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Welcome back, history enthusiasts, to another exciting journey through the annals of time!

Today, we delve into the epic and tumultuous saga known as the Hundred Years' War. This

century-spanning conflict between the kingdoms of England and France was a clash filled with

daring knights, cunning tactics, and epic battles that would shape the course of European

history. The Hundred Years' War can be divided into three distinct phases, each with its

own unique character. The first phase, called Edwardian, featured the battles of Crécy

and Poitiers, which saw the English longbowmen rise to prominence, wreaking havoc on the

French forces with their deadly arrows as the legends of Edward III and the Black Prince

emerged. The second, Carolinian phase, started with a balance between two sides and soon

spilled in Spain and beyond, immortalizing John of Gaunt and Bertran du Guesclin, as

well as the English chevauchée and the French professional troops, with the battles of Cocherel

and Pontvallain. The third - Lancastrian phase, started with a devastating English victory

at Agincourt by king Henry V. A civil war within France between the Burgundians and

the Armagnacs began, but the country was saved by the famous heroine Joan of Arc, who turned

the tide at Orleans, allowing prince Charles to regain the throne and then win the war

with the battles of Patay, Formigny and Castillon, marking the end of this epic conflict and

the reclamation of French territories. We are going to talk about all this in this video,

so, buckle up for an exhilarating ride through history, as we explore the Hundred Years'

War, its main battles, and the incredible stories of various characters that make it

one of the most epic chapters in the chronicle of warfare. Let's embark on this journey together

and relive the battles and legends of the past!

England in 1066, his status as a vassal of France’s Capetian kings gave rise to a paradoxical

situation in Western Europe. The monarchs of England now held ancestral territories

on the continent as a vassal of the French kings while also being rulers of a strong

realm. Sometimes they controlled even larger territories in France than their overlords,

a trend which reached its zenith between 1154 and 1204 when the Angevins ruled more than

half of the country. This didn’t last for too long however, as a succession of strong

French kings beginning with Philip II Augustus gradually conquered more territory, and by

1224 all English possessions on the continent, save for Gascony in the southwest. This narrow

strip of maritime territory had grown prosperous under English rule and developed into an important

source of royal income through the wine trade, often raising more in annual revenue than

England itself. Gascony’s population valued the connection it had with the island monarchy,

and were not ‘French’ as we know the French in our time. The duchy’s language in the

middle-ages was a separate Gascon tongue, and its people had little to no ties with

the people of northern France or its Capetian monarchy. Contemporary author Jean Froissart

goes so far as to call the inhabitants ‘the English’.

In 1259 King Henry III was forced to sign the Treaty of Paris, in which he renounced

his claims on most continental lands but was confirmed in his status as overlord of Gascony,

but only as a vassal of the French kings, to whom was obliged to pay homage. This is

widely thought to be one of the factors which made the Hundred Years’ War inevitable.

Despite the peace, a number of dynastic and territorial wars over the next half-century

ratcheted up the tension between England and France even more, giving both sides experience

in raising armies and waging war. This state of affairs probably would’ve continued for

a long time, but on January 31st 1328 Charles IV - last king of the main branch of the Capetian

dynasty, died without a male heir and left his kingdom in a dynastic crisis. Despite

the fact that the English king Edward III Plantagenet was a nephew of the dead king,

the French lords decided that his cousin Philip of Valois, which was the cadet branch of the

Capetian dynasty, would inherit the throne. To justify it, they cited the ancient Salic

Law which prevented women from inheriting any land, a ruling which affected Edward because

he was related to Charles IV through his mother Isabella. Edward at the time was young and

England was under control of Isabella and her lover Roger Mortimer, so in 1329 he paid

homage to Philip VI. A year later, the now majority-age Edward and his supporters slew

the despised Roger Mortimer and exiled Isabella to Norfolk, which allowed him to assume control

of his kingdom. The newly minted English king marched north in 1333 and crushed France’s

Scottish allies at Halidon Hill, leading David II to seek refuge in Paris at his ally’s

invitation, who then announced that any future talks must take Scotland’s interests into

account. Edward was not amused, and thereafter considered the French king - his nominal overlord,

an adversary. This is probably what led England’s king

to grant the fugitive French count Robert de Artois refuge in 1336. He had been found

guilty of poisoning his aunt in a dispute over the inheritance of the eponymous County

of Artois, condemned to death and then chased out of France. Robert arrived in London and

was warmly welcomed by Edward III, who granted him an Earldom, a few castles and stipends

despite the fact that Philip VI had declared himself a foe of any who harboured the criminal.

When Philip sent a demand to Edward through the Seneschal of Aquitaine ordering his vassal

to surrender Artois, the demand was rejected and both parties began preparations for war.

Since Robert was actually in England, where Philip VI technically had no jurisdiction

over Edward, rather than in French territory, the order was viewed to have no legal legitimacy,

which further displayed the king-vassal paradox created by the Norman conquest of England.

All of these tensions came to a head on May 24th 1337. On that day, Philip declared that

Aquitaine no longer belongs to Edward ‘because of the many excesses, rebellious and disobedient

acts committed by the King of England and against Us and Our Royal Majesty’, in particular

citing his granting of haven to Robert Artois. The king then called his feudal lords to summon

to war - the so-called arriere ban and this is widely seen as the beginning of the Hundred

Years’ War, despite the lack of actual declaration. Instead, it was the culmination of many growing

tensions - such as the gradual centralisation of government, the unworkable nature of the

Plantagenet’s vassal status and other factors. Start of the Edwardian phase

The conflict began on two fronts almost immediately as the French began raiding an under-garrisoned

Gascony. While that was happening in the south, a cash-strapped Edward III crossed the channel

into Flanders - England’s closest commercial partner through the lucrative wool trade,

and purchased the Holy Roman Emperor’s Ludwig IV allegiance, but didn’t gain too much

benefit from the expense. After even being forced to sell the royal crown of England

off for funds, Edward launched a campaign into France with around 12,000 troops and

eventually faced off against Philip and his army - who outnumbered him 2:1, at Flamengerie

in October. After a tense standoff, Edward retreated back into friendly territory and

