John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury
John Talbot | |
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| 1st talbot dog, presenting the book to Margaret of Anjou, Queen of England, 1445. His robe displays several encircled Garters . | |
| Tenure | 20 May 1442 – 17 July 1453 |
| Other titles |
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| Known for | Military activity during the Hundred Years' War |
| Born | c. 1387 Blackmere castle, Shropshire 52°58′40″N 2°39′24″W / 52.97767°N 2.65680°W |
| Died | 17 July 1453 (aged 65–66) Castillon-la-Bataille, Gascony |
| Cause of death | Slain in battle |
| Buried | St Alkmund's Church, Whitchurch |
| Offices | Lieutenant of Ireland Lord High Steward of Ireland Constable of France |
| Spouse(s) |
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| Issue |
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| Years of service | 1404–1453 |
| Conflicts | Glyndŵr Rising
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John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, 1st Earl of Waterford, 7th Baron Talbot,
Origins
He was descended from Richard Talbot, the son of William "Le Sire" Talbot, whose estate (wife and infant son Hugh) was a tenant in 1086 of
John Talbot was born in about 1384
His father died in 1396 when Talbot was around nine years old, and so it was Ankaret's second husband,
Marriages and issue
Talbot was married before 12 March 1407 to
- John Talbot, 2nd Earl of Shrewsbury (c. 1413 – 10 July 1460)
- Thomas Talbot (19 June 1416, Finglas, Ireland – 10 August 1416)
- Lady Katherine Talbot (c. 1418 – c. 1500) married Sir Nicholas Eyton (c. 1405 – c. 1450), Sheriff of Shropshire 1440 & 1449.[11]
- Sir Christopher Talbot (1419 – 10 August 1443)
- Lady Joan Talbot (c. 1422), married James Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley
- Lady Ann Talbot, married John Bottreaux, of Abbot's Salford.
By the death of his niece in 1421 he acquired the Baronies of Talbot and Strange. His first wife, Maud, died on 31 May 1422. It has been suggested that she died as an indirect result of giving birth to her daughter Joan, although there is a lack of evidence about Joan's life before her marriage to Lord Berkeley. There is even a theory that she was actually Talbot's daughter-in-law through marriage to Sir Christopher Talbot.
On 6 September 1425, in the chapel at
- John Talbot, 1st Baron Lisle and 1st Viscount Lisle, who was killed along with his father at Castillon on 17 July 1453.
- Sir Louis Talbot (c. 1429 – 1458) of Penyard
- Sir Humphrey Talbot (before 1434 – 1492, Mount Sinai), marshal of Calais.[12] Married Mary, daughter and co-heiress of John Champernoun, no issue.[13] Died probably at Saint Catherine's Monastery.
- King Edward IV.
- Lady Elizabeth Talbot (c. December 1442/January 1443 – 6 November 1506/10 May 1507). She married John de Mowbray, 4th Duke of Norfolk.
Talbot is known to have had at least one illegitimate child, Henry. He may have served in France with his father as it is known that a bastard son of the Earl of Shrewsbury was captured by the
Early career and service in Ireland
From 1404 to 1413 he served with his elder brother Gilbert in the Welsh revolt or the
The dispute with the Earl of Ormond escalated into a long-running feud between Talbot and his brother, the
During John's first term in Ireland, his elder brother Gilbert was serving as a soldier in France. Gilbert died on 19 October 1418 at the
From 1420 to 1424 he served in France, apart from a brief return at the end of the first year to organise the festivities of celebrating the coronation of Catherine of Valois, the bride of Henry V.[19] He returned to France in May 1421 and took part in the Battle of Verneuil on 17 August 1424 earning him the Order of the Garter.
