Poitiers, 1356

The battle, stage by stage

1. 4 August – 18 September 1356

   The chevauchée and the cardinal

   In August 1356 Edward of Woodstock, Prince of Wales (the 'Black Prince'), rides north from Bergerac with an Anglo-Gascon army on a chevauchée, a destructive mounted raid, toward the Loire. Unable to join the Duke of Lancaster across the swollen river, he turns south. King John II of France crosses the Loire at Blois and tries to cut him off, crossing the Vienne at Chauvigny. On 17 September the Prince's scouts run into the French rearguard near La Chaboterie, by Savigny-Lévescault, and kill or capture about 240 men. The French reach Poitiers first, and the Prince halts near the abbey of Nouaillé. On Sunday 18 September Cardinal Talleyrand de Périgord, the papal legate, rides between the camps; by the chronicles the Prince offered to give up his prisoners and plunder and a seven-year truce, and the King refused. Numbers are disputed: modern estimates are about 6,000 Anglo-Gascons and perhaps 11,000–16,000 French.

2. 19 September 1356, dawn

   Behind the hedge

   The Prince's army holds a low plateau north of the Miosson, behind a sunken, hedged lane — the 'Maupertuis', or 'bad passage' — that runs north from the Gué de l'Omme ford. Warwick and Oxford hold the left, down toward the marshy ground by the river; Salisbury and Suffolk the right; the Prince's own division stands in reserve behind, with the Nouaillé wood at the army's back. The archers are on the wings, dug in behind ditches and carts. According to the chronicles the hedge has only a couple of gaps, wide enough for four or five men abreast. On French advice (Eustache de Ribemont, who had scouted the position), John dismounts most of his men-at-arms and sends forward only two mounted groups under the marshals Clermont and Audrehem, with German knights, to break the archers. At first light English carts are seen moving toward the ford — perhaps a withdrawal, perhaps a ruse.

3. Morning

   The marshals' charge

   Seeing the English move, Audrehem urges an immediate attack; Clermont, by Froissart's account, suspects a trap, and the two quarrel. Both charge. Clermont's knights ride at the hedge gap held by Salisbury's men and are shot and cut down there; Clermont is killed. Audrehem's charge against Warwick's wing is broken when, as Geoffrey le Baker tells it, the Earl of Oxford leads archers out onto the marsh to shoot into the unarmoured flanks and hindquarters of the barded horses. Audrehem is wounded and taken prisoner; Constable Brienne, attacking with the foot and crossbowmen, is killed. The mounted vanguard — the one force John had kept on horseback — is destroyed in minutes.

4. Mid-morning

   The Dauphin's division attacks

   The first French division, perhaps 4,000 men-at-arms on foot under the eighteen-year-old Dauphin Charles, Duke of Normandy, comes on through the archers' arrows and reaches the hedge. The fighting there is long and hard — by some accounts two hours — and the Prince feeds men from his reserve into the line. The Duke of Bourbon is killed and the Dauphin's banner is taken. At last the division falls back; the Dauphin's guardians lead him off the field.

5. Late morning

   Orléans's division leaves the field

   The second division, under the King's brother Philip, Duke of Orléans, does not attack. Seeing the Dauphin's men retreat, it withdraws, and by several accounts leaves the field altogether; the King's other sons are escorted away to Chauvigny. Whether this was panic, misunderstood orders or a deliberate move to save the princes is disputed. The English, exhausted and with the archers running short of arrows, use the lull to drag the dead from the hedge, recover arrows and tend the wounded.

6. Midday

   The King's division advances

   John will not withdraw. Under the Oriflamme, carried by Geoffroi de Charny, his own division — fresh, and swelled by men rallying from the others — advances on foot toward the hedge. In the English line the archers have shot most of their arrows. The Prince sends the Captal de Buch, a Gascon lord, with a small mounted force round behind a low hill to fall on the French flank and rear, and orders his whole army to mount and go out to meet the King rather than wait behind the hedge.

7. Early afternoon

   'Banners, advance!' — the King is taken

   The Anglo-Gascons ride out from the hedge and crash into the King's division; the archers, out of arrows, join the mêlée with swords and knives. The Captal de Buch's men appear on the rise behind the French under the banner of St George, and the French rear breaks. Pressed back onto the low ground by the Miosson — the Champ Alexandre — the King fights on with his fourteen-year-old son Philip beside him warning him of blows ('Father, guard yourself right; guard yourself left'). Geoffroi de Charny dies with the Oriflamme. John surrenders, by Froissart's account to Denis de Morbecque, an exiled knight of Artois serving the English, and is nearly torn apart by men claiming him before Warwick and Cobham bring him to the Prince.

8. 19 September 1356 – 1360

   A king for ransom

   French losses are heavy: about 2,500 men-at-arms killed, among them the Constable, a marshal, the Duke of Bourbon and Charny, and some 2,000–3,000 taken prisoner, with many of the foot killed in the pursuit toward Poitiers. Anglo-Gascon losses are reported as small, though modern historians think the chronicle figures too low. That evening the Prince serves the captive King supper — traditionally at the castle of Chambonneau — and waits on him at table. John is taken to Bordeaux and then London. His ransom, set at three million gold écus, and the Treaty of Brétigny (1360) follow; the gold franc first struck in 1360 for the ransom is the origin of the French franc.