Siege of Guînes (1352)
Siege of Guînes | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Part of the Hundred Years' War | |||||||
| |||||||
Belligerents | |||||||
Kingdom of France | Kingdom of England | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Geoffrey de Charny | Thomas Hogshaw | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
4,500 | 115, assisted externally by an unknown number | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
Unknown | Unknown |
The siege of Guînes took place from May to July 1352 when a French army under Geoffrey de Charny unsuccessfully attempted to recapture the French castle at Guînes which had been seized by the English the previous January. The siege was part of the Hundred Years' War and took place during the uneasy and ill-kept truce of Calais.
The strongly fortified castle had been taken by the English during a period of nominal truce and the English king, Edward III, decided to keep it. Charny led 4,500 men and retook the town but was unable to blockade the castle. After two months of fierce fighting, a large English night attack on the French camp inflicted a heavy defeat and the French withdrew. Guînes was incorporated into the Pale of Calais. The castle was besieged by the French in 1436 and 1514, but was relieved each time, before falling to the French in 1558.
Background
Since the
Edward needed a port where his army could regroup and be resupplied from the sea. The Channel port of Calais suited this purpose; it was also highly defensible and would provide a secure entrepôt into France for English armies. Calais could be easily resupplied by sea and defended by land.[9][10] Edward's army laid siege to the port in September 1346. With French finances and morale at a low ebb after Crécy, Philip failed to relieve the town, and the starving defenders surrendered on 3 August 1347.[11][12] By 28 September the Truce of Calais, intended to bring a temporary halt to the fighting, had been agreed.[13] It was to run for nine months to 7 July 1348, but was extended repeatedly.[14] The truce did not stop ongoing naval clashes between the two countries, nor small-scale fighting in Gascony and Brittany.[15][16]
In July 1348, a member of the King's Council, Geoffrey de Charny, was put in charge of all French forces in the north east.[17] Despite the truce being in effect Charny hatched a plan to retake Calais by subterfuge, and bribed Amerigo of Pavia, an Italian officer of the city garrison, to open a gate for a force led by him.[18][19][20] The English king became aware of the plot, crossed the Channel and led his household knights and the Calais garrison in a surprise counter-attack.[21][22] When the French approached on New Year's Day 1350 they were routed by this smaller force, with significant losses and all their leaders captured or killed; Charny was among the captured.[23]
In late 1350
English attack
In early January 1352 a band of freelancing English soldiers, led by John of Doncaster, seized the town of Guînes by a midnight escalade. The fortifications at Guînes were often used as quarters for English prisoners and according to some contemporary accounts Doncaster had been employed as forced labour there after being taken captive earlier in the war and had used the opportunity to examine the town's defences. After gaining his freedom he had remained in France as a member of the garrison of Calais, as he had been exiled from England for violent crimes.[27][28] One of these sources suggests that Doncaster learnt the details of Guînes' defences through an affair with a French washerwoman.[29] The French garrison of Guînes was not expecting an attack and Doncaster's party crossed the moat, scaled the walls, killed the sentries, stormed the keep, released the English prisoners there, and took over the whole castle.[27]
The French were furious: the acting-commander, Hugues de Belconroy, was drawn and quartered for dereliction of duty, at the behest of Charny, who had returned to France after being ransomed from English captivity. French envoys rushed to London to deliver a strong protest to Edward on 15 January.[30][31] Edward was thereby put in a difficult position. The English had been strengthening the defences of Calais with the construction of fortified towers or bastions at bottlenecks on the roads through the marshes to the town.[32] These could not compete with the strength of the defences at Guînes, which would greatly improve the security of the English enclave around Calais. However, retaining it would be a flagrant breach of the truce then in force. Edward would suffer a loss of honour and possibly a resumption of open warfare, for which he was unprepared. He therefore ordered the English occupants to hand Guînes back.[27]
By coincidence, the
French attack
The outbreak of hostilities at Guînes caused fighting to also flare up in Brittany and the
By the end of May the English authorities, concerned by these preparations, raised a force of more than 6,000 which was gradually shipped to Calais. From there they harassed the French in what the modern historian Jonathan Sumption describes as "savage and continual fighting" throughout June and early July. In mid-July a large contingent of troops arrived from England, and, reinforced by much of the Calais garrison, they were successful in approaching Guînes undetected and launching a night attack on the French camp. Many Frenchmen were killed and a large part of the palisade around the convent was destroyed. Shortly afterwards Charny abandoned the siege, leaving a garrison to hold the convent.[34]
The French captured and slighted a newly built English tower at Fretun, 3 miles (4.8 km) south west of Calais, then retreated to Saint-Omer, where their army disbanded.[34] During the rest of the year the English expanded their enclave around Calais, building and strengthening fortifications on all the access routes through the marshes around Calais, forming what became the Pale of Calais. The potential offensive threat posed by Calais caused the French to garrison 60 fortified positions in an arc around the town, at ruinous expense.[35]
Aftermath
The war also went badly for the French on other fronts and, encouraged by the new pope, Innocent VI, a peace treaty was negotiated at Guînes beginning in early 1353. On 6 April 1354 a draft was agreed. This Treaty of Guînes would have ended the war, very much in the favour of England. French and English ambassadors travelled to Avignon that winter to ratify the treaty in the presence of the Pope. This did not occur as the French king was persuaded that another round of warfare might leave him in a better negotiating position and withdrew his representatives.[36]
Charny was killed in 1356 at the
Citations and sources
Citations
- ^ Prestwich 2005, pp. 292, 394.
