Robert Knolles

Sir Robert Knolles (c. 1325 – 15 August 1407) was an important English knight of the Hundred Years' War, who, operating with the tacit support of the Crown, succeeded in taking the only two major French cities, other than Calais and Poitiers, to fall to Edward III. His methods, however, earned him infamy as a freebooter and a ravager: the ruined gables of burned buildings came to be known as "Knolly's mitres".

Born in Cheshire, Knolles first appears as the captain of several castles throughout Brittany in the mid-14th century, including Fougeray, Gravelle and Chateaublanc. He was one of the English champions at the Combat of the Thirty in 1351, where he was captured. He then contributed himself and 800 men to the 1356 chevauchée of Henry of Grosmont, 1st Duke of Lancaster through Normandy, a diversionary campaign to draw King John II of France north and thus leave the Black Prince free to embark on the famous Poitiers campaign. With France in disarray after the Battle of Poitiers, King Charles II of Navarre assumed command of the rebellion in Paris, and Knolles joined up with the army of Charles's brother Philip as they temporarily held the capital against the Dauphin in 1358.

Knolles' finest hours were to come that autumn when he led a Great Company of 2,000–3,000 Anglo-Gascons into the Loire Valley, establishing several forward garrisons at important towns like Châteauneuf-Val-de-Bargis. He then advanced into the Nivernais, which was unsuccessfully defended for Margaret III of Flanders by the Archpriest Arnaud de Cervole, the adventurer who had raised the first Great Company the previous year.

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