On 15 April 1450, near Formigny in Normandy, a French army under the Count of Clermont, joined during the battle by the Constable Arthur de Richemont, defeated Sir Thomas Kyriel's English relief army. Kyriel was taken prisoner. French chroniclers give 3,774 English killed, English sources fewer, and the defeat helped seal the loss of English Normandy.
Battle of Formigny
15 April 1450 · 576 years ago
Kyriel's army
In Lent, writes Jean Chartier, chronicler of Charles VII, three thousand English newly come from England landed at Cherbourg under "ung chevalier de grant renom nommé Messire Thomas Kyriel", a knight of great renown named Sir Thomas Kyriel (our translation). Robert Blondel, writing in Latin, makes Kyriel the leader of 5,000 armed men, and Mathieu d'Escouchy gives five to six thousand fighting men, five to six hundred of them mounted.1
Kyriel's army laid siege to Valognes, write Chartier, the Berry Herald and Escouchy. Its captain, Abel Rouault, held out for about three weeks and then surrendered on terms, write Chartier and Escouchy. Garrison troops under Sir Robert Ver, Matthew Gough and Henry Norbury joined Kyriel there. The heading to Sir John Fastolf's articles of advice, in Worcester's collections, blames the "dyvyson and controversie" of Kyriel's petty captains, "negligently tarying yn Normandie at her landyng".2
Fighting in the fords
After Easter the English left Valognes and crossed the fords of Saint-Clément toward Bayeux and Caen. Blondel dates to 14 April an attack by soldiers from Carentan on the English in the fords; the Berry Herald says that on the fourteenth Geoffroy de Couvran and Joachim Rouault struck their rearguard and killed many.3
Once across, Matthew Gough left the army for Bayeux. Chartier and the Berry Herald put his departure on the morning of the battle, Escouchy on the day before.4
The Count of Clermont, following the English with the French army, sent for help to the Constable of France, Arthur de Richemont. Chartier, the Berry Herald and Escouchy place Richemont at Saint-Lô.5
Guns and archers
Chartier and one manuscript of the Berry Herald date the battle to 15 April, and James Gairdner, editor of the Paston letters, gives 15 April 1450; Worcester's collections place the defeat in May. Seeing the French, the English drew up and sent for Gough, who came back, write Chartier, the Berry Herald and Escouchy. Behind them lay gardens of apple and pear trees and a small river, so that they could not be attacked from the rear.6
The English dug holes and ditches in front of their line with their daggers and swords, write Chartier and the Berry Herald, so that attackers would fall into them with their horses; Blondel and Escouchy add sharpened stakes driven into the ground. Chartier and the Berry Herald write of three hours of skirmishing while the English dug, and Escouchy has them stand in order three hours before the Constable could arrive; Blondel writes of nearly three hours of fighting with the outcome in doubt.7
Two French culverins fired into the English line and did it great harm, until English archers charged and took them. Pierre de Brézé, seneschal of Poitou, dismounted with his men and won the guns back, write Blondel, Chartier and the Berry Herald, and Chartier and the Berry Herald count about two hundred English dead in that attack alone.8
Two French armies
Richemont came on from Trévières, where he had spent the night, and drew up by a windmill above Formigny, write Chartier and the Berry Herald, and Escouchy too has him come down a hill near a windmill. Escouchy has Gough, fearing a larger force, abandon the ditches and stakes and pull his men back closer to Formigny; Blondel and the Berry Herald too have the English leave their position and fall back toward the stream. Chartier has Richemont's archers fight at the bridge before the French armies join; Escouchy has the armies join first, then send archers to take the bridge.9
Chartier writes that Gough, Ver and other captains "s’enfuyrent et habandonnèrent leurs compaignons tous des premiers, ayans le cœur failly": they fled and abandoned their companions, the very first of all, their hearts having failed them (our translation). Gough's flight to Bayeux and Ver's to Caen are also in Blondel and the Berry Herald. Chartier has about a thousand English go with Gough and Ver; a letter written in London on 5 May, in the Paston collection, says that Gough fled with 1,500 men and "savyd hym selffe and hem". Kyriel was taken prisoner with Henry Norbury and others, write Chartier and Blondel, and the Paston letter and Worcester's collections also record Kyriel's capture.10
Counting the dead
By the report of the heralds, the priests and the good people who were there, writes Chartier, 3,774 English were killed and buried on the spot in fourteen pits; the Rouen manuscript reads 4,774, his editor notes. The Berry Herald and Escouchy give 3,774; Escouchy's editor, Beaucourt, notes that all chroniclers but Guillaume Gruel repeat Chartier's figure. Blondel's Latin differs: of the English, "tria electorum pugilum millia et centum sexties ac septuaginta quatuor", three thousand picked fighters, and a hundred six times, and seventy-four, were cut down (our translation).11
English sources give lower figures. The Paston letter speaks of about 3,000 Englishmen slain, and Worcester's collections of 2,300 dead on the field and 900 prisoners. Chartier estimates the prisoners at twelve to fourteen hundred, Blondel at 1,500.12
For the French dead, the Berry Herald's main manuscript says only five or six died that day; Escouchy, by the heralds' report, five or six men-at-arms or about, none of note; Chartier at most eight; and Blondel twelve soldiers "non claro sed obscuro genere creti", born not of noble but of obscure family (our translation). By the heralds' report, Chartier writes, the French were only three thousand fighting men and the English six to seven thousand (five to six in the Rouen manuscript, his editor notes). Blondel has about three thousand French defeat seven thousand English.13
The end of English Normandy
The French then besieged Vire, write Chartier and Escouchy. Vire surrendered, and Bayeux after it, by composition. Fastolf's heading ties the defeat at "the infortune jurney of Formynye" to "the losse off all Normandye".14
Joseph Stevenson, who edited Blondel and the Berry Herald in 1863, called Formigny "the decisive battle". The English triumphs earlier in the war are told in our article on Agincourt.15
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Read the full story of Third siege of Missolonghi, 1825 to 1826: the siege and the Exodus ›Also on this day
1945: British troops reached the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp under a local truce: the US Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) dates the agreement to 12 April, and the National Army Museum (NAM) says a German messenger came to negotiate it that day. Both name the 63rd Anti-Tank Regiment and the 11th Armoured Division. The USHMM says the British found around 55,000 prisoners and thousands of unburied corpses, and that more than 13,000 former prisoners died after liberation; the NAM gives more than 60,000 prisoners, 13,000 unburied corpses and a further 14,000 deaths after liberation. Richard Dimbleby's BBC report went out only after he threatened to resign, according to the BBC and the NAM.16