Philip didn’t pursue him. Though it was brief, the 1339 campaign was

nightmarish for the local populations in Edward’s wake. Medieval military strategy was to inflict

as much carnage against hostile cities and agriculture as possible, which would weaken

the enemy government, economy and ultimately hamstring its ability to wage war. The English

king had seen the effectiveness of such tactics especially in rich and densely populated lands

such as those in northern France, and so the notorious chevauchée was born. While not

yet fully developed, these chevauchées were low-cost raids, using limited resources with

the deliberate aim of systematically devastating and lowering the productivity of territories

through which the raiders marched, all the while enriching the invader and weakening

the allegiance between the conquered and their king. As the Hundred Years’ War progressed,

the utility of this strategy was to prove itself indisposable. By the time 1340 began

though, Edward’s campaign had left the king even more monetarily destitute than ever,

but this didn’t stop him from formally proclaiming himself King of England and France in Ghent

during January of that year. The situation in the channel wasn’t going

in Edward’s favour. Ever since 1336, English coastal towns3 had continuously fallen victim

to seaborne raids from French attacks. While the Plantagenet king’s own captains often

managed to retaliate with equal rapacity, Philip VI had the larger navy, and there was

a real possibility of England being invaded. Edward III therefore returned to England two

months after his coronation in Flanders. The fact that he owed money to prominent creditors

in the area also provided adequate reason to get off the continent.

Battle of Sluys (1340) and Battle of Saint Omer (1340)

After making landfall, the king raised a new tax and immediately began assembling new forces

for the war. Reinforcements and ships - mainly converted merchant vessels known as ‘cogs’,

were assembled at Orwell in Suffolk, ready for the attack. The French fleet, which had

wreaked havoc upon the English shores with Castillian and Genoese support, had suffered

heavy losses in a surprise attack and could no longer organise raids on the English coast,

so they instead limited themselves to defend their shores. To help in this endeavour, Philip

ordered the creation of an armada and had it sent to Sluys, the most important port

in Flanders, to cut off Edward from his mainland allies. When his fleet was ready, the English

king announced against the advice of many of his close officials that he was going to

attack France’s 200 vessel-strong armada, which was anchored in modern-day Belgium,

and destroy it. In defiance of those members of his entourage who decried the apparently

foolhardy naval assault, Edward III proclaimed that “I shall cross the sea, and those who

are afraid may stay at home!”. He set sail on June 22nd 1340 and reached the outskirts

of the estuary of the Zwin river in the afternoon of the following day.

The French fleet anchored outside Sluys was composed of 6 Genoese galleys, 22 oar barges,

7 royal sailing ships, 167 merchant ships and 11 Spanish and Flemish allies, for a total

of 212 vessels manned by 19000 sailors, 500 crossbowmen and 150 men at arms. It was commanded

by two knights, Nicholas Béhuchet and Hugh Quiéret, both without any naval experience,

The English fleet was composed of three warships and around 120 to 160 Cogs but had more men

trained in the art of war: exact numbers are unknown but high estimates put the combatants

at 4000 men at arms and 12000 archers.

The French fleet was drawn up in three lines across the mouth of the Zwin, with the biggest

vessels in the first line, though their tight formation came at a cost in manoeuvrability.

Edward’s spies had informed him of the French formation, describing it as “like a great

wood”. The King decided to attack in the early afternoon of the following day, the

24th. With the tide and winds in their favour and the sun in their back, the English fleet

advanced in three rows with the bigger ships in the front, having one vessel filled with

men-at-arms for every two hosting longbowmen. The French ships, already in a tight spot,

had, while anchored, drifted eastward removing even more space for manoeuvre, so they could

not make use of their second lines. As the two frontlines crashed into each other at

3 pm, the English longbowmen rained arrows from a distance upon their adversaries from

wooden towers and crows nests purposely built on the trade cogs. Standing on a lower level,

sun in their eyes and armed with slower shooting and less accurate crossbows, the French shooters

couldn't do anything and were riddled with arrows or they jumped overboard to escape

the mayhem. Once a French ship was weakened it would be entangled with hooks and swarmed

by English soldiers, making short work of the defenders and capturing the ship, among

which were the Christopher and the Edward, two English royal vessels recently taken by

the French. The Genoese galleys, who had protested the approach to the battle, fled swiftly when

the situation turned sour for the French.

After four hours of fighting, the French front line had sunk or been captured and the English

advanced upon the smaller vessels of the second line, gaining an even greater advantage. At

the same time, many flemish boats set sail from local ports and attacked the French lines

from behind: it was a complete disaster for the Valois fleet. By nightfall, the battle

ended: the French had lost either to the English or to the sea 190 vessels, with only 23 managing

to escape during the night. No quarter was given to the captives and many Frenchmen drowned

or were killed by the locals on the shore: the loss of life was between 16.000 and 18.000

men, and it is said that only Philip VI’s jester dared to inform him of the disaster.

The English lost only a few ships, but the loss of men was quite substantial.

The English victory was crushing for French morale. The French Army had campaigned in

the Schlecht Valley in early 1340 against the Count of Hainaut and Flemish rebels and

now had to move to Arras to cover the entrances to the French kingdom. Edward decided to attack

northern France in a two pronged attack with his Flemish and Imperial allies: the king

himself would lead the bigger contingent to Tournai and besiege it, while a second army

placed under the command of Robert d’Artois would be sent to Saint-Omer, as it was believed

he still had many allies in the region.

