Bertrand du Guesclin (1320 – 1380)
He may be an obscure figure to those who are unfamiliar with medieval French history (which I suspect would be most of us), but Bertrand du Guesclin was one of France’s greatest ever warriors and the finest knight of his age. Born into minor Breton nobility, Bertrand entered his first tournament in the nearby town of Renne aged just 17. Short of stature and physically rather ugly, upon his arrival he was mercilessly mocked by the other knights at the tournament and barred from entering. He did, however, manage to enter the jousts in disguise, and achieved the amazing feat of unhorsing 15 well-trained, fully armored knights in the day’s events.
Bertrand was destined for greater things than winning tournaments though. As an active knight throughout the Hundred Years War, he took part in many battles. He won a great number of them, most notably at Cocherel in 1364 against the French pretender to the throne Charles of Navarre, and against the English at Limoges in 1370. That was the same year, in fact, that Bertrand was granted the most prestigious military title in the realm: Constable of France. His leadership during the Hundred Years War consisted of exercising effective hit-and-run tactics, avoiding engaging the English in many pitched battles.
In 1357 Bertrand participated in one of the most fundamentally chivalric acts of personal prowess there was: a duel. When Thomas of Canterbury took Bertrand’s brother captive after attacking his hometown of Dinan, Bertrand in his rage challenged him to a duel. Thomas accepted and the two men donned armour and lances and mounted their horses. They fought on horseback, first with lances and then with swords, until Thomas was disarmed. Bertrand then dismounted his horse, killed Thomas’s from under him, and while the English knight was lying on the ground Bertrand punched him squarely in the face with his iron gauntlet, thus ending the duel.
Bertrand spent his final years leading smaller military campaigns against the old English enemy. As a man who had committed his life to warfare, it was almost fitting that he died on campaign, succumbing to an unknown illness while his forces were besieging the town of Chateauneuf-de-Randon. Testament to the high regard his contemporaries held him in, Bertrand du Guesclin was buried among the tombs of the French royalty in Paris’s Basilica of St Denis.