Introduction
The Hundred Years’ War was fought for 116 years during the years 1337 to 1453 between the British and the French for the throne of France. The throne had fallen vacant after the lineage of the Capetian French kings fell vacant. The main contenders for the throne were the Plantagenet from England and the Valois from France. It was during the reign of King Edward III of England, who lived between the years 1312 to 1377 that the war broke into a full-fledged battle. This paper examines issues such as how the war began in 1337 and the major events that Edward the third was involved in through 1360.
How the War Began
The seeds of the war were sown in 1066 when William, Duke of Normandy who was a vassal of the French king invaded England and defeated the Anglo-Saxon King Harold II at the Battle of Hastings and crowned himself as the King of England. As Duke of Normandy, he remained a vassal of the French King and was required to swear fealty to the latter for his lands in France and he considered this very humiliating. On the French side, the Capetian monarchs resented a neighboring kingdom holding lands within their realm, and sought to neutralize the threat England now posed to France. After an era of civil wars and unrest in England during 1135 – 1154 known called as the Anarchy, the Anglo-Norman dynasty was succeeded by the Angevin Kings who ruled Normandy and England and other areas such as Aquitaine, Poitou, Anjou, etc.
The British king had more French areas than the French King but the fact was that the French king was much weaker than the King of England though the latter was a vassal to the French King. This condition was a cause of continual stress and conflict. The French won three wars, the conquest of Normandy in 1214), the Saintonge War in 1242) and the War of Saint-Sardos in 1324, and this helped to reduce England’s hold in France to a few small provinces in Gascony and the complete loss of the crown jewel of Normandy. By the early 14th century, many members of the British court yearned for the time when their forefathers controlled areas such as Normandy, which they also considered their ancestral homeland and they wanted to regain control of these areas (Neillands, 2001).
In France, the unbroken line of the Direct Capetian firstborn sons had succeeded each other for centuries. It was the longest continuous dynasty in medieval Europe. In 1314, the direct Capetian, King Philip IV, died, leaving three male heirs: Louis X, Philip V, and Charles IV. The eldest son and heir, Louis X, died in 1316, leaving only his posthumous son John I, who was born and died that same year, and a daughter Joan, whose paternity was suspect. To ensure that he and not Joan, inherited the throne, Philip IV’s second-eldest son, Philip V, spread rumors that Joan was a result of her mother’s adultery and he had her barred from the succession. This act was a by-product of the Salic law that prevented women from inheriting the French throne. When Philip died in 1322, his daughters too were put aside in favor of the third son of Philip IV, Charles IV (Neillands, 2001).
Allmand (1998) writes that in 1324, Edward II and Charles IV engaged in the War of Saint-Sardos in Gascony. In the siege of the English fortress of La Réole, on the Garonne, the English forces, led by Edmund of Woodstock, Earl of Kent, were forced to surrender after a month of bombardment from the French cannons, after promised reinforcements never arrived. The war was a complete failure for England, and only Bordeaux and a narrow coastal strip of the once-great Duchy of Aquitaine remained in English hands. The recovery of these lost lands became a major focus of English diplomacy. The war also galvanized opposition to Edward II among the English nobility and led to his eventual assassination in 1327, which in turn caused the succession of the young Edward III. Charles IV died in 1328, leaving only a daughter, and an unborn infant, which would be a girl. The senior line of the Capetian dynasty had thus ended, creating a crisis over the French succession.
In England, Charles IV’s sister Isabella, widow of Edward II, was at the time effectively in control of the crown in the name of the young king. Edward III, being the nephew of Charles, was his closest living male relative and was at that time the only surviving male descendant of the senior line of the Capetian dynasty descending through Philip IV. By the English interpretation of feudal law, made Edward III the legitimate heir to the throne of France. The French court could not accept the fact that France could be ruled by a British king. The Salic Law, that the royal inheritance could not pass to a woman or through her to her offspring was evoked. Philip of Valois, the most senior male of the Capetian dynasty after Charles IV and who had taken regency after Charles IV’s death, was regarded as the legitimate heir and was allowed to take the throne. He was crowned as Philip VI, the first of the House of Valois, a cadet branch of the Capetian dynasty. After Philip was crowned, the English still controlled Gascony. Gascony produced vital shipments of salt and wine and was very profitable and it was a separate fief, held of the French crown, rather than a territory of England. The homage done for its possession was a bone of contention between the two kings. Philip VI demanded Edward’s recognition as sovereign; Edward wanted the return of further lands lost by his father.
