The Battle of Poitiers 1356 (3 page)

Preparation and Transport

The indenture of 10 June 1355, in addition to outlining the troops to be recruited for the expedition, also detailed the means by which the army was to travel to Gascony and undertake the
chevauchée
once it arrived there. It included specifications for the purchase of horses, the provision of ships, and lesser matters such as the purveyance of hurdles (used for separating horses when onboard ship). Thomas Hoggeshawe, lieutenant of John Beauchamp, the admiral of the fleet west of the Thames, was appointed acting commander of the prince’s fleet, and John Deyncourt, sub-admiral of the northern fleet, was also involved. General orders regarding the impending expedition were sent out as early as April. Henry Keverell, presumably a merchant or supplier of ships and boats, was paid for the purchase of gear for the prince’s ship; items were delivered to John le Clerk and his fellows, the keepers of the
Christophre
, the ship on which the prince was to travel; and on 16 July, ships from Bayonne were impounded (or ‘arrested’ as it was described) in various ports.
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Some of these vessels had previously been used to transport Henry of Lancaster’s troops to Normandy where he was to be engaged in a campaign in the hope that a twin-pronged assault would divide French royal forces between the north and the south.
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Letters of safe conduct were issued to the prince’s men between 8 June and 6 September. Preparations were undertaken, it seems, with the intention that the expeditionary force should arrive in Gascony immediately after the expiration of the Anglo-French truce on 24 June. In the event, however, contrary winds and delays in securing sufficient numbers of ships prevented departure until the second week of September. During the delay at Plymouth the prince stayed at Plympton Priory and concerned himself with affairs concerning his duchy of Cornwall. Tiderick van Dale, usher of the prince’s chamber, and Bartholomew Burghersh, the younger, led an advance party prior to the arrival of the main fleet soon after 1 July, and Stephen Cosington and William the Chaplain prepared the archbishop’s palace at Bordeaux for the prince who stayed there, whilst not on campaign, until his return to England in 1357. The fleet sailed on 8 or 9 September and arrived in Bordeaux just over a week later at the height of the vendage. The earls of Warwick, Suffolk and their retinues embarked and sailed separately from Southampton.
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On 21 September, the prince was presented to the great and the good of the duchy. He spoke before the nobles of Gascony and the citizens of Bordeaux; his appointment as the king’s lieutenant was proclaimed and his father’s letters and commands were read out in a ceremony conducted in considerable splendour in the cathedral of St Andrew.
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Les cavaliers de l’Apocalypse
¹³

Following as it did on the heels of the Black Death, the
chevauchée
of 1355 was a catastrophe for the people of southern France. The raid from Bordeaux to Narbonne cemented the Black Prince’s reputation, and perhaps, consequently, his pseudonym: Louis of Anjou’s Apocalypse tapestries would depict a similar raid as demonic. The prince was to be only one of the horsemen, however. As had been the strategy in 1346, the campaign was preceded by an attempt to divide French forces. This, again, involved Henry of Grosmont; he attacked Normandy with Charles of Navarre, while the prince rode from Gascony. It is possible that there was a third element to the plan and that King Edward himself may have intended to lead a further expeditionary force into the French interior.

No attempts at secrecy preceded the attack led by the prince in 1355. Hostilities had already broken out between Armagnac and the Gascons, and the raid from Bordeaux was merely one element in a wider operation; French forces would be divided if they tried to deal with the king, the prince and Lancaster simultaneously.

The army left Bordeaux on or a little before 5 October. Its strength, augmented by the contingents led by the Gascon nobility, probably numbering a further 4,000 men, brought the total force to between 6,000 and 8,000 troops. It marched south and a little east before heading almost due east on reaching Plaissance. Thereafter the raid continued to the Mediterranean coast and Narbonne. The return to Bordeaux followed a not dissimilar path, widening the band of destruction to encompass Limoux, Boulbonne and Gimont. The raid proved to be a remarkable exercise in devastation and destruction, and was the pre-eminent example of the
chevauchée
strategy. The army travelled from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean and back. It targeted the economic resources and the political credibility of the Valois monarchy in the south through assaults on more than 500 villages, towns, castles and other settlements.

