Battle of Castillon | |||||||
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Part of the Hundred Years' War | |||||||
The death of John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury at the battle of Castillon from Vigilles de Charles VII by Martial d'Auvergne (1484) | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Jean Bureau Peter II Jacques de Chabannes | John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury † John Talbot, Viscount Lisle † John de Foix, Earl of Kendal (POW) | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
7,000 [1] –9,000 [2] [3] 1,000 Bretons [3] 300 guns | 5,000 [2] –10,000 [3] | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
100 killed or wounded | 4,000 killed or captured [4] [5] [6] The rest of the army surrenders the next day [7] | ||||||
The Battle of Castillon between the forces of England and France took place on 17 July 1453 in Gascony near the town of Castillon-sur-Dordogne (later Castillon-la-Bataille). Historians regard this decisive French victory as marking the end of the Hundred Years' War.
On the day of the battle, the English commander, John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, believing that the enemy was retreating, led his army in an attack on a fortified French encampment without waiting for reinforcements. Talbot then refused to withdraw even after realizing the strength of the French position, causing his men to suffer severe casualties from the French artillery. Castillon was a major European battle won through the extensive use of field artillery.
The battle led to the English losing nearly all their holdings in France, especially Gascony, which had been a possession of the Plantagenet kings for the previous three centuries. Political instability ensued in England.
The breakdown of the 1420 Treaty of Troyes began the final stage of the Hundred Years' War. [8] This period from 1420 to 1453 is characterized by Anne Curry as the "wars of the Treaty of Troyes" for control of the crown of France. [9]
After the 1451 French capture of Bordeaux by the armies of Charles VII, the Hundred Years' War appeared to be at an end. The English primarily focused on reinforcing their only remaining possession, Calais, and watching over the seas. [10] After three hundred years of Plantagenet rule, the citizens of Bordeaux considered themselves as subjects of the English monarch and sent messengers to Henry VI of England demanding that he recapture the province. [11]
On 17 October 1452, the Earl of Shrewsbury landed near Bordeaux with a force of 3,000 men. [12] A feared and famous military leader, Talbot was rumoured to be seventy-five or eighty years old, but it is more likely that he was around sixty-six at the time. [13] With the cooperation of the townspeople, Talbot easily took the city on 23 October. [14] The English subsequently took control over most of western Gascony by the end of the year. [14] The French had known an English expedition was coming, but had expected it to come through Normandy. [12] After this surprise, Charles prepared his forces over the winter, and by early 1453 he was ready to counterattack. [12]
Charles invaded Guyenne with three separate armies, all headed for Bordeaux. [12] Talbot received 3,000 additional men, reinforcements led by his fourth and favourite son, John, the Viscount Lisle. [12] The French laid siege to Castillon (approximately 40 kilometres (25 mi) east of Bordeaux) on 8 July. [15] Talbot acceded to the pleas of the town leaders, abandoning his original plan to wait at Bordeaux for more reinforcements, and set out to relieve the garrison. [15]
The French army was commanded by committee; Charles VII's ordnance officer Jean Bureau laid out the camp to maximize French artillery strength. [2] In a defensive setup, Bureau's forces built an artillery park out of range from Castillon's guns. [12] According to Desmond Seward, the park "consisted of a deep trench with a wall of earth behind it which was strengthened by tree-trunks; its most remarkable feature was the irregular, wavy line of the ditch and earthwork, which enabled the guns to enfilade any attackers". [16] The park included up to 300 guns of various sizes, and was protected by a ditch and palisade on three sides and a steep bank of the River Lidoire on the fourth. [2]
Talbot left Bordeaux on 16 July. He outdistanced a majority of his forces, arriving at Libourne by sunset with only 500 men-at-arms and 800 mounted archers. [3] The following day, this force defeated a small French detachment of archers stationed at a priory near Castillon. [2] [3] Despite earlier plans to wait for reinforcements, Talbot pressed his men onward to the French camp, believing the rest of his men would arrive soon. [2]
Along with the morale boost of victory at the priory, Talbot also pushed forward because of reports that the French were retreating. [3] However, the cloud of dust leaving the camp which the townsmen indicated as a retreat was in fact created by camp followers departing before the battle. [3]
The English advanced but soon ran into the full force of the French army. [15] Despite being outnumbered and in a vulnerable position, Talbot ordered his men to continue fighting. [17] Historian A.J. Pollard suggests this seemingly reckless behaviour from Talbot may be due to the fact that his "pride and honour were at stake for he had already ordered his men to battle when he discovered the strength of the French position". [18] The only Englishman who remained mounted in the battle, he also did not wear armour due to previous agreements with the French when he was released from captivity in Normandy. [3]
According to David Nicolle, the battle itself was "highly characteristic of the period" with the strong field fortification of the French and the small-arms fighting of the battle. [19] In many ways, this battle played out like the Battle of Crécy in "reverse". [19] The French guns obliterated the advancing soldiers, with each shot reportedly killing six men at a time. [20] [21] Talbot's reinforcements continued to arrive at the battle, only to suffer the same fate in their turn. [2] Despite the odds against the English, the battle lasted over an hour until a thousand-strong Breton cavalry force led by Peter II, Duke of Brittany, crashed into their right flank, sending them into retreat. [22]
The battle ended in an English rout, and both Talbot and his son were killed. [2] There is some debate over the circumstances of Talbot's death, but it appears that his horse was killed by a cannon shot, and its mass pinning him down, a French archer in turn killed him with an axe. [23] [24] [25]
The survivors of the clash as well as the remnant of the Anglo-Gascon force which had not been thrown into the battle, totalling up to 5,000 men, including John de Foix, 1st Earl of Kendal, sought refuge in the castle of Castillon.
