"The right noble knight John Talbot Earl of Shrewsbury". Imaginary engraving made by Thomas Cecill c. 1625–32, British Museum, Cat.no. 1862,1011.234Arms of Sir John Talbot, 7th Baron Talbot, at the time of his installation into the Most Noble Order of the Garter
John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, 1st Earl of Waterford, 7th Baron Talbot, KG (c. 1387 – 17 July 1453), known as "Old Talbot", was an English nobleman and a noted military commander during the Hundred Years' War. He was the most renowned in England and most feared in France of the English captains in the last stages of the conflict. Known as a tough, cruel, and quarrelsome man,[1] Talbot distinguished himself militarily in a time of decline for the English. Called the "English Achilles" and the "Terror of the French", he is lavishly praised in the plays of Shakespeare. The manner of his death, leading an ill-advised charge against field artillery, has come to symbolize the passing of the age of chivalry.[2] He also held the subsidiary titles of 10th Baron Strange of Blackmere and 6th Baron Furnivalljure uxoris.
Origins
He was descended from Richard Talbot, the son of William "Le Sire" Talbot, whose estate (wife and infant son Hugh) was a tenant in 1086 of Walter Giffard at Woburn and Battlesden in Bedfordshire. The Talbot Family descends from William d'Hiemois, the illegitimate son of Richard I, Duke of Normandy. William's son Hugh, Bishop of Lisieux, was the father of William "Le Sire" Talbot (1046–1066). The Talbots were cousins of William "The Conqueror", King of England, and also the Giffard family. It is incorrect to suggest that the Talbot family were vassals of the Giffards in Normandy.[3] Hugh Talbot, Richard's son, made a grant to Beaubec Abbey, confirmed by his son Richard Talbot in 1153. This Richard (died 1175) is listed in 1166 as holding three fees of the Honour of Giffard in Buckinghamshire. He also held a fee at Linton in Herefordshire, for which his son Gilbert Talbot (died 1231) obtained a fresh charter in 1190.[4] Gilbert's grandson Gilbert (died 1274) married Gwenllian ferch Rhys Mechyll, who was incorrectly assumed to be the sole heiress of the Welsh Prince Rhys Mechyll,[5] whose armorials were of the House of Deheubarth, and which the Talbots thenceforth assumed in lieu of their own former arms! Their son Sir Richard Talbot, who signed the Barons' Letter of 1301, held the manor of Eccleswall in Herefordshire in right of his wife Sarah, sister of William de Beauchamp, 9th Earl of Warwick. In 1331 Richard's son Gilbert Talbot (1276–1346) was summoned to Parliament, which is considered evidence of his baronial status – see Baron Talbot.[6] Gilbert's son Richard married Elizabeth Comyn, bringing with her the inheritance of Goodrich Castle.
His father died in 1396 when Talbot was around nine years old, and so it was Ankaret's second husband, Thomas Neville, 5th Baron Furnivall, who became the major influence in his early life. The marriage (1401) also gave the opportunity of a title for her second son, as Neville had no sons, with the title Baron Furnivall going through his eldest daughter Maud[10] (Talbot's stepsister), who would become John's first wife. Their marriage resulted in John styling himself as John Talbot, 6th Baron Furnivall.
Lady Ann Talbot, married John Bottreaux, of Abbot's Salford.
By the death of his niece in 1421 he acquired the Baronies of Talbot and Strange. His first wife, Maud, died on 31 May 1422. It has been suggested that she died as an indirect result of giving birth to her daughter Joan, although there is a lack of evidence about Joan's life before her marriage to Lord Berkeley. There is even a theory that she was actually Talbot's daughter-in-law through marriage to Sir Christopher Talbot.
