La Rochelle, Battle of

The Battle of La Rochelle was a naval battle fought on 22 and 23 June 1372 between a Castilian fleet commanded by the Castilian Admiral Ambrosio Boccanegra and an English fleet commanded by John Hastings, 2nd Earl of Pembroke. The Castilian fleet had been sent to attack the English at La Rochelle, which was being besieged by the French. Besides Boccanegra, other Castilian commanders were Cabeza de Vaca, Fernando de Peón and Ruy Díaz de Rojas.

Pembroke had been dispatched to the town with a small retinue of 160 soldiers, £12,000 and instructions to use the money to recruit an army of 3,000 soldiers around Aquitaine for at least four months.  The strength of the fleet is estimated as between the 12 galleys given by the Castilian chronicler and naval captain López de Ayala and the 40 sailing ships, of which three ships were warships and 13 barges mentioned by the French chronicler Jean Froissart. Probably it consisted of 22 ships, mainly galleys and some naos (carracks) three- or four-masted ocean sailing ships. The English fleet probably consisted of 32 ships and 17 small barges of about 50 tons.

The Castilian victory was complete and the entire English fleet was captured or destroyed. On his return to the Iberian Peninsula, Boccanegra seized another four English ships off Bordeaux.  This defeat undermined English seaborne trade and supplies through the English Channel and threatened their Gascon possessions. 

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