D’Artois arrived in the vicinity of Saint-Omer on the 16th of July, but he had been preceded

the previous day by Eudes, Duke of Burgundy and Count of Arras. The Duke reinforced the

town and would be followed a few days later by the Count of Armagnac, bringing the number

of the defenders up to 3000 men at arms and a few thousand militias. Robert d’Artois

was accompanied by 1000 longbowmen, 10 to 15 thousand poorly-disciplined Flemings and

a few hundred men at arms, who razed the town of Arques and made camp there. By the 26th

Robert knew that the main French army was approaching so he offered battle to the garrison,

hoping to draw them out. He placed himself on the right wing with the archers behind

him, while the centre and the left flank were manned by Flemish soldiers from minor towns

of southern Flanders, with a contingent in reserve. In front of them, he ordered camouflaged

obstacles to be built against cavalry charges. The Duke of Burgundy had ordered to stay behind

the walls, as he knew the King would soon arrive, but after a few hours, a contingent

of eager knights with part of the garrison sortied out and attacked the flemish left

flank. The French were swiftly repulsed, in part thanks to the defensive positions, but

once the Flemish began to pursue them they regrouped and charged again, beginning a vicious

melee that lasted all afternoon. Seeing this, the Duke of Burgundy and the Count of Armagnac

decided to join the fray and they burst out of the gates. The Count and his retinue of

300 heavy armoured knights smashed into the flemish left side, decisively cutting them

to pieces. The second line began to flee back to the camp and was pursued and cut down,

with around 8000 perishing. Meanwhile, the Duke of Burgundy went towards the right flank

where the English were positioned. Seeing their approach, Rober d’Artois ordered a

charge against the Burgundians who were surprised. After the initial contact, the French men

at arms were forced to fall back to the safety of their walls, where the garrison could support

them, but the Duke suffered heavy losses. While returning to camp at nightfall after

their victory, the English crossed paths with the jubilant French who had just pillaged

the enemy camp. It was dark and both sides were too tired to continue the fighting so

they just passed each other, where a surprised Robert d’Artois could attest to the massacre

and loss of the camp. The day after, he had to follow his fleeing allies and he returned

in good order to Edward.

Following the Battle at Saint-Omer, the French army slowly approached Tournai and encamped

at Beauvines by the start of September. Edward and his allies had besieged the town of Tournai

from the 23rd of July, battering the walls with siege equipment, assaulting the walls

and raiding the countryside, but the town stood firm. With his enemies in the vicinity

but strapped for cash, Edward wanted to confront his enemy, but his allies were less keen to

do so. After some weeks of negotiation, the siege was lifted by the 24th and the Truce

of Esplechin was signed. Back in England, Edward was confronted by his many creditors

and he lashed after his tax collectors and ministers.

Breton Civil War (1341-1343) At this point, the Hundred Years’ War transformed

into a proxy war when Duke John III of Brittany died in April of 1341. In the previous year,

the old childless duke had promised the duchy to both his half-brother John of Monfort and

to the French noble Charles of Blois, married to his niece Jeanne de Penthièvre. Thus,

when he passed away, both Charles and John claimed the throne and this made the ensuing

civil war inevitable. The one who made the first move was Monfort by entering the capital

of Nantes in May 1341 and taking possession of the ducal treasury. He then took control

of the eastern part of the duchy, while the central and northern regions were ruled by

great feudal nobles and were out of his reach. Generally, the duchy’s merchants and its

peasantry largely supported John, while the higher nobility sided with Chalres. The garrisons

of the breton towns were confused about the situation and did not know what to do, some

opened their gates while others resisted. By the end of the summer Monfort was in control

of much of the duchy. The French king was in the beginning uncertain on what to do,

more preoccupied with preparing for the impending end of the truce with the English, which would

be extended for another year. Still, rumors that John of Montfort would pay homage to

the English king pushed him to have the Parisian parliament declare the duchy in favour of

Charles of Blois and he prepared for an invasion of Brittany, thus pushing Monfort further

into English hands, though no help materialized that year.

In Autumn 1341 a strong French army gathered in the Loire valley and advanced towards the

town of Champtoceaux, laying siege to it. Montfort rode out with his retinue to relieve

the city, but after two days of bloodshed the Breton nobleman had to retreat. After

capturing Champtoceaux, the french army advanced down the valley until they reached the Breton

capital of Nantes, where a short siege ensued, but once the citizens themselves threatened

to rebel, Monfort had to surrender himself to his adversaries, who after failed negotiations

threw him in prison. Charles of Blois could then occupy most of the eastern half of the

duchy, with many of Montfort's old supporters flocking over to him. Jeanne of Flanders,

Montfort’s wife, took control of her husband’s party and treasury and retreated to Finestère,

where she waited for English reinforcement in spring of 1342.

For Edward this was a great opportunity: as well as opening up another front against Philip

VI, Edward’s geopolitical interests were served by getting involved. English trade,

reinforcement and communication routes by sea to Aquitaine went around the coast of

Brittany, and a hostile ruler in the duchy might sever those vital connections. However

Edward had found difficulties to amass the fleet needed to transport his troops, so real

help only materialized in August 1342. By this point Charles of Blois had besieged the

towns on the southern coast of Brittany and was encircling Brest, but the arrival from

England of the Earl of Northampton and Robert of Artois broke the siege. Northampton then

advanced out of Brest and besieged Morlaix, where a relief force under Blois arrived.

On the 30th of September, in the outskirts of Morlaix, the French cavalry charged twice

against the English positions covered by forest, pike traps and ditches, taking heavy casualties.

While Blois’ attempt was unsuccessful, the siege draggen to a standstill. In November,

King Edward himself had arrived in Brittany and besieged Vannes unsuccessfully, while

many raids were launched in other areas of Brittany, causing devastation and ruining

French morale. In December a French royal army counterattacked, reaching the English

army encamped at Ploermel.

Here, Papal envoys negotiated a 3-year truce and the English king returned to his kingdom

in January 1343. Pope Clement VI tried to end hostilities by mediating a peace conference

at Avignon the year after, but neither side would agree to the terms put forward by the

other and the war continued unabated.

In fact, the war in Brittany continued as Charles of Blois considered the civil war

for the duchy as a personal war between himself and Monfort and not a matter between England

and France. During late 1343 English partisans took control of Vannes and Redon, but the

following year Blois traversed southern Brittany and captured the important town of Quimper.

