The Battle of Castillon (1453): The End of the Hundred Years’ War
- Davit Grigoryan
- Sep 8
- 10 min read
It was a hot July day in 1453 when cannon fire thundered near the small town of Castillon-la-Bataille in Gascony, forever changing the course of European history. On the seventeenth of that month, it was not just another clash in a long and exhausting conflict — it was the final battle of the Hundred Years’ War.
The outcome marked a bitter end to England’s ambitions in France and signaled the dawn of a new military era. Victory on that field was not decided by the valor of longbowmen or the strength of lances, but by the deafening power of field artillery, which for the first time truly reigned as the queen of battle.
The death of the renowned commander John Talbot and the subsequent surrender of Bordeaux put a definitive end to decades of struggle. Though no formal peace treaty was signed, the conclusion was absolute and irreversible.
Background: The English Return to Bordeaux and Charles VII’s Response
To fully grasp the importance of the Battle of Castillon, we need to step back a few years. By then, it seemed the war was all but lost for England. After their crushing defeat at Formigny in 1450 and the fall of Normandy, the English held only a small fragment of land on the continent — Gascony, once the heart of their vast possessions.
This region, bound to England for centuries through the wine trade and close cultural ties, was not ready to quietly submit to the rule of the French king. The local elite, long accustomed to broad autonomy under the comparatively light hand of the English crown, looked back with longing to the old days. Their resentment of Charles VII’s new taxes and rigid policies became the spark that ignited the final blaze of the war.
That spark was skillfully seized by the seasoned warrior John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury. In 1452, he landed in Guyenne at the head of a three-thousand-strong army. He was not received as a conqueror, but as a liberator. The gates of Bordeaux swung open before him, and other towns soon followed. For a moment, it seemed as if the old dream had come back to life.
Yet this return was more like a splendid but fleeting performance. England’s resources were nearly exhausted, and the Gascon support, though enthusiastic, proved shallow. Talbot briefly managed to restore control, but it was a desperate last surge rather than a triumphant comeback.
Charles VII, later known as the Victorious, did not allow himself to panic. He had learned from past mistakes and understood that solving the Gascon question once and for all required more than a simple military campaign — it demanded an unstoppable, methodical force.
The winter of 1452–53 was spent in careful preparation at the French court. The king placed his greatest bet on artillery. Instead of entrusting the task to a noble commander of the old aristocracy, he turned to his finest specialists — Jean Bureau and his brother Gaspard. Jean Bureau, master of artillery, was a genius of organization and engineering. Under his direction, France built the most powerful and mobile artillery force in Europe.
This was not an unwieldy collection of a few giant bombards, but hundreds of standardized guns of varying calibers — weapons that could be moved quickly and deliver devastating fire. In the spring of 1453, this well-equipped and well-supplied army marched south to cut Gascony off from England once and for all. Their first target was the modest fortress of Castillon, whose siege would become the trap that lured Talbot to his doom.
Forces and Strategies: Talbot vs. Bureau
Beneath the walls of Castillon, it was not merely two armies that faced each other, but two fundamentally different approaches to war — the fading age of knightly valor and the dawning era of cold technological calculation.
On one side stood the living symbol of old England, the seventy-year-old John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury. A celebrated warrior whose very name had struck terror into French hearts decades earlier, he embodied personal bravery and relentless assault. His strength lay in his reputation, in his loyal longbowmen hardened by countless skirmishes, and in his own refusal to accept that the rules of warfare had changed.
His army, hastily assembled in Bordeaux, was relatively small — estimates range from five to seven thousand men, consisting mostly of Gascon allies and English veterans. Their power rested in speed and morale, relying on the traditional tactic of massed longbow fire followed by a furious hand-to-hand charge.
Opposing them was a new kind of war machine, shaped by the methodical mind of Jean Bureau. Officially, the French army was commanded by a committee of noble generals, including the king’s own son-in-law. Yet the true architect of victory was Bureau, the artillery master who transformed cannons from mere instruments of siege into the decisive power of battlefield combat.
