Profile:
Born
in 1275 the only son of Sir Guilliame and Lady Isabelle
de Boissey (Boissey a village in Normandy, about thirty
miles south east of Caen). Sir Guilliame is known to
have been elderly at the time of Guy's birth, from this
we can presume that the young squire would have been
largely self-taught in the fighting arts. This possible
lack of ability may explain why, later, Sir Guy appears
to have often used deception to rank in the tournament
lists. His undoing, and the proof of his deceit, was
the tournament held in the French town of Lisieux in
1295. The Marshall's suspicions were raised during the
tilt when de Boissey received a lance strike which should
certainly have taken him from his horse - when de Boissey's
uncontrolled mount was eventually halted it was discovered
that de Boissey was unconscious and that he had only
remained in the saddle due to the fact that his armour
was fastened to it. De Boissey, in disgrace, sailed
for England soon after the contest. Surprisingly de
Boissey made quite a name for himself in the English
competitions, specialising in the foot combat, where
he gained some notable victories (we can only assume
by fair means).
By
1302 de Boissey had gathered some money, a small estate
and a few dubious friends. The events of 1307 find de
Boissey firmly on the side of the new king and his upstarts
and against many of the long established English nobility.
In 1308 we find him at the Dunstable tournament where
we imagine that he was busily toadying to his new aristocratic
friends, unfortunately, there are no records of final
rankings in the contest.
All
traces of Guy de Boissey in Britain disappear after
1308; he is not mentioned on the existing rolls for
the battle of Bannockburn (although this does not prove
his absence). There is some evidence, however, that
he returned to France where he may have attended a tournament
near Rheims in 1311. At the contest a "knight of Lisieux"
carried a coat of arms that was simply too close to
de Boissey's to be anyone else. The knight was unranked
at this event but is later listed as "died with a broken
back having been smote grievously". Interestingly this
incident seems to have taken place, not at the tournament,
but in a small village near the town of Camembert. Records
indicate that the knight's horse bolted and that he
struck the low branch of a tree. If this is true, and
he was not wearing the body armour known as a "coat
of plate", he was probably injured by the high back
of his saddle. This could certainly have caused the
serious damage described, (we also have to wonder whether
he was bolted to it at the time). Records do not exist
of Sir Guy's final resting place, his grave is not apparent
in either Boissey or Lisieux.
Within Tournée Sir Guy
de Boissey is played by Chris Hughes, a re-enactor from
Rossendale. Chris has been in re-enactment for over
twenty years and has an avid interest in the weapon
techniques of the period; his favourites are the long
and the double-handed swords. "There's just so much
mileage in Sir Guy" says Chris "he's foreign and a cheat,
what more could you ask for? The only real problem I
have with him is his accent…when I try to do French
it usually starts out as a bad Dracula and quickly develops
into a mixture of South African and Scandinavian, still,
who knows what the language really sounded like back
then?" (Chris has probably received at least one head
blow too many.) "His demise is pure slapstick" he continues,
"I bet he was drunk".
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