Forgotten Battles of the War of the Breton Succession | A Medieval Compilation

Hi my name is Kevin Hicks, welcome to the History Squad. Now today's video is actually a compilation of different films from the Hundred Years War series, we have taken all of those regarding the Breton War of Succession, so now you have them together, enjoy. So the Wars of the Breton Succession, a civil war lasting 26 years. It all kicked off when John the third, Duke of Brittany died without an heir but he left behind his half brother John de Montfort, and his niece Joan yeah, Duchess of Brittany so I let them have their little civil war except for one problem Joan she's married to Charles blower who is the nephew of Philip VI of France, now we have the French that are an outside influence. This civil war is gonna really become something, but John de Montfort is captured and the fight is taken up by his wife Jean, who is then supported surprisingly by Edward III, king of England. Now there's already a small force of English helping the Bretons fight but they are now reinforced by the Earl of Northampton, Billy. No other than William du Bohun. Now we can get to the battle of Morlaix. What a fight. Battle of Morlaix 30th of September 1342. Earl of Northampton is laying siege to the fortified town of Morlaix, but he gets intelligence that there is a large French army under Charles Blois coming his way, he doesn't want to be trapped between Morlaix and the French army, so he doesn't abandon the siege, he leaves some troops behind and then he comes down the Morlaix to Lanmeur road, it runs through a forest and he sets his army up on the ridge just in front of the forest. At the center he has his men at arms and his knights and on the wings his bowman who seem to extend out into the battlefield. This is the beginning of this English system using their bowmen on the flanks, but the English position the English/Breton position. Don't forget this isn't just English this is the Breton as well, they've got their baggage train actually in the woods, so there will be arrows and supplies further in the woods. They've also dug ditches in front of their position. Now they've learned this from the Scots. Eye, the canny Scots, um Bannockburn I think it was, when they dug the ditches and the English cavalry, or should I say the Norman cavalry, were defeated. So they've now set a kind of a trap, so what happens next is the French according to some sources send in their infantry, mainly local levies they'll be poorly armed but I understand there were Genoese crossbowmen, but as they come up this steep slope and then come into view they are literally cut to pieces by the bowmen and they cannot take this punishment, so they withdraw back from the battlefield, and what happens now is the whole battle pauses just for a moment. So what's happened is there's a break in the battle. Charles Blois and Charles de Charny, he's the commander, are having a parlay, discussing ‘what should we do next’. They now know the bowmen are up there so what happens is uh de Charny leads a full-on cavalry attack so I’m going to position the pieces and let's see what happens. So the second phase of the battle, it's incredible. I must mention this, the French numbers could have been as high as fifteen thousand troops, the English less than two thousand. Now as de Charny’s charge, his mounted cavalry charge, plunge up the hill, they don't know about the ditches, the trenches, the pits, call them what you like, that have been covered over and horses go crashing into them, and it must have been horrendous. Legs snapping, screaming horses and men and then the others piling into the back of them meanwhile the bowmen really close range pouring those arrows into these poor beasts. Meanwhile de Charny with approximately 200 of these knights and men at arms punch through the center of the English men at arms, or were they allowed through? Because what happens is most of them are fetched down off their horses by the men at arms and de Charny himself is actually captured. It must ¬¬have been slaughter as the arrows are pouring in from either side and then the men at arms weighed in. They move forward to finish off anybody who's been knocked off their horses but there's a problem here the Earl of Northampton knows that these bowmen are running short of arrows and the French have a second wave of cavalry ready to charge. What happens next is a brilliant Maneuver. So the final part of the battle of Morlaix, and it's a master stroke. The Earl of Northampton, Billy to his mates, knows that his bowmen are running short of arrows. He knows that the French have another division of cavalry, and we're talking thousands here who could charge up that hill on their horses. They now know where the ditches are which have been filled in with the dead, so the Earl of Northampton withdraws his force into the woods. His bowman now hiding amongst the trees. Inside the woods is his baggage train, his supplies, more arrows. So the French charge and all they can do is scout around the outside of the forest they daren’t and get too close because they'll be fetched down by the