The sack of Morlaix was an English raid on the Breton port of Morlaix on 1 July 1522, during the Italian War of 1521–1526. An expedition led by Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, captured the town, plundered its merchants and burned buildings and ships in the harbour. The attack formed part of Henry VIII's war against Francis I of France.
The English withdrew the following day and continued attacks along the Breton coast. Their raid devastated properties in the countryside surrounding Morlaix. Later accounts describe the killing of English soldiers left behind in the town.
Background
England entered the war against France in 1522 alongside Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. Surrey commanded a fleet operating from the English south coast, with the Mary Rose as his flagship. Its preparations were hampered by shortages of food and drink. In correspondence with Thomas Wolsey, Surrey repeatedly requested provisions and warned that the lack of supplies would restrict his operations.
Morlaix was a commercial port on Brittany's north coast, connected to the English Channel by a winding estuary. Its merchants traded in linen, which would become a particular target of the English plunder. Before entering the harbour, the fleet sounded the approaches to avoid grounding. From Dartmouth on 30 June, Surrey wrote that he expected to land on enemy territory the next day.
The town was enclosed by stone walls rebuilt in the fifteenth century, between the Jarlot and Queffleut rivers. Its defences included a castle overlooking the town and gates controlling access to the enclosed centre.
Despite its fortifications, Morlaix had experienced difficulties maintaining its military defences. In 1495, the town was reported to be almost entirely without artillery, leaving it vulnerable to a determined attack.
Morlaix's defences were also weakened by the absence of many local noblemen and prominent merchants. Noblemen from the surrounding area had gathered at Guingamp for a military muster convened by Guy XVI de Laval, while merchants and other townspeople had travelled towards the linen fair at Noyal-Pontivy. Armed resistance was nevertheless mounted against the English advance.
In testimony recorded in 1569, Yves Le Barbu, lord of Kermoyec, recalled learning of the English landing while travelling to the muster at Guingamp. He returned towards Morlaix and found the town under arms, but had to spend the night outside its walls.
Landing and advance
The English landed on 1 July, on the eastern side of Morlaix harbour. The chronicler Edward Hall estimated their strength at about 7,000 men, accompanied by fourteen light artillery pieces known as falcons. Among Surrey's officers were the vice-admiral William Fitzwilliam and several prominent courtiers and soldiers. The army set out towards Morlaix at about eight in the morning, marching roughly five miles with its banners displayed.
Breton gentlemen and their followers attempted to resist the advance but fell back as the English brought their guns into action. At the town, longbowmen exchanged fire with crossbowmen, while defenders used firearms at the gates and artillery from the walls.
The main attack developed at Port Morvet, where Richard Wingfield, who had served as English ambassador to France in 1520 and helped arrange the Field of the Cloth of Gold, was among the officers engaged, alongside Nicholas Carew, Francis Bryan and John Wallop.
Capture and sack
Three falcons were brought up to the Port Morvet gate, near a charitable hospital known as a maison-Dieu. The master gunner Christopher Morres fired at the smaller wicket, a pedestrian door set into the main gate, breaking its lock. English soldiers entered through the opening under cover of smoke and opened the main gate from within. Surrey's troops pushed into the town and reached the marketplace.
The English plundered Morlaix, seizing merchants' goods and stripping Notre-Dame-du-Mur of its ornaments, chalices and other valuables. Fires destroyed much of the town, including the marketplace. The stolen goods were carried aboard the English ships. Many inhabitants fled their houses for neighbouring woods, villages and towns, and some townspeople were taken captive. The English order to burn the town exempted religious buildings.
The destruction extended into the surrounding countryside. Near Henvic, the manor of Lézireur and sixteen or seventeen neighbouring houses were burned, while farms along the English route were plundered. The Franciscan convent of Saint-François at Cuburien, on the Morlaix River, was likewise destroyed. Part of Morlaix's archives were lost when the house of municipal official Dominique Calloët burned during the attack.
Withdrawal and subsequent operations
At about six in the evening the soldiers were recalled to their standards. They burned villages during their return march, spent the night ashore and embarked the following day. Sixteen or seventeen ships were burned in the harbour.
