Arnoul d'Audrehem

Arnoul d'Audrehem (also Arnould, d'Audeneham, d'Oudeneham, de Denehan, d'Andreghem ; * between 1302 and 1307 in Pas-de-Calais ; † December 1370 probably in Saumur ) was Marshal of France from 1351 to 1368 and from 1368 to 1370 bearer of the Oriflamme.

Life

Arnoul was a knight of the lower nobility from the Boulonnais , lord of Audrehem . Very little is known about his family except that his father, whose name was Baudouin, was a knight in 1307 and was still alive in 1327. With Jean de Neuville he had a nephew, who was also marshal from 1356 to 1359, but was under his command until 1368. Between 1348 and 1351 he married Jeanne de Hamelincourt, widow of Jean de Walincourt.

Nothing is known about his life before he first appeared at the French court in 1332. He took an active part in the fight against the kings Edward III. of England and Charles III. of Navarre , as well as against the Grandes Compagnies . Between 1332 and 1342 he went to Scotland three times to support David Bruce . 1342 later he was by Philip VI. appointed royal captain in Brittany ; he took part in the defense of Ploërmel , but could not prevent its submission. Subsequently, he appears to have belonged to the household of the Duke of Normandy (who later became King John the Good). In 1346 he took part in the siege of Aiguillon before going to Calais , where he was captured when the city surrendered in 1347.

John the Good appointed him captain of war in the county of Angoulême in 1349 . At the Battle of La Chapelle Saint-Georges in 1351 he was captured again by the English. He was appointed Marshal of France between June 21 and July 1, 1351 as successor to Édouard I. de Beaujeu . In the same year he became the royal lieutenant in Poitou , Saintonge Limousin , Angoumois , Périgord and the areas between Loire and Dordogne . 1353 was added the office of royal lieutenant in Normandy . The following year he captured the Landal fortress in Broualan by a surprise attack and arrested Hugues de Calveley there .

In 1355 he lost his previous positions as lieutenant and was instead employed in the same function in Artois , Picardie and Boulonnais. He defended Boulonnais in October 1355 against the Chevauchée Eduards III. Between May and August 1356 he took part in the conquest of Evreux and Breteuil , in the same year he took part in the pursuit of Henry of Grosmont's troops who had invaded L'Aigle . It was also he who had Charles of Navarre and his followers arrested earlier that year at a banquet that the Dauphin (later King Charles V ) had hosted in Rouen. In the battle of Poitiers on September 19, 1356 he was captured again.

From England he was brought to France several times, where he took part in the negotiations on the Treaty of Brétigny . He got his freedom back on the same day as the king. On the day the peace treaty was signed, on October 24, 1360, he was appointed Conseiller du Roi , and in 1351 Capitaine du Roi in Languedoc , and in 1362 Lieutenant du Roi in the same region. In that year (1362) he took the fortresses Peyroux and Sauges from the Grandes Compagnies , in 1363 the fortresses Mirepoix and those in Gévaudan , in June 1364 Peyriac and Gabian. There Ludwig I of Anjou became his successor. He joined Bertrand du Guesclin in Spain, where he supported Henry of Trastamara - they were defeated and captured by Edward of Woodstock at the Battle of Nájera on April 3, 1367 . After his release in 1368, he joined Ludwig von Anjou in his campaign in Provence . In 1368, as reasons of age, he said goodbye as Marshal of France and instead took on the post of bearer of the Oriflamme.

In 1370 Charles V sent him to Spain to bring back du Guesclin. He then took part in the pursuit of the Chevauchée des Robert Knolles under the High Command du Guesclins. They confronted and defeated their opponents at the Battle of Pontvallain (December 4, 1370), at Vaas , Ruillé-sur-Loir and Bressuire . He died in Saumur in December 1370 , whether from wounds or from an illness is not known.

Arnoul d'Audrehem belonged to the immediate environment of Bertrand du Guesclin until his end, like Pierre le Bègue de Villaines , Olivier de Mauny , Eustache de La Houssaye, Guillaume Boitel and Guillaume de Launoy, initially in the fight against the English under the rule of John the Good, then under Charles V.

On the orders of the king, his funeral took place in December 1370 in the Couvent des Célestins in Paris.

literature

• Audrehem, Arnoul d ' , in: Hugh Chisholm, Encyclopædia Britannica , 11th Edition, 1911, Volume 2, Cambridge University Press , p. 899
• John A. Wagner, Encyclopedia of the Hundred Years War , 2006, p. 37