Qualla: Battle of Ardres https://qualla.com/battle-of-ardres en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:32 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: Battle of Ardres https://qualla.com/battle-of-ardres Battle of Ardres: Introduction https://qualla.com/battle-of-ardres/ John de Beauchamp had done what a raiding commander was supposed to do. He had taken three hundred men-at-arms and three hundred mounted archers out from the Calais garrison and the Saint-Omer area, gathered plunder, fought off two French ambushes, and turned back for home with his wounded. On the way north, on the road back toward Calais, the French caught him. Fifteen hundred French men-at-arms, fresh, mounted, organised. Beauchamp, military governor of Calais, knew his force could not outrun them. So on 8 June 1351, in a bend of a river near the English-held town of Ardres, he chose his ground.

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]]> Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/1/3/battle-of-ardres-wp/u113-battle-of-ardres-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Battle of Ardres: The geography of a stand https://qualla.com/battle-of-ardres/ What Beauchamp wanted was a position that turned cavalry numbers against themselves. He found one. A river bend, a wide ditch in front of his line, marshes that constrained the approach. The French would not be able to bring all fifteen hundred men-at-arms to bear at once. He sen...

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]]> Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/1/3/battle-of-ardres-wp/u113-battle-of-ardres-the-geography-of-a-stand.mp3 0:06 2 full Battle of Ardres: Out of arrows https://qualla.com/battle-of-ardres/ An English defensive position in the mid-fourteenth century lived and died by its archers. The longbow had broken the French at Crecy in 1346 and would break them again at Poitiers in 1356; it was the weapon that made small English forces dangerous to large French ones. Beauchamp...

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]]> Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/1/3/battle-of-ardres-wp/u113-battle-of-ardres-out-of-arrows.mp3 0:06 3 full Battle of Ardres: Capture https://qualla.com/battle-of-ardres/ Beauchamp himself was taken, along with many of his men. The medieval custom of ransom meant that capture of a knight was, in business terms, an investment rather than an execution; the French commanders had reason to want him alive. The infantry on both sides were treated differ...

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]]> Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/1/3/battle-of-ardres-wp/u113-battle-of-ardres-capture.mp3 0:06 4 full Battle of Ardres: What the Calais garrison did not know https://qualla.com/battle-of-ardres/ The aftermath was the most dangerous moment for the English in northern France. A significant portion of the Calais garrison's mobile strength had just been killed or captured in a single afternoon. The Pale of Calais sat on a narrow ring of fortifications around the city - Guine...

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]]> Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/1/3/battle-of-ardres-wp/u113-battle-of-ardres-what-the-calais-garrison-did-not-know.mp3 0:06 5 full Battle of Ardres: A footnote that mattered https://qualla.com/battle-of-ardres/ The Battle of Ardres did not change the war. It did not even change Calais - the town remained English for another two centuries. But it is one of the rare reminders that English dominance in the early Hundred Years' War was not automatic. Crecy and Poitiers tell a story of longb...

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]]> Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/1/3/battle-of-ardres-wp/u113-battle-of-ardres-a-footnote-that-mattered.mp3 0:06 6 full