2021 La Paz municipal election

The 2021 La Paz municipal election was held in La Paz, Bolivia on Sunday, 7 March 2021, involving separate contests for mayor and all eleven municipal council seats. Incumbent mayor Luis Revilla was eligible to seek a third term but declined, leaving the mayoralty an open contest. The election was won by former minister of public works Iván Arias of the alliance, who attained a near absolute majority of 49.52 percent against a field of ten other candidates. On the municipal ballot, Somos Pueblo won 48.04 percent of the vote, winning the six seats needed to exercise a simple majority on the municipal council, with the Movement for Socialism taking the remaining five seats. Revilla's party, Sovereignty and Liberty, lost both the mayoralty and all representation on the municipal council, concluding a twenty-year period of political continuity that started in 2000 with the assumption of Juan del Granado.

Originally scheduled to take place in early 2020, this and other subnational elections were delayed by over a year as a result of the country's 2019 political crisis and the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Amid a rapidly shifting political landscape and no popular incumbent on the ballot, over a dozen fronts registered candidates, the most since 2004. For the nationally governing Movement for Socialism, this crowded opposition field—including two popular competing candidates in Waldo Albarracín and Iván Arias—provided an opportunity for the party to win the capital for the first time in its history. However, those prospects quickly faded following Albarracín's withdrawal, a move that established Arias as the clear frontrunner for the duration of the race. This, combined with Arias's active and unique campaign style, allowed him to garner nearly half of the total popular vote, with the remaining fifty percent divided ten ways between the other candidates.

## Background and electoral system

In the 2015 municipal elections, incumbent mayor Luis Revilla, leading the newly-founded Sovereignty and Liberty (SOL.bo), successfully won reelection to a second term by a margin of 58.09 percent of the popular vote to his closest competitor's 39.28 percent. Since 2000, La Paz had experienced the longest period of political continuity in its history, starting with the two consecutive terms of Juan del Granado, followed by the election of his heir, Revilla, from 2010 to 2015. The mayor's reelection to a second term represented a continuation of that stability. As with other departmental, provincial, and municipal elected officials, Revilla and the municipal council's set term of office was due to expire in mid-2020, completing a five-year mandate started in 2015. However, due to the annulment of the 2019 general election results as an outcome of that year's political crisis, the terms of all subnational authorities were extended until after new national elections had taken place.

The Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) issued the call for subnational elections on 10 November 2020, scheduling them to be held on 7 March 2021. Individuals aged 18 by the election date or who had recently changed residency could register to vote between 3 and 17 December. 28 December was set as the deadline for political organizations to register their candidacies. For all 336 autonomous municipal governments, the electoral system has been in continuous use since 2010, involving separate contests for mayor as the executive authority and all seats in the legislative body, known as the municipal council. All mayoralties are elected by a simple majority in a first-past-the-post system. Seats on the municipal council are elected on a separate electoral list, allocated proportionally using the D'Hondt method. As one of the eighteen municipalities with more than 75,000 inhabitants, La Paz counts eleven seats on its municipal council.

## Candidates and campaigns

### Somos Pueblo

An early entry in the mayoral race was Iván "Negro" Arias, the outgoing minister of public works in the government of Jeanine Áñez. A municipalist, Arias had an extensive history in local matters, having been part of the team that drafted the Law of Popular Participation, which paved the way for the direct election of municipal authorities, substantially decentralizing the country. Arias's decision to present his candidacy came as a surprise; he had previously affirmed that he would "surely return" to his private consulting practice. According to sociologist Ricardo Paz, Arias's involvement with the controversial Áñez administration, as well as allegations of corruption and mismanagement within the ministry recently under his tutelage, led many to consider his chances of winning to be slim.

Nonetheless, Arias quickly moved to locate a political organization willing to sponsor his candidacy. By mid-November, despite ongoing talks with other fronts, Arias indicated that he was closest to reaching an agreement with Rafael Quispe. The indigenous leader had been considering three potential contenders on his shortlist of mayoral candidates, including Arias, as well as former vice minister of public security Wilson Santamaría and Quispe's former lawyer, Eduardo León. Ultimately, he went with Arias, with the pair jointly officializing their candidacies for mayor and governor, respectively, on 28 December, facilitated through For the Common Good – Somos Pueblo (PBCSP), an alliance between the newly-established civic group For the Common Good, led by Arias, and Quispe's existing Somos Pueblo party. As both lacked legal registration, PBCSP was sponsored by Suma Escoma, a small local organization, and the Social Democratic Movement, a national party with minimal regional presence.

The eccentricities of Arias's campaign received heavy media attention. The political analyst had previously been notable for his unique way of explaining and exemplifying political issues, employing toys and making allusions to popular culture. The figure of superheroes became a central aspect of his campaign, with Arias leading campaign events followed by supporters dressed as Marvel characters. An action figure and a Facebook page with comics portraying Arias made the rounds on the Internet, with Arias himself distributing chocolates, dubbed "Negro Kisses", at campaign rallies. On political issues, Arias branded himself as a conciliatory figure, seeking to achieve "reconciliation" and "common good" in a city often racked with political instability. He also pledged to reinvigorate the city, improving existing public works while creating new ones. "Being a mayor Attila who comes to burn the Library of Alexandria would be catastrophic," Arias stated while arguing that the city could not continue in "lethargy ... as if everything has already been done."

