Bertrand du Guesclin, the Eagle of Brittany: the knight, his coat of arms and our 28mm model

Bertrand du Guesclin was a famously plain-faced Breton who fought his way from minor gentry to Constable of France, helped put a king on the throne of Castile, was captured several times (twice for famous ransoms), and ended up buried among the kings of France at Saint-Denis. Our 28mm Bertrand du Guesclin, Mounted from Reconquer Designs wears his coat of arms twice, on his shield and all over his horse's caparison. This is his story, what every part of those arms means (and what it doesn't), what you can see on the model, and how to paint the eagle, the silver and the red.

Lived

About 1320 to 1380

Nicknames

The Eagle of Brittany, the Black Dog of Brocéliande

Fought

Cocherel, Auray, Nájera, Montiel

Our model

28mm, mounted, Reconquer Designs

Who was Bertrand du Guesclin?

He was born around 1320 at the castle of La Motte-Broons, near Dinan in Brittany, the eldest son of a minor noble family. The 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica puts it bluntly: he was "remarkable for ugliness", disliked by his parents, and said never to have learned to read or write. What he could do was fight. Later writers gave him the nicknames "the Eagle of Brittany" and "the Black Dog of Brocéliande" (Wikipedia); we haven't found when either name was first used, so don't assume his own men called him that.

He first made his name at a tournament in Rennes in the late 1330s, held for the marriage of Charles of Blois and Jeanne de Penthièvre, where he unseated some of the best-known jousters there (the 1911 entry says 1338; the marriage itself is usually dated 1337). If you want that moment on the table, our Jousting and Tournament Scene and the charging pair in 14th Century Knights Clashing are the place to start.

For the next twenty years he was a captain in the long wars between France and England and the War of the Breton Succession, fighting more often in ambushes, raids and sieges than in great battles. Being captured was part of the job: the 1911 entry has him taken prisoner by Sir Robert Knollys after the siege of Melun in 1359 and "again made prisoner in 1360". His two big days came in 1364:

• Cocherel, 16 May 1364: he beat the army of Charles II of Navarre on the banks of the Eure and captured its commander, Jean de Grailly, the Captal de Buch (Britannica, Hundred Years' War).
• Auray, 29 September 1364: the side he fought for lost, Charles of Blois was killed, and Bertrand was taken prisoner by the English captain Sir John Chandos (Battle of Auray; 1911 Britannica). Sources give different sums for his ransom: modern Britannica says 40,000 gold francs, the 1911 edition 100,000 crowns. Either way, he was worth a fortune alive.

Why did a French knight fight in Castile?

Castile was in the middle of a civil war. King Peter I, called "the Cruel" by his enemies, was being challenged by his illegitimate half-brother, Henry of Trastámara. France backed Henry; England backed Peter. In 1366 Bertrand led the Free Companies into Spain for Henry. These were bands of out-of-work soldiers who had been living off the French countryside since the fighting with England paused, so sending them south also took them out of France. Henry was crowned at Burgos that year (Britannica, Henry II) and made Bertrand Count of Trastámara and, says the 1911 Britannica, Constable of Castile. Treat that last title with care: the office of Constable of Castile as a formal post was created by John I in 1382, two years after Bertrand died. Older books often call him "Constable of France and Castile", but only the French title is beyond doubt. Peter fled to Gascony to ask the English for help (Britannica, Peter). We tell Henry's side of the war in Henry of Trastámara: brothers at war.

Nájera, 3 April 1367

Peter came back with Edward the Black Prince and an Anglo-Gascon army. At Nájera (the English called it Navarrete) they routed Henry's army and its French allies, and Peter briefly got his throne back (Britannica, Peter). Henry escaped. Bertrand did not: he was captured again and released for another heavy ransom (1911 Britannica). For gamers, Nájera is a gift of a battle: the Black Prince's army fought on foot, and when Bertrand's vanguard crashed into the English vanguard both sides dropped their lances and fought hand to hand with swords, axes and daggers (Battle of Nájera). That suits dismounted men-at-arms like our Prince Henry II of Castile and Squire, Dismounted and the grapplers in Mid 14th Century Knights Wrestling.

Montiel, March 1369, and a death in Bertrand's tent

Henry and Bertrand came back and beat Peter at Montiel on 14 March 1369 (Battle of Montiel; some accounts give 13 March). Peter shut himself in the castle there. What happened next is one of the most dramatic scenes of the century, and the sources tell it differently, so here is what is recorded and what is legend.

