The Battle of Poitiers 1356 Read online

  THE BATTLE OF

  POITIERS

  1356

  THE BATTLE OF

  POITIERS

  1356

  DAVID GREEN

  Jacket illustrations: Courtesy of Kate Green.

  This edition first published 2008

  The History Press

  The Mill, Brimscombe Port

  Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

  www.thehistorypress.co.uk

  This ebook edition first published in 2013

  All rights reserved

  © David Green, 2002, 2008, 2013

  The right of David Green to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  EPUB ISBN 978 0 7524 9634 4

  Original typesetting by The History Press

  Contents

  Introduction: The Black Prince and the Hundred Years War

  Chapter One: 1355, the Grande Chevauchée

  Chapter Two: Winter–Spring 1355–6 Defence and Preparation

  Chapter Three: The Campaign of 1356

  Chapter Four: The Battle of Poitiers

  Chapter Five: Aftermath

  Conclusion: Poitiers, the Black Prince and his Military Retinue

  Acknowledgements

  Appendix I: Dramatis Personae

  Appendix II: Wargaming the Battle of Poitiers (written with Martin Tweedy Smith)

  Further Reading

  Abbreviations

  Notes

  Note on Illustrations

  List of Illustrations

  INTRODUCTION:

  The Black Prince and

  the Hundred Years War

  Edward the Black Prince was born at Woodstock in 1330 some seven years before the formal outbreak of the Hundred Years War.1 The title now given to this conflict, one coined by modern historians, is something of a misnomer. Traditionally, the war is dated from 1337 to 1453 – a period of 116 years – but this does not take account of the broad nature of Anglo-French relations and hostilities in the medieval period. Conflict, although by no means constant, had been endemic long before 1337. In particular, tensions had grown since Henry III of England and Louis IX of France signed the Treaty of Paris in 1259, and these did not cease in 1453 with the fall of Bordeaux. Indeed, the English monarchy maintained its claim to the throne of France after the revolution of 1789 ensured that there was no throne for them to seize.

  Like the conflict which he shaped and which dictated the course of his brief life and career – he died in 1376 – the name by which Edward of Woodstock is best known is the product of a much later age. There is no evidence for it being coined until the sixteenth century; the first example is found in Leland’s Itinerary, and it was publicised by Raphael Holinshed, whose chronicles provided a source for Shakespeare in whose works the prince appears, as an example and model for Henry V and in his own right in Edward III, a play which has been accepted into the canon in recent years. The idea that the name derived from a penchant for black armour remains unsubstantiated as does the theory that the name was of French origin, brought on by his brutal raids and victories in battle. Nonetheless, the prince’s reputation in France was certainly ‘black’. It is, for example, apparent in the Apocalypse tapestries commissioned by Louis of Anjou in 1373 which depict Edward III and his sons as demons devastating the French countryside. Certainly, the English chevauchée strategy, which the prince perfected in the 1355 raid burning his way across the belly of France from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, meant that there was little love for this paragon of chivalry in France.

  However, there is no doubt that he was considered among the most chivalrous of his generation. Late medieval chivalry was not an ethic or code of behaviour that restrained acts of violence; indeed it encouraged them. The image of the prince painted in the chronicles of Jean Froissart, and the verse biography written by the otherwise anonymous Herald of Sir John Chandos shows that prowess, skill-at-arms and military ability formed the foundations of chivalry. If the strategy that led to victory destroyed the reputation and revenue of one’s enemy by burning and destroying the land, property and persons of non-combatants then this was, by definition, chivalrous. Unfortunately for the prince his success during the campaigns of 1355–6 contributed to later difficulties when he became prince and near-sovereign ruler of much of Aquitaine

  The Black Prince is remembered above all as a warrior. Yet, his reputation as a military leader belies the small number of campaigns in which he was involved. He commanded the chevauchées of 1355 and 1356 and the Spanish campaign of 1367, but in the Reims expedition (1359–60), as he had been at Crécy (1346), he served as his father’s lieutenant and had little responsibility for strategy. Nonetheless, he appears to have been an extremely capable leader of men and a daring tactician who also enjoyed an element of good fortune on the battlefield. But it is difficult to draw any firm conclusions about his military ability from these few examples. The Black Prince and the men under his command, particularly his chief captains and lieutenants, several of whom are described in further detail in the Appendix, played a vital role in a wider English strategy orchestrated by Edward III. The success of this strategy, encompassing both foreign and military policy – broadly defined – resulted in English (and Anglo-Welsh/Anglo-Gascon) armies building a European reputation. The triumphs of Crécy and Poitiers erased the disgrace of Bannockburn (1314), and gave the victors the status of the finest warriors in Europe. The associated military developments, which some have described as revolutionary, saw great advances in recruitment, provisioning, strategy and tactics. As the heir-apparent and his father’s lieutenant the prince exemplified these advances and took full advantage of them.

