Belleperche Castle

Belleperche was a castle,[1][2] now destroyed, located in the current town of Bagneux (Allier).

Belleperche was the scene of an important episode of the Hundred Years War, when Louis II, Duke of Bourbon, sieged the fortress to try to deliver his mother, Isabelle de Valois, held captive by a company of Gascon brigands and mercenaries.

During the summer or autumn of 1369, a small group of about 30 Gascon "Free Company" mercenaries in the employ of the English, managed to seize the castle by trickery, where the dowager duchess of Bourbon, Isabella of Valois, Duchess of Bourbon, lived.

Her son-in-law, Louis II, who was then at the court, hastened, assembled troops, and laid siege to Belleperche.

[3] But a troop of Poitiers and Aquitaine "Free Company" roadmen commanded by two English princes, the Earl of Cambridge, son of King Edward III, and the Earl of Pembroke came to the aid of the besieged and delayed the capture of the castle.