This conquest, the many monfortist casualties and the complete inaction of John of Monfort

who hoped to return in the graces of the French king collapsed the pro-English party, with

many fleeing to the court of Blois. Edward’s men could only hold on to Vannes, Brest and

Hennebont.

Battle of Crecy (1346) 1345 saw the first major English military

venture into Gascony, with several thousand men under the Earl of Derby retaking Bergerac

and then defeating a French counterattack in October. This action gave Edward time to

plan and amass his forces in England. He sailed from Porchester in July of 1346 and landed

at the Norman town of La Hogue with a large army, much to the surprise of the local population.

This new theatre of war in Normandy was virgin land heretofore untouched by the conflict,

and because of that its devastation would massively affect any taxation that the Valois

king hoped to extract from it. In addition, the destruction would diminish Philip’s

prestige and hopefully goad him into an ill-considered battle. Whether Edward actually planned to

campaign in Normandy is a matter of debate though, with some historians even claiming

that the plan was to campaign in Gascony, but was thwarted by unfavourable winds. Whatever

the case, the English army rested for the night and then set off at dawn, launching

a blistering chevauchée throughout the Cotentin Peninsula. Normandy’s rich countryside was

intentionally ruined, mills, barns and orchards were burned while barrels of wine were smashed

or stolen - nothing was to be left for the French. Edward III reached Caen on July 26th,

but despite accepting the garrison’s surrender his army raped, plundered, torched and killed

without quarter. When the three-day sack was complete, 3,000 townspeople were dead and

the king began sending barges filled with looted riches back to his kingdom.

As a wave of terrified refugees fled before him, the English king marched inland towards

Paris. At the same time, Philip VI had received word of the landing and was massing a large

army near Saint-Denis. However, it wasn’t ready for battle yet, and therefore couldn’t

intervene as Edward reached Poissy, from where he sent raiding parties out to burn Saint-Cloud

and Saint-Germain, within sight of Paris’ very walls.

The English had shown Philip’s subjects that he couldn’t protect them and began

marching north again, but now the French army began chasing them and only narrowly missed

an opportunity to pin Edward on the Somme’s south bank. After he managed to cross, the

now campaign-hardened army of England encamped in the forest of Crecy on August 26th 1346.

Though Edward had managed to evade Philip’s larger army so far, the Valois monarch’s

vanguard was getting unnervingly close, so his Plantagenet foe prepared to turn and fight.

After a brief reconnaissance, a plan was devised. As Philip’s host - the flower of Medieval

Europe, slowly got closer, Edward drew up his now-reduced forces on an elevated ridge

between Crecy and Wadicourt which looked south into a valley, daring the French to try and

knock him off it. Exact figures for army size are impossible

to calculate, but Edward’s was probably just over 14,000 strong - made up of 2,500

chainmail-clad men-at-arms and dismounted knights, 2,500 spearmen and 3,250 light cavalry

known as hobelars. A further 7,000 were England’s lethal archery corps armed with longbows and

armour-piercing bodkin arrows. Since the reign of Edward I, every English village had been

tasked with contributing men to the national reserve of archers precisely for this kind

of battle, and were legally obliged to train in the longbow’s use each week. This force

was divided into three groups. Two were in front on the left and right - the former was

commanded by Earls Arundel and Northampton while they followed Edward III’s son - the

sixteen-year old Black Prince - into battle. The king’s division remained in the rear

as a strategic reserve. All three had infantry in the center and longbowmen on the flanks,

while fronted by a series of pits, trenches and stakes to deserve as a defence.

Edward went among his men, inspiring and encouraging them so that men who were inclined to cowardice

became brave, whilst also warning them not to plunder until he gave permission - as doing

so would endanger the army. Morale and discipline taken care of, the king allowed his troops

to break ranks so they could sit, eat, drink and replenish their strength before battle

was joined. The king himself took up command of the field on an elevated windmill near

his reserve division. Philip’s strung-out French army began its

approach by late afternoon, consisting of just over 30,000 troops - 12,000 mounted knights,

12,000 infantry and 6,000 crossbowmen. Since the sun was about to set and the army was

exhausted from the days’ march, France’s Valois king intended to heed the counsel of

his outriders to encamp for the night and attack at dawn, when the soldiers would be

better rested and prepared. However, a combination of chivalric pride and Philip’s lack of

control created a situation where he had to attack. It was close to 6PM by the time Valois

contingents began their assault. First to advance up the ridge were the Genoese

and French crossbowmen, who lacked their protective pavise shields. As they went forward, a short

but incredibly intense thunderstorm soaked the battlefield, slowing them down. The English

longbowmen had the longer range and as soon as the crossbowmen were within it, they stepped

forward and let loose a storm of arrows, slaying a great number of their French counterparts

and setting the rest to flight. Witnessing what they saw as detestable cowardice from

their fleeing skirmishers, the Count of Alençon7 bellowed “Ride down this rabble who block

our advance!”, at which point the first contingent of knights charged forward and

unceremoniously cut down their own infantry. This pointless exertion bogged down the knightly

advance and left it struggling at the base of the ridge. At this range the longbowmen

loosed with deadly precision, slaying French and panicking their horses - the latter helped

by three organ guns which made a clamour of noise. Though some of the heavily armoured

warriors managed to reach the English line, they were hacked to pieces by Edward’s dismounted

knights. The first charge had been a complete disaster, but the day was not yet over.

