Wednesday, March 18, 2015
BATTLE OF CASTILLON, (1453)
Fought on 17 July 1453 near the town of Castillon in eastern GASCONY, the Battle of Castillon ended the HUNDRED YEARS WAR and stripped the English of all French holdings except the town of CALAIS.
After the French conquest of NORMANDY in 1450, CHARLES VII focused his military resources on Gascony, the last English-held province in France. As an army of seven thousand entered the province, other French forces besieged the fortresses protecting BORDEAUX, the Gascon capital, while a joint French, Spanish, and Breton fleet blockaded the mouth of the Gironde to prevent the English from relieving the city. Isolated and outnumbered, the English garrison in Bordeaux surrendered on 30 June 1451. A severe blow to English national pride, the loss of Bordeaux was reversed in 1452, thanks to the English sympathies of the Gascon people and the military skill of John TALBOT, earl of Shrewsbury, who led an army of three thousand ashore on 17 October. Within months of reentering Bordeaux on 23 October, Shrewsbury had largely restored Gascony to English control.
Respected and feared in France, Shrewsbury was the most famous English commander of the war’s last decades. By the summer of 1453, three French armies were converging on Gascony. Although reinforcements brought by his son raised his strength to over five thousand, Shrewsbury was still heavily outnumbered by the combined French forces, and his only option was to wait in Bordeaux until an opportunity arose to fall upon one army before the others could support it. However, when a French force of nine thousand laid siege to Castillon about thirty miles east of Bordeaux, Shrewsbury, against his better judgment, yielded to the pleas of representatives from both Castillon and Bordeaux and marched to the relief of the town on 16 July.
Early next morning, Shrewsbury arrived at Castillon with his mounted contingents, and led an immediate and successful assault on the French ARCHERS holding the Priory of St. Laurent. The surviving archers fled to the fortified French camp east of the priory, thereby alerting the main army of Shrewsbury’s arrival. Although the French army was commanded by committee, the camp and been laid out by Charles VII’s ordinance officer, Jean BUREAU. Designed to maximize the opportunity for oblique and enfilading fire from the French ARTILLERY, which may have numbered almost three hundred guns of all sizes, Bureau’s camp was protected on three sides by a ditch and palisaded rampart and on the fourth side by the steep bank of the River Lidoire.
Upon receiving reports that the enemy was retreating, Shrewsbury reversed an earlier decision to wait for the rest of his army to arrive and attacked immediately with the twelve hundred men he had at hand. The reports proved inaccurate, and when the French guns opened fire, the dismounted English suffered severe casualties. Shrewsbury, who wore no ARMOR to honor the pledge he had made when last released from French custody, pressed the attack, believing the arrival of his remaining troops would secure victory. However, as reinforcements came up, they suffered the same fate as the initial attackers, and the eventual arrival of French reserves broke the English attack and sent the survivors streaming back to Bordeaux.
With both Shrewsbury and his son dead on the field, the English position in Gascony quickly collapsed and the French entered Bordeaux to stay on 19 October 1453. After three hundred years, English rule in Gascony, like the Hundred Years War itself, was over. In England, news of the battle may have triggered HENRY VI’s mental collapse, for the king’s illness descended upon him in early August, about the time he would have learned of the disaster.
Further Reading: Pollard, A. J. John Talbot and the War in France, 1427–1453. London: Royal Historical Society, 1983.
The Battle of Wakefield, December 30, 1460.
This drawing depicts Sandal Castle, from which Richard Plantagenet, duke of York, rode to his death at the Battle of Wakefield in December 1460. (Public Record Office: PRO MPC 97)
Defeat and death of Richard duke of York after claiming the throne. He left London for Sandal Castle, south of Wakefield. His way was blocked by Lancastrians under Somerset. Part of the Lancastrian army was hidden from view and York miscalculated its size and made a charge. He was surrounded and defeated. York was killed, his head placed on Micklegate Bar in York. His son Edmund was killed. The Earl of Salisbury was captured and beheaded in Pontefract. The Yorkist claim to the throne seemed to be destroyed but Warwick and Edward of York proved otherwise.
