The Bastard of Vaurus

The story of a brutal but capable warrior and brigand of obscure origins who defended the French city of Meaux in 1421-22 against the English. How this siege was conducted by King Henry V.

The Bastard of Vaurus is one of many interesting warriors who emerged in the Hundred Years’ War. His reputation is that of a dangerous man who terrorized the English and the Burgundians.

It is said that the murder of his master the Count of Armagnac infuriated him so much that he wanted the entire world to experience the wrath of his revenge! For he had been a loyal servant of the said Count of Armagnac Bernard VII before the latter was brutally murdered in 1418 in the struggle between the rival Armagnac and Burgundian factions.

The origins of the Bastard of Vaurus are shrouded in mystery and he is known simply by this nickname. But it is said that he started as a Gascon routier, a brigand, and was eventually recruited into the retinue of the Count of Armagnac Bernard VII, making a name for himself in the Armagnac-Burgundian Civil War.

To tell you the story of the Bastard of Vaurus I must first explain the context.

The Armagnac-Burgundian Civil War started in 1407 following the assassination of Louis of Orléans by the Burgundians and became tied to the larger context of the Hundred Years’ War, where the Burgundians eventually became allied with the English while the Armagnacs were tied to the French cause. The leadership of the Armagnac faction fell in the hands of the previously mentioned Count of Armagnac Bernard VII in 1410 following the marriage of his daughter Bonne to Charles of Orléans, the son of the assassinated Louis.

The Armagnac-Burgundian Civil War was very brutal and bloody as both the Armagnacs and Burgundians assassinated their opponents in cold blood and recruited violent bands of brigands and unemployed mercenaries into their faction. Such armed bands would become known as écorcheurs, which means flayers, as they stripped their victims of everything, including their clothes! This was an environment in which dangerous and capable men like Bastard of Vaurus thrived, serving the faction that recruited them with distinction and proving their worth to their masters.

Paris soon became a battleground for both factions. In 1413 the Duke of Burgundy John the Fearless instigated the Cabochien Revolt in Paris which brought terror to the population and many Armagnac followers were slaughtered. The revolt was put down in 1414 as the Armagnacs entered the city led by Bernard VII of Armagnac and reprisals followed. However a year later the King of England Henry V invaded France and defeated the French at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. This disastrous defeat would have devastating consequences for France, particularly for the Armagnac faction as many of their important nobles perished in that battle. Meanwhile the Duke of Burgundy John the Fearless remained neutral and used the ensuing chaos and the weakening of his rivals to enter Paris in 1418 and occupy the city. Under the Burgundian control of Paris, the Armagnacs in the city were murdered by organized violent mobs. Count Bernard VII was among those killed in the slaughter.

The reason why France was in such disarray was in large part due to the King of France Charles VI who suffered from mental illness and had psychotic episodes throughout his rule. Under his weak reign the Armagnac-Burgundian Civil War ran wild. Charles VI also did not lead his forces in the battle of Agincourt, which contributed to the defeat as the French army lacked the necessary hierarchy to impose tactics and discipline, compared to the English led by the energetic warrior-king Henry V. Charles VI was supposed to be succeeded by his son, the Dauphin of France Charles (future King Charles VII), however the bitter defeat at Agincourt had far-reaching consequences as France was now at the mercy of the English. Things would get even worse after the Duke of Burgundy John the Fearless was assassinated by the Armagnac supporters in 1419 during what was supposed to be a diplomatic meeting with the Dauphin Charles at the Montereau bridge. This eliminated any chance of reconciliation between the Burgundians and the Armagnacs and drove the Burgundians straight into the hands of the English, entering in an official alliance with them, confirmed by the new Duke of Burgundy Philip the Good, the son of the late John the Fearless.

In such circumstances the King of France Charles VI signed the Treaty of Troyes in 1420 where he disinherited his own son Dauphin Charles and recognized the King of England Henry V as the regent of France and heir apparent to the French throne. Henry V was subsequently married to Charles VI’s daughter, Catherine of Valois. That same year in 1420 Henry V of England triumphantly entered Paris which would remain in English hands until 1436. Henry also led a campaign in which he successfully captured some of the surrounding fortresses, then returned to England with his new wife Catherine.

But the war in France, today known as the Hundred Years’ War, was far from over. The Armagnacs and the French nobles who opposed Henry V rallied behind the Dauphin. While Henry V was away in England, he left the command of English forces in France to his brother Thomas, Duke of Clarence. However this Thomas lost the Battle of Baugé against the French a year later in 1421 where he himself was killed. The French were aided by their allies the Scots in this battle, as a large contingent sailed from Scotland to help them. The news of the death of his brother and the defeat of the English made Henry V return to France and he would launch another campaign.

