Battle of Pontvallain
Encyclopedia
The Battle of Pontvallain was an important battle in France’s Hundred Years War with England
. It was fought in early December 1370 in the Sarthe
region between English forces that had broken away from the army commanded by the English knight Sir Robert Knolles
and a French army under the newly-appointed Constable of France
, Bertrand du Guesclin
. The battle was in fact two separate engagements, one at Pontvallain
and a smaller one at the nearby town of Vaas
; they are sometimes named as separate battles. Though the engagements were comparatively small-scale, they were significant because the English were routed, bringing to an end their 30-year reputation for invincibility in open battle.
in August 1370 with an army of about 6,000 mounted men and undertook a campaign in the style of a plundering raid through northern France. He approached Paris
on 24 September and tried to draw out the French to battle, but they did not take the bait and by October Knolles had moved south and was marching towards Vendôme
. He captured and garrisoned castles and monasteries between the rivers Loir
and Loire
and positioned himself to be able to march into Poitou
or alternatively into southern Normandy
if his King, Edward III, concluded an agreement with Charles II of Navarre
, who was offering his lands in Northern Normandy as a base for the English. Many of the subordinate captains, who considered themselves better-born than Knolles, deplored his apparent lack of martial spirit. They found a leader in Sir John Minsterworth, an ambitious and unstable knight from the Welsh Marches
who mocked Knolles as ‘the old freebooter’.
Meanwhile Charles V of France
had invested his best knight, Bertrand du Guesclin
, with the office of Constable of France, and tasked him with the mission of destroying Knolles’s army. In November du Guesclin concentrated his forces at Caen
where he was joined by reinforcements under the Marshals Mouton de Blainville and Arnoul d'Audrehem
as well as a Breton contingent under Olivier de Clisson
. He was thus able to raise about 4,000 men. A second army of about 1,200 men was formed in Knolles’s rear at Châtellerault
under Marshal Sancerre, which then moved towards Knolles from the East while Du Guesclin began to move on him from the north. Knolles, aware that the French were closing in, now proposed to withdraw westward into Brittany before he could be surrounded, but his captains violently disagreed, preferring to find winter quarters where they were and to continue to raid the surrounding countryside, confident they could defeat any French attack. As a result the army divided; Knolles took a contingent including his own retinue west towards Brittany. The remainder, numbering about 4,000 men, stayed in the region of the Loir valley in three groupings, one commanded jointly by Sir Thomas Grandison and Sir Hugh Calveley
, the other two by Walter, Lord Fitzwalter and by Minsterworth.
on 3 December. He received intelligence that Grandison’s and Fitzwalter’s forces were spread out in encampments between Pontvallain and Mayet
and, despite his army’s exhaustion, ordered an immediate night march, arriving at Pontvallain to attack the English at dawn on 4 December. Taken completely by surprise, Grandison tried to retreat northwards but the French caught up with him beneath the walls of the Château de la Faigne. In a bitter hand-to-hand fight the French took heavy casualties (Arnoul d’Audrehem later died of his wounds) but Grandison’s forces were virtually wiped out and he was taken prisoner. The English archers, who had been the architects of victory in every previous battle with the French, were badly positioned but even so failed to penetrate the armour of du Guesclin’s troops or to break up the French lines.
Meanwhile Sancerre was approaching Fitzwalter’s contingent from the east. The English fled south to the fortified abbey at Vaas, which was immediately assaulted by Sancerre and, when du Guesclin came up to support him, the English were massacred. Du Guesclin claimed Fitzwalter as his prisoner (it was said he thought Fitzwalter was the Marshal of England). He was held prisoner until he was able to raise a ransom by mortgaging his Cumberland
estates on ruinous terms to Edward III's mistress Alice Perrers
. Sir John Minsterworth’s corps managed to escape into Brittany following Knolles, who was pursued unsuccessfully by Olivier de Clisson. Sir Hugh Calveley escaped into Poitou. About 300 English survivors, plus the garrisons of various castles Knolles had occupied, fled south towards Bordeaux
but they were pursued by du Guesclin and Sancerre and, shortly after they had crossed the Loire, were caught and virtually wiped out beneath the walls of the castle of Bressuire
, which though held for the English would not open its gates to them.
Knolles and Minsterworth passed the winter in Brittany and then attempted to lead their companies to the port of Saint-Mathieu
to take ship for England, but they were harried all the way by Olivier de Clisson and there were only two ships to take them, so most of their men were left on the shore to be massacred by the French. In England Minsterworth accused Knolles of responsibility for the disaster. In July 1372 the King's Council decided the main fault lay with Knolles, who was stripped of the lands he had been given as fee for organizing the campaign. Minsterworth was arrested and charged with traducing Knolles, but escaped and fled to France, where he changed sides and entered the service of Charles V.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. It was fought in early December 1370 in the Sarthe
Sarthe
Sarthe is a French department, named after the Sarthe River.- History :The department was created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790, pursuant to the law of December 22, 1789, starting from a part of the province of Maine which was divided into two departments, Sarthe to the east and...
region between English forces that had broken away from the army commanded by the English knight Sir Robert Knolles
Robert Knolles
Sir Robert Knolles was an important English soldier of the Hundred Years' War, who, operating with the tacit support of the Crown, succeeded in taking the only two major French cities, other than Calais and Poitiers, to fall to Edward III...
and a French army under the newly-appointed Constable of France
Constable of France
The Constable of France , as the First Officer of the Crown, was one of the original five Great Officers of the Crown of France and Commander in Chief of the army. He, theoretically, as Lieutenant-general of the King, outranked all the nobles and was second-in-command only to the King...
