent of England, while the smaller countries on the eastern frontier of France sided with England because they were afraid of France. But the two great opponents were always France and England. The Kings of England had come from Normandy and other parts of what is now France and what then were fiefs of the Crown of France, as Scotland was a fief of the Crown of England. They therefore took as much interest in what they held in France as in their own out-and-out Kingdom of England. Moreover, they not only wanted to keep what they had in France but to make it as independent of the French King as the Scotch King wanted to make Scotland independent of them.