His force, numbering around seven to nine thousand men, included professional gendarmes and the ordonnance companies — a permanent army created through Charles VII’s reforms. But the true star of this host was not the cavalry, but the artillery park. Contemporary accounts suggest the Bureau commanded anywhere from three hundred to seven hundred guns of various calibers — from massive bombards to lighter culverins. This was not simply a heap of iron, but a carefully organized system designed for maximum effectiveness.
The strategies of the two sides could not have been more different. The French did not set up a traditional open camp. Instead, the Bureau, making clever use of the terrain at the junction of the Dordogne and Lidoire rivers, ordered the construction of a fortified field stronghold.
It was a masterpiece of military engineering: a camp protected by a deep ditch and a palisade, reinforced with earthen ramparts on which cannons were mounted. Its elongated rectangular shape allowed for flanking fire against any advancing infantry. One flank was securely shielded by the Lidoire River.
The Bureau’s plan was simple yet brilliant: force the enemy to attack a prepared, deadly position.
Talbot, by contrast, relied on speed and surprise. His goal was a rapid march to Castillon, the crushing of the besieging forces, and the relief of the town. His fatal mistake came from haste, fueled by false reports.
As the vanguard of his army approached the woods near the French camp, they encountered a detachment of French archers. Following orders, the archers engaged briefly and then staged a disorderly retreat toward the camp. To Talbot, the sight of the enemy in flight was the signal for a general attack. Convinced that the French had been caught off guard and were fleeing, he hurled his main forces against the fortifications without waiting for the rest of his army and supply train.
This decision, driven by the instincts of the old school, led his men straight into the devastating fire of the Bureau’s artillery.
The Course of the Battle, July 17, 1453: Assault and Counterattack
Early on the morning of July 17, the vanguard of the English army, commanded by Talbot, reached the wooded hills east of Castillon. Reconnaissance reported that an advanced detachment of French archers was positioned at the forest’s edge. Wasting no time, Talbot ordered an attack.
The English easily routed the enemy, who, offering minimal resistance, began a hasty retreat toward their camp. This maneuver was part of the Bureau’s carefully crafted plan — to create the illusion of panic and disorder in the minds of the attackers.
Seeing the French fleeing, the elderly earl made a fatal error. Convinced that the enemy had been caught off guard and was faltering, he commanded his main forces to charge immediately, without waiting for the rest of his army or, critically, his artillery train. He was confident that he could now crush the demoralized enemy in the open field.
But instead of a chaotic camp, Talbot was confronted by a silent, battle-ready fortress. A long ditch, palisade, and earthen rampart concealed the true threat — dozens of cannons, their crews frozen in wait. Confident of victory, the English advanced in tight formations.
At that moment, the quiet of the summer morning was shattered by a deafening roar. From the ramparts, grapeshot rained down on the attackers. This was no scattered fire, but a planned, deadly barrage. The iron hail mowed down the advancing troops, tearing wide gaps in their ranks. The field before the camp was instantly transformed into a bloody slaughter, strewn with the dead and wounded.
Yet the first devastating volley did not halt the attack. The English longbowmen, displaying remarkable courage and discipline, tried to respond with their famous volleys, but their arrows were stopped by the earthen ramparts and palisades, causing little damage to the sheltered artillery crews and gendarmes.
Wave after wave, the English and Gascons charged the fortifications, but each new assault was crushed under the methodical, unrelenting fire of the French guns. Realizing he had made a grave mistake, Talbot desperately tried to turn the tide, committing incoming reinforcements to the fight. But by then, the situation was beyond recovery.
The climax of the battle came with the arrival of fresh forces — the Breton heavy cavalry under Jean de Bueil. Seeing that the main English forces were completely bogged down in futile assaults on the camp, the cavalry struck a devastating blow to their flank and rear. This maneuver became the final nail in the coffin for the English.
The advancing ranks collapsed into chaos, and panic set in. In the confusion, the old lion of England met his end. Talbot’s horse was struck by grapeshot, throwing him to the ground, and he was finished off by a French soldier who did not even recognize the famed commander.
Talbot’s death shattered the morale of his army. The remaining English forces fled, and the next day, the demoralized garrison of Castillon, stripped of any hope of relief, surrendered.
