Hi my name's Kevin Hicks, welcome to my YouTube
channel The History Squad. Now today's video has actually been requested by a couple of my Patreons
over the last uh 12 months here. It's about the famous or infamous Englishman John Hawkwood, the
boy from Essex who went from bowman to captain of bowmen, to knight and to lead one of the greatest
free companies of mercenaries the world has ever known. It is said that he, together with his
band of merry men, conquered half of Italy. John Hawkwood, what a character, a favorite of
mine for sure because he was a common bowman, he was born 1326 in Essex, so he's an Essex lad, good
on you. He was born to a tanner. Now a tanner, it kind of says you know the leather work and that
kind of thing, not quite true. It looks like he owned the tannery and the land around it, so John
Hawkwood has a step up. He's apprenticed, when he gets a little bit older, to a tailor in London so
he moves to the big city where archery is a bit of a religion. He must have joined a group, he's very
good because he ends up at the Battle of Crecy, 1346. Was it John Hawkwood who stood over the
young 16 year old Prince of Wales when he'd been knocked down? Was it John Hawkwood who pushed the
French back allowing the Prince of Wales to stand up? Well 10 years later, Battle of Poitiers,
in the same division of the Prince of Wales, John Hawkwood is a captain of bowmen and after the
battle he is actually knighted. Two versions, one is he was knighted by De Vere himself, the Earl of
Oxford, the other by the Prince of Wales. This is the stuff of legend, but actually he was there
and he did fight in these battles. Now another little thing was he may have been the subject of
Geoffrey Chaucer, the famous author of the time, the Canterbury Tales, he may have been the subject
for The Knight's Tale, and it makes sense when you look, you know he's a commoner and up he comes
and ends up as a knight, I love this. Now all was going well, soldiering was great until the
Treaty of Bretigny, 8th of May 1360. Bang. The war is over, he's got a choice. He can follow
the Prince of Wales division, but he doesn't, he joins the free company. You
see at that time so many archers, bowmen had gone back to England but it's
an uncertain future isn't it? So he decides to join one of these great free companies and
begin his exploits over in the east of France. So Hawkwood finds himself in joint control
with a German called Sterz, of the great White Company. Thousands upon thousands of
mercenaries, these men were professional, seasoned soldiers. Englishmen, there will
be Frenchmen, Breton, Italians and a large contingents of German, so they had crossbowmen,
longbowmen. Now there's an interesting thing, when you regard or refer to some of these soldiers
they will say ‘Oh yeah there were 20 lances’ or ‘There was a lance’. A lance is three men. You
have the commander with his lance, you have a mounted bowman and next to him his squire. In
combat, the squire takes the horses away, he will make sure they're secure. Meanwhile the commander
with his lance and his bowman move forward, the squire will then come in to the back of the
nobleman here and he will support him with his lance and in the fighting. You put all of these
little units together in great companies they work incredibly well. Note that they fight on
foot, but of course they have their horses so when required they can patrol or they can charge
on horse. So that's a lance, basically three men working together, that's your basic unit. So this
unit of men, this massive, massive company the White Company. They're called the White Company
because they used to burnish their armor bright. These men had pride and when you read about
them, they’re quite something. John Hawkwood, he loved his men. He respected them and he spoke
to them. He was one of these men who ensured that if a man was killed, his body was taken care of.
If his men survived the battle then dividends were shared equally, his men loved him. John Hawkwood
what a guy, but there was one guy who didn't like him, and that's Pope Innocent VI, he hated them
because in their locust stripping of the land they were blocking any revenue back to the Pope. The
Pope in Avignon in France was saving up to move to Rome but he couldn't because this White Company it
blocked all of his revenue, so he excommunicated them. Their souls will be damned. I don't think it
made much of a dent on these soldiers, let's face it these men were butchers. But eventually there
was a peace agreement made and the pope came up with an idea how to lessen the strength of this
White Company. Divide it. Half can fight in Spain and the other half can go and fight in Italy.
