by David Green
The Hundred Years War is remembered for its battles but was characterised by its sieges. The chevauchée tactics, so successful in bringing the French to battle at Crécy and Poitiers and of great psychological and economic value, relied on a swiftly-moving mounted force which was not prepared for a siege. Such an army could not transport all the necessary equipment and sieges were lengthy and expensive. The assault on Romorantin in 1355 was a rare example of a successful quick assault that delayed a raid by only a few days. In the engagement, surrender was encouraged by the use of Greek Fire, which served to ignite thatched roofs and other flammables. The foundations may also have been mined. By contrast, the defences at Tours, still under construction in 1356, probably deterred the Black Prince from attacking. Control of territory depended on control of the major urban areas. In the main, before the wide-scale use of artillery, defensive architecture was superior to offensive weaponry and tactics; the siege of Calais had been a triumph of endurance, not ingenuity or superior military technology.47
While the prince was actively attacking French strongholds he was also concerned with the defence of his own lands and their centres of defence, government and administration. Anglo-Welsh defensive measures were features of all periods of military activity, and Cheshire and north Wales in 1355 and 1359–60 were protected against possible invasions or Welsh revolts. Repairs were made to the castles in Wales, Cornwall and Cheshire, supplies were gathered and their garrisons strengthened ‘in view of the multitude of perils which might arise’.48 For example, at this time, John Wogan was charged with the defence of the Welsh coast and a writ was sent to the prince by his father and passed on to officials in north and south Wales ordering defensive preparations in accordance with the Statute of Winchester (1285).49 In the course of the Reims campaign, responsibility for the ‘safe-keeping’ of the castles in Cornwall and Devon was left in the hands of John Dabernon and John Kendale. In this instance, particular attention was to be given to the castle at Tintagel, which, at the time, was without a garrison. John Skirbeck, formerly butler of the prince’s household and constable of Launceston and Tintagel castles, then keeper of the prince’s fees in Cornwall, was to make similar preparations for the manning and victualling of Launceston. The maintenance of castle defences was a continual drain on the prince’s purse. In February 1360, repairs were ordered to the Cornish castles, again under the supervision of Kendale and Dabernon.50 Additional security was also required at Berkhamsted castle where the captured king of France was kept, although it appears that John Clay, the prince’s receiver of Berkhamsted, handed over the buildings (and responsibility) for Jean’s safe-keeping to his jailers.51 Measures were also taken at that time at Wallingford and at Castle Rising, both for the building and the bridge so that it was ‘safely guarded in these times so that no peril [would] befall it’.52 Such measures were entirely in keeping with national procedure. In July 1355, all the port authorities from Dover to Fowey had been ordered to protect their shipping and make defensive preparations. The fears of an attack were realised in 1360 with the French raid on Winchelsea. The potential resumption of hostilities further galvanised defensive preparations. In 1367, Richard FitzAlan, earl of Arundel and lord of Bromfield and Yale, was commanded to prepare ‘all fencible men’ to defend the principality of Wales.53
Urban defences also contributed to the difficulties involved in governing Aquitaine and they were to facilitate its destruction. The principality contained a multiplicity of fortified locations. These reflected and added to the problems of feuding, particularly between the families of Foix and Armagnac. The possession of a number of these strongholds gave command of communications and supply routes, either by road or water.54 When these sites turned to Valois allegiance there was little that could be done to retake them or maintain the integrity of the principality.
However, the importance of urban defences, the time it might take to break them and the general role of the fortified town or castle, was in the course of widespread revision at this time. There is no doubt that artillery was used and increasingly so by the prince throughout his career. By 1369, Chandos’ troops were always accompanied by a cannon and this was not an entirely new innovation. Cannon had been used during the campaign of 1346 and at Crécy as field artillery. At that time, the guns used ‘were simple light weapons, almost as dangerous to those firing them as to those at whom they were fired’.55 They were certainly used during the Calais siege as supplies of ammunition and firearms were sent for from England. In 1346–7 Edward III had at least ten cannons and materials for over 5,000 lbs of gunpowder but they do not appear to have been highly influential in taking the town. By 1370, many towns and almost all the great powers in Western Europe came to possess their own arsenals. The receiver of Ponthieu in 1368–9 purchased for Edward III: 20 copper cannons, 5 iron cannons, 215 lbs of saltpetre, sulphur and amber for making powder, and 1,300 large quarrels/bolts for the cannons. Nonetheless, the key period of innovation in gunnery happened in the second and third decades of the fifteenth century. For much of the fourteenth century guns did not replace the trebuchet or mangonel as siege weapons, and on the battlefield they did not influence tactical thinking to any great extent. They were used primarily for frightening horses.56
The Limoges expedition, in which he was present if not prominent, brought about a further deterioration in the prince’s condition. The collapse of his health and authority was marked by the transfer of authority in the principality to Gaunt. La Roche-sur-Yon and the lordship of Bergerac passed to him on 8 October 1370, prior to his appointment as lieutenant of Aquitaine on 11 October 1370.57 As a final blow the death of his first son, Edward of Angoulême, underlined the prince’s personal tragedy. He returned to England and, alongside Gaunt, the captal de Buch and Thomas Felton took over the government of Gascony in July 1371. Soon after, Owain Lawgoch, the Welsh condottiere allied to France, captured the captal at Soubise. It is said that he was tempted briefly to give his allegiance to France but remained loyal and unlike the Black Prince and du Guesclin, Charles ‘the Wise’ refused to ransom him and he ended his days in prison, soon after hearing the news of the death of the Black Prince.
