History > The Battle of Morat 1476

The Mystery of the dead Duke's Charge

To finance the permanent installation of the Murtenpanorama at the Historical Museum Bern, the Swiss foundation Pro Patria has issued, in 2010, a set of four special Swiss postal stamps with motives from the panorama. One of the four stamps (at CHF -.85 plus surcharge -.40) is labeled Der Herzog von Somerset (The Duke of Somerset). Its description reads as follows:

"Der Herzog von Somerset liegt samt Pferd gefallen vor seinem Zelt, während seine Bogen- und Armbrustschützen den ins Lager einfallenden Eidgenossen noch Widerstand leisten. Sommerset war neben den zahlreichen Söldnern aus Italien und Savoyen mit seinen Bogenschützen vermutlich der prominenteste Söldnerführer, den Karl verpflichtet hatte. Seine englischen Bogenschützen galten als ausgesprochen tüchtig, wurden hier aber ebenfalls im Lager überrascht." [EN]

Jean-Pierre Soisson's 1997 biography of Charles the Bold, Charles le Téméraire (2007 paperback reprint ISBN 9782246535812), highlights the events prior to Somerset's death:

"Les Anglais sont les derniers á tenir: Somerset contre-attaque avec ses archers-á-cheval. Il tombe à son tour." (p.293) [EN]

The reference to a non-sensical counterattack by mounted archers armed only with a sword against Swiss halberds and pikes should have sent his spider sense tingling. Instead he succumbs to the charms of a valiant charge. He is not alone. For visual brilliance, Paul de Vallière's 1926 account is hard to beat (in its German edition):

"Endlich, als letzte von allen, kämpfen die Engländer des Herzogs von Somerset und lassen sich an Ort und Stelle niedermachen, mitten im heissen Getümmel, das sie wie Wirbel mitreisst. Die prachtvolle Haltung der Engländer unterbricht für einen Augenblick den Siegeslauf der Schweizer. Somerset macht mit seinen berittenen Bogenschützen einen Gegenangriff: sie werden vernichtet. Er selbst wird von einer Kugel aus dem Sattel geworfen und getötet, mit ihm fallen Philipp von Camperby und Herr von Aimeries. Die Leiber der 800 Engländer bedecken den Boden, den zu verlassen sie sich heldenhaft weigerten." (p.207) [EN]

From de Vallière we even learn how the Duke was killed: by a bullet from a then rather newish handgun. De Vallière even supplies a source for his account: The memoirs of Louis Gollut (1535-1595), a Burgundian professor in Dôle (quoted in Ochsenbein who notes the author's unreliabilty):

"Entre les morts fut le duc de Sommerset, chef de quelques troupes d'arbalétiers à cheval, ..." (Ochsenbein 1876, p.437) [EN]

In his footnote, de Vallière kindly refers to the classic Swiss historian Johannes von Müller (1752–1809) whose Die Geschichte schweizerischer Eidgenossenschaft (1825) seems to be the (unsourced) source for the vignette of Somerset's death:

"Entschieden wurde, nicht weit von Karl (der es sehen konnte) durch ein äußerst lebhaftes Gefecht, worin die Garde und vorzüglich die Engländer mit überaus großer Tapferkeit stritten. Sie wurden durch den Vortheil des Ortes und die überlegene Wuth und Menge zurückgeworfen, brachten in die Reiterey Verwirrung, in die Seele des Herrn das Entsetzen vor seinem Geschick, Flucht in das Heer. Und, noch einmal sich ermannend, warf Somerset die Grafen von Thierstein und Greyerz, als zugleich Karl ihm auftrug, den Rückzug des Fußvolks zu decken, und eine feindliche Kugel ihm den Tod brachte." (p.73) [EN]

Müller, however, also noted the historical improbability of the duke's death at Morat and offers an avenue of inquiry:

"Wir wissen, daß der letzte Herzog von Somerset aus dem Könighaus von Lancaster, Edmund, nach der Schlacht von Tewkesbury am 6.Mai 1471 enthauptet worden, und an demselben Tag auf der Flucht auch Johann, sein Bruder, gefallen; daß der Herzogtitel damals erloschen und erst 1498 erneuert worden; daß auch Karl Somerset, natürlicher Sohn von Heinrich, Edmunds Bruder, nicht in Murten fiel, sondern 1526 zu Windsor starb. Um zu bestimmen, wer der edle Held war, welcher hier umgekommen, wünschten wir genauer zu wissen, was mit Thomas, Heinrichs und Edmunds Bruder, geschehen. Von diesem lesen wir bloß, daß er jung und unverheirathet gestorben. Sollte er sich in Burgundische Dienste begeben haben, da er in England nicht eben sicher war? Dieses hängt mit einer anderen Frage zusammen, ob nämlich diese Engländer bey Murten ein von Karl selbst componirtes oder von König Edward IV ihm geliehenes Korps gewesen? In letzterm Fall könnte unsere Mutbmaßung nicht Statt finden, und wäre zu untersuchen, ob dieser König etwa nach 1471 die Somersetische Würde jemanden anvertraut, welcher, da er früh und unbeerbt umgekommen, der Aufmerksamkeit Englischer Geschichtsschreiber entgangen seyn möchte." (FN 349, p.73) [EN]

For further inquiry, we must shift our focus from Switzerland to England. [cont.]

