Robert Bemborough

Sir Robert Bemborough (d.1351) was a medieval knight who led the Montfortist faction during the Combat of the Thirty. This was an arranged battle between thirty knights from both sides during the Breton War of Succession, a struggle for control of the duchy between the House of Montfort and the House of Blois. Bemborough was killed in the battle.

The battle was greatly renowned. Bemborough was subsequently depicted by chroniclers as a model of chivalry, but was later denigrated as a brigand who exploited local peasants and tradesmen.

Bemborough led the Montfortist faction which controlled Ploërmel. The Montfortists were supported predominantly by English knights. He was challenged to single combat by Jean de Beaumanoir, the captain of Josselin, the nearest stronghold controlled by the French-supported Blois faction. According to the chronicler Jean Froissart, this purely personal duel between the two leaders became a larger struggle when Bemborough suggested a combat between twenty or thirty knights on each side, a proposal that was enthusiastically accepted by de Beaumanoir. They agreed to an arranged fight at a field marked by an oak tree midway between the two fortresses. Bemborough is supposed to have said,

And let us right there try ourselves and do so much that people will speak of it in future times in halls, in palaces, in public places and elsewhere throughout the world.

The words are recorded by Froissart: "the saying may not be authentic", Johan Huizinga remarks, "but it teaches us what Froissart thought".

It is unclear whether Bemborough was English or German. His identity is something of a mystery and his name is spelled in many variant forms. It is given as "Brandebourch" by Froissart, and also appears as "Bembro" and "Brembo". His first name is sometimes given as Robert, sometimes as Richard. The chroniclers Jean Le Bel and Froissart say he was a German knight, but historians have doubted this. The 19th-century writer Harrison Ainsworth, taking his cue from the Breton language version of the name, "Pennbrock", concluded that his actual name was the English "Pembroke". In Breton "Penn-brock", sounds like the phrase "badger-head", which became a derogatory nickname for him.

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