Geoffroy d\' Harcourt

Geoffroy d' Harcourt , known as “the Lame one”, baron of Saint-Saver-the-Viscount, died with Coutances in November 1356, was the instigator of the first English invasion of the Normandy at the time of the Guerre One hundred Year old. It was one of the most powerful lords of Normandy.

Fallen in disgrace in August 1344 near Philippe de Valois for an unknown reason, Geoffroy d' Harcourt was withdrawn on its grounds of Flandres where it found his cousin the duke Jean III of the Brabant, then in England where it put at the service of the king Edouard III to which it made homage as king de France and which it encouraged to invade the Normandy in 1346 at the beginning of the Guerre One hundred Year old.

Edouard III promised to give it in possession of his grounds to Normandy and commander did it, with the marshal of England count of Warwick, of one of the three army corps which it sent to this occasion in France. He also appointed it marshal of England in 1346.

He took the town of Caen and he was one of the authors of the English victory to the Bataille of Crécy where his/her own brother Jean IV of Harcourt, governor of Rouen, found death in the French rows. Froissart tells this episode in its chronicles: It is quite true that lord Godefroi d' Harcourt, which was of the prince and in his battle, have readily put sorrow and heard so that the count d' Harcourt, his brother, had been saved; because it had yes with English aucuns that one had seen his banner, and that it with its people had come to fight with English. But lord Geoffroy who been able there says it to come in time, and was death on the place says it count, and also the count d' Aumale, his nephew.

The evening of the battle, Geoffroy d' Harcourt thus recognized the bodies of his brother and his nephew killed in the French rows. Whereas it had been one of the principal craftsmen of the English victory, the remorse pushed it to join the French camp.

He was forgiven by the king of France, Philippe VI, which did it in 1347 captain-sovereign of Rouen and Caen, with authorization raising taxes and troops. Edouard III confiscated his goods then to him.

In 1356, the king Jean II of France made stop then carrying out his nephew Jean V of Harcourt for treason. The king was indeed exceeded by the friendship which linked king de Navarre, the dolphin (future Charles V) and the count d' Harcourt. Geoffroy d' Harcourt escaped from accuracy from the ambush tended by the king at the time of the banquet of Rouen, to which it was also invited.

To avenge its nephew, it fought then again in the English army and made Edouard III his legatee for the fortress which it held with Saint-Saver. Isolated at the time of the Battle from Coutances, he preferred to rather sell dearly his life while fighting until death than to let itself capture.

See too

House of Harcourt

References

Jean Mabire, the saga of Godefroy the Lame one, ED. Copernic, 1980
Jean Froissart, chronicles of lord Jean Froissart , ED. F. Wattelier, 1867
Gregoire Jacques Lange, Éphémérides Normans, or, chronological, historical and monumental Collection on Normandy , 1833

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