• Recorded: about a week later, Peter slipped out of the castle to the French camp, believing he was being helped to escape. Henry was waiting, and Henry killed him (Britannica says Henry murdered him on 23 March). Bertrand didn't strike the blow, but the trap was laid in the French camp, in his own tent by the best-informed account (Ayala).
• The chroniclers disagree on the details. The Castilian chronicler Pero López de Ayala has Peter offer Bertrand towns and gold to get him out, Bertrand tell Henry, and Henry fail at first to recognise his brother, whom he had not seen for years. Froissart sets the scene in the tent of another French captain, the Bègue de Villaines, and has the brothers trade insults and wrestle before Henry stabs Peter. Medievalists.net sets the two accounts side by side.
• Legend: Froissart gives the decisive moment, seizing Peter by the legs and turning him over so that Henry ends up on top, to the Viscount of Rocabertí (Froissart, in Thomas Johnes's translation). Later tellings hand it to Bertrand, with the line "Ni quito ni pongo rey, pero ayudo a mi señor" ("I neither unmake nor make a king, but I help my lord"). We couldn't find that line in the contemporary accounts. Enjoy it as a story, not a quote.

Henry rewarded him again: after Montiel, the 1911 Britannica says, Bertrand was made Duke of Molina, on top of the Castilian titles he had been given in 1366.

You can set the Montiel scene with our Round Early Medieval Tent or the Early Medieval Long Round Tent as Bertrand's quarters, Henry in his mounted version, and a few 14th Century Sergeants on guard.

How did he become Constable of France?

King Charles V of France recalled him and made him Constable of France, the commander of the royal armies, in 1370 (1911 Britannica). It was an extraordinary rise for a Breton of no great family. As constable he did something French commanders had rarely done: he avoided pitched battles unless the odds were clearly his, and instead wore the English down with raids, sieges and attacks on their supplies. Together with Charles V's diplomacy, that slowly won back most of the land France had lost (Britannica, Hundred Years' War).

He died on 13 July 1380 while besieging Châteauneuf-de-Randon in Languedoc, on the eve of its surrender (1911 Britannica; one account gives 14 July). Charles V ordered that he be buried with the kings of France at Saint-Denis. The body was divided on the long journey north, which is why he has four resting places: his entrails at Le Puy-en-Velay, his flesh at Montferrand (that monument was destroyed in the Revolution), his bones at Saint-Denis and his heart at Dinan, now in the Basilica of Saint-Sauveur (Church Monuments Society).

What is Bertrand du Guesclin's coat of arms?

In the formal language of heraldry, his arms are argent, a double-headed eagle displayed sable, beaked and armed gules, overall a bendlet gules (Flags of the World; the Côtes-d'Armor archives give the same arms in French, though they call the band a bande, a full-width bend; the band on our model is narrow, like a bendlet). The town of Broons, where he was born, still uses them. Word by word:

• Argent: silver, the field (background). Painted shields and banners usually showed it as white.
• A double-headed eagle: one body, two heads looking outwards.
• Displayed: facing you, wings and legs spread wide.
• Sable: black.
• Beaked and armed gules: the beaks and claws (its "arms") are red.
• Overall a bendlet gules: a narrow red band laid over everything else, running from the top corner on the bearer's right (your top left as you look at the shield) down to the opposite bottom corner.

What do the eagle and the band mean?

This is where a lot of websites make things up, so here is what can and can't be said.

• Heraldry is a system of identification, not a code. There is no official list that says "black means constancy" or "an eagle means courage". The Heraldry Society's myth-busting article is clear that colours and charges have no fixed meanings; any meaning was personal to the family, and the symbolism tables you find online came centuries later (Britannica makes the same point).
• What the arms did mean is "this is a du Guesclin". On a battlefield where every face was hidden by a helmet, a black eagle on silver told friend and enemy exactly who was under the visor. Black on silver is also one of the boldest combinations heraldry allows: a dark colour on a light metal reads from far away, which is the whole point.
• The eagle: eagles were a prestige charge across Europe, and the double-headed eagle is best known from Byzantium and the Holy Roman Empire. A Breton knight's family bearing one doesn't make him an imperial claimant: it was simply their mark. The later nickname, the Eagle of Brittany, fits the bird on his shield.
• The bendlet: a narrow band laid over a family's arms was one of the usual ways of telling one branch or one son's line apart from the head of the family; in medieval France the bend was one of the standard marks of difference, even for younger branches of the royal family (Cadency). That's the likely reason it's there. We haven't found a source that says exactly why Bertrand's line carried it, so take that as heraldic custom, not a recorded fact.

What can you see on our model?

The sculpt is a knight of the 1360s, the years of Cocherel, Nájera and Montiel. Here's what each piece is, from the top down.

