| Siege of Guînes | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of theHundred Years' War | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
| Kingdom of France | Kingdom of England | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Geoffrey de Charny | Thomas Hogshaw | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 4,500 | 115, assisted externally by an unknown number | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| Unknown | Unknown | ||||||
 | |||||||
Thesiege of Guînes took place from May to July 1352, when aFrench army underGeoffrey de Charny unsuccessfully attempted to recapture theFrench castle at Guînes which had been seized by theEnglish the previous January. The siege was part of theHundred Years' War and took place during the uneasy and oft-brokentruce of Calais.
The English had taken the strongly fortified castle during a period of nominal truce, and the English king,Edward III, decided to keep it. Charny led 4,500 men and retook the town, but could notblockade the castle. After two months of fierce fighting, a large English night attack on the French camp inflicted a heavy defeat and the French withdrew. Guînes was incorporated into thePale of Calais. The castle was besieged by the French in 1436 and 1514 but was relieved each time, before falling to the French in 1558.
Since theNorman Conquest of 1066, English monarchs had held titles andlands within France, the possession of which made themvassals of the kings of France.[1] Following a series of disagreements betweenPhilip VI of France (r. 1328–1350) andEdward III of England (r. 1327–1377), on 24 May 1337 Philip'sGreat Council inParis agreed that the lands held by Edward in France should be taken back into Philip's hands because Edward was in breach of his obligations as a vassal. This marked the start of theHundred Years' War, which was to last 116 years.[2][3][4] After nine years of expensive but inconclusive warfare, Edward landed with an army in northernNormandy in July 1346.[5] He then undertook theCrécy campaign, to the gates of Paris and north across France.[6][7] The English turned to fight Philip's much larger army at theBattle of Crécy, where the French were defeated with heavy loss.[8]
Edward needed a port where his army could regroup and be resupplied from the sea. TheChannel port ofCalais suited this purpose; it was also highly defensible and would provide a secureentrepôt into France for English armies. Calais could be easily resupplied by sea and defended by land.[9][10] Edward's armylaid siege to the port in September 1346. With French finances and morale at a low ebb after Crécy, Philip failed to relieve the town, and the starving defenders surrendered on 3 August 1347.[11][12] By 28 September theTruce of Calais, intended to bring a temporary halt to the fighting, had been agreed.[13] It was to run for nine months to 7 July 1348 but was extended repeatedly.[14] The truce did not stop ongoing naval clashes between the two countries, nor small-scale fighting inGascony andBrittany.[15][16]
In July 1348, a member of theKing's Council,Geoffrey de Charny, was put in charge of all French forces in the northeast.[17] Despite the truce being in effect Charny hatched a plan to retake Calais by deception and bribedAmerigo of Pavia, an Italian officer of the city garrison, to open a gate for a force led by him.[18][19][20] The English king became aware of the plot, crossed theChannel and led his household knights and the Calais garrison in a surprise counter-attack.[21][22] When the French approached on New Year's Day 1350 they were routed by this smaller force, with significant losses and all their leaders captured or killed; Charny was among the captured.[23]
In late 1350Raoul, Count of Eu, theGrand Constable of France, returned after more than four years in English captivity. He was personally on parole from Edward, pending his ransom's handover. This was a tremendous amount, rumored to have been 80,000écus; more than Raoul could afford. It had been agreed that he would instead hand over the town ofGuînes, 6 miles (9.7 km) from Calais, which was in his possession. This was a common method of settling ransoms. Guînes had an extremely strongkeep and was the leading fortification in the French defensive ring around Calais. English possession would go a long way to securing Calais against further surprise assaults. Guînes was of little financial value to Raoul, and it was clear that Edward was prepared to accept it instead of a full ransom payment only because of its strategic position.[24][25] Angered by the attempt to weaken the blockade of Calais, the new French king,John II, had Raoul executed for treason, preventing the transaction from taking place. This interference by the crown in a nobleman's personal affairs, especially one of such high status, caused uproar in France.[26]
