The Battle of Poitiers 1356

by Green, David

  In 1355 he was granted the manor of Watlington for life in return for his forthcoming services in Gascony.23 Following the victory at Poitiers, where he served in the prince’s bodyguard, he was granted 40 marks a year out of the profits of Wallingford manor.

  He does not appear to have joined the prince in Aquitaine in the 1360s although relations remained friendly. He became very active in county society serving on many commissions and acting as the county’s MP in 1369 and 1371. He was also the keeper of Oxford castle in 1362–4, 1365 and 1368–9. He died before 20 November 1375.

  Edward Lord Le Despenser24

  He was born on 24 March 1336, the son and heir of Edward le Despenser, the second son of Hugh, earl of Gloucester and he fought in the prince’s Gascon expeditions of 1355–6. With his brother, Thomas, he was frequently mentioned as being among the prince’s immediate attendants in Bordeaux. He fought with Loryng and Burghersh in the skirmish at Romorantin and also at Poitiers. In 1357 he gave proof of his age, had livery of his uncle’s lands (Hugh, died 1349) and in the following December he was summoned to parliament as Baron Le Despenser. In 1359 he was one of Edward III’s staff for the expedition to France and was among those who swore to the observation of the treaty of Brétigny at Calais. In 1360/1 he joined the Order of the Garter on the death of Henry of Lancaster.

  In 1363 he was among those appointed to receive the king of Cyprus on his landing at Dover and conducted him to London. In 1368 he served in the retinue of Lionel, duke of Clarence and was present at his death in Piedmont. He attended Edward III and the prince on the abortive voyage to France when they were forced to return by contrary winds. In 1373 he had command of the rear-guard of the army of Gaunt and the duke of Brittany in Picardy and Artois. He returned to England in 1374 after the truce.

  He married Elizabeth, the daughter and heir of Bartholomew lord Burghersh. Their son, Thomas, would become earl of Gloucester and a knight of the Garter. He was also noted as a friend of Froissart. He held extensive estates throughout the country particularly in Wales and the Marches. He made his will on 6 November 1375 and died five days later at Cardiff castle and was buried, according to his wishes in Tewkesbury abbey, to which he bequeathed a chalice, given to him by the king of France.

  Sir Thomas Felton d. 138225

  He was the second son of Sir John Felton, lord of Litcham, Norfolk. He fought at Crécy and Calais and, as a result of his service at Poitiers, where he was part of the prince’s bodyguard, he was granted £40 a year for life. He was one of the commissioners who signed the treaty of Brétigny in 1360.

  He was clearly a close and trusted colleague as he witnessed the prince’s marriage to Joan and such an association made him an ideal candidate for high office in the new principality. He acted as steward of the prince’s household for a time after his arrival in Aquitaine before his appointment as seneschal of the principality. As such he greeted Peter of Cyprus on his visit to the principality in 1364. During the prince’s Spanish campaign Felton was instrumental in gaining the support of Gaston Fébus and negotiating the treaty at Pamplona with Charles of Navarre although he did not favour involvement in Castile. After the crossing the Pyrenees he led the reconnaissance party and was captured by Audrehem at Ariñez and ransomed. The ransom may have taken the form of an exchange for Audrehem who was himself captured at Nájera.

  After the resumption of the war with France he was involved in action at Monsac, Duravel and Domme. He then fought with Pembroke in Poitou. Felton was also granted the sinecure office of chamberlain of Chester by the Black Prince on 20 May 1370. In 1372 he served under the command of the duke of Lancaster. On 6 March 1373(-7), after the prince had returned Aquitaine to his father, Felton was again appointed seneschal. He was again captured in November 1377 and held for three years. His freedom may have been secured by the influence of Gaston Fébus and was assisted by a grant from Richard II. He was retained by the king who, in 1381, appointed him a knight of the Garter. He did not enjoy the favour for long as he died in the same year.

  He married Joan, the daughter of Richard Walkefare for whom he managed to acquire the office of keeper of game at Castle Rising. His three daughters, Mary, Sybil and Eleanor married Sir John Curson, Sir Thomas Morley and Sir Thomas Ufford respectively.

