Don't panic!

Lacy’s war.

On 5 June 1296 Edmund of Lancaster died at Bayonne, aged fifty-one. He died in a state of self-recrimination: in his will he asked for his bones to remain unburied until his debts were paid, and he bequeathed to his lieutenant, Henry de Lacy, a failed and bankrupt enterprise in Gascony.

Edmund’s body was carried back to England and interred at Westminster Abbey on 15 July. The king requested prayers for:

“Our dearest and only brother, who was always devoted and faithful to us, and to the affairs of our realm, and in whom valour and many gifts of grace shone forth.”

Lacy was left holding the baby. He took on the new title of ‘Capitaneus’ or commander-in-chief in time of war with full emergency powers. This reflected the crisis facing the English in Aquitaine, and Lacy’s isolation, cut off from support in England.

The new C-o-C found himself in charge of an army that was demoralised after successive defeats, disintegrating for lack of pay and threatened by a much larger French army. This dire situation called for an inspiring military genius who could stiffen the tigers and rally the sinews, and all that sort of thing.

In short, the English in Aquitaine needed Henry V. What they got was Sergeant Wilson. Lacy was said to be handsome and debonair - debonair in the medieval sense, meaning one who conformed to accepted chivalric behaviour - but as a soldier he was stolid, plodding and unimaginative. His saving grace was a total refusal to admit defeat, even in the face of odds that would have reduced less thick-skinned men to quaking jelly.

Bourg

Nor was he stupid. His first act was to abandon the hopeless offensive strategy, and revert to defending those citadels in Aquitaine that remained in English hands. The war now turned into a holding operation, established on the main operational base of Bayonne in the south. Bayonne also served as an alternative capital for the English while the French occupied Bordeaux.

This meant that the French had to extend their supply lines, and were faced with the uphill task of demolishing enemy citadels. It was a weary prospect, similar to the situation facing the English in Scotland, but they had to continue what they started. In July, at the height of a roasting summer, the Comte d’Artois marched on the strongpoint of Bourg in northern Gascony.