Undaunted by the initial failure, France’s mounted knights continued to mount charges

on the English line, putting particular pressure on the English right flank - where the young

Black Prince was almost killed. Almost surrounded by the superior numbers of his enemy, the

Black Prince sent for help from his father, who refused and famously stated “Let the

boy win his spurs, for I want him, please god, to have all the glory!”. After a while,

however, the king did send twenty handpicked knights to assist his son, who found that

the Black Prince’s contingent had already managed to repulse the charge and were now

recovering before the enemy returned. In a subsequent attack, the blind King of

Bohemia John ordered his knights to tie their horses to his own and lead their liege into

battle. This charge began well, managing to get past the archers, but they were then all

cut down by the English infantry. The French unsuccessfully charged fifteen times in all,

each becoming more disorganised and hopeless than the last. As the battle progressed, even

Philip VI himself joined the fighting. He was injured by an arrow and had more than

one horse killed under him before the battle finally calmed. Witnessing the disaster that

was unfolding, one of the Valois king’s vassals persuaded him to withdraw. He did

so reluctantly, fleeing with what was left of his army to a nearby royal chateau and

then all the way to Amiens. In the dark the English slept on their ridge,

not realising just how much of a terrible toll they had inflicted on the French. They

had lost less than a hundred men, while Philip had lost over 10,000, including 1,500 lords

and knights. Siege of Calais (1346-1347) and the Black

Death While Edward III’s tired troops were in

no position to chase Philip, he had gained a great victory and wanted to exploit it.

After having buried the French princes who fell in the battle, the English army marched

north, sacking the countryside and the unwalled towns, until they reached the town of Calais.

Close to allied Flanders, easy to resupply and reinforce from England and with a port,

Calais was seen as the best gateway to enter France in future endeavours: Edward began

the siege of the town on the 4th September 1346, which was defended by Jean du Fosseux

and Jean de Vienne. A great encampment was built nearby and trenches and fortifications

were constructed around the main pathways to defend from French relief forces and to

starve out the city, while reinforcement and supplies arrived from England and Flanders

with a huge operation of transport of food and clothes. Small raids were also launched

into the interior.

Meanwhile, taking advantage of the French attention to the north, the Earl of Derby,

now Earl of Lancaster, expanded the English control in Gascony. He then launched in September

a three-pronged attack into the French heartland - two to expand the Gascon border and another

to sow confusion in Paris. Lancaster led north a chevauchée that sacked the opulent city

of Poitiers and other nearby towns, before returning to his base in Gascony. Further

good news for the English came that a Scottish invasion - prompted by France, had been crushed

at Neville’s Cross near Durham in October, and the Scottish king and many of his nobles

had been captured.

The attack on two fronts completely paralyzed the French state, unable to decide on which

front to concentrate. The successes in disturbing British supplies were minimal, and any serious

military action was postponed. The siege of Calais dragged on during the winter, with

neither side being able to gain the upper hand. The French managed to resupply the besieged

men by sea, while Edward launched numerous unsuccessful assaults at the city walls supported

by canons and stone-throwers. Desertion and sickness decreased the numbers of the besiegers.

Philip raised his banners in the spring, but it was only in June that he had mustered enough

men to advance. In the meantime, Edward had managed to cut off the supply routes to Calais,

starving the city of resources. The French wanted to attack through Flanders and encircle

the English from the north but two vanguards found little success in this endeavour and

having the situation in Calais become desperate, Philip moved towards it. After reaching the

outskirts of the siege, the French army found their adversaries to be too strongly entrenched

to relieve the town: Philip had to give up Calais. It fell on August 3rd 1347 - it would

remain in English hands until 1558. In September more small chevauchees were launched, but

by this point, both sides were exhausted. Following the glorious victory of Edward III

at Crecy and his capture of Calais a year later, the English who had once been ‘the

most timid of all the uncouth races’, were now considered by Petrarch as the most revered

warriors of Europe. Nevertheless, such glory didn’t pay Edward’s bills, and the war’s

massive cost convinced the king to withdraw from the continent and return to England after

the Truce of Calais was agreed on September 27th 1347. Returning as a victorious conqueror,

he celebrated the Crecy campaign with a tournament including all of the monarch’s notable prisoners,

displayed to all Edward’s subjects as a mark of prestige.

Over the channel in France, the mood of Philip VI and his subjects was entirely different.

In December, the Valois king was castigated by his Estates-General in Paris for his humiliating

defeat and wasn’t allowed to raise taxes. However, the shock of defeat and prospect

of capitulation to the English forced France’s proud aristocracy into agreement - together

they would fund a great invasion of England to end the war for good. Orders were immediately

issued and preparations began. By the start of 1348 a new fleet was under construction

and local officials had begun assessing towns and villages for the coming levy - it seemed

as though the full-scale war was about to resume. However, an apocalyptic twist of fate

was about to ensure that this would never happen - the Black Death.

The deadly Yersinia pestis, which previously decimated the Byzantine Empire from the sixth

to eighth centuries, originated in Central Asia in the early fourteenth-century, proliferating

east and west on the medieval silk road until it reached the Golden Horde. Its Khan - Janibeg,

besieged the Black Sea city of Caffa in 1346, but the plague began annihilating his army

and he ordered that diseased corpses be catapulted into the city. By the time besieged Italian

citizens began fleeing west by sea to Europe, most of them were infected or dying. First

appearing in Italy near the end of 1347, the nightmarish Black Death entered France through

its thriving Mediterranean ports2 and then spread north like a wildfire until it reached

England in mid 1348. It was the greatest demographic crisis in European history. Untold thousands

perished, from the highest noble to the lowliest peasant farmer, the agrarian economy fell

apart and the tax base collapsed. Overall, it is estimated that a third to a half of

Europe might have been killed by this first wave of the plague. Many on the continent

believed that the world itself was ending. By 1350, the resulting shortage of men and

money from the first plague wave stalled the war for the foreseeable future as both realms

tried to recover from the disaster. In late August of that year king Philip VI died, leaving

the devastated, plague-ridden kingdom to his son - the Duke of Normandy, who took the throne

as Jean II. If that wasn’t bad enough, a fleet of French-allied Castilian mercenaries

- which had been threatening Edward’s trade with Flanders and link with Gascony, was beaten

by the English at Winchelsea. With the exhaustion of both English and France,

back and forth diplomacy was the order of the day, while at the same time Edward’s

countrymen continued to intervene in the ongoing small-scale action of the Breton Succession