arrows of the bowmen. Now there are different uh conflicting accounts of what happens, now the French lay siege to the woods, the French went home. Basically what happens is the main French army leaves. The English army, they can continue their siege of Morlaix, which I understand fails but 50 French knights, this is French knights are dead and 150 of them are captured. We do not know the full casualties of the French army because they didn't count the poor infantry. The English are said to have lost less than a hundred men. To me this is wow. The Earl of Northampton, using his head, using his initiative and this is repeated over and over again as we go through the Hundred Years War, until the final phase when the French begin to use their initiative. But hey that's for another day. The Battle of La Roche-Derrien 20th of June 1347. It's long awaited for me, I've been trying to put together a decent model of a castle or of a town wall and I had so much trouble just trying to find straightforward castle towers, uh no they were all fantasy stuff so I've actually made some towers, and as you can see in the background there I've built completely the entire town of La Roche-Derrien. Now this battle is part of the uh Breton Wars of Succession and Charles Blois who was the claimant for the throne of Brittany, he's the nephew of the King of France Philip VI, so his army it's Breton and it's French, it's all part of those Wars of the Breton Succession. He'd had a problem with us, he'd really copped a bit of a good hiding, but before I go any further let me just explain La Roche-Derrien had been captured in December 1343 by the Earl of Northampton. It's close to the coast of Brittany, it's a strategic place, it has a bridge across the local river there. So let's have a little look at what happens with Charles Blois. What happened at La Roche-Derrien, a defeat for the French, I'll tell you all about it in a moment but the key to it lies the year before Battle of Saint Pol De Leon, uh 9th of June 1346. What happened was Charles of Blois came upon Sir Thomas Dagworth, Edward III's right-hand man in Brittany. His force was overwhelmingly larger than the English force and he attacks straight away but his first wave is repulsed, so they actually go round the flanks of the English army, but the bowman in Sir Thomas Dagworth’s army cut them to ribbons and Charles of Blair's Army literally runs away those that are left something in the phsyche of Charles of Blois, it's the bowmen, the bowmen of England and it takes him a year to rebuild his army before he can even attempt to attack La Roche-Derrien. But in his mind he's actually making a trap La Roche-Derrien, yes it's a siege, but actually what a Charles is trying to do is to lure Sir Thomas Dagworth in into a trap and destroy him. It was 1347 20th of May that Charles of Blois invests the siege on La Roche-Derrien. He's got 1800 men at Arms, 600 archers, 2000 crossbowmen, plus uh ragtag infantry, your peasant infantry. But this is where he really does overthink it. Now he makes four camps and that’s fortified camps. I've got a plan a map of the battle of La Roche-Derrien, how the battle looked, bird's eye view. You'll see that the town stands on some high ground here on the River Jaudi, and here are the four French camps surrounding. One, two, three, four, and you'll see that Dagwood's force is approaching La Roche-Derrien from the south. So what I've done on my model is I've tried to show there was a ditch, there was um you know the soil from the ditch in the old Roman way, but they put thorn bushes and all kinds of things on the top. There were three of these that they made, one at the east which is the one that I've replicated. Then on the north and south covering the gates of the town, but there was a ready-made one there, the Black Castle to the west of the town across the other side of the river. So what he says was we fortifiy the camps. He had nine catapults, one of them a trebuchet could hurl a 300 pound rock. Four in an hour. So they're gonna really smash this town to pieces. He had so many crossbowmen, and he had some Genoese crossbowmen, and he fortified the whole lot. But it's not to lay siege to the castle you know really, what he's doing is he's going to draw Dagworth in. But what Charles of Blois is frightened of is the bowmen, so the mound around it’s got to be high enough so the bowmen from the town and anybody attacking can't see. That’s what he kept saying apparently is the bowmen can't shoot what they can't see. So he's got this idea and then he says, you in your separate camps stay exactly where you are do not come to my aid unless I sound the signal. Now in Bernard Cornwall's book The Vagabond, it's seven blasts from the trumpet to summon aid and he kept on reinforcing this. You do not leave your encampment. Do not make yourself targets for the bowmen. So you've got these basically four separate little French armies surrounding La Roche-Derrien, and they start to bombard it, and they cause some terrible damage and they kill a lot of people inside the town. Dagworth, he has to summon soldiers from every garrison he can afford. Carhaix