The Black Prince Edward of Woodstock: A Commander's Finest Hour
В previous article we talked about the origin of the famous Black Prince Edward of Woodstock, his relatives, including his grandmother – the no less famous "French She-Wolf" Isabella, the Battle of Crecy, in which he took part. Today we will continue this story.
After the Battle of Crecy
In 1347, Edward was in the army during the siege of Calais, and then, in 1349, he took part in the defense of that city. Then his father successfully lured the French into a supposedly abandoned castle, which had double walls, and the English took refuge in the space between them. As a result, the port city of Calais became an English stronghold on the continent for many years.
In 1350, father and son took part (and almost were captured) in the unsuccessful naval battle at Winchelsea, which was won by the Castilian ally of France. fleet.
"The Battle of the Spaniards at Sea (at Winchelsea)" (1350), a miniature from a medieval English chronicle
Meanwhile, in 1348, an epidemic of bubonic plague began in Europe, lasting until 1350. It caused great damage to both France and England, which were even forced to suspend military operations. As a result, the English army began to be replenished much more actively by Welsh, Irish, Scottish mercenaries, Flemings and French from the areas under Edward III. At the same time, the war unexpectedly became profitable for the English: the spoils of war were great, they received a good income as ransom for captured knights.
But the French were in trouble. Taxes from Aquitaine and Brittany were now going to the English treasury, and they had to mint coins with a lower silver content.
In 1350, King Philip VI died and his 31-year-old son John (Jean) II Valois ascended the throne. He only received his nickname "the Good" because his son and successor Charles was even worse for the common people (the mass murders during the suppression of the Jacquerie alone are worth something).
John II of Valois. Lifetime portrait, dated 1354.
In April 1351, John attempted to reform the army and recruit low-born and poor knights to serve for the king's salary. He hoped that this would reduce his dependence on the great feudal lords and mercenary commanders. However, this reform failed due to a lack of money in the treasury.
It is curious that in the same year of 1351, the "Battle of the Thirty" took place, which caused a lot of noise. At first, Robert de Beaumanoir, a supporter of France, and Richard Bamborough, who fought on the side of the English, wanted to "sort things out". However, their friends and supporters wanted to support them, and in the end they agreed that 30 knights would fight on both sides. The supporters of France won: Bamborough and eight of his supporters were killed, the rest were captured. But in real battles, the French suffered defeats.
In 1352, John II, following the example of the English King Edward III, tried to establish his own knightly order "for the glory of God and the Mother of God, the exaltation of chivalry and the increase of its glory and valor" - the Star. But it quickly fell apart. One of the reasons was the death of many of its members in Brittany, when the French, caught in an ambush, lost seven bannerets and about ninety ordinary knights.
Soon John II fell out with his southern neighbor, the King of Navarre, Charles II, the son of the woman mentioned in first article Philip the Fair's daughter-in-law Jeanne. As you may recall, she was sent to Navarre and married to a distant relative of Philip III. Charles II was called the Evil because he completely ruined Navarre. In 1352, he married another French princess, also Jeanne, the daughter of John II. As a descendant of Philip the Fair, Charles also laid claim to the French throne.
The stumbling block for the father-in-law and son-in-law was the disputed feudal allotments in Normandy. And now Navarre became an ally of the English.
In 1355, John II, under the guise of participating in a hunt, arrived in Rouen and arrested the King of Navarre at one of the feasts.
The arrest of Charles II by John II in a miniature from Froissart's Chronicles
With a sinister hint, he made the Château Gaillard castle, where Charles's grandmother Margaret of Burgundy had once been murdered, the place of his son-in-law's imprisonment. As a result, Charles II was forced to abandon the alliance with England. Edward III was not happy with the loss of an ally, and so he decided to intensify military action. On the one hand, he wanted the release of the King of Navarre and the renewal of the alliance with him. On the other, he hoped to force John II to finally recognize the lands of Normandy and Aquitaine, which he controlled, as sovereign possessions of the English kings.
1356 Campaign
So, in 1356, the King of England Edward III resumed hostilities, hoping to strike France from three sides. Such raids on enemy territory were called chevauchee - literally "cavalry attack", but sometimes translated as "promenade". He himself was to attack from Calais, his eldest son, the hero of the article, - from Aquitaine, Duke Henry of Lancaster - from Normandy. This commander, by the way, fought not only against the French and Scots, but even against the Moors with the Castilians and against the Lithuanians with the knights of the Teutonic Order. Personally leading the troops, he did not lose a single battle. He also became the author of the "Livre des sainctes medecines" ("Book of Divine Medicines"), written in French, which described the mental wounds of its author.
Portrait of Henry, Duke of Lancaster from William of Bruges's Book of the Order of the Garter, 1440-1450.
In the previously mentioned naval battle of Winchelsea, he saved the life of the Black Prince. However, he was not to become the main hero of one of the largest battles of the 14th century, which will be discussed a little later.
