The Battle of Patay, fought on 18 June 1429 during the

Hundred Years' War The Hundred Years' War (; 1337–1453) was a series of armed conflicts between the kingdoms of England and France during the Late Middle Ages. It originated from disputed claims to the French throne between the English House of Plantagen ...

, was the culmination of the

Loire Campaign The Loire Campaign was a campaign launched by Joan of Arc during the Hundred Years' War. The Loire was cleared of all English and Burgundian troops. Campaign The English under John, Duke of Bedford ordered John, Lord Talbot to besiege O ...

between the French and English in north-central France. In this engagement, the horsemen of the French

vanguard The vanguard (also called the advance guard) is the leading part of an advancing military formation. It has a number of functions, including seeking out the enemy and securing ground in advance of the main force. History The vanguard derives f ...

inflicted heavy casualties on an English army; most of them sustained by the longbowmen as the English cavalry fled. In addition, all but one of the senior English commanders were captured. A victory often credited to

Joan of Arc Joan of Arc (french: link=yes, Jeanne d'Arc, translit= �an daʁk} ; 1412 – 30 May 1431) is a patron saint of France, honored as a defender of the French nation for her role in the siege of Orléans and her insistence on the coronat ...

, she was in fact not present for the battle as she had remained with the main body of the French army. The vanguard at Patay was led by La Hire and Jean Poton de Xaintrailles. The battle was a disastrous blow to English aspirations in France. For the French, it cemented the turn of fortune which had begun at

Orléans Orléans (;"Orleans"
(US) and march to Reims After the French lifted the siege of Orléans and won a decisive victory at the Battle of Patay, the English and Burgundians no longer posed a threat. Joan of Arc convinced the Dauphin Charles to go to Reims for his coronation. Successfully ma ...

which saw the Dauphin

Charles Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English and French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*karilaz'' (in Latin alphabet), whose meaning was " ...

be crowned King of France. The Hundred Years' War, however, would continue until 1453.

Background

After the English abandoned the

Siege of Orléans The siege of Orléans (12 October 1428 – 8 May 1429) was the watershed of the Hundred Years' War between France and England. The siege took place at the pinnacle of English power during the later stages of the war. The city held strategic an ...

on 8 May 1429, the survivors withdrew to garrisons along the

Loire The Loire (, also ; ; oc, Léger, ; la, Liger) is the longest river in France and the 171st longest in the world. With a length of , it drains , more than a fifth of France's land, while its average discharge is only half that of the Rhôn ...

. A month later, having gathered men and supplies for the forthcoming campaign, the French army, under the command of the

Duke of Alençon Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, they are r ...

, set out to capture these positions and the bridges they controlled. On June 12 they stormed Jargeau , captured the bridge at Meung-sur-Loire, then marched on, without attacking the nearby castle, to besiege

Beaugency Beaugency () is a commune in the Loiret department, Centre-Val de Loire, north-central France. It is located on the Loire river, upriver (northeast) from Blois and downriver from Orléans. History 11 March 1152 the council of Beaugency annulled ...

on 15 June. An English reinforcement army under Sir John Fastolf, which had set off from

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

following the defeat at

Orléans Orléans (;"Orleans"
(US) and Lord Talbot and

Lord Scales Baron Scales is a title in the Peerage of England. Origin Robert de Scales The ancestors of the Baron Scales came into possession of the manors of Newsells, Hertfordshire and Rivenhall, Essex in 1255 by the marriage of Sir Robert de Scales to A ...

at Meung-sur-Loire. Talbot urged an immediate attack to relieve

, but was opposed by the more cautious Fastolf, who was reluctant to seek a pitched battle against the more numerous French. The garrison of Beaugency, unaware of the arrival of Fastolf's reinforcements and discouraged by the reinforcement of the French by a Breton contingent under

Arthur de Richemont Arthur III ( br, Arzhur), more commonly known as Arthur de Richemont (24 August 139326 December 1458), was briefly Duke of Brittany from 1457 until his death. He is noted primarily, however, for his role as a leading military commander during ...

