The Battle of Pontvallain, part of the Hundred Years' War, took place in the Sarthe region of north-west France on 4 December 1370, when a French army under Bertrand du Guesclin heavily defeated an English force which had broken away from an army commanded by Sir Robert Knolles. The French numbered 5,200 men, and the English force was approximately the same size.
The English had plundered and burnt their way across northern France from Calais to Paris. With winter coming, the English commanders fell out and divided their army into four. The battle consisted of two separate engagements: one at Pontvallain where, after a forced march, which continued overnight, Guesclin, the newly appointed constable of France, surprised a major part of the English force, and wiped it out. In a coordinated attack, Guesclin's subordinate, Louis de Sancerre, caught a smaller English force the same day, at the nearby town of Vaas, also wiping it out. The two are sometimes named as separate battles.
The French harried the surviving Englishmen into the following year, recapturing much lost territory. Though the engagements were comparatively small, they were significant because the English were routed, ending a reputation for invincibility in open battle they had enjoyed since the war started in 1337.
Background
Following a series of disagreements between Philip VI of France (r. 1328–1350) and Edward III of England (r. 1327–1377), on 24 May 1337 Philip's Great Council in Paris agreed that the lands held by Edward in France should be taken back into Philip's hands on the grounds that Edward was in breach of his obligations as a vassal. This marked the start of the Hundred Years' War, which was to last 116 years. In 1340 Edward claimed the French crown, proclaiming himself the rightful heir through his mother, Isabella of France.
The English campaigned frequently on the continent, gaining a long run of military successes against larger forces across France. In 1356 a large French army was decisively defeated at the Battle of Poitiers, in which King John II of France (r. 1350–1364), the son and successor of King Philip, was captured. This eventually led to peace being agreed, and the Treaty of Brétigny was signed in 1360. It ceded large parts of south-west France to England as its sovereign territory, while Edward renounced all claims to the French throne. The terms of Brétigny were meant to untangle the feudal responsibilities that had caused so much conflict, and, as far as the English were concerned, would concentrate their territory in an expanded version of Aquitaine. This had been part of the English royal estate in France since the reign of Henry II (r. 1154–1189), and by the treaty it and Poitou became fiefdoms of Edward's oldest son, Edward the Black Prince. John was to pay three million écus as his ransom. The French were deeply unhappy with this arrangement.
In 1369, on the pretext that Edward had failed to observe the terms of the treaty, Charles V (r. 1364–1380), the son and heir of King John, declared war once again. In August a French offensive attempted to recapture castles in Normandy. Men who had fought in earlier English campaigns, and had already won fortune and fame, were summoned from their retirements, and new, younger men were given commands. Events went poorly for England almost from the start: James Audley and John Chandos, two important English commanders, were killed in the first six months; while the French made territorial gains in the west, re-occupying the strategic provincial capital of Poitiers and capturing many castles.
French strategy
This period of the Hundred Years' War, starting in 1369 and known as the Carolinian phase, was significantly different from the previous one. The French were well-prepared militarily, and immediately went on the offensive. Charles was well-situated in terms of financial and human resources. Edward III was growing senile, his heir was crippled by illness, and once the turmoil of the previous phase of the war had subsided, Charles was able to benefit from France having three times the population and wealth of England. The French also benefited from technological improvements, such as in barding, the armouring of horses.
Fighting during this phase took place largely in Aquitaine, meaning the English had extremely long borders to defend. These were easy for small French parties to penetrate, which they did to great effect. They relied on Fabian tactics: avoiding pitched battles and using attrition to wear down the English and only attacking dispersed or isolated English forces. This was now an offensive war for the French, and the English were ill-prepared for it.
English strategy
The English planned to use two armies. One would operate out of Aquitaine in south-west France and be commanded by the experienced Black Prince. It would concentrate on reversing recent French gains in Poitou. This force was hampered by the Black Prince being so ill that he had to be transported in a litter. As a result, he was unable to lead the campaign personally and needed to delegate command. The other English force would operate out of the English enclave of Calais in northern France.
The north-eastern army was to be commanded by Sir Robert Knolles, a veteran with considerable experience of independent command in the previous phase of the war and in the Breton War of Succession. Knolles contracted on 20 June to lead the King's army, although a week earlier he had agreed to share the command with Sir Alan Buxhull, Sir Thomas Grandison and Sir John Bourchier. On 1 July they were jointly appointed King's lieutenants. Both the King and his council were aware of the problems that could be caused by giving the overall command to Knolles, whose social status was lower than that of his peers. To prevent the English army from dividing and going separate ways – and in what the historian Jonathan Sumption calls "a prescient precaution" – the captains were required to sign a contract before they left agreeing not only to serve the King faithfully, but also not to allow any divisions to open up between them, and to make decisions collectively.
