Although Alfonso XI died of plague on 27 March the Castilian fleet continued their attacks on English merchant shipping. Edward’s government feared the French might use them and a small knot of French vessels gathering at Leure to ‘dominate the English Sea’, in a spate of raids similar to those of the late 1330s. It was feared that they might land an invasion force, and rumours also abounded that they planned to intercept the annual English wine convoy. That the Spanish vessels were famously valuable tarets also influenced Edward and his commanders. The Castilian merchant fleet in Sluys had disgorged its cargo of Spanish wool in the winter, and the big ships were now heavily laden with Flemish cloth, treasure and other valuables. In response to the threat, the king’s ships were ordered to spring into operation after a year of almost total inactivity. At the beginning of May 1350, Cog Thomas received orders to sail from Sandwich with a double crew of 100 mariners. La Jonette and Cog Edward were in the same port, and were joined there by a group of smaller king’s ships, La Plenite, La Isabel, La Gabriel, La Michel, La Welifare and La Mariote.

Over the next four months the remaining king’s ships gathered from their home ports around the kingdom. The mighty Jerusalem was nearby in her home port of Winchelsea, and was joined there by La Seinte Marycogge from London, La Godbiete from Dartmouth, La Cog Johan, La Edmond, La Laurence Buchet, La Portejoie and La Nauwe Seinte Marie from Southampton, La Faucon from Ravenser and the Black Prince’s La Bylbauwe. At least twenty of twenty-five king’s ships were used. The remainder, including La Cog Arundell, La Mariote and La Cog Anne, were too small to handle the big Castilian vessels and were kept in reserve in the Thames. The rush to refit and prepare the king’s ships for action required a new officer. Thomas Snettisham, the former Clerk of the King’s Ships, was appointed ‘Maker and finder of all necessaries for the King’s Ships, pinnaces and barges’, an office discontinued after the Battle of Winchelsea but later made permanent.