Some English soldiers remained in Morlaix after the main force departed, several drinking and sheltering in cellars. News of the attack reached Guy XVI de Laval at Guingamp, and he arrived the following morning, after the principal English force had left.
Surrey was still in Morlaix harbour on 3 July, when he wrote to Wolsey aboard the Mary Rose. He again stressed shortages of provisions and the difficulty of sustaining further operations.
The expedition nevertheless continued along the coast in Hall's account. Off Saint-Pol-de-Léon, English boats encountered armed resistance, and a large vessel and smaller craft were burned. At Brest, a landing party set fire to houses near the castle.
Three vessels were captured as prizes and entered English naval service: the Mary of Homflete, renamed Mary Grace; the Bark of Boulogne, also known as the Bark of Bullen; and the Bark of Morlaix, also recorded as the Bark of Murless. The latter two were rated at 80 and 60 tons respectively.
In England, the capture was presented as an early success in the war. On 6 July, Thomas Wolsey announced the sack to the Star Chamber and urged those assembled to support Henry VIII financially.
An inquiry conducted in August 1569 preserved recollections of the raid and its aftermath. Claude de Boiséon recalled that Morlaix had been partly burned and remained deserted for a time. Yves Larmor, a merchant from Saint-Pol-de-Léon who passed through shortly after the attack, attributed the depopulation to inhabitants fleeing and others being taken prisoner by the English. Jean Bernard, a mariner from Roscoff, recalled that the destruction had made rebuilding and resettlement difficult for a considerable period.
The French crown granted relief to Morlaix following the destruction. Letters patent issued in 1522 exempted inhabitants from several taxes and port duties for ten years. The exemptions were extended in 1528, together with additional rights to raise municipal revenue.
The sack exposed Morlaix's vulnerability to attacks from the sea. In response, the townspeople undertook the construction of Château du Taureau, a coastal fortress guarding the entrance to Morlaix Bay. Work began in the early 1540s, and the fort was initially maintained and defended by the town itself.
Historical accounts and local tradition
English and Breton narratives
Edward Hall's chronicle, first published in 1548, provides a detailed English account of the assault on Port Morvet, naming the officers involved and describing the fighting at the gate. Later chroniclers, including Raphael Holinshed, drew extensively on Hall's narrative. More immediate evidence survives in Surrey's letter to Thomas Wolsey, written aboard the Mary Rose in Morlaix harbour on 3 July 1522. Surrey referred to an earlier, fuller report of the capture sent to Henry VIII, which has not been located.
The Breton narrative appears in an anonymous continuation of Alain Bouchart's Grandes chroniques de Bretaigne, printed in 1532. It describes a fleet of fifty or sixty English ships, some attackers disguised as merchants, and advance knowledge that leading townspeople were absent. It leaves open whether Morlaix was taken by force, treachery or some other means. The continuation describes the flight of inhabitants, the seizure of their possessions, the plundering of Notre-Dame-du-Mur and the departure of the main English force before Guy XVI de Laval arrived.
Hall describes the storming of Port Morvet and the burning of the suburbs; the Breton continuation does not specify how the town was entered and says the suburbs were plundered but not burned. The continuation places the attack around 3 or 4 July, whereas Hall dates the landing to 1 July and Surrey was already reporting the capture on 3 July. The traditional dating of the Noyal fair from 5 July complicates the explanation that merchants were absent there when the attack occurred.
The massacre tradition
A fuller local tradition was published by Albert Le Grand in 1637. In this version, a man named La Trigle or La Tricle betrayed the town to the English. After the main force withdrew, a servant woman trapped English soldiers who had been drinking in a cellar and caused more than eighty to drown. Other stragglers were pursued and killed near the Bois du Styvel, with the number of dead given as six or seven hundred. The killings were associated with a spring called the Fontaine des Anglais.
The story passed into later local histories, including Guillaume Lejean's account of Morlaix. The earlier Breton continuation mentions English soldiers left behind after the withdrawal but supplies neither the cellar episode nor a casualty figure. Le Grand attributed part of the narrative to Bouchart, although the passage concerned belongs to the anonymous continuation printed in 1532.