- ^ Wagner 2006d, pp. 157–158.
- ^ Wagner 2006e, p. 163.
- ^ Wagner 2006f, p. 251.
- ^ Oman 1998, p. 131.
- ^ Wagner 2006c, p. 106.
- ^ Burne 1999, pp. 138–152.
- ^ DeVries 1998, pp. 166–175.
- ^ Sumption 1990, p. 535.
- ^ Sumption 1999, pp. 19–21.
- ^ a b Jaques 2007, p. 184.
- ^ Burne 1999, pp. 204–217.
- ^ Sumption 1990, p. 585.
- ^ Wagner 2006b, pp. 74–75.
- ^ Wagner 2006b, p. 74.
- ^ Harari 2007, p. 114.
- ^ Sumption 1999, pp. 12–13.
- ^ Kaeuper & Kennedy 1996, p. 10.
- ^ Harari 2007, p. 113.
- ^ Kaeuper 2013, p. 8.
- ^ Harari 2007, pp. 117–119.
- ^ Sumption 1999, p. 61.
- ^ Sumption 1999, pp. 61–62.
- ^ Sumption 1999, pp. 71–72, 88–89.
- ^ Sumption 1990, p. 511.
- ^ Sumption 1999, pp. 71–72.
- ^ a b c Sumption 1999, pp. 88–89.
- ^ Rogers 2014, p. 288.
- ^ Livingstone & Witzel 2004, p. 67.
- ^ Kaeuper & Kennedy 1996, p. 14.
- ^ a b Sumption 1999, pp. 89–90.
- ^ Harari 2007, p. 122.
- ^ Sumption 1999, pp. 91–92.
- ^ a b Sumption 1999, p. 93.
- ^ Sumption 1999, p. 100.
- ^ Rogers 2014, pp. 290–292.
- ^ Wagner 2006a, p. 20.
- ^ Sumption 1999, p. 447.
- ^ Ayloffe 1773, p. 19.
Sources
- OCLC 557582674.
- ISBN 978-1-84022-210-4.
- ISBN 978-0-85115-571-5.
- ISBN 978-1-84383-292-8.
- Jaques, Tony (2007). Dictionary of Battles and Sieges. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-313-33537-2.
- ISBN 978-0-81220-868-9.
- Kaeuper, Richard W. & ISBN 978-0-81223-348-3.
- Livingstone, Marilyn & Witzel, Morgen (2004). The Road to Crécy: The English Invasion of France, 1346. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0582784208.
- ISBN 978-1-85367-332-0.
- ISBN 978-0-19822-844-8.
- Rogers, Clifford (2014) [2000]. War Cruel and Sharp: English Strategy under Edward III, 1327–1360. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press. ISBN 978-0-85115-804-4.
- ISBN 978-0-57120-095-5.
- Sumption, Jonathan (1999). Trial by Fire. The Hundred Years' War. Vol. II. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 978-0-57113-896-8.
- Wagner, John A. (2006a). "Armies, Command of". Encyclopedia of the Hundred Years War. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Greenwood. pp. 19–21. ISBN 978-0-31332-736-0.
- Wagner, John A. (2006b). "Calais, Truce of (1347)". Encyclopedia of the Hundred Years War. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Greenwood. pp. 74–75. ISBN 978-0-31332-736-0.
- Wagner, John A. (2006c). "Crécy, Battle of (1346)". Encyclopedia of the Hundred Years War. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Greenwood. pp. 105–107. ISBN 978-0-31332-736-0.
- Wagner, John A. (2006d). "Hundred Years' War, Causes of". Encyclopedia of the Hundred Years War. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Greenwood. pp. 157–159. ISBN 978-0-31332-736-0.
- Wagner, John A. (2006e). "Hundred Years' War, Phases of". Encyclopedia of the Hundred Years War. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Greenwood. pp. 160–164. ISBN 978-0-31332-736-0.
- Wagner, John A. (2006f). "Philip VI, King of France (1293–1350)". Encyclopedia of the Hundred Years War. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Greenwood. pp. 250–252. ISBN 978-0-31332-736-0.