The Dukes of Somerset

The Somerset line began with John Beaufort (1373–1410), Earl of Somerset. He was the first of four illegitimate (later legitimized) children of John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford. Through his father, John was a half-brother of King Henry IV. John's second oldest brother Henry Cardinal Beaufort (c. 1374–1447) together with John Beaufort's son, also named John Beaufort (1403–1444), controlled King Henry VI during his early regency and, more or less, lost the English influence in France and gained the eternal hatred of the Duke of York.

In 1443, John Beaufort became the 1st Duke of Somerset, a title he quickly passed on to his son, Edmund Beaufort (1406–1455), 2nd Duke of Somerset. Edmund Beaufort started the unhealthy tradition of dying on the battlefield that would beset the remaining Beaufort Somersets. Richard, Duke of York, defeated the Lancastrians at the First Battle of St. Albans on 22nd of May 1455. Edmund Beaufort was killed in that battle.

Edmund's son, Henry Beaufort (1436–1464), 3rd Duke of Somerset, inherited both the title and the enmity that marked the War of the Roses. Having fought in the battles of Wakefield, 2nd St. Albans and Towton, he was captured and beheaded after the battle of Hexham in 1464. His only issue was an illegitimate son called Charles Somerset (c. 1460–1526). Henry's brother Edmund Beaufort (c. 1438–1471) thus became the 4th Duke of Somerset, a title forfeited by King Edward IV. England no longer being a congenial place for Lancastrians, Edmund sought refuge and service at a friendlier court across the channel.

Edmund entered into the service of Charles the Bold, 4th Duke of Burgundy, whose maternal great-grandfather was John of Gaunt (Ghent, coincidentally, being one of Charles' prosperous cities). According to Mark Ballard’s article An expedition of English archers to Liège in 1467 (Nottingham Medieval Studies 34, p.166), Edmund fought for Charles at the battle of Montlhéry in 1465 and stayed at Charles' court in a privileged position. Charles Brusten in L'Armée bourguignonne (1953, p.62-64) quotes a payment tally for the year 1468 which lists the Duke of Somerset, archers and men-at-arms, 38 men in total. During Charles' wedding to Edward IV's sister Margaret of York in the same year, the Duke of Somerset was sent away but kept in good standing. Ballard mentions that Charles even increased Edmund's pension.

Edmund made the fateful decision to return to England, when Henry VI assumed the English crown in 1470. Edmund commanded the Lancastrian right wing at the battle of Tewkesbury in 1471 and was responsible for the fateful charge that lost the Lancastrians the battle. Defeated, he was dragged out of the sanctuary of Tewkesbury Abbey two days after the battle and beheaded. As his brother John Beaufort died also at the battle, the male line of the House of Beaufort was extinguished. There was no Duke of Somerset who could have served at Morat in 1476. Let us recap Johannes von Müller's list of suspects:

  • Edmund Beaufort, 4th Duke of Somerset (c. 1438–1471)
  • John Beaufort, Marquess of Dorset (c. 1455–1471)
  • Thomas Beaufort (c. 1455–c. 1463)
  • Unknown appointee by Edward IV
  • Charles Somerset, 1st Earl of Worcester (c. 1460–1526)

Edmund and John Beaufort both died at Tewkesbury in 1471 and can be safely removed from the list of contenders, even if it is clearly Edmund, 4th Duke of Somerset, whose service at the Burgundian court and in Charles' earlier battles linked the name of Somerset to that of Charles the Bold. Their brother Thomas Beaufort, a son of Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset, identified by Johannes von Müller as a likely contender, has to be removed too. Alison Weir notes in Britain's Royal Family: A Complete Genealogy (1999, p. 105-106): "Thomas He died young before 1463."

At age sixteen, young Charles Somerset might possibly have been a participant of the battle, but there are no records. He certainly didn't die at Morat in 1476. This leaves us with the last contender, an unknown appointee by Edward IV. As the Burgundian administration were magnificent record keepers, we should find the name of Somerset on one of their payment lists. Unfortunately, these documents languish unpublished in the Belgian archives. In the absence of positive proof, I think we can safely discard the unknown appointee too.

It is much more likely that the Burgundian professor Louis Gollut, writing a century after the battle, mixed up the recollections of Edmund's Burgundian service and his charge and death at Tewkesbury. Via Johannes von Müller and the painter Louis Braun, the death of the Duke of Somerset was immortalized as one of the key scenes of the grand Murtenpanorama and sent across the globe on a Swiss stamp.

Written by Jean-Claude Brunner, November 2011.