  Sir William Felton26

  He was a kinsman, although not the brother of Thomas. His father was William Felton of Northumberland. He married Jeanne de Laval, a French heiress. He fought at Crécy and Poitiers and prior to the grant of the principality of Aquitaine to Edward of Woodstock, he was appointed seneschal of Poitou and the Limousin (23 September 1361), a post he retained until his death. As seneschal he was involved in securing various castles as surety for continuing royal ransom payments.

  His military skill was well known. In 1359, a case under the law of arms concerning Mathew Gournay and others was brought before him as he was considered a neutral and experienced arbiter. He was also involved in Breton affairs serving there in 1360 and witnessing the duke giving homage in Paris in 1366. In 1364 he was involved in a dispute with Bertrand du Guesclin and brought a case before the parlement of Paris.

  He rode with the Black Prince to Spain in 1367 and was a leading figure in the large reconnaissance force to spy out the enemy. He was described by Chandos Herald as lion-hearted and caring ‘not two cherries for death’. 27 By contrast Jean de Venette painted a somewhat different picture of the man, ‘a valiant and noble knight, of good counsel, prudent and devout’28 He founded a Carmelite house at Poitiers with Chandos. He was killed in a skirmish at Ariñez, before Nájera on 19 March 1367.

  Sir Baldwin Freville29

  There is a danger of conflating the careers of Baldwin II (15 August 1317–75) and III (1350/1–1387). Baldwin II first married Ida, the daughter of John 1st lord Clinton of Maxstoke and secondly Joan Dugdale. He served the Black Prince as seneschal of Saintonge. Baldwin III married first, Elizabeth, daughter of John Botetourt and secondly Joyce (her sister). He claimed the office of king’s champion at the coronation of Richard II but after a protracted dispute lost the title and office to John Dymoke who had taken up the Marmion claim through marriage.

  Freville may have been abroad fighting in Brittany under the command of Walter Manny when his father died on 2 October 1343. Baldwin was at least twenty-six at the time. He inherited estates throughout the country. He fought at Crécy in the retinue of William Clinton, earl of Huntingdon and later served with Lancaster.

  He fought at Poitiers and was subsequently retained for life by the prince at £40 year. In accordance with his indenture he fought for the prince in the Reims campaign. Under the prince’s regime in Aquitaine he served initially as seneschal of Saintonge and the Limousin. On the death of William Felton in 1367 he became seneschal of Poitou, and in 1369, seneschal of Saintonge. He was probably involved in the Spanish expedition himself and after the resumption of the war he fought under Knolles, Chandos and Pembroke and was at La Rochelle when it surrendered. He appears to have been captured after this as William Elmham offered to pay his ransom. He died on 6 January 1387.

  Sir Mathew Gournay 1310–1406?30

  Despite being the son of one of the murderers of the Black Prince’s grandfather, Gournay seems to have enjoyed a relatively close relationship with Edward. He served at Crécy and Poitiers before playing a leading role with the Free Companies for which he suffered imprisonment in the Tower. He witnessed the treaty of Brétigny and fought at Auray. In 1365 he accompanied du Guesclin to Spain to take the throne of Castile from Pedro. During this time he lent 11,000 florins to Enrique of Trastamara for campaign expenses in return for a promised annuity of 1,000 florins. He also befriended the king of Aragon who granted him 2,000 florins a year. His association with that country continued when in 1371 he purchased a castle there from Hugh Calveley while both were stationed in Bordeaux. He remained with the prince after the return from Nájera until 1370. In 1378 he was appointed commander of the garrison at Dax and in the following year seneschal of the
Landes, an office he held until 1381 and was re-granted in 1405. In 1381 he played a major role in Cambridge’s expedition to Portugal.