In 1425, he was lieutenant again for a short time in Ireland;
Service in France
So far his career was that of a turbulent
In 1427 he went again to France, where he fought alongside the
Talbot was a daring and aggressive soldier, perhaps the most audacious captain of the age. He and his forces were ever ready to retake a town and to meet a French advance. His trademark was rapid aggressive attacks. He was rewarded by being appointed governor and lieutenant general in France and Normandy and, in 1434, the Duke of Bedford made him Count of Clermont. He also reorganized the army with captains and lieutenants, trained the men for sieges, and equipped them accordingly. But when the Duke of Bedford died in 1435, the Burgundian government in Paris defected to the French, leaving Talbot, known as le roi talbot ("king Talbot") as the main English general in the field.[22][23]
On 2 February 1436, he led a small force including
Lord Shrewsbury
Around February 1442, Talbot returned to England to request urgent reinforcements for the Duke of York in Normandy. In March, under king's orders, ships were requisitioned for this purpose with Talbot himself responsible for assembling ships from the Port of London and from Sandwich.[24]
On
In 1442-1443, he led the unsuccessful siege of Dieppe, where the English were beaten by a French relief force under the command of Louis, dauphin of France, the future king Louis XI.[26]
In June 1443, Talbot again returned to England on behalf of the Duke of York to plead for reinforcements, but this time the English Council refused, instead sending a separate force under Shrewsbury's brother-in-law, Edmund Beaufort. His son, Sir Christopher, stayed in England where shortly afterwards he was murdered with a lance at the age of 23 by one of his own men, Griffin Vachan of Treflidian on 10 August at "Cawce, County Salop" (Caus Castle).[27]
The English Achilles
He was appointed in 1445 by Henry VI (as the disputed king of France) as Constable of France. Taken hostage at Rouen in 1449 he promised never to wear armour against the French King again. He was true to the letter of his word, but continued to command English forces against the French without personally fighting. In England, he was widely renowned as the best general King Henry VI had. The king relied upon his support at Dartford in 1452, and in 1450 to suppress Cade's Revolt. In 1452 he was ordered to Bordeaux as the king's lieutenant of the Duchy of Aquitaine, and landed there on 17 October. He repaired castle garrisons facing mounting pressure from France, when some reinforcements arrived with his son John, Viscount Lisle in spring 1453, and he captured Fronsac.[28]
Death
Talbot was decisively defeated and killed on 17 July 1453 at the Battle of Castillon near Bordeaux, which effectively ended English rule in Aquitaine, a principal cause of the Hundred Years' War. It was reported at the time that when his horse was fatally struck by enemy ordnance, it fell on top of Talbot and pinned him down, enabling a French soldier to finish him off with a battleaxe. His heart was buried in the doorway of St Alkmund's Church, Whitchurch, Shropshire.[29]
The victorious French generals raised a monument to Talbot on the field called Notre Dame de Talbot and a French Chronicler paid him handsome tribute:
"Such was the end of this famous and renowned English leader who for so long had been one of the most formidable thorns in the side of the French, who regarded him with terror and dismay" – Matthew d'Escourcy
Although Talbot is generally remembered as a great soldier, some have raised doubts as to his generalship. In particular, charges of rashness have been raised against him. Speed and aggression were key elements in granting success in
On a political level, his governorship of Ireland degenerated into bitter feuding and personal hatreds. The Crown itself reprimanded him for weakening English rule in Ireland, though in fairness he was far from being the only culprit.
Cultural influence
He is portrayed heroically in Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 1: "Valiant Lord Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, Created, for his rare success in arms". Talbot's failures are all blamed on Fastolf and feuding factions in the English court. Thomas Nashe, commenting on the play in his booklet Pierce Penniless, stated that Talbot's example was inspiring Englishmen anew, two centuries after his death,
How would it have joyed brave Talbot, the terror of the French, to think that after he had lain two hundred years in his tomb, he should triumph again on the stage, and have his bones new embalmed with the tears of ten thousand spectators at least (at several times) who in the tragedian that represents his person imagine they behold him fresh bleeding. I will defend it against any collian or clubfisted usurer of them all, there is no immortality can be given a man on earth like unto plays.
Fiction
John Talbot is shown as a featured character in
Talbot appears as one of the primary antagonists in the PSP game Jeanne d'Arc.
See also
- Talbot Shrewsbury Book
- Talbot (dog)
- Château Talbot
- HMS Talbot (1895)
Footnotes
- ^ Pollard 2015, p. 835.
- ^ Pollard 2004.
- ^ Williams & Martin 2002, p. 568; Keats-Rohan 1999, p. 368
- ^ Keats-Rohan 2002, p. 1123.
- ^ Siddons M P: 'The Development of Welsh Heraldry', Vol. 1, p. 289, NLW 1991.
- ^ Cokayne 1953, p. 610.
- ^ Cokayne 1949, p. 698.
- ^ Pollard 1968, p. 11.
- ^ Tait 1898, p. 319.
- ^ Ashdown-Hill 2009, p. 14.
- ISBN 978-0-8063-1916-2.
- ^ Tait 1898, p. 323.
- ^ Nicolas 1826, pp. 409–410.
- ^ John Ashdown-Hill, The Secret Queen: Eleanor Talbot, the Woman Who Put Richard III on the Throne, 2016
- ^ Ashdown-Hill 2009, p. 35.
- ^ a b c d Kingsford 1911, p. 1017.
- ^ Ashdown-Hill 2009, p. 16.
- ISBN 978-1-56619-216-3.
