Louis VIII King of England and France
The Seal of Louis VIII
In 1215 AD the First Barons' War broke out when the English barons rose up in revolt against King John of England and began to look for a potential new king for the English throne and turned their attentions towards the continent. There they found the 28 year old Dauphin Louis, heir to the throne of France and a descendant of both William the Conquerer and Fulk of Anjou, thus giving him both Norman and Plantagenet descent and a claim to the throne.
Louis was invited to England and landed without opposition on the Isle of Thanet on the 21st May 1216 before marching towards London. During this early period Louis found success after success as Canterbury opened it's gates to him and Rochester Castle fell after a short siege. It was shortly after this that Louis was proclaimed king in St Pauls Cathedral by a large number of nobles and even the King of Scotland Alexander III. Following his proclamation, Louis set about securing the remainder of England and marched on Winchester which fell on the 14th June.
But the death of King John in October was to turn the winning situation that Louis was in into a bloody civil war for the throne of England. With John no longer King of England, a large part of the support of the Barons began to switch to that of his 9 year old son Henry III. Prior to his death, John had declared that William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke and a skilled knight was to be regent for the duration of his son's minority.
Determined to reinforce his claim against that of Louis, the loyalist forces had Henry crowned King of England immediately in a coronation at Gloucester Cathedral in Dorset overlooked Cardinal Guaa Bicchieri. The crown itself had been lost and the Archbishop of Canterbury was absent from the coronation leaving Peter Des Roches to crown the young king. Henry inherited a difficult position, Angevin lands in France had been overrun by Philip II while a good portion of England came under the control of Louis Capet and, since he was still in his minority, Henry had to rely upon a regency.
However things were going poorly for Louis' campaign in England following the death of John. First of all the church supported Henry as rightful king of England which meant that Louis, despite controlling Westminster Abbey, couldn't be crowned King of England. On top of that there was still resistance from loyalists in occupied regions of the country while Henry was working on encouraging rebel barons to abandon Louis for his own cause. However in a twist of fate this only served to harden the opposition towards him in how he revoked a number of clauses in the Magna Carta while reissuing it.
In February 1217 Louis left England and sailed to France to receive some reinforcements which resulted in disagreements between his forces already in England. Things worsened when Cardinal Guala declared Henry's war against Louis to be a religious conflict and Louis began losing supporters to defections. But when Louis returned in April 1217 he began to try and turn the tide of the war. Louis split his army in two sending one group North to Lincoln under the command of Thomas, Count of Perche and leading the other South to take Dover Castle. In this regard Dover Castle was of vital importance as it would lend itself to controlling the Straits of Dover and opening up proper lines of reinforcement to France.
Meanwhile news of Louis' decision to split his army into two reached the Earl of Pembroke who made the decision to gamble on being able to defeat Thomas in the North. He ordered the loyalist nobles to muster at Newark-on-Trent before marching towards Lincoln to break the siege.
At Lincoln, Thomas had managed to take the town but the castle and its garrison continued to hold and refused to surrender to rebel forces. As Marshall advanced on the city, Thomas' forces came up with two plans to fight Marshall. Option 1 was to fight him at the base of a nearby hill in the open ground while Option 2 was to simply defend the town. Ultimately however Thomas decided to go ahead with the second plan to hold the town and defend against Marshall.
Marshall immediately made his movements towards the North gate of the city, the gate closest to the castle where his forces, under the command of Falkes de Breaute, led a number of assaults on the gate but were repelled by Perche's forces. The majority of Perche's forces were still taken up besieging the castle but he had made sure to garrison the gates and his forces managed to hold. As the day wore on Marshall's forces made a number of attempts to breach the gates and, on a few occasions, even succeeded in making some headway before being repelled. It was during one of these assaults that Falkes de Breaute himself was cut down near the North gate in an attempt to reach the castle.
Finally after 8 hours of fighting and heavy casualties, Marshall decided to retreat and break his assault on Lincoln. Bolstered by his victory over Marshall's forces, Perche turned his attention fully onto the castle and the weakened garrison inside. The morale detriment suffered by the defenders at the defeat of Marshall proved decisive and, by the end of the month, Lincoln Castle had fallen.