568. Ralph, Lord Basset of Drayton; mentioned both in the Household Book and Gascon Rolls.1
569. This is almost certainly John of Dunster, Lord Mohun, elsewhere called Mawne (1311). He was with the Prince in Gascony,2 and fought at Poitiers.3
571. Reginald, Lord Cobham of Sterburgh; cf. Household Book and French Rolls, besides frequent mention in Froissart.
573. There is no doubt about Sir John Chandos and Sir James Audeley (cf. Household Book), as to whose doings the Herald is naturally well informed.
600. Avesbury says the Prince was detained by contrary winds in Plymouth until Sept. 8th.4 Thompson calculates Sept. 9th as the day on which he set sail from Plymouth.5
189617. Thompson dates the arrival at Bordeaux as Sept. 20th. Froissart only vaguely says ‘about St. Michael’s day.’6
624. Bernard-Ezy, Sire d’Albret, Vicomte de Tartas, now on the side of the English,7 though in his early days he had taken an oath of allegiance to the French king.8
625. Amaury de Biron, Sire de Montferrant.9
627. Auger de Montaut, Sire de Mussidan et de Blaye.10 Gme. Amanieu de Madailhan, Sire de Roson.11 Sier Petiton de Curton.12
628. Amanieu de Fossard.13
629. Guillaume Sans, Sire de Pommiers.14
631. Cénébrun IV, Sire de Lesparre.15
All these are well-known supporters of the English cause in Gascony, and very probably came to meet the Prince on his arrival; almost all concur in saying that he was welcomed by the Gascons, and Froissart names, as summoned by him, ‘Labreth, Pumiers, Musicent, Courton, Rosem et tous les aultres.’16
642. The Black Prince left Bordeaux, Oct. 5th.17
645-9. As usual, a very short account of numerous marches and sieges, and not absolutely correct. On 28th Oct. the English army was near Toulouse, The Black Prince says in a letter which he wrote at Christmas, that he was only a league distant and that he stayed in the neighbourhood two days.18 Toulouse was guarded at this time by Clément d’Armagnac,19 and was probably too strong to attack; Carcassonne was reached on Nov. 3rd, and the bourg burnt on the 6th;20 the cité apparently remained untaken.21
Narbonne was reached Nov. 8th, and the bourg burnt Nov. 10th: the citadel certainly remained uncaptured; the Black Prince describes how the garrison withdrew into it, and never mentions its destruction.22 Béziers was not taken. It is not mentioned by the Black Prince or Wingfield, who state that the army returned from Narbonne. Froissart expressly says that the English retreat left Béziers, Montpellier, Luniel, and Nîmes untouched, to the great joy of the inhabitants, so that an attack had certainly been expected. Denifle thinks, however, that the scouts went as far as Béziers on Nov. 10th, and this is implied by an old Chronicle of Jacques Mascaro, which says they saw that the town was too well defended to be attacked.23
654. Quite impossible before going into winter quarters. Wingfield says the campaign lasted eight months. The Prince was at La Réole by Dec. 2,24 and was writing from Bordeaux on Christmas Day.25
657-9. The Prince seems to have stayed in Bordeaux or its neigbourhood until August, 1356.
669-82. The Herald seems to be the only writer who gives the exact disposition of these garrisons, on which he was very likely to have good information.
190686-88. On the subject of proceedings during the winter, there is a letter from Wingfield written from Libourne Jan. 22, 1356,26 by means of which some of the above-mentioned facts can be verified, though the accounts do not tally too exactly.
Port Sainte-Marie is mentioned first in a list of captured towns, and an expedition is described to Agen, where mills and bridges were burnt and a castle outside the town taken and occupied. Chandos and Audeley, together with certain Gascons, are reported to have taken Chastelsagrat, where the bastard of Lisle was killed, and where they stayed until the Feast of St. John (Dec. 27). The Captal de Buch, meanwhile, together with Montferrand and Crotoy, was upon an expedition to Anjou and Poitou; while, at the time the letter was written, Suffolk, Salisbury and Warwick seem to have been no longer in garrison, but afield on different expeditions; the latter, having taken Tonneins and Clairac, was on the way to Marmande, and the two former were marching against Notre-Dame de Rochemade. Fuller information is needed to harmonize these accounts, but without it there is no reason to doubt the general accuracy of Chandos’ statement. The order of events is doubtless affected by exigencies of verse: Port Sainte-Marie should, from its position, have been taken before Agen and Cahors if the return was to be made along the river Lot: but the English may have started from Cahors, as he says, and returned to Bordeaux or Libourne along the Garonne, and thence to Périgueux. Tonneins, Clairac, and Marmande are all in the immediate neighbourhood of La Réole, and could have been taken by Warwick while he was still keeping guard over the former town.
