The Battle of La Roche-Derrien was fought on 20 June 1347 during the War of the Breton Succession. The conflict became part of the wider Hundred Years War through English support for the Montfort claim to the Duchy of Brittany and French support for Charles of Blois.
The Siege and Battle of La Roche-Derrien
The Siege of La Roche-Derrien
Charles of Blois had intensified his military efforts to take the Duchy of Brittany. By June 1347, his army numbered up to 5,000 men. His objective was to capture, one by one, the towns held by English garrisons loyal to the Montfort claim. One such town was La Roche-Derrien.
La Roche-Derrien had a small but effective garrison. Its principal strength, and a concern for Charles of Blois, was the contingent of archers inside the town. Charles therefore chose to try to lure the English into battle while cutting off the town’s supplies. He hoped that, in time, this would force the garrison to submit.
To preserve as many of his own men as possible, Charles ordered four encampments to be constructed around the town. Each was defended by a flimsy palisade fence. Such fences would be no match for artillery, but they would severely limit the damage archers could inflict. Orders were given for nobody to leave the encampments, since doing so would expose them to the English archers.
The Arrival of Sir Thomas Dagworth
A relief army led by Sir Thomas Dagworth arrived near La Roche-Derrien on 20 June. Dagworth ordered his men to attack one of the encampments. The assault was a spectacular failure: Dagworth was captured, and his men were caught in a hail of crossbow bolts. All seemed lost for the relieving English army.
Then the encampment was attacked by the garrison and people of the town.
The Defeat of the Besieging Army
The attack took Charles of Blois and his men by surprise. Dagworth was able to free himself, and his men quickly regrouped. Soon, the tables had turned, and Charles of Blois was a prisoner of Dagworth’s force.
The English army was still in a precarious position. It numbered fewer than a thousand men, even with the townspeople who had armed themselves and joined the fighting. At best, Dagworth’s force was only a quarter of the size of Charles’s army.
However, Charles’s army remained under strict orders to stay in its encampments. The men in each camp did not know how the others were faring. Instead of facing the full strength of Charles’s army at once, Dagworth was therefore able to attack the encampments one after another.
Further Reading
- Clifford J. Rogers, ‘Sir Thomas Dagworth in Brittany, 1346–7: Restellou and La Roche Derrien’, Journal of Medieval Military History, vol. 3 (2005), pp. 127–154.
- Michaël Jones, ‘Sir Thomas Dagworth et la guerre civile en Bretagne au XIVe siècle : quelques documents inédits’, Annales de Bretagne et des pays de l’Ouest, vol. 87, no. 4 (1980), pp. 621–639. (In French.)