Battle of Poitiers Summary

On September 19, 1356, amid the Hundred Years' War, the Battle of Poitiers unfolded, pitching King John II's French forces against the Anglo-Gascon army led by Edward, commonly known as the Black Prince. The Black Prince commanded a force of approximately 7,000 knights, men-at-arms, and archers, while the opposing French army, totaling around 35,000, included a Scottish contingent under Sir William Douglas.

The conflict stemmed from Gascon nobles informing King Edward III about continuous attacks on his inherited Gascony lands by the French King's lieutenant, Count of Armagnac Jean I. In 1356, the Duke of Lancaster landed in Normandy, moving south, as the Black Prince conducted raids in central France from the English-held Aquitaine. Meanwhile, King Edward III was involved in conflicts in Scotland.

Responding to Lancaster's threat, French King John I compelled his withdrawal and shifted focus to the advancing Black Prince. The English force, marching through the countryside, inflicted widespread devastation in Armagnac territory.

In early September 1356, King John intercepted the Black Prince near the Loire as the latter turned back towards Bordeaux. Negotiation attempts failed, prompting both sides to fortify their positions. The Black Prince's army camped near Poitiers for the night, securing a strategic hilltop position the following day.

The seasoned English force, including veterans from Creçy, faced a French army relying on crossbowmen, which had a slower firing rate than the English longbows. The disastrous French attack on September 19 featured a mounted charge by 300 German knights. Ultimately, the French king and his bodyguard were overwhelmed, and Jean was captured, held until a substantial ransom was paid in 1360. The battle resulted in a decisive victory for the English and Gascons.

The aftermath of the Battle of Poitiers carried profound implications. Under the 1360 Treaty of Brétigny, Edward III retained 25% of France, and the Black Prince's standing as one of the preeminent medieval knights was firmly established.
Battle of Poitiers Summary

Wars of the Roses (1455-1487)

The Wars of the Roses, spanning over a period of four decades, marked a dynastic conflict involving the English nobility and monarchy. This period was defined by sporadic battles, executions, and plots for assassination.

Central to this conflict was a rivalry for the throne between lineages tracing their ancestry back to Edward III and those descending from Henry IV. The final Angevin monarch, King Richard II, passed away without leaving a successor.

Henry IV, also recognized as Henry Bolingbroke, orchestrated the overthrow and subsequent assassination of King Richard II. Henry's connection to the House of Lancaster through his father, John of Gaunt, gave rise to the Lancastrian faction, which garnered support from his heirs and adherents.

In contrast, the lineage descending from Edward IV had ties to families in the northern regions of England, particularly the House of York and Richard of York, culminating in the establishment of the Yorkist faction.

The Wars of the Roses earned its evocative name due to the adoption of the white rose as a symbol by the Yorks, and the red rose as the emblem of the Lancastrians.

This period of conflict was initiated in 1455 with The First Battle of St. Albans. Richard of York led around 3,000 soldiers on a march towards London, prompting Henry VI to shift his position from the capital to intercept the Yorkist army. Henry halted his advance in St. Albans, anticipating Richard's attack. This engagement resulted in Richard's victory, causing an estimated 300 casualties.

Despite the Yorkists' success in securing Edward IV's ascension to the throne in 1461, the conflicts persisted. In 1471, they orchestrated the assassination of Henry VI within the Tower of London. In 1483, Richard III sidestepped the claims of his nephew, Edward V, to seize power, which alienated a considerable number of Yorkists.

Henry Tudor, who would later be known as Henry VII, effectively concluded the Wars of the Roses by triumphing over and killing Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field on August 22, 1485. His marriage to Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV, in 1486 served to unify the competing Yorkist and Lancastrian claims.

Wars of the Roses (1455-1487)

The Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604)

In Western Europe, the Spanish Empire ruled by the king Philip II gained an enormous power. The Spanish saw England as a competitor in trade and expansion in the ‘New World’ of the Americas.

Relations between Spain and Britain had been deteriorating steadily since Henry VIII officially broke with Rome and declared England a Protestant nation in the 1530s.