Hawkwood with his White Company together with Sturz, they choose to go and fight in Northern
Italy, and there begins one heck of a tale. So John Hawkwood finds himself with his
White Company in Northern Italy fighting for various factions in the Pisan / Florentine
War. Ecentually he fights under Bernabo Visconti the Lord of Milan, a powerful magnate. In fact
he gets on so well that he marries his daughter, Donnina Visconti, 1357, they had four children.
When he married he's approaching middle age, she's only 17, and you kind of go oh yeah,
yeah, but there's an interesting thing here, they must have fallen in love because
she becomes the one constant in his life, he can actually confide in her. She advises him.
To me this is quite wow because there you have this battle-hardened man who is without a doubt
a ruthless killer and yet with his young wife, he finds that confident. Now, he goes on a great
raid into Tuscany and he becomes part of what's called The War of the Eight Saints. You've got the
new Pope Gregory the 11th is involved, different states and different factions who all have their
own saints, so it's known as The War of the Eight Saints. But all of this time it's understood that
Hawkwood was actually working as well for Edward III of England. He stayed loyal to the crown,
some say he was actually his agent in Italy. John Hawkwood had a reputation for being as crafty
as a fox, cunning. Some called him the wolf. In fact interestingly, in Italy, they couldn't
pronounce his name Hawkwood. Giovanni is John, but they couldn't pronounce Hawkwood, so he was
simply called John Sharp. Bernard Cornwall would know that name, Sharp. Anyway, Battle of San
Minato 1368. This shows you just how forward thinking and how crafty as a fox, cunning as
a fox, John Hawkwood really was. He knew that he could not stop the enemy army, it was massive,
all mounted on horses, so he pays local children, hundreds of them to stand in the way of the enemy
army. The kids have got helmets you know, spears and all this kind of thing, flags, they look
like they are an army from a distance. The enemy actually approach, so they are ordered then to
slowly turn around and retreat. The enemy take the bait and they charge, full tilt. Can you imagine
those kids there? All of a sudden they're going ‘this is so much fun’ you know ‘I've got a couple
of ducats here and I’m rich’ you know and all of a sudden there's thousands of men with lances on
horses tearing towards them. They run for their lives, screaming as they go, but what they don't
know is they're running on soft ground, and as the enemy get closer and closer all of a sudden their
horses, thump, sink in the mud and the army is stopped. Hawkwood now can do one of two things. He
can either leave or he can turn on his enemy, but that is a whole different story, this is just one
instance that shows how crafty that man could be. If you take the year 1376/1377 Northern Italy was
ravaged by the plague it really did get stuck in. Meanwhile in the town of Cesena there'd
been a bit of a rebellion against some of the mercenary soldiers, Bretons
I understand, their blood had been spilled. Pope Gregory was furious because
it's against his troops, he gets so angry that he orders John Hawkwood to the town and
Hawkwood basically says ‘you want me to, you know, put the Rebellion down?’ And the Pope says no,
I want every man, woman and child butchered. Hawkwood kind of questions this but he is ordered,
he wants the town leveled, he wants all the people dead. Hawkwood apparently takes a position outside
the town, he commands what's going on, on the outside. The troops that are on the inside, from
what I can tell mainly Germans and Bretons, on the outside you have the English troops. Doors are
locked and they go to work and they massacre up to 6,000 innocent people. This is the power of the
Pope who is moving from Avignon in France to Rome. This is one of the dark sides of these mercenary
bands. Can you imagine that, 6,000 men, women and children? The horrors that were committed at
that time are disgraceful, but what gets me, it was in the name of the Pope. One of the
greatest battles in Italy that John Hawkwood fought in with his free company was the Battle of
Castagnaro, 11th March 1387. Wow what a victory, he was as cunning as a fox. He knew that his army
was well outnumbered, the enemy uh the Veronese had sixteen thousand men, Hawkwood's army up to
just maybe, just over nine thousand, but there were 12,000 in reserve of the Veronese army. Now
this was a mixture this reserve, it could have been peasants as well as professional soldiers,
