Now Roye is some sixteen leagues due north of Compiegne.
So the days went by, for Messire Lefebvre Saint-Remy, the pursuivant, was hunting for my Lord of Huntingdon, all up and down Normandy, and at last came to Rouen, and to the presence of the Duke of Bedford, the uncle of the English King.

All this I myself heard from Messire Saint-Remy, who is still a pursuivant, and a learned man, and a maker of books.
Bedford then, who was busy hounding that devil, Cauchon, sometime Bishop of Beauvais, against the Maid, sent the Comte de Perche and Messire Loys Robsart, to bid the Duke of Burgundy be of what courage he might, for succour of England he should have.

Wherein Bedford was no true prophet.
Of all this we, in Compiegne, knew so much as that it was wiser to strike the Duke at Roye, before he could add English talbots to his Burgundian harriers.

Therefore all the captains of companies, as Boussac, Xaintrailles, Alain Giron, Amadee de Vignolles, and Loys de Naucourt, mustered their several companies, to the number of some five thousand men- at-arms.

We had news of six hundred English marching to join the Duke, and on them we fell at Couty, hard by Amiens, and there slew Loys Robsart, a good knight, of the Order of the Garter, and drove the English that fled into the castle of Couty, and we took all their horses, leaving them shamed, for they kept no guard.
Thence we rode to within a league of Roye, and thence sent a herald, in all due form, to challenge the Duke to open battle for his honour's sake.
This we did, because we had no store of victual, and must fight or ride home.
The Duke received the herald, and made as if he would hear him as beseems a gentleman under challenge.