This defeat was a severe blow to the hopes of Louis, but he still held firm at London, watching for his reinforcements. The Dauphiness had collected several hundred knights and large supplies, which were to be conveyed to England by Eustace the Monk, a renegade ecclesiastic, now a noted pirate chief, with a fleet of 100 sail. On August 23 it sailed from Calais, but as all the south-eastern ports were hostile, and were held in force by the Marshal, who had his headquarters at Sandwich, it turned up Dover Straits to round the North Foreland and put into the Thames. As it passed Dover, the Cinque Ports squadron, some forty vessels under Hubert de Burgh himself, put out to the attack. The ships were well manned with bowmen (or crossbowmen) under Philip d’Albini, and quicklime was provided for use against boarders. The heavily laden French ships were at a hopeless disadvantage. The English seamen manœuvred for the wind, and, having gained it, bore down on their encumbered foes. The result was an overwhelming victory. Robert de Courtenay, the leader of the reinforcements, was taken prisoner. So, too, was the Monk, who, having been in the English service, was immediately beheaded. Many knights were slain, others drowned themselves in despair, and only fifteen ships escaped. The victory had decisive results. Louis at once made peace, submitting to the Pope’s legate, and abandoning all hopes of the English crown. Hubert de Burgh became the darling of England. Years later, when he had fallen into disgrace with Henry III., a smith who was ordered to fetter him threw down hammer and chains and swore that he would never put iron upon the man who had saved England from a foreign yoke. For more than three centuries there was little that can be described as a serious invasion of England from the sea. The constant raids and counter-raids of the more than half-piratical seamen of the Channel ports, indeed, went on unchecked. The State Papers afford ample evidence that piracy was rife among the seamen of the English ports. During the ‘Hundred Years’ War’ with France these raids became of national significance. At first the English held the command of the sea by their famous victories of Sluys in 1340 and ‘L’Espagnols sur Mer’ in 1350, but after 1372 it passed to the allied French and Castilians. As early as 1360 Winchelsea was sacked--a fate it again suffered in 1361. In 1369 Portsmouth was burned. In 1372 the French and Spaniards gained a complete victory over the English off La Rochelle. France had now a capable admiral in Jean de Vienne, and in 1377 he carried devastation along the English coast. The Isle of Wight was wasted, and Dartmouth, Plymouth, Yarmouth, Rye, Hastings, and Portsmouth, sacked one after another. The English were helpless, and the French sailed up the Thames to Gravesend, which shared the fate of the other ports. The Patent Rolls of this period are full of records of the prevailing panic and disaster.