### Movement for Socialism

#### Pre-candidates

A total of nine major contenders were declared as pre-candidates for the MAS nomination:

#### Selection process

Within the Movement for Socialism (MAS-IPSP), the candidate selection process operates under the framework of pluralism. Local party branches and affiliated social organizations are tasked with selecting pre-candidates, who are then evaluated by the party's leadership. The official nomination is a choice made solely by party leaders, together with allied social organizations. A variety of prominent political leaders sought the nomination, with César Dockweiler, former manager of Mi Teleférico, profiled as an early favorite among party cadres. Conversely, José Antonio Zamora, former minister of environment and water, saw high support among social organizations and trade unions. Another notable contender was Omar Rocha [es], a former member and president of the municipal council. A dissident of the opposition, Rocha was the only candidate with mayoral experience, having been elected acting mayor in late 2014 in the absence of Revilla, who had resigned to seek reelection. Other pre-candidates included Javier Zavaleta [es], former minister of defense; Sebastián Michel [es], MAS party spokesman; Sonia Brito, former deputy; Remberto Calani, former substitute deputy; Jorge Silva [es], vice minister of consumer protection; and Jesús Vera, candidate for deputy in 2019.

On 14 December, MAS leaders officialized Dockweiler as the party's mayoral candidate, a decision corroborated by party president Evo Morales days later. According to Morales, Dockweiler's nomination had near-consensus support among party leaders and social organizations, a notable fact, given ongoing disputes in other regions due to a lack of consensus over the nomination of candidates. Nonetheless, Dockweiler's candidacy was quickly put into question by opposing forces, who conveyed their intention to challenge his legal registration. The controversy arose from the fact that Dockweiler had fled the country in 2019, declaring himself a victim of political persecution by the Áñez administration; he only returned in late 2020. Per registration requirements, candidates seeking to hold office must have been permanent residents of their departments for a period of at least two years immediately prior to the election. Dockweiler rejected this reasoning, arguing that his residence and work had always been in La Paz, stating that residency and temporary stay could not be equated. Ultimately, the TSE opted to authorize his candidacy, citing a Plurinational Constitutional Court (TCP) ruling granting precautionary measures in favor of "asylees and political refugees."

### Sovereignty and Liberty

Incumbent mayor Luis Revilla was eligible to seek a third term, owing to a TCP ruling that voided Article 168 of the Constitution, thus abolishing term limits for all elected officials. Revilla had been a vocal opponent of this decision, at the time objecting to the fact it allowed then-president Morales to seek a fourth term. By late November 2020, Revilla had confirmed his decision to not seek a second reelection, with an internal primary scheduled for 20 November. According to Departmental Assemblyman Edwin Herrera, the primary process was intended to elect SOL.bo's departmental leader and to define a preferred candidate among the party's partisans. However, the winner would not necessarily receive the nomination, with SOL.bo leaving the door open to nominating a non-party partisan with greater support among the population. Nonetheless, multiple municipal officials presented themselves as pre-candidates for the nomination, among them: Álvaro Blondel, executive secretary of the mayoralty; Álvaro Siles, municipal secretary; Oscar Sogliano, deputy mayor for La Paz's southern zone; and Fernando Valencia, deputy mayor for La Paz's central macrodistrict. Blondel emerged victorious, attaining the votes of two thousand of the more than six thousand participating SOL.bo partisans.

Concurrent to its internal primaries, SOL.bo's leadership held a series of meetings with other prominent organizations in an effort to consolidate a political alliance. According to Revilla, the party had initiated dialogue with leaders of Civic Community (CC) and the National Unity Front (UN) and has been in contact with Quispe and Arias, with whom the most contentious talks occurred. Per Arias's account, Revilla had demanded continued control over the municipal council, considering that the former minister lacked an established party structure in the city; the two ultimately failed to reach an agreement. Conversely, negotiations with CC and UN proved fruitful, with all three groups forming the United for La Paz alliance. SOL.bo had a history of alignment with both fronts; in 2019, Revilla supported Carlos Mesa's presidential bid as part of the CC alliance, and until recently, he had joined Samuel Doria Medina's UN in supporting Áñez's failed presidential candidacy. The tripartite front presented Waldo Albarracín, former ombudsman and rector of the Higher University of San Andrés, as its mayoral candidate. The disposition of the alliance's three primary leaders remained stable until the very final hours prior to its official registration when, in a surprise move, Revilla broke SOL.bo's alliance with CC and UN, registering Blondel as his party's mayoral candidate. The sudden reversal owed to disagreements over the alliance's electoral list, in which CC included an ex-official that Revilla had removed from office as a candidate for councillor. Per SOL.bo's account, CC was unwilling to remove the individual from the list, while sources close to CC claimed that Revilla would not even accept the replacement candidate put forward.

Shortly into the campaign season, Albarracín withdrew his candidacy, citing a deterioration in his physical and mental health, owing to ongoing criminal processes initiated by the government against him, actions he qualified as a "dirty war [meant] ... to make my subsequent imprisonment viable." The loss of Albarracín signified the final collapse of the United for La Paz alliance. Shortly thereafter, CC announced that it would no longer seek to participate in the municipal election, thus removing itself from the contest. On 4 February, Mesa conveyed his bloc's decision to endorse Arias's campaign, considering him the only viable candidate capable of defeating the MAS.

### Other political organizations

Eight minor fronts presented their own mayoral candidates. One of the earliest candidates to declare was Amilcar Barral, former substitute deputy for the Democratic Unity alliance. Barral had announced his intention to run as far back as September 2019, when it was expected that the election would take place in early 2020. When Quispe announced his intention to run for governor, he floated Barral as a possible companion on Somos Pueblo's mayoral ticket. Barral and Quispe had an extensive personal history as colleagues in the legislature, though the latter's split from UN in early 2019 had fractured their relationship. By late 2020, despite Quispe's statements, Barral remained lukewarm on the prospect of joining Somos Pueblo, stating that the indigenous leader's participation in the Áñez administration had not helped his political future. Barral ultimately launched his own mayoral campaign as part of the Peace is Possible alliance, led by his own political organization, New Alliance Bolivia. Though he did not discard reaching an agreement with Quispe, negotiations never fully panned out, with the Bolivian National Action Party (PAN-BOL) finally agreeing to sponsor his campaign.

