The Battle of Poitiers 1356 (15 page)

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 Kentwode
³³

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 Loryng
³⁴

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 1328–1397
⁴⁰

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.

After the reopening of the war he was involved in the abortive attempt to relieve Thouars in September 1372 and was then given command of an expedition to patrol the coast which resulted in the burning of seven Spanish ships at St Malo. At the relief of the siege of Brest, Montague’s challenge to du Guesclin was refused. He participated in the Bruges conference and was a commissioner to France. Montague’s naval experience was briefly called upon between July and November 1376 when he acted as admiral of the western fleet. He also participated in a number of Gaunt’s forays into France before receiving the captaincy of Calais in 1379. During the Peasants’ Revolt he counselled the young king and accompanied him to the Tower and Smithfield. As a reward for his diplomatic service in negotiations with the king of Scotland William received the Isle of Wight and Carisbrooke castle (1382). He also held the Isle of Man but sold it in 1393 since he had no heir, supposedly he had been killed by his father in a tournament. He married Elizabeth, the daughter and subsequently the co-heir of John Mohun. He was buried at Bisham.

Sir Richard Stafford
⁴¹

He was the brother of Ralph, 1st earl of Stafford, and married Matilda, daughter and co-heiress of William Camvill, of Clifton, Staffs. He was the most consistent lay member of the prince’s council and served from at least 1343 in which year he was one of the commissioners assigned to take control of the principality of Wales and deliver it to the Black Prince.

His service was not purely administrative, he was a bachelor in the prince’s household and he probably fought in the first division at Crécy (although he may have earlier been with the earl of Derby, he certainly fought with Grosmont at some stage) and on 26 February of the following year he was appointed steward of the prince’s lands. He was also involved in the Calais siege.

He fought in the Poitiers campaign where his previous Gascon experience in the service of the earl of Derby stood him in good stead as did his administrative abilities. Whilst on campaign he authorised the issue of the prince’s letters. At the beginning of the
chevauchée
he was made a banneret at Bassoues on 19 October 1355. He was made responsible for the reinforcing and re-supplying of the prince’s forces prior to the 1356 raid.

With Miles Stapleton and Nigel Loryng he was commissioned to investigate truce violations in France in 1360–1. From July to November 1361 in the course of the transfer of lands after Brétigny he was seneschal of Gascony and may thereafter have stayed with the prince in Aquitaine although he also undertook diplomatic duties for Edward III. However, when the prince returned from Gascony in 1371 and instigated two very major commissions of oyer and terminer in Cornwall, it was Richard Stafford who was chosen to head the investigations.

His military reputation must also have been high by this time as he, with Guy Bryan, were appointed to fulfil the duties of constable of England to hear the case of Edmund Mortimer who claimed a prisoner was being unjustly held from him by Ralph Basset. Following the prince’s death he became a councillor of Richard II. He died c.1380.

Sir John Sully
⁴²

John Sully was descended from a younger branch of the Sully family of Devon. His military experience was very extensive although perhaps not quite as vast as he claimed as a deponent at the Scrope-Grosvenor enquiry. The greatest doubt lies in his participation in the early Scottish campaigns. In 1333 he may have fought at Halidon Hill and was at the capture of Berwick. On 12 July 1338 he was in France, and like a number of the prince’s future retinue, serving in the company of the earl of Salisbury. His military career continued and in August 1346 he fought at Crécy where he may have come to the attention of the Black Prince. In 1350 he was involved in the battle of Les Espagnols-sur-Mer and he was retained for life in 1353 to be one of the prince’s ‘especial retinue’.
⁴³
Soon after, he was appointed surveyor of game in Cornwall. He replaced John Dabernon as sheriff of Devon and Cornwall but was unable to take up his office. In 1355 he accompanied the prince to Gascony and in the following year he fought at Poitiers. He was again involved in active service in 1359 when he had letters of protection. It may have been as a consequence of this service that in 1361 he was granted by Edward III that once each year he could hunt in the royal forests with his dog, ‘Bercelette’.

His military success was noted at the highest levels and on the feast of St George in 1362 he was made a knight of the Garter, taking the ninth stall on the prince’s side, in place of Reginald Cobham. In 1363 he accompanied the prince to Aquitaine and in 1367 fought at Nájera. He remained in service in France and in 1370 had further letters of protection, as he was about to serve in Aquitaine. He died c.1388.