I think it is, 50 miles away is, is his collection point. Now his army 300 mounted men at arms and 400 bowmen, all mounted so he can move. So he's going to approach the town, he has guides, but what he doesn't know is this. Part of Charles's camp, he's actually a trap. You think you're attacking the camp, as you come over the rise and knock down any palisades it's actually a field of fire. It's a trap and Dagworth, he's gonna go straight into it. He sends the baggage train though straight down the road. Make as much noise as you can. But Charles of Blois knew exactly where Dagworth was. He knew that he was coming but Dagworth is going to attack in the dark and this adds to it. It's at least two hours before sunrise. He has three guides so he hits the camp from three different directions and as they approach it, there's no crossbow shots, no arrows as they get to the mound nothing, and the English there think they must all be asleep, we must have done it. And as they go up to the top they push the palisades thinking they're gonna have to knock stuff and they just simply collapse. Still doesn't, the penny still doesn't drop. It's a trap. And as they go through there's another palisade and they knock that down. Then from three different directions the arrows and crossbow bolts pour in. Now the battle begins and Dagworth, being the man he is, simply says we'll fight. Now they attack, but the crossbowmen are causing absolute mayhem. Dagworth is wounded and actually captured. His men are falling down the English are losing, and this is where the whole thing goes topsy-turvy, because the French are looking in this direction. They're fighting the English. When the garrison commander, Totsham, he rallies his troops and people from the town, and they attack and they come straight over and hit the French in the back. The bowmen cause absolute mayhem amongst the crossbowmen, shooting them down. And uh it's great actually, I mentioned Bernard Cornwell's book, The Vagabond because it covers this, and it's really exciting because you've got them racing in and out of the tents. You've got a fight outside the windmill. I hope you like me windmill, I've had that for years. Eventually the French beginning to lose and Charles of Blois is cornered. He hasn't got his armor on, so somewhere along the line did he think the English were beaten, he he takes his armor off, the next minute is he's confronted by English men at Arms? 17 wounds he had. Meanwhile, the men from his other camps can see something going on and they are waiting for the signal. Seven trumpet sounds, that's a lot actually isn't it, and there's one account he gives the order, sound the signal, and as the trumpeter sounds two toots an arrow then cuts him down. No signal. The French in this camp, if they stay, they're annihilated. Sir Thomas Dagworth who'd been taken prisoner because he was wounded, he's recovered and what the English do now is they knock off the other French camps, one at a time. The one at the north and the one at the south gates, they didn't come to each other's help. Those in the Black Castle, the French in the Black Castle, had it on their toes they, they simply withdrew. The La Roche-Derrien, incredibly well planned, incredibly well thought of, but the problem was, it's the English again isn't it? Thomas Dagworth there, he's his men are being slaughtered what does he say ‘come on let's fight’ and what does the garrison do? They weren't called, they simply come and apparently uh Sir Thomas Dagworth says to Totsham, ‘oh thanks, thanks for coming to our aid’ and he says ‘only doing me job’. Wow, I'm not sure if that was from Bernard's book or not but I think it's wonderful, don't you? Now Charles Blois, wounded 17 times was it? He's taken to various castles to recover and then on to England. It’s half a million ecus I understand was his um ransom. But there's another little interesting thing, he was an important guy, nephew of the King of France and he must have been terrified of the ocean or suffering terrible from seasickness, because the English serenaded him with nine guitarists or something, guitar players to sooth his nerves on the crossing. But that's not the end of the story with La Roche-Derrien. You know you get to these places don't you, these historical places and you, you have a look and you're wow. This happened there. Brittany is, is quite special because of the amount of towns that really suffered. In La Roche-Derrien, well, once the Thomas Dagworth returned to England the French attacked it and captured it very quickly. The 150 man garrison, Breton and English surrendered, but the inhabitants were massacred, butchered, and that's horrendous when you think about it. And then later on, the soldiers who'd surrender honorably, they in turn were massacred. So you visit these places, these lovely, picturesque towns and really the soil, the walls are drenched in the blood aren't they? Mainly in the blood of the innocent. Now it's not a battle, it's an, an episode, an incident uh where two towns had fallen out in Brittany and the knights challenged each other to individual combat, but it then escalated