England, France and Aquitaine by Richard Ballard;

Author:Richard Ballard;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History / Military / General
Publisher: Casemate Publishers & Book Distributors, LLC
Published: 2019-11-19T00:00:00+00:00

Jean Chartier said of him after his death:

This famous and renowned English commander spent a long time as the most redoubtable flail and the most determined enemy of France, of whom he appeared to be the dread and terror. 71

Concrete examples of his cruelty are documented. At Laval in 1428, he had sixty-five men, including priests, executed as traitors, presumably without due process of law. Similarly, in the garrisons at Jouy and Crépy in 1434, and at Gisors two years later, he hanged citizens for surrendering to the French and, after his raid into Santerre in 1440, he burned over three hundred men, women and children at Lihors in their village church, a horror comparable to the action of the Nazis at Oradour-sur-Glâne in 1944. The examples multiply, but according to the rules of war at the time, none of this would have appeared excessive – at least to the perpetrator.72 Chivalry was on its way out in mid-fifteenth century warfare, but its code was still binding upon Talbot as he single-mindedly applied his devotion to the Lancastrian cause.

Yet the rise of self-conscious support for a particular monarch as such, and the development of stable gunpowder that did not ignite when jolted in carts – both phenomena of Talbot’s lifetime – were calling all in doubt. The last word on Talbot could well be:

… it is possible that acting upon incorrect information, Talbot unfurled his banner [at Castillon] and opened the battle before he discovered that he was launching his men against an impenetrable position: to have retreated then would have brought lasting dishonour … A deep and genuine commitment to the code of chivalry as he understood it offers the most convincing key to Talbot’s character and career.73

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.