On the day of the battle, the English commander, John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, believing that the enemy was retreating, led his army in an attack on a fortified French encampment without waiting for reinforcements.

[10] After three hundred years of Plantagenet rule, though, the citizens of Bordeaux considered themselves as subjects of the English monarch and sent messengers to Henry VI of England demanding that he recapture the province.

[15] Talbot acceded to the pleas of the town leaders, abandoning his original plan to wait at Bordeaux for more reinforcements, and set out to relieve the garrison.

[12] According to Desmond Seward, the park "consisted of a deep trench with a wall of earth behind it which was strengthened by tree-trunks; its most remarkable feature was the irregular, wavy line of the ditch and earthwork, which enabled the guns to enfilade any attackers".

[17] Historian A. J. Pollard suggests this seemingly reckless behaviour from Talbot may be due to the fact that his "pride and honour were at stake for he had already ordered his men to battle when he discovered the strength of the French position".

[18] The only Englishman who remained mounted in the battle, he also did not wear armour due to previous agreements with the French when he was released from captivity in Normandy.

[2] Despite the odds against the English, the battle lasted over an hour until a thousand-strong Breton cavalry force led by Peter II, Duke of Brittany, crashed into their right flank, sending them into retreat.

[23][24][25] The survivors of the clash as well as the remnant of the Anglo-Gascon force which had not been thrown into the battle, totalling up to 5,000 men, including John de Foix, 1st Earl of Kendal, sought refuge in the castle of Castillon.

[29] The Channel Islands have remained British Crown Dependencies to the present day, though they were subject to German occupation during World War II.

A casualty after the battle of Castillon was Pierre II de Montferrand, husband of Mary Plantagenet, illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Bedford and a granddaughter of Henry IV of England.

The first hypothesis, based on the writings of Léo Drouyn, asserts that Jean Bureau chose a site north of the Dordogne River to position his cannons.

The Colle plain, located in the present-day commune of Lamothe-Montravel between the entrenched camp and the Dordogne, provided ideal flat terrain for the French artillery to fire.

[citation needed] According to a second,[32] more recent hypothesis, based on the discovery of new sources from the Saint Florent priory and an investigation conducted by Judge Lassime in the 18th century, the French camp was located in front of the town of Castillon, within cannon range—approximately 200 metres away.