8
Last Years and Legacy
The prince’s last years were marked by a slow, inconsistent but inexorable decline. He was never again involved in military activity although he remained concerned with coastal defences and provision was made for munitioning a number of castles – supplies were purchased in Ireland for Welsh fortifications in 1375.1 He did set sail for Calais with his father in August 1372, following the news that Thouars, the last great English fortress, was under threat, but the elements conspired against them and the fleet never reached France. On returning to England, the prince handed over all his rights in Aquitaine to his father giving a reason, which had always been true, but was now a mere technicality, that revenue was no longer sufficient to meet expenses.2
The prince’s role and level of activity in these last years is not altogether certain and it seems that his condition varied considerably allowing more involvement in national affairs at some times than others. Further, it has been suggested that the prince’s interest in politics at this time was not restricted to domestic matters. Relations with Castile, during both the brief rule of Pedro the Cruel and the early years of the Trastamaran regime had not been cordial following Pedro’s failure to pay the prince after Nájera. However, Pedro did, it seems, have long-term ambitions that one or more of his daughters would marry into the english royal family. That ambition was realised after Pedro’s murder at Montiel in 1369 and ‘the Prince of Wales … probably approved of the transfer to his younger brother of his own aspirations to the Castilian throne’. On 10 February 1372, the prince escorted his brother’s bride to be, Constanza, into London. She was acknowledged as queen of Castile and rode to Gaunt’s palace of the Savoy. Constanza had spent five years in exile in Gascony. Gaunt, through marriage, became pretender to the Castilian throne although he did not claim the lo
rdship of Vizcaya out of deference to his brother’s claims to the Basque country.3
The prince’s final flourish, his last bow, has traditionally been seen as taking place not on the battlefield but in parliament. The Good Parliament of 1376 is one of the final myths of the prince’s life that remains in popular memory. He is said to have formed the bulwark of the defence against the over-reaching political ambitions of his brother, John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster.
The chief reason for the belief in the mutual antagonism of the prince and Gaunt is the account by Thomas Walsingham whose rabid anti-Lancastrian attitudes have coloured subsequent comment. There is no evidence of difficulties between the brothers prior to this. They both fought at Winchelsea and Gaunt lived in the prince’s household in the early 1350s. In 1367, Gaunt supported the Spanish expedition and was so highly praised for his role in the expedition by Chandos Herald, an eyewitness, that it has been suggested that his Life of the Black Prince was written for, or in support of, the Castilian ambitions of the duke of Lancaster. It has also been suggested that Edward resented being replaced by Gaunt in Aquitaine, but again there is nothing to substantiate this and rather than bearing a grudge towards his brother it would seem likely that he handed over the reins of power willingly, although not with relief.
From the reopening of the war in 1369 (although hostilities in Aquitaine had begun in the previous year) until the Good Parliament in 1376 there was almost no English success. The chevauchées of Robert Knolles and John of Gaunt were expensive in men and money and achieved nothing of note. Defeats at sea and attacks on the south coast were testimony to the authority of the Castilian fleet. It has been argued that the new breed of commanders, weaned on tales of Crécy and Poitiers, were not a match for their predecessors who had been responsible for such victories. Certainly many of the great commanders had died in war and of the plague or were, like the king and his eldest son, now old and ill. But circumstances were different also, and if personalities and people can be said to be representative of national success, then Charles V was a far more capable ruler than his father or grandfather. French domestic policy, leading to improved defences, military strategy and the ability to fund such action had created a formidable structure although these realities cut little ice in England. The source of the agitation is uncertain but complaints rained down on the government concerning the management of the war from certain sections of the Commons and these may have been encouraged in ‘another place’.
The Commons was becoming increasingly important as the crown became increasingly dependent on parliament for financial support through taxation. As this developed so too did the interest of magnates in influencing the Commons and elections to it. Among the prince’s retinue were a number of MPs, but there is little to suggest that the prince was following a deliberate policy comparable to that of which Gaunt was accused, namely trying to pack the Commons for certain votes. There were only six claiming the prince’s support in the Good Parliament and this was the highest total apart from sessions in 1358, 1365 and 1369 in which seven members of the retinue sat in the Commons. It is true, although probably coincidental, that those sessions when he was best represented were tax-granting parliaments, but beyond this, membership of the Commons does not seem to have been a major factor in recruitment to the retinue. It may have been the case that the prince’s authority and that of his friends and his father’s adherents was sufficient to influence the Commons as they wished, without the need to secure the support of members of the house.4
The role of the prince was thus, at most vicarious and probably fictitious, the creation of Thomas Walsingham, and an early example of the myth of the prince, the broken knight, still struggling even on his death-bed for the good of his country, urging on his supporters in parliament to stand up to the wicked council and dark intentions of his brother.