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The chief consequence of the Lancastrian victory at the Battle of Wakefield on 30 December 1460 was the death in battle of Richard PLANTAGENET, duke of York, and the transferal thereby of the duke’s claim to the throne to his son Edward, earl of March, the future EDWARD IV. The battle revived Lancastrian fortunes, which had seemed so bleak after HENRY VI’s defeat and capture at the Battle of NORTHAMPTON the previous July, and also led to the deaths of York’s ally Richard NEVILLE, earl of Salisbury, and York’s second son Edmund PLANTAGENET, earl of Rutland.
In September 1460, two months after the Battle of Northampton, York returned to England from exile in IRELAND. In October, York laid his claim to the throne before PARLIAMENT. The assembled lords forced the duke to accept the Act of ACCORD, which allowed Henry to remain king but settled the succession on York and his heirs. In WALES, Queen MARGARET OF ANJOU refused to accept the disinheritance of her son EDWARD OF LANCASTER, Prince of Wales, and Lancastrian nobles throughout England took up arms against the Yorkist regime. In the north, Henry BEAUFORT, duke of Somerset, joined forces with John CLIFFORD, Lord Clifford, Henry PERCY, earl of Northumberland, and other lords to create a sizable Lancastrian army.
Forced to respond to this threat, York and Salisbury left LONDON on 9 December with a force of about 6,000. They hoped to rendezvous with John NEVILLE, Lord Neville, Salisbury’s kinsman, and bring the Lancastrians to battle. Although attacked en route by Somerset’s men, York safely reached Sandal Castle south of Wakefield in Yorkshire on 21 December 1460. York found the castle poorly prepared to receive his army, and the presence in the vicinity of Lancastrian forces prevented collection of sufficient provisions for the duke’s men. Assuming various positions around the castle, the Lancastrian lords, who had no siege ARTILLERY, sought to draw York outside by sending insulting messages and cutting off his foraging parties.
On 30 December, Yorkist foragers came under attack north of the castle within sight of the walls. For reasons that are now unclear, York chose to leave the safety of the castle and sallied forth with the bulk of his force. Surrounded by enemies and unable to flee, York was slain in the field. Rutland was killed by Clifford as the earl attempted to flee after the battle, and Salisbury was captured and executed the next day. All three had their heads stuck on Micklegate Bar in York, the duke’s topped with a mocking paper crown.
Further Reading: Haigh, Philip A., The Battle of Wakefield 1460 (Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: Sutton Publishing, 1996); Johnson, P. A., Duke Richard of York (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988).
Wars of the Roses: Artillery
By the start of the WARS OF
THE ROSES in the late
1450s, artillery had been in use in northern Europe for over a
century, and most civil war armies included at least a small
artillery force.
The pace of advancement in European gun
technology had quickened in the 1370s, when the small, inaccurate,
and unreliable artillery used early in the HUNDRED YEARS WAR gave way to larger, more powerful
weapons able to breach the high stone walls of towns and castles.
Although the new artillery could still be
unpredictable-JAMES II of
SCOTLAND was killed in 1460
when one of his siege cannons exploded-the English began using such
guns with great effect in WALES and on the Scottish border in the
early fifteenth century. The new guns came in many types and sizes,
ranging from massive bombards, which could batter down walls with
huge balls of stone or iron, through a variety of
intermediate-sized serpentines, orgues, and ribaudequins, to the
smaller culverins, which could be fired from tripods or used as
handguns. Fifteenth-century cannon were made of iron or bronze,
although cast bronze weapons were most common because techniques
for casting iron did not reach a similar level of expertise until
the late sixteenth century. Because weapons were nonstandard and
each large gun fired projectiles made especially for it, the gun
makers usually also served as gunners.
This uniqueness in
projectile size caused individual large guns to be given their own
names, such as Mons Meg, now in Edinburgh Castle, a 14,000-pound
cannon with a caliber of twenty inches.
Firing a fifteenth-century artillery piece
was a slow and difficult process. The larger siege guns threw stone
and iron projectiles that could weigh hundreds of pounds. To fire
the weapon, the gunner used a firing iron-an iron bar heated in a
pan of charcoal that was kept hot and near at hand. Because one
pound of powder was required to throw nine pounds of shot, and
because the barrel had to be washed with a mixture of water and
vinegar after every firing, ten shots per hour was considered a
good rate of fire. During the Wars of the Roses, this slow rate
meant that cannon were used mainly on the eve or at the start of a
battle, firing one volley at the enemy before the hand-to-hand
combat commenced. During the night before the Battle of
BARNET, Richard NEVILLE, earl of Warwick, fired his cannon
continuously, hoping to create fear and disorder in the Yorkist
ranks; however, Warwick was unaware of how close the enemy was and
his guns overshot. To keep Warwick from learning his error,
EDWARD IV ordered his own guns
to refrain from revealing their position by returning fire. A few
weeks later at the Battle of TEWKESBURY, Edward drew the Lancastrians
out of an excellent defensive position with an opening artillery
salvo.