The day after the battle, Jean Bureau besieged the castle with his artillery, and the defenders surrendered on 19 July, becoming prisoners of war. [7]
With Talbot's death and the destruction of his army, English authority in Gascony eroded and the French retook Bordeaux on 19 October. [2] It was not apparent to either side that the period of conflict was over. [26] In hindsight, the battle marks a decisive turning point in history, and is cited as the endpoint of the period known as the Hundred Years' War. This was a major European battle won through the extensive use of field artillery. [27] [28]
Henry VI of England lost his mental capacity in late 1453, which led to the outbreak of the Wars of the Roses in England. Some have speculated that learning of the defeat at Castillon led to his mental collapse. [2] The English Crown lost all its continental possessions except for the Pale of Calais, [2] which was the last English possession in mainland France, and the Channel Islands, historically part of the Duchy of Normandy and thus of the Kingdom of France. Calais was lost in 1558. [29] The Channel Islands have remained British Crown Dependencies to the present day, except for their German occupation during World War II.
A casualty after the battle of Castillon was Pierre II de Montferrand, husband of Mary Plantagenet, illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Bedford and a granddaughter of Henry IV of England. While returning to France after being exiled in England, Montferrand was arrested and taken to Poitiers where he was tried by a commission. Having been found guilty he was beheaded and quartered, possibly on the orders of Charles VII, at Poitiers, in July 1454. Montferrand was one of only a few nobles known to have been executed for treason during the reign of Charles VII. [30] [31]
John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, 1st Earl of Waterford, 7th Baron Talbot, KG, known as "Old Talbot", was an English nobleman and a noted military commander during the Hundred Years' War. He was the most renowned in England and most feared in France of the English captains in the last stages of the conflict. Known as a tough, cruel, and quarrelsome man, Talbot distinguished himself militarily in a time of decline for the English. Called the "English Achilles" and the "Terror of the French", he is lavishly praised in the plays of Shakespeare. The manner of his death, leading an ill-advised charge against field artillery, has come to symbolize the passing of the age of chivalry. He also held the subsidiary titles of 10th Baron Strange of Blackmere and 6th Baron Furnivalljure uxoris.
John Fitzalan, 7th Earl of Arundel, 4th Baron MaltraversKG was an English nobleman and military commander during the later phases of the Hundred Years' War. His father, John Fitzalan, 3rd Baron Maltravers, fought a long battle to lay claim to the Arundel earldom, a battle that was not finally resolved until after the father's death, when John Fitzalan the son was finally confirmed in the title in 1433.
Jean Bureau was a French artillery commander active primarily during the later years of the Hundred Years' War. Along with his brother, Gaspard, he is credited with making French artillery the most effective in the world. As Master Gunner of Artillery in the armies of Charles VII, Bureau acquired a reputation as an effective artillery officer during the Normandy campaign (1449–1450), when his bombardments helped capture the towns of Rouen, Harfleur, and Honfleur, and aided in the French victory at Formigny. Bureau commanded the victorious French army at the decisive Battle of Castillon in 1453.
The Battle of Auberoche was fought on 21 October 1345 during the Gascon campaign of 1345 between an Anglo-Gascon force of 1,200 men under Henry, Earl of Derby, and a French army of 7,000 commanded by Louis of Poitiers. It was fought at the village of Auberoche near Périgueux in northern Aquitaine. At the time, Gascony was a territory of the English Crown and the "English" army included a large proportion of native Gascons. The battle resulted in a heavy defeat for the French, who suffered very high casualties, with their leaders killed or captured.