“In 1331, facing serious problems at home, Edward accepted Philip as King of France and gave up his claims to the French throne. In effect, England kept Gascony, in return for Edward giving up his claims to be the rightful king of France”(Allmand, 1998).
In 1333, Edward III went to war with David II of Scotland, a French ally under the Auld Alliance, and began the Second War of Scottish Independence. Philip saw the opportunity to reclaim Gascony while England’s attention was concentrated northwards. However, the war was, initially at least, a quick success for England, and David was forced to flee to France after being defeated by King Edward and Edward Balliol at the Battle of Halidon Hill in July. In 1336, Philip made plans for an expedition to restore David to the Scottish throne, and to also seize Gascony.
“Open hostilities broke out as French ships began scouting coastal settlements on the English Channel and in 1337 Philip reclaimed the Gascon area, citing feudal law and saying that Edward had broken his oath by not attending to the needs and demands of his lord. Edward III responded by saying he was in fact the rightful heir to the French throne, and on All Saints’ Day, war had been declared” (Curry, 2002).
The immediate trigger for the war was the arrest of English weavers in Flanders. English sheep growers sold their long fine wool to weavers in Flanders, France. Flemish weavers as well as English sheep growers depended on this trade for their livelihood. In 1336 Philip VI arrested all English merchants in Flanders and took away the privileges of the Flemish towns and the craft guilds. The Flemings revolted against French control and allied with England (Allmand, 1998).
This had started the prolonged 100 years war that engulfed the two countries and caused large-scale loss of lives on both sides. France had about four times the population of England, had a much larger army was generally regarded as the more powerful. Moreover, since most of the war was fought on French soil, it was presumed that the French would win the war. But the reverse happened and Britain emerged as the more powerful country with a stronger Naval force that helped it colonize Africa and India. France in turn got a powerful king
King Edward III and major events
Edward III was born at Windsor on November 13, 1312, and was called “Edward of Windsor” in his early years. The reign of his father, Edward II, was fraught with military defeat, rebellious barons, and corrupt courtiers. On 20 January 1327, his mother queen Isabella, and her consort Roger Mortimer deposed the king and for the sake of appearance, Edward was crowned as King Edward III. Isabella and Mortimer served as Regents and controlled the whole court and the kingdom. Mortimer subjected the young king to constant disrespect and humiliation. Mortimer used his power to acquire several noble estates and titles but his greed and arrogance caused much resentment among the nobles. When Edward was 18, with the help of a few trusted companions, he staged a coup d’état at Nottingham castle and arrested both his mother and Mortimer. Mortimer was sent to the Tower of London and hanged a month later. Isabella was forced into retirement at Castle Rising and thus had begun the reign of King Edward III (Bothwell, 2001).
Early in his reign, he faced war on two fronts, the Scots and the French. The Scots in the Second War of Scottish Independence in 1933 had been defeated and ha however started recouping and won castle after castle till, by 1338, only a few shires remained under King Edward. The challenge from the French was severe and the French were the main enemies since they provided constant support to the Scottish through the Franco-Scottish alliance and the French ruler, Philip VI protected David II, the deposed King of Scotland who was in exile in France, and supported Scottish raids in Northern England. The French had also started attacking English coastal towns and the French had seized the British King’s lands in France (Ormrod, 1990).
As explained in section 1, Edward claimed the French crown since he felt he was the only living male descendant of his deceased maternal grandfather, Philip IV. The French, however, used the Salic law of succession and rejected the claim, and declared Philip IV’s nephew, Philip VI, the true heir, and this started the 100-year war. The reign of King Edward III had many remarkable events and these are explained in the section.