Nonetheless, artillery pieces were much less
of a factor in the Wars of the Roses than they were in contemporary
campaigns on the continent. Able to fire a ball about 2,000 to
2,500 paces, cannon could be used with devastating effect against
massed immobile troop concentrations, such as at river crossings,
or against town or castle walls during a siege, situations where
the slow rate of fire did not matter. But the art of fortification
was less advanced in England than elsewhere, and the English civil
wars were therefore characterized by pitched battles, not by
sieges; during the Wars of the Roses, the enemy's towns or castles
usually surrendered soon after the enemy's field armies had been
defeated.
Still, both sides recognized the growing
importance of artillery and took measures to ensure a good supply
of guns. Since about 1415, the English Crown had appointed a master
of ordnance to supervise the king's artillery. In 1456, John Judde,
a LONDON merchant, won
appointment to the post by offering to supply
HENRY VI with guns and powder at his own
expense. Judde's ambitious program of collecting and manufacturing
guns for the Lancastrians so alarmed the Yorkists that they
ambushed and killed him in June 1460 as he was supervising delivery
of a new shipment of weapons. Edward IV also appreciated the
importance of artillery, and his Masters of Ordnance (like John
Wode, who held office from 1463 to 1477) were trusted members of
the royal household. Edward was said to frequently inspect his
ordnance, and his campaigns usually included a sizable artillery
train. Thus, by HENRY VII's
reign, the English Crown housed a large and growing collection of
ordnance in the TOWER
OF LONDON.
ARMOR
During the WARS OF THE ROSES, English
MEN-AT-ARMS, and especially members of the PEERAGE and GENTRY,
entered battle encased in a defensive body covering of metal plate
armor, which was designed to deflect blows from heavy weapons in
close combat and to ward off arrows shot from a distance. Because
most civil war battles were decided by hand-to-hand combat between
men fighting on foot, full or partial sets of armor of any
available quality were worn by any soldier able to buy or otherwise
procure them.
By the late fifteenth century, the making of
plate armor was a fine art, and new methods of forging iron allowed
for the production of lighter, stronger, more flexible suits that
could better protect a larger portion of the body and allowed for
greater mobility and endurance. Although a complete set of armor,
or "harness," was expensive, and might only be available to wealthy
nobles and knights, most men went into combat at least partially
harnessed, even if with older, lower-quality pieces. The finest
armor had curved and fluted design elements, which gave it strength
and allowed it to deflect blows more easily. Totally encased in
metal, a knight in full harness had greater confidence in battle,
and by the late fifteenth century many discarded the shields of
earlier times and opted instead to wield the heavy two-handed
weapons, such as poleaxes, which were, ironically, designed to
crush the new, stronger body armor. Although they also employed
two-handed, shafted weapons, such as the bill and glaive, more
lightly armored men-at-arms continued to carry a small, round
shield known as a buckler, which could be easily slung from a belt
or strap worn around the waist.
Full harness was worn over a heavy padded
doublet that was slit for ventilation. Gussets (i.e., metal or mail
inserts) were sewn to the doublet to protect vulnerable areas such
as the arms, elbows, and armpits, where metal joints would have
been too restrictive of movement. Wax cords (arming points) were
attached to the doublet to allow the plate armor to be secured to
the body. Other undergarments included heavy, padded hose and
leather shoes. The main body armor comprised upper and lower
breastplates, which were hinged vertically on one side, back
plates, a metal skirt, and tassets, which hung from straps on the
skirt and protected the lower body. The feet were encased in plate
shoes called sabatons, which were attached to lower leg coverings
called greaves. The greaves and the upper leg coverings, known as
cuisseis, had two halves that hinged on the side and were secured
by buckles and straps. A special knee piece, attached by rivets or
pins, protected the gap between greaves and cuisseis. Arms were
protected by two similar coverings, the vambraces (for the lower
arm) and rerebraces (for the upper arm), with special pieces called
cowters and pauldrons attached by straps to protect, respectively,
the elbows and the shoulders. Gauntlets fitted over the vambrace
protected the hands and wrists. The sallet, a visored metal helmet
worn over a padded arming cap, protected the head, while the bevor,
a triangular metal plate worn below the sallet, protected the
neck.
