Image by Andrew Spratt
Accounts of the Hundred Years War that are easily
available in the anglophone world describe stirring feats of arms in an
age of chivalry during an epic struggle between two great military
powers. One is regaled with a catalogue of great English victories whose
names resound in the histories taught in the anglophone world; Poitiers,
Crecy, Agincourt, Cravant, Verneuil, even the curiously named "Battle of
the Herrings". Indeed, the oldest regiment in the world, reputedly,
certainly the oldest in the British army, the 1st Royal Scots, lists an
engagement during la Guerre de Cent Ans as the first of the many
hundreds of battles and sieges where it has distinguished itself. Surely
it is therefore only through blind prejudice that so many seem not to
ask what must appear to the impartial an obvious question - how is it
possible that the English lost the war, when they seem to have won all
the battles ? In answering this question we must return to that
engagement listed as the first credited to the Royal Scots. The
engagement in question was the Battle of Bauge, fought on the day before
Easter Sunday, 1421, and was considered by many at the time to be the
turning point in the war, being the first occasion a "French" army
inflicted a defeat upon the English in the field during the course of
the war. This "French" army was almost entirely Scottish in composition,
and included units whom the Royal Scots claim as predecessors.
Great leaders historically are seen to select members
of a foreign race renowned for their martial prowess to form their
bodyguard, since they are held to be immune to domestic politics. Thus
the Byzantine emperors employed the Varangian guard, composed of Vikings
who had rowed and portaged their way across Russia in search of riches
and enhanced repute. The Roman emperors selected warriors from
unconquered German tribes to attend them. And the kings of France placed
their personal safety in the hands of Scots at least since 882 C.E. when
Charles III formed his bodyguard from "Scottish gentlemen." Tradition
maintains that this practise was started by his grandfather,
Charlemagne, and it was certainly well established by the time of Louis
IX (St. Louis), ultimately forming the basis of the Archers of the
Scottish Guard or "Guarde Ecossaise." They became known as the oldest
regiment in the French army, a reputation which inspired the comment
from a member of their only French rival for ancient pedigree, the
Regiment of Picardy, that they were "Pontius Pilate's Bodyguard." This
was a reference to the tradition that Pontius Pilate, having been born
to the wife of a Roman ambassador who was accompanying her husband while
he was negotiating a treaty with a tribe in Caledonia (at Fortingall
near Loch Tay), chose Caledonians to form the Temple guard in Jerusalem.
Certainly by the time the Auld Alliance was ratified in 1295 the cordial
relationship between France and Scotland was already many centuries old.
And in the year 1420 the parties to that alliance
were in dire straits; James I of Scots had been captured and was being
held by the English; Henry V of England, in the aftermath of Agincourt
had conquered Normandy and his Burgundian allies had even taken Paris;
the French king, Charles VI, had gone mad, and the majority of the
powerful men who used to pay him allegiance had agreed to the trumped up
treaty whereby Henry became heir to France; the civil war in France
which the early phases of la Guerre de Cent Ans can be
interpreted as, had delivered to Burgundy a sure thing.
In 1419 there landed at La Rochelle 150 men-at-arms
and 300 archers, from Scotland. Over the course of the next six years
17,000 men would disembark from Glasgow to make the same journey. They
formed the basis of the only armies the French could put in the field
for the next ten years. Without them there would be no France.
The English are a nation beguiled by centralisation,
and have been ever since the Norman Conquest (one might point out that
conquered nations are always obsessed by centralisation.) Therefore
having conquered Normandy it was natural for them to adopt the strategy
that has so often proved fruitful subsequently - to attack the centre of
power. After the fall of Paris and the conquest of Normandy, penetrating
south of the Loire towards the Dauphin's headquarters at Chinon became
tantalisingly feasible to the English in those years after French
incompetence delivered to them the field at Agincourt. And yet the
perennial English conceit, their presumption, led Henry from the fray,
and left matters in the hands of his brother, Thomas, the Duke of
Clarence. English accounts of what happened next are little more than a
collection of commonplaces from amongst their chronicles - a critic of
these texts who was not English by birth or sympathy (as few of the
critics who have ever read them are) would immediately recognise the
tropes and motifs which are part of English mythistoire and
should be given the same credence as outlaw tales. There is the warning
about the ensuing disaster, which is not heeded. There is the inordinate
respect shown to everything holy, which leads the English into error.
