Battle of St. James

Avranches on the border of Normandy and Brittany

The battle was fought at Avranches, on the border of Normandy and Brittany, with the English led by Sir Thomas Rempston, while the French were led by Arthur de Richemont, the Constable of France. The English were victorious.

In late 1425, Jean, Duke of Brittany, had switched his allegiance from the English to Charles the dauphin. In retaliation, Sir Thomas Rempston invaded the the duchy with a small army in January 1426, penetrating to the capital, Rennes,[1][2] before falling back to St. James-de-Beuvron on the Norman frontier. The duke of Brittany's brother, Arthur de Richemont, newly made constable of France, rushed to his brother's aid with a hastily levied army in February, and laid siege to St. James. Rempston was heavily outnumbered, with 600 men to Richemont's feudal horde of 16,000.[3]

The constable had with him a powerful force of artillery; the bombardment soon yielded results. Two large breaches were made in the walls. On the 6th of March the French attacked in force. All day Rempston's troops held the breaches, but there was no let-up in the constable's assault. Finally, at the end of their tether, the embattled garrison resolved to decide the issue with a last-ditch action. Leaving a force to hold the enemy, the rest under Rempston crawled through a sally port to take the enemy in the rear. [3] The stratagem proved successful. The French, assailed from both sides and hearing the English war cry of "St. George and Salisbury," broke ranks and fled, convinced that the feared Earl of Salisbury had fallen on them unawares. The remnants of the disorganized feudal army, defeated by an enemy 26 times their inferior, straggled back to camp, thoroughly demoralized. Any attempts Richemont may have made to rally them were unsuccessful and, in the night, they burned their tents and baggage and fell back in disorder to their point of departure near Fougres. Six hundred were dead, 50 captured, and 18 standards lost.[3] The remainder soon disbanded.[4]

Two days later the Earl of Suffolk arrived, bringing 1500 men. Intent on exploiting the victory, he at once set out for Rennes, 45 miles to the west. Halfway there, he captured the town of Dol without difficulty, as neither Jean nor Richemont offered resistance. Here he found he need not resume the advance, for the duke had offered a three-month truce. Suffolk agreed. After a brief outbreak of fighting next year the turncoat duke sought rapprochement with his erstwhile allies, and signed a treaty with the Duke of Bedford by which he accepted Henry VI of England as king of France.[4]

• "Battles Timeline of the One Hundred Years War". www.middle-ages.org.uk. Retrieved 7 October 2012.
• "Battle of St James History of England". history.malc.eu. Archived from the original on 6 October 2014. Retrieved 7 October 2012.
• "Medieval Battles". www.medieval-life-and-times.info. Retrieved 7 October 2012.