Results and Consequences: The Fall of Bordeaux and the End of the War
The defeat at Castillon and the death of Talbot were not merely a military loss; they dealt a crushing blow to the very possibility of an English presence in Gascony. News of the disaster spread across the region instantly, sowing panic and paralyzing any will to resist. The town of Castillon, for whose salvation Talbot had launched his fateful attack, surrendered the very next day, on July 18. Its fall became the first link in a chain of inevitable losses.
The road to Bordeaux, the jewel of English holdings on the continent, was now open. The powerful French army, emboldened by victory, advanced methodically and inexorably toward the capital of Guyenne. The siege of Bordeaux was not swift — the townspeople, remembering their recent sympathies for the English and fearing royal retribution, prepared for defense. Yet, without outside support and an army capable of relieving the city, their fate was sealed.
After three months of siege, exhausted and bereft of hope, they opened the gates to Charles VII on October 19, 1453. This was the final surrender. Unlike the events of 1452, this time the French king was merciless: the English garrison was expelled, the city’s privileges curtailed, and the inhabitants faced the threat of harsh reprisals for their allegiance. Guyenne, a bastion of English influence for centuries, ceased to exist as an English possession.
Strategically, the Battle of Castillon and the subsequent loss of Aquitaine drew a definitive line under the Hundred Years’ War. Remarkably, no formal peace treaty was ever signed to confirm this outcome. The war simply ended, having exhausted itself.
England, torn by internal strife that would soon erupt into the Wars of the Roses, was powerless to launch another major expedition to the continent. Of all its vast holdings in French lands, only the port of Calais remained — a painful symbol of past ambitions that would endure for another century.
For France, however, this victory meant far more than a military success. It marked the conclusion of a long and painful process of national consolidation and the strengthening of royal authority. Charles VII the Victorious became the ruler of a truly unified state, with borders that largely corresponded to those of modern France.
But the most significant outcome of Castillon lay in the realm of military technology. This battle served as a vivid lesson for all of Europe. It demonstrated that artillery was no longer merely a siege tool used to breach walls. It had become a decisive force on the battlefield, capable of single-handedly destroying even the most valiant army.
Victory was not won in open combat alone, but through the skillful combination of powerful artillery and a fortified field position — a precursor to the complex engineered defenses that would dominate future battles. The tactic of bold knightly charges, which had dominated European warfare for centuries, was finally replaced by cold calculation, engineering mastery, and overwhelming firepower. Castillon marked the sunset of medieval warfare and the dawn of a new, far more terrifying and impersonal era.
FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions About the Battle of Castillon
Why is the Battle of Castillon considered the end of the Hundred Years’ War?
Although no formal peace treaty was signed, the Battle of Castillon effectively brought the conflict to a close for several reasons. England lost its last major territory on the continent — Guyenne, with Bordeaux as its capital, the very region it had fought to hold for decades. After the crushing defeat and the death of its finest commander, the English crown lacked both the resources and the political will to organize new large-scale invasions.
The country soon became engulfed in its own internal conflict — the Wars of the Roses — which finally buried any plans for revenge. In this way, the war simply exhausted itself, and Castillon became its logical and definitive military conclusion.
What role did Jean Bureau’s artillery play?
The artillery under Jean Bureau played an absolutely decisive and innovative role. Bureau did not simply bring a few cannons to the battlefield; he created a true field fortress, where the artillery was fully integrated into the defensive system. His guns, positioned behind earthen ramparts and palisades, delivered devastating flanking and direct grapeshot fire against the advancing infantry.
This was one of the first instances in European history where field artillery was not a supporting tool, but the main striking force, determining the outcome of the entire battle on its own. The Bureau’s tactics marked a true revolution in military strategy.
Who was John Talbot, and how did he die?
John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, was the most famous and feared English commander of his time, a living legend of the Hundred Years’ War. By 1453, he was over seventy, yet his reputation as a fearless and fierce warrior remained unshakable.
His death at Castillon was both symbolic and tragic. In the heat of battle, his horse was struck by grapeshot, throwing him to the ground. Short in stature and clad in heavy armor, he could not rise quickly. In this vulnerable position, he was caught by French soldiers. According to one account, he was recognized and killed because of his distinctive equipment. His death not only demoralized his army but also symbolized the end of an entire era of knightly valor, crushed under the force of new technologies.
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