Though PAN-BOL attempted to expand its alliance to include more fronts, agreements failed to materialize. In early December, Barral stated that his campaign had entered negotiations with Solidarity Civic Unity (UCS) to include it as part of the alliance. Instead, UCS opted to present its own candidate, nominating former UN deputy Peter Maldonado. Similarly, PAN-BOL initially announced that popular cumbia singer David Castro [es] had joined the party's electoral list as its candidate for councillor. However, Castro later abandoned PAN-BOL to launch his own mayoral candidacy at the invitation of Jallalla La Paz. Given the wide array of candidates, Barral ultimately withdrew his name from contention mere hours before the election, endorsing PBCSP's campaign.

Other candidates included Ronald Escobar, departmental president of the Third System Movement, led by Governor Félix Patzi, and Luis Larrea, president of the Departmental Medical Association of La Paz. The latter received the nomination of United Invincible (UI), led by Libre 21, an alliance between former president Jorge Quiroga and the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement. The Movement for Sovereignty, which had been part of Libre 21 when that alliance sponsored Quiroga's 2020 presidential campaign, opted to run its own candidate, nominating journalist Juan Carlos Arana. In February 2021, the Departmental Electoral Tribunal disqualified Larrea's candidacy for failing to resign as a presenter on his University Television health program. The decision was later overturned by the TSE just four days before the election date.

## General election

### Opinion polling

### Results

Of the nine departmental capitals plus El Alto, La Paz was a city that the ruling MAS had never been able to govern over. On this occasion, the dispersion of support between two strong opposition candidates, Albarracín and Arias, gave Dockweiler a key early advantage. This was demonstrated by the first official poll by Ciesmori, which found that Dockweiler would win with twenty-seven percent of the vote, with Arias and Albarracín taking twenty and sixteen percent, respectively. Per an analysis by Brújula Digital, Albarracín's unexpected withdrawal virtually paved the way for Arias to win the election, with polling indicating that two-thirds of Albarracín's voters would transfer their support to Arias if the former chose not to participate.

For the duration of the campaign following Albarracín's withdrawal, Arias continuously led in opinion polling, trailed by Dockweiler in second place. By election night, exit polls conducted by Ciesmori and Focaliza indicated that Arias was the virtual winner, attaining a significant plurality of just under fifty percent. Holding up the worn-out shoes on which he toured the city during the campaign, Arias celebrated his victory, pledging to make La Paz a "city of forgiveness and reconciliation," regardless of political identity. According to Ricardo Paz, given Arias's lack of established political presence, "the only possible explanation for his successful performance is attributable to his charisma and the plain, direct, and populist way in which he managed to connect with the electorate."

## Aftermath

Arias's victory brought to a close a twenty-year period of political continuity in La Paz, the longest era of stability in its history. SOL.bo lost both the mayoralty and all presence on the municipal council, with analysts pointing to Revilla's neglect of municipal administration in favor of national aspirations as having taken a toll on his political project, a fate that similarly befell del Granado's Fearless Movement years prior. For his part, del Granado stated that Revilla's mistake was not having fostered a worthy successor sooner: "[Blondel] should have been promoted in a timely manner; publicly ... promoting a figure in just three months is a very difficult task."

For Arias, who was sworn in as mayor on 3 May, the primary obstacle to governing came about through PBCSP's marginal majority on the municipal council. At just six seats to the MAS's five, the majority bloc necessitated unanimous support in order to push through the mayor's agenda. Such unanimity was hampered by internal discrepancies between the five PBCSP councillors who responded directly to Arias and the sole member, Lourdes Chambilla, whose loyalties lay with Quispe. For many analysts, Chambilla's outsized power to make or break Arias's legislative agenda granted Quispe the "golden vote" in the municipal council. This contentious situation quickly led to a deterioration in relations between the two figures, and though attempts at reconciliation were made, by late 2022, Quispe had chosen to de facto dissolve the PBCSP alliance, calling it "politically broken." For his part, Arias lamented that he had been "tied hand and foot"; "the mayor's head [has been] handed over to the enemy ... that is really not right."

Bolivian election

Elections postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic


Battle of Calais

The Battle of Calais took place in 1350 when an English force defeated an unsuspecting French army which was attempting to take the city. Despite a truce being in effect the French commander Geoffrey de Charny had planned to take the city by subterfuge, and bribed Amerigo of Pavia, an Italian officer of the city garrison, to open a gate for them. The English king, Edward III, became aware of the plot and personally led his household knights and the Calais garrison in a surprise counter-attack. The French were routed by this smaller force, with significant losses and all their leaders captured or killed.

Later that day, Edward dined with the highest-ranking captives, treating them with royal courtesy except for Charny, whom he taunted for having abandoned his chivalric principles both by fighting during a truce and by attempting to purchase his way into Calais rather than fight. As Charny was considered a paragon of knightly behaviour, the accusations struck deep, and were frequently repeated in subsequent English propaganda, as Charny was to write several authoritative books on chivalry.

Two years later, having been ransomed from English captivity, Charny was placed in charge of a French army on the Calais front. He used it to storm a small fortification commanded by Amerigo, who was taken captive to Saint-Omer and publicly tortured to death.

## Background

Since the Norman Conquest of 1066, English monarchs had held titles and lands within France, the possession of which made them vassals of the kings of France. Following a series of disagreements between Philip VI of France (r. 1328–1350) and Edward III of England (r. 1327–1377), on 24 May 1337 Philip's Great Council in Paris agreed that the lands held by Edward in France should be taken back into Philip's hands on the grounds that Edward was in breach of his obligations as a vassal. This marked the start of the Hundred Years' War, which was to last 116 years.

