Gautier de Brienne was Duke of Athens for forty-five years and never once ruled Athens. The title came to him on 15 March 1311, when his father was killed at Halmyros by the Catalan Company — a band of Spanish mercenaries hired to fight for the duchy who had decided to keep it instead. Of a Greek principality, all that was left to him was Argos and Nauplia. He went back for the rest between 1330 and 1332 and returned with two small territories and a hard lesson: he had neither the troops to overwhelm the Catalans nor the money for a long war of sieges. His other titles went much the same way. In September 1342 the ruling families of Florence invited him in to govern for a fixed term, and the city's poor, who liked what they saw, proclaimed him lord for life instead. He taxed hard, ruled despotically, and ten months later a conspiracy put him out. He was appointed Constable of France in 1356 and was dead by 19 September of that year, killed at Poitiers.

Tradition of London give him the Brienne arms and give them to him twice over — blue strewn with gold billets and a gold lion, carried across his own surcoat and the full barding of the horse — with the lance already down and level. It is the right choice for him: a man who spent his life charging at things that would not stay taken. Set him with Charles d'Albret, Constable of France, who held the same office sixty years later and died in the same way, at Agincourt; add Charles Duke of Orleans for the French nobility of the war's other end; and put Sir John de Grailly across from them, a Gascon fighting for the English. A lance couched at the level is a figure that needs somewhere to be going — leave the space in front of him empty and let the diorama imply the rest.

Model: MK12 / Tradition of London / 54mm (1/32) scale / 1 piece set

All hand painted Toy Soldier sets packed in the Classic Tradition Red Boxes. All Toy Soldiers cast in quality white metal, and individually hand painted in gloss enamels.

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