- ^ Ashdown-Hill 2009, p. 15.
- ^ Kingsford 1911, pp. 1017–1018.
- ^ Ashdown-Hill 2009, p. 17.
- ^ Talbot, Rev Hugh,
- ^ A J Pollard
- ^ Ashdown-Hill 2009, p. 26.
- ^ Ashdown-Hill 2009, p. 29.
- ^ Barker, Juliet R. V. (2010), Conquest : the English kingdom of France in the Hundred Years War. London: Abacus, p. 301.
- ^ PRO 1908, pp. 220, 397–398.
- ^ Kingsford 1911, p. 1018.
- ^ "Whitchurch". Shropshire Tourism. Archived from the original on 24 October 2015. Retrieved 13 March 2008.
References
- ISBN 978-0-7524-5669-0.
- Cokayne, G. (1949). G.H. White (ed.). The Complete Peerage. Vol. 11 (2nd ed.). London: St. Catherine Press.
- Cokayne, G. (1953). G.H. White (ed.). The Complete Peerage. Vol. 12 (2nd ed.). London: St. Catherine Press.
- ISBN 978-0-85115-722-1.
- Keats-Rohan, K. (2002). Domesday Descendants. Boydell Press. ISBN 978-0-85115-863-1.
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Kingsford, Charles Lethbridge (1911). "Shrewsbury, John Talbot, 1st Earl of". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 24 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 1017–1018.
- Nicolas, H., ed. (1826). Testamenta Vetusta. Vol. 2. London: Nichols and Son.
- Pollard, A.J. (1968). The family of Talbot, Lords Talbot and Earls of Shrewsbury in the Fifteenth Century (PhD). University of Bristol.
- Pollard, A.J. (2004). "Talbot, John, first earl of Shrewsbury and first earl of Waterford (c. 1387–1453)". doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/26932. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- Pollard, A.J. (15 December 2015). "Shrewsbury, John Talbot, 1st earl of". In ISBN 978-0-19-967783-2.
- OCLC 5331279.
- Tait, J. (1898). . In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 55. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
- ISBN 978-0-14-100523-2.
Other sources
- Allmand, C T (1983) Lancastrian Normandy, 1415–1450: The History of a Medieval Occupation. New York: Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press, pp. xiii, 349
- Barker, J. (2000) The Hundred Years War
- Bradbury, M. (1983) Medieval Archery
- Elder, A. (1985). "Lancastrian Normandy, 1415–1450: The History of a Medieval Occupation. C. T. Allmand John Talbot and the War in France, 1427–1453. A. J. Pollard". JSTOR 2853735.
- Mortimer, I. (2008), 1415: A Year of Glory
- Pollard, A.J. (1983) John Talbot and the War in France, 1427–1453, Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, Inc
- Sumption, J. (2004) The Hundred Years War: Trial by Fire vol. 2 of 2
- Talbot, Rev H., (1980) The English Achilles: the life of John Talbot
Further reading
- Burke, J. (1846). A General and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerages of England, Ireland, and Scotland, extinct, dormant, and in abeyance (3rd ed.). London: Henry Colburn.
- Chernaik, Warren L. (2007). "1 Henry VI: brave Talbot and his adversaries". The Cambridge Introduction to Shakespeare's History Plays. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-67120-0.
- OCLC 2277334.
- Jones, M. (1994). "The Relief of Avranches (1439): An English Feat of Arms at the End of the Hundred Years War". In Nicholas Rogers (ed.). England in the Fifteenth Century (conference paper). Harlaxton Medieval Studies (new series). Vol. 4. ISBN 978-1-871615-67-8.
- Pearlman, E. (1996). "Shakespeare at Work: The Two Talbots". Philological Quarterly. 75 (1): 1–22.
- Reeves, Compton (Fall 1984). doi:10.2307/4048761.
- ISBN 978-1-4499-6635-5.
- Riddell, J. (1977). "Talbot and the Countess of Auvergne" (PDF). JSTOR 2869631. Archived from the original(PDF) on 14 May 2018. Retrieved 13 May 2018.
- Rodgers, Joel (2013). "Talbot, Incorporated". In Martin Procházka; Michael Dobson; ISBN 978-1-61149-460-0.
- Woodcock, Matthew (2004). "John Talbot, Terror of the French: A Continuing Tradition". .
External links
- A brief short history of Lord John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury
- "John Talbot, 1st earl of Shrewsbury". Encyclopædia Britannica. 20 July 1998.
- Lord John Talbot
- "Lord Talbot". University of Waterloo. Archived from the original on 22 May 2018. Retrieved 22 May 2018.
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