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Archiver > WARWICK > 1999-05 > 0926010639


From: "Michael Bruff" <>
Subject: Re: KNIGHTS OF OLD
Date: Thu, 06 May 1999 18:10:39 +0100


Hi Sharon

'fraid I have to concur with Trevor. I suspect there could be an element of
romancing here. The history, however is as follows.

The only 'official' English expedition to Spain was in the 1360s, after the
Treaty of Bretigny put the Hundred Years War on hold. Edward the Black
Prince led an army in support of Pedro the Cruel, King of Castile, who was
fighting his bastard half-brother Henry of Trastamare for the throne. Pedro
was the kind of man his nickname suggests, whereas Henry was apparently a
decent sort; however, Pedro promised Edward vast amounts of money, and Henry
was supported by the French, so Edward's scruples (not that he had too many)
went out of the window. Of course, the war's being in Spain allowed him to
have a pop at the French without breaking the treaty.

Henry and his commanders ignored the advice of their allies (who'd learned
their lessons the hard way at Crecy and Poitiers) that launching a cavalry
charge against massed longbowmen supported by dismounted knights was *not* a
good idea, with predictable results. Henry's army was comprehensively
trashed at the battle of Najera and Pedro got his throne back.

He then revealed he had no money to pay Edward, who promptly took his army
back to Aquitaine in high dudgeon. Henry and his allies rallied, and
defeated and killed Pedro.

English knights might also have gone to Spain to fight for the kings of
Castile and Aragon in the reconquista.

There are in fact lists of the Knights of Edward 1, seventy years earlier,
in the SOG, and maybe others too. But knights' widows didn't end up in the
workhouse, because there weren't any workhouses in the 14th century.

Sorry, Sharon, it's a good story, but I fear that story is all it is.

Mick Bruff

London

----------
> Sharon Rogalsky wrote:
>>
>> Listers - does anyone know if there were knights to Lady Warwick who
>> were killed fighting in Spain? If so, when that would have been? And is
>> there any way to know the names of those knights? Our family story says
>> when he was killed, his wife and children were put into the workhouse at
>> Meriden. Make sense to anyone?
>>
>> Again, checking accuracy before I transcribe and pass written memoirs of
>> my great grandfather (1930's) on to family members.
>>
>> Many thanks.
>>
> Dear Sharon (& All),
>
> Muddled thinking, I fear.
> "Knights fighting", &c, sounds mediaeval (said period ended, in England,
> in 1485), whereas Workhouses weren't established until 1824(?).
> Cheers,
> Trevor
>
>
>
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> http://birmingham.gov.uk/genealogy
>

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