Edmund was on his last legs, but at least had the satisfaction of seeing the French garrison at Langon run away. The Langonnais were loyalists and freely surrendered their town to the forces of the king-duke. Nearby lay the town of Rions, but this was no longer a strategic objective since the French had dismantled its defences in the previous year.
Now installed as lieutenant of Langon, Edmund sent a message to the town of St Macaire, ordering the inhabitants to surrender. One of the confusing aspects of the war in Gascony is the plethora of mixed loyalties: the people of St Macaire chose to support the French, and obtained a truce from Edmund for three days. They used that time to ask for help from the French garrison at Bordeaux, and when this failed to arrive the town duly offered its surrender.
The French in the castle, led by Thibaut de Cheppoix, chose to resist. Edmund laid siege, but the garrison resisted daily assaults for three weeks. At the same time Edmund’s Gascon troops under the Captal de Buch and other nobles pillaged the town without mercy. A later petition revealed that the Gascons stole wine, oats, corn, hay, bread and other victuals from the burgesses. A citizen named Gaillard Ayquem, at that time being held hostage by the French, complained that his property had been ransacked: four coffers were broken open, six feather pillows and eight sheets removed, two cloaks and many bedcovers and hangings looted, grain taken from his storehouse, while his servant had been stripped of his shirt and held prisoner for three days.
This was no way to win hearts and minds. The approach of a French army under the Comte d’Artois (coat of arms attached) forced Edmund to raise the siege, and the disgruntled citizens promptly opened their gates to the enemy.
Edmund was out of luck, out of money and almost out of time. ‘His face fell’, reports the chronicler, and he was sick in body and spirit.
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