Faction feuds

In January 1295 an Anglo-Gascon fleet set out from England to recapture the port town of Bayonne in southern Gascony. The fleet was led by Sir John de St John and Edward I's nephew, John of Brittany.

The situation at Bayonne was complex. Prior to the war it had been a faction-ridden city, similar to the feud between the Colom and Soler at Bordeaux. When the French occupied Gascony the aristocratic party in Bayonne, led by the de Manx family, forged an alliance with the invaders. This forced their rivals, the leaders of the ‘popular’ party made up of shipmasters, craftsmen and mariners, to flee into exile in England. These men, led by Pascale de Viele, had been implicated in the attack on La Rochelle in May 1293. After months of exile, they accompanied St John in his effort to recover Bayonne.

When the Anglo-Gascons approached Bayonne, the citizens immediately rose against their occupiers and shut them up in the castle, ‘for they hated them, because they abused the power which had been wrongly committed to them’. They also had fond memories of St John from his time as seneschal of Gascony. On 1 January 1295 the citizens yielded up the city and told St John not to trouble himself further, since they would take care of the French.

English and Bayonnais ships succeeded in blockading the estuary and captured two large French galleys, which were immediately requisitioned. After holding out for a few days, the French and their partisans surrendered. As at Macau and Bourg, the garrison was permitted to leave unharmed. Most of the leaders of the aristocratic party of Bayonne fled the town, and those who remained suffered loss of property and imprisonment for their support of the French. The ‘popular’ party led by Pascal de Vielle had triumphed, and were soon rewarded by King Edward. Pascal was made mayor, provost and castellan of Bayonne for the duration of the war, and he and others involved in the attack on La Rochelle promised protection from French lawsuits in relation to this.

The re-capture of Bayonne was the single most important English achievement of the war. After the loss of Bordeaux, they now had an alternative capital, and a reserve operational base from which to launch attacks on French-held territory. It was the one major ducal bastion Philip’s armies were never able to threaten again, and so thwarted his ambitions to conquer the entire duchy.