Chapter Eleven: War, Part Two
After the Battle of Compiegne, the Alliance was in a notably weaker position. With few options, Edward sent a letter to his brother Edmund, Duke of Rutland in Ireland, and asked him to come to France with an Irish army to help turn the tides. Edmund, of course, complied, and on 6th August 1474, a force of 8,000 Irish soldiers - 3,000 drawn from Edmund’s own estates in Cork and Ulster and 5,000 led by Conn O’Neill, King of Ulster and John Dempsey, Earl of Maliere - landed at Cherbourg, still held by a group of Breton soldiers. This proved a turning point in the war as the Gaelic soldiers of O’Neill and Maliere did not practice the chivalric form of warfare that most French soldiers were used to, but instead used guerrilla warfare against their enemies - burning farms, raiding convoys, and setting up ambushes, all the while avoiding pitched battles. The 5,000 Gaelic soldiers soon gained the epithet of the Banshees, after the terrifying creatures of Irish folklore. Louis, Duke of Orleans got his own first taste of guerrilla warfare at the hands of the Banshees at the Battle of Cergy, on 2nd September 1474, which resulted in 153 French soldiers being forced into a lake and drowning, as well as over two hundred more slain in combat. Orleans was captured by Rutland and taken back to Cherbourg as a prisoner. As the campaigning season ended, the Banshees took on another, more crucial role - stealing supplies from the French soldiers to give to the allies.
Once campaigning began again in 1475, the war was now on a new path. Edward IV and Edmund, Duke of Rutland led a combined army of 20,000 Englishmen against Rouen and began a siege on 1st June 1475. Rouen was chosen as a key target for two reasons - it was a symbolic place to the Yorkists, since Edward and Edmund had both been born there, and many of the French nobility were using the city as a headquarters to lead the war from. One of those nobles was the Red Prince, whose wife Bona of Savoy and Charlotte of Lancaster were within the city walls while the Red Prince waged war against Edward IV. However, midway through the siege, reports that the Red Prince had attacked Amiens reached the York brothers. Edward IV chose to leave Rouen to his brother while he travelled to Amiens to restore order, and potentially kill the Red Prince. The city surrendered soon enough on 14th June, and Edmund, Duke of Rutland strolled confidently into his birth town. He quickly took Charles, Duke of Berry prisoner, as well as Bona of Savoy and Charlotte of Lancaster. Both Bona and Charlotte were then sent towards the ports held by the English, where they were shipped to England - out of the way of the Red Prince, depriving him of the opportunity to make more heirs.
Unfortunately, while the English marched on Rouen, this weakened Amiens and allowed for Edward the Red Prince to attack the Burgundian force there. The Battle of Amiens (3rd June 1475) saw 4,000 Frenchmen fight 3,000 Burgundians, resulting in the tragic death of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, one of the alliance’s principal leaders. Control of Burgundy now nominally passed to Charles’s son Philip, who succeeded him as Philip IV of Burgundy - but since Philip IV was only seven years old, his mother Anne of York was able to make herself regent, at least for the time being. Edward IV reached Amiens three days too late, and William Blount - who decided later to write an account of the events of the war [1] - recorded that Edward “wept at the destruction wrought upon the town, and shed many a tear for the death of the bold Duke of Burgundy.”
The uncertainty caused by Charles the Bold’s death gave the French leadership a renewed vigour in the war, just at the point at which Louis was contemplating surrender. Edward the Red Prince was given more control, and under him, French scored another victory at the Battle of Beauvais (24th March 1476) which ended the allied occupation of Picardy entirely – or at least, for now. But Edward IV, Francis II and their commanders met in Rouen in July 1476 and laid out a plan of attack to turn the war back in their favour. Shortly after the meeting, the Irish contingent under Conn O’Neill and the Duke of Rutland was sent south to disrupt supply lines by burning farms and stealing food, and the failed harvest of 1476 led to an economic slump in France. Meanwhile, as the French army suffered from such a terrible famine thanks to the Banshees, the Alliance’s main body of forces re-initiated an attempt to take Picardy. Louis XI ordered a fleet to attack the English port at Calais in order to cut off a major supply route, but the French fleet under Louis I de la Trémoille was intercepted by an English fleet commanded by Thomas Neville, Bastard of Fauconberg just near Boulogne. The Boulonnaise witnessed the naval Battle of Boulogne on 10th August 1476. In a stunning move of bravery, Thomas Neville boarded La Trémoille’s ship and challenged him to a duel. Thomas claimed that if La Trémoille won the duel, then he would order his fleet to let the French pass. In return, La Trémoille promised that if Thomas won, then La Trémoille would surrender his fleet to the Englishman. The duel began, and after six minutes, Thomas disarmed La Trémoille, thus claiming victory. As per their terms, the French fleet surrendered to Thomas Neville, and La Trémoille was taken as a prisoner.
Back on land, the war progressed well for the Alliance. The Battle of Ponthieu (25th August 1476) was yet another success for the Alliance, led by Richard, Earl of Warwick against an army led by Charles, Count of Angoulême. While Ponthieu fell to the invaders, Angoulême escaped with his life. The Battle of Saint-Quentin (3rd September 1476) consolidated their control of Picardy, and it proved easy to take Vermandois afterwards with most of the French force already annihilated. With Normandy and Picardy now in the alliance’s hands, they turned their attention to Champagne, one of the major goals of the campaign as set out by Charles the Bold in the Treaty of Bruges. Even though Charles had now fallen, Edward and Francis agreed to try and take the territory over anyway in honour of their fallen comrade and grant the land to Burgundy when successful.
The alliance continued to score victories in Champagne, pushing in through the region, culminating in the Battle of Reims on 3rd April 1477 – the last battle in the war. The English force here consisted of Edward IV, Warwick, Howard, Suffolk, Hastings, Norfolk and Ferrers, with altogether around 16,000 soldiers, coupled with a Breton force of around 6,000, against around 12,000 French soldiers under the command of Nicholas of Lorraine, who had been the Duke of Lorraine since his father John II’s death in 1470, and Charles V, Count of Maine. The two French commanders had been left to defend Reims since the Battle of Ponthieu and disagreed on tactics early on - Lorraine believed it would be better to force the attackers into a siege, whereas Maine planned on using the gates to the city as a chokepoint. Maine overruled Lorraine and chose to use the most southwestern gate. He picked this gate as it was the furthest gate from the allies' direction of approach, giving the defenders maximum time to pick off at the allies with ranged weapons from Reims's walls. Maine's defensive scheme - now known to history as Maine's Gamble, due to the risk he took in allowing any invaders into the city - was put to the test on 3rd April 1477.
Maine opened the southwestern gate to lure the English and Breton invaders in, and his strategy seemed initially to work. The first invaders through the gate were slaughtered by Maine’s defences, including Thomas Grey, son of John Grey, Baron Ferrers. However, eventually, the sheer numerical advantages held by the attackers won out, and Maine’s defence collapsed. Reims was sacked by the invaders, and Maine was killed in the battle while Lorraine was taken prisoner. With Reims now under allied control, Champagne was effectively secured and there was only one target left on the Alliance’s list of aims - Paris. The march to Paris began on 6th April 1477. With alliance troops in sight of Paris, Louis XI realised he had no choice but to surrender, which he did on 16th April 1477, ending the Franco-Alliance War.
A Medieval map of Reims. The blue circle highlights the gate that Maine opened as a chokepoint to the invaders in his gamble. For orientation, upwards on this map is roughly east in the world. This map can be found on this website.
[1] - we met William Blount in Chapter Ten, as a knight in Edward IV's camp. He was there when Bourbon defected to Edward. I have my plans for him...