Talbot is known to have had at least one illegitimate child, Henry. He may have served in France with his father as it is known that a bastard son of the Earl of Shrewsbury was captured by the Dauphin Louis on 14 August 1443.[15]
The dispute with the Earl of Ormond escalated into a long-running feud between Talbot and his brother, the Archbishop of Dublin, on the one hand, and the Butler family and their allies the Berkeleys on the other. Relations between the two sides became so poisonous that it was said that real hatred was involved. The feud reached its height in the 1440s, and in the end just about every senior official in Ireland had taken sides in the quarrel. Both sides were reprimanded by the Privy Council for weakening English rule in Ireland: the Council implored them to make up their differences. Friendly relations were finally achieved by the marriage of Talbot's son and heir to Ormond's daughter, Lady Elizabeth Butler.[18]
During John's first term in Ireland, his elder brother Gilbert was serving as a soldier in France. Gilbert died on 19 October 1418 at the siege of Rouen, and his lands were inherited by his only daughter and heiress Ankaret Talbot, John's niece. Ankaret, 6th Baroness Talbot, died shortly after on 13 December 1421 and the Talbot family lands were thus inherited by her uncle John, who became 7th Baron Talbot.
From 1420 to 1424 he served in France, apart from a brief return at the end of the first year to organise the festivities of celebrating the coronation of Catherine of Valois, the bride of Henry V.[19] He returned to France in May 1421 and took part in the Battle of Verneuil on 17 August 1424 earning him the Order of the Garter.
So far his career was that of a turbulent Marcher Lord, employed in posts where a rough hand was useful.[16] It was for his actions in France that he would acquire his fame, however.
Talbot was a daring and aggressive soldier, perhaps the most audacious captain of the age. He and his forces were ever ready to retake a town and to meet a French advance. His trademark was rapid aggressive attacks. He was rewarded by being appointed governor and lieutenant general in France and Normandy and, in 1434, the Duke of Bedford made him Count of Clermont. He also reorganized the army with captains and lieutenants, trained the men for sieges, and equipped them accordingly. But when the Duke of Bedford died in 1435, the Burgundian government in Paris defected to the French, leaving Talbot, known as le roi talbot ("king Talbot") as the main English general in the field.[22][23]
On 2 February 1436, he led a small force including Sir Thomas Kyriell and Sir Thomas Scales and routed La Hire and Xaintrailles at the battle of Ry near Rouen. Later that year, he did much to recover large portions of land on the Pays de Caux in eastern Normandy which had been lost to the French a few months earlier. On the dawn of 13 February 1437, in spectacular fashion, he took the town of Pontoise north of Paris by surprise, threatening the capital itself for a time. The same year at Crotoy, after a daring passage of the Somme, he put a numerous Burgundian force to flight. At night on 22–23 December 1439, following a surprise flank attack on their camp, he dispersed the 6000-strong army of the Constable Richemont, and on 7 July 1440 he retook Harfleur. In 1441, he pursued the French army four times over the Seine and Oise rivers in an unavailing attempt to bring it to battle.
Lord Shrewsbury
Around February 1442, Talbot returned to England to request urgent reinforcements for the Duke of York in Normandy. In March, under king's orders, ships were requisitioned for this purpose with Talbot himself responsible for assembling ships from the Port of London and from Sandwich.[24]
On Whit Sunday, 20 May, Henry VI created him Earl of Shrewsbury. Just five days later, with the requested reinforcements, Talbot returned to France where in June they mustered at Harfleur. During that time, he met his six-year-old daughter Eleanor for the first time and almost certainly left the newly created Countess Margaret pregnant with another child.[25]
In 1442–1443, he led the unsuccessful siege of Dieppe, where the English were beaten by a French relief force under the command of Louis, dauphin of France, the future king Louis XI.[26]
In June 1443, Talbot again returned to England on behalf of the Duke of York to plead for reinforcements, but this time the English Council refused, instead sending a separate force under Shrewsbury's brother-in-law, Edmund Beaufort. His son, Sir Christopher, stayed in England where shortly afterwards he was murdered with a lance at the age of 23 by one of his own men, Griffin Vachan of Treflidian on 10 August at "Cawce, County Salop" (Caus Castle).[27]