, surrendered on 18 June. Talbot then agreed to Fastolf's proposal to retreat towards Paris. Learning of this movement, the French set off in pursuit, and intercepted the English army near the village of Patay.

The battle

In this battle, the English employed the same methods used in the victories at Crécy in 1346 and Agincourt in 1415, deploying an army composed predominantly of longbowmen behind a barrier of sharpened stakes driven into the ground to obstruct any attack by cavalry. Learning of the French approach, Talbot sent a force of archers to ambush them from a patch of woods along the road, then ordered them to redeploy, setting up 500 longbowmen in a hidden location which would block the main road. Patay

Though they moved quickly, these English archers were attacked by 180 knights of the French vanguard under La Hire and Xaintrailles before they could finish preparing their new position and were swiftly overwhelmed, leading to the exposure of the other English units, which were spread out along the road. Earlier, the longbowmen had inadvertently disclosed their position to French scouts when a lone stag wandered onto a nearby field and the archers raised a hunting cry, not knowing their enemies were already so close. Learning of this, the French vanguard had raced ahead, soon moving up within sight of them. With the threat of an ambush dealt with by the French knights, some were sent back to inform the men-at-arms of the English predicament. Opting to not wait for the reinforcements, La Hire, Xaintrailles and their knightly fellows deployed and charged forward, crashing into the English positions from the now exposed flanks. Meanwhile, having ridden over a ridge south of the English lines, the rest of the French vanguard, consisting of some 1,300 men-at-arms, soon appeared behind the enemy in battle order. At the sight of the French horsemen charging, Fastolf's unit attempted to join up with the mounted knights and men-at-arms who formed the English vanguard but the latter fled the battlefield, forcing Fastolf to follow suit. Outflanked and overrun, the rest of the battle was a prolonged heavy cavalry mopping-up operation against the fleeing English units, with little organized resistance. Historian Juliet Barker suggests Patay was the most disastrous English defeat since the

Battle of Baugé The Battle of Baugé, fought between the English and a Franco- Scots army on 22 March 1421 at Baugé, France, east of Angers, was a major defeat for the English in the Hundred Years' War. The English army was led by the king's brother Thomas ...

in 1421, and one with more significant consequences since they lost over 2,000 dead out of 5,000, while all of their senior commanders were captured apart from Fastolf, the only one who remained mounted. Grummitt estimates English casualties as 2,500, the bulk of whom were archers, while the French lost only about one hundred men. Talbot, Scales and Sir Thomas Rempston were captured and after his release in 1433, Talbot accused Fastolf of deserting his comrades in the face of the enemy. Fastolf hotly denied the charge and was eventually cleared by a special chapter of the

Order of the Garter The Most Noble Order of the Garter is an order of chivalry founded by Edward III of England in 1348. It is the most senior order of knighthood in the British honours system, outranked in precedence only by the Victoria Cross and the Georg ...

, although his reputation was severely damaged.

Consequences

The virtual destruction of the English field army in central France and the loss of many of their principal veteran commanders (another, the Earl of Suffolk, had been captured in the fall of Jargeau, while the Earl of Salisbury had been killed at the

siege of Orléans The siege of Orléans (12 October 1428 – 8 May 1429) was the watershed of the Hundred Years' War between France and England. The siege took place at the pinnacle of English power during the later stages of the war. The city held strategic an ...

in November 1428), had devastating consequences for the English position in France, from which it would never recover. During the following weeks the French, facing negligible resistance, were able to swiftly regain swathes of territory to the south, east and north of Paris, and to march to Reims, where the Dauphin was crowned as King

Charles VII of France Charles VII (22 February 1403 – 22 July 1461), called the Victorious (french: le Victorieux) or the Well-Served (), was King of France from 1422 to his death in 1461. In the midst of the Hundred Years' War, Charles VII inherited the throne of F ...

on 17 July.

References

Bibliography

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