The 100 Years War

Was this war really 100 years long? The interminable conflict was between England and France wasn’t it? How was the war paid for? Lots of men fought as soldiers at various points but who were they and how were they recruited? In any case what were the English doing in France where they surely had no business to be? And how did it all end - indeed who were the winners?

This series of conflicts actually lasted from 1337 to 1453, 116 years in total, and formally, if not actually, for another 20 until a final peace deal was signed. And no, it wasn’t just an English Plantagenet and French Valois struggle to rule the kingdom of France. While these were the key protagonists, at various stages the Papal States, Scotland, Flanders, Portugal, Castile, Aragon, Genoa and Bohemia were involved. For good measure, Brittany, Burgundy and Gascony/Guyenne, supporting one side or another, gave it the character of a civil war. It all flared up into an extensive European conflict, the first of its kind.

Dynastic legacy of the Conquest

The immediate causes were first, that in 1328, the last French king of the Capet line, Charles IV, had died with no male heir. The closest male relative was his nephew, the English king Edward III, son of his sister, Queen Isabella. But feelings ran strongly against him, so Charles’ cousin, Philip, Count of Valois, took the throne. Isabella had claimed it for her son but this was rejected, with the old fifth century Salic law blocking female succession dusted down and invoked to justify the move. England had not expected the claim to succeed.

But tensions continued. French attacks on English shipping in the Channel did not help, nor did French aid to the Scots raiding England’s northern region. France had also been steadily chipping away at Edward’s lands in its south west, in Guyenne (Gascony - the terms seem for most purposes to be largely interchangeable). This territory was a legacy of vast lands brought in the 12^th century to the Angevin monarchy by Eleanor of Aquitaine. Finally in 1337 Philip seized Guyenne, prompting Edward to formally claim the French throne.

Arguments about English possessions in France went back to 1066, another unforeseen result of the Conquest. Duke William of Normandy owed formal homage to the king of France so as English king he and later Norman/Angevin rulers were technically vassals for their vast French territories. As kings, could they truly do homage to another king with the power to revoke legal decisions made by England in Aquitaine? Inherently unstable.

At the start of what was to become the 100 Years War France was a third of today’s size. Provinces like Brittany, Burgundy and Aquitaine were ruled separately. It’s wrong to think of the modern notion of nation states, and better to see it as several dynastic quarrels and a succession of civil wars. After all, Edward III was himself by pedigree 62.5% French.

Three main phases 

The complex series of conflicts splits into three periods - 1337-1360 (plus the side issue of the Breton succession); 1369-1389 (Caroline phase); and after 25 years’ peace, 1415-1453 (Lancastrian phase). This latter stage was begun by England’s Henry V, but from the 1429 siege of Orleans, France and her allies had the upper hand. The war had started well for England. At the 1340 battle of Sluis she utterly destroyed the French fleet, and from then had continuous control of the channel. There followed success on land at Crécy 1346, and Poitiers 1356. Between the two was the small matter of the Black Death killing 30-50% of the population on both sides of the Channel, and Europe generally.

Crecy 1346

1n 1360 France signed the Treaty of Bretigny. The French king John had been held captive in England after Poitiers. His ransom was reduced by 1m crowns to 3m. Edward renounced Normandy, Touraine, Anjou and Maine in return for the doubtful prize of more territory in Aquitaine. A sort of peace prevailed, despite fighting ‘offline’ in Navarre and Castile.

But in 1369 the Black Prince raised taxes in his expanded Aquitaine, and the province was soon in full revolt. The French king Charles V declared all English lands in France forfeit, so the war resumed.

From then on under Charles, France pushed back. In 1372 its ally Castile won a naval victory off La Rochelle against England. The Black Prince died in 1376 followed by his father Edward the next year. Then in 1380 Charles died. England had been reduced to Calais and a few other ports. The Duke of Buckingham began a campaign of destruction, but plague and high taxes slowed the pace. The war was running out of steam, losing popularity in both countries. England had problems with Scotland, and a Welsh revolt, too. A truce was signed in 1389.

Battle of La Rochelle 1372

Over 25 years passed before it started again. Henry V sought to reclaim the lost Plantagenet territories, and for a spell looked to have succeeded. A spectacular win in 1415 at Agincourt was the start. Henry recovered Normandy and joined Burgundy to force the French King Charles VI to agree his (Henry's) heirs should inherit the throne of France. He married the Valois princess Catherine who produced a son. But Henry suddenly died (probably of dysentery) in 1422. From then on France steadily recovered ground with some major victories at Patay, Formigny and Castillon (1453), recognised as the last battle in this attenuated imbroglio.

Agincourt 1415

The century long series of wars was at last fought to a standstill. So did it end pretty well where it started, without a winner? No. England was clearly beaten. Many of us never heard of French battlefield successes. And if France lost half its population during the period much of this was due to the plague. A ruinously costly exercise leaving England with no French possessions except Calais. It encouraged a mood of nationalism in both countries, creating long term antipathy and bitterness.

Wars are expensive things, so how was it paid for? In the first phases, the English effort was financed by wool taxes on exports, then by booty and ransoms, before major property taxes on the landed classes and Church. It was fought mainly by mercenaries, not serfs or rural tenants for England. But the French side relied first on men at arms, mercenary archers and ordinary peasants, until a professional army was formed later on.

Castillon 1453

The outcome contributed to the so called Wars of the Roses, starting in 1455, two years after Castillon. Those English families who had long held lands in France lost them completely, leaving them more open to involvement in a factional conflict nearer home. Yet it’s worth pointing out that more men were perhaps killed in one day at Towton than on the English side in any of the 100 Years War battles.  

Chivalry

The Age of Chivalry seemed to expire, too. While a military figure like Sir Walter Manny used some of his spoils for good works at home (London’s Charterhouse for instance), this was not always true. Artillery was deployed in Europe for the first time at Crécy. Quick firing longbow archers showed the limitations of the chivalric armoured mounted knight. But perhaps the last gasp of this culture belongs to the captured King John of France. While he’d left London to help raise his ransom, his son escaped from captivity. On a point of honour John returned to London voluntarily as a hostage where he died in 1364.

Motto of the Black Prince

In what is recognised as a fiendishly complicated and multi-faceted saga Jonathan Sumption’s monumental four volume study is the most detailed work on the whole conflict. An uncompromising tour de force including detailed maps to help illuminate this decidedly complex subject.