to they would have two lots of 30 attacking each other. It's called the combat of the 30 and then it went a stage further, chivalry took over and they are upholding the honor of two separate ladies Joan, Duchess of Brittany of the House of Blois and Jean Montford of the House of Montford. Now if you'd have seen my last episode, episode nine of the Hundred Years War you would have seen that uh the House of Blois is supported by the King of France, Philip VI and therefore the House of Montford is supported by Edward III King of England, so the episode has escalated, it is now this chivalric business, the combat of the thirty. So I suppose before I uh get into the combat of the thirty, we ought to explain a little bit about chivalry. Now you probably know as much as I do, if not more. Chivalry you can trace it all the way back to Charlemagne and it comes so I understand from chevalier, the mounted nobleman on a horse, so chivalry is he's more attached to the noble knight upon his steed, a cavalry kind of thing uh upholding the truth and the honor and defending the weak but Edward III escalated this when he formed the Order of the Garter 1348. Twenty four noblemen will be accelerated up into this great noble chivalric organisation and the French followed suit, 1351 John the second, he formed the Order of the Star and that was you know an imitation I suppose of the Order of the Garter. For the French though sadly many of the members of the Order of the Star were killed at the battle of Poitiers, uh very sad for them but uh it just goes to show the idea of chivalry from here on really does grow in romance, the idea of 60 men fighting it out to the death in some cases, for the honor of ladies. So the combat of the 30, ah basically what happened was two Breton knights early in 1351 fell out and there was Jean de Beaumanoir and Robert Bemborough and it was a personal challenge until it was decided by Robert to turn it into a Pas d' Arms, 30 men on each side, it's gonna be a battle. Now there was a what do you call him a chronicler Jean de Bell said this was a magnificent chivalric matter right? It's a show, thousands of people are gonna turn up it's gonna be the biggest joust you can imagine except for one thing, it's not a joust, they're gonna fight to the death. Now they meet at the halfway oak, between the castle Josselin and Ploermel. The two armies set up facing each, other don't forget this is supposed to be a great chevalric occasion people must have been so excited. Now we don't know the full details yeah there are pictures there are different accounts, so I’ve kind of taken a little bit from everybody the beginning, so I understand is on horseback. Now I don't have 60 knights on horseback I’m afraid, not at the moment, so I’ve just got two groups to represent them charging at each other. Now I have seen a cavalry charge with 30 lancers and the ground absolutely shook and wow, what a spectacle but what you have here is 60 armed knights 30 on each side charging towards each other you imagine the clash, the bang as they clash together. Those who fall, they will now fall to foot combat, it was a bloody affair six men lay dead when the whole thing stops, for refreshments. Don't forget this is a chivalric episode. So refreshments have been had, there are six dead men on the field the crowds must have been roaring when they re-engage. Now as you'll notice they're all on foot so I’m taking as much information as I can from different accounts. They now engage. In no time at all apparently Robert Bemborough is actually uh fatally wounded, but what the English uh do now is they form into a tight formation. So let's get rid of some of their loose men this tight formation is so good that the French can't crack it and they're having problems. So they are advancing but they're not getting anywhere because of this almost hedgehog of the, of the English when this happens. A Breton knight has remounted. Now don't forget everybody's on foot. He's remounted his horse and he charges into the English position there, smashing his way all the way through. As he does that, the French then attack. At the end of the whole business the English uh the Montfort faction surrender now. At the end of it there are nine of the Montford household are dead and six of the Blois are dead and every single combatant apparently was injured. This becomes a legend, this chivalry thing, this chivalric episode in its there are poems and songs written about it of how the Montford’s were defeated and Robert was evil because the way he treated the locals, there's lots of stories come out of this. But it hides one little fact is that uh a Breton knight rode into the formation of foot soldiers breaking them up. The English says that was not chivalry, the English says bad form, and me as an Englishman I reckon they cheated but it's down to you to decide. You see this episode had no effect on the outcome of the wars of the Breton succession it simply had no effect it was just one of those little episodes that I thought I’d share with you. It's quite something, no bowman involved, haha. I’ve chosen three battles, there are so