Chivalric Competition, Military Organisation and Edward IV’s French Campaign of 1475

Historians have been dismissive of the significance of the 1475 French campaign. Edward IV, it is argued, was never serious about restarting the Hundred Years War. The lack of support forthcoming from Charles, duke of Burgundy, provided him with a convenient excuse to make a profitable and honourable peace. Moreover, assembling the largest expeditionary army of the fifteenth century revealed, we are told, deep-rooted weaknesses in England’s military capabilities, as well as a wide reluctance among the landowning classes to support Plantagenet ambitions overseas. This essay will concentrate on the changes in military equipment and organisation apparent in the English preparations for the French expedition. It will argue that it was an opportunity for Edward IV to showcase a ‘new model’ army, organised in a similar manner to that of the Burgundians, but in which military service and chivalric identity were reshaped under royal leadership. By transforming traditional English forms of military organisation and tactics and by self-conscious chivalric display and competition with the French and Burgundians, Edward attempted to draw a line under the civil conflict of the past two decades and restate England’s position with the princely states of Western Europe.