Battle of Baugé
Battle of Baugé | |||||||
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Part of the Hundred Years' War | |||||||
The Battle of Baugé, illustration from the manuscript of Martial d'Auvergne, Les Vigiles de Charles VII, c. 1484. | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Kingdom of France Kingdom of Scotland | Kingdom of England | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Gilbert Motier de La Fayette John Stewart, Earl of Buchan Archibald Douglas, Earl of Wigton |
Thomas, Duke of Clarence † Thomas Montagu, Earl of Salisbury Gilbert de Umfraville † John, Baron Ros † | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
5,000 men | 4,000 men (although only 1,500 men directly took part in the battle) | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
very light |
1,000 dead 500 captured |
The Battle of Baugé, fought between the
Background
In 1415 Henry V, with the intention of resuming the war, sailed from England to France with a force of about 10,500. He then pursued a highly successful military campaign, including the decisive victory at the Battle of Agincourt, and regained from the French crown much of England's previously held lands in France.[1][2]
The Scots had been in an alliance with France since 1295.[3] In 1419 the situation in France was desperate. Normandy was lost to the English and Paris to the Burgundians. France was in a state of an ongoing civil war between the Royalist faction and the supporters of the dukes of Burgundy. In these deteriorating circumstances, the Dauphin appealed to the Scots for help. A Scottish army was assembled under the leadership of John, Earl of Buchan, and Archibald, Earl of Wigtown, and from late 1419 to 1421 the Scottish army became the mainstay of the Dauphin’s defence of the lower Loire valley.[4]
When Henry returned to England in 1421, he left his heir presumptive, Thomas, Duke of Clarence, in charge of the remaining army. Following the King's instructions, the Duke of Clarence led 4000 men in raids through the provinces of Anjou and Maine.[5] This chevauchée met with little resistance, and by Good Friday, 21 March, the English army had made camp near the little town of Vieil-Baugé. The Franco-Scots army of about 5000 also arrived in the Vieil-Baugé area to block the English army's progress. It was commanded by the Earl of Buchan and the new Marshal of France, the Seigneur of La Fayette; however, the English forces were dispersed, and, significantly, many of the English archers had ridden off in search of plunder or forage. On Easter Saturday, one of these foraging groups captured a Scots man-at-arms who was able to provide the Duke of Clarence with intelligence on the 5000 strong Scottish army. Clarence was keen to engage the enemy; however, he had a problem: the following day was Easter Sunday, one of the most holy days in the Christian calendar, when a battle would be unthinkable. A two-day delay was also deemed as out of the question.[4][6] According to the chronicles of Walter Bower both commanders agreed to a short truce for Easter.[7]
Battle
There are several accounts of the Battle of Baugé; they may vary in the detail; however, most agree that principal factor in the Franco-Scottish victory was the rashness of the Duke of Clarence.
When Clarence finally forced his way across, he was confronted with the main body of the Franco-Scottish army; its men-at-arms were dismounted and were well defended by the Scottish archers.
Later on in the day, probably in the evening, decisive action was taken by Salisbury, who, having succeeded in rounding up the English archers, used a contingent of them to rescue what was left of the English force and retrieve some of the bodies of the fallen, including that of Clarence.[10]
Aftermath
However, the Scots allowed the remnant of the English army, led by Salisbury, to escape and so missed an opportunity to remove the English from France. Nevertheless, the battle did secure the reputation of the Scottish army in France.[4] On hearing of the Scottish victory, Pope Martin V passed comment by reiterating a common medieval saying, that "Verily the Scots are the antidote of the English."[10]
The Dauphin was able to exploit the victory at Baugé by announcing his intention to invade English-held Normandy.
