Who Was the Constable of France?

The Constable of France was the highest military office of the medieval French monarchy, ranking immediately below the king. The constable commanded the royal army in the field, presided over the royal court in the king’s absence, and supervised the constabulary of the realm. The office originated in the early Capetian period, when the constable was the officer in charge of the royal stables; by the 13th century the title had become the senior military dignity in the kingdom, and the constable of France was the second person of the realm. The office was held by appointment of the king and was not hereditary, although it was always conferred on a great noble. The constables of the Hundred Years’ War — du Guesclin, d’Albret, Richemont — shaped the war more than any other single body of officers.

Origins of the office

The first constable of France in the modern sense was Raoul I of Clermont, who held the office from 1338 to 1343. The title existed in something close to its later form by the 12th century, and the constables of the 12th and 13th centuries presided over the household troops, the gens d’armes du roi, and the grand officers of the crown. By the 14th century the constable had acquired the right to command the army in the king’s absence, to preside over the Marshals of France, and to oversee the administration of military justice through the connétablie.

Bertrand du Guesclin (1370–1380)

The most important constable of the war was Bertrand du Guesclin, a Breton by birth, who held the office from 1370 until his death at the siege of Châteauneuf-de-Randon on 13 July 1380. Du Guesclin was a routier captain who had fought in the civil wars of the 1360s; Charles V appointed him to the constabulary on the strength of his record at the battle of Cocherel (16 May 1364) and the campaign of Auray (29 September 1364). The constable’s strategy — the strategy of avoidance, the patient reconquest of Aquitaine through a war of sieges, the redirection of the routier companies into Castile — was the substance of the French recovery in the Caroline phase. Du Guesclin was not a particularly successful battlefield commander by the standards of the war, and his reputation has been enhanced by the value of the policy he served. He was the only constable of the war to die in office.

Charles d’Albret (1402–1411, 1413–1415)

Charles d’Albret, the second of the constables of the war, held the office twice under the mad Charles VI. D’Albret was a Béarnais nobleman, a competent if not brilliant soldier, and the most senior of the French commanders at Agincourt on 25 October 1415. He led the first line of the French army, was killed in the fighting, and his death is recorded in the Chronique du Religieux de Saint-Denis and in Enguerrand de Monstrelet’s chronicle. His decapitated body was identified by the gold chain of office.

The other constables of the war

A handful of other constables played significant roles. Olivier de Clisson (1380–1392) was a Breton, formerly an English ally, who succeeded du Guesclin and served under the regents of Charles VI. Charles de Bourbon (1369–1370) held the office in tandem with du Guesclin. Jacques d’Ailly (1411–1413) was a victim of the Armagnac-Burgundian civil war, executed by the Burgundians in 1413. Louis de Luxembourg (1418–1425) was a Burgundian partisan who held the office under the English-allied regime, was taken prisoner at the battle of Cravant in 1423, and was eventually ransomed and retired.

Arthur de Richemont (1425–1458)

The most important of the later constables was Arthur de Richemont, a Breton, brother of the duke of Brittany, and one of the principal architects of the French reconquest. Richemont held the constabulary from 1425 to 1458, longer than any other constable in the war. He was excluded from court in the late 1420s because of his support for Jean, comte de Dunois, against the La Trémoille faction, but was recalled in 1429 after the relief of Orléans and remained Charles VII’s most reliable captain. He commanded the French army at the Battle of Castillon on 17 July 1453, the last battle of the war. He died on 26 December 1458, three years after the end of the war.

The later constables and the end of the office

The constables of the 15th and 16th centuries were the most powerful noble officers in France, but the office was abolished in 1627 by Cardinal Richelieu, who feared the constable as a potential rival to the king. The last constable was François de Luynes. The constables of the later 18th century, who might have supervised the re-formed army of the Revolution, did not exist.

The constables of the Hundred Years’ War were, in effect, the executive officers of the French monarchy in its long struggle with England. The office is treated in the Key Figures of the Hundred Years’ War pillar and in the Charles VII cluster.