Jenico d'Artois

Sir Jenico d'Artois, Dartas, Dartass or Dartasso (c.1350 – November, 1426) was a Gascony-born soldier and statesman, much of whose career was spent in Ireland. He enjoyed the trust and confidence of three successive English monarchs, and became a wealthy Irish landowner.

Although the best-known version of his surname might suggest that Artois was his birthplace, historians agree that he was a native of Gascony. This province in France, having been part of the dowry of Eleanor of Aquitaine on her marriage in 1152 to Henry II of England, was in the fourteenth century an English possession. Little is known of his parents, although he had at least one brother, Sampson, to whom he remained close in later life.

D'Artois served in the garrison of Cherbourg in 1367 and 1368, during the time when the town was a possession of Charles II of Navarre. In January 1379, he was involved in the capture and ransom of Olivier de Geusclin, a brother of Bertrand du Guesclin, the Constable of France. By that time, the garrison at Cherbourg was being shared with English soldiers. D'Artois switched his allegiance from Navarre to England, and by December 1380 had moved to the garrison at Guînes, within the Pale of Calais. He had acquired the patronage of Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland, by 1384, and subsequently entered the service of the earl's son, Henry "Hotspur" Percy. D'Artois commanded one of Hotspur's ships on his 1387 expedition to relieve Brest, and the following year was captured alongside him at the Battle of Otterburn.

In 1390, d'Artois joined the Barbary Crusade led by Louis II, Duke of Bourbon. He subsequently joined Henry of Bolingbroke (the future Henry IV) in Lithuania, fighting with the Teutonic Knights. His exploits there brought him to the attention of John Waltham (the Lord High Treasurer under Richard II), who recruited him as a household esquire. In September 1392, d'Artois entered the employ of Richard II, and by 1394 he is known to have been high in the King's favour. He accompanied the King on his military expedition to Ireland in that year and distinguished himself as a soldier, fighting against the Irish clans in Counties Carlow and Kilkenny. He received a substantial grant of land in south County Dublin "for his good service against the Irish of Leinster and for his constant loyalty". D'Artois was not especially grateful for his reward, and made the celebrated complaint about his new estate that: "it would be worth more than a thousand marks a year if it were near London, but I have such trouble keeping it that I would not wish to live here for long, for a quarter of the whole land of Ireland". He claimed the manor of Huntspill Marreys in Somerset, but the King upheld the rival claim of James Butler, 3rd Earl of Ormond.

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