• A visored bascinet, visor up. The pointed helmet is a bascinet, worn by fighting men all over Europe for more than a century (The Met). The visor pivots on a stud at each temple and is pushed right up so you can see his face, with a row of breathing holes along it. The little studs round the rim (vervelles) are what the mail curtain was laced to.
• A mail aventail. The curtain of mail hanging from the helmet over his neck and shoulders is the aventail. The rings are individually sculpted, so a black wash and a drybrush make them pop.
• The guige. The strap with a buckle running across his chest is the guige, which carried the shield's weight on his shoulder and left his left hand free for the reins.
• Plate on his arms and legs. His arms are covered in plates strapped and buckled on (you can see the little buckles), with plate on his shins and knees and solid stirrups. This is the mid-14th century in a nutshell: knights were adding more and more plate over mail.
• A quilted saddle cloth and a plain fitted coat. Under his seat, a diamond-quilted cloth hangs over the saddle and the horse's back, best read as a padded saddle cloth. His body and thighs are covered by a close-fitting coat with a sword belt low on the hips carrying a sword and a dagger. The sculpt leaves the coat plain, so you choose: white to match his arms, or a contrasting colour.
• The axe. Statues and later pictures often show him with an axe, but we found no medieval source that says he favoured one. Read it as the sculptor's choice for a famously hard-hitting brawler, not as a historical fact.
• The heater shield. The flat-topped, pointed shield on his left arm carries the full arms: eagle and bendlet.
• A full caparison. The horse is covered almost to the hocks in a cloth caparison, head included, with holes for the eyes and ears. Each panel carries a double-headed eagle with the bendlet over it. A caparison in a knight's arms was costly display, a far cry from the lightly equipped horsemen of our 14th Century Jinetes.

Reading a knight like this works for any of our characters. We did the same for a very different moment in Robert the Bruce vs Sir Henry de Bohun at Bannockburn.

Step by step: painting the arms

1. Prime light and paint the metal first

   Prime in Grey Seer or white: most of this model is white cloth, and a light primer saves you three coats. Paint the helmet, aventail, arm and leg plates in Leadbelcher, wash them with Nuln Oil, and drybrush the mail lightly with Leadbelcher again. Metal first means any slips land on cloth you haven't painted yet.

2. Paint the field: argent

   Paint the shield face and every caparison panel in Ulthuan Grey, leaving Grey Seer in the deepest folds as a natural shadow. Pick out the raised folds and the hem in White Scar. Pure white straight on looks flat and chalky; a cool grey-white with white highlights looks like cloth. Argent literally means silver, so if you like, paint the shield's field in Stormhost Silver as a metal shield face while keeping the caparison white.

3. Fill the eagles: sable

   Fill each eagle with Abaddon Black using your finest brush, working from the middle out to the raised outline. The outline gives you a little wall to work against, and a slip onto the white is easy to cover again with Ulthuan Grey. Edge the wings and heads in Eshin Grey, then just a few points in Dawnstone. Count the heads on each panel as you go: two per eagle.

4. Paint the beaks and claws, then the bendlet: gules

   At 28mm the beaks and claws are tiny, so a dot of Mephiston Red on each beak and each foot is plenty. Then paint the bendlet: Khorne Red first, Mephiston Red over it leaving the darker red at the edges, and a thin line of Evil Sunz Scarlet along the top edge. Heraldry says "overall", so paint it last: the band lies over the eagle, and painting it last gives it a crisp edge over the black.

5. Leather, horse and base

   Paint the guige, belts, reins and axe haft in Rhinox Hide with a wash of Agrax Earthshade. Only the horse's lower legs show below the caparison: a bay brown or a grey both work. Finish the base in earth and rock as in our guide to basing miniatures, with a Steel Legion Drab rim to match the rest of your army.

Which army can you field him in?

Two good choices:

• Henry of Trastámara's Franco-Castilian army, 1366 to 1369. Bertrand leads the French and Breton companies beside Prince Henry II of Castile, with the Mid 14th Century Castilian Standard Bearer, charging knights from Mid 14th Century Knights Set B, Mid-Late 14th Century Crossbowmen, 14th Century Sergeants as company infantry and 14th Century Jinetes as Castilian light horse. A 14th Century Page and Squire makes a lovely command-base companion.
• A French army of the Hundred Years' War, 1360s to 1380. The same knights and crossbowmen, led by the Constable himself.

Mount him on one of our Reconquista Jagged Bases to match the range, and see everything from the period in our 28mm Reconquista collection.

Sources and further reading

• Encyclopaedia Britannica (1911): Du Guesclin, Bertrand
• Britannica: Bertrand du Guesclin
• Wikipedia: Bertrand du Guesclin (nicknames)
• Wikipedia: Battle of Auray
• Wikipedia: Battle of Nájera
• Wikipedia: Battle of Montiel
• Britannica: Peter, king of Castile and León
• Britannica: Henry II, king of Castile
• Britannica: the Hundred Years' War, 1360 to 1413
• Medievalists.net: the death of Peter at Montiel in Ayala and Froissart
• Froissart's Chronicles, translated by Thomas Johnes: the death of Peter at Montiel
• Church Monuments Society: the four tombs of Bertrand du Guesclin
• Wikipedia: Constable of Castile (when the office was created)
• Flags of the World: Broons, with du Guesclin's blazon
• Archives des Côtes-d'Armor: À vos blasons (PDF, in French)
• Wikipedia: Cadency (marks of difference, including France)
• The Heraldry Society: heraldic myths and misconceptions
• Britannica: the nature and origins of heraldic terminology
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Visored Bascinet
• The Song of Bertrand du Guesclin by Cuvelier, translated by Nigel Bryant (Boydell): the verse life written soon after his death, the source of many of the best stories about him, to be read as a tribute rather than a record