Although most knights dismounted for battle,
the grand cavalry charge, as RICHARD III proved at the Battle of
BOSWORTH FIELD, could still be employed to retrieve desperate
situations. During the HUNDRED YEARS WAR, unarmored horses had been
extremely vulnerable to ARCHERS. Thus, many noblemen armored their
mounts during the Wars of the Roses. Horse armor involved
protective pieces for the head, neck, chest, rump, and flank, and
might even include armor-plated reins to prevent an enemy from
cutting them and depriving the rider of control. Nonetheless, the
weight and expense of horse armor limited its use to the wealthiest
combatants, who generally used their mounts only to ride to or
escape from the battlefield.
Further Reading: Ayton,
Andrew, "Arms, Armour, and Horses," in Maurice Keen, ed., Medieval
Warfare (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999); Boardman, Andrew
W., The Medieval Soldier in the Wars of the Roses (Stroud,
Gloucestershire, UK: Sutton Publishing, 1998); DeVries, Kelly,
Medieval Military Technology (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview
Press, 1992); Prestwich, Michael, Armies and Warfare in the Middle
Ages: The English Experience (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
1996).
WEAPONRY
During the WARS OF THE ROSES, English
MEN-AT-ARMS carried various types of weapons into battle, including
thrusting and stabbing implements, such as swords and daggers, and
powerful battering weapons, such as maces and poleaxes.
For close-quarter combat, the
fifteenth-century knight usually carried a sword that could be used
for both cutting and thrusting. Such weapons varied greatly in
length and width, from a broad, single-handed sword that was about
two and a half feet in length to a narrower, two-handed version
that was almost three and a half feet long. Swords meant solely for
thrusting tended to have longer, narrower blades and longer hilts.
When not in use, a sword fit into a scabbard that hung from a hip
belt in such a way as to position the point a little to the rear
where it could not trip its owner. From the other hip usually hung
a rondel dagger, which was used to exploit gaps in an opponent's
ARMOR or to pry open the visor of a downed enemy, who was then
dispatched by a thrust to the eye or throat. The rondel was
characterized by a disk- or cone-shaped guard between hilt and
blade and a similarly shaped pommel at the other end of the hilt.
Because it was used for stabbing, the rondel had a straight,
slender blade that was triangular in shape and up to fifteen inches
in length to allow for maximum penetration of an enemy's body.
Because the stronger, fluted armor used in the
fifteenth century could deflect sword and spear thrusts, many
knights began carrying new types of heavy weapons, often with hooks
or spikes, which were designed to crush or puncture plate armor.
Perhaps the most deadly of these weapons was the poleax, which
consisted of a wooden shaft, four to six feet long, topped by a
long spike that was flanked on one side by an ax head and on the
other by a spiked hammer or fluke (a curved, beaklike extension for
hooking an opponent to the ground). The spike could puncture plate
or damage armored joints and rob a man of mobility. The ax and
hammer could crush both armor and the flesh it covered. Against
unarmored opponents, a skillfully wielded poleax was
devastating.
While the poleax was used only for combat on
foot, such other battering weapons as the battle-ax, the mace, and
the war hammer were carried primarily by horsemen, who swung their
weapon with one hand and held their reins with the other. RICHARD
III supposedly led his famous cavalry charge at the Battle of
Bosworth Field while wielding a battle-ax. Weighing from two to
five pounds, the war hammer was serrated and usually carried a
fluke opposite the hammerhead. Of a similar weight, the mace had a
head composed of six interlocking serrated edges or some similarly
formidable configuration of spikes and points. Like the poleax,
these weapons were used to deliver crushing blows to armored
opponents.
