Bold Sir John - Medieval Man of Action

What ho, merry readers! I thought I would share with you today the story of Sir John Chandos, as gallant an Englishman as ever there was, who deserves to be better known; overshadowed as he is by the reputations of the kings and princes he served so well. Sir John was a scion of an ancient and noble house, his ancestor Robert Chandos had been a companion in arms of William the Conqueror. Bold in battle and wise in council, Sir John was prominent amongst the companions of King Edward III and tutor to his son the Black Prince.

At the Battle of Sluys, of which I have previously blogged, bold Sir John was in the thick of the action, having already done great service by stealing ashore to spy upon the French fleet. Upon the bloody field of Crecy he stood and fought beside the Black Prince as he was sorely pressed by the charges of the enemy after his father the King had refused to reinforce him and cried out instead ‘Let the boy win his spurs!’

Both lived to fight another day. Two years later Sir John was made a founding member of the Order of the Garter.

At the battle of Les Espagnols sur Mer in 1350 in which an out numbered English fleet outfought a force of Castilian galleys, Sir John was on the king’s ship when it was sunk from under him. Those aboard were forced to fight their way onto an enemy ship to avoid going to the bottom.

Sir John is credited with masterminding strategy at Poitiers in 1356; a day upon which an outnumbered English army under the Black Prince turned likely defeat into victory against the pursuing army of King John II of France. As the French king wavered, having seen his first division routed and his second flee the field, Chandos called for the final decisive charge of the English men at arms that was thrown against the forces of the French King, crying out ‘Sire. Charge and the day is yours!’

Chandos continued to campaign in France and for his efforts was made Constable of Aquitaine and Lieutenant General of France. He fell in battle in 1370, following an ill-advised attack upon the rebellious stronghold of St Salvain as the people of Gascony rose up against the harsh fiscal exactions of the Black Prince. Caught in the field by a superior French force, Sir John offered battle. Tripping in the mud upon his long cloak in the midst of battle, Chandos was run through the face by a mere squire. His death was mourned by both sides as  a true knight and a man who could perhaps have helped to bring about peace between England and France. Alas for bold Sir John.

The Death of Sir John Chandos

 

http://www.bigenealogy.com/familychests/sir-john-candos.htm

You may also like to read:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/117333054911795936844/posts/TAP6bV5NT9U

http://slingsandarrowsblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/beating-french.html

A sign from the Gods?

Fellow struggling writers, this will warm your cockles.

I was in a foul mood last week, after some mean spirted individual had lambasted my book on Amazon; having the temerity to describe it as boring. May their bones rot. Having assessed the cut of their jib and concluded that they were not the sort to usually read anything decent and having further deduced that anyone who goes by the handle of ‘Earbasher’ is likely to be of a generally beligerent and critical nature, I dismissed them from my mind as a worthless worm.Yet still it rankled. I cared not a jot for Earbasher’s opinion, for others have praised my efforts mightily, but it is annoying not being able to defend one’s literary efforts once they are fully exposed in the pillory of the Amazon customer review page, helpless in the face of any idiot who comes along and decides to throw a rotten cabbage in their direction.

And so I sulked. But then a remarkable thing happened.

On wednesday I received a phone call from my Granny who told me a remarkable story:

She related how she had been sitting in the doctors’ surgery awaiting her appointment and noticed that the lady next to her was reading one of those new fangled Kindle devices. Being a rather chatty and socialable type, Granny enquired as to what it was. The lady explained that it was a device for reading books.

‘That must be handy.’ Opined my Granny.

‘Yes’ said the lady. ‘I bought it to take on holiday; its much easier than taking loads of books with you.’

‘Reading anything good?’ asked Granny, just being polite really.

‘I’ve just read a fantastic book called The Battles are the Best Bits.’ The lady replied, and went on to say how much she had enjoyed it and how interesting and well written it was.

At this point she wondered why my Granny had burst into tears.

Through her swelling grandmaternal pride Granny explained that the book had been written by her Grandson.

So what are the odds of this chance meeting between reader and author’s grandmother? If I was E L James it would be pretty unremarkable, but since I’ve only shifted around a thousand copies so far they are pretty astronomically high. It was clearly a sign from the Gods, I concluded; sent to cheer me up in a moment of doubt.

So frankly Mr Earbasher, I don’t give a damn. If you run into my Granny you’d better watch it – she’ll give you a clip round the ear.

Beating the French

You cannot have too much of a good thing it seems and I have been learning this week that this includes great naval victories over the French. The noble English tradition of trouncing our rivals across the channel extends back to the Middle Ages and in my delvings into medieval French history I have come across some early encounters between our great nations which deserve to be better known alongside the famous battles of Nelson’s age.

In the summer of 1217 England lay exposed to the threat of French conquest following the disastrous reign of King John. Forces commanded by the Dauphin Prince Louis had landed in support of English rebels, but now with John dead and the nine year old Henry III on the throne, the French looked set to capitalise and overrun the kingdom.

In response, the regent William Marshall had assembled a fleet at Sandwich, which set out to intercept the larger French fleet bringing vital reinforcements to Louis. Having manoeuvred up-wind of the French, the English ships came about and closed with the French fleet. The French ships were heavily laden with the materials of war and the English ships rode higher in the water. This gave them a distinct advantage in being able to fire down into the French ships. In addition to a hail of arrows the French were bombarded with jars of quicklime.

The capture of the French flagship signalled the end of resistance and the French commander Eustace the Monk was executed on the spot. The loss of his fleet effectively doomed Louis’ campaign to failure.

Battle of Sandwich

 

In 1340 the Hundred Years War was in its early stages. King Edward III was determined to press his claim to the French throne, but faced the threat of invasion from a large French fleet massed in the estuary of Sluys on the Flemish coast. Edward decided to lead his fleet in an offensive action against the French. Rather than engaging in the open sea the French commanders elected to stay put in the estuary, forming their ships up in line and even chaining them together in order to present a formidable floating wall against the English attack. This tactic was criticised by the commander of the Genoese contingent who recognised the danger and slipped away before battle was joined.

With the wind behind them the English ships bore down upon the French and crashed into them with great destruction. The English ships were arranged in fighting squadrons of three – with two ships filled with archers supporting one filled with men at arms. In the ensuing battle the murderous fire of the English longbowmen wrought havoc on the decks of the French, just as they would on the battlefield of Crecy six years later. At least one of the French ships carried cannon and these succeeded in sending one English cog to the bottom in what must be one of the earliest examples of naval gunnery. Ultimately the battle was won through fierce hand to hand fighting in which the English men at arms triumphed over their French counterparts with heavy casualties on both sides. As at Sandwich, with the capture and execution of their leaders the fight largely went out of the French, although fighting continued into the night. The following morning found most of the great French fleet captured, burned or sunk, although a few ships managed to slip away in the night. With victory at Sluys Edward III gained the upper hand in the war and would follow up his success with devastating invasions of French territory culminating in the Crecy campaign.

 

Battle of Sluys

We’re all friends now of course. But the next time you feel like jingoistically sticking your fingers up at a Frenchman in the spirit of friendly rivalry you could invoke the memory of Sandwich or Sluys.

http://www.britishbattles.com/100-years-war/sluys.htm