The victory at Crecy
In July 1346 Edward III landed in Normandy with an army of 10,000. The French pursued him to Crecy, where the English occupied the side of a little hill. On the plain below, outnumbering the English four to one, Philip VI commanded a huge army of mounted French knights and hired Genoese crossbowmen on foot. Edward had all his men dismount because they were armed with the new longbow. The war saw the English use the Long Bow with very deadly effects (Bothwell, 2001).
“As the Genoese hired soldiers advanced to the attack they found that their crossbow strings were loosened by rain though they shot fiercely with their crossbows, they were no match for the more rapid shooting of the English longbow men, whose shafts fell so thick that it seemed snow. When the Genoese saw the arrows falling thick among them they threw down their bows and ran. At this King Philip flew into a rage and cried out, “Slay these rascals, for they will trouble us without reason!” Whereupon his men-at-arms dashed in among the Genoese and slew a great number of them. The Englishmen shot where they saw the thickest press. The sharp arrows pierced the knights and their horses, and many fell, both horse and man. And when they were down they could not rise again, the press was so thick that one overthrew another” (Froissart, 1360).
The young son of Edward called the Black Prince was distinguished himself when he and his men were surrounded by a large number of French soldiers and he managed to defeat the enemies. The English won the first great land battle of the long war. Before this battle, they had already won command of the English Channel by a spectacular naval victory at Sluys, and after Crecy, the town of Calais, the door into France, surrendered to them on Sept. 28, 1347, after a year’s siege (Neillands, 2001).
The Sea Battle of Sluys
The naval Battle of Sluys was fought on 24 June 1340 and it destroyed most of France’s fleet, making a French invasion of England impossible, and ensuring that the remainder of the war would be fought mostly in France. The French fleet that vastly outnumbered the British fleet chose to remain at anchor in the bay and decided to opt for a defensive fight. The British ships, on the other hand, surrounded the French ships and showered arrows from the longbow, and boarded the French vessels, destroying the French fleet.
Results of these wars
The French were routed at sea and the British had managed to gain an entry point at Normandy into France. After Crecy, the town of Calais surrendered to them on Sept. 28, 1347. A treaty with England was finally concluded at Bretigny in 1360, by which King John was to pay a large money ransom and Edward III was to have Guienne, Crecy, and Calais in full sovereignty. In return, Edward renounced all claims to the French crown (Allmand, 1998).
France was shaken by the peasant revolt while the whole of Europe was consumed by the Great Plague that killed thousands of people, whole cities were emptied and there was a huge scarcity of manpower to even look after the fields. War took a backseat as Kings tried to settle internal matters and the peace lasted for a few years. King Edward John III died on 21 June 1376. The court of England witnessed intense intrigues and power struggles while the French regained control over their lands in France.
Conclusion
The paper has discussed the 100-year war between the French and The British and the war lasted from 1337 to 1453. Various causes that lead to the outbreak of war have been examined and the main cause was the claim of the English to the throne of France since the French ruler had died without a male heir. The role of King Edward III in the war has been discussed along with events during the war.
References
Allmand Christopher. 1988. The Hundred Years War: England and France at War c.1300-c.1450. Cambridge University Press. ISBN-13: 978-0521319232.
Bothwell, J.S. 2001. The Age of Edward III. York: The Boydell Press. ISBN 1-903153-06-9.
Curry Anne. 2002. The Hundred Years’ War. Osprey Publishing. ISBN-13: 978-1841762692.
Froissart Jean. 1360. Excerpts from Froissart’s Chronicle. Penguin Classics, 1978. ISBN 0-14-044200-6.
Neillands Robin. 2001. The Hundred Years War: Revised Edition. Routledge Publications. ISBN-13: 978-0415261319.
Ormrod, W.M. 1990. The Reign of Edward III. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-04876-9.
Rogers, C.J. 2000. War Cruel and Sharp: English Strategy under Edward III, 1327–1360. Woodbridge: Boydell Press. ISBN 0-85115-804-8.