Lacy's war

In January 1296 the English expeditionary force to Gascony finally got underway, seventeen months over schedule. This was originally supposed to be the second of a tripartite expedition in autumn 1294, planned to hit the French army of occupation with three successive waves of attack in the space of just nine weeks. The war of Prince Madog in Wales obliged Edward I to turn his resources against the Welsh instead, which meant the French in Gascony had time to prepare.

The leaders of the expedition were the king’s brother, Edmund of Lancaster, and Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln. Edmund was in poor health but may have felt obliged to go: it was thanks to his botched diplomacy that the French had seized Gascony in the first place. The surrender on his orders to the constable of France, Raoul de Nesle, in March 1294 had included the handing over of most of the military strongholds in the duchy and the capital city, Bordeaux. Twenty ducal officers were also given up as hostages.

This meant that the English had voluntarily removed their own shield against French aggression, while the arrest of key members of the ducal administration left scarcely anyone to organise local resistance. The only bright spot was the enduring loyalty of the Gascons to the Plantagenet king-duke: of the 100 Gascon nobles summoned to arms by Edward I, about 80 answered the call. Those who defected to the French, lured by bribes or coercion, were mostly from the Agenais. This was a strip of territory located to the north of Gascony, only acquired by the English in 1279. Thus the inhabitants may have felt they owed their homage to the Capets instead of the Plantagenets.

Apart from the nobles, about 500 of the lesser Gascon gentry also stayed loyal to the English. Many of these chose exile in England rather than submission to the French, which meant they had to be provided for. Refugees from all over the duchy flocked to England, and the king was hard-put to find money and employment for them all. Gascon nobles queued up at the exchequer at York and Westminster to recieve funds. Edward paid them when he could, though usually in arrears: in June 1302, for instance, a cart loaded with the massive sum of £1000 was sent down from York to Westminster to pay Gascon creditors still not fully satisfied for their wages.

With much of Gascony in French hands, and so many loyal Gascons in England, Edmund and Lacy’s task was not an enviable one. They sailed for the north of the duchy, to try and re-establish a northern bridgehead against the French.

The map of Gascony is drawn by a friend of mine, Martin Bolton.