He was appointed in 1445 by Henry VI (as the disputed king of France) as Constable of France. Taken hostage at Rouen in 1449 he promised never to wear armour against the French King again. He was true to the letter of his word, but continued to command English forces against the French without personally fighting. In England, he was widely renowned as the best general King Henry VI had. The king relied upon his support at Dartford in 1452, and in 1450 to suppress Cade's Revolt. In 1452 he was ordered to Bordeaux as the king's lieutenant of the Duchy of Aquitaine, and landed there on 17 October. He repaired castle garrisons facing mounting pressure from France, when some reinforcements arrived with his son John, Viscount Lisle in spring 1453, and he captured Fronsac.[28]
Death
Monument to John Talbot at the battlefield of Castillon
Talbot was decisively defeated and killed on 17 July 1453 at the Battle of Castillon near Bordeaux, which effectively ended English rule in Aquitaine, a principal cause of the Hundred Years' War. It was reported at the time that when his horse was fatally struck by enemy ordnance, it fell on top of Talbot and pinned him down, enabling a French soldier to finish him off with a battleaxe. His heart was buried in the doorway of St Alkmund's Church, Whitchurch, Shropshire.[29]
The victorious French generals raised a monument to Talbot on the field called Notre Dame de Talbot and a French Chronicler paid him handsome tribute:
"Such was the end of this famous and renowned English leader who for so long had been one of the most formidable thorns in the side of the French, who regarded him with terror and dismay" – Matthew d'Escourcy
Although Talbot is generally remembered as a great soldier, some have raised doubts as to his generalship. In particular, charges of rashness have been raised against him. Speed and aggression were key elements in granting success in medieval war, and Talbot's numerical inferiority necessitated surprise. Furthermore, he was often in the position of trying to force battle on unwilling opponents. At his defeat at Patay in 1429 he was advised not to fight there by Sir John Fastolf, who was subsequently blamed for the debacle, but the French, inspired by Joan of Arc, showed unprecedented fighting spirit – usually they approached an English position with trepidation. The charge of rashness is more justifiable at Castillon, where Talbot, misled by mistaken reports of a French retreat, attacked their entrenched camp frontally with his advance force, facing wheel to wheel field artillery and refusing to temporarily back off and allow his full force to arrive.
On a political level, his governorship of Ireland degenerated into bitter feuding and personal hatreds. The Crown itself reprimanded him for weakening English rule in Ireland, though in fairness he was far from being the only culprit.
Cultural influence
He is portrayed heroically in Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 1: "Valiant Lord Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, Created, for his rare success in arms". Talbot's failures are all blamed on Fastolf and feuding factions in the English court. Thomas Nashe, commenting on the play in his booklet Pierce Penniless, stated that Talbot's example was inspiring Englishmen anew, two centuries after his death,
How would it have joyed brave Talbot, the terror of the French, to think that after he had lain two hundred years in his tomb, he should triumph again on the stage, and have his bones new embalmed with the tears of ten thousand spectators at least (at several times) who in the tragedian that represents his person imagine they behold him fresh bleeding. I will defend it against any collian or clubfisted usurer of them all, there is no immortality can be given a man on earth like unto plays.
^Bartlett, Josiah Gardner; French, Elizabeth (2011). English Origins of New England Families, From The New England Historical and Genealogical Register (1847–2004). 2nd series. Vol. 3. Clearfield. p. 801. ISBN978-0-8063-1916-2.
Allmand, C T (1983) Lancastrian Normandy, 1415–1450: The History of a Medieval Occupation. New York: Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press, pp. xiii, 349
Barker, J. (2000) The Hundred Years War
Bradbury, M. (1983) Medieval Archery
Elder, A. (1985). "Lancastrian Normandy, 1415–1450: The History of a Medieval Occupation. C. T. Allmand John Talbot and the War in France, 1427–1453. A. J. Pollard". Speculum. 60 (4): 939–941. doi:10.2307/2853735. JSTOR2853735.
Mortimer, I. (2008), 1415: A Year of Glory
Pollard, A.J. (1983) John Talbot and the War in France, 1427–1453, Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, Inc
Sumption, J. (2004) The Hundred Years War: Trial by Fire vol. 2 of 2
Talbot, Rev H., (1980) The English Achilles: the life of John Talbot
Chernaik, Warren L. (2007). "1 Henry VI: brave Talbot and his adversaries". The Cambridge Introduction to Shakespeare's History Plays. Cambridge University Press. ISBN978-0-521-67120-0.
Jones, M. (1994). "The Relief of Avranches (1439): An English Feat of Arms at the End of the Hundred Years War". In Nicholas Rogers (ed.). England in the Fifteenth Century (conference paper). Harlaxton Medieval Studies (new series). Vol. 4. Stamford: Paul Watkins. pp. 42–55. ISBN978-1-871615-67-8.
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