  Jean de Grailly, captal de Buch31

  His family were the hereditary proprietors of a fort, 14 leagues from Bordeaux now called ‘La Tête de Buch’. The lands were in the Médoc, west of Bordeaux reaching to Castillon-sur-Dordogne. The captalate had many privileges in the parlement, city and suburbs of Bordeaux. Jean was the son of Jean and Blanch de Foix and also the cousin of Gaston Fébus. In 1343 he inherited the title. In 1348 he was named a founder knight of the order of Garter possibly as a result of the vital subsidiary action in which he was involved in Gascony during the Crécy campaign. In November 1350 he married Rose d’Albret, the legitimated daughter of Bertrand. He fought with the prince in the 1355–6 campaign during which he was present at the skirmish at Romorantin and before the battle of Poitiers he led the reconnoitring party. During the battle itself he captured Jacques de Bourbon, count de la Marche and Ponthieu. As a result of his service he was, in 1356, granted the town and castle of Cognac by the Black Prince. He returned with the prince to England. Then he travelled to Prussia with Gaston Fébus. On his return from crusade in May 1358, he and Gaston Fébus rescued the duchesses of Normandy and Orléans in Meaux during the Jacquerie. He was a long-term servant of Charles of Navarre and in November 1359 captured Clermont in Beavoisis.

  After the siege of Reims lifted in early 1360, he joined the column led by the Black Prince. In March/April he went to Charles of Navarre to try and organise a concerted effort to attack Paris. In 1360 he swore to the peace at Brétigny.

  He succeeded Philip of Navarre as lieutenant in Normandy for King Charles of Navarre after Philip’s death on 29 August 1363 and on 6 May 1364 he commanded the Navarrese forces at the battle of Cocherel in which he was defeated and captured by a Breton squire, Roland Bodin.32 He was handed over to Charles V and later released to try and organise a peace. Charles V sought to secure his loyalty with the grant of Nemours castle. This was renounced after he was reproached by the Black Prince with whom he again served in 1367. He campaigned in Spain initially in the company of James, king of Majorca and led the final group over the Pyrenees. On 3 April 1367 he fought at Nájera in the centre alongside the prince.

  In 1370 he was granted the county of Bigorre in Aquitaine by Edward III and with Sir Thomas Felton, he prevented the capture of Linde. In 1371 he was appointed constable of Aquitaine, and in 1372, a governor of Gascony. In this year he was also captured near Soubise. Charles V refused to ransom him unless he swore never to bear arms against France. He declined to accept and died in prison in 1377.

  John Kentwode33

  He was one of the prince’s esquires in the 1350s and 1360s. As such he fought in the 1355–7 campaign and assisted Edmund Wauncy with the capture of Philippe, the king’s son, at Poitiers, for whom they were paid 4,000 marks. Continuing payments for Philippe were made partly dependent on John joining the prince in Aquitaine in September 1364, and in April 1365 his annuity was increased to 200 marks. He probably remained in Aquitaine and was perhaps at Nájera as he received letters of protection at the end of July 1366.

  He was knighted by 1369 and became knight of the shire of Berkshire and as such he was one of those said to have the prince’s support in the Good Parliament during which he was one of the accusers of Alice Perrers. He may also have captured the Dominican friar on whom Perrers was supposed to rely for her influence over the king. After being involved in various administrative capacities in Berkshire, he became steward of Cornwall on 26 August 1378. During Richard’s reign he served on a very great number of commissions in Berkshire, Devon and Cornwall and was elected MP of all those counties. He also acted as an ambassador to Brittany and to the West Country bishops, in addition to serving in a supervisory role on behalf of the king in matters regarding forces leaving for the Iberian Peninsula. He also oversaw the forces of the earl of Buckingham on the Brittany expedition of 1381. This military role was to be one he was often asked to play. In July 1383 he supervised the musters of the forces serving under William Scrope and in 1386 he was involved in a similar capacity for Gaunt’s expedition to Castile. After the Merciless Parliament, in May 1388, he was appointed steward of the estates of Robert Vere. Although his sympathies may well have lain with the Appellants, they replaced him with their own man, Philip Courtenay, in November 1388. However, duties were found for him elsewhere and on 25 May 1389, with others, he became a justiciar in south Wales, a post to which he was re-appointed on 17 October of the following year. He died c.1394, leaving a son, Reynold, who probably became the dean of St Paul’s, and a widow who survived until 1404.

  Sir Nigel Loryng34

  Nigel was the son and heir of Roger Loryng of Chalgrave, Bedfordshire and Cassandra, daughter of Reginald Perot. His career was perhaps first brought to modern attention by Arthur Conan-Doyle in his books, Sir Nigel and The White Company. The earliest historical record notes the grant of a life annuity of 100s. issued at Berwick on Tweed in 1335 presumably as a reward for service in the Scottish campaigns. By 1 January 1338 Nigel was registered as an esquire in the earl of Salisbury’s retinue but by the end of the year he was serving as a member of the king’s household in the Low Countries and was described as a ‘king’s yeoman’ and was receiving an annuity of 20 marks.

