Historical context

Following the war in Gascony of 1294 which was settled only in 1303, there had been an uneasy peace between the kingdoms of England and France in the remaining years of the reign of Edward I, and the first decade and a half of the reign of his son, Edward II. However, the kings of England and their advisors had begun to recognise that the position whereby they held the duchy of Aquitaine from the kings of France by homage was becoming increasingly fraught with difficulties.

The problem had become more acute during the reign of Edward II, with a substantial increase of petitions before the parlement of Paris from the king of England’s subjects in the duchy, and by other encroachments on the lands and powers of the king-duke there. Inducements to appeal against the decisions of courts of first instance in the duchy, and against alleged denials and defaults of justice, were increasingly offered by the French to Gascon appellants. The king-duke’s officers tried to limit the number of petitions by a mixture of threats, bribes, legal devices and administrative innovations but the increasingly interventionist policies of the kings of France which had seen Philip IV – in the event unsuccessfully – confiscate the duchy in 1294, became increasingly difficult to resist.

The Plantagenet position in Gascony was not always helped by the apparent intransigence of Edward II and his ministers, and by the defection of some of the higher nobles such as some members of the Albret and Foix-Béarn families.

It was perhaps no surprise then that it took a relatively minor incident to initiate another confiscation of the duchy and full-blown war between England and France. At its origin lay the claims of the abbot of Sarlat that Saint-Sardos, a small village that lies near where the river Lot flows into the Garonne west of Villeneuve-sur-Lot in Agenais, was exempt from the king of England’s jurisdiction. The priory there was a daughter house of the abbey of Sarlat, and the abbot had promised the king of France that if his appeal was successful he would found a royal bastide there. After many years of getting nowhere the parlement of Paris finally pronounced in favour of the abbot in December 1322, and in the following year a sergeant was dispatched by the French seneschal of Périgord who arrived at Saint-Sardos and drove a stake into the ground there bearing the arms of the king of France.

There is no doubt that Edward II knew nothing of this or of the actions and events that then rapidly drew England and France into open warfare. A local lord, Ramon-Bernat, lord of Montpezat, had his principal seat at his castle of Montpezat just three miles from Saint-Sardos, and he must have seen the actions of the sergeant at Montpezat as a very visible threat to his own position in the neighbouring lands. On 15 October 1323, the night after the stake had been driven into the ground at Saint-Sardos, Ramon-Bernat raided the place, burning the village, and hanged the sergeant from the very stake he had caused to be driven into the ground there only hours before.

Unfortunately for Edward II, his seneschal of Gascony – Sir Ralph Basset – who had only recently come to the duchy and was on progress to receive the homage of the king-duke’s subjects, was staying close by at the time of the raid, and although there is no incontrovertible evidence to support the view, the French clearly believed that he had condoned the attack. Although Edward II, as soon as he was made aware of the incident, attempted to make conciliatory approaches to Charles IV, the French remained belligerent and unconvinced, more especially as Edward II was once again trying to delay the performance of homage to Charles IV, who had come to the throne in 1322. When Basset, Ramon-Bernat and other Gascon officials failed to appear before the king of France to answer for their actions, and further attempts at mediation had failed, the duchy was confiscated again by Charles IV.

The war was a desultory affair and did not go well for the English and their remaining Gascon supporters, including over one hundred members of the nobility, as the French dispatched a substantial army under the command of Charles of Valois, and some key fortified towns – with the important exceptions of both Bordeaux and Bayonne – surrendered without a fight. When a six-month truce was agreed in September 1324, the English held little beyond the coastal lands of the duchy. Although Edward II had a full treasury, and was fully prepared to commit forces to the conflict, it was not until 1325 that resources and troops began to reach the duchy. Over £20,000 had arrived in Bordeaux by May 1325 and troops were being recruited throughout England and in Spain, especially Aragon, from February to June that year. But the war petered out partly as a result of the outbreak of severe epidemics of dysentery in the invading French army and was followed by the performance of homage by Edward of Windsor in September 1325. Peace, however, was not finally concluded until after Edward II’s deposition in January 1327.

Further reading