But now that I explained the context let us now go back to the Bastard of Vaurus and see what he was up to during this time.

The ongoing conflict in France known as the Hundred Years’ War had many truces in between, and during such truces unemployed mercenaries began to pillage the land. This led to a culture of brigands developing, where many trained and armed warriors began using their skills to gain loot for themselves, plundering and extorting people around them. These bands could be bought for mercenary purposes and serve a particular faction, but they also operated very independently. Such was the case of the Bastard of Vaurus. After the murder of his master Count of Armagnac he was enraged and decided to personally take the war to the Burgundians and the English. He continued to serve the Armagnac faction and rallied behind the Dauphinist cause. He took refuge in the heavily fortified town of Meaux which was just 25 miles away from Paris, situated on the Marne river. From there he began conducting daring raids deep into English and Burgundian controlled territory, and terrorized the countryside around Paris.

It was not hard for the Bastard of Vaurus to find men who were willing to follow him on such raids. Brigands and even renegades from the English army began joining him, motivated by promises of great loot and plunder they could obtain. These men were very dangerous, vicious, violent marauders, but it is believed that the Bastard of Vaurus was the most cruel of them all! The raids that he staged were particularly devastating as he not only plundered the land but also terrorized the people, taking with him many captives and holding them for ransom. He inflicted torture on his captives so that their friends and relatives would pay the ransoms sooner. Those who he could not provide the ransom were killed. He massacred many English and Burgundian soldiers on the spot. The Bastard of Vaurus became particularly infamous for the Oak of Vaurus, a great tree outside of Meaux on which he hanged his victims. When the English arrived there in 1421, eighty corpses were hanging from the tree.

Soon stories of terrible violence and cruelty of the Bastard of Vaurus began to spread in Paris and the surrounding countryside, and the peasants greatly feared him. People became aware that there was a brutal and very dangerous man on a mission of revenge, and no one was safe from his wrath! These stories included reports such as that the Bastard had wealthy farmers and tradesmen tied to tails of his horses and dragged them to Meaux. There was also a story that he tied a pregnant woman to a tree to force her husband to pay the ransom, and when she gave birth to a child, wolves came and ate both mother and infant.

However we will never know to what extent these stories are exaggerated. While the Bastard of Vaurus was hated by the English and the Burgundians, he was loved by the Dauphinists and the Dauphin himself referred to him as “his beloved bastard of Warrus, esquire” in a letter issued in November 1419. The Bastard of Vaurus was important to the Dauphinists not just because of the damage he was inflicting on the enemy but because he of the strategic importance of the fortress of Meaux which he garrisoned with his men. It was the biggest stronghold near Paris and represented the key part in a series of Dauphinist fortresses in the area. Furthermore the garrison at Meaux blockaded the important supply route for wine, grain and building materials which caused great economic problems to the enemy.

King Henry V arrived at Calais in the early hours of 11 June 1421 with around 4,000 troops. He was determined to avenge the English defeat at Baugé earlier that year and to deal with the troublesome Dauphinist garrisons around Paris. Henry V coordinated the efforts with his Burgundian allies. He was a capable and determined military leader who was able to inspire great loyalty and fervor in his men. The English army at the time was highly disciplined for the standards of the period and Henry V made it into an effective and greatly feared force. The Dauphin avoided open battle with the English king, unable to relieve the Dauphinist strongholds which were under siege. One by one the Dauphinist garrisons capitulated in face of Henry V’s might. He would generally let the surrendered garrisons safe conduct, but on some exceptions no quarter was given. Contemporaries saw King Henry V as a very harsh and cruel dispenser of justice.

But there was one stronghold that would not fall this easily, the heavily fortified city of Meaux. This city of Meaux was comprised of two distinct fortified enclosures. The city stood on the right bank of the Marne river and its old Roman walls had been reinforced in the 14th century with towers. Even more fortified was the suburb on the opposite bank of the river known as the Marché, which was connected to the city by a long stone bridge. In order for Meaux to fall, both of these fortifications had to be conquered. This would prove to be a difficult task.

Henry V was determined to destroy this stronghold of Meaux. His approach to sieges was very methodical. He spread devastation to the countryside surrounding Meaux, burning everything, leading to his famous quote that “war without fire is like sausages without mustard.” He sent an advance guard to take the suburbs of Meaux by surprise and prepare for the siege. The siege of Meaux began on 6 October 1421. The English set up an impressive siege camp which included a great number of laborers, miners and craftsmen. They dug trenches and palisades around their encampments and built a pontoon bridge over the Marne to connect the siege lines on the two banks of the river. The siege camp was supplied by river barges.

