The Battle of Poitiers 1356 (8 page)

The French failure to comply with the first treaty was based less on unwillingness than on the inability to raise the necessary revenue. By 1359, the dauphin had restored control. The threat posed by the Jacquerie, the mercenary companies, and Charles ‘the Bad’ of Navarre had been reduced, and the French council was now in a position to resist a potential English invasion. Jean and his advisers, who were held captive in England and may have believed that the invasion force that Edward III was recruiting would destroy or capture France, did not know this. In May the French Estates General refused to implement the treaty and both sides prepared for war.

The Reims campaign of 1359–60 involved one of the largest single forces gathered by the English in the Hundred Years War. The army marched from Calais to Reims, the coronation city of France, which Edward intended to take by force if necessary and there have himself crowned – he brought a crown with him in his baggage train for that express reason. The siege failed. The people of Reims were not as friendly as Edward had hoped, and they had had plenty of time to prepare defences and lay in stores that proved more than adequate. By contrast, the English found the siege extremely difficult. Food was difficult to find and forage for the horses almost impossible. It seems to have been this that drove the king finally to lift the siege and look elsewhere for his victory. First he rode to Burgundy and by means of a hefty financial inducement managed to secure the support of some of the local nobility. Next he rode to Paris.

The battle of Poitiers had galvanised the building of fortifications within France, indeed the English victory at Poitiers, to a degree prevented a successful siege of Reims since the town’s defences were greatly improved in the years between 1356 and 1359. Castles, churches and manor houses were all fortified in those intervening years. In many cases these were official fortifications, but they also provided sanctuary for those whose living was dependent on war. ‘These fortifications were the centres of ‘borrowed’ lordships which provided for their occupants in the long intervals between the grander military adventures ... The professional soldiers who occupied them were ... freebooters...because they made a living out of soldiering without depending on the wages paid to them by their sovereign.’
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Such men proved a great nuisance for the Valois monarchy in the early 1360s.

In Paris, the dauphin, Charles, was a very different man from his father and grandfather. He was not drawn out as Philip had been in 1346, or Jean ten years later. He waited and watched as the English battered themselves against the walls in one of the bleakest winters in memory. Finally, on 13 April, which became known at Black Monday, a truce was agreed at Brétigny.

The treaty of Brétigny of 8 May 1360 marked the end of what we might call the first period of the Hundred Years War. Formal hostilities were brought to a conclusion through a settlement involving the transfer of a captured king and the renunciation of the English claim for the French throne in return for nearly a third of the kingdom of France and a sizeable cash incentive – at least in theory. More properly the treaty of Brétigny should be known as the treaty of Brétigny-Calais for it was at the coastal town that the final clauses of the settlement were to be signed and the agreement completed. For some reason or reasons, they were not.

At Brétigny, Edward III agreed to renounce his French title: at Calais, on 24 October 1360, this was delayed. The agreement stipulated that Aquitaine, Poitou, Ponthieu, Guînes, Calais and its march were to be handed over to the English in full sovereignty, and Jean II would be returned for the kingly sum of three million écus. Edward would renounce his claim to the French throne as well as to Normandy, Anjou and Maine. These were essentially the same conditions as in the first treaty of London although the ransom was somewhat reduced. However, by the time of the signing of the treaty at Calais, not all the promised territories were in Edward’s hands. In order to guarantee their transfer it appears that Edward had the so-called renunciation clauses removed and placed in a separate document which envisaged that the handover of lands would happen by 1 November 1361 at the latest. The renunciations would then be made orally and ratified in writing by 30 November. In the interim, the king of France would refrain from exercising his sovereignty in the territories in question and Edward would refrain from using his French title. The mutual renunciations were never performed.
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Whether this was deliberate policy on one side or both in order to provide a loophole to resume hostilities is unclear, although it does seem unlikely. In a sense the capture of King Jean at Poitiers created as much of a problem as it provided an opportunity. After Edward failed to capture Reims, Jean was useful only as a ransom prisoner – if he was to be ransomed as a king then Edward had to accept his kingship. From 24 October 1360, Edward III refrained from using the French title, although, perhaps significantly, he continued to use the
fleur de lys
as part of his coat of arms. It appears that both Jean and Edward saw the treaty as tenable and they thought it marked both an end to England’s claim to the throne and of French sovereignty in England’s continental possessions.

If Edward III truly believed he could have become king of France then the treaty of 1360 may be judged a failure. If he had fought the war primarily to secure full sovereignty over his continental possessions then it was a triumph. Different interpretations continue and abound. In many ways students of the period have been somewhat dogmatic in their interpretation of the war in general and particularly the treaty of Brétigny-Calais. Few have taken account of the fact that motivations change, opportunities develop, and conditions evolve. There does not seem to have been enough acceptance of such a simple interpretation. For Edward, the throne of France and his claim to it may have been nothing more than a simple bargaining chip in 1337. After Crécy, after Poitiers, after the depredations to France caused by the English
chevauchée
policy and by the Black Death; after the revolt of the Jacquerie and turmoil in Paris caused by Etienne Marcel; and given the financial implications of the king’s ransom and the need for town and coastal defences, the throne may have seemed much more attainable.

