Sluys

Sluys was the Flemish port where Charles VI intended to gather a vast French invasion force and an armada of more than a thousand ships. In the account of the planned assault on England, it became both a military staging point and a waypoint in the king’s journey between Paris and the coast.

A port chosen for invasion

Charles approved a proposal for a larger and more devastating invasion of England than the previous year’s abandoned two-front plan. Before leaving Paris for Sluys, he attended a solemn mass at Notre-Dame Cathedral and vowed not to return to the city until he had first set foot on English soil as a conqueror. The port thus marked the intended beginning of a campaign to carry the war across the Channel, with the young king himself planning to lead the force.

Delays and the abandoned campaign

The invasion did not proceed as planned. Violent thunderstorms damaged ships and caused widespread destruction; after the bad weather delayed preparations, Charles and his uncles called off the expedition until the following year. The account places Sluys at the center of these preparations, but does not describe a battle or an English landing from the port.

The duel caught in the king’s itinerary

While travelling from Arras toward Sluys, Charles received word that the Parlement had ordered a duel between Jean de Carrouges and Jacques Le Gris, originally scheduled for late November. Expecting to return from England in triumph, he was concerned that a delay might make him miss the combat. At the urging of his uncles, he sent sealed letters back to Paris ordering its postponement until his return and proposing December 29 instead.

The king and his uncles left Sluys on November 26. The next day, the date first appointed for the duel, Charles reached Arras; he entered Paris on December 5, after the invasion had been called off. Sluys therefore connects the unrealized military expedition with the postponement of a judicial contest that remained pending while the king was away.