Besides the more formally trained and heavily
armored men-at-arms, most civil war armies contained sizable
contingents of billmen, foot soldiers who carried any of a wide
variety of shafted weapons that could be used to drag enemies to
the ground, to cut armor straps, and to frighten horses. Such
weapons derived from the billhook, a common agricultural implement
used for cutting and pruning that consisted of a blade with a
hooked point attached to a long wooden shaft. Characterized by some
type of blade, hook, or spike topping a pole that ranged in length
from six to ten feet, a bill weapon could be raked, stabbed, or
swung at an enemy. Depending on the type of head they employed,
such weapons were known by various names, such as the halberd,
which carried a spiked ax head and had to be swung at an opponent
to be used most effectively. Because they required little training
to use and, unlike bows, were easy to maintain, various forms of
bills were the weapons usually carried by common soldiers and most
often found in rural cottages and houses for protection against
intruders.
Further Reading: Boardman,
Andrew W., The Medieval Soldier in the Wars of the Roses (Stroud,
Gloucestershire, UK: Sutton Publishing, 1998); DeVries, Kelly,
Medieval Military Technology (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview
Press, 1992); Goodman, Anthony, The Wars of the Roses (New York:
Dorset Press, 1981).
Sophistication of Fifteenth Century Armour
The increasing sophistication of
fifteenth century armour, which was designed to deflect sword and
spear, made crushing weapons more popular. Noblemen tended to use
maces, battle axes, and hammers. Common infantry made use of staff
weapons, combining axes, spikes, and hooks. They were intended to
knock an armoured opponent off his feet, rather than to pierce his
armour.
In the fifteenth century, the fully equipped
man-at-arms was encased from head to foot in articulated metal
plates. The haubergeon was no longer required, nor was the shield;
the great helm was abandoned in favour of the visored bascinet,
then armets and longtailed sallets, whose weight was supported on a
gorget. This occurred across western Europe, although more slowly
in Spain and Italy. A heavier lance was adopted to counter the
improved protection, which necessitated a lance-rest to be attached
to the breastplate from c. 1390.
In producing such armour, improved
metal-working techniques were employed: steel with a high carbon
constituent and hardening techniques for outer surfaces were used;
surfaces were rippled and fluted to deflect lances, swords, and
arrows; vulnerable areas were reinforced. The best armours were
tested at point-blank range against steel crossbows. Improved
protection was achieved without reducing the man-at-arms to
immobility. A mid-century armour weighed about 50-60lbs (23-27kg) -
comparable to infantry equipment in the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries - but the weight was better distributed than earlier
mail. Only the attempt to proof armour against firearms made it
impossibly heavy in the sixteenth century. The horse was not
neglected, and by c.1450 the neck, breast, and flanks were given
some protection against pike and arrow. This required breeding
heavier horses. The expense of cavalry warfare was mounting
inexorably. By no means all knights or men-at-arms could afford
full equipment. Those without horse armour or full body armour
fought behind the front ranks, adding weight, or performing
auxiliary tasks.
How much protection did this armour afford? In
the view of the twelfth-century historian Orderic Vitalis, only 3
out of 900 knights engaged in the battle of Brémule (1119) were killed because all were mail-clad.
Knightly armour did afford a good deal of protection. The Muslim
Beha ad-Din described Christian infantry in 1191 with ten arrows
stuck in their quilted armour, and it was easier to batter a
well-armed man to the ground than to kill him. However, when mail
was pierced the rings were driven into a wound. In chivalric
warfare it made sense not to kill a ransomable knight or
man-at-arms since he represented a profitable asset. But when
knocked to the floor (heavy armour made it difficult to rise), if
his opponent did not wish to ransom him, the heavily armed knight
was vulnerable. Even the fifteenth-century carapace had vulnerable
points - the visor being forced open followed by a dagger in the
eye. The study of medieval armour presents many difficulties and
risks of creating a false impression of standardization. Although
medieval rulers legislated for the equipment to be owned, it is
difficult to determine how often ideal standards were met.
Individual wealth and personal inclination determined the equipment
possessed, and at times of low military activity there was no
incentive to maintain readiness.
English Armour Development 1415-1475
- 1413 Agincourt Period
- 1420
- 1414 Agincourt Period
- 1425
- 1416 Agincourt Period
- 1419
- Wars of Roses 1465
- 1410 Agincourt Period
- Wars of Roses 1458
- Wars of Roses 1473
- 1430
- 1425
- Wars of Roses 1488
- Wars of Roses 1460
- Great Basinet 15th century
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