Hundred Years’ War

Hundred Years’ War, armed conflict between France and England during the years from 1337 to 1453. The Hundred Years’ War was a series of short conflicts, broken intermittently by a number of truces and peace treaties. It resulted from disputes between the ruling families of the two countries, the French Capetians (see Capet) and the English Plantagenets, over territories in France and the succession to the French throne.

ROOTS OF THE CONFLICT

The conflict stemmed from the fact that successive kings of England, beginning with William I in 1066, had controlled large areas of France as fiefs, lands they held in exchange for service and loyalty to the king of France (see Feudalism). By the time King Edward I of England died in 1307, few of these French territories remained in English hands. The most important of these remaining few was Gascony, a valuable wine-producing region in the southwestern part of France. However, the French kept trying to extend their jurisdiction in this region, and the two countries had often fought small skirmishes over control of Gascony. The situation between the two countries grew more complicated in 1308 when Edward I’s son Edward II of England married the daughter of King Philip IV of France. Their son, Edward III, thus had a claim to the French throne when Philip IV’s last son died in 1328 without a male heir.

However, the French nobles were unwilling to consider Edward III as their king. They declared that the French crown could pass only to a man whose claim to the throne was through his male ancestors. Thus Philip VI, a nephew of Philip IV, became king in 1328. Though Edward III did not challenge this decision at the time, he never renounced his claim to the French throne, and he reasserted it more forcefully when hostilities with France began.

The Hundred Years’ War involved three major conflicts: the Edwardian war (1340-1360), dominated by Edward III of England; the Caroline war (1369-1389), dominated by Charles V of France and his gifted military commanders; and the Lancastrian war (1415-1435), dominated by Henry V of England and his brother John, the duke of Bedford.

THE EDWARDIAN WAR (1340-1360)

The Edwardian war was a great English success. The English were able to put together a strong, well-financed army. In addition, the use of the English longbow against French forces enabled the English to win many important victories. By the end of the Edwardian war, the English had taken control of much of southwestern France, as well as the important northern city of Calais.

Opposing Forces

Though England was smaller and poorer than France, it had more highly developed governing institutions, including a system of regular taxation. In France before the late 1350s, the king could levy taxes only by long negotiations at a local level, and Frenchmen stubbornly resisted paying anything when war was not actually in progress. Frequently short of money, the French found their advantages over England in wealth and population at the start of the war negated by inadequate financial institutions.

The English still faced challenges, however, as they had to fight on French soil. It was very complicated and expensive to transport an army of heavily-armored knights to France, and so the English found it much cheaper to send mainly infantrymen and foot soldiers. As a result, their armies were much smaller and contained fewer powerful horse-mounted cavalry than did those of the French.

However, the English compensated for their lack of cavalry by arming their infantry with the longbow, a powerful weapon that could fire an arrow both quickly and accurately. The longbow could penetrate knights’ chain mail, even when shot from a substantial distance. It enabled the English archers to destroy French cavalry charges. Consequently the English, even when outnumbered, usually won the pitched battles.

Hostilities began on May 24, 1337, when Philip VI invaded the English-held region of Gascony in southwestern France. In retaliation, Edward III reaffirmed his claim to the French throne and invaded France from the north. The English won command of the sea in June 1340 when they destroyed a French fleet off Sluis in the Netherlands. They were thus able to control the English Channel and prevent French forces from invading the English islands.

Major Battles

The English conducted three major campaigns between 1345 and 1360. The first campaign was highlighted by three English victories, including the Battle of Crécy in Normandy (Normandie) in 1346. During the battles of this campaign, the English inflicted heavy losses on the French, and Edward III concluded the campaign by taking the important French port of Calais in 1347.

