Battle of La Rochelle (1372), a Castillian fleet annihilate the English fleet at the early stages of the Hundred Years’ War by Giuseppe Rava.
King Charles’s reconquest had continued. Although the Mayor
of Poitiers supported the English, its people opened the gates to du Guesclin
in 1372 and the rest of Poitou soon followed its capital. In June the same
year, off La Rochelle, a Castilian fleet defeated an English fleet under the
Earl of Pembroke—the new Governor of Aquitaine—sending the ship carrying his
troops’ pay to the bottom and taking the Earl back to Spain as a prisoner. In
consequence the Mayor of La Rochelle overpowered the English garrison and
admitted du Guesclin. The Constable also took Usson in the Auvergne, while the
whole of the Angoumois and the Saintonge went over to the French. There were
not enough English troops to provide adequate garrisons and the enemy seemed to
be everywhere. The English strongholds in Normandy and Brittany were falling
and even Guernsey was invaded by a French force under Evan of Wales (a member
of the former ruling family of Gwynedd).
The Battle
The development of battle tactics are also clearly
illustrated in the course of this encounter, which took place in June 1372 at a
time when England’s military prowess was on the wane. Edward III was now old
and had lost his wife, Philippa, probably to a recurrence of the plague in
1369. Both 1370 and 1371 had seen invasion scares, with the south-coast towns
on alert for raiders, and stories circulating widely of large French fleets
being gathered for a descent on the English coast. John of Gaunt was actively
pursuing his ambitions in Spain and attempting to put together an expedition
and a fleet for that purpose. In France itself, English forces in the southwest
were under pressure. In these rather unpromising circumstances the young Earl
of Pembroke was commissioned in April as royal lieutenant in Aquitaine. He
finally left to take up his position in June, leading a small force of probably
under twenty ships, mostly small transports, but with three large vessels as
escorts. He had with him 224 knights, fifty-five esquires and eighty archers.
He also received a large sum of money in gold and silver, about £12,000, so
that he could recruit and pay an army of about three thousand men when he
reached his destination.
The various chronicle accounts then differ markedly as to
what then ensued. Froissart as usual has a stirring tale to tell, which also
changed between the different versions of his work. The foremost English
chronicles hardly mention the incident. The Anonimalle Chronicle merely states
that ‘the young count set out towards Gascony with too few men to the great
damage of England’. He encountered enemy ships and was captured along with some
of his companions and others were killed.38 A French chronicle, the Chronique
des Quatre Premiers Valois, explains that on 22 June the English squadron
arrived off La Rochelle and found a force of Castilian galleys already barring
their way. The English thought little of the Spanish and were not unduly
disturbed. An action ensued with the crossbowmen on the galleys opposing the
archers on the English sailing ships. At nightfall this was still inconclusive
so the two fleets parted. The chronicle also implies at this point that low
tide was around dusk, perhaps around 9pm. This chronicle is then adamant that
at dawn the next day after the first attack the English were aground because of
the falling tide. The galleys, drawing much less water, were still able to
manoeuvre freely and attacked, this time using flaming arrows and pots of
grease and oil to set the English ships on fire. Soon most of the English ships
were alight, with terrified horses in the holds adding to the confusion and
uproar. The earl’s vessel was grappled by no fewer than four galleys and
despite fierce fighting on the deck those who remained alive were forced to
surrender and were captured. The treasure intended to pay the army in Gascony
also fell into enemy hands.
This account of the battle has generally been accepted,
although there is some disagreement over whether the English ships went
aground. The timing of the crucial tide changes must remain uncertain without
precise information but it seems likely that the tide was ebbing from around
2–3am on the morning of 23 June so that at dawn when the Castilian attack went
in this would soon be a problem for the English ships if they had anchored not
far from the shore. More controversial is the effect of this battle. One
historian has called it ‘the greatest defeat ever sustained by the English
navy’. Another has claimed that the effect was, ‘to stimulate naval activity’.
The most recent writer’s view is that ‘the loss of prestige incurred by this
first major English defeat was incalculable.’ For most contemporary English
chroniclers the most important matter was the capture of the Earl of Pembroke
by the Spanish.