, Bertrand du Guesclin
Bertrand du Guesclin
Bertrand du Guesclin , known as the Eagle of Brittany or the Black Dog of Brocéliande, was a Breton knight and French military commander during the Hundred Years' War. He was Constable of France from 1370 to his death...
. The battle was in fact two separate engagements, one at Pontvallain
Pontvallain
Pontvallain is a commune in the Sarthe department in the region of Pays-de-la-Loire in north-western France....
and a smaller one at the nearby town of Vaas
Vaas, Sarthe
Vaas is a commune in the Sarthe department in the region of Pays-de-la-Loire in north-western France.-References:*...
; they are sometimes named as separate battles. Though the engagements were comparatively small-scale, they were significant because the English were routed, bringing to an end their 30-year reputation for invincibility in open battle.
Background
Robert Knolles landed at CalaisCalais
Calais is a town in Northern France in the department of Pas-de-Calais, of which it is a sub-prefecture. Although Calais is by far the largest city in Pas-de-Calais, the department's capital is its third-largest city of Arras....
in August 1370 with an army of about 6,000 mounted men and undertook a campaign in the style of a plundering raid through northern France. He approached Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
on 24 September and tried to draw out the French to battle, but they did not take the bait and by October Knolles had moved south and was marching towards Vendôme
Vendôme
Vendôme is a commune in the Centre region of France.-Administration:Vendôme is the capital of the arrondissement of Vendôme in the Loir-et-Cher department, of which it is a sub-prefecture. It has a tribunal of first instance.-Geography:...
. He captured and garrisoned castles and monasteries between the rivers Loir
Loir
The Loir is a river in western France. It is a left tributary of the Sarthe River. Its source is in the Eure-et-Loir département, north of Illiers-Combray...
and Loire
Loire
Loire is an administrative department in the east-central part of France occupying the River Loire's upper reaches.-History:Loire was created in 1793 when after just 3½ years the young Rhône-et-Loire department was split into two. This was a response to counter-Revolutionary activities in Lyon...
and positioned himself to be able to march into Poitou
Poitou
Poitou was a province of west-central France whose capital city was Poitiers.The region of Poitou was called Thifalia in the sixth century....
or alternatively into southern Normandy
Normandy
Normandy is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. It is in France.The continental territory covers 30,627 km² and forms the preponderant part of Normandy and roughly 5% of the territory of France. It is divided for administrative purposes into two régions:...
if his King, Edward III, concluded an agreement with Charles II of Navarre
Charles II of Navarre
Charles II , called "Charles the Bad", was King of Navarre 1349-1387 and Count of Évreux 1343-1387....
, who was offering his lands in Northern Normandy as a base for the English. Many of the subordinate captains, who considered themselves better-born than Knolles, deplored his apparent lack of martial spirit. They found a leader in Sir John Minsterworth, an ambitious and unstable knight from the Welsh Marches
Welsh Marches
The Welsh Marches is a term which, in modern usage, denotes an imprecisely defined area along and around the border between England and Wales in the United Kingdom. The precise meaning of the term has varied at different periods...
who mocked Knolles as ‘the old freebooter’.
Meanwhile Charles V of France
Charles V of France
Charles V , called the Wise, was King of France from 1364 to his death in 1380 and a member of the House of Valois...
had invested his best knight, Bertrand du Guesclin
Bertrand du Guesclin
Bertrand du Guesclin , known as the Eagle of Brittany or the Black Dog of Brocéliande, was a Breton knight and French military commander during the Hundred Years' War. He was Constable of France from 1370 to his death...
, with the office of Constable of France, and tasked him with the mission of destroying Knolles’s army. In November du Guesclin concentrated his forces at Caen
Caen
Caen is a commune in northwestern France. It is the prefecture of the Calvados department and the capital of the Basse-Normandie region. It is located inland from the English Channel....
where he was joined by reinforcements under the Marshals Mouton de Blainville and Arnoul d'Audrehem
Arnoul d'Audrehem
Arnoul d'Audrehem was a French soldier.He was born at Audrehem, in the present arrondissement of Saint-Omer, in the département of Pas de Calais. Nothing is known of his career before 1332, when he is heard of at the court of Philip VI of France.Between 1332 and 1342 he went three times to...
as well as a Breton contingent under Olivier de Clisson
Olivier de Clisson
Olivier de Clisson , nicknamed "The Butcher", was a Breton soldier, the son of the Olivier de Clisson who was put to death in 1343 on the suspicion of having wished to give up Nantes to the English.- Biography :...