There are the many mistakes, not borne out by the record, to excuse
them. As ever, English defeat is due to the perfidy and guile of their
enemies, and the honest mistakes of a few well-meaning hotheads. The
English are portrayed as gallantly chasing off some Franco-Scottish
raiders from Normandy, and pressing their pursuit as far south as the
Loire We are asked to believe that they extended their supply lines and
committed their heavy cavalry, the decisive element in battles of this
period, on such a valiant whim! The expedition was a strategic probe
towards the Loire which the Scots thwarted, a fact whose significance
must be nullified. The failure of the English archers to make any impact
is explained in the English account by their absence, when in reality
the English were drawn into battle on ground that neutralised the
contribution of archers. And yet this is the account which is the
primary source of anglophone history of this period! Needless to say,
the engagement is dismissed in all anglophone accounts as "a minor
skirmish, notable only for the death of the Duke of Clarence", or in the
words of Mark Twain, as a "barren fight" with no issue (in his
"autobiography" of one of the servants of La Pucelle, Jeanne
d'Arc). That is, if it is mentioned at all! At Bauge, the Scots
destroyed the English heavy cavalry, which at that time meant a lot more
than the mere death of the king's brother. It meant the destruction of
their ability to be anything other than a garrison, and the prevention
of an English army penetrating south of the Loire and encircling the
strategically vital cities of Orleans and Tours, thus giving the French
vital time in which to recover and face the next onslaught.
While Henry was in England raising fresh levies in
1421, his brother Thomas the Duke of Clarence led 10,000 men south
towards the Loire. They set about besieging the castle at Bauge when a
Scottish army of 6,000 men commanded by the Earl of Buchan made contact
with them the day before Good Friday. A truce was reached, lasting until
Monday, so that the combatants could properly observe the religious
occasion of Easter. The English lifted their siege and withdrew to
nearby Beaufort, while the Scots camped at La Lude. However, early in
the afternoon of Saturday Scottish scouts reported that the English had
broken the truce and were advancing upon the Scots, hoping to take them
by surprise. The Scots rallied hastily and battle was joined at a bridge
which the Duke of Clarence, with banner unfurled for battle, sought to
cross. A detachment of a few hundred men under Sir Robert Stewart of
Ralston, reinforced by the retinue of Hugh Kennedy, held the bridge and
prevented passage long enough for the Earl of Buchan to rally the rest
of his army, whereupon they made a fighting retreat to the town where
the English archers would be ineffective.
Both armies now joined in a bitter melee that lasted
until nightfall. During the melee Sir John Carmichael of Douglasdale
broke his lance unhorsing the Duke of Clarence; since that day the
Carmichael coat of arms displays an armoured hand holding aloft a broken
lance in commemoration of the victory. Once on the ground, the Duke was
killed by Sir Alexander Buchanan. The English dead included the Lord
Roos, Sir John Grey and Gilbert de Umfraville, whose death directly led
to the extinction of the male line of that illustrious family, well
known to the Scots since the Wars of Independence. The Earl of Somerset
and his brother were captured by Laurence Vernon (later elevated to the
rank of knight for his conduct), the Earl of Huntingdon was captured by
Sir John Sibbald, and Lord Fitz Walter was taken by Henry Cunningham. On
hearing of the Scottish victory, Pope Martin V passed comment by
reiterating a common mediaeval saying, that "the Scots are well-known as
an antidote to the English." In the summer of 1421 the Dauphin
campaigned north of the Loire and retook much territory. In gratitude to
the Scots he made
Archibald, 4th Earl of Douglas, Lieutenant-General of the French
forces and conferred upon him the title of Duke of Touraine. Sir John
Stuart of Darnley received the lands of Aubigny-sur-Nere and
Concressault. The Earl of Buchan was made Constable of France. In 1422
the Dauphin created the "hundred men-at-arms of the King's bodyguard",
known as the "Hundred Lances of France", to supplement the 24 archers of
the Guarde Ecossaise. The Hundred Lances eventually became the
company known as the Gendarmerie of France who distinguished themselves
at Fontenoy in 1745. John Carmichael was elected bishop of Orleans in
1426, and was one of the 6 bishops to attend the coronation of the
Dauphin as Charles VII in 1429 at Rheims. Hugh Kennedy, known to the
French as Canede, was granted the right to quarter his coat of
arms with the fleur de lys of France.