John Talbot, 1st Baron Lisle and 1st Viscount Lisle, English nobleman and medieval soldier, was the son of John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, and his second wife Margaret Beauchamp.
The Caroline War was the second phase of the Hundred Years' War between France and England, following the Edwardian War. It was so-named after Charles V of France, who resumed the war nine years after the Treaty of Brétigny. The Kingdom of France dominated this phase of the war.
The Lancastrian War was the third and final phase of the Hundred Years' War between England and France. It lasted from 1415, when King Henry V of England invaded Normandy, to 1453, when the English lost Bordeaux. It followed a long period of peace from the end of the Caroline War in 1389. The phase is named after the House of Lancaster, the ruling house of the Kingdom of England, to which Henry V belonged.
Blessed Pey Berland was the Archbishop of Bordeaux from 1430 until his abdication, during a pivotal time in the history of the city and of Gascony. During his tenure, the city of Bordeaux remained staunchly faithful to the King of England in the last phase of the Hundred Years' War, but the French took the city in 1451.
Events from the 1450s in England.
Castillon-la-Bataille is a commune in the Gironde department in Nouvelle-Aquitaine in southwestern France. Castillon station has rail connections to Bordeaux, Bergerac and Sarlat-la-Canéda.
The Hundred Years' War was a series of armed conflicts fought between the kingdoms of England and France during the Late Middle Ages. It originated from English claims to the French throne. The war grew into a broader power struggle involving factions from across Western Europe, fueled by emerging nationalism on both sides. The periodization of the war takes place over 116 years, wherein the war was interrupted by several years of truces.
The Battle of Bergerac was fought between Anglo-Gascon and French forces at the town of Bergerac, Gascony, in August 1345 during the Hundred Years' War. In early 1345 Edward III of England decided to launch a major attack on the French from the north, while sending smaller forces to Brittany and Gascony, the latter being both economically important to the English war effort and the proximate cause of the war. The French focused on the threat to northern France, leaving comparatively small forces in the south-west.
The Gascon campaign of 1345 was conducted by Henry, Earl of Derby, as part of the Hundred Years' War. The whirlwind campaign took place between August and November 1345 in Gascony, an English-controlled territory in south-west France. Derby, commanding an Anglo-Gascon force, oversaw the first successful English land campaign of the war. He twice defeated large French armies in battle, taking many noble and knightly prisoners. They were ransomed by their captors, greatly enriching Derby and his soldiers in the process. Following this campaign, morale and prestige swung England's way in the border region between English-occupied Gascony and French-ruled territory, providing an influx of taxes and recruits for the English armies. As a result, France's ability to raise tax money and troops from the region was much reduced.
Gaillard IV de Durfort, Lord of Duras, was a 15th-century Gascon noble of the Durfort family.
The Black Prince's chevauchée of 1356 was a large-scale mounted raid by an Anglo-Gascon force under the command of Edward, the Black Prince, between 4 August and 2 October 1356 as a part of the Hundred Years' War. The war had broken out in 1337, but a truce and the ravages of the Black Death had restricted the extent of the fighting since 1347. In 1355 the French king, John II, determined to resume full-scale war. That autumn, while Edward III of England threatened northern France, his son, Edward of Woodstock, later known as the Black Prince, carried out a devastating mounted raid, or chevauchée: an Anglo-Gascon army marched from the English possession of Gascony 675 miles (1,086 km) to Narbonne and back. The French refused battle, despite suffering enormous economic damage.
Events from the year 1453 in France.
The Black Prince's chevauchée, also known as the grande chevauchée, was a large-scale mounted raid carried out by an Anglo-Gascon force under the command of Edward, the Black Prince, between 5 October and 2 December, 1355 as a part of the Hundred Years' War. John, Count of Armagnac, who commanded the local French forces, avoided battle, and there was little fighting during the campaign.
The Gascon campaign of 1450-1453 took place during the Hundred Years War when the kingdom of France undertook a military campaign to invade and cede the Duchy of Gascony from the English. Following the decisive victory of the French at the battle of Castillion and after the fall of Bordeaux, the last English stronghold in Gascony, English control of Gascony was removed.
Sir Edward Hull KG was an English knight who served as Constable of Bordeaux and a military commander during the Lancastrian phase of the Hundred Years' War. Born into a Lancastrian-supporting family, his parents were both members of Henry IV's royal household. Hull became close to Henry VI and his wife, Margaret of Anjou. He served on campaign in France and as an ambassador to European powers. Hull held numerous offices including as Esquire of the Body to the king, Knight of the Body and carver to the queen, a feoffee of the Duchy of Lancaster, justice of the peace and sheriff of both Somerset and Dorset, and Devon.
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