In AD 1352,
In the dead of night, an English rogue named John of Doncaster led a band of chosen men to cross the moat and scale the walls of Guînes castle in a daring attempt to seize it.
• The Capture of Guînes! •
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The castle at Guînes was strong and well fortified and located just six miles south of Calais which had been taken by the English and successfully defended in 1350 from an attempt of the French knight Geoffroi de Charny to sneak a force in.
It was also used to hold English prisoners of war.
John of Doncaster was an English squire who had taken service in Calais after being banished for crimes in England.
He knew Guînes well because he had been pressed into service there as a prisoner. He recruited a band of men from Calais and they made their way to the castle.
They approached the castle at night with darkened appearance and cross the moat under the cover of darkness by walking over a traverse wall at the water level.
Then, as silently as possible, they scaled the wall with ladders, crept onto the battlements and knifed the sentries!
After throwing the bodies of the sentries over the wall l, they stormed the keep and overtook the sluggish and inept guards before releasing the English prisoners held in the castle.
Then they rounded up the French in the castle and expelled them. When asked in whose name he had taken the castle, John of Doncaster refused to answer.
When the French protested to Edward III that his countrymen had violated the truce, he denied knowledge of it and insisted he had not authorised it. He provided the French with a letter ordering the English at Guînes to surrender the castle.
But Edward realised that Guînes was just too valuable to give back and changed his mind after a meeting of Parliament.
In the aftermath, Geoffroi de Charny ordered the now former commander at Guînes, Hugues de Belconroy, to be drawn and quartered, and then led a force to retake the city.
A new English commander was sent to hold the castle and John of Doncaster was pardoned. De Charny managed to take the town, but not the castle of Guînes, and eventually abandoned the siege after ‘savage and continual fighting’ with an English relief force which launched a night attack!
Guînes was retained by the English for over two centuries before it was slighted by the Duke of Guise in 1558.
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