After nine years of inconclusive but expensive warfare, Edward landed with an army in northern Normandy in July 1346. He then undertook a large-scale raid through Normandy, including the capture and sack of Caen, to the gates of Paris. After retreating in the face of Philip's large and increasing army, the English turned to fight at the Battle of Crécy, where the French were defeated with heavy loss. Edward needed a defensible port where his army could regroup and be resupplied from the sea. The Channel port of Calais suited this purpose. It was also highly defensible: it boasted a double moat; substantial city walls; and its citadel in the north-west corner had its own moat and additional fortifications. It would provide a secure entrepôt into France for English armies. Calais could be easily resupplied by sea and defended by land.

Edward's army laid siege to the port in September 1346. With French finances and morale at a low ebb after Crécy, Philip failed to relieve the town, and the starving defenders surrendered on 3 August 1347. It was the only large town successfully besieged by either side during the first thirty years of the Hundred Years' War.

Following further inconclusive military manoeuvres by each side for four weeks, and given that both sides were financially exhausted, emissaries despatched by Pope Clement VI found willing listeners. Negotiations began in early September and by the 28th the Truce of Calais, intended to bring a temporary halt to the fighting, had been agreed. This strongly favoured the English, confirming them in possession of all of their territorial conquests. It was to run for nine months to 7 July 1348, but was extended repeatedly over the years until it was formally set aside in 1355. The truce did not stop ongoing naval clashes between the two countries, nor small-scale fighting in Gascony and Brittany.

### Amerigo of Pavia

Calais was vital to England's effort against the French for the rest of the war, it being all but impossible to land a significant force other than at a friendly port. Edward had succeeded in 1346 due to a fortunate combination of circumstances. Earlier, in 1340, Edward's forces had to fight a French fleet larger than his to gain access to the port of Sluys to disembark his army. Possession of Calais also allowed the accumulation of supplies and matériel prior to a campaign. The town had an extremely strong standing garrison of 1,200 men, virtually a small army, under the command of the captain of Calais. He had numerous deputies and specialist under-officers. These included Amerigo of Pavia, who was employed as Calais's galley master from April 1348. He had command of a tower overlooking Calais's harbour, which contained an entrance into the town's citadel.

Geoffrey de Charny was a senior and well-respected Burgundian knight in French service. In 1346, freshly returned from a crusade in the east, he assisted the King's son during a campaign in south-west France. In 1347, when the French army had approached Calais to relieve it, the English were found to be so strongly entrenched that to attack them was hopeless; Charny was one of the senior knights sent by Philip to formally challenge Edward to bring his army out and fight in the open field. Confounded, the French marched away in humiliation and the next day Calais surrendered. In July 1348, as a member of the King's Council, Charny was put in charge of all French forces in the north east. The truce at an end, his forces harassed the English to little effect. Both monarchs were exasperated at the fruitless expense of the war and the truce was renewed.

Amerigo had served the French and Charny arranged for him to be approached with a view to betraying Calais in exchange for a bribe. The truce facilitated contact and Charny reasoned that, as a man of low status, Amerigo would be more susceptible to avarice and as a non-Englishman, he would have fewer scruples regarding treachery. In mid-1349 Charny came to an agreement with him to open the gate under his control, so as to deliver up Calais, in exchange for 20,000 écus (approximately £ in terms) and they met to personally seal the agreement. Contemporary English and French chroniclers, who usually exalt Charny, sarcastically report this as him having "gone shopping" (marchander) for Calais.

According to most accounts, Edward heard of the plot from others and agreed to spare Amerigo the punishment for treason (being hanged almost to the point of death, emasculated, disembowelled, beheaded and chopped into four pieces) on condition that he go along with Edward's counter-plan. One of the three versions of his 14th-century Chronicles published by Jean Froissart states that Amerigo voluntarily betrayed Charny. There is agreement that Edward first heard of the plot on or a little before 24 December, and the contemporary sources agree that he interviewed Amerigo at Havering near London on 24 December. Edward responded rapidly, gathering 900 men – 300 men-at-arms and 600 archers –  and sailed for Calais with Amerigo. To maintain secrecy the expedition was carried out under the titular command of Sir Walter Manny, previously the first captain of Calais. Amerigo's brother was held in England to ensure Amerigo's cooperation.

### French preparations

By that point, Charny had gathered a force of some 5,500 men at Saint-Omer, 25 miles (40 km) from Calais. This consisted of 1,500 men-at-arms, including most of the senior military figures of north-east France, and 4,000 infantry. They would be opposed by the 1,200-strong garrison of Calais, plus several hundred other English inhabitants who could be called to arms in an emergency. Charny needed a large force to avoid being repulsed by the strong garrison once he entered the town. The gate controlled by Amerigo was too difficult of approach to be used by such a large force, although it provided easy access to the harbour for ship's crews. Worse, the gate could be reached only on foot at low tide along a narrow beach, up against the town walls. Even to get as far as Amerigo's gate would be difficult; Calais was surrounded by a broad belt of marshes, and the few roads through them were controlled by English blockhouses.

The French came up with a plan to set off on New Year's Eve, when the hours of darkness would be close to their maximum, low tide would be shortly before dawn, and the English sentries and garrisons might be caught celebrating or sleeping. The blockhouses would be bypassed and Calais reached before dawn. The bulk of the French would wait not far from the town, while a force of 112 men-at-arms entered through Amerigo's gate at night. Some would secure the citadel, while others made their way through the sleeping town to the Boulogne Gate, one of the main gates. The gatehouse would be seized, the gate opened and the majority of Charny's force, led by the mounted men-at-arms, would enter and bring overwhelming force to bear on the garrison by surprise.

