Fever and dysentery

 

Summer 1296, Robert of Artois leads a French army to conquer what remains of English-held Gascony (I'll write in the present tense for a bit of immediacy).

Artois has been granted viceregal authority by his sovereign, Philip the Fair, throughout most of southern France. He has lost no time in preparing for the campaign; no expense or detail has been spared, down to ordering special cloths and saddles from Saloman Boinebroke, a merchant of Douai, to be sent with all speed to Gascony.

The French advance quickly through the south. The march takes them through Auvergne into Poitou, Limousin and Angoumois, reaching Angouleme on 28 April. En route Artois collects more troops and summons the local nobility to serve for at least two months in the host. He crosses the frontier into Gascony in mid-May.

Artois must capture the main English strongholds of Bourg and Blaye in the north, and Bayonne in the south. If these fall, the lesser towns and strongholds still in English hands will soon follow. Artois chooses to concentrate on Bourg. The town, on the upper Gironde river, is held by a mix of English and Gascon men-at-arms. Taking it will be no easy task. The French commander hires stone-cutters to make stones for the bombardment, and workmen to construct a siege engine.

Meanwhile the French navy attempts to blockade the Gironde. Despite the large sum of 23, 141 livres tournois spent on this operation, it fails to repel a supply fleet rushed over from England by Edward I. This delivers much-needed supplies of corn, hay, beans, bacon and other victuals to the garrison.

Artois and his men suffer in the extreme heat. On 28 April his physician is ordered to treat members of the count's household, stricken with disease. Camp fever and dysentery run riot in the French army. Throughout May-July, at least a dozen epidemics are reported. Finally, on 2 July, Artois himself falls sick.

What you say is true...

 

In summer 1296 a French army led by Robert, Count of Artois, marched into the duchy of Gascony in south-west France.

The King of France, Philip the Fair, had appointed Robert lieutenant in Gascony and the duchy of Aquitaine in April. He was given extensive powers to act 'as if the king was personally present', and given a list of instructions. These included issuing pardons, negotiating alliances and truces, inspecting garrisons and fortresses, conferring knighthood, inquiring into the crimes of royal officials, and so on.

His real task was to destroy the last English garrisons in the duchy. Philip's armies had initially invaded and conquered Gascony in 1294, only to lose some key towns and castles to an English counter-attack the following year. While Philip was busy conquering Flanders, far to the north, Robert was tasked with finishing off Edward I's supporters in the south-west.

Although war was offically declared in 1294, the French had been planning it for at least a year before that. Between August and November 1293, Robert of Artois put his castle and garrison of Calais in a state of defence. Apart from the normal wages of the garrison, additional payments were made for provisions, shields, pavais for archers, lances and other weapons, helmets, crossbow strings and bolts, as well as operations to clear the castle ditches. The nobility of Artois were placed on a war footing against Edward I in June 1294, and many would serve in Robert's expedition of 1296.

Philip was also busy. In 1292 he started to purchase galleys from Genoa and Provence, assembled in Normandy, to build a fleet to launch a full-scale invasion of England. This was two years before the declaration of war.

While it is undeniable that Edward I's diplomats bungled the negotiations in 1294, it is difficult to see what they could have done to avoid conflict. When the Pope, Boniface VIII, later challenged Philip's chief minister that the French had deliberately provoked war, the Frenchman blithely answered:

“Certainly, sir, what you say is true.”

There were suspicions of French intentions in Aragon, beyond the Pyrenees. In 1296 a band of Catalan nobles wrote to Edward I, offering their service against the French and expressing disappointment that war had not broken out already.

The English king received at least thirteen such offers from Aragonese nobles between March to April 1294. One declared he would fight the French 'to the death', while others offered to do simultaneous service against France and in the Holy Land.

Steady on, boys. One thing at a time.

Plunder like Pirates

 

On 30 May 1266 a peace was concluded at Winchelsea, one of the Cinque Ports on the southern coast of England. 

After the battle of Evesham, the rebel forces in the southeast were concentrated at Winchelsea and Sandwich. The barons of the Ports were motivated by support of Simon de Montfort's widow, Countess Eleanor, and the fruits of piracy. Over the winter months of 1265/66 they sailed out to attack commercial shipping in the Channel, seizing vessels and even plundering the coast of Brittany. 

Henry III sent his son, Lord Edward, and Roger Leyburn to reduce the Ports. A string of military operations followed, combined with Edward's campaign against Simon de Montfort junior in Lincolnshire. 

Finally, in March 1266, the royalists were able to launch a combined land-sea assault on Winchelsea. On 24 March the town was stormed with great loss of life; many of the defenders were killed as Edward's shock troops forced the gates, others drowned as they attempted to escape by sea. Edward pardoned the surviving townsfolk and forbade his men from plundering the town, 'as if they were pirates'. A town that refused quarter was usually sacked without mercy, but it made little sense to destroy one of England's richest ports. 

Via the final agreement, the barons of the Ports were permitted to have their lands, houses and chattels, as well as their traditional rights and liberties. This marked a dramatic change in royalist policy: in the immediate aftermath of Evesham, Henry had ordered the disinheritance of all surviving rebels. 

This, inevitably, triggered a backlash and another round of civil war. After months of bitter fighting, the royalists were forced to change their tune. The alternative was endless conflict.

