John of Gaunt’s Grande Chevauchée
In August, 1373, a large and slow-moving English army set out to march across the heart of France. Their expedition lasted for five months and covered nearly a thousand miles, much of it through hostile and almost unknown country. Alfred Burne explains why it was considered a resounding feat of arms, even by the French themselves.
In 1360 the Treaty of Bretigny between France and England for the time being put an end to the Hundred Years War. Nine years later, after the premature death of John II of France, war broke out again. His son and successor, King Charles V, invaded Aquitaine, which had been recovered by England at Bretigny.
The first year of the war, 1370, was made memorable by the Black Prince’s sack of Limoges; and history is now doing tardy justice to an action that was entirely in keeping with the conduct of a chivalrous knight, as the Black Prince pre-eminently was. In 1371 anarchy began to stalk over Aquitaine, and there was little military action.
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