Battle of Winchelsea (1350)
Who Fought
English: 50 ships commanded by King Edward III. Castilian: 47 ships commanded by Charles de la Cerda.
History & Significance
The Battle of Winchelsea or the Battle of Les Espagnols sur Mer ("the Spaniards on the Sea") was a naval battle that took place on 29 August 1350 as part of the Hundred Years' War between England and France. It was a victory for an English fleet of 50 ships, commanded by King Edward III, over a Castilian fleet of 47 larger vessels, commanded by Charles de la Cerda. Between 14 and 26 Castilian ships were captured, and several were sunk. Only two English vessels are known to have been sunk, but there was a significant loss of life.
England's trade, its war finance and its ability to bring force to bear against France were heavily reliant on seaborne transportation, especially to its territory in Gascony. With their own ability to raise and support a fleet much reduced by English activities, the French hired Castilian ships to blockade English ports. Frustrated by their effectiveness, Edward III led the fleet that intercepted them and inflicted heavy losses. In spite of that success, English trade and ports saw little relief from naval harassment by the French and their allies.
Since the Norman Conquest of 1066, English monarchs had held titles and lands within France, the possession of which made them vassals of the kings of France. Over the centuries, English holdings in France had varied in size, but by 1337 only Gascony in south-western France and Ponthieu in northern France were left. Following a series of disagreements between Philip VI of France and Edward III of England, on 24 May Philip's Great Council in Paris agreed that the Duchy of Aquitaine, effectively Gascony, should be taken back into Philip's hands on the grounds that Edward was in breach of his obligations as a vassal. This marked the start of the Hundred Years' War, which was to last one hundred and sixteen years.
Throughout the early part of the war English coastal areas were harassed by French raids. The port towns of Portsmouth, Southampton, Hastings and Plymouth were captured and razed, as were many smaller places. Numerous English merchant ships, and several warships, were captured. In June 1340 Edward III smashed the French fleet at the Battle of Sluys. In 1346 the English landed in northern Normandy and undertook a devastating chevauchée through northern France. The English navy paralleled the march of the army, capturing or burning large numbers of French warships and merchant vessels as it went. Thereafter the threat from the French navy was much reduced. The English then soundly beat the French at the Battle of Crécy and captured the major French port city of Calais. The Truce of Calais was agreed in September 1347 but the war continued via raids and guerrilla warfare; the ongoing fighting was "almost constant".
The ground they fought on
The site of Battle of Winchelsea (1350) lies on Wealden Group, bedrock that formed in the Barremian. The rock here is sandstone and siltstone, interbedded.
One of the most striking features of the campaign is the sheer ferocity of Charles de la Cerda's operations before the battle. He had converted his 47 merchantmen into warships by fitting wooden castles, raised fighting platforms, at the bow and stern of each vessel, and erecting crow's nest fighting platforms at the mastheads, giving his fleet a formidable height advantage over English shipping. Despite having been technically dismissed by Philip VI of France when the June 1350 truce specifically named the Castilians and stopped their pay, de la Cerda's men simply continued raiding as pirates, swelling their ranks with several hundred Flemish adventurers motivated entirely by plunder. Edward III then chose to meet this larger, better-armed fleet with 50 ships all smaller than most of the Castilian vessels, sailing in person alongside two of his sons and the flower of English nobility, in a deliberate and personal confrontation on the open sea.
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