  As a consequence, the Black Prince represents the broader English experience in the Hundred Years War. He fought in the vanguard at the battle of Crécy aged sixteen, and he witnessed the long siege of Calais (1346–7), which followed the triumph. Calais may seem a disappointing acquisition after such a comprehensive victory, certainly it may have been less than Edward hoped for, but the coastal town provided an excellent base for future military incursions and became a major trade centre when the wool staple was established there. The town saw further military action in 1350 which enhanced the prince’s reputation. The celebrated French knight Geoffrey de Charny offered Aimery of Pavia, governor of Calais, 20,000 crowns to betray the town in late October 1349. Aimery, however, passed on news of the plot to Edward III, and under the banner of Walter Mauny, the king and his eldest son, along with trusted knights such as Guy Brian successfully ambushed the attackers.

  After the siege of Calais the devastation of the Black Death curtailed further large-scale military action. Intense diplomatic activity marked the years until 1355 when the prince and others led a number of devastating raids deep into the French countryside. In the following year the indignities heaped upon the French were compounded when the prince captured Jean II, ‘the Good’, king of France, at the battle of Poitiers. This marked the point at which the prince truly took his place on the European stage.

  Pressing home their advantage the English launched a further expedition in 1359. This failed to capture the coronation city of Reims, and nor could the English t
ake Paris, but in 1360 the French agreed to the treaty of Brétigny-Calais in 1360. The treaty offered a king’s ransom for Jean II and the transfer of sovereignty over nearly a third of the kingdom of France to Edward III. Much of this was entrusted to his eldest son who in addition to his many estates in England and Wales received the title Prince of Aquitaine.

  The treaty of 1360, although flawed, was a serious attempt to end the war, but it did not endure and set a dangerous precedent. Indeed, when Henry V embarked on the Agincourt campaign (1415) he did so demanding restitution of that which he claimed was still owed from the treaty of Brétigny. In this fashion the failures of diplomacy fanned the flames of the Hundred Years War. So too did many other lesser, regional conflicts that were dragged within the orbit of the Anglo-French war. These ensured the Hundred Years War became a truly European conflict.

  In a narrower sense the Hundred Years War was a struggle between the French king and his magnates. The principal opposition was the king of England in his capacity as duke of Gascony, but Charles ‘the Bad’ of Navarre also proved a thorn in the flesh of the French monarchy as he sought to play off Valois against Plantagenet to his own advantage. This led to the battle of Cocherel on 16 May 1364, in which a number of the prince’s retinue participated. There the mercenary captain Bertrand du Guesclin, confirmed his growing reputation with victory over a Navarrese army assisted by some English and Gascon troops led by Jean de Grailly, the captal de Buch, a key Gascon supporter of England who was captured.

  The duchy of Brittany provided another area of friction. A war of succession between Charles de Blois and Jean de Montfort saw the protagonists looking to secure the support of France and England on their respective sides. In this unfolding conflict the prince played an important political and diplomatic role, and a number of his retinue and household took a more direct part. John Chandos led de Montfort’s troops at the clash at Auray on 29 September 1364. Alongside the English condotières, Robert Knolles and Hugh Calveley, Chandos successfully countered experimental French tactics designed to negate de Montfort’s archers. At Auray the tight formations of the Anglo-Breton forces triumphed in the mêlée in which Charles de Blois died and du Guesclin, who had led French forces in Charles’ ranks, was captured – not for the first or last time.

  Such encounters were characterised by the extensive use of mercenary troops. The Anglo-French war was not, of course, the first time mercenaries were used on the battlefield, but the longevity of the conflict and the variety of theatres in which it was fought provided a great number of employers and opportunities for such soldiers. Consequently, in the ‘cold war’ period from 1360, and especially after Auray, until the reopening of the war in 1369 there was a large pool of unemployed troops. The early 1360s saw the mercenary Free Companies raiding and ravaging the French countryside. They proved no minor inconvenience and hit hard a country that had already suffered the depredations of twenty years of English raiding, the social, demographic and financial effects of the Black Death, the revolt of the Jacquerie, the fiscal implications of funding the war effort and the need to pay Jean’s ransom – some 3,000,000 crowns. A Castilian civil war provided a solution to this problem and the opportunity for Charles V (King of France after his father’s death in 1364) to establish an ally on the southern border of the principality of Aquitaine, an ally who also controlled the most powerful galley fleet operating in northern European waters.

  It was from his principality of Aquitaine that the prince launched the English response. It was to be his last campaign and he secured his final victory at the battle of Nájera. He restored the English-allied Pedro I to the throne of Castile, a throne from which he had recently been deposed by mercenaries in the pay of Charles V and led by Bertrand du Guesclin, soon to be Constable of France. The battle of Nájera in 1367 was a close-run affair partly as a consequence of du Guesclin’s influence. He demanded better armour for the Trastamaran forces and attempted to counter the English combination of archers and infantry by making his knights fight on foot.

  Victory for the prince and Pedro, however, was short-lived, for the latter in a very literal sense – he was murdered by his half-brother, Enrique of Trastamara, at Montiel in 1369. A different fate awaited Edward when he returned to Aquitaine bankrupt and broken with the illness which would eventually claim his life. Pedro’s promises of repayment for the campaign proved hollow and when the prince demanded taxation from the principality of Aquitaine certain nobles appealed to the king of France and the parlement of Paris complaining of the financial impositions and the ‘tyranny’ of his government. Charles demanded the prince answer the charges; Edward refused. Rebellion followed, and soon open war. Within two years at most the French had recaptured all the territory ceded in 1360.