The leader of the group to enter through Amerigo's gate was Oudart de Renti, a French knight who had been banished, joined the English and been given a command in the army of 20,000 Flemings who supported Edward's siege of Calais. In 1347 he was pardoned by Philip, turned his coat again and was appointed by Charny because of his detailed knowledge of the area around Calais, and to give him an opportunity to redeem his honour.

## Battle

Charny's force marched for Calais on the evening of 31 December 1349. The blockhouses were circumvented and the French assembled close to Calais. A little before dawn the advance party approached Amerigo's gate-tower. The gate was open, and Amerigo emerged to greet them. He exchanged his son for the first installment of his bribe and led a small group of French knights into the gatehouse. Shortly a French standard was unfurled atop the tower of the gatehouse and more French crossed the drawbridge over the moat. Suddenly the drawbridge was raised, a portcullis fell in front of the French and sixty English men-at-arms surrounded them. All of the French who had entered the gatehouse were captured.

At the sound of a trumpet the Boulogne Gate was opened and Edward, in plain armour and under Walter Manny's banner, led out his household troops, supported by a detachment of archers, and attacked the French. With a cry of "Betrayed!" a large part of Charny's force fled. Charny hastily organized his remaining troops and held off the initial English attack, and Edward was given a hard fight. Edward's eldest son, the Black Prince, led his own household knights out of the north gate, the Water Gate, and along the beach, past the citadel, and into a position on the French force's exposed left flank. As Edward and Charny's forces fought, members of the Calais garrison, who had not been privy to the plan, were hastily arming themselves and steadily reinforcing Edward's hard-pressed group. How many of the garrison joined Edward and the Black Prince's 900 men before the fighting ended is not known.

Charney's force still outnumbered the English, but broke when the Black Prince's force attacked. More than 200 men-at-arms were killed in the fighting. Thirty French knights were taken prisoner. As was common, none of the contemporary sources record the number of casualties among the socially inferior French infantry. In the battles of the time, non-knightly captives were usually killed on the spot, partly from aristocratic contempt for the non-knightly, and partly from a disinclination to care for prisoners who could not be ransomed. An unknown number of fugitives drowned as they fled through the marshes. Total French casualties are not certain; "several hundred" according to the historian Yuval Harari. As no Englishman of note was killed, English casualties are not recorded. The King and his son had been in the fore of the fighting. Among the English nobility involved were the Earl of Suffolk, Lord Stafford, Lord Montagu, Lord Beauchamp, Lord Berkeley, and Lord de la Warr. Among the French captured were Charny, with a serious head wound, Eustace de Ribemont and Oudart de Renti – three of the leading French commanders in Picardy; Pépin de Wierre was killed.

## Aftermath

Knightly prisoners were considered the personal property of their captors, who would ransom them for large sums. As he had fought in the front rank, Edward claimed many of the prisoners as his own, including Charny, whose captor he rewarded with a gratuity of 100 marks (approximately £ in terms). That evening Edward, who was always conscious of the image he presented, invited the higher-ranking of the captives to dine with him, revealing that he had fought them incognito. He made pleasant conversation with all but Charny, whom he taunted with having abandoned his chivalric principles both by fighting during a truce and by attempting to purchase his way into Calais rather than fight. The detailed defences of Charny's actions later published suggest that the charges had merit by the standards of the time.

Charny was considered a paragon of knightly honour, was acknowledged by contemporaries as a "true and perfect Knight", and was the author of several books on chivalry. He was also the keeper of the Oriflamme, the French royal battle banner; the requirements of this office included being "a knight noble in intention and deed ... virtuous ... and chivalrous". The accusations struck deep and were astute blows in the active propaganda war between the two countries. The modern historian Jonathan Sumption reports that the whole affair was so embarrassing that French participants were said to have "maintained a tight-lipped silence" regarding their roles in it. Whether Charny had acted in an unknightly manner in attempting to purchase his way into Calais was still being debated in the 19th century.

Ribeaumont was promptly released on parole, so Philip should have a first-hand account of the débâcle. Ribeaumont later voluntarily travelled to England to surrender himself until his ransom was paid. Most of the prisoners were paroled on a promise not to fight until they had redeemed themselves. Charny had to wait eighteen months until his ransom was paid in full, for his release. The amount is not known, but King John II (r. 1350–1364), Philip's son and successor after his father's death during Charny's imprisonment, made a partial contribution of 12,000 écus (approximately £ in terms). During his captivity Charny wrote much of his famous Book of Chivalry (Livre de chevalerie), in which he warns against turning to "cunning schemes" as opposed to actions which are "true, loyal and sensible".

Amerigo was allowed to keep the instalment of his bribe he had received from Renti. He soon returned to Italy and went on a pilgrimage to Rome. The fate of his hostaged son, who was carried off into French captivity in the nearby town of Guînes, is not known.

### Charny's revenge

In late 1350 Raoul, Count of Eu, the Grand Constable of France, returned after more than four years in English captivity. He was on parole from Edward personally, pending the handover of his ransom. This had been set at an exorbitant 80,000 écus, too high for Raoul to afford. It had been agreed that he would instead hand over the town of Guînes, which was in his possession. This was a common method of settling ransoms. Guînes had an extremely strong keep, and was the leading fortification in the French defensive ring around Calais. English possession would go a long way to securing Calais against more surprise assaults. Guînes was of little financial value to Raoul, and it was clear that Edward was prepared to accept it only in lieu of a full ransom payment because of its strategic position.

Angered by the attempt to weaken the blockade of Calais, the new French king, John II, promptly had Raoul executed for treason. The perceived interference of the crown in a nobleman's personal affairs, especially one of such high status, caused an uproar in France. Charny had served under Raoul during his first military campaigns and was related by marriage, but his views on the situation are not known. The English made much of this in their diplomatic and propaganda campaigns.