Unauthorized trading and privateering in the Spanish territories of the West Indies by men such as Sir John Hawkins and Sir Francis Drake further eroded ties between Queen Elizabeth I of Britain and King Philip of Spain.

The Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604) was an intermittent conflict between the kingdoms of Spain and England that was never formally declared. The war included much English privateering against Spanish ships, and several widely separated battles.

It began with England's military expedition in 1585 to what was then the Spanish Netherlands under the command of the Earl of Leicester, in support of the Dutch rebellion against Spanish Habsburg rule. After Philip retaliated by outlawing British trade with Spain and by seizing hundreds of English ships in Iberian ports, the two nations found themselves at war.

In 1588, Philip II intended to sail with his navy and army, a total of around 30,000 men, up the English Channel to link up with the f orces led by the Duke of Parma in the Spanish Netherlands.

On May 19, the Invincible Armada set sail from Lisbon on a mission to secure control of the English Channel and transport a Spanish army to the British isle from Flanders. The fleet was under the command of the Duke of Medina-Sidonia and consisted of 130 ships carrying 2,500 guns, 8,000 seamen, and almost 20,000 soldiers.

The Armada was difficult to attack because it sailed in a ‘crescent’ shape. While the Armada tried to get in touch with the Spanish army, the English ships attacked fiercely. However, an important reason why the English were able to defeat the Armada was that the wind blew the Spanish ships northwards.
The Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604)

The creation of New Model Army in England (1645)

Charles came to the throne in 1625. The English Civil War actually refers to a series of wars in Britain and Ireland fought by the parliamentary and royalist armies between 1642 and 1651.

During Civil War, Parliament had the support of the south-east of England, merchants, London and the Navy. Charles ‘s forces were gradually worn down.

In 1644-5 Independent military leaders, particularly the MP Oliver Cromwell, accused the Parliamentarian generals, the Earls of Essex and Manchester, both of them Presbyterian Members of the House of Lords, of not fighting the war forcefully enough.

After Oliver Cranwell set up the New Model Army, Parliament won decisive victories at Marston Moor (1644) and Naseby (1645).

Oliver Cromwell had been a member of the Long and Short Parliaments, which had stood up to Charles and eventually taken the country to war. Once war began, he had also established a reputation as a brilliant military leader.

At the beginning of the Civil War, Parliament relied on soldiers recruited by large landowners who supported their cause. In February 1645, Parliament decided to form a new army of professional soldiers. Parliament felt that a professional army would be more successful against the king’s army. It was a military unit that was to transform the English Civil War.

This army of 22,000 men became known as the New Model Army. Its commander-in-chief was General Thomas Fairfax, while Oliver Cromwell was put in charge of its cavalry.

The creation of the 'New Model Army' – a well-trained, well-equipped, well-disciplined and well-organized army, with officers chosen for ability rather than social standing.

Members of the New Model Army received proper military training and by the time they went into battle they were very well-disciplined.

The New Model Army worked on a meritocratic system, where the best soldiers were the officers. In the past, people became officers because they came from powerful and wealthy families. In the New Model Army men were promoted when they showed themselves to be good soldiers.

The army was inextricably involved in national developments until the Restoration. Religious and political radicalism quickly permeated its ranks, with Leveller influence particularly strong between 1647 and 1649. The army was responsible for Pride's Purge (1648), and formed the basis of government in the following years.
The creation of New Model Army in England (1645)

Battle of Crécy 1346

The Battle of Crécy was the first important decisive action of what is called “The Hundred Years’ War.” On 12th July Edward III landed in Normandy with his army and marching north plundered the countryside. King Philip VI assembled an army to stop Edward and tracked them across the Somme River.

In the Battle of Crecy, fought between the armies of England and France on 26 August 1346, the French dead totaled 1,500 knights and 10,000 foot-soldiers, while the English lost less than 100 men. This war remains one of the most famous battles of the entire Middle Ages.

