t took the Winter of 1452-1453 before Charles could raise another army, but in April 1453 his forces advanced again on Aquitaine, led this time by the Lord of Clermont, with Jean Bureau once again commanding the artillery, and the Breton Jean, Count of Penthiévre leading the gens d'ordonnance. This force was too large for Talbot to attack, but when it split into smaller contingents to besiege various towns in the Medoc and along the Dordogne valley, Talbot at once marched from Bordeaux. During the winter he had received reinforcements under his son, Lord de Lisle, and with an Anglo-Gascon force of some 6,000 men, he intended to attack the main French force besieging the town of Castillon, 30 miles Southeast of the city. Talbot had now been in arms against the French for the best part of fifty years and was well into his seventies, an old man in any age.
Talbot arrived at Castillon before dawn on 17th July, overrunning a detachment of French archers, whom he pursued with his cavalry towards the main French camp, here, under advise from Jean Bureau, the French, anticipating an English assault had entrenched themselves strongly, throwing up walls of earth and tree-trunks and erecting artillery positions containing over 300 guns of various calibre, many of which were hastily switched from the town walls to cover the approach of the English army.
A little thought or a brief reconnaissance might have shown Talbot the inadvisability of leading his men against such a strong position, but a huge cloud of dust over the enemy camp, caused by the French bring their horses into shelter, seemed to indicate fleeing cavalry. Thinking the French were in retreat, Talbot did not hesitate. Keeping to the terms agreed for his release at Falaise, in which he had sworn never again to wear armour against the king of France, he rode into battle unarmed and unarmoured, mounted on a white pony, sending wave after wave of men-of-arms and archers forward against the French lines. As at Formigny, it was a slaughter.
French artillery broke up the English advance and, when the advance faltered, the gens d'ordonnance charged out to cut down the scattered knots of dazed archers and men-at-arms. Much had changed since Crécy and artillery had come to dominate the battlefield. In the midst of the battle, Talbot sat on his pony, waving his men on to the attack, until a cannonball killed his horse, trapping him under it's weight, and a French man-at-arms leapt over the parapet to finish him of with a battle-axe. Elsewhere in the field his only son, the Lord de Lisle, was brought down and killed in the rout. With both of their leaders dead the English soldiers were hustled back to the banks of the Dordogne, where they made a final stand before breaking, many drowned in their headlong scramble to the West and the shelter of Bordeaux. Next day, the French let Talbot's herald roam the battlefield searching for his master, who was recognised only by a missing tooth.
Talbot's body was carried back to England and now lies buried at Whitchurch in Shropshire, but a column, preserved by the local people still marks where he fell beside the river on the site of the last and most decisive battle of the Hundred Years War. Sweeping forward from Castillon, the French army was again before Bordeaux on 23rd July and after a three-month siege, the city finally surrendered on 19th October. This time, King Charles was not so lenient. He demanded a fine of 100,000 gold crowns and banished those Gascon lords, like the Captal de Buch, who had welcomed the return of the English after their first evacuation. The war that had begun over the Duchy of Aquitaine in 1337 had come to an end in the Duchy in 1453, 116 years after it all began.