Battle of Cocherel: Du Guesclin's first victory

May 1364

The Breton mercenary Bertrand du Guesclin defeated a Navarrese-Anglo-Gascon force in Normandy on the day of Charles V's coronation, an auspicious omen for the new king's reign. Du Guesclin used a feigned retreat to draw the enemy into a trap, a tactic he would refine. He would become Constable of France within six years and the architect of a slow, methodical French recovery.