Arnoul d'Audrehem

Who was Arnoul d'Audrehem?

Arnoul d'Audrehem was a French soldier.

He was born at Audrehem, in the present arrondissement of Saint-Omer, in the département of Pas de Calais. Nothing is known of his career before 1332, when he is heard of at the court of Philip VI of France.

Between 1332 and 1342 he went three times to Scotland to aid King David Bruce in his wars. In 1342 he became captain for the king of France in Brittany; then he seems to have served in the household of the duke of Normandy, and in 1346, as one of the defenders of Calais, was taken as a prisoner to England by Edward III.

From 1349 he held an important place in the military history of France, first as captain in Angoulême, and in June 1351, in succession to the lord of Beaujeu, as marshal of France. In March 1352 he was appointed lieutenant for the king in the territory between the Loire and the Dordogne, in 1353 in Normandy, and in 1355 in Artois and Picardy and the Boulonnais. It was Audrehem who arrested Charles II of Navarre and his partisans, at the banquet given by the dauphin at Rouen in 1356. At Poitiers he was one of those who advised John II of France to attack the English, and, charging into the front line of the French army, was slightly wounded and taken prisoner.