Around midday 3 August 1347 a mournful procession emerged from the city of Calais. Six of its most distinguished citizens humbly walked out of the main gate, dressed only in their shirtsleeves, with nooses around their necks and the city's keys in their hands. Behind them men, women, and children were weeping bitterly and wringing their hands in despair. Outside the gate they were received by the wrathful King Edward III of England, by Edward's wife, Queen Philippa, and by tens of thousands of enemy soldiers. For eleven months Edward had besieged Calais in what turned out to be the biggest military undertaking of his reign and one of the costliest sieges of the Middle Ages. Roughly 32,000 men were shipped from England for the siege – the largest English army sent overseas in the Middle Ages. A fleet manned by another 15,000 sailors blockaded the city from the sea, while an allied Flemish field army of about 20,000 men supported the English on land. Edward's rival, King Philip VI of France, gathered a huge force to oppose Edward, numbering at least 20,000 men, and made every effort to hamper the siege. Hunger eventually forced the city to capitulate, but only after it had successfully withstood all of Edward's devices and threats, and after the siege had drained the financial resources of both England and France to the breaking point. There was no longer any food left inside the starving city, and Philip's army could not risk a field battle so soon after the disaster it suffered at Crécy.