  Edward returned home after the siege of Limoges (1370), the last military action in which he participated. His health was such that he directed the assault on the city from a litter. His last years were ones of uneven decline, and his personal tragedy was underlined by the death of his eldest son, Edward of Angoulême. Until his death he took a greater interest in domestic politics and tried to secure the throne for his second son, Richard. His reputation grew as his health failed alongside the English war effort, and national mourning accompanied his death.

  CHAPTER ONE:

  The Grande Chevauchée

  of 1355

  In 1346, before the Crécy campaign, an appeal for military assistance had led to an English expedition in France. So it was once again in 1355. In January certain members of the Gascon nobility including Jean de Grailly, the captal de Buch (so-called because of the hereditary title he bore, to the captalate of Buch), and the lords of Lesparre and Mussidan, were present in England at the birth of Edward III’s son, Thomas of Woodstock. They took the opportunity to express their deep concern at the hostile activities of the count of Armagnac. As one of the most important members of the nobility of southern France, Jean d’Armagnac had been appointed the French king’s lieutenant in Languedoc in November 1352. He had not proved an amicable neighbour – only two months later he laid siege to the Gascon town of Saint-Antonin. Military pressure continued and considerable inroads were made into the duchy so that by the end of May 1354 Armagnac was encamped on the banks of the River Lot only twenty-seven leagues from Bordeaux.

  This assault was set against a general backdrop of growing hostility. Formal activity in the Hundred Years War had been limited after the fall of Calais to the English in 1347, partly because of the disruption caused by the Black Death (1347–50). Attempts at diplomacy including the abortive treaty of Guînes had failed and subsequent negotiations at Avignon had broken down. Accordingly, the Gascon request for a response to Armagnac’s attacks merely hastened the resumption of the Anglo-French war.

  Recruitment

  The Black Prince’s expedition in 1355 marked his first independent command, and the size and quality of the army he led was indicative of his importance and authority as a military commander and his status as heir-apparent. The expeditionary force composed members of his household, his retainers, annuitants and the retinues of those magnates who followed him.

  The English military machine had undergone something of a transformation, perhaps even a revolution, since it had been taught a bitter lesson in many battles with the Scots, the most painful of which had been delivered at Bannockburn. By 1355, English armies were becoming increasingly ‘professional’. They were no longer recruited through traditional ‘feudal’ means. Rather, recruiting captains were employed by means of indentures – contracts specifying the number and types of troops to be supplied for a particular campaign or particular period of service. Specific conditions of service concerning payment, booty and dates, and points of embarkation were agreed. Such agreements, which might be taken out for an individual or a whole army, were indicative of the increasingly sophisticated military approach the English had adopted.

  However, if the means of bringing an army into the field was innovative, the broad strat
egy that the army would implement was not. Raiding had been and continued to be one of the most common forms of warfare waged throughout the medieval period. But, the degree of organisation and devastation that the Anglo-Gascon army brought to this military tradition was something new. The English chevauchée strategy aimed to dislocate the foundations of economic, social and political life in France. In the event that this drew out the enemy to the battlefield an effective strategic and tactical plan had been established. In order to implement this, the right kind of troops, properly equipped and supplied were necessary. Such a strategy was not cheap, however, and its cost led to the development of near-permanent taxation in England.

  On 10 July 1355, the prince signed an indenture with his father which outlined the composition of the expeditionary force and the responsibilities of those involved. The prince was to lead a force of 433 men-at-arms (although this may have been exceeded), 400 mounted archers and 300 foot archers totalling 1,133 soldiers. This was to be supplemented by troops under the command of the earls of Warwick, Suffolk, Oxford, and Salisbury, Sir John Lisle and Sir Reginald Cobham. Taking into account the advance payments made to the captains around the same time, it is probable that the prince set sail with a total force of around 2,700.

  There are no extant muster rolls for the 1355 expedition, but some reconstruction of the army can be made through shipping records which indicate that Warwick, Suffolk, Oxford, Salisbury, Lisle and Cobham probably brought 500 men-at-arms and 800 archers. In addition to those recruited by the prince, this gives a total of 933 men-at-arms and 1,800 archers to which were added about several thousand Gascon troops.1

  The first indications that there would be a campaign, at least in recruiting terms, pre-dated the formal signing of the indenture and began in the prince’s earldom of Chester. In May and June 1355, 500 archers were to be ‘chosen, tested and arrayed’ along with 100 from Flintshire. They were contracted to arrive at Plymouth, the point of embarkation, ‘by three weeks before Midsummer’ and it appears that all but forty of these did so. Cheshire archers, probably due to national leanings rather than an indication of military skill, received a higher rate of pay than the Welsh soldiers who were employed as both archers and light infantry, armed with lances and pikes.2