War. Breton Civil War (1347-1353)

In fact in Brittany the situation had changed in favour of the English, as Charles the Blois

had been captured and his forces annihilated by English and Monfortist forces in 1347,

but lack of soldiers and the subsequent plague halted most campaigns in the duchy. What followed

was a series of small conflicts between the partisans of the Blois and the Monforts. On

the 26th of March 1351 a duel was agreed upon between the Blois commander Jean de Beaumanoir

and the English commander Robert of Bamborough. The Combat of the Thirty as it was remembered

took place between the castles of Josselin and Ploermel, which pitched two teams of thirty

knights and men at arms against each other. After a melee that lasted all day, the English

had lost eight men and were forced to surrender, while the French at most six. The motives

for the start and outcome of the duel eludes us, and the duel had little influence on the

outcome of the war, but the event became subject to a long and famous Breton ballad and is

one of the better known episodes of chivalric duels of the war.

In 1352 a French army under de Nesle entered Brittany and was confronted by the English

lieutenant Sir Walter Bentley. The two armies met near the village of Mauron on the 14th

of August 1352: the English, less than one thousand men, were located on top of a small

hill with a hedgerow in their back - archers on the wings and dismounted men at arms in

the center: they refused to surrender when called to. De Nesle, whose army outnumbered

greatly his adversaries, sent his cavalry against the English right flank while his

men at arms attacked the other two units. The cavalry charge was successful, cutting

through the archers who fled and opening up Bentley’s center to a double-sided attack.

While the men at arms desperately held on with the bushes in their back, the archers

on the left repelled their assailants who fled down the hill, creating an opening for

their companions. The English center counterattacked on the French right flank and forced the enemies

to retreat, who were picked off by the English longbowmen. The casualties were high on both

sides but were especially catastrophic for the French, who lost their commander and a

great number of Breton knights loyal to the French cause. Having heard of the defeat,

Charles of Blois made an agreement with King Edward: in exchange for being recognized as

Duke of Brittany, Charles would pay a huge ransom for his release and declare Brittany

neutral in the war. Although the agreement was not exactly kept, this brought Brittany

under English influence for the following years, but attrition between the two rival

claimants remained. The first chevauchées

In 1353, the English king announced that he was willing to abandon his claim to the French

throne in return for all of Aquitaine ‘as his ancestors had ruled it’, Normandy and

suzerainty over Flanders. Jean II accepted the terms at first, but reneged soon after,

possibly having been playing for time. The war finally flared up again when England began

correspondence with the maverick King of Navarre - Charles II ‘The Bad’ who, as a snubbed

grandson of Louis X, had an even greater claim to the French throne than Edward.

Emboldened by his new English ally, Charles felt confident enough to act against a hated

enemy - the Franco-Castilian Constable of France, Don Carlos de la Cerda. King Jean

II had given him the great county of Angoulême as a fief, lands which Charles considered

his personal property. Hungry for vengeance, Charles had the constable lured into one of

his own estates3 in Normandy, where the unfortunate victim was hacked to death. The Navarrese

king then proudly proclaimed - “Know that it was I who, with God’s help, killed Carlos

of Spain!”. Jean II was furious that his favourite had been slain, but that was overruled

by his fear of encirclement by Edward III and a disgruntled ruler of Navarre with a

good claim to the throne of France. Aiming to resolve the dispute, French and Navarrese

kings made a tentative peace in 1355, but it was clear that Charles wasn’t satisfied.

Seeking to take advantage, Edward III decided to resume military operations now that the

worst effects of plague had receded. Also at the start of the same year, prominent members

of the Gascon nobility4 sailed north to attend the birth of their king’s son Thomas. They

brought bad news and asked for assistance. Ever since 1352, Edward’s hereditary lands

in Gascony had been under continuous attack by the French king’s lieutenant in the southwest

- Count of Armagnac Jean I. The incursions had made such progress that, by May of 1354,

Armagnac forces were encamped only a few days' march from the region’s capital Bordeaux.

The understrength Gascons needed help, so the English king ordered his son Edward of

Woodstock to raise an army and sail to southern France.

The Black Prince and his 2,700 professional English troops arrived in Bordeaux in September

1355 and absorbed further 4,000 Gascon reinforcements there. At about the same time, the French

king ordered a general mobilisation of forces. It wasn’t in time to save the south of his

kingdom. Around October 5th, the Black Prince’s army departed Bordeaux on what would become

known as one of the greatest chevauchées ever launched. Marching in three parallel

columns to maximise destruction, the raiding force went 100 miles south before swinging

east, crossing the River Gers and entering Armagnac territory. There, Edward’s army

began mercilessly slaughtering every living creature it came across, torching everything

that would burn and smashing everything that wouldn’t, to ensure that this land would

not assist the French war effort for years to come. His foe, the outnumbered Count of

Armagnac, remained in fortified Toulouse as his enemy passed by, watching as they forded

two nearby rivers and arrived at Carcassonne on November 2nd. That city attempted to bribe

the Black Prince with 250,000 gold coins, but he responded by ravaging its suburbs before

moving on, reaching Narbonne on the Mediterranean coast by the 8th. After desolating its entire

outer city and agricultural hinterland, the Prince of Wales’ army withdrew back towards

Gascony, shadowed by, but not challenged by 2 smaller French armies5. Whilst only suffering

minor casualties, this great raid had destroyed over 500 settlements, drastically reduced

Jean II’s tax revenue and doomed his military reputation.

With his soldiers billeted along Gascony’s northern marches6, the Black Prince occupied

the winter with administrative and governmental matters in the duchy, dealing with friendly

feudals and internal disputes within the Gascon lands. While he was doing this, both sides

embarked on small-scale military expeditions, taking and retaking castles - the French are

said to have retaken 30 fortifications during this time. The level of success that the first

chevauchée enjoyed and the fresh reinforcements from England7 and from new allies in north

Gascony made it clear that a second assault into the French lands would be undertaken.

