Talk:Battle of the Spurs

Move to Battle of the Spurs

• A Google Books search for ["Battle of the Spurs" 1513] returns about 36,000 books, but actually about 150 books excluding obvious novels and such like.
• A Google Books search for ["Battle of Guinegate" 1513] returns about 2,500, but actually 49

So I am moving the article [back] to Battle of the Spurs which has a couple of additional points going for it: "Battle of the Spurs" does not seem to need disambiguation, and Guinegate is now an archaic name for Enguinegatte, so Guinegate does not help find the place on the map.

-- PBS (talk) 13:57, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Fighting

For such a long article there is remarkably little description of the fighting - the French horse fled, it states, but no great detail is given as to why it fled. The narrative of the fighting, such as it is, is over-reliant on conflicting primary sources. A description of the fighting from a secondary source, giving a logical shape to the events, should be given first, then the conflicting primary sources can be explored subsequently. Urselius (talk) 15:39, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Having heard no 'nay-sayers', I have added the needed detail of the combat from a secondary source, with appropriate in-line citation. Urselius (talk) 16:52, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

National flag icons OR royal heraldry - not a mix of both

Originally, and after a reversion by a well-meaning editor, the infobox had a mixture of different symbols. The red cross on a white ground was a national flag of England, at this time the equivalent for France was the opposite, a white cross on a red ground and the quasi-national (it was a multi-ethnic-multi-national empire) flag of the Holy Roman Empire was the Burgundian saltire (an X-shaped cross, red on yellow). These flags are readily visible on a number of the contemporary illustrations in the article.

Having all these flags would be fine, however, misplaced do-gooders would complain that the French flag was a modern Danish flag and revert it.

So, what we had was a national flag for England and royal heraldic flags for both France and the Imperialists. This is just plain wrong. I could not find an English royal heraldic flag to use, which would have been ideal. Therefore to make the representations equal, I replaced all the images with the royal heraldry in escutcheons. Urselius (talk) 11:35, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Regarding the addition, that Urselius asked me about

Article itself used a lot of nineteenth century source before me. I have enough 20th/21th century sources that say the same thing (the 'modern' sources I've listed can already do that), but 20th/21th century sources do not go into details much if the reader decide to check back on the sources and they are evidently the origin of modern claims. The article is a bit too much because they have added Tournai and Therouanne to the 'main' battle. There is nothing confusing. The main actions in the battle were simple and the duration of the battle was short. There was a main strange element, that surprised the commanders on both side at that time - the panic of the French cavalry, an experienced, battle-hardened gendarmes force.

Henry was a young, inexperienced commander against the gendarmes, who were under generals with good reputation. But he needed a victory to build his image and it would have been embarassing for him to lose with the large force he brought (his cavalry force was small). He had paid/promised to pay Maximilian, his ally 100,000-200,000 florins (depending on the sources) to build an army to help him. Maximilian arrived with a very small force, which apparently did not deserve the money, but was a good addition of cavalry that would suit the terrain. Maximilian had spies who had informed him of the French plan (they wanted to use a large body of cavalry as a distraction so that the Duke of Alençon could provide supplies to Thérouanne) and he knew the terrain too well. So when the French made their feigned retreat and reached the heights of Guinegate, they saw artillery and English longbows, which were unexpected for them. They became panicked and the commanders could not control it.

This is the most simple account I suppose: https://books.google.com/books?id=pvNqYjDyXdsC&pg=PA328

The battle was later used for propaganda, and the usual story with such things is that it becomes a bit confusing when looking at it the first time. It was Henry VIII's first major command and the fact his force was much larger in comparion with that of Maximilian allowed the illusion that he directed the battle - the result was that some accounts shortened and blurred details, so that we would not know who did what. Maximilian I was no less egotistical but he had a host of other victories to boast about (certainly he kept evidences from the English that he directed the battle, but his publications were not intended for a large audience and the majority of his projects were only completed after his death anyway). He needed money and he also needed Henry to continue to burn the English considerable treasury on the war, so there was no harm in toning down things a bit. Anyway materials from the French make clear what happened.

Thanks.Deamonpen (talk) 17:10, 1 October 2021 (UTC)