However the English had a problem with insufficient manpower. There were only between 8,000 and 10,000 English troops in France at the time, and most of them were tied down in garrisons in Normandy and Paris. Henry V could not mobilize a significant force as his garrisons were already thin. The initial army with which he besieged Meaux numbered only 2,000 men. His local French and Burgundian allies did not provide him with sufficient reinforcements and it appeared that they were not particularly eager to fight. Henry V was lucky that his enemy the Dauphin also had a problem with mobilizing an army and was particularly troubled with lack of supplies in the war-torn land. He was running out of money and did not want to risk another open battle with the King of England. Instead of trying to relieve the city of Meaux, the Dauphin launched diversionary raids into Normandy.

Henry V thought that the city of Meaux would fall quickly. However he would be proved greatly mistaken in such thinking. The defensive garrison of Meaux numbered around 1,000 men and was much stronger than the ones Henry encountered in previous towns. The command of the defense was put in the hands of Guichard de Chissay, a nobleman who was sent there by the Dauphin. However the real energy among the defenders came from the Bastard of Vaurus and his followers. It was not uncommon that such charismatic routiers commanded garrisons. During the siege of Chartres earlier that year, the Burgundian garrison, which defended the city from the Dauphin, was commanded by a man with a similar past and a similar nickname, the Bastard of Thian, another former routier who had already played a prominent role in the defense of Senlis and Rouen. Brigands of lowly origins like Bastard of Vaurus had little to lose and they knew that they could expect little mercy from the enemy, unlike the wealthy and important nobles who could be ransomed or kept as hostages for political reasons. Because of this, such routiers would be more eager to defend the city until death rather than surrendering.

Henry V must have heard the stories about the Bastard of Vaurus but it seems that he underestimated the opponent. He brought powerful artillery to demolish the city walls as quickly as possible and was confident of quick success. However he did not expect that the defenders would be as determined as they were. The defenders kept repairing the breaches made by Henry’s bombards and siege engines and cleared by night the ditches that the English had filled in by day. They launched sorties at English camps and sent foraging parties out in small boats to replenish supplies. The English also experienced problems with weather and diseases. Heavy rain caused the river Marne to flood the plain in which the English were encamped. They had to abandon their siege camp and build a new one on a higher ground further back. Men began suffering from dysentery and many deserted. The pay records suggest that by Christmas the English had lost about a sixth of their army.

The defenders were also bombarding the English with an artillery of their own. One of the dead was Henry V’s seventeen-year-old cousin John Cornwall who had his head taken clean off by a cannonball. This was witnessed by his father Sir John Cornwall who was standing beside him. Even a hardened warrior like Sir John, who had taken a prominent part in every campaign in France since 1412, could not take the pain of losing his son like this. He withdrew from the army, declaring that his soldiering days were over, and returned home. Such was the nature of warfare at the time. Grueling sieges in harsh weather and plagued by diseases were a regular part of war. It was only due to the determination and authority of King Henry V that the siege of Meaux continued as he kept asking for reinforcements and supplies. He kept requesting fresh troops from England as well as recruiting mercenaries from other parts of Europe. On 6 December 1421 he learned that Queen Catherine gave birth to the future Henry VI at Windsor. This seemed to have elevated the mood in the English camp. But the brutality and cost of war was taking its toll, and it appears that Henry V was coming to realization of just how long and tiresome the war in France could end up becoming, commenting how war is “a long business, dangerous, risky and very difficult, especially between well-matched parties.”

Meanwhile the defenders kept resorting to all sorts of taunts to try to demoralize the English besiegers. One day early in 1422 some of them brought a donkey up onto the walls, beating it savagely until it brayed, and shouted down at the English that this was their king. But time was not on the side of the Meaux garrison. Supplies were running low and the English artillery was slowly but surely destroying the fortifications. Their only hope was that the Dauphin would send a relief army and chase the English away, or defeat them in an open battle. This might indeed have been possible. Had the Dauphin taken a more bold and risky approach, he could have exploited the weakened state of the English besiegers and save Meaux. Instead, he opted for a weird plan of sending Guy de Nesle, Lord of Offémont, with a limited number of men to try to sneak into Meaux and strengthen the garrison. It is hard to figure out what exactly the Dauphinists wanted to accomplish with this, as Offémont had a laughably small number of troops with him, numbering only around 100, with some sources saying he only found 40 companions to join him. Nevertheless they managed to enter Meaux in the dark of the night early in March 1422 as the garrison let down ladders over the moat. However Offémont lost his foothold and fell into the ditch in full armor. The noise alerted the English guards who captured the badly wounded French nobleman.

