Raoul II of Brienne (1315 – 19 November 1350) was the son of Raoul I of Brienne, Count of Eu and Guînes and Jeanne de Mello. [1] He succeeded his father in 1344 as Count of Eu and Guînes, as well as in his post as Constable of France. [2]
In 1340, he married Catherine (d. 1388), the daughter of Louis II, Baron de Vaud. They had no children; one illegitimate son, Jean du Bois, Lord of la Maison Forte, was legitimized as Raoul's in 1395, although his actual genealogy is disputed. [lower-alpha 1] He was second cousin to Enguerrand VII. [4]
In 1346, he was captured at Caen during the battle by Thomas Holland, 1st Earl of Kent and kept prisoner. [lower-alpha 2] [5] [6] In 1350, he was allowed to return to France to attempt to raise money for his ransom. Upon his arrival, he was seized and summarily executed by decapitation without any due process under orders of John II of France, [7] for reasons that remain unclear, although it was rumoured that he had pledged Thomas his castle and the County of Guînes for his release. [4]
John II, called John the Good, was King of France from 1350 until his death in 1364. When he came to power, France faced several disasters: the Black Death, which killed nearly 40% of its population; popular revolts known as Jacqueries; free companies of routiers who plundered the country; and English aggression that resulted in catastrophic military losses, including the Battle of Poitiers of 1356, in which John was captured.
The Treaty of Brétigny was a treaty, drafted on 8 May 1360 and ratified on 24 October 1360, between Kings Edward III of England and John II of France. In retrospect, it is seen as having marked the end of the first phase of the Hundred Years' War (1337–1453) as well as the height of English power on the European continent.
Odo IV or Eudes IV was Duke of Burgundy from 1315 until his death and Count of Burgundy and Artois between 1330 and 1347, as well as titular King of Thessalonica from 1316 to 1320. He was the second son of Duke Robert II and Agnes of France.
Peter I of Bourbon was the second Duke of Bourbon, from 1342 to his death. Peter was son of Louis I of Bourbon, whom he also succeeded as Grand Chamberlain of France, and Mary of Avesnes.
Louis II was Duke of Anjou and Count of Provence from 1384 to 1417; he claimed the Kingdom of Naples, but only ruled parts of the kingdom from 1390 to 1399. His father, Louis I of Anjou—the founder of the House of Valois-Anjou—was a younger son of King John II of France and the adopted son of Queen Joanna I of Naples. When his father died during a military campaign in Naples in 1384, Louis II was still a child. He inherited Anjou from his father, but his mother, Marie of Blois, could not convince his uncles, John, Duke of Berry and Philip II, Duke of Burgundy, to continue her husband's war for Naples. The Provençal nobles and towns refused to acknowledge Louis II as their lawful ruler, but Marie of Blois persuaded them one after another to swear fealty to him between 1385 and 1387.
The Constable of France was lieutenant to the King of France, the first of the original five Great Officers of the Crown and the commander-in-chief of the Royal Army. He was, at least on paper, the highest-ranking member of the French nobility.
Alfonso of Brienne, called Alphonse d'Acre, was the son of John of Brienne and Berengaria of León, born in Acre.
John I of Brienne was the son of Alphonso of Brienne and Marie de Lusigan. His mother was the heiress of Eu, Seine-Maritime, and he succeeded his father as Count of Eu in 1270.
John II of Brienne was the son of John I of Brienne, Count of Eu and Beatrice of Saint-Pol. He succeeded his father as Count of Eu in 1294.
Raoul I of Brienne was the son of John II of Brienne, Count of Eu and Jeanne, Countess of Guînes.
This is a list of the counts of Eu, a French county in the Middle Ages.
John of Artois, called "sans Terre" (Lackland), was the son of Robert III of Artois and Joan of Valois. The confiscation of his father's goods for attempted fraud in 1331 had left him without an inheritance.
James I of Bourbon, was a French prince du sang, and the son of Louis I, Duke of Bourbon and Mary of Avesnes. He was Count of Ponthieu from 1351 to 1360, and Count of La Marche from 1341 to his death.
The Battle of Caen was an assault conducted on 26 July 1346 by forces from the Kingdom of England, led by King Edward III, on the French-held town of Caen and Normandy as a part of the Hundred Years' War.
The Battle of Calais took place in 1350 when an English force defeated an unsuspecting French army which was attempting to take the city. Despite a truce being in effect the French commander Geoffrey de Charny had planned to take the city by subterfuge, and bribed Amerigo of Pavia, an Italian officer of the city garrison, to open a gate for them. The English king, Edward III, became aware of the plot and personally led his household knights and the Calais garrison in a surprise counter-attack. The French were routed by this smaller force, with significant losses and all their leaders captured or killed.
The Truce of Calais was a truce agreed by King Edward III of England and King Philip VI of France on 28 September 1347, which was mediated by emissaries of Pope Clement VI. The Hundred Years' War had broken out in 1337 and in 1346 Edward had landed with an army in northern France. After inflicting a heavy defeat on Philip and a French army at the Battle of Crécy the English besieged Calais, which fell after 11 months. Both countries were financially and militarily exhausted and two cardinals acting for Pope Clement were able to broker a truce in a series of negotiations outside Calais. This was signed on 28 September to run until 7 July 1348.
The County of Guînes, was a Flemish fief and later French fief in the Middle Ages.
The siege of Guînes took place from May to July 1352 when a French army under Geoffrey de Charny unsuccessfully attempted to recapture the French castle at Guînes which had been seized by the English the previous January. The siege was part of the Hundred Years' War and took place during the uneasy and ill-kept truce of Calais.
The Treaty of Guînes was a draft settlement to end the Hundred Years' War, negotiated between England and France and signed at Guînes on 6 April 1354. The war had broken out in 1337 and was further aggravated in 1340 when the English king, Edward III, claimed the French throne. The war went badly for France: the French army was heavily defeated at the Battle of Crécy, and the French town of Calais was besieged and captured. With both sides exhausted, a truce was agreed that, despite being only fitfully observed, was repeatedly renewed.
The siege of Breteuil was the investment of the Norman town of Breteuil, held by partisans of Charles II, King of Navarre, by French forces. It lasted from April to about 20 August 1356. It was interrupted on 5 July when a small English army commanded by Henry, Earl of Lancaster relieved and resupplied it. The French king, John II, attempted to bring Lancaster to battle with the much larger French royal army, but Lancaster marched away and the attempt failed. John then renewed the siege of Breteuil.