Edward III's promising plan was thwarted by the Scots, who attacked Northern England, forcing the king to defend his lands. The Duke of Lancaster's troops were held up by the muddy roads. Only the army of the Black Prince set out in time, marching from Gascony to Cherbourg and returning with rich booty.
The following year, it was decided to capture Paris, with the main role to be played by the army of the heir to the throne, numbering about seven thousand men. It set out from Bergerac on August 4, 1356, and reached the city of Aubigny, where it encountered the advance detachments of the French for the first time. From the interrogation of prisoners, it became clear that the main royal army, led by John II himself, was moving against the English. It included four French princes (sons of John II), Constable Gautier de Brion, two marshals, twenty-six counts and dukes, and three hundred and thirty-four bannerets. At the same time, the French intercepted the road along which the troops of the Black Prince hoped to join forces with the detachments of the Duke of Lancaster.
Edward of Woodstock decided to retreat, the French pursued him and eventually blocked him at Poitiers and Mupertuis. The French were numerically superior (some believe that their army was twice as large as the army of the English prince, others - three times), and it seemed that the English were doomed. In addition, they were running out of food, and sooner or later they would be forced to surrender. In general, John II should not rush, but the French aristocrats wanted exploits, and the king believed that a victory in battle would raise his considerably shaken authority. On the other hand, Prince Edward considered it necessary to enter into negotiations, promising to return all the lands conquered by the English and peace for 7 years. The French king responded with an arrogant refusal.
But Prince Edward wasted no time in negotiating. He occupied a bushy hill and further fortified his camp. When it became clear that battle was inevitable, so that his soldiers would not be distracted from the fight, he gave orders that not even the most noble Frenchmen were to be taken prisoner until the favorable outcome of the battle was finally clear. And the archers who had used up their stock of arrows were to join the ranks of the infantry.
Battle of Poitiers
The Battle of Poitiers by Eugène Delacroix, 1830.
This battle is also interesting because it is believed to have been the first in which aristocrats on both sides used plate armour.
To provoke the French to attack, Prince Edward ordered the Earl of Salisbury to feign a retreat on September 19, 1356. Remembering the great losses of horses at the Battle of Crecy, John decided this time that the main forces of his army would attack the English on foot. According to Jean Froissart, before the battle there was an unauthorized mounted duel between two knights armed with lances. The Gascon Eustache d'Aubresicourt fought for the English, and the German Ludwig von Cucibras for the French. The German was seriously wounded, but d'Aubresicourt was captured.
The first to attack the English were the knights of the "marshals' detachment", who were supposed to clear the way for the infantry. However, the English archers killed their horses, and one of the commanders of this detachment, Jean de Clermont, was killed. Another, Marshal Arnaud d'Audrehem (Arnoul d'Audrehem), who, by the way, participated in the arrest of the Navarrese king Charles the Bad and personally knighted the outstanding French commander Bertrand du Guesclin, ordered his men to retreat, but he himself was captured, from which he returned after the conclusion of peace in Bretigny. Froissart claims that during the retreat, the "marshals' detachment" disrupted the battle formations of the Dauphin Charles' detachment, which the English took advantage of: they counterattacked the French troops, the Dauphin fled, and his father, the king, was taken prisoner.
The Battle of Poitiers in a miniature from Froissart's Chronicles
But there is another version of events, according to which the Dauphin led his infantry to storm the hill, but along the way they suffered heavy losses from English arrows, and were then overthrown and fled. Another French detachment, commanded by the Duke of Orleans Philippe de Valois (the king's brother), seeing the defeat of the Dauphin's troops, retreated without even trying to engage in battle.
And then King John himself tried to turn the tide of the battle, attacking the English at the head of a select squad of knights and even pushing them back a little, but the Earl of Salisbury's warriors entered the rear of the French.
John II, with his younger son Philip at his side, fought bravely while surrounded, not with a sword but with an axe, but both were eventually taken prisoner.
The Capture of John the Good and His Son Philip at Poitiers. Drawing from the Popular stories France" by François Guizot, 19th century.
Froissart called the French king's behavior chivalrous, but most historians consider it stupid. Meanwhile, Edward managed to quietly lead a detachment of Gascon cavalry to the rear of the French left flank, and it was their blow that became decisive in this battle.
Map of the Battle of Poitiers 1356
Having almost three times the superiority in forces, the French lost almost three times more people than the English that day: from two and a half thousand to three thousand against one thousand. Along with the king, about two and a half thousand people were captured, including 35 French aristocrats and more than one hundred knights. Some claim that in the city of Poitiers, the French knights who escaped capture were beaten with sticks.
Everyone expected the English to capture Poitiers and other cities, but firstly, the Black Prince did not know how low the spirit of the retreating French was at that time, and secondly, his army was simply overloaded with booty and prisoners. And so Edward of Woodstock led his troops to Bordeaux, where he was given a truly enthusiastic welcome.
This defeat and capture of the king had a depressing effect on his subjects, and people began to openly say in the country that "God had abandoned France." The state was plunging into anarchy.
The next article will cover the end of the Edwardian War, the Black Prince's fateful campaign in Castile, and the last years of this commander's life.
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