Meanwhile, Henry V had been busy in England with his wife Catherine of Valois. Catherine had been crowned at Westminster in late February. Soon after the queen's coronation, Henry and Catherine had set out on separate tours of England. It was while Henry was in the north of England he was informed of the disaster at Baugé and the death of his brother. He is said, by contemporaries, to have borne the news manfully. Henry returned to France with an army of 4000–5000 men. He arrived in Calais on 10 June, before going on to Paris (which was occupied by the England-friendly Burgundian forces under Philip the Good); he then visited Chartres and Gâtinais before returning to Paris. Several key southern towns were still loyal to the Dauphinist forces, leading Henry to decide to remove them as a factor for good. After taking the first town, he moved to lay siege to the strongly fortified Dauphin-held town of Meaux. It turned out to be more difficult to overcome than first thought. The siege began about 6 October, and the town held for seven months before finally falling on 11 May 1422. Whilst on his campaign in France, Henry fell ill and soon died (probably of dysentery) on 31 August 1422.[2]
England's war in France continued under the
Notable casualties and captives
English deaths
- Thomas of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Clarence †
- John Grey, 1st Earl of Tankerville †
- John de Ros, 7th Baron de Ros †
- William de Ros †
- Gilbert V de Umfraville †
English captives
- John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset captured by Laurence Vernon
- Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter, captured by Tanneguy du Châtel.
- John Holland, Earl of Huntingdon captured by Sir John Sibbald of Balgonie
- Thomas Beaufort captured by Sir John Stewart of Darnley
- Walter FitzWalter, 7th Baron FitzWalter captured by Henry Cunningham
French deaths
- Charles le Bouteiller
- Guérin de Fontaine
See also
Notes
- ^ Curry. Arms, Armies and Fortifications in the Hundred Years' War. pp. 44–45
- ^ required.)
- ^ Prestwich. The Plantagenets. pp. 304–305
- ^ a b c d e f Brown. The Black Douglases: War and Lordship in Late Medieval Scotland, 1300–1455. pp. 216–218
- ^ a b Wagner. Encyclopedia of the Hundred Years' War. pp. 43–44
- ^ Neillands. The Hundred Years' War. p. 233,
- ^ a b c d Macdougall. An Antidote to the English p. 65
- ^ G. L. Harriss, ‘Thomas , duke of Clarence (1387–1421)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Sept 2010 accessed 30 May 2013
- ^ See Francis M. Nichols The Battle of Bauge, and the Personages Engaged in it in John Gough Nichols ' The Herald and Genealogist, Volume 5.' pp. 340–351 for a discussion on the variation of details and sources on how Clarence met his death.
- ^ a b Matusiak. Henry V. pp. 218–219
- ^ Wagner. Encyclopedia of the Hundred Years' War. pp.307–308
- ^ R. A. Griffiths, ‘Henry VI (1421–1471)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Sept 2010 accessed 1 June 2013
References
- Bartlett, Robert (2000). J.M.Roberts (ed.). England Under the Norman and Angevin Kings 1075–1225. London: OUP. ISBN 978-0-19-925101-8.
- Brown, Michael (1998). The Black Douglases: War and Lordship in Late Medieval Scotland, 1300–1455. Edinburgh: John Donald. ISBN 0-85976-610-1.
- Curry, Anne; Hughes, Michael, eds. (1999). Arms, Armies and Fortifications in the Hundred Years War. London: Boydell Press. ISBN 0-8511-5755-6.
- Macdougall, Norman (2001). An Antidote to the English: The Auld Alliance, 1295–1560. East Lothian, Scotland: Tuckwell Press Ltd. ISBN 1-8623-2145-0.
- Matusiak, John (2012). Henry V. Abingdon, Oxford: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-62027-7.
- Nichols, John Gough, ed. (1850). The Herald and Genealogist, Volume 5. London: Nichols.
- ISBN 0-521-20963-3.
- Neillands, Robin (1990). The Hundred Years War, Revised ed. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-26130-9.
- Rogers, Clifford J, ed. (2010). The Oxford Encyclopedia of Medieval Warfare and Military Technology. Vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-533403-6.
- Wagner, John A (2006). Encyclopedia of the Hundred Years War. Westport CT: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-32736-X.