When he was arrested and examined, he confessed that in this way, he had caused upward of eight score persons of different sexes and ages to be put to death. After a trial before competent judges, he was condemned to be hanged and strangled until he should be dead, and then his body to be burnt. The duke of Brittany and numbers of the nobility, as well secular as ecclesiastical, were present at this trial in the town of Nantes, where the sentence was executed. However, when the first part of it was done, and his body partly burnt, some ladies and damsels of his family requested the body of the duke, that they might inter it in holy ground, which the duke granted. Notwithstanding the many and horrid cruelties he had been guilty of, he made a very devout end, full of repentance, requesting most humbly of his Creator to have mercy on his manifold sins and wickednesses. The greater part of the nobles of Brittany, more especially those of his kindred, were in the utmost grief and confusion at his disgraceful death. Before this event, he was much renowned as a most valiant knight at arms. CHAP. XXXIX. PIERRE DE REGNAULT, BASTARD-BROTHER TO LA HIRE, GOES ON A FORAGING PARTY TO THE COUNTRY ROUND ABBEVILLE. About this period, Pierre de Regnault bastard-brother to La Hire, who resided in the castle of Mailly, near to Beauvais, which he had repaired, set out with about eight score combatants, as well horse as foot, to forage the country round Abbeville. He took the castle of Yancourt[69], and the lord within it, whence he carried away every thing that was portable. Intelligence of this was soon carried to Abbeville, wherein were the lord d'Auxi, Guillaume de Thiembrone, Philip de Vaucourt[70], Guy Gourle[71], and other captains, who no sooner heard it than they armed themselves and their men, and sallied out horse and foot, to the amount of more than three hundred, with the intent of overtaking the marauders and recovering the plunder they had made from the castle of Yancourt. Pierre de Regnault, having had notice of this assembly, sent to the lord d'Auxi to excuse himself for what he had done, saying, it was only provisions he was seeking,--but this excuse was not admitted. Great discord now arose on the meeting of the two parties,--but Pierre de Regnault, observing that most of those who had come from Abbeville were only common men, charged them furiously; and breaking through them with little resistance, he turned on their rear, and, with great slaughter, totally defeated them. Twenty or thirty were killed on the spot, and nine were drowned in attempting to cross the Somme,--in which last number was Guy de Gourlay,--and upward of sixty were made prisoners; the principal of whom were sir John de Fay knight of Rhodes, sir Philip de Jaucourt, and sir William de Thiembrone.