The village and castle at Auberoche had been seized from the French occupants by a raiding force under the Earl of Derby, who had landed in June with a small army from England and augmented it with Gascon troops and conducted a large scale raid across the frontier, aiming at and capturing the important town of Bergerac during August. Amongst the other places he took before retreating back to Bordeaux for fresh troops and supplies was Auberoche, and in mid-October it became the first position counterattacked by a 7,000 strong French army under Louis of Poitiers. Poitiers' feudal lord, the Duke of Normandy (later King John II of France), had ordered him to counterattack the English here so that Normandy was free to advance from La Réole to the North.