James I was released in 1424, and in 1428 signed the
Treaty of Perth whereby a further 6,000 Scots were dispatched to defend
France. This occurred at another critical time - the English once again
were trying to penetrate south of the Loire and had besieged Orleans
hoping to secure it as a crossing point. The French Royal treasury
records, maintained by Raguier, list many Scots salaried by the Dauphin
to hold Orleans. Sir Thomas Blair is listed as commanding 20 men-at-arms
and 29 archers; Sir Cristin Chambers is listed as the captain of the
Guarde Ecossaise, and received the lands of Saintonge in reward for
his efforts at Orleans; Sir John Crichton is listed as commanding a
company of men-at-arms and archers of unknown number, and is
subsequently made governor of Chatillon;
Archibald, 5th Earl of Douglas, is listed with another company of
unknown number; Sir Henry Galois is listed commanding 10 men-at-arms and
30 archers; Sir William Hamilton is listed with a company of unknown
number, and as a consequence of his contribution the Hamilton's were
conferred the title of Dukes of Chatellerault; Sir Thomas Houston
commanded 22 men-at-arms and 71 archers and received the lands of
Gournay as reward; Hugh Kennedy was there with his retinue who had
fought at Bauge; Edward of Lennox is listed as being in command of 42
men-at-arms and 108 archers; Sir David Melville is listed as commanding
12 men-at-arms and 28 archers, rising to 50 and 32 by January 1429; Sir
Alexander Norwill is listed as commanding 15 men-at-arms and 29 archers;
Sir John Wishart is listed as leading 48 men-at-arms and 105 archers.
On February 8th, 1429, 1,000 Scottish reinforcements
arrived at Orleans, commanded by John and William Stuart. These were
immediately squandered the next day in an attack on an English convoy
from Paris supplying the forces besieging Orleans. The French commander,
Charles of Bourbon, Count of Clermont, ordered an attack but abandoned
it with his own forces, leaving the Scots to their fate. The Scots lost
250 men including John and William Stuart.
The relief of Orleans was to fall to others. Jeanne
d'Arc led a supply convoy from Blois to Orleans to feed the starving
garrison. Her escort consisted of 60 Scottish men-at-arms and 70
Scottish archers led by Sir Patrick Ogilvy of Auchterhouse, hereditary
sheriff of Angus. Her banner flew proudly in the wind; it had been made
by Hamish Powers in Tours at a cost of 25 livres-Tournois, and in
gratitude Jeanne had persuaded the dignitaries of Tours to provide
Hamish's daughter's dowry. Indeed, at the subsequent show trial she was
subjected to, it was noted that the only people who had carried
devotional images of her had been Scots.
After the siege had been raised and the English
routed at the Battle of Patay, Jeanne prevailed upon the Dauphin to make
the perilous journey north to Rheims to be crowned. This journey was
fraught with danger, as Rheims was close to territory still held by the
English, but in order to be made king, Charles needed to be anointed
with the holy oil kept there. Again the escort that accompanied Jeanne
d'Arc and the Dauphin, soon to be Charles VII, was composed almost
entirely of Scots.
The French recovery made possible by the Scots meant
that apres la Pucelle their assistance was called upon less and
less. Nevertheless the warm bond between Scotland and France persists to
this day. Scottish merchants were given first choice of wine in Bordeaux
in gratitude, much to the chagrin of the English merchants, and so in
conclusion it would be fitting to raise a glass of claret and make the
toast "Vive la France, Alba gu brath."