Following this fiasco, the defenders of Meaux realized that they were in a desperate situation. They decided that the soldiers would abandon the city and move to the fortified suburb fortress of Marché over the bridge. The plan was to leave the ordinary citizens behind so they would have less mouths to feed, and concentrate on defending the most fortified part of the city. They moved across the bridge and garrisoned the fortress of Marché. The English quickly found out what was going on and stormed the city of Meaux over the undefended walls, opening the gates for the rest of the army to enter. The English now took positions in Meaux itself and prepared to take over Marché. They battered the enemy fortress with artillery at close range, constructed pontoon bridges and mined the walls, taking over part of the defenses and preparing to storm the defenders from there. However the defenders still resisted for further two months, delaying this frustrating siege that angered Henry V to no end. When he had returned to France the previous year, he expected a quick victory over what was left of the Dauphinists around Paris. Instead, he was stuck in a seven months long siege where he had to listen to constant taunts from defenders. He saw many of his men killed and suffering from dysentery, and he himself grew sick as well during the siege.

One of the reason for why the defenders fought so hard was definitely the leadership of the Bastard of Vaurus. He was a capable and dangerous man with nothing to lose, driven by desire to revenge the death of his master. A veteran warrior who knew every trick in the book and who had a following of similar brigands and veterans around him. It would be a foolish mistake to underestimate such man and what he can do!

However not all the defenders shared such determination to fight until the end. As the situation was getting increasingly desperate, it seems that the desire to live made the defenders consider abandoning their commanders and negotiate with the English, hoping for mercy. This is indeed what happened as on 2 May 1422 the garrison finally capitulated. The Bastard of Vaurus and other leaders were excluded from the committee appointed to negotiate with the English. The English agreed to let the defenders live, but with exceptions of specific men whom they promised no mercy. These included the Bastard of Vaurus, his cousin named as Denis de Vaurus, a lawyer called Jean de Rouvres of whom nothing is known, and the Dauphinist bailli of Meaux, Louis Gast. These men were singled out for their involvement in the garrison's terrorism of the past three years. Also excluded from the amnesty were those who were thought to be involved in the murder of John the Fearless, any English, Irish or Scots, any Frenchmen who had previously sworn to uphold the treaty of Troyes, and all of the professional artillerymen who had inflicted such heavy casualties on the besieging army in the final days of the siege. Another man to be executed was a trumpeter who “blewe and sownyd an horne duryng the sege that men say ys namyd Grasse”. It seems that this trumpeter had particularly angered the King who was subjected to many taunts from the defenders during the siege and wanted to take his anger out on someone. Meanwhile the Dauphin’s representatives like Guichard de Chissay, the Gascon Peron de Luppé and the Abbot of St Faron Philip de Gamaches would be made to buy their lives by arranging for the other Dauphinist garrisons in vicinity to surrender. They were chosen because they were associated with other Dauphinist commanders and had value as hostages.

The fate of the Bastard of Vaurus was clear. No mercy would be shown to him, as he had caused great damage to the English. He was dragged through the streets of what was left of Meaux and beheaded outside the city walls. His body was suspended from the tree outside the gates where he used to hang his victims, the infamous Oak of Vaurus. His head was displayed on a lance stuck in the ground beside it and his banner thrown over the body. His cousin was hanged beside his corpse.

Such was the end of this man they called the Bastard of Vaurus!

But many of the survivors did not fare much better. Around 700 to 800 surviving members of the garrison who surrendered were loaded into barges, chained together in pairs by the legs, and taken to Paris. Many of those who were not able to ransom themselves in short enough time died in insanitary cells. The more important prisoners were distributed among the castles of Normandy or taken to England. More than 150 were temporarily lodged in the Tower of London before being locked up in various remote castles, mostly in Wales. It is likely that the majority never returned to France and were basically enslaved as servants. The citizens of Meaux had to hand over all the valuable goods they possessed and many lost all they had. “Through such confiscation the king extorted and amassed large sums of money,” a chronicler reports.

However Henry V would not live long to enjoy these fortunes, as he died just few months afterwards in August of 1422, aged 35. The siege had exhausted him and it is believed that he contracted dysentery on this campaign. His health deteriorated again in the summer and he was reduced to being carried around on a litter before his death.

Before I finish I would like to recommend two books from which I gathered the information about the siege of Meaux, The Hundred Years War, Vol IV: Cursed Kings by Jonathan Sumption and Henry V as Warlord by Desmond Seward.