A Lion in the Holy Land - an English campaign AAR

[econ21]

Battle Story: The Death of Davy Stanley and the Fall of Caernarvon, 1176 AD

Captain Tobias and his men had marched hard from Nottingham to Wales, their boots becoming ragged and their feet bloody. General Davy Stanley had urged them on:

“Lads, do not make me a liar to my King! We must reach Caernarvon before it falls!”

Well, the General had kept to his word and his column, the first of several converging on Caernarvon, had gained sight of the city just as the Portugese were deploying for their assault.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Davy Stanley comes to the rescue of Caernarvon.

From afar, Captain Tobias watched as the enemy marched towards the settlement walls. The Portuguese were deployed in well serried ranks - these were disciplined, professional fighters; mainly mercenaries, Tobias was to find out later.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

URL=https://imageshack.us][/URL]

Although not large, man for man, the Portuguese army outclasses the English militia.

In their haste to get into the town, the Portuguese had built only one ram and a set of ladders. But Captain Tobias was doubtful the Caernarvon garrison could repel them; the Welsh militia had to buy time for General Stanley’s men to reinforce them.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The Portuguese have a good head start on Stanley’s relief force.

As Captain Tobias’s men marched along the east road heading to the town, the sound of battle grew louder. General Stanley approached the Tobias:

“Captain, it is taking too long - the town will fall before we arrive. I will run my knights ahead to try to hold the town centre. The infantry is useless to us exhausted - you continue your march and join us when you can.”

Tobias saluted, as the English knights kicked up dust racing to the centre of Caernarvon.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The walls breached, Stanley tries to hold the town centre.

Inside Caernarvon, it was chaos. As the Portuguese battering ram hammered the gate, the Welsh garrison commander, Captain Francis, had seen the hopelessness of situation and tried to pull his own regiment of town militia off the walls and back into the town centre. But he had left it too late - the Portuguese cavalry were through the gates well before the English infantry could make it to the town centre. Captain Francis stopped his men under a wall tower.

“You few men, there, get up in that tower and prepare to fire arrows. The rest of you - brace yourself for cavalry!”

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Unable to get back to the town centre, the garrison commander makes a stand against the Portuguese cavalry at a bottleneck inside the walls.

As Captain Tobias reached the eastern gate of Caernarvon, he heard a lookout shout -

“Cavalry! Enemy cavalry!”

Tobias saw with surprise that a regiment of jinettes had worked their way round the town to skirmish with his infantry. At first, Tobias tried to hustle his men towards the gate - desperate to join General Stanley in his defence of the town centre, but the jinettes were aggressive and eventually Tobias could not resist ordering his men to turn and engage.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The infantry in the relief force under Captain Tobias’s men are delayed by a skirmish with a detachment of Portuguese cavalry.

Inside Caernarvon, General Stanley’s bodyguard had gradually been worn down in combat with the Frankish knights hired by the Portuguese; the arrival of the mercenary spearmen from the walls, had tipped Stanley’s defence of the square from being heroic to hopeless. Reluctantly, with only two knights left at his side, Stanley tried to make a break for it and return to Captain Tobias’s infantry.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Stanley attempts to disengage, but he has left it too late.

By the time Captain Tobias had fought his way into Caernarvon, it was all over. All of the garrison under Captain Francis and General Stanley were slain or captured by the Portuguese. All that greeted the brave English spearmen working their way up the eastern road was a massed charge by the Portuguese knights, led by King Laurencius himself.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Tobias’s men fought doggedly, impressing the Portuguese King with their valour.

When Laurencius offered to accept Tobias’s surrender, the Captain bowed to the inevitable and conceded. In a magnanimous gesture, the Portuguese released the Captain and the 63 survivors of his company. Caernarvon had fallen, but other English relief armies were already converging on the town. Tobias would return to the town to fight another day and neither he nor Laurencius would ever leave it again. The chivalrous Portuguese King fell defending his prize in 1182, while Tobias would die eighteen years later when the King’s son reclaimed it in 1200 AD.

Far away in Gaza, Augustine of Wellington grieved when he heard of the death of his adopted son, Davy Stanley. By a morbid coincidence, Augustine's first adopted son, Robin Lambert, had also fallen at Caernarvon, many years ealier in 1138. Some say Augustine never recovered from this second tragedy and that on, in his delirium on his deathbed, the old man would repeat over and over the name of the town that had brought so much grief to his family.