• General Notes

  Sir Richard Waller was knighted in the field by King Henry V for capturing Prince Charles. Charles was the Duke of Orleans commanding the French forces at Agincourt, and father of the future King of France. The third great English victory over the French in the Hundred Years' War was won on Oct. 25, 1415, near the village of Agincourt in northern France. The young King Henry V had recently succeeded to the insecure Lancastrian throne of England. On the advice of his father, Henry IV, he resolved, in the words of Shakespeare, "to busy giddy minds with foreign quarrels" by reviving England's claim to the French throne. Henry's forces landed in Normandy and captured the port of Harfleur. En route to the port of Calais (then held by England), their way was blocked by a great French army. The French knights, four times as numerous as the English foot soldiers, foolishly dismounted. They advanced in their heavy armor through the deep mud of newly plowed fields. Each of the three times they came on, in a narrow defile between two woods, they were forced back by clouds of arrows released by skilled English archers. More than 5,000 Frenchmen were killed, including many princes and nobles. The English lost only 113 men. This decisive battle, along with Crecy and Poitiers, proved the superiority of the longbow over the crossbow. It hastened the end of the heavily armored knight, the military basis of feudalism. Richard Waller (1395-1462), went into military service at an early age. It was during the Hundred Years War in which Norman England tried to place France under English rule. In any pitched battle Englishmen equipped with the new "long Bow", combined with mounted knights in armor, could generally win. But wars of conquest cannot be won on the battlefield alone, and England could not put enough fighting men into the whole of France to occupy and conquer the land, even in a century of trying. On October 25, 1415, there occurred a battle in the Hundred Years War ending with a victory for the English army rated among historians as one of the most stunning ever won by British arms--the Battle of Agincourt. Richard Waller, aged 20, fought in this battle with great courage and audacity. In the course of the battle, he captured one of the French generals, Prince Charles, Duke of Orleans. At the close of the battle, King Henry V, commander of the English forces, found Richard Waller with his captive resting under a walnut tree with Prince Charles' blue shield bearing three gold fleurs-de-lis (the arms of France) hanging from a limb of the walnut tree.
  Accordingly, Richard Waller was knighted on the spot and allowed to add a new crest to his own coat-of-arms. This new crest consisted of a walnut tree in its natural colors growing out of a green mound, with a blue shield bearing the arms of France, three gold fleurs-de-lis, and a silver bar resting on three silver points. According to the customs of the times, the Duke of Orleans was entrusted to the care of his captor, Sir Richard Waller, who kept his prisoner or, rather, an individual in "honourable restraint", at Groombridge Castle. Here, the Duke lived 24 years, waiting for the ransom demanded by his captors. In France a struggle was going on over the succession to the throne and there was no hurry to bring another contender back to France. Prince Charles was installed in an apartment with servants and seems to have fitted comfortably into the routine of his enforced hosts, the Wallers. He was a devout churchman and made many benefactions to the parish church of Speldhurst and to the Chapel at Groombridge over the porch of which his arms, carved in stone, remain to this day. The oak paneling that adorned the Duke's apartment is said to be preserved in the present house and is beautifully carved with a frieze and the initials "R.W., for Richard Waller. The panel over the fireplace is decorated with the arms of Duke Charles of Orleans. Sir Richard served in France again in 1424 and distinguished himself at the Battle of Verneuil. In 1434 he was made Sheriff of Surrey and Sussex Counties and Sheriff of County Kent in 1438, at which time he was aged 43. He was made "Master of the Household" of Cardinal Beaufort in 1439 and served in this capacity until 1443. In 1443 he again served in France. He served as an official of Henry VI from 1450 to 1458. It would appear that he died in the service of Edward IV, a post he accepted in 1461, his 66th year. He died in 1462 and is buried at Speldhurst Church.
  
  Person ID  I1750056974  Red1st
  

Details of Richard's family with Sylvia Gulby