The next campaign began in the southwest of France, where Edward III’s son, Edward the Black Prince of Wales, conducted a very damaging raid in 1355. In 1356 the Black Prince marched his forces northward until the new French king, John II, cornered him near Poitiers in western France in September. There, however, the Black Prince defeated the French decisively, taking John II prisoner. John spent four years in captivity trying to arrange his ransom and to buy his release with generous treaties. Despite the fact that they were unable to finance an army, the government in France rejected the treaties negotiated in London. Edward III’s final campaign in 1359 was unopposed by the French. It ended with the Peace of Brétigny in 1360 that forced the French to cede all of the southwestern region of Aquitaine to the English, and left thousands of unemployed soldiers ravaging the French countryside.

THE CAROLINE WAR (1369-1389)

The Caroline war was characterized by a dramatic French resurgence. Major reorganization of French forces by King Charles V (1364-1380), including the establishment of a standing army, enabled the French to quickly regain much of the territory that they had lost to the English in the Edwardian war. Although political turmoil prevented the French from achieving a total victory, they were able to reduce English possessions in France to a few coastal cities.

French Successes

French successes in the Caroline war were due in large part to the skills of two men that the new French king, Charles V, found to lead his armies. One of them, Bertrand du Guesclin, a noble from Brittany, was highly skilled in conducting small hit-and-run raids and was able to control the unruly soldiers of the period. The other, Olivier de Clisson, was a nobleman who had fought on the English side during the Edwardian war. He returned to the French side and gave Charles V the benefit of his knowledge of English tactics. Du Guesclin became Constable of France (head of the army) in 1370, and when he died in 1380, Clisson succeeded him.

Charles also reorganized the French military, developing a full-time, professional army for the first time, and established a regular system of taxation to pay for it. In addition, France gained an important ally on the throne of the Spanish kingdom of Castile, Henry II, who had pledged support for Charles V.

When the Caroline war began in 1369, the English found themselves at a disadvantage. Edward III of England was getting old, and the Black Prince was in the early stages of a terminal illness. French troops under Du Guesclin and Clisson gradually were able to reconquer western France, using hit-and-run tactics and avoiding major pitched battles. The French cause was helped when a largely Castilian fleet defeated the English navy in 1372 off La Rochelle in western France. The French had also been rebuilding their own fleet, and in the summer of 1377 they launched an offensive that left the English in control of only a few coastal cities in the northwest of France. The French and Castilian navies took command of the English Channel and attacked the southern English coast. Under threat of invasion, the English were forced onto the defensive.

Domestic Turmoil

However, the untimely death in 1380 of Charles V brought French advancement to a halt. Charles’s heir, Charles VI (1380-1422), was only 11 years old, and his inability to take power immediately led to the development of rival factions at court. One faction was led by Charles VI’s uncle Philip the Bold, duke of Burgundy. The other, called the Marmousets, included Charles V’s former officials and military commanders and was led by the Constable of France, Olivier de Clisson. The French planned major invasions of England in 1385 and 1386, and a lesser raid in 1387. However, a combination of bad weather andinternal political conflict prevented these campaigns, and the Caroline war finally ended in 1389 with the first of several long truces.

Shortly after the truce was signed, a series of crises destabilized the governments of both England and France, gradually undermining the peace. In August 1392, Charles VI had a sudden attack of mental illness, which would afflict him off and on for the rest of his life. Philip the Bold immediately seized power and ousted Clisson and the Marmousets. Under Philip’s leadership, a new and longer truce was made with England in 1396, when English king Richard II married the daughter of Charles VI. Then, in 1399, Richard II, who was the key to peace between the English and the French, was overthrown by his cousin, Henry IV, of the Lancastrian branch of the Plantagenet family. Finally, in 1404, the able and diplomatic Philip the Bold died and was succeeded by his brutal and unpopular son, John the Fearless, as ruler of Burgundy. In 1407 John the Fearless had the king’s brother murdered, and France plunged into civil war. John occupied Paris in 1418, but one year later he was murdered by forces loyal to the king.

THE LANCASTRIAN WAR (1415-1435)

The Lancastrian war was originally a success for the English. Aided by an alliance with the duke of the French region of Burgundy, the English quickly captured much of northern and western France, taking Paris in 1420. English expansion, though checked in 1429, was not reversed until the duke of Burgundy changed his allegiance back to the French in 1435, leaving English forces seriously overextended. After this, the French quickly regained lost territory.