In early January 1352 a band of freelancing English soldiers seized Guînes by a midnight escalade. The French were furious, the acting-commander was drawn and quartered for dereliction of duty at Charny's behest, and a strong protest was sent to Edward. He was thereby put in a difficult position because of the flagrant breach of the truce. Retaining Guînes would mean a loss of honour and a resumption of open warfare, for which he was unprepared. He ordered the English occupants to hand it back.

The English parliament was scheduled to assemble the following week. Several members of the King's Council made fiery, warmongering speeches and the parliament was persuaded to approve three years of war taxes. Reassured that he had adequate financial backing, Edward changed his mind. By the end of January the Captain of Calais had fresh orders: to take over the garrisoning of Guînes in the King's name; and thus the war resumed.

The English had been strengthening the defences of Calais with the construction of fortified towers or bastions at bottlenecks on the roads through the marshes to the town. With the war resumed Amerigo had returned to English service. It was felt that his service at Calais had earned him a position of responsibility, but he was not trusted enough to be assigned to any place where a betrayal would be a devastating blow. He was placed in charge of a new tower at Fretun, 3 miles (4.8 km) south west of Calais.

The main French effort of this round of fighting was against Guînes. Geoffrey de Charny was again put in charge of all French forces in the north east. He assembled an army of 4,500 men, against the English garrison of 115. He reoccupied the town, but in spite of fighting described as savage, he failed to take the keep. In July the Calais garrison launched a surprise night attack on Charny's army, killing many Frenchmen and destroying their siege works.

Shortly after, Charny abandoned the siege and marched his army to Fretun where it launched a surprise attack during the night of 24/25 July. Assailed by an entire French army, the night watch fled. According to one near-contemporary account by Jean Froissart, Amerigo was found still in bed, with his English mistress. Charny took him to Saint-Omer, where he disbanded his troops. Before they departed they gathered, together with the populace from miles around, to witness Amerigo being tortured to death with hot irons and quartered with an axe; his remains were displayed above the town gates. Charny neither garrisoned nor slighted Fretun, to reinforce his view that his argument was a personal one with Amerigo, which entitled Charny to attack the tower to capture him; and that he had acted with honour in leaving it to be reoccupied by the English.

Charny was killed in 1356 at the Battle of Poitiers, when the French royal army was defeated by a smaller Anglo-Gascon force commanded by the Black Prince, and John was captured. Charny fell holding the Oriflamme, thereby fulfilling his keeper's oath to die before giving up the banner. Calais remained in English hands until 1558.

## Notes, citations and sources

Battle of the Hundred Years' War


Grangegorman killings

The Grangegorman killings were the homicide on 6 March 1997 of Sylvia Sheils and Mary Callinan, patients at St. Brendan's Psychiatric Hospital in Grangegorman, Dublin, Ireland. After giving a false confession, Dean Lyons was charged with the murders and placed on remand. In his statement to the Garda Síochána (police), Lyons gave details that would only be known to the murderer or to the investigators. After Lyons was charged, Mark Nash confessed to the killings, but later retracted his confession. In April 2015, Nash's trial for the murder of Sheils and Callinan began after an unsuccessful attempt to prevent the trial from going forward.

Lyons was described by one of the gardaí (policemen) involved in the case as a "Walter Mitty" character, and Charles Smith, psychiatrist and director of the Central Mental Hospital, Dundrum, felt that he might be prone to exaggeration and attention seeking. He spent nine months in jail for a crime that he did not commit, and was released after the charge of murder against him was dropped on 29 April 1998. A commission of investigation was set up to investigate the conduct of the Garda in the case. Dean Lyons died from a heroin overdose in 2000.

## Murders

On the morning of 7 March 1997, Sylvia Sheils and Mary Callinan were found dead in No.1 Orchard View, Grangegorman, Dublin, having been stabbed a number of times. They were found by Ann Mernagh, another resident of the house, who raised the alarm at No.5 Orchard View. The address was a two-story end of terrace house owned by the Eastern Health Board and was used to provide sheltered accommodation for outpatients of St Brendan's Psychiatric Hospital. The entire Orchard View area was completely demolished fifteen years after the murders and is now an empty plot surrounded by a wall.

Sheils and Callinan had been repeatedly stabbed, their throats and faces cut. One of the women's genitals had been extensively mutilated, and both women were partially undressed. The level of mutilation had never before been encountered in a murder investigation in Ireland. Neither of the women had been raped, and no semen was found at the scene. The killings were described as "the most brutal murders in Irish criminal history" by the Irish Examiner newspaper

## Initial investigation

After the alarm had been raised, a major investigation commenced involving detectives from the Dublin Metropolitan North Central Division and the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation (NBCI). The house and the surrounding area were subject to a forensic examination by the Garda Technical Bureau. Gardaí performed house to house inquiries, took more than 1000 statements, and interviewed over 250 suspects. A postmortem examination of the bodies was made by the State Pathologist, Professor John Harbison; his first report was delivered on 13 March 1997. No material was found either by the forensic examination of the scene or by the postmortem examination that would have linked a suspect to the crime.