When nearing Arouille, following usual practice, the army divided into three columns in order to march on a broad front to maximise any damage that might be caused. Anglo-Gascon casualties were low throughout the 1355 raid but there was a notable exception at this point in the operation when John Lord Lisle fell at Estang. Lisle had a long history of distinguished service. In 1339 and the early 1340s he had served in Gascony with Derby, and he had fought at Crécy in recognition of which he was appointed a founder member of the Order of the Garter. He had also been involved in the naval encounter at Winchelsea in 1350 and such service may well have contributed to his appointment as sheriff of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire and governor of Cambridge castle.
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Military service often led to public duties in the shires and, increasingly, in the service of central government as well as in parliament amongst whose members were many old soldiers.

The bureaucratisation of the English government meant that it became increasingly likely that one could forge a career and acquire patronage by rendering service in activities outside the military sphere. Nonetheless, military service remained one of the chief means of social and professional advancement. Hence, titles and promotions were granted regularly throughout the 1355 campaign. Richard Stafford was made a banneret at Bassoues on 19 October, and a number of new knights were dubbed including Tiderick van Dale and William Stratton, the prince’s tailor, on 12 November.

After marching south for a hundred miles, the army swung east, crossed the River Gers, which marked Armagnac’s eastern border, and approached the count’s headquarters at Toulouse. At this stage in the expedition the larger towns tended to be avoided while those less well defended were pillaged and burned. This was not a siege train but a swiftly moving raid of devastation. The army forded the Garonne to the south and then, in a highly audacious move, the Ariège – an unthinkable idea to those who knew the area, and one which does not seem to have occurred to Armagnac who was confident that the Anglo-Gascons would not be able to penetrate into Languedoc beyond Toulouse. The manoeuvre did not tempt Armagnac into the field, however, and the army arrived at Carcassonne on 2 November. The city attempted to bribe the prince with 250,000 gold écus. He did not accept and burned the
bourg
(the outer town) in response. No attempt, however, was made to assault the heavily defended
cité
(the fortified, administrative centre). Narbonne, reached on 8 November, provided even less resistance, although the citadel similarly held out. News of the prince’s advance meant the main town was virtually uninhabited and undefended when the army arrived. Edward stayed in the Carmelite convent while his troops looted the rest of the town, albeit while suffering attack and bombardment from the
cité
. They army withdrew on 10 November, pursued by furious troops and townsmen.

Two French armies began to converge on the prince at this point from Toulouse and Limoges led by Armagnac and Jacques de Bourbon respectively. The Marshal Clermont also brought troops from north of the Dordogne and further support was expected from Charles, the dauphin (the future Charles V) until he was diverted to Picardy. The prince marched north crossing the Aude at Aubian and when approached the French fell back. Armagnac’s policy mimicked that of Philip VI’s before the battle of Crécy, and with better reason because of it. He aimed therefore to defend principal river crossings, towns and fortified sites, and not to be forced into a confrontation. Prior to leaving Narbonne, the prince received letters from the pope who feared the intentions of an army not far from Avignon. The messengers were not received courteously and after a considerable wait were told to address their concerns to the king.

The proximity of Armagnac and Bourbon coloured the next phase of the expedition, but the prince’s motivations remain uncertain. Was he seeking a battle or trying to avoid one? Edward rode in the direction of Béziers before turning east, perhaps in the face of French reinforcements, towards Armagnac. The prince certainly expected a battle even if he did not try to engineer one, but Armagnac maintained his strategy and withdrew. The prince followed him as far as Carcassonne and then headed towards the comparative safety of the lands of the count of Foix. 15 November marked an iconic moment in the raid and indeed the whole
chevauchée
strategy: Edward and his commanders spent the day at the Dominican house at Prouille, it being Sunday, while the rest of the army burned four towns in 12 hours.

The prince met Gaston Fébus, count of Foix, on 17 November at Boulbonne and they reached an agreement: Gaston’s lands were to be spared any attack or disruption. While officially neutral, Gaston assisted the prince:
‘non seulement il assura son ravitaillement, mais encore il permit aux Béarnais de s’engager dans le corps expeditionnaire.’
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The difficult and treacherous route back to Gascony was perhaps taken in an attempt to deter Armagnac. Some fierce but limited skirmishing did take place but no full-scale encounter, and the army re-entered the duchy on 28 November reaching La Réole on 2 December.