English Resurgence

The turmoil generated by John the Fearless left France highly vulnerable to attack, and King Henry V of England inaugurated the Lancastrian war by invading France in 1415. A large French force trapped Henry’s troops in October near Agincourt in northern France. Though Henry’s forces were severely outnumbered, the English archers and foot soldiers held their ground against the French heavy cavalry. The French, who no longer had leaders like Clisson who understood English tactics, reverted to their traditional cavalry charge and were easy targets for English arrows. The French suffered a defeat that approached a massacre at the Battle of Agincourt.

In 1417 Henry began the methodical conquest of Normandy and other parts of northwestern France. He met little resistance since many of the noblemen of Normandy had died in the massacre at Agincourt. Henry was aided by the forces of Philip the Good, the son of John the Fearless of Burgundy. Philip sided with the advancing English after his father was murdered by forces loyal to the French king. In 1420 the French government was forced to sign the Treaty of Troyes, which disinherited the dauphin (the French heir to the throne), gave his sister Catherine to Henry V in marriage, and declared Henry the heir of Charles VI. Philip the Good accompanied the English king into Paris. In 1421 Henry and Catherine had a son, Henry VI. Like Edward III before him, he was the grandson of two kings but owed his French royal blood to his mother.

The Treaty of Troyes did not end the Lancastrian War, for much of central and southern France did not accept it; they supported the dauphin, who became Charles VII in 1422. Though still young, Henry V of England died in 1422, and Charles VI followed a few months later. The infant Henry VI was officially the king of both countries, and his uncle John, duke of Bedford, continued the English war effort in France, with the much-needed support of Philip the Good of Burgundy. In 1424 the duke of Bedford defeated the French in battle at Verneuil, and in 1428 he besieged Orléans, an important city in central France.

Joan of Arc

Early in 1429 there appeared before Charles VII a most unusual and unexpected visitor—a 17-year-old peasant girl, dressed in men’s clothing. This young woman claimed to have had visions of saints who told her that she was to lead a French army against the English besieging Orléans. Though hesitant to accept this offer, Charles finally agreed and sent a relief expedition that successfully broke the siege. The young heroine, known to history as Saint Joan of Arc, followed this success with another victory over the English at Patay, and then led Charles to Reims, deep in enemy-held territory, where he was crowned king of France.

However, despite the dramatic French victories under Joan of Arc, they were merely a brief episode in which the French made limited gains. Joan was eventually captured by the Burgundians, turned over to the English, and executed in 1431.

THE END OF THE WAR

In 1435, after lengthy peace negotiations with Charles VII, Philip the Good of Burgundy abandoned his support of the English. Without the support of Philip’s forces, the English were unable to adequately hold their territory, and the tide of the war turned in favor of France, and the French regained Paris in 1436.

In addition, the French revived the stable coinage, regular taxes, and the standing army that had originated under Charles V but had disappeared during his son’s insanity. France also acquired superiority in the use of firearms, especially field artillery. These large, mobile cannons were capable of inflicting heavy damage, and they gave the French the same sort of military advantage that the longbow had given the English in the previous century.

In 1444 French conquests forced the English to agree to a truce. When that truce expired five years later, the remaining English possessions in France quickly fell into French hands. Artillery decided both the battle of Formigny (1450), which determined the fate of Normandy, and the battle of Castillon (1453), which ended English rule in Aquitaine. The battle of Castillon marked the end of the Hundred Years’ War. The English retained Calais in the far north until 1558, but were never again able to mount a serious threat to France.

The end of the Hundred Years’ War was also the end of a long period of economic trouble and declining population in both countries, to which the war had contributed. In France, the war encouraged the emergence of centralized governing institutions. In England, the loss of French territory forced the government to focus on domestic issues. By the end of the war both the French and English peoples began to view themselves as separate and distinctive nationalities, and not merely as members of a feudal empire.