From the beginning of the investigation until 26 July 1997, the Garda had no main suspect. In April 1997, they engaged a team of criminal psychologists to develop a profile of the killer. Among other items in their initial report, they said that "THE OFFENDER WAS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS AND WAS LIKELY TO REOFFEND" (emphasis in original), and that the killer was likely to have had prior experience of burglary. A local resident had noticed someone acting suspiciously a week or two before the killings; his statement to the Garda was used to make a facial composite:

> "I would describe this fellow as about 6-foot to 6-foot 2, aged 35 to 38 years, very slim, had a black moustache, long at the side. He had a stubble which was very noticeable, a week or two's growth. The moustache was much thicker than the stubble. He had dark hair, straight and to the shoulder. His hair was split at the middle in the front and brushed to each side. He had a long thin face. He had dark eyes and dark eyebrows. He was badly dressed as if the clothes did not suit him. He was dirty looking but not scruffy looking. He was wearing jeans that had a flare, blue in colour. He had dirty white runners on. He was wearing an anorak type coat which came down a few inches below the waist. The coat was zipped up and was a bright colour like a bright brown colour without a hood."

As a result of the psychological profile, the Garda broadcast an appeal for information on the RTÉ television programme Crimeline with a request for people whose houses had been broken into in the Grangegorman area to contact them. After interviewing a number of people involved in burglary, they discovered that Dean Lyons had been talking about the killings. Lyons matched the facial composite released by the gardaí and he was questioned on 26 July 1997.

## Dean Lyons

Dean Lyons was born on 20 April 1973; he was 24 when he was arrested. He grew up in Tallaght in southwest Dublin, the fourth in a family of six children. He went to Scoil Aonghusa National School in Tallaght, where he had some difficulty with his schoolwork. According to his teachers, in today's terms, he would have been classified as having a moderate general learning disability. He was assessed by a psychologist when he was in sixth class, around the age of twelve, who found him to have an intelligence quotient of 70. As a result of the psychologist's report, Lyons was moved to St. Joseph's Special School in Tallaght. During his period in St. Joseph's, he developed a reputation for attention seeking and storytelling. After school, he never held down a steady job and drifted into heroin addiction and homelessness. At the time of his arrest for the Grangegorman murders, he had one conviction for burglary, and had been involved in a number of syringe robberies.

### First interview and arrest

At the time of Lyons' first interview with the gardaí, he was staying at the Salvation Army hostel in Grangegorman. Detective Garda William Mullis and Garda Joseph O'Connor approached him as he was leaving the hostel. They reported that Lyons said: "I think I know what this is about". The gardaí brought Lyons to the Bridewell garda station, and interviewed him in the doctor's room. According to the gardaí, at one point during the interview, Lyons burst out crying and said that he had killed the two women. Lyons claimed that he was suffering withdrawal symptoms at the time and that he made the admission so that he could get more drugs. He said that Garda O'Connor had promised that the sooner he confessed, the sooner he would be released from custody and that he "wasn't thinking straight". The gardaí say that he was told that he was not under arrest and that he could leave at any time. As a result of his confession, Dean Lyons was arrested on suspicion of murdering the two women at 13:46 on 26 July 1997.

Lyons' admissions during the first interview were not very detailed, and many of the details provided did not match the evidence. Lyons gave incorrect information about the precise location of the killings and about the number of weapons used. During the interview, he was confused about the number of people that had been killed, and he thought that the women were awake, and moving about the house at the time, which conflicted with the forensic evidence.

### Subsequent interviews

While the first interview was videotaped, at the beginning of the second interview, Lyons said that he wanted video recording to be stopped. It has been alleged that the decision to terminate the recording was prompted by the gardaí before the start of the second interview. A number of items discussed during the second interview were not included on the formal interview record, including anecdotes told by Lyons about his former criminal activity which gardaí believed at the time to be untrue. As the interview continued, Lyons was asked if he wanted to make a formal statement, to which he agreed. This statement contains a number of points about the killings that were not known to the public at the time. Some of the more glaring inaccuracies mentioned in the first interview are not included in the statement, although this statement contains some notable omissions and inaccuracies.

Midway through the interview, Lyons was allowed a break, during which he was seen by a doctor, and was given medication. He also met his father during this break. He told his father that he had committed the murder, to which his father replied: "Dean, you are a terrible liar". The gardaí had an informal meeting during the break, during which some gardaí expressed unease about Dean Lyons; Detective Garda Cox described him as a "Walter Mitty" character during this meeting. There are some significant changes in Lyons' story after the break. For example: prior to the break, he claimed that he had used only one knife and after the break, he said that he had used four separate weapons, including electric carving knives. The latter description matches closely to Professor Harbison's report. A number of detailed descriptions were given which matched closely with the physical evidence and with the psychological profile.

### Doubts about Dean Lyons' testimony

As mentioned, some of the gardaí had expressed doubts about Lyons while he was being interviewed. Charles Smith found his confession unconvincing and expressed his concerns to Lyons' solicitor while Lyons was on remand. Gísli Guðjónsson, a psychologist engaged by Lyons' solicitors, found that he was very suggestible and susceptible to leading questions. The commission of investigation pointed out the following exchange as an example of Lyons changing his position in response to a question:

> Dean Lyons (DL): "I met two women at the top of the stairs and I went mad because they started screaming and I stabbed them."
>
> Detective Garda Cox (DC): "I have to put it to you that you are not telling the truth at this stage, is that correct."
>
> DL: "It's months ago and it is not easy to remember when you are on gear because it fucks your head up."
>
> DC: "Is it that you don't remember or is it that you don't want to remember."
>
> DL: No reply.
>
> DC: "Can you describe the first woman that you met and what room she came out of."
>
> DL: "It was the second room from the top of the stairs and she was stout about one or two inches smaller than me and she had grey shoulder length hair. She was wearing a very light nightdress."
>
> Detective Sergeant McNulty: "What happened when you met her."
>
> DL: "I stabbed her a few times to stop her screaming."
>
> DC: "I put it to you that this did not happen in the hallway but happened in the bedroom, would you agree."
>
> DL: "Yes."