Armagnac’s failure to react to the prince’s army is peculiar considering the extent of the destruction and the possible prizes should he win a battle. Hewitt argued, ‘It is most probable that he had a secret understanding with the English’, but there seems to be little evidence to support this view and far more to suggest that he was a loyal Valois subject. In any case, many commanders deliberately avoided pitched battle because of the possible consequences of defeat. Furthermore, the prince’s association with the count of Foix must have given him pause for thought, and Armagnac may have been greatly outnumbered – there is little evidence concerning the forces had at his disposal.
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The raids of 1355–6, like that which preceded the encounter at Crécy, struck at the military and personal reputation of the French monarch and nobility, and seriously affected royal tax revenue. Like earlier raids, the
grande chevauchée
was deliberately destructive, extremely brutal and all the more effective since it was methodical and sophisticated. After the conclusion of the expedition, Sir John Wingfield, the prince’s business manager, wrote to the bishop of Winchester. His letter shows great concern with determining the exact value to the French crown of the areas assaulted in 1355 and thus the precise extent of the economic damage.
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For the countryside and towns which have been destroyed in this raid produced more revenue for the king of France in aid of his wars than half his kingdom; … as I could prove from authentic documents found in various towns in the tax collectors’ houses.
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The 1355 expedition was an archetypal
chevauchée
and proved to be a remarkable tactical and logistical achievement. The prince marched from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean coast and back fighting only a few minor skirmishes and causing a vast amount of damage. French defensive preparations were generally ineffective and over 500 settlements were burned; it was ‘
une catastrophe sans précedent
.’
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CHAPTER TWO:

Winter–Spring 1355–6
Defence and Preparation

During the winter of 1355–6, the troops were billeted along the northern march. Warwick remained at La Réole, Salisbury went to Saint-Foy, and Suffolk to Saint-Emilion. The prince, with Chandos and Audley marched to Libourne. Three weeks passed before they undertook any further action.
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From the beginning of the Hundred Years War the need for public and parliamentary support encouraged the development of a sophisticated propaganda campaign in England. This took a wide variety of forms and media from stained glass images, manuscript illuminations, public ceremonies, pageants and proclamations, to meetings of the Order of the Garter. As part of this campaign it became normal practice to send regular communications back from the front to England in order to inform the public of successes and request further resources. In some cases these included personal letters. The 1355–6 expedition was no different and such documents are extremely valuable and provide a great deal of information about the period between the
grande chevauchée
and the raid that would lead to a battlefield outside Poitiers.
²

Two letters were written at Bordeaux on 23 and 25 December 1355 by the prince and John Wingfield (governor of the prince’s business affairs) to William Edington, bishop of Winchester. Edington was the head of the prince’s council in England and communications sent initially to the prince’s officials were then circulated more widely throughout the country. Wingfield also wrote from his base at Libourne on 22 January, probably to Richard Stafford, who had travelled back to England bearing letters and with a commission to return with reinforcements and supplies. This communication related events which followed the first raid.
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Later, other letters were dispatched, three of which remain and recount the events of the second raid and the battle of Poitiers. A communication of 25 June 1356, sent to the bishop of Hereford, was brief and requested prayers and masses. On 20 October, Roger Cotesford, one of the prince’s bachelors, took another letter to the bishop of Worcester. The most important missive, carried by Nigel Loryng to the mayor, aldermen and commonality of London, was probably also intended for subsequent distribution outside the capital.
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Other members of the retinue who wrote home also passed information. Bartholomew Burghersh penned communications to John Beauchamp, and Henry Peverel corresponded with the prior of Winchester. The prince also wrote to the prior naming all those killed or captured at Poitiers. News was also passed by papal envoys, via wine merchants, and by the sub-admirals Deyncourt and Hoggeshawe who returned with some of the ships which had taken the army to Gascony.
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Requests for prayers continued to be made regularly. The Friars Preachers, Friars Minor, Carmelites, Austin friars, and the bishop of London were contacted in this regard.