Joanna of Flanders
It is a well-worn, and slightly patronizing, cliché that behind every great man lies a great woman. However, in the case of Joanna of Flanders (1295-1374), this could not be more true. A noblewoman by birth, in 1329 she married John of Montfort. When his half-brother died childless, John proclaimed himself Duke of Brittany, but not everyone agreed, beginning the War of the Breton Succession, which lasted between 1341 and 1365. When John travelled to Paris to seek the king’s support, he was imprisoned, but his bellicose wife simply named her infant son as Montfort leader, and got to work.
Having secured the assistance of Edward III of England, Joanna incredibly took up arms, donned armor, and travelled to Hennebont in 1342, where she expected a siege from the rival to Brittany, Charles of Blois. Standing on a watchtower, Joanna noticed that Charles’s camp was unguarded, and led a force of 300 men to burn the camp to ashes. Cut off from Hennebont by the enemy when they realized what was happening, she snuck back into it with reinforcements, rather than escape, and held the commune until Edward III’s army arrived to buttress her forces, and the siege was defeated.
Joanna then sailed to England to gather support, but her returning fleet was intercepted in the Channel by Blois’s allies. Joanna was equal to the task, according to the chronicler, Froissart: ‘with the heart of a lion, in her hand she wielded a sharp glaive, wherewith she fought fiercely’. She continued her campaign even after Montfort’s death in 1345, capturing Charles in 1347, but Edward III’s ambitions in Brittany saw Joanna imprisoned in England by her former ally. Nonetheless, she lived long enough in comfortable conditions to see her son, John, finally defeat the House of Blois in 1364.