Martyrs and Murderers: The Guise Family and the Making of Europe by Stuart Carroll

Author:Stuart Carroll [Carroll, Stuart]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: History, Europe, England/Great Britain, France, Scotland, Italy, Royalty, Faith & Religion, Renaissance, 16th Century, 17th Century
ISBN: 9780199229079
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2015-01-10T16:00:00+00:00

7: BLOODFEUD

Shortly after daybreak on the 19 December 1562, scouts in the royalist army, which was drawn up in line of battle just south of the town of Dreux, between the villages of Nuisement and Le Lucate, reported hearing the drums of the Protestant army as it approached the village of Imberdais two miles to the south. A brief council was held by the three royalist commanders. They were men long used to campaigning together, though not always happily so. As Constable of France, Anne de Montmorency was the senior commander. Second-in-command was Marshal Saint-André, like his comrades, a former favourite of Henry II and a founding member of the Triumvirate. Also present was the Duke of Guise, though he had no formal rank beyond command of a 200-strong gendarmerie company and an equal number of gentlemen volunteers—an indication of his huge popularity among the nobility. Together the Triumvirs resolved to force the enemy to give battle and, leaving its baggage at Nuisement, the royal army advanced about three-quarters of a mile further south to a position between the villages of Epinay and Blainville.

The royalist battle line extended across a front of slightly more than a mile. The 20,000-strong army was particularly well provided with infantry, but had only 3,000 horse. In order to minimize its inferiority in this arm, a strong defensive position was adopted and the cavalry interspersed with the foot. The right flank, anchored on Epinay, was nominally under the command of Saint-André; it comprised first the Spanish infantry, then Guise with his gendarmes and volunteers, followed by a block of veteran French infantry, then came Saint-André himself with more heavy cavalry, a regiment of German landsknecht infantry and gendarmerie units under Guise’s brother, Aumale and the constable’s second son, Henri de Montmorency, Duke of Damville. The centre of the royalist position was occupied by the largest unit on the field, a phalanx of Swiss pikemen, whose reputation as crack troops was expected to inspire the regiments from Picardy and Brittany, which were designated by the grandiose title of legions, though in reality they were composed largely of half-trained peasants. Their flank was protected by the dragoons under Sansac and the rest of the gendarmerie stationed in front of the village of Blainville, which were commanded by Montmorency in person.

The Protestants, led by Coligny and Condé, had not sought a battle and had not expected the royalists, whom they knew to be deficient in cavalry, to offer it. They were on the retreat from a failed attack on Paris and were heading towards Normandy, where they intended to join with their English allies, under the command of the Earl of Warwick, and use English subsidies to pay their mutinous mercenaries, who made up more than half their 13,000-strong army. Despite their inferior numbers, the battlefield, which sloped gently down from the royalist position, suited cavalry and gave the Protestants the chance of making their considerable superiority in this arm count.

With only about a mile of open plain

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