however John Hawkwood's army he's outnumbered so he chooses the battlefield. He falls back, he
brings the Veronese in and there is a canal across their path. This canal it's not very wide and
it's been filled with fascines, wooden bundles. His army’s formed up on the one side but his right
flank, he's anchored in the woods. There are some deep woods around this right area where Hawkwood
is going to place his cavalry, but he bluffs it. In the center of his army is John Hawkwood's coat
of arms, his standard is flying, giving everybody the opinion that Hawkwood is leading his troops
from the center. The battle is engaged. Men are fighting for their lives. Now here Hawkwood would
have had longbowmen, crossbowmen, he would have had men with lances, pikes as well as your normal
assortment of weapons. Now as the battle really does get stuck in there is a fire arrow shot
from the woods in an arc across the battlefield. As soon as the arrow is seen, Hawkwood's
standard is thrown to the ground, it's a bluff! John Hawkwood now with his standard mounted on the
lance charges out of the woods with his cavalry, smashing into the flank and then around to the
rear of the Veronese army. These men at the back now surge forward whilst his own army that's
Hawkwood’s army now advance over the canal, trapping the Veronese army. It's gonna be crushed.
Meanwhile Veronese cavalry, separated from their army, have it on their toes and run away. They
will be pursued and there will be casualties. The army of the Veronese is now crushed. Do
you know they lost over 700 dead, 800 wounded, 4,000 captured. But there's a part of
this little story that's often missed, you see the Veronese with their peasant army
at the back, their reserve, it didn't run away and it refused to surrender. What courage, because
then they were dealt with. Many of them fell to the blade and then some of them surrendered, brave
fellows, they were just ordinary people. And just a note here, Hawkwood's army suffered light
casualties whereas I said the enemy was quite severe. It was a complete victory. Can you imagine
you're advancing forward and all of a sudden you hit from the back and then the army in front of
you begin to advance so you are literally being crushed from both sides? This was said to be John
Hawkwood's greatest victory and I must admit it was quite something because he thought it all out
first. He drew the enemy onto his battlefield, the battlefield of his choosing and he set the
trap. So when you look at John Hawkwood, the man, 50 years he was a soldier 40 of which were in
Italy. This was wow, what a guy and he was paid in sometimes an absolute fortune in gold florins or
when the Pope couldn't pay for his services, John Hawkwood was given land and property, all that
kind of thing but of course awkward had to pay his men and it's quite amazing that he did take care
of them. But there's a twist in the tail here, I have it on good authority that John Hawkwood would
amass so much money and then send it, smuggle it back to Essex. He always intended that at the
very end of his life he would move himself and his family away from Florence back to Essex. His
last campaigns were 1390 to 1392, uh he ended up in Milanese territory and performing a great feat
of arms. He managed to extract an entire army from the path of the Milanese who could have destroyed
this army and this great retreat saved his army. It's such a shame though because John wanted to
go home, he was old now, in his 70s. It’s time for him to go back to Essex and from what I've read
he was putting his affairs in order when he died, 17th of March 1394. So that Essex boy would never
get home, or did he? We don't know for sure if he's buried in Florence or if he's buried back
in Essex, there are lots of legends and rumors. John Hawkwood, in my opinion one of the greatest
English bowmen that ever lived. Well, I hope you enjoy my little video there. Do you know we only
touched lightly really over the 50 years of John Hawkwood serving as a soldier's time, so if you're
interested have a read. There are some great books out there, some incredible information and if
ever you go to Firenze, Florence in Northern Italy that's where he ended up, there's lots about John
Hawkwood in Firenze. So if you did enjoy my video then like, share and subscribe and don't forget to
turn on the all notification buttons so you know what's coming on down the line because we have
got such a mixture of history videos for you to see. Now before I go, quick mention for some of
my Patreon members, hey guys thanks a million, Mike Benne, Chase Dixon and 1660, thanks a million
guys and thanks to everyone else. Bye for now.
