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Arnoul D'audrehem

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ARNOUL D AUDREHEM' ( c. 1305-1370), French soldier, was born at Audrehem, in the present department of Pas de Calais, near St Omer. Nothing is known of his career before 1332, when he is heard of at the court of the king of France. Between 1335 and 1342 he went three times to Scotland to aid King David Bruce in his wars. In 1342 he became captain for the king of France in Brittany; then he seems to have served in the household of the duke of Normandy, and in 1346, as one of the main defenders of Calais, was taken as a prisoner to England by Edward III. From 1349 he holds an important place in the military history of France, first as captain in Angouleme, and from June 1351, in succession to the lord of Beaujeu, as marshal of France. In March 1352 he was appointed lieutenant for the king in the territory between the Loire and the Dordogne, in June 1353 in Normandy, and in 1355 in Artois, Picardy and the Boulonnais. It was Audrehem who arrested Charles the Bad, king of Navarre, and his partisans, at the banquet given ley the dauphin at Rouen in 1356. At Poitiers he was one of those who advised King John to attack the English, and, charging in the front line of the French army, was slightly wounded and taken prisoner. From England he was several times given safe-conducts to France, and he took an active part in the negotiations for the treaty of Bretigny, recovering his liberty the same time as King John. In 1361, as the king's lieutenant in Languedoc, he prevented the free companies from seizing the castles, and negotiated the treaty with their chiefs under which they followed Henry, count of Trastamara (later Henry II. of Castile), into Spain. In 1365 he himself joined du Guesclin in the expedition to Spain, was taken prisoner with him by the Black Prince at the battle of Najera (1367), and was unable to pay his ransom until 1369. In 1368, on account of his age, he was relieved of the office of marshal, being appointed bearer of the oriflamme, with a pension of 2000 livres. He was sent to Spain in 1370 by Charles V., to urge his friend du Guesclin to return to France, and in spite of his age he took part in the battle of Pontvallain (December 1370), but fell ill and died, probably at Saumur, in the latter part of December 1370.

See Emile Molinier, "Etude sur la vie d'Arnoul d'Audrehem, marechal de France," in Memoires presentes par divers savants a l'academie des inscriptions et belles-lettres, 2 e serie, iv. (1883).