Prelude
English movements
Knolles landed at Calais in August 1370 with an army of between 4,000 and 6,000 mounted men. There he awaited further orders from the King. None were forthcoming, so he proceeded on a "meandering" plundering raid through northern France. According to the historian T. F. Tout, the French allowed Knolles and his army "to wander where he would". Knolles crossed north-eastern France using what by now was a traditional English tactic, the chevauchée – a large-scale mounted raid. This was intended not only to inflict as much destruction as possible on the countryside they passed through, but, by doing so, draw out the French army into a pitched battle. Journeying through the Somme region, Knolles made a show of force outside Reims, marched to Troyes, and then swung west to approach Paris from the direction of Nemours. As they marched, Knolles's army captured many towns, which they would then raze if the French refused to pay the ransoms the English demanded. He reached Paris on 24 September, but the city was well garrisoned and well defended. Knolles could not enter, and the French defenders would not leave their positions. He tried to draw them out to fight them in the open, but the French would not take the bait. The contemporary Chronique des Règnes de Jean II et de Charles V describes how, even though "the said English set fire to a great number of villages around Paris ... the King was advised, for the better, that they should not then be fought with."
By October Knolles had moved south and was marching towards Vendôme. He captured and garrisoned castles and monasteries between the Rivers Loir and Loire and positioned himself to be able to march into either Poitou or southern Normandy. The former would enable him to support the Black Prince; the latter might be necessary if Edward concluded an agreement with Charles of Navarre, who was offering his lands in northern Normandy as a base for the English. Many of the subordinate captains, who considered themselves better-born than Knolles, deplored his apparent lack of martial spirit. They found a leader in Sir John Minsterworth, an ambitious but unstable knight from the Welsh Marches, who mocked Knolles as "the old freebooter". Much of Knolles's strategy was based on that employed in the campaigns of the 1340s and 1350s; particularly the capturing of enemy fortresses, to either garrison them with English troops or levy a ransom. Meanwhile, the English campaign in the west, which was nominally commanded by the Black Prince and actually by John of Gaunt and the Earl of Pembroke, captured Limoges after a five-day siege, taking many prisoners, whom they held for ransom, and seizing much booty.
Divisions among the English
And before the feast of Christmas, the chief men of the army, out of envy and self-importance, split into four parts, to the great harm of England, and great comfort of the enemies: that is to say, the Lord of Grandison with his men in one part, the Lord FitzWalter in another, and Sir John Minsterworth in the third part, and Sir Robert Knolles in the fourth.
The English system of shared leadership led to jealousies between their captains regarding how the booty and the many ransoms they had collected should be distributed. In November 1370 acrimony broke out among the English captains over the issue of where to spend the winter. Knolles was aware that the French were closing in, and of the risk this posed. Not wishing to stay encamped in an area where a surprise attack was possible, he proposed withdrawing westward into Brittany. His captains, led by Sir Alan Buxhull, strongly disagreed, preferring to find winter quarters where they were. This would enable them to be able to continue raiding the surrounding countryside. They were confident they could defeat any French attack. Their concern to keep pillaging the countryside was in large part forced upon them: the government had only paid their and their army's wages for thirteen weeks, and they were expected not just to live off the land, but pay themselves from it.
Knolles threatened to leave, and when the other English commanders refused to join him, did so, taking the largest retinue from the army with him – "doubtless with considerable booty", remarks the medievalist Kenneth Fowler. With Knolles gone, the remaining 4,000 men of the English force divided into three forces. One was under the dual command of Thomas Grandison and Hugh Calveley, the other two were commanded by Walter Fitzwalter and John Minsterworth. These three forces, in turn, went separate ways, which maximised their opportunities to forage for supplies and to loot. Fowler suggests that Minsterworth was probably the first to leave. On the evening of 3 December, Knolles was some way to the west, Grandison's force of between 600 and 1,200 was spread out along a river between Pontvallain and Mayet, and Fitzwalter was several miles to the south. The location of Minsterworth's force is no longer known.
French movements
Bertrand du Guesclin was appointed constable of France on 2 October, in direct response to Knolles's campaign. Charles considered that Guesclin had the necessary skills in leading small forces and in irregular warfare to implement the Fabian approach he had decided on. On 24 October, Guesclin sealed a "pact of brotherhood-in-arms" with Olivier de Clisson, an experienced Breton commander, and by 6 November Guesclin was in Caen raising an army. Guesclin concentrated his forces at Caen during November, and was joined there by reinforcements under the Marshals Mouton de Blainville and Arnoul d'Audrehem as well as a Breton contingent under de Clisson. Guesclin thus concentrated about 4,000 men.
A second force of about 1,200 men assembled at Châtellerault, under Marshal Sancerre. This then moved towards the English from the east, while Guesclin began to move on him from the north. On 1 December Guesclin left Caen with his army – "One of those marches of which he had the secret", said a contemporary chronicler, – and marched south. One of the most important aspects of the Pontvallain campaign was the speed with which the French moved: Guesclin and his forces reached Le Mans, a journey of 100 miles (160 km), two days later.