many of these minor skirmishes I haven't even got to the sieges yet, so we're going to have a look at these three battles uh Lunalonge, Mauron and Auray. Each one is important because it shows how the French are trying their hardest to counter this English system the bowmen on the flanks the men at arms in the centre and fighting on foot, but now let's go on to these little-known battles shall we. So the first battle I thought I’d tell you about is the battle of Lunalonge it's just south west of the old battlefield of Poitiers right out in western France. Now the commanders of the French Breton force was John de Lille and he's the seneschal of Poitou um assists the nobleman like a mayor or a sheriff something like that he has 1500 men, local they're all mounted and the enemy for them is going to be the Anglo-Breton force, 500 men under Thomas Coke. It's kind of an interesting battle because it reflects something that I think the English have learnt from the Scots. Thank you Scotland and something the French were trying out. But first of all the battle didn't just happen, what was going on it was there was a Breton English garrison at Lusignan fortress and the French were going to attack it and there was a relieving force from Bordeaux under Thomas Coke, only 500 men as I said, and these were the men who were actually intercepted at Lunalonge and this is basically what happened. Now it's quite difficult because I read about these and each time it says you know we don't know very much about this and we're not sure about that, so this is what I’ve drawn from different resources is the French approach the English retreat up a rise and put their baggage train behind them with their horses behind the baggage train and the French watch them do it. And then the master stroke. The French attack from the rear they burst through the baggage train meanwhile they're capturing all of the English Breton horses and they're going to take them away. This is going to weaken this English Anglo-Breton force so what do they do? They form a chiltron using their lances spears anything they can as pikes to keep the cavalry away. So what I like about this this small little battle here is the fact that the French are changing tactics, or these French are changing tactics perhaps they've got the memory of what happened at the battle of Crecy you know so they don't want to go a head-on charge into the English but they've watched, they've taken out the horses, they've charged from the rear so the English formed a chiltron, as I say thank you Scotland I’m sure that's where they learned it. Their second division charge but they can't crack the chiltron the spears and lances and they're a bowman amongst it as well so they're charging around and around just like some Hollywood film you remember when you have the cowboys and Indians that nonsense of the Indians running around just being targets that appears to be what the French are doing meanwhile the French third division are watching the whole thing, not because they don't want to get involved they're looking for a weakness but this chiltron is so tight this English position, this Anglo-Breton, let's get it right, position is so tight that they simply can't crack it and it costs them three hundred dead plus prisoners of war and Jean de Lille he's unhorsed and captured and another Frenchman he's captured actually by the name of Boucicaut, he will come to provenance later on in one of my other films he becomes the Marshal of France, he figures large at the battle of Agincourt, but that's another story. What happens here is they fight on until it gets dark and what becomes of our gallant band, they gather their prisoners, look after their wounded but they've got to push and pull their own wagons and they manage to get to a nearby fortified position safely, but that's not the end of the story, there's a little, I love this little twist at the end Coke the commander there on his way back sends a detachment to reconoitre to have a look at the large castle Taillebourg it controls the crossing over the river Charente. Well that little patrol catch the French napping completely surprise them and by the end of June that castle is in English hands. This is a disaster for the French it causes them to abandon their siege of Lusignan, it's got lots of repercussions. But what this little battle shows is the French are learning these hundred years war this wars of the Breton succession the French are changing and then we have the next battle the battle of Mauron. So the battle of Mauron 14th of August 1352 a French army invades Brittany. They have had some success now they're going for the castle of Ploermel this is garrisoned by Anglo Breton Breton soldiers and English soldiers now the French force uh 5,000 men, I’ve got to read these names because I’m trying to get them right the overall commander Guy II Nesle, he was there with one of his commanders Jean de Beaumanoir and Alain de Tinteniac it's important I got those names in because these are knights from the Order of the Star and we're also at the Combat of the 30, another one of my films that I’ve done on this subject