This Day in History: 1345-11-08
On 8th November 1345, Henry of Grosmont, Earl of Derby, 4th Earl of Lancaster, and lord of Pontefract, oversaw the fall of the crucial fortified town of La Reole on the Garonne in the Hundred Years War. The starving, besieged citadel surrendered in January 1346. Such was the lucrative nature of ransoms paid for captured prisoners, that Grosmont alone was reported to have personally accrued £50,000 (over £74 million in today’s money) from an ‘encounter’ at Auberoche the previous month.