. He was thus able to raise about 4,000 men. A second army of about 1,200 men was formed in Knolles’s rear at Châtellerault
Châtellerault
Châtellerault is a commune in the Vienne department in the Poitou-Charentes region in France.It is located to the north of Poitou, and the residents are called Châtelleraudais.-Geography:...
under Marshal Sancerre, which then moved towards Knolles from the East while Du Guesclin began to move on him from the north. Knolles, aware that the French were closing in, now proposed to withdraw westward into Brittany before he could be surrounded, but his captains violently disagreed, preferring to find winter quarters where they were and to continue to raid the surrounding countryside, confident they could defeat any French attack. As a result the army divided; Knolles took a contingent including his own retinue west towards Brittany. The remainder, numbering about 4,000 men, stayed in the region of the Loir valley in three groupings, one commanded jointly by Sir Thomas Grandison and Sir Hugh Calveley
Hugh Calveley
Sir Hugh Calveley was an English soldier and commander, who took part in the Hundred Years' War, gaining fame during the War of the Breton Succession and the Castilian Civil War...
, the other two by Walter, Lord Fitzwalter and by Minsterworth.
The Battle and Aftermath
Du Guesclin left Caen with his army on 1 December and marched south at great speed, arriving near Le MansLe Mans
Le Mans is a city in France, located on the Sarthe River. Traditionally the capital of the province of Maine, it is now the capital of the Sarthe department and the seat of the Roman Catholic diocese of Le Mans. Le Mans is a part of the Pays de la Loire region.Its inhabitants are called Manceaux...
on 3 December. He received intelligence that Grandison’s and Fitzwalter’s forces were spread out in encampments between Pontvallain and Mayet
Mayet
Mayet is a commune in the Sarthe department in the region of Pays-de-la-Loire in north-western France.-References:*...
and, despite his army’s exhaustion, ordered an immediate night march, arriving at Pontvallain to attack the English at dawn on 4 December. Taken completely by surprise, Grandison tried to retreat northwards but the French caught up with him beneath the walls of the Château de la Faigne. In a bitter hand-to-hand fight the French took heavy casualties (Arnoul d’Audrehem later died of his wounds) but Grandison’s forces were virtually wiped out and he was taken prisoner. The English archers, who had been the architects of victory in every previous battle with the French, were badly positioned but even so failed to penetrate the armour of du Guesclin’s troops or to break up the French lines.
Meanwhile Sancerre was approaching Fitzwalter’s contingent from the east. The English fled south to the fortified abbey at Vaas, which was immediately assaulted by Sancerre and, when du Guesclin came up to support him, the English were massacred. Du Guesclin claimed Fitzwalter as his prisoner (it was said he thought Fitzwalter was the Marshal of England). He was held prisoner until he was able to raise a ransom by mortgaging his Cumberland
Cumberland
Cumberland is a historic county of North West England, on the border with Scotland, from the 12th century until 1974. It formed an administrative county from 1889 to 1974 and now forms part of Cumbria....
estates on ruinous terms to Edward III's mistress Alice Perrers
Alice Perrers
Alice Perrers was a royal mistress whose lover and patron was King Edward III of England. She acquired significant land holdings. She served as a lady-in-waiting to Edward's consort, Philippa of Hainault.-Life and Family:...
. Sir John Minsterworth’s corps managed to escape into Brittany following Knolles, who was pursued unsuccessfully by Olivier de Clisson. Sir Hugh Calveley escaped into Poitou. About 300 English survivors, plus the garrisons of various castles Knolles had occupied, fled south towards Bordeaux
Bordeaux
Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...
but they were pursued by du Guesclin and Sancerre and, shortly after they had crossed the Loire, were caught and virtually wiped out beneath the walls of the castle of Bressuire
Bressuire
Bressuire is a commune in the Deux-Sèvres department in France. The town is situated on an eminence overlooking the Dolo, a tributary of the Argenton.-Notable buildings:...
, which though held for the English would not open its gates to them.
Knolles and Minsterworth passed the winter in Brittany and then attempted to lead their companies to the port of Saint-Mathieu
Pointe Saint-Mathieu
The pointe Saint-Mathieu is a headland located near Le Conquet in the territory of the commune of Plougonvelin in France, flanked by 20m high cliffs.-Village:...
to take ship for England, but they were harried all the way by Olivier de Clisson and there were only two ships to take them, so most of their men were left on the shore to be massacred by the French. In England Minsterworth accused Knolles of responsibility for the disaster. In July 1372 the King's Council decided the main fault lay with Knolles, who was stripped of the lands he had been given as fee for organizing the campaign. Minsterworth was arrested and charged with traducing Knolles, but escaped and fled to France, where he changed sides and entered the service of Charles V.