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Updated: May 15, 2025
On reaching the Somme Henry followed its left bank up, intending to cross at the ford of La Blanche-Tache, across which Edward the Third had carried his army before fighting at Crecy. The French, as on the previous occasion, held the ford; but they this time had erected defences on each of the banks, and had strong posts driven into the bed of the river.
Philip immediately ordered a Norman baron, Godemar du Fay, to go with a body of troops and guard the ford of Blanche-Tache, below Abbeville, the only point at which, it was said, the English could cross the river; and on the same day he himself moved with the bulk of his army from Amiens on Airaines.
He sent for some prisoners he had made in the country, and said to them, "right courteously," according to Froissart, "'Is there here any man who knows of a passage below Abbeville, where-by we and our army might cross the river without peril? And a varlet from a neighboring mill, whose name history has preserved as that of a traitor, Gobin Agace, said to the king, 'Sir, I do promise you, at the risk of my head, that I will guide you to such a spot, where you shall cross the River Somme without peril, you and your army. 'Comrade, said the king to him, 'if I find true that which thou tellest us, I will set thee free from thy prison, thee and all thy fellows for love of thee, and I will cause to be given to thee a hundred golden nobles and a good stallion." The varlet had told the truth; the ford was found at the spot called Blanche-Tache, whither Philip had sent Godemar du Fay with a few thousand men to guard it.
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