But [their] vigour dissolved away immediately after the untimely death of Prince Edward. For after that death the duke [Gaunt] could do whatever he desired and willed… [T]he death of prince Edward filled the knights of the shire with despair. The duke entered the assembly of the knights. He urgently begged them … the knights, and the lords and barons associated with them, [to] deliberate as to who should inherit the kingdom of England after the death of the king and of the prince his son. He begged further that … they would decree a law that a woman should not become heir to the kingdom; for he considered the great age of the king, who was on the threshold of death, and he considered the youth of Prince Richard whom, so it was said, he thought of poisoning if he could not gain the kingdom in any other way.5
Gaunt’s royal ambitions, if not involving murder, do at least require some further consideration. Edward III took steps to clarify the order of succession, which was clouded by the issue of ‘representation’ (that Richard should have precedence over his uncle/s) by making an entail detailing the descent of the Crown. Michael Bennett has pointed out that Richard’s coronation was by no means a foregone conclusion, noting remarks by Chandos Herald and others.6 Interestingly, the problem lay, as it had and did in France, with whether the Crown might be inherited through the female line. It remains possible, although improbable, that Gaunt had deliberate intentions to try and seize the throne on his father’s death. Edward wished to avoid possible strife in the event of an uncertain succession, particularly in the context of the declining English position in France and political opposition at home. It was such opposition that may account for Walsingham’s version of events and it is not unlikely that he was guilty of a deliberate anachronism with regard to Gaunt’s role in the Good Parliament. As the king’s representative, Gaunt saw it necessary to reverse the steps taken in 1376 in the Hillary parliament of 1377. Charges brought by the Commons of mismanagement and corruption had resulted in the impeachment of the chamberlain, William Lord Latimer, the steward, John Lord Neville, a number of merchants, and the king’s mistress, Alice Perrers. Gaunt engineered and oversaw a vindictive and deliberate reversal of the measures taken by the 1376 parliament, targeting those that had been most prominent in the demands for reform.
With the succession secure, any daydreams Gaunt may have had of assuming the throne of England were soon subsumed by his more realistic ambitions in Spain. There is certainly no doubting the appeal of a crown;
To the mentality of a fourteenth-century English magnate … great wealth and power were of secondary significance when set against the prospect his attaining, in is own right, the supreme position in the medieval social order. If he [Gaunt] could not be king of England, it was perfectly natural to a mind such as his that he should wish to be king of Castile.7
The myth of the Black Prince, built on a reputation earned in battle, grew with his death. John of Reading’s eulogy said that he followed wise council, never preferred secular affairs to divine office, that he was honourable, he endowed the church generously and kept his marriage vows.8 It was not a terribly accurate portrayal but nor was it completely fanciful. Certainly in death, and it was a death for which he must have been preparing for some time, some surprising aspects of his character become apparent.
Edward the Black Prince was buried, as he wished, in Canterbury Cathedral but not where he wished. He had requested to be laid in the chapel of ‘Our Lady Undercroft’ (’so that the end of our tomb towards the feet be ten feet distant from the altar’9) but instead is to be found in a much more prominent position and one of even more significance than today, prior as it was to the removal and destruction of Becket’s tomb. In death, the figure of the prince became once more that of the consummate warrior that he had not been for some nine years. That the tomb retained an aura many years after the prince’s death is evident, as Shakespeare has the archbishop of Canterbury say to Henry V:
Look back into your mighty ancestors:
Go, my dread lord, to your great-grandsire’s tomb,
From whom you claim; invoke his warlike spirit,
And your great-uncle’s, Edward the Black Prince,
; Who on the French ground play’d a tragedy,
Making defeat on the full power of France,
While his most mighty father on a hill
Stood smiling to behold his lion’s whelp
Forage in blood of French nobility.10
The tomb, Chandos Herald, Froissart and later writers compounded the image of a model prince and of a model knight that remained at least until the beginning of the twentieth century (see the Leeds statue). The prince was extremely particular in his will regarding the disposition of his body. Details of the tomb, its placement and design, the use and display of his arms and mottoes (houmout and ich diene), the passage of the cortege through Canterbury, its black pennons with ostrich feathers; two destriers were to be trapped with his arms, and requests for vigils, masses and divine office were made. Gifts were offered for the altar of the chapel as well as vestments, candlesticks, basins and chamber-hangings and a cross fashioned from the wood of the True Cross.