[11] In 1372 the English monarch Edward III planned an important campaign in Aquitaine under the new lieutenant of the Duchy, the Earl of Pembroke.

[12] The Earl of Pembroke, his retinue and Wilton embarked at Plymouth aboard a transport fleet which was unprepared for serious engagement.

Sir Philip Courtenay, Admiral of the West, provided escort with 3 larger fighting ships (large tonnage and archer towers).

[4] On 21 June the English fleet arrived at La Rochelle and the battle began as Pembroke's ships approached the harbour.

The Chronicle Quatre Premiers Valois, unlike López de Ayala and Froissart, implies that only some skirmishes took place on the first day, as Boccanegra would have ordered his galleys to withdraw, reserving them for the main action.

An attempt to escape under the cover of the night was dismissed due to the fear of the Castilian galleys, as well as another to enter La Rochelle because of the low draft of the passage.

[5] An additional handicap for the English was the taller air draught of the Castilian ships, which enabled their crews to build wooden breastworks and throw arrows and bolts from a higher position.

[16] When the fight resumed on the morning of the 22nd, the Castilians managed to set fire to some of them by spraying oil on their decks and rigging and then igniting it with flaming arrows.

The Spanish naval historian Cesáreo Fernández Duro claims that the English prisoners amounted to 400 knights and 8,000 soldiers, without counting the slain.

Its capture was followed during the second half of the year by nearly all of Poitou, Angoumois and Saintonge, which Bertrand du Guesclin cleared of English garrisons.

[20][21] The projected resources to support John of Gaunt's claims to the Castilian throne were largely suspended, while a great expedition under Edward III himself had to be postponed because of contrary winds.

In April 1373 a powerful force under William de Montacute, Earl of Salisbury, set sail for Portugal.