Amaury de Montfort, Caliph of Baghdad

 

Amaury de Montfort was released from custody on 21 April 1282, after six years in prison. In that time he was moved about from Corfe castle, to Sherborne, and finally to Taunton.

The timing of his release is odd. His gaoler, Edward I, was not usually inclined to let his enemies slip away. The king had previously refused to listen to any plea to let Amaury go. Everyone from the Pope to the Queen of France to the Archbishop of Canterbury had begged and pleaded on Amaury's behalf, to no avail.

Furthermore, Amaury was released barely a month after the Palm Sunday revolt in Wales. Edward had always regarded the alliance between the Montforts and Prince Llywelyn of Wales as a clear and present danger. To let Amaury walk, at such a time, was a potential risk. Yet walk he did.

There were conditions attached, of course. Amaury was only liberated after swearing an oath to leave the realm and never return. He immediately went to France and on 22 May wrote to Edward from Arras, sarcastically 'thanking' the king for his grace, promising fidelity, and asking permission to recover his rights and titles in England.

The king refused. Unabashed, in 1284 Amaury tried to sue in the court of Rome against Edward's brother, Edmund, for the restoration of his inheritance. The lawsuit got nowhere, but even in 1289, when he made his will, Amaury was still calling himself 'earl of Leicester by hereditary right, and palatine of Chester, and steward of England'.

Amaury's use of these titles recalls an old Tsar of Bulgaria, Symeon, when he called himself Emperor of Rome. As the actual emperor remarked, Symeon could call himself Caliph of Baghdad if he wished. It made no odds. Power was the only fact.

The trials of Angharad (1)

 

Angharad ferch Owain ap Maredudd of Cydewain was an important Welsh noblewoman of the late 13th century. Along with Margaret of Bromfield, Llywelyn the Last's unjustly neglected sister, her actions had a significant influence on Welsh politics, and the fate of the principality. 

Her dynastic connections were important: Angharad was a great-granddaughter of Llywelyn Fawr, and married Owain ap Maredudd (died 1275), a powerful lord of Ceredigion and descendent of the Lord Rhys of Dinefwr. Thus, Angharad linked the rival houses of north and south Wales. She and her first husband, Owain, had one son, Llywelyn. This was an unusual name for the royal house of Deheubarth, and probably in honour of Anghard's kinship with Llywelyn Fawr and Llywelyn the Last.

Her son (died 1309) was the only ruler of Ceredigion to survive the upheavals of the conquest of Wales: he became a minor Marcher lord, holding lands that eventually passed to Owain Glyn Dwr.

Llywelyn owed his survival to his mother, who spent her adult life fighting bitterly for her rights in court, just as the men fought on the battlefield. Her legal career was very similar to that of Margaret of Bromfield. Neither woman had any qualms about challenging powerful Marcher lords, or the Prince of Wales, or even the King of England.

Banners of the King (2)

 

Northampton was defended by Simon de Montfort junior and about a hundred knights. Many were men of the second rank, of no great power or reputation: William de Wheltoun, William de Warre, Robert Maloree, Eustach de Watteford, etc. Who they, you may ask? You may well. 

Simon did have a few important knights with him. These were Peter de Montfort (no relation), a tough veteran of the Welsh March; Baldwin Wake, a baron of Lincolnshire and (alleged) descendent of Hereward, the famous English folk hero; William Ferrers, younger brother of Robert, the notorious sixth earl of Derby. Otherwise the garrison was reinforced by a group of Montfortian students from Oxford, driven from the town and university by the king. These young men fought against Henry 'with the utmost zeal, armed with bows, slings and crossbows', and even brought their own home-made banner to drape over the town gates. 

To boost numbers, the Montfortians tried to conscript local men of the shire. These were summoned to assemble at Cow Meadow, outside the town. One of Simon's followers, Walter Hyldeburn, subjected them to a fierce speech on the justice of the rebel cause and the bad faith of the king. After this call to arms, every man was forced to join the army and prepare for battle. No excuses. 

One of the reluctant conscripts, Stephen de la Haye, had only come to Northampton to collect rent money. He had absolutely no desire to fight anyone, and escaped by swimming his horse over the river. 

Attached is a pic of medieval students, which I suspect some wag may have doctored.

Banners of the king (1)

 

In early April 1264 Henry III declared war on Simon de Montfort. He raised the dragon standard, a specially made war banner with jewelled eyes and a tongue 'seeming to flicker in and out as the breeze caught the banner, and its eyes of sapphire and other gems flashing in the light'. 

The king targeted Northampton, held against him by Simon junior. Along with London and the Cinque Ports (the coastal towns in Kent and Sussex that commanded access to the Channel), Northampton was one of three main rebel strongholds. From his base at Oxford, Henry could not march on London or the ports without risking a flank attack from Northampton. The town also cut off his communications to the north and west. 

Henry's army was formidable. He had many of the chief magnates of England, including Lord Edward, Richard of Cornwall, William de Valence, Philip Basset and Hugh Bigod, as well as other great men. The king also enlisted the loyal barons of the Welsh March; Roger Mortimer, James Audley, William de la Zouche, John Vaux and John Grey, among others. 

One notable exception was Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, who had thrown in his lot with the rebels. His defection was a major blow to the king, since the great Honour of Clare comprised vast estates in the southern Marches and lordship of Tonbridge in Kent. This deprived Henry of territory, wealth and manpower.