This battle marked the arrival of the English as the preeminent military power in Europe, it initiated a global revolution in military affairs, and it marked the beginning of the end of the chivalric way of life.

The French had at least three times as many men-at arms as the English, all mounted and of no worse quality, and they matched the English longbowmen with a corps of professional Genoese crossbowmen. Their enemy was aided only by field fortifications and a few primitive cannons. It sounds impossible that the French should lose, and it certainly seemed impossible to Philip of France and his allies on 26 August 1346.

Although out-numbered, the English held a strong defensive position with King Edward's longbowmen deployed along the crest of the hill.

As soon as the King of France came in sight of the English his blood began to boil, and he cried out to his marshals, “Order the Genoese forward, and begin the battle, in the name of God and St. Denis!”

The first attack was delivered by King Philip's Genoese crossbow troops, followed quickly by the French Men-at-Arms. Thrown into confusion by the superior rate of fire of the English longbows, they soon retreated.

Seeing the crossbow troops in disarray, the French cavalry charged. A curtain of arrows filled the sky and the French were repelled. Over and over, they tried and failed to break the English position that day. By nightfall, exhausted and suffering from massive casualties, the French retired from the battlefield.

The battle of Crécy witnessed the defeat of the greatest power in Christendom - a major French army with the king at its head - by an expeditionary force raised by a kingdom which was not yet renowned for its military prowess.

It transformed the military reputation of the English in European eyes. And it provoked a serious political and financial crisis of the French monarchy which provided the essential conditions for England's victories in the following decade.
Battle of Crécy 1346

Battle of Brunanburh

The English nation-state began to form when the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms united against Danish Viking invasion, beginning around 800.

Over the following 150 years England was for the most part a politically unified entity and remained permanently so after 937 when Athelstan of Wessex established the nation of England after the Battle of Brunanburh.

Followed his father and grandfather, Edward the Elder and Alfred the Great footsteps, Athelstan brought under his control the Norse kingdom of York and the Britons of Strathclyde.

Kings of Scotland and Strathclyde and ruler of Bamburgh recognized his authority in Northumbria. Athelstan ravaged Scotland in 934 with combined land and sea forces.

In 1937, Picts and Scots of Constantine III, Britons, Vikings of King Olaf Godfreyson of Dublin and some other Irish formed coalition and invaded and penetrated deep into England. They met at Brunanburh by Athelstan with combined Mercia and Wessex.

The northerners fought against Athelstan’s army in a great two-day battle at Brunanburh, near the English-Scottish border. The Saxons of Wessex and Mercia won an overwhelming victory. Athelstan stood supreme in the greater part of what is now England.

The Battle of Brunanburh is a short panegyric which appears in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the year 937.
Battle of Brunanburh

The English Revolutions

The English Revolutions
In June 1647 soldiers kidnapped the king and demanded that parliament pay their arrears, protect them from legal retribution, and recognize their service to the nation.

Those in Parliament who opposed the army’s intervention were impeached and when London Presbyterians rose up against the army’s show of force, troop move in town occupy the city.

The civil war, which had come so close to resolution in 1647, had now become a military revolution.

Religious and political radicals flocked to the army and encouraged the soldier to support their programs and to resist disbandment.

New fighting broke out in 1648 as King Charles encouraged his supporters to resume war.

But forces under the command of Sir Thomas Fairfax (1612 – 71) and Oliver Crompton (1599 – 1658) easily crushed the royalist uprisings in England and Scotland.

The army now demanded that Charles 1 be brought to justice for his treacherous conduct both before and during the war.

When the majority in the Parliament refused, still hoping against hope to reach an accommodation with the king, the soldiers again acted decisively.

In December 1648 army regiments were sent to London to purge the two houses of Parliament of those who opposed the army’s demands.

The remaining members, contemptuously called the Rump Parliament, voted to bring the king to trial for his crimes against the liberty of his subjects.

On 30 January 1649, Charles 1 was executed and England was declared to be Commonwealth.

The monarchy and the House of Lords were abolished and the nation was to be governed by what was left of the membership of the House of Commons.
The English Revolutions