Although the best-known version of his surname suggests that Artois was his birthplace, historians agree that he was a native of Gascony.
In 1398, when Roger Mortimer, 4th Earl of March, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, was killed in a skirmish with the O'Brien clan at Kells, County Meath, d'Artois was put in charge of taking reprisals against the O'Briens.