'For the glory of your cause...'

The Anglo-French war between Edward I and Philip IV was a mightily confusing affair. After several years of bloody stalemate in Aquitaine (south-west France) both kings decided to widen the conflict into northern Europe. They set about spending vast reservoirs of cash on recruiting allies in the Low Countries, Scotland, Norway and the Holy Roman Empire: both kings intended to use these alliances as part of a strategy of encirclement to stretch each other’s military capacity to breaking point. In practice they simply cancelled each other out.

It didn’t help that many of their allies took the money on offer and ran, or used it for their own purposes. Adolf of Nassau, one of Edward’s allies and King of the Romans, used his English funds to wage two private wars in Thuringia in east-central Germany. By doing so he earned Edward’s undying wrath and the hatred of his own people, which ended very badly for him (perhaps the subject of another blog post).

Edward got better service from another set of allies in Adolf’s territory. These were a league of nobles in Franche-Comté, now eastern Burgundy in France. Edward had some bitter memories of this region. In 1274, on his way back from the Holy Land, he was invited to take part in a tournament in Franche-Comté. The local bigwig, the Comte d’Auxerre, had really lured Edward into a trap with the intention of capturing the English king and holding him to ransom. The plan backfired when Edward threw the count from his horse and ordered his infantry to slaughter the Burgundian knights:

“He said to his men, "Spare no-one you set eyes on now, and do the same to them as they are doing to us." So they began killing the other side, savagely attacking them everywhere with the sword. The men on foot had retreated from the slaughter of their fellows when they saw many of their people fall, but boldly joined the combat of the mounted men; they gutted many of the horses and cut their girths, so that their riders fell to the ground.” (Henry of Knighton)

A contemporary German depiction of a tournament

Over twenty years later, in 1297, Edward hired these same nobles to fight for him against Philip. Led by Jean de Arlay, a kinsman of the man humiliated by Edward in 1274, they agreed to serve for a payment of 60,000 livres tournois for the first year of the alliance, with 30,000 in each subsequent year

Unlike many of the so-called Grand Alliance, the Burgundians actually went into action. Jean and his followers had vested interests in doing so. At this time Franche-Comté was still part of the empire, which made them vassals of King Adolf. Philip wanted to conquer the region, and to that end had bought out Count Othon IV of Burgundy, a feckless character who was quite happy to sell his inheritance for a comfortable life at the French court. When the barons of Franche-Comté heard of the deal, they swore an oath never to surrender their lands and ancient rights to the French king.

In the spring of 1297 the Burgundians met Adolf at Koblenz, where he gave them money and promised to send German troops to aid them before 22 July. Despite his thunderous public denouncements of Philip, Adolf failed to deliver on any of his promises. The French didn’t take him seriously at all. Charles of Valois, Philip’s brother, is said to have sent Adolf a letter containing just two words - ‘Troupe Almande’, which translates as ‘Too German’ or even ‘Stupid German’.

King Edward finally landed in Flanders on 23 August. The campaign that followed was a mess and a muddle, if not quite the total fiasco often depicted. After several weeks of farcical manoeuvres and vicious brawling between Flemish and Welsh infantry, the allies started to get themselves in gear. On 6 October they stormed Damme, the port town of Bruges and the most direct route to the Channel. Two days later Edward received a triumphant message from Jean de Arlay:

“Most dear sire, this is to inform you, that on Tuesday, the eve of the feast of Saint Denis, myself and my companions of Burgundy captured and razed the castle of Ornans, which was held by Burgundy of the King of France and was the strongest castle in the whole of Burgundy. And know that, I and my other comrades broke down the walls of the castle and forced our way inside, and secured the castle, and took nine prisoners and a great quantity…put a large number to the sword, apart from those who threw themselves down below the rock…”

The remains of the castle of Ornans

Ornans, a dramatic fortress perched upon an outcrop, was the birthplace of Jean’s bitter enemy, Count Othon. Some of the defenders, poor souls, hurled themselves off the high precipice overlooking the valley. Afterwards the town and castle were looted and burnt, and Jean wrote a second letter promising to join Edward in Flanders, ‘for the glory of your cause’.

The English king had also received a note from two more of his allies, the counts of Bar and Savoy. They were gathering troops on the eastern borders of France and would also ride to join him. At this point Edward might have been tempted to continue the war. His chief ally, Count Guy of Flanders, begged him to carry on. The rains would soon come, Guy pointed out, and force the French to retreat.

Edward had a difficult choice to make. By now he had received word of the revolt in Scotland, where his northern army under Earl Warenne had been smashed at Stirling Bridge. The Scots under William Wallace had invaded and ravaged the northern counties. Edward did not trust his lieutenants to deal with the mess, but neither did he wish to completely abandon the war against France.

He compromised. In March 1298, from his new base at Aardenburg near the Zeeland border, Edward renewed his contract with the Burgundians. The said nobles agreed to ‘make and continue lively and open war’ against the French until a final peace was made. In return they would be paid another 30,000 livres tournois on top of the 60,000 they had already been paid, to be handed over in two instalments in June and December.

A few days later Edward set sail for home. While he mounted an enormous military operation to defeat Wallace, the Burgundians continued to harry the French. They destroyed more castles in Franche-Comté, including Clairvaux and the ‘hall’ or palace of Pontarlier. At one point they captured the bailiff of Mâcon, Count Othon’s lieutenant, and locked him up with other French prisoners in the castle of Roulans. The Burgundians were still active in September 1299, when Philip engaged a local knight, Geoffrey d’Aucelles, to defend his town of Gray against the rebels and deliver them to the king if they fell into his hands. Philip’s particular enemy, Jean de Arlay, was named as one of the targets.

A final peace was struck in 1301. By this point the Grand Alliance had collapsed into dust, and the rival kings had buried the hatchet. This left Jean de Arlay and his associates with little choice but to sue for peace. Philip was merciful. Instead of destroying the Burgundians he offered to pardon them all, if they swore homage and agreed to pay for the damage they had committed during the war. This was a bitter deal, since it meant Franche-Comté would become part of a greater France. Philip sugared the pill by offering to make Jean constable of the Franche-Comté. Jean accepted, and another piece of the tottering German empire was swallowed up.