[2] During the battle, each navy's largest and most powerful ship — Regent (previously Grace Dieu) and the Marie-la-Cordelière (or simply Cordelière) – were destroyed in a large explosion aboard the latter.

When war with France broke out in April 1512, England's Edward Howard was appointed admiral of a fleet sent by King Henry VIII to control the sea between Brest and the Thames estuary.

At the beginning of June, he escorted to Brittany an army which Henry sent to France under the command of Thomas Grey, 2nd Marquess of Dorset, with the hope of recovering Guyenne.

[4] Unprepared and confronted by a superior fleet, all the French and Breton ships cut their anchor cables and spread their sails.

In the hurry, Hervé de Portzmoguer, the captain of the ship, could not disembark them and the crew was thus reinforced by those "involuntary" combatants who, however, fought bravely.

[4] The two main ships (Marie la Cordelière and Petite Louise) faced the enemy to cover the retreat of the rest of the fleet to the port of Brest.

[8] As a result of the engagement Sir Edward Howard was made Lord High Admiral by Henry VIII.

[11] The death of de Portzmoguer, on the day of Saint Lawrence (10 August), was later portrayed as a deliberate act of self-sacrificing heroism.

A similar version is portrayed by Alan Simon in the song Marie la Cordelière from Anne de Bretagne (2008).