now so Walter Bentley commands the Anglo-Breton forces got a Breton with him now I’ve never said this name, Tanguy the first du Chastel. I hope I got that right. So the French force is 5,000 men the Anglo force is two thousand. This is what happened now when you look back at the film in the first part of this where the French look and they try and out fox the English this is the total reverse. The English fall back against the tree line, they formed their wedges, their hearse as some people call it of bowman and then the men at arms in the center and what do the French do? They don't hang back have a look, what can we do, they charge full-on. The French charge in the old way. The previous battle we talked about the French have reconnoitred the battlefield they're looking for weak spots but here the English have been allowed to form up the bowmen on the flanks the men at arms in the center. Now many of these knights on these horses were from the Order of the Star this chivalric idea of charge and don't surrender, on they come and the bowmen decimate them, they shoot into the sides of the horses, those poor beasts must have been in agony charging all over the battlefield. Men are unhorsed, straight away the Anglo Britain men at arms come forward and slaughter anybody who is standing. This is a nasty little fight now excuse my pronunciation but Jean de Beaumanoir is killed, Alain de Tinteniac is killed and the commander himself Guy de Nesle he is killed with 80 members, knights these are, of the Order of the Star. Many of the noble knights of Brittany are killed in this nasty short sharp little known battle the battle of Mauron. So the final battle in our trilogy of fights from the Breton war of succession. Auray, 29th of September 1364, it's getting on a bit there so the French should be learning and this is reflected in the battle. Now the commanders on the French side, Charles of Blois, Bertrand de Guesclin and Count Auxerre, they command 4,000 men and they look at the battle properly, and let's see what happens you see John de Montfort and John Chandos of the Anglo Britain force have got 6,000 men they outnumber the French and so the French they actually intercepted this Anglo-Breton force that were going to lay siege to the castle nearby not wanting to be caught between the castle and the French they come out and John Chandos they form their troops as such and what did the French do? They think about it at last, and they send their crossbowmen in but there's not enough of them and they are outclassed and out shot and sent to flight. So this is reflecting isn't it, this is quite interesting how the French starting to look at the battle. How can we engage those longbowmen how can we deal with them with their crossbowmen and it failed. So the archery duel having failed, the main body now attack in three divisions. Obviously I haven't got enough soldiers to do thousands of men so we're just giving you three divisions going head on towards the English man at arms Count Auxerre who's on the right Charles Blois center and uh Guesclin is on the left side as they attack the one thing the French haven't got, they've got no reserves, so it doesn't matter how hard they hit the English and the Breton forces they've got reserves so whenever a man falls there's another one takes his place and then the English actually bring their bowmen and their other men at arms around on the flank and collapse the right flank of the French in on itself. Then on the other side the English with their bowmen and their Breton men do exactly the same and they hit the French, so the French army collapses in on itself. They're surrounded. They lose in excess of a thousand dead the English and the Breton force there it's unknown but it said their losses were light. This is terrible because Charles de Blois was killed, uh Count Auxerre was killed and De Guesclin was taken prisoner. It's a disaster the French are soundly beaten. It is an Anglo Breton victory yes, and it's the last battle of the Breton War of Succession, however there's a twist in the tale. So the twist in the tale, what a nasty little war this Breton War of Succession was. Sieges, towns suffering, lots of killing and at the end of it the Anglo-Breton force is successful, they defeat the French Breton force at tale battle of Auray and that should be the end of the whole thing except that King of France recognizes John de Montfort as the Duke of Brittany and John de Montfort then pays homage to the French king abandoning his ally Edward III of England. Ouch. The French lost the actual war but they won the politics those crafty little devils, the French. Well I hope you enjoyed that compilation of ours on the War of the Breton succession, if you did like, share and subscribe and if you'd like to support the channel further why not have a look at our Patreon community the link is in the description. Now before we go any further I've got a shout out for some of my Patreon members and as ever I've written it down here we go Denis de St.Aubin Jr., Adam Diehl and EOD We Remember. That's special, I served alongside these guys. Thanks a million, bye for now.