## Mark Nash's confession

In August 1997, Carl Doyle and his wife Catherine Doyle were stabbed to death in Ballintober, County Roscommon by Mark Nash, a 25-year-old resident of Drumcondra in North Dublin. During his interview with the gardaí, he said that about three months prior to his arrest, as he was walking to Stoneybatter, he broke into a house through the back, and had stabbed two women in their sleep. In his statement, there were at least two aspects of the crime scene that were not known to the public at the time. Nash later retracted his confession. Nash's confession caused some consternation amongst the gardaí, as Dean Lyons had been charged at that point and was on remand awaiting trial. Two camps emerged within the gardaí, one which believed that Nash's confession threw doubt on Lyons' guilt, the other which believed that Lyons was the murderer. On 27 August 1997, the Garda Commissioner appointed Assistant Commissioner James McHugh to carry out a review of the available evidence. He released a preliminary report on 10 September 1997, and an interim report on 9 January 1998; while these reports did not come to a conclusion about Lyons' guilt, they did raise a number of doubts about his testimony.

## Lyons exonerated

As a result of Assistant Commissioner McHugh's investigation and due to the defense solicitor's refusal to release Gísli's report, the Director of Public Prosecutions' office appointed a psychologist, Adrian Grounds, to assess Dean Lyons. Grounds concluded that Dean Lyons was highly suggestible and that his admissions were unreliable:

> "I am not in a position to corroborate Mr Lyons' account of being corrected, prompted and advised by Garda officers and his description of learning from them about the details of the admissions they were seeking. However Mr Lyons' account to me in our interview supported and was consistent with the earlier impressions I had gained from reading the case papers. In my earlier report I noted that the materials then available to me raised questions about whether the details of Mr Lyons' final admissions could have derived from the content of questions put to him during the day, rather than his knowledge and memory, and about whether he was unusually suggestible. Following my interview with Dean Lyons and his parents, these concerns are substantially strengthened and I now think that it is very likely that his detailed admissions were unreliable."

As a result of Grounds' report, the charge of murder against Dean Lyons was dropped on 29 April 1998; he had been imprisoned on remand for nine months. Lyons died in 2000 of a heroin overdose. In 2005, the Garda Síochána published an apology to the Lyons family for Dean Lyons' arrest and detention in national newspapers.

## Commission of investigation

In February 2006, a commission of investigation was established to investigate the circumstances surrounding Dean Lyons' confession and arrest. Its sole member was George Birmingham, a senior counsel. The commission's terms of reference are stated below:

> To undertake a thorough investigation and make a report in accordance with the provisions of section 32 of the Commission of Investigation Act 2004 (No. 23 of 2004) on the following specific matters:

> 1\) the circumstances surrounding the making of a confession by Dean Lyons (deceased) about the deaths of Ms Mary Callinan and Ms Sylvia Sheils in March 1997 in Grangegorman Dublin 7,

> 2\) the adequacy of the Garda assessment of the reliability of Mr Lyons' confession both before and after he was charged with murder, and

> 3\) the adequacy of information provided by the Garda Síochána on the morning of 27 July 1997 to the Director of Public Prosecutions and in particular whether any additional information should have been provided at that time.

### Leaking of report

In 2006, Robert McNulty leaked the draft report of the commission to the Evening Herald newspaper before it was publicly available. McNulty was one of the detectives who interviewed Dean Lyons after he made his initial confession; he received a suspended jail sentence of twelve months and a €5000 fine for leaking the report.

### Commission findings

The commission found that Lyons acquired the detailed information in his statement from gardaí: "Dean Lyons acquired the detailed information in relation to the crimes which is a feature of later interviews, and in particular the third interview, from the gardaí who were interviewing him." The commission found that: "The written record maintained of the non-video-recorded interviews is not comprehensive and matters are excluded that would have assisted in the assessment of the reliability of Dean Lyons. This is not in accordance with section 12 (11) (b)(i) of the Criminal Justice Act (Treatment of Persons in Custody in Garda Síochána Stations) Regulations 1987." The report said that Dean Lyons was not abused or ill-treated during his detention and that:

> His admissions were not produced by oppression or coercive conduct on the part of the Gardaí. Neither were the admissions produced as a result of anything in the nature of a bribe or inducement. There was no deliberate attempt to frame Dean Lyons. However, Dean Lyons was able to provide accurate details of murders it is now accepted that he did not commit, due to the manner in which he was interviewed by gardaí. He wished to associate himself with the murders and readily agreed to leading questions which were asked by interviewing gardaí.

## Trial and conviction of Mark Nash

Nash was convicted of the Roscommon murders in October 1998 and sentenced to life imprisonment. In July 1998 the Garda recommended charging him for the Grangegorman murders, and in September 1999 the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) said this should be done when the Book of Evidence was complete. In November 2000, shortly after Lyons' death, the DPP and Garda agreed that no charges should be brought against Nash in the short term, but the case would remain open. As Nash was already in prison, the urgency was less, and pressure of other work meant the Forensic Science Laboratory was slow to test items of evidence. In July 2009, a "spectacular breakthrough" came when new DNA tests showed the victims' blood on Nash's jacket. Nash was formally charged with the murders in October 2009. He launched a legal challenge, claiming excessive delay and negative publicity would prevent a fair trial. This was rejected by Michael Moriarty in the High Court in 2012, and confirmed on appeal to the Supreme Court in January 2015. In March 2015, Nash was put on trial for the murders. In April he was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. The judge refused to backdate the sentence to the direction to charge Nash or his original arrest in 1999. The jury was excused from jury service for life.

## Links to other crimes

In 2015, it was reported that Mark Nash had been questioned in 1997 over the murder of Dorothy Wood but had been ruled out as a suspect. The 94-year-old was found suffocated in her bed in Huddersfield on 7 May 1996. In 1998 a man was jailed for seven years for the murder but he was released in 2004 due to a miscarriage of justice.

Series of murders