Robert Knolles

Robert Knolles (also Robert Knowles, Robert or Robin Kanolle , * probably 1325 in Cheshire ; † August 15, 1407 in Sculthorpe at the age of 82) was an important English military man, one of the great captains in the War of the Breton Succession and at the beginning of the Hundred Years War .

War of the Breton Succession

He was probably born in Cheshire, but made his first appearance as captain of several castles in Brittany in the middle of the century, including Fougeray, Gravelle and Châteaublanc. In 1351 he was one of the English participants in the Tournament of Thirty , in the course of which he was one of the losers and was captured. In 1356 he took part with 800 men in the Chevauchée of the Duke of Lancaster through Normandy , a diversionary maneuver to pull King John II of France north and thereby enable Edward of Woodstock to land on his Poitiers campaign.

In the chaos France found itself after the defeat of Poitiers , Charles II of Navarre took command of the uprising in Paris. Knolles joined the army of Karl's brother Philip , Count of Longueville , when they temporarily held the capital against the Dauphin in 1358 .

Knolle's best time came in autumn, when he led a Grande Compagnie from 2000 to 3000 Anglo-Gaskogners in the Loire Valley and deployed several garrisons in important cities such as Châteauneuf-Val-de-Bargis . Then he advanced to Nivernais , which was unsuccessfully defended for Margaret of Flanders by the “archpriest” Arnaud de Cervole , the adventurer who had set up the first Grand Company the year before .

At the beginning of 1359 Knolles reached Auxerre , which fell on March 10th after two months of siege. After the city had submitted, Knolles, who was previously only considered a squire, was knighted by two subordinates. The sacking of Auxerre proceeded with little violence and destruction, as Knolles and his men were professional soldiers who were after the largest possible booty. The town was carefully searched for valuables, and citizens were checked for ransom. In the end, a huge ransom was extorted for not destroying the city, which was only partially paid afterwards. The following month he returned to Châteauneuf to plan an invasion of the Rhône Valley with Hugh Calveley . On the way south, a base was established in Pont-du-Château am Allier , from which they started the invasion of the Velay . Knolles then reunited with those of Calveley to besiege Le Puy-en-Velay , which fell in July 1359. When they moved on to the papal city of Avignon , their route was blocked by the army of Thomas de La Marche, Duke of Bourbon's deputy , whereupon the two commanders withdrew and dissolved their companies.

At the height of the War of the Breton Succession, he took part in Duke John's siege of Auray in July 1364 , which was followed by John's decisive victory in the Battle of Auray in September. In 1367 he fought at the side of Edward of Woodstock in the Battle of Nájera .

French campaign

In 1370 he was given a lot of land and money to raise an army for an invasion of northern France. In August 1370 he went ashore with 6,000 mounted men in Calais and carried out raids deep in French territory, burning down villages on the outskirts of Paris, but failed to force the French King Charles V into battle. Then he turned to Gascony and began to conquer and fortify castles and churches in the region between the Loir and Loire rivers . However, he had to deal with much criticism from his younger sub-commanders like Sir John Minsterworth , who pushed for a fight. When it became known that French armies under the coman Bertrand du Guesclins were approaching them, Knolles proposed to retreat to Brittany, but this was rejected by most of the army. He then withdrew with his own entourage, leaving most of his troops behind, and found himself on the loser's side on December 4 at the Battle of Pontvallain .

Knolles spent the winter in his castle in Derval in the Breton region and then attempted to evacuate his surviving men and those of Minsterworth who had rejoined him via the port of Saint-Mathieu. Lack of ships meant that he had to leave most of the men on the beach, who were then killed by the French under Olivier V. de Clisson . In 1372 Knolles was named by the King's Council as the main person responsible for this disaster. He was robbed of the land that had been given to him as a fee for setting up the army and fined 10,000 marks.

Death and legacy

In 1389 he appointed Thomas Knollys as his executor. He died on his estate in Sculthorpe, Norfolk on August 15, 1407.

literature

• JSC Bridges, Two Cheshire soldiers of fortune of the XIV century: Sir Hugh Calveley and Sir Robert Knolles , Journal of the Architectural, Archaeological, and Historic Society for the County and City of Chester and North Wales: new series, 14, 1908.
• Hugh Chisholm (Eds.), Knolles, Sir Robert , in: Encyclopædia Britannica , 11th Edition, Volume 15, p. 869, Cambridge University Press , 1911
• Barbara Tuchman , A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century , The Random House Publishing Group, 1978, ISBN 978-0-3944-0026-6
• Michael Jones, Knolles, Sir Robert (d.1407) , in: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , 2004
• Nicolas Savy, The Chevauchée of John Chandos and Robert Knolles: Early March to Early June, 1369 , in: Journal of Medieval Military History , Boydell Press, Volume 7, The Age of the Hundred Years War , 2009, pp. 38-56.
• Jonathan Sumption , Divided Houses: The Hundred Years War , Volume 3, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0-8122-4223-2
• Tony Bostock, Tony, Dogs of War: Sir Hugh Calveley & Sir Robert Knolles , 2017

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Britannica
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} Jones
3. ↑ Tuchman, pp. 155-184
4. ↑ Tuchman, pp. 126-154
5. ↑ Sumption, pp 84-93