Adam de Blencow, Royal Standard-bearer?

The tradition that Adam de Blencow had been the King’s standard-bearer at the Battle of Crécy has been around for a long time, but in Chapter 1 of our book Jill Dudbridge showed that Adam would have been in the wrong place on the date of the battle. Moreover, it appears that the family tradition was itself different and confused. About 1670, in an obituary of Christopher Blencowe, the Rev. Gabriel Smallwood wrote of:

‘Adam Blencowe, Standard Bearer to that Heroick Person Ralph Baron of Greystock … Major Generall to King Henry the 5th at the famous battle at Agincourt.’

A footnote in a later hand, probably by William Blencowe in about 1715:

‘The Author has mistaken the Family Tradi­tion Concerning this Adam Blencowe — For Adam de Blencowe, whom he means, lived in King Ed: 3ds Time, and it was at the famous Battles of Cressy and Poie­tiers that he was en­gaged, (and not Agin­court, as he relates), and that as Standard Bearer to William Baron of Greystock, not Ralph; as appears by authentick Evidences now remaining in the Custody of the said Family of Blencowe.’

Some indication of what really happened can be learnt from a royal pardon granted to Adam:

‘for his good services in Gascony in company of Henry, earl of Lancaster of the King’s suit for all felonies and trespasses in Cumberland before the passage of the Earl to the said parts, whereof he is appealed, and of any subsequent out­lawries’. (It appears that Adam had taken possession of lands that had been in Scottish ownership without paying the appropriate fines or dues to the Crown.)

In a review made in 1737 of papers in the ‘Blencowe Evidence Chest’ (now held at the County Records Office in Lancaster) a lawyer of the day wrote:

‘These Letters patent being dated at Calis ... very much fall in with if not confirm, the Family Tradition, that this Adam de Blencowe was Standard Bearer to the said William Baron de Greystock … at the famous Battle of Cressy fought August 24th 1346; for these Letters pat­ent bearing date 1347, in June being 21st year of the said King, must have been granted whilst the King lay with his army before Calis, which he then besieged, & which surrendered to him the 4th of August then following upon which he returned to England October and confirmed these letters patent at Westminster on the 22nd day of January following as aforesaid.’

Adam was a vassal of Greystoke and the latter a vassal of Henry of Lancaster so, if we can trace the movements of Lancaster we may be able to get a better idea of what really happened, for both Greystoke and Adam were most probably with him. It’s clear that Lan­caster was in Gascony in southwest France on the day Crécy was fought. Ten years later, on 19 September 1356, his army was stuck on the north side of the river Loire whilst the Poitiers battle was being fought a dozen miles to the south. However, dates and names can be confusing: until the 18thC New Year started from Easter, so what we think of as January 1348 was 1347 at that time. Whilst it is convenient to speak of ’Lancaster’, one of the most formidable warriors in English history, we need to note that he was named ‘Henry of Grosmont’ (his birthplace near the south east border of Wales), then he became Earl of Derby, before inheriting his father’s Earldom of Lancaster which was subsequently raised to a Dukedom. Some historians have a distressing habit of mentioning ‘Derby’ in one paragraph and ‘Lancaster’ in the next (or even vice versa!).

‘The Crécy War’ by Lt-Col Alfred Burne, a book by a soldier written for soldiers, follows Lancaster’s campaigns giving details of men and weapons, dates of engagements, and distances marched as well as episodes of battle. He gives a calendar of Lancaster’s movements with his troops in Gascony (the south-west of present day France, territory that the English King had inherited as a result of the marriage of Henry II to Eleanor of Aquitaine) and we can compare the dates with those of the King’s armies movements further to the north.

Henry of Lancaster landed at Bayonne near the Spanish border on 6th June 1345, by 14th June he was in Bordeaux, then a city as large as London, whence he set of on a campaign of conquest (and pillage!). By 26th August he had captured Bergerac in the Dordogne; after returning to Bordeaux he set out on a second campaign and Auberoche fell in October. In the spring and summer of the next year he was fighting further south and was at Villereal between the valleys of the Dordogne and Lot on 27th August 1346.

A third campaign started from Bordeaux on 4th September when the army moved north. Arriving at Poitiers on 4th October after a march of 15 miles, the city refused to surrender; it was attacked immediately and sacked. Lancaster was back in Bordeaux by the end of the month, sailed to England later in the year, landed there on 1st January and reached London two weeks later. On 14th January he visited King David of Scotland who had been defeated and captured at the Battle of Neville’s Cross on 17th October and was imprisoned in the Tower of London.

Meanwhile, Edward III was besieging Calais and called for reinforcements from England. Lancaster and Greystoke were reported in action at Calais on 7th & 24th July and Adam had received his ‘letter patent’ from the King at Calais in June.

It has taken me a long time to get to the point, but Col. Burne describes the capture in October 1346 ‘of the historic city of Poitiers, which gave its name to three famous battles’. As Lancaster, and pre­sumably Greystoke and Adam, were not at Crécy in 1346 or Poitiers in 1356, is it not possible that the battle at which Adam excelled himself as Greystoke’s standard bearer and was commended for ‘his good services in Gascony’ was the first Battle of Poitiers in 1346?