curamach
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country bumpkin
March 21, 1421
The battle of Baugé was a Scottish victory during the Hundred Years War, fought on French soil. By the start of 1419 the English under Henry V were in a very strong position in France. His victory at Agincourt had saved Henry’s invasion of France from ending in disaster, and had established him as a major force in France. Charles VI of France was increasingly insane, while his heir, the future Charles VII, was only sixteen, and had only become Dauphin in 1417, after the deaths of all four of his older brothers. The situation was further complicated by the ongoing civil war between the Royalist faction and the supporters of the dukes of Burgundy. This had seen John the Fearless, duke of Burgundy, order the murder of the king’s brother Louis of Orleans, while in 1419 supporters of the Dauphin would in turn murder the duke.
Late in 1418 the Dauphin Charles made an appeal for Scottish help. At this time Scotland was ruled by Robert Stewart, first duke of Albany (Just before the death of his father in 1406, the future James I had been sent to France, possibly to protect him from Albany, but on 22 March 1406 he had been captured at sea by the English, and in 1418 was still in captivity in England). Albany was generally in favour of the French alliance, and it was decided to send a force of 6,000 volunteers to France. The command was to be shared by Archibald Douglas, earl of Wigtown (or Wigtoun), the son of the fourth earl of Douglas, and Albany’s second son John Steward, third earl of Buchan. A fleet of ships from Castile reached Scotland in September 1419, and on 29 October 1419 the Scottish army reached the Dauphin’s court at Bourges.
As is often the case with well documented medieval battles, the more sources we have the less certain we can be about the course of the battle. To make things more complex in this case we have four different sets of chronicles – Scottish, French, English and Burgundian – none of which are entirely internally consistent - as an example the two main Scottish sources (the Liber Pluscardensis and the Scotichronicon) disagree on the size of the Scottish army and on who killed Clarence, while the Lancastrian dynasty was not universally popular in England.
read more here>>http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/battles_bauge.html
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