In early January 1352 a band of freelancing English soldiers, led by John of Doncaster, seized the town of Guînes by midnightescalade. The fortifications at Guînes were often used as quarters for English prisoners. According to some contemporary accounts Doncaster had been employed as forced labor there after being taken captive earlier in the war and had used the opportunity to examine the town's defenses. After gaining his freedom he had remained in France as a member of the garrison of Calais, as he had been exiled from England for violent crimes.[27][28] One of these sources suggests that Doncaster learned the details of Guînes' defenses through an affair with a French washerwoman.[29] The French garrison of Guînes was not expecting an attack and Doncaster's party crossed the moat, scaled the walls, killed the sentries, stormed the keep, released the English prisoners there, and took over the whole castle.[27]
The French were furious: the acting commander, Hugues de Belconroy, wasdrawn and quartered for dereliction of duty, at the behest of Charny, who had returned to France after being ransomed from English captivity. French envoys rushed to London to deliver a strong protest to Edward on 15 January.[30][31] Edward was thereby put in a difficult position. The English had been strengthening the defenses of Calais with the construction of fortified towers orbastions at bottlenecks on the roads through the marshes to the town.[32] These could not compete with the strength of the defenses at Guînes, which would greatly improve the security of the English enclave around Calais. However, retaining it would be a flagrant breach of the truce then in force. Edward would suffer a loss of honor and possibly a resumption of open warfare, for which he was unprepared. He therefore ordered the English occupants to hand Guînes back.[27]
By coincidence, theEnglish Parliament was scheduled to meet, with its opening session on 17 January. Several members of theKing's Council made fiery, warmongering speeches and the parliament was persuaded to approve three years of war taxes. Reassured that he had adequate financial backing, Edward changed his mind. By the end of January, theCaptain of Calais had fresh orders: to take over the garrisoning of Guînes in the King's name. Doncaster was pardoned and rewarded. Determined to strike back, the French took desperate measures to raise money and set about raising an army.[31]
The outbreak of hostilities at Guînes caused fighting to also flare up in Brittany and theSaintonge area of south-west France, but the main French effort was against Guînes. Geoffrey de Charny was again put in charge of all French forces in the north-east. He assembled an army of 4,500 men, including 1,500men-at-arms and a large number of Italiancrossbowmen. By May the 115 men of the English garrison, commanded byThomas Hogshaw, were under siege. The French reoccupied the town, but found it difficult to approach the castle. The marshy ground and many small waterways made it difficult to approach from most directions, while facilitating waterborne supply and reinforcement for the garrison. Charny decided that the only practicable approach was via the main entrance facing the town, which was defended by a strongbarbican. He had aconvent a short distance away converted into a fortress, surrounded by a stoutpalisade, and positionedcatapults and cannons there.[33]
By the end of May the English authorities, concerned by these preparations, raised a force of more than 6,000 which was gradually shipped to Calais. From there they harassed the French in what the modern historianJonathan Sumption describes as "savage and continual fighting" throughout June and early July. In mid-July a large contingent of troops arrived from England, and, reinforced by much of the Calais garrison, they were successful in approaching Guînes undetected and launching a night attack on the French camp. Many Frenchmen were killed and a large part of the palisade around the convent was destroyed. Shortly afterwards Charny abandoned the siege, leaving a garrison to hold the convent.[34]
The French captured andslighted a newly built English tower atFretun, 3 miles (4.8 km) south-west of Calais, then retreated toSaint-Omer, where their army disbanded.[34] During the rest of the year the English expanded their enclave around Calais, building and strengthening fortifications on all the access routes through the marshes around Calais, forming what became thePale of Calais. The potential offensive threat posed by Calais caused the French to garrison 60 fortified positions in an arc around the town, at ruinous expense.[35]
The war also went badly for the French on other fronts and, encouraged by the newpope,Innocent VI, a peace treaty was negotiated at Guînes beginning in early 1353. On 6 April 1354 a draft was agreed. ThisTreaty of Guînes would have ended the war, very much in the favour of England. French and English ambassadors travelled toAvignon that winter to ratify the treaty in the presence of the Pope. This did not occur as the French king was persuaded that another round of warfare might leave him in a better negotiating position and withdrew his representatives.[36]
Charny was killed in 1356 at theBattle of Poitiers, when the French royal army was defeated by a smaller Anglo-Gascon force commanded by Edward's son, theBlack Prince, and John was captured.[37] In 1360, theTreaty of Brétigny ended the war, with vast areas of France being ceded to England; including Guînes and its county which became part of the Pale of Calais.[38] The castle was besieged by the French in 1436 and 1514, but was relieved each time.[39] Guînes remained in English hands until it wasrecaptured by the French in 1558.[11]