The prince departed northeast from Bergerac with his army on August 4th 1356, arriving

first at Perigueux and then Ramefort, Brantome, Quisser, Nontron, Rochechouart and Lesterps,

all within 10 days of setting off. Despite once again leaving a swathe of destruction

in its wake, when the Black Prince’s army reached Bellec on August 16th it was ordered

to do no damage at all, as it belonged to the noble related to the English royal family.

After leaving Bellec, the English started to encounter more French resistance, as the

population began to fight back. Nevertheless, on the 24th Edward reached Issoudun but failed

to take the fortified city, moving on after razing its suburbs. Four days later, as the

army was nearing Vierzon, a flying column of 200 raiders skirmished with a French reconnaissance

party and took a few prisoners. From them they learned that, to the north, Jean II was

rallying a massive army and was about to march against the Black Prince.

To see why Jean had been delayed so much we’ll have to turn back the clock a bit to early

1356, where events in the north of France were considerably impacting the situation.

Since his tenuous peace with the French king, Charles the Bad had managed to pry even more

concessions from the monarch by intentionally spreading rumours that he was going to flee

to Edward III, thereby increasing Jean’s desperation to keep him in line. However,

this time the Navarrese king pushed his luck too far, as his amiability with the French

‘Dauphin’ Charles, made king Jean paranoid that they were plotting to overthrow him.

So, in April 1356 the French king stormed into Rouen with his men, beheaded four supposed

conspirators and imprisoned Charles. This led to an alliance between the latter’s

brother Philip and the King of England, which in turn gave Jean the excuse he needed to

confiscate Navarrese holdings in northern France.

Battle of Poitiers (1356) On July 12th he began trying to take them

by besieging the town of Breteuil, a move which locked the king in place with greater

threats were materialising to the north and south, as the Black Prince was preparing another

destructive chevauchée, while Normandy itself was invaded by Henry - Duke of Lancaster.

This was designed to split French attention more than anything else, and after resupplying

a few of Philip’s besieged castles, Lancaster went to Penthievre in order to continue his

distraction tactics. To his credit, at this critical juncture King Jean II acted decisively.

After a month of his pointless siege of Breteuil, he realised that events in the south desperately

required his immediate attention, and concluded the siege by paying the Navarrese to surrender.

With that done, the Valois king marched to Chartres and called his nobles to service.

The Prince of Wales learned of this during the three days his army remained in plundered

Vierzon, and realised that he was about to be chased.

Knowing that he had to get back to friendly territory as soon as possible, Edward immediately

started withdrawing west along the Cher River, but was delayed for five days in a siege at

Romorantin and a further four days waiting for the Duke of Lancaster’s unsuccessful

attempt to link up with him. All of this gave Jean’s army the time it needed to catch

up with the Black Price’s plunder-laden forces, and by the time the latter reached

La Haye his enemy was only a day’s march behind. Rather than coming up behind the English,

Jean, using his better knowledge of the area, decided to remain east of the Vienne River

and then cross at Chauvigny with a cavalry-heavy portion of his army. When the Prince learned

he’d been overtaken on the 16th he tried to march off-road to evade Jean, but an encounter

the next day between outriders at La Chabotrie made it clear there was no real chance of

flight. The battle was inevitable. Edward’s army camped for the night in a

nearby forest. They emerged the next day and seized a hilltop position about a mile in

front of the French, who had spent the night camped in battle formation. Compared to the

great medieval hosts which had done battle at Crecy a decade earlier, the armies facing

off near Poitiers in late September 1356 were small - perhaps due to the effects of the

plague and war exhaustion. Edward of Woodstock’s previously retreating chevauchée army was

made up of just over 6,000 troops - 1,000 mainly spear-armed Gascon infantry, 3,000

English men-at-arms including mounted knights and their squires and just over 2,000 Anglo-Welsh

longbowmen wielding their infamous ranged weapons. These troops were divided into three

mixed divisions of 1,500 soldiers each on the left, right and in the centre8, while

about a thousand remained in a rearguard reserve. Opposite him, the French king’s magnificent

army had 3,000 infantry and 8,000 mounted knights, but the majority were ordered to

dismount due to Jean’s fear of a second Crecy taking place. Only an elite contingent

of several hundred remained on their steeds. French cavalry and crossbowmen were on the

right commanded by Marshal Arnoul d’Audrehem, while manning the left were some Franco-German

cavalry and more missile units under Marshal Jean de Clermont. The majority of dismounted

knights and peasant infantry were arrayed in three central lines of battle, one in front

of the other. They were led, from front to back, by Charles - Dauphin of France, Philip

- Duke of Orleans and King Jean II himself respectively.

As the two armies faced off, a French Cardinal rode to the Black Prince begging him to listen,

and was met with the frosty response “Say it quickly then, this is no time for a sermon.”.

The prelate argued for a peace for the sake of all the Christian lives which would be

wasted should the battle break out. Despite his hostility, the prince was still anxious

about fighting a pitched battle and was willing to make significant concessions. Unfortunately,

Jean II demanded unconditional surrender, and so battle became the only way out. As

the French commanders Audrehem and Clermont surveyed the English position, they saw an

unusual amount of movement and believed the enemy to be retreating - it was in fact probably

an intentional ruse. Not willing to let the enemy get away, Audrehem charged with his

cavalry towards Warwick’s left, while Clermont reluctantly took the same action, heading

towards Salisbury’s right. The former’s well-armoured knights and horses initially

resisted English arrow fire and crashed into the English infantry, inflicting significant

damage on the first line. However, when longbowmen advanced up the river bank anchoring their

left wing and began to loose volley after volley into Audrehem’s flank, the attack

turned into a massacre. French knights were either felled by arrows, crushed by their

own steeds or routed, while the marshal himself was made a prisoner. On the other side of

the field Clermont’s horsemen charged up the ridge towards Salisbury’s division but

were funnelled into a narrow open section in the hedge protecting the English line.