Despite the loss of ships in this disaster and the need to compensate the owners of three of the largest with grants of royal ships, a large fleet was raised later that same summer for an expedition to France, which came to nothing because of a long spell of adverse winds. There is also evidence that the fact that a galley fleet had destroyed one made up of sailing vessels lay behind the decision to set in train the building of more balingers and barges for the Crown. Feelers were also put out to both Genoa and Portugal in the hope that they might be able to provide galleys or oarsmen to power the new balingers. More generally, English military power was receding as Charles V of France reinvigorated his forces both on land and at sea; the era of English success and stunning victories seemed to have ended, as the enormous expense of the wars became more and more apparent to a people who had lost much of their enthusiasm for the whole endeavour.
English Naval Forces
The idea that all ships in the possession of Englishmen and
able to go to sea made up the navy of England was deeply rooted in the minds of
English monarchs and accepted by English seafarers. However reluctant they
might be at times to obey a royal summons to serve the King and defend the
realm with their vessels at sea, the existence of this principle was not
questioned. English kings from at least the tenth century had at times also
owned ships themselves and had used these in a variety of roles. The twists and
turns of external circumstances and royal policy ensured that there was little
continuity in the royal ownership of ships, or in the way they were financed or
maintained. We have seen that some English kings devoted considerable time and
energy to the well-being and the proper use of their ships, while others
neglected them, or in fact disposed of them entirely. How did the rulers of
other states approach the same problem of defending the dwellers on their
coasts, their ports and their trade? How did they also attempt to supply the
need for ships that could give a good account of themselves in war at sea?
France
Facing the North Sea and the Atlantic, the kingdom of France
possessed, in theory, around 2500 kilometres of coastline, stretching from the
estuary of the Zwyn in Flanders to Hendaye on the frontier with Castile. At the
beginning of the thirteenth century, however, only the counties of Ponthieu and
Artois on the north coast were ruled directly by the French king; other
territories including Flanders, Normandy, Brittany, Poitou and Gascony were
fiefs of the French Crown, but were ruled directly by dukes or counts who often
followed their own policies. This was particularly the case with the
territories which were ruled by the Kings of England as dukes, first of
Normandy from the Conquest till c.1204 and from c.1417 to c.1450, and second of
Gascony (also known as Aquitaine) from 1152, when the future Henry II of
England married Eleanor of Aquitaine, till 1453. Brittany, under its own duke,
also pursued independent policies until the last years of the fifteenth
century, when the French king took over the direct rule of the duchy by
marrying Anne, the heiress of the last duke in 1491. As a consequence of this
situation, kings of France had taken little interest in maritime matters, until
the collapse of English rule in northern France in the reign of King John
extended their power over most of the Channel coast. The kings of France,
initially Philip II Augustus, now had control over a coastline in the north of
their kingdom with excellent ports, where maritime trade was on the rise, and
where skilled and adventurous seamen could be found in large numbers. They also
had the power to demand feudal service at sea from these mariners and their
ships in much the same way as the English Crown could rely on its power to
conscript ships and crews for royal fleets. As Michel Mollat put it, ‘Philip
[II] did not have a fleet but he had ships’. It was a fleet raised in this
manner which met with the English at the battle of Dover in 1217.
Sources for French
naval forces
There are not, however, many surviving French equivalents of the letters patent, commissions and accounts which allow historians to examine in detail the fleets largely made up of conscripted merchant ships raised by English kings from the thirteenth century onwards. It is easier to find evidence of the measures taken by French kings to defend their coastline by fortifying ports and building castles, for example at Montreuilsur-Mer and Boulogne. After their control also extended by the mid thirteenth century to the coast of Poitou and Saintonge, the fortifications of the major port of La Rochelle were also strengthened, although it was not until 1345–47 that the twin towers which guard the harbour entrance were built. These still exist and the Tour St Nicholas, in particular, is a very imposing structure; the watch tower is more than 35m above sea level. A chain was stretched across the entrance to the harbour between the two towers on which cannon were also mounted. Harfleur had similar towers, while at Honfleur across the estuary of the Seine one tower was built by the French in the mid fourteenth century, and another built c.1430 when the town was ruled by the English.
