This Day in History: 1370-08-20

In mid-August 1370, John of Gaunt, lord of Pontefract, landed at Bordeaux with around one thousand men to assist his brother, the Black Prince, in its defence. Gaunt marched to Cognac where he met his younger brother, Edmund of Langley and the seriously-ill Black Prince. In attempting to reassert control in Aquitaine, the two elder brothers: offered to redistribute lands of defecting lords to those who had remained faithful to the English; pardoned deserters if they returned; mooted the notion of Gaunt becoming Lieutenant in Aquitaine because of the Black Prince’s precarious state of health.