  His role in the battle of Sluys on 24 June 1340, for which he was knighted, is attested by Froissart.35 In 1342 Nigel served under Sir Walter Mauny in Brittany and three years later Loryng was sent on his first diplomatic mission. With Michael Northburgh, the future bishop of London, he was sent to the secure a papal dispensation for the intended marriage of the Black Prince to Margaret of Brabant. In that year he also found service with the earl of Derby and the following year was with him in Gascony.36 While Grosmont had been the king’s lieutenant in Gascony he granted Loryng rights to the ‘pedage’ of St Macaire. He was retained for life by the prince in peace and war in 1349 and granted an annuity of £50. Prior to this he had been present at the siege of Calais with a small contingent of five men and it may have been there or through a recommendation from Grosmont that he entered the prince’s service.

  In 1348 he was named as one of the Garter founders and sat in the 10th stall on the prince’s side.37 He was called on for further diplomatic duties in 1350 in Flanders. The delicate situation regarding the succession and the possible role of the country in the Hundred Years War, shows that Loryng had already become marked as a skilful diplomat. It may be that he spent much of the next few years in France and particularly Gascony although it was during this period that he became the prince’s chamberlain, an office he was to retain for many years.

  He participated in the chevauchée preceding the battle of Poitiers being part of the raiding party at Romorantin and forming part of the prince’s bodyguard at the battle itself. The following years, before the Reims campaign may have been spent passing between Gascony and England on the prince’s business and he may have acted as a go-between for the prince and his father, a pattern which may have been established after Poitiers when he brought news of the victory to the king. On 20 July 1358 he was granted the office of surveyor of the forest and steward of the lordship of Macclesfield. During the 1359–60 campaign he served in the prince’s retinue and was involved in the negotiations preceding the treaty of Brétigny and appointed to oversee its implementation.38 He had a seat on the prince’s council in the principality. Froissart also asserts he was present at the court at the time of the visit of Peter of Cyprus.39

  Loryng accompanied the prince on the Spanish campaign and fought at Nájera. Prior to departure he had been sent to England to discuss strategy with the king. 1369 marks his last year of known military service, first under Robert Knolles in a skirmish on the Gascon borders and later with Chandos and the earl of Pembroke. It seems likely that he returned with the prince to England in 1371 serving Edward until his death in 1376. After this he appears to have gone swiftly into near retirement. />
  He was the benefactor to the building of a cloister at the Black Prince’s favoured abbey of St Albans. He married Margaret, the daughter and heir of Ralph Beauple. They had two daughters, Izabel who first married William Coggan, and secondly, Robert Lord Haryngton, and Margaret who married Thomas Peyvre.

  William Montague, 2nd earl of Salisbury 1328–139740

  The earls of Salisbury played central roles in Edward III’s plans and aspirations for acquiring the French throne. Salisbury’s father was a main player in the Nottingham coup which placed Edward on the throne in more than name alone and which resulted in the execution of Roger Mortimer and the forcible retirement of Queen Isabella.

  He succeeded his father, although still a minor, in 1344. Two years later, aged eighteen, he was knighted alongside the Black Prince on landing at La Hogues at the start of the campaign that led to the victory at Crécy and the capture of Calais. In 1348 he was one of the first to be named a knight of the Garter after the original founders and two years later fought at Les-Espagnols-sur-Mer.

  Relations with the prince were changeable and were strained over the fate of the county of Denbigh: as a marcher lord, Montague came into contact with some of the more expansionist designs of the Black Prince and his council. In 1354 he was appointed constable of the king’s army in France and his military career continued in 1355 when he joined the Black Prince on campaign. At Poitiers he commanded the rearguard which routed the attack of Jean de Clermont, the constable of France. He remained abroad on service until 1360 and was one of those who negotiated the treaty of Brétigny. Following the death of Isabella, the queen mother, he inherited property and other rights. In 1363 he became hereditary steward of Chester.