Siege of Lens

The Siege of Lens took place during the Thirty Years' War, after France had entered the conflict directly in 1635. While its ally, the Dutch Republic, threatened to take Antwerp from the Spanish, forcing them to expose their western front, France won some successes in Flanders, along the Lys. After the Siege of Dunkirk (1646) and the Siege of Mardyck in August 1646, Marshal Jean de Gassion also captured the Château d'Isenghien on 12 September 1646. The small town of Lens was taken and retaken seven times in less than a century. In 1646, it had fallen back under Spanish control.^[2]

The Siege of Lens took place the following year.^[3] The fortified place, situated in a plain, had an earth-backed wall with towers, and a wide and deep dry ditch with a covered way.^[1] On 28 September 1647, while attempting to pull out a palisade stake, Jean de Gassion was wounded in the head by a musket shot. He died at Arras on 2 October 1647.

The Siege of Lens continued under the Marquis of Villequier, who took the town on 3 October 1647.^[1] In August of the following year, the Battle of Lens took place.^[4]

• Battle of Lens
• Franco-Spanish War (1635–1659)
• Lens, Pas-de-Calais