CONCLUSION:

Poitiers, the Black Prince
and his Military Retinue

The battle of Poitiers confirmed the military reputation of the English in general and the Black Prince in particular. The English military reputation rose from the nadir of Bannockburn so that after 1356, their archers and infantry were known as being among the finest soldiers in Christendom. The victory at Poitiers was dependent, in many ways, on another triumph for the English in France ten years earlier although the similarities between the encounters are limited except in terms of broad strategy, personnel and, to a degree, luck. As Froissart commented ‘at the battle of Poitiers, fortune was very mean and cruel for the French, and quite similar to that of Crécy.’
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Although the prince played a very limited role in the strategic and tactical decision-making in 1346, Edward III attributed the victory to his son. The expedition proved to be the foundation upon which the Black Prince built his career, and it shaped the ideals and expectations of a nation. In more prosaic and practical terms it also reinforced specifically military ideas. Although not the first campaign to put into practice the developments that have been described as the Edwardian military revolution, it established the
chevauchée
as the predominant means of waging war in France and proved the advantage of mixed retinues of men-at-arms, infantry and archers fighting in a defensive formation.

The concept of a military revolution has been much debated, and Michael Robert’s original thesis has been extended chronologically by some to include the period of the Hundred Years War. Some aspects of the thesis certainly bear upon the changes being instituted in England and later in France at this time. The war itself encouraged change both on the battlefield and the means by which troops were supplied, armed and recruited. This process of change gathered further momentum with the development of effective artillery in the fifteenth century. Henry V’s campaigns showed the implications of artillery for siege warfare, and the ordinances of Charles VII capitalised on such developments and allied them to the potential power of the emerging nation-state. By the end of the war, France had a fully professional army and emerged from 116 years of devastation while England sunk into her own civil war.

This would have seemed inconceivable to the English victors in 1346 and 1356. The military experiences of the prince in the victory at Crécy and the subsequent capture of Calais were highly significant. Many of his future retinue were involved in the campaign, the most illustrious of whom were to be numbered among the Order of the Garter. ‘The scale and importance of that mighty victory encouraged a bond between those who had fought there...’
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The Crécy campaign ‘blooded’ the prince and his retinue and provided its foundations in terms of personnel and the application of strategy and tactics. These were implemented when the prince took his first independent command.

By 1355, the prince’s retinue was a close-knit organisation beginning to develop into an affinity worthy of the heir-apparent. It was a group broadly associated with Edward III’s foreign struggle and linked particularly through the role played by the Black Prince. This is evident in a number of ways; links between members of the retinue can be seen in a variety of domestic, administrative and political activities. Perhaps more telling are those statements which were left for posterity. Around the sides of the tomb of Reginald 1st Lord Cobham (d. 1361) at Lingfield is a series of coats of arms showing the families of Berkeley, Stafford, Badlesmere, Ros, Paveley, Mortimer, Bohun, Vere, Arundel, Cosington and Burghersh, all of whom fought with the Black Prince, and most of whom participated in the 1355-6 expeditions. It indicates ‘the sense of companionship and pride felt by Edward III’s military elite.’
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Such fraternal feeling is also evident in the Gloucester cathedral window dedicated to the fallen at Crécy, and the memorial brass of Sir Hugh Hastings at Elsing in Norfolk. In later years, Sir Thomas Erpingham who commanded the archers at Agincourt dedicated a window in a Norwich church to all those knights of Norfolk and Suffolk who had fought in the wars with France and died without a male heir. A number of the Black Prince’s retinue were among them. They also were remembered as part of the military elite.

The most powerful national statement of the shared military struggle was the Order of the Garter itself. Founded in celebration of the triumph at Crécy, the Garter bound together as a brotherhood those who represented the shifting international coalition created by Edward III and his successors against France.

The military experience at the prince’s disposal in 1355 was very considerable and together, Edward and his commanders implemented the military policy they had witnessed to such good effect in Normandy. The 1355
chevauchée
proved to be a classic example of a strategy used throughout the war to great psychological and financial effect though it failed to recoup great territorial or political gains. By contrast, the raid of the following year culminated in the battle of Poitiers – ‘there died [that day] ... the full flower of French chivalry’
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and those who did not fall were taken captive alongside their king. Matteo Villani described it as ‘the incredible victory’
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and it outstripped that of ten years before and was later only equalled by Agincourt.

It may be asked why King Jean forced the issue. Why, after all he knew of the English military successes, did he engage in battle? The main reason was political, as it had been in 1346. At the time Geoffrey d’Harcourt was campaigning against him in Normandy, Robert le Coq was conspiring against Valois authority, and Etienne Marcel was gathering strength in Paris. The financial contributions to the army had been very great and he had nothing to show for them.
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Jean needed a victory, and with rather more luck, rather more co-ordination within the ranks of the French hierarchy, and a rather bolder approach, he might have had one.

What, then, were the consequences of the battle of Poitiers? Essentially, the treaty of Brétigny-Calais formed the conclusion of the negotiations which began when King Jean was first brought as a prisoner to Bordeaux. The agreement had long-term consequences of its own. If the Hundred Years War until 1360 was about Gascony and the treaty of Paris (1259), then the war from 1369 until 1420 (the treaty of Troyes) was about the treaty of Brétigny. When Richard II married Isabella in 1396, the truce that accompanied the marriage was sweetened with a dowry of over £130,000. This was offered in some compensation for the fact that the English never received full payment for Jean’s ransom agreed in 1360. And when Henry V led his troops to Agincourt, it was to make good his claim that the stipulations of Brétigny should be fulfilled. In many ways, the victory at Poitiers shaped the Hundred Years War for more than 60 of its 116 years.
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Acknowledgements

Much of this was written during a very happy year spent at the University of St Andrews, my thanks to all who made it so.

This has been a collaborative effort. Thanks to Kate for the illustrations and to Alec Green who drew the maps and talked me through some of the logistics of the battle and helped me clarify several issues. Andrew Midgely provided many of the photographs and Tweed told me what warmers want from history (usually more than they should have). Kris Towson helped a great deal with some technical issues and occasional supplies of very decent beer. April and Sally helped me drink it and more besides - for that and all the rest I thank them.