689-699. Wingfield’s letter may have been written too early to give any account of the events at Périgueux, for which we have no exact date. Walsingham mentions this incident,27 but says the town was taken by the Captal after the Prince had refused the Comte de Périgord’s offer of a money payment in return for safety. The whole of this affair is omitted in Froissart’s narrative.
700. Jean, Comte de l’Isle-en-Jourdain, was in these Gascon Wars and may be the person referred to here.28
701. Roger Bernard, Comte de Périgord. He was given a sum for the guard of his castle in 1356.29
705. From Dec. 1355 to Aug. 1356. The Black Prince says that he left Bordeaux on the vigil of the Translation of St. Thomas of Canterbury, i.e. July 6;30 but the crossing of the Dordogne at Bergerac and actual commencement of campaign was on Aug. 4.
709-11. This march as indicated by Chandos is an impossibility, but his ideas of geography are always very rudimentary. Possibly, however, expeditions were made into these provinces during July, before the Prince had finally decided to march north in order to join the rest of the English in Normandy.31
We have a brief account of this campaign in a letter of Bartholomew de Burghersh,32 generally giving the direction, but by far the fullest appears in the Annals of the Monastery of Malmesbury.33 From the various records Denifle has constructed a day-by-day Itinerary for this as well as for the previous year.34
712-15. Romorantin was reached Aug. 30, and the town taken next day, 35 but the citadel held out for five days.36 All authorities agree as to the presence of Craon (Amaury, Sire de
Insert map Campaign of the Black Prince 1356.
716. The numbers as usual are vague. Burghersh says forty men were taken with the two captains when the citadel fell; but he has already mentioned six score as captured in the siege40 of the town. Walsingham says a number of knights and eighty armed men.41 There is no reason to think that 200 is more than a rough general estimate.
1 Beltz, 159.
2 Gascon Rolls, 29 Ed. III, m. 3.
3 Dictionary of National Biography.
4 Avesbury, 424; also Walsingham, Historia Anglicana, 279.
5 Baker of Swynebroke, 293, note.
6 Froissart, iv. 160.
7 Froissart, iv. 160.
8 Histoire de Languedoc, ix. 444.
9 Anselme, vii. 352.
10 Anselme, vii. 352.
11 Bertrandy Études sur les Chroniques de Froissart, Bordeaux, 1870, 65.
12 Froissart, v. 5.
13 Gascon Rolls, 29 Ed. III, m. 15 (at siege of Romorantin).
14 Bertrandy, 231.
15 Jean le Bel, ii. 157.
16 Froissart, iv. 160.
17 Thompson (Baker of Swynebroke, 293) and Denifle (La désolation des églises, Paris, 1897-9, ii, 86 sq.) have given full details and dates of this campaign, and are in almost exact accordance with each other.
18 Avesbury, 437.
19 Wingfield’s Letter in Avesbury, 443.
20 Thompson and Denifle.
21 Prince’s Letter, Hist. of Languedoc, ix. 650; Jean le Bel vaguely says ‘taken’, ii. 186.
22 Avesbury, 438.
23 Bulletin de la Société Archéologique de Béziers, i. 81; Jean le Bel, ii. 188, speaks of the army reaching Béziers and advancing as far as Saint-Thibéry on the way to Montpellier. This may not have been the whole force. In any case there is no question of an attack.
24 Denifle and Thompson.
25 Avesbury, 437.
26 Avesbury, 448.
27 Walsingham, Historia Anglicana, 456.
28 Sceaux de Clairambault, ii. 4806, 4808. Anselme, vi. 73.
29 Sceaux de Clairambault, ii. 7095. Anselme, ii. 73.
30 Letter of the Black Prince written at Bordeaux, Oct. 20; Archaeologia (Soc. of Antiquaries of London, 1770), i. 213.
31 Froissart, v. 1-3.
32 Chandos, ed. F. Michel, 336, notes.
33 Eulogium Historiarum a monacho quodam Malmesburiensi exaratum, ed. Haydon (Rolls series), iii. 215.
34 Denifle, ii. 113 sq.
35 Eulogium, 215.
36 Black Prince’s Letter, Bordeaux, Oct. 22, 1356, in Sir Harry Nicolas, Chronicle of London, London, 1827, p. 204.
37 Arch. Nat., JJ 84, No. 224.
38 Arch. Hist. du Poitou, vol. 17, introduction.
39 Jean le Bel, ii. 196; Walsingham, 281; Letter of Burghersh; Letter of Black Prince; Froissart, v. 11.
40 Chandos, ed. F. Michel, 336.
41 Walsingham, 281.