Battle of La Rochelle

This article is about the 1372 Castilian-English naval battle. For the Hanseatic-Flemish-Castilian battle, see Battle of La Rochelle (1419). For other uses, see Battle of La Rochelle (disambiguation).

Battle of La Rochelle
Part of the Caroline phase of the Hundred Years' War

The naval battle of La Rochelle, chronicle of Jean Froissart, 15th century.
Date22–23 June 1372
Location
off La Rochelle
46°09′30″N 01°13′40″W / 46.15833°N 1.22778°W / 46.15833; -1.22778
Result Castilian victory[1]
Belligerents
England Castile
Commanders and leaders
Earl of Pembroke  (POW) Ambrosio Boccanegra
Strength
14–57 ships and barges[1][2][3] 22 ships[1][4]
Casualties and losses
48 ships sunk or captured[1]
400 knights and 8,000 soldiers captured[1]
Whole fleet sunk or captured[1][5]
800 men killed
Between 160 and 400 knights prisoners[5]		 Minor

The Battle of La Rochelle was a naval battle fought on 22 and 23 June 1372[6] between a Castilian fleet commanded by the Castilian Almirant Ambrosio Boccanegra and an English fleet commanded by John Hastings, 2nd Earl of Pembroke. The Castilian fleet had been sent to attack the English at La Rochelle, which was being besieged by the French. Besides Boccanegra, other Castilian commanders were Cabeza de Vaca, Fernando de Peón and Ruy Díaz de Rojas.[7]

Pembroke had been dispatched to the town with a small retinue of 160 soldiers, £12,000 and instructions to use the money to recruit an army of 3,000 soldiers around Aquitaine for at least four months.[8] The strength of the fleet is estimated as between the 12 galleys given by the Castilian chronicler and naval captain López de Ayala and the 40 sailing ships, of which three ships were warships and 13 barges mentioned by the French chronicler Jean Froissart. Probably it consisted of 22 ships, mainly galleys and some naos (carracks) three- or four-masted ocean sailing ships. The English fleet probably consisted of 32 ships and 17 small barges of about 50 tons.[9]

The Castilian victory was complete and the entire English fleet was captured or destroyed. On his return to the Iberian Peninsula, Boccanegra seized another four English ships off Bordeaux.[10] This defeat undermined English seaborne trade and supplies through the English Channel and threatened their Gascon possessions.[11]

  1. ^ a b c d e f Fernández Duro 1894, p. 130.
  2. ^ Sherborne & Tuck 1994, p. 42.
  3. ^ Hill & Ranft 2002, p. 11.
  4. ^ Sherborne & Tuck 1994, p. 43.
  5. ^ a b Sherborne & Tuck 1994, p. 44.
  6. ^ Sherborne, J. W. (1969). "The Battle of La Rochelle and the War at Sea, 1372-5". Historical Research. 42 (105): 17–29. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2281.1969.tb02322.x. ISSN 1468-2281.
  7. ^ Nicolas, Sir Nicholas Harris (1847). A History of the Royal Navy: 1327-1422. R. Bentley. pp. 142–44.
  8. ^ Sherborne & Tuck 1994, p. 41.
  9. ^ Luce 1862, pp. 232–234; De Smet 1856, p. 259.
  10. ^ "1372 Combate Naval de la Rochelle". Melilla, Mar y Medioambiente (in Spanish). 23 February 2021. Retrieved 24 May 2022.
  11. ^ Cite error: The named reference :1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).