John Minsterworth
Sir John Minsterworth (died 1377) was a fourteenth-century English knight from Gloucestershire, who fought in the Hundred Years' War and was executed by King Edward III for treason.
The war, under the command of the King's son, Edward the Black Prince, was going poorly and had only recently restarted after a nine-year truce.
Minsterworth was part of a force sent to relieve the English command in France under the nominal leadership of Sir Robert Knolles, whom contemporaries praised for his military acumen.
Minsterworth and a breakaway force made their way to Brittany despite frequent ambushes and French raids, and eventually—albeit seeing most of the remnant of his army massacred on the Breton shore—to England.
Five years later he met and conspired with the rebel Welsh lord, Owain Lawgoch, and, for reasons which are now obscure, supported Owen's proposed French-backed invasion of England.
[9][note 1] The medievalist Mark Ormrod suggests that Knolles's appointment may have implied superiority over his fellow captains, exacerbating tensions among them,[12] of whom Minsterworth was the most outspoken.
[15][note 2] Although Minsterworth has been seen as a "comparatively obscure" figure in political society,[19] and of "very modest means",[5] he nevertheless commanded the largest retinue of the army, second only to Knolles himself.
[1][5] The scholar Anne Curry argues that by then, gentry such as Minsterworth were being relied on to field armies comparable in size to those led by the nobility in the earlier years of the war.
This included areas close to Minsterworth, such as South Wales and Gloucester, but also further afield, such as Bedfordshire, London, Kingston upon Thames, Daventry, Lincolnshire and Warwickshire.
[26] Much of this force was composed of "footloose professionals",[27] as they have been called, often little more than a collection of "outcasts, apostate clergymen and criminals on the run ... who served for loot and pardons".
[5] Minsterworth had to rely on such men because he lacked the recruiting networks in England that a great lord would have possessed through land holding, tenantry and wide-ranging social influence.
[15] Although by this time Knolles was a soldier of "great fame",[32] says the medievalist Rosemary Horrox, Minsterworth neither appreciated nor respected the man or his abilities.
[35] The tactical and military failures of the campaign were placed firmly at Knolles's door, and he was increasingly accused of misjudgement and inexperience;[15] he may have been as unwilling to face the French in open battle as they were him, which could also have increased dissent among men who felt themselves to be "better formed in chivalry";[36] Minsterworth told his companions, "it redounded to their great dishonour to be subjected" to Knolles.
A contemporary chronicler relates how "out of envy and self-importance"[38] the English captains ended up dividing their army into four, and went separate ways, probably to make foraging easier and increase profits.
[41] Minsterworth's return to England[38] "as one of the only prominent survivors either not dead, still serving in France, or languishing in a French prison",[45] began a lengthy period of acrimony and recrimination.
[46] After the Black Prince and John of Gaunt spoke out for Knolles, the King declared that "he should not be held as responsible as his men for their unruliness, disobedience and arrogance".
[8] The Anonimalle Chronicler condemned this as a betrayal of trust, castigating Minsterworth as having "sold himself to the French",[49] or "contrary to his faith and allegiance".
[48] Minsterworth appears to have been accompanied by his old comrade-in-arms, Thomas Fauconberg, who defected at the same time; "the fact that both these men took this huge step must be more than coincidence", argues .
[51][note 7] By 1376, King Charles had formulated a plan to invade England[53] with a large Franco-Castilian Navy,[54] or "army of the sea", as the French named it.
[55] Owen was a pretender to the throne of the Aberffraw princes,[56] and Charles's plan was for him to lead a French expeditionary force army with the now-renegade Minsterworth.
[57][note 9] About this time [1376] exemplary Juftice was done upon Sir John Midfterworth, Knight, who was drawn, hanged and quartered at Tyburn for Treafon by him committed, in defrauding Souldiers of their Wages.
Walsingham described him as "with a willing hand but a deceptive and distorted mind" (maim quidem promptus, sed mente fallax et perversus).
[5] On the other hand, Sumption also suggests that—in view of how Minsterworth was trusted by Charles to make the arrangements with Castille and to lead the invasion fleet—"he must have been a plausible talker in spite of his shady past".
