Poitiers

A decade after Crécy, Edward of Woodstock—the Black Prince—launched another destructive chevauchée through France. In September 1356 his smaller Anglo-Gascon army was intercepted near Poitiers by King John II of France, forcing a battle in which terrain, disciplined defence and well-used archery again helped neutralise superior French numbers. Corrigan reconstructs the manoeuvres before the fighting and the collapse of the French assault.

Poitiers produced consequences far beyond the battlefield. The capture of the French king intensified political and financial crisis within France and gave England enormous leverage in the negotiations that followed. Corrigan uses the battle to examine the strengths and limits of English campaigning in the Hundred Years’ War, including the Black Prince’s leadership and the gap between spectacular victories and the harder task of converting them into lasting political control.