Sir Thomas Dagworth was an English

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...

 knight

Knight

A knight was a member of a class of lower nobility in the High Middle Ages.By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior....

 and soldier

Soldier

A soldier is a member of the land component of national armed forces; whereas a soldier hired for service in a foreign army would be termed a mercenary...

, who led English armies in Brittany

Brittany

Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...

 during the Hundred Years' War

Hundred Years' War

The Hundred Years' War was a series of separate wars waged from 1337 to 1453 by the House of Valois and the House of Plantagenet, also known as the House of Anjou, for the French throne, which had become vacant upon the extinction of the senior Capetian line of French kings...

.

In 1346 he led a small English force in Brittany in support of John de Montfort's

John V, Duke of Brittany

John V the Conqueror KG was Duke of Brittany and Count of Montfort, from 1345 until his death.-Numbering:...

 claim on the dukedom. De Montfort was backed by the English throne, whereas his rival, Charles of Blois

Charles, Duke of Brittany

Charles of Blois , claimed the title Duke of Brittany, from 1341 to his death.Charles is the son of Guy I of Blois-Châtillon, count of Blois, by Margaret of Valois, a sister of king Philip VI of France. He was a devout man, who took piety to the extreme of mortifying his own flesh...

 was backed by the French. On June 9, Dagworth's force was attacked by Charles' much larger army at Saint-Pol-de-Léon

Battle of St Pol de Leon

The Battle of Saint-Pol-de-Léon was a minor action during the Breton War of Succession and thus part of the larger Hundred Years War. The battle was fought in June 1346 and marked a minor turning point in the fortunes of the Montfortists and their English allies in Brittany following several...

. Though almost surrounded, the longbowmen

English longbow

The English longbow, also called the Welsh longbow, is a powerful type of medieval longbow about 6 ft long used by the English and Welsh for hunting and as a weapon in medieval warfare...

 won the day for the English. The next year, on 20 June, he claimed an even more famous victory at la Roche-Derrien

Battle of La Roche-Derrien

The Battle of La Roche-Derrien was one of the battles of the Hundred Years' War, fought in 1347 during the night between English and French forces...

, where Charles of Blois was captured.

He was killed in an ambush in 1352 by Bretons unhappy with the English presence.

Sir Thomas came from Bradwell Juxta Coggeshall in Essex. In 1343 he had married Eleanor de Bohun, Countess of Ormonde

Eleanor de Bohun, Countess of Ormonde

Eleanor de Bohun, Countess of Ormond was an English noblewoman born in Knaresborough Castle to Humphrey de Bohun, 4th Earl of Hereford and Elizabeth daughter of King Edward I of England and Eleanor of Castile...

, the daughter of Humphrey de Bohun, 4th Earl of Hereford

Humphrey de Bohun, 4th Earl of Hereford

Humphrey de Bohun, 4th Earl of Hereford was a member of a powerful Anglo-Norman family of the Welsh Marches and was one of the Ordainers who opposed Edward II's excesses.-Family background :...

 and Elizabeth Plantagenet

Elizabeth of Rhuddlan

Elizabeth of Rhuddlan was the eighth and youngest daughter of Edward I of England and Eleanor of Castile...

, the king's sister.