There, the bunched-up cavalry suffered terrible losses before breaking through, and when they

did were engaged by Salisbury’s dismounted knights. After a fierce clash, the French

were thrown back. The French infantry vanguard under the Dauphin

followed behind in good order along the entire front. However, they too were forced to funnel

themselves through the hedge’s gaps and many were killed by devastating arrow fire

whilst doing so. Those who broke through met the Anglo-Gascon men-at-arms in vicious hand-to-hand

fighting which lasted two hours, but were finally pushed back with heavy losses and

nothing to show for it. As the Dauphin’s forces had been defeated, King Jean II ordered

that his son be escorted from the field in case of a disaster, but it turned out to be

a disastrous move. The Dauphin’s withdrawal convinced the Duke of Orleans - who led the

second line of infantry, to leave the battlefield with the troops in that formation as well.

Advancing with a battle-axe in hand, Jean II led the largest and final division - crossbowmen

in front and infantry behind, up the ridge towards the English.

With the Black Prince’s archers running out of arrows, the French king’s contingent

closed with the English almost unscathed, his most elite knights and the fresh third

division outnumbering the nevertheless stubborn and high-morale army of the prince. When archers

ran out of arrows, they left their positions and took up swords, knives and axes, joining

their comrades in the melee. At the combat’s fiercest moment, the Captal de Buch gathered

200 reserve cavalry and led them in a wide swinging arc around to the French rear. He

raised the flag of St. George and then charged at Jean’s rear ranks. Seeing this, the Black

Prince withdrew some of his dismounted knights from the line, mounted them and had an impetuous

knight called Sir James Audley lead them to crash into the other French flank.

The remnant of Jean’s army scattered in every direction, a significant portion of

them towards a marsh called the Champ d’Alexandre, where English longbowmen slew many of them.

In the chaos, the King of France was surrounded by enemy soldiers who demanded his surrender.

He refused to give himself up to common soldiers, but then the Earl of Warwick rode through

and formally took Jean prisoner. All in all, while the English suffered minimal losses

- probably around a hundred or two, the French had lost at least 2,500 dead - including Clermont

and many other nobles. Around 3,000 were also taken prisoner, including the French king

himself, who was led to the Black Prince with full medieval honour.

Treaty of Bretigny (1360) and end of Edwardian Phase

When the Black Prince removed his royal Valois prisoner from France, he also removed the

anchor which kept the ship of state afloat. As military historian John Corrigan stated

in his book ‘A Great and Glorious Adventure’ - ‘France was effectively in a state of

civil war’. The three years following Poitiers were some of the worst in French history.

Rabid discontent with the government spread like a plague among the nobility and Paris’

Third Estate even asserted its authority under the provost of the merchants of Paris Étienne

Marcel. This wasn’t the end of it. Demobilised soldiers, deserters and common bandits from

England, Gascony, France and even further afield went renegade and formed so-called

routiers - or ‘free companies’. These bands of armed men roamed and ravaged the

lawless countryside almost at will, serving any who would pay them and sometimes even

setting themselves up as robber barons in their own right. They would remain a problem

for decades to come. Even in lands where feudal control was maintained,

it didn’t do France any good. Extortionate ransom payments paid to the English for the

swathe of highborn prisoners taken at Poitiers prompted a ruthless tax hike, and this finally

enflamed the peasants into a revolt. A horrific bloodletting known as the Jacquerie began

in the Oise Valley, with peasants lynching and murdering any noble they could get their

hands on. The uprising lasted for weeks before Charles of Navarre brutally put it down.

Threatened by another large assault by Edward III, the beleaguered Dauphin signed the Treaty

of Bretigny in October 1360 - giving the Plantagenets all of Aquitaine, Ponthieu and Calais in return

for the English king’s renunciation of his own claim to the French throne, in addition

to a £600,000 ransom for Jean’s return. When two-thirds of the ransom had been paid,

Jean II was allowed to return to France. However, one of his imprisoned sons escaped contrary

to the agreement, which prompted the French king to voluntarily return to Edward’s captivity

in exchange for the younger Valois. He finally died there in 1364 and was succeeded as king

by Charles V. Bertrand du Guesclin and Battle of Cocherel

(1364) The coronation of the young king was preceded

by an important success. Following the death of the last Capetian Duke of Burgundy in 1361,

the duchy had returned to the crownland and John II had given the title to his son Philip

the Bold. Another pretender to the duchy was the Navarrese king Charles whose claim was

ignored. Insulted by this snub and harbouring rancour against the French crown from his

previous years of unsuccessful scheming, he decided to prepare an army under the command

of Captal de Buch. The army departed from the landlocked nation of Navarre in spring

1364 for Normandy, traversing the lands of the Black Prince. From here the goal was to

threaten Paris and have the title assigned to him. Unfortunately for the Navarese, the

young king had an army to deal with routiers in Normandy, under the command of the son

of a minor Breton nobleman, Bertrand du Guesclin. The man had risen to fame as a formidable

guerilla commander in Brittany in the previous year, fighting in the many small raids that

had taken place there in the previous decade. The French launched a preemptive strike against

many of the Navarrese positions in Normandy, where Charles was Count of Evreux. When Captal

de Buch arrived in Evreux, he hastily called to him the local forces loyal to him and English

routiers, assembling an army of around 2000 knights.

They marched out of Evreux towards the town of Vernon, where they found du Guesclin with

1200 men on foot in front of a bridge near the hamlet of Cocherel. Both armies set up

camp and waited for two days for either side to make a move. On the 16th of May, the French

began to retreat over the bridge, probably because they had exhausted their supplies.

Seeing this and not wanting to let his foes escape him, Captal de Buch sent a small contingent

to blockade the bridge while the rest of his Navarrese and Gascon knights charged the main

body of the royal army. Having a numbers advantage, de Buch’s men had the upper hand over the

French men supported by Gascon and Breton routiers. Suddenly, a Breton reserve that

had not joined initially the fray smashed into the side of the Navarrese, scattering

their lines and forcing them to retreat, leaving their commander on the battlefield to