It is said that he was the son of a tanner of Hedingham Sibil in Essex, and was apprenticed in London, whence he went, in the English army, to fight in the Hundred Years War. At the conclusion of the Treaty of Brétigny in 1360, he collected a band of mercenaries, and moved to Italy, where his so-called “White Company” fought for various Italian states and factions. In 1375 Florence entered into an agreement with him. His latter years were spent in a villa in the neighborhood of Florence, where he died and was temporarily buried in the Duomo. In 1436 the Florentines commissioned of Paolo Uccello a funerary monument which still stands in the Duomo.
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