The French invasion plan of England (1386) was an ambitious royal campaign that turned a local judicial case into part of a wider season of military preparation. Proposed by Philip the Bold and approved by the young Charles VI, it envisioned an armada of more than a thousand ships and a direct assault on England. The king set out to lead the expedition himself, but violent weather halted the enterprise. Its interruption also shaped the timetable of the Parlement of Paris’s inquiry into the Carrouges–Le Gris case and the duel that followed.

Background and Strategic Ambition

The plan emerged in August 1386, when the Parlement’s inquiry into the dispute between Jean de Carrouges and Jacques Le Gris had entered its second month. During July, Charles VI and the French royal court had followed the quarrel closely. By August, however, royal attention shifted from domestic affairs and the prospect of a duel to the renewed threat of war with England. Summer weather had again opened a military window, and hostilities appeared imminent.

The campaign followed an inconclusive effort the previous year. Charles had sent Admiral Jean de Vienne to Scotland with a French army that included Jean de Carrouges. The expedition had burned and pillaged across the border counties, drawing Richard II and his forces north, away from London. A second French invasion from the south, which would have made the English face attacks on two fronts, never took place; the original two-pronged plan was abandoned. In 1386, Philip the Bold proposed a larger and more devastating undertaking, presenting it as a means for Charles to win lasting renown and deal England a decisive blow.

The proposal was not simply a continuation of the Scottish expedition. The previous year’s campaign had drawn English forces toward the northern border, while the new scheme called for a huge invasion force and a fleet capable of carrying it across the Channel. The book describes the proposed operation at its intended scale, but does not provide a detailed account of its military design, provisioning, or precise landing arrangements. Its central political feature is clearer: Philip advanced the plan, and the king himself was to take command.

Royal Commitment and Preparations

Charles, still young and impressionable, approved Philip’s proposal at once. He prepared to leave Paris for Sluys, the Flemish port where he would take his place at the head of the invasion force and an armada of more than a thousand ships. Before departing, he attended a solemn mass at Notre-Dame Cathedral and vowed not to return to Paris before setting foot on English soil. The vow made the expedition a personal undertaking as well as a royal military project: the king’s anticipated return depended on success across the sea.

His departure also shifted the balance of attention in Paris. The Parlement continued its proceedings after the king and his uncles left, including the inquiry into the Carrouges–Le Gris affair. The knight and the squire remained in the city, free to move about but obliged to appear before the court whenever summoned. Their case did not stop; rather, it proceeded while the sovereign who had followed it closely pursued a much larger campaign.

By mid-September, Charles and his uncles were on the Flemish coast assembling the armada. The king was in Arras, travelling toward Sluys, when he learned that the Parlement had ordered Jean de Carrouges and Jacques Le Gris to fight and set their duel for late November. The date lay more than two months ahead, beyond the triumphant return Charles expected from England. The proposed invasion therefore affected the legal case not only as a rival demand on royal attention, but as a campaign whose anticipated timetable left the king expecting to be absent when the duel was due to take place.

Weather, Portents, and Cancellation

The expedition never sailed for England. Violent thunderstorms delayed the preparations and sank many ships. The same storms uprooted large trees and killed people and animals with lightning. The narrative also records reports treated as strange portents: at Plaisance, lightning struck a church, burned its wooden furnishings and sacred vessels, while fragments of the consecrated host were said to remain untouched. Near Laon, flocks of crows reportedly carried burning coals to grain-filled farm buildings, which caught fire and burned. These episodes belong to the contemporary atmosphere of ominous signs surrounding the stalled campaign; the account gives them as reports, not as an explanation of the storms.

Faced with the weather and the delays, Charles and his uncles called off the invasion until the following year. The proposed assault thus ended in postponement rather than a crossing to England. The armada’s great scale and the king’s vow stand in sharp contrast to the outcome: a campaign announced as a potential blow against England was checked before it began, by conditions that disrupted the fleet and undermined the schedule on which the royal undertaking depended.

Effects on the Parlement and the Duel

Although the inquiry continued during the king’s absence, Charles’s expectation that he would return in triumph did not survive the failed timetable. By mid-November he was preparing to leave for Paris and was eager to witness the combat. Concerned that another delay might keep him from it, he consulted his uncles, the dukes of Berry, Burgundy, and Bourbon, who also wished to see the duel. Less than a week before the scheduled date, the king sent sealed letters back to Paris ordering that the combat be postponed until after his return.

The Parlement convened on November 24, three days before the duel was to occur, and complied with the king’s request. It rescheduled the combat for December 29. The invasion plan did not determine the merits of the accusation or the court’s decision to authorize a duel; its failure altered the king’s movements and, in turn, the date on which the combat could proceed. The postponement prolonged the wait for Jean de Carrouges, Jacques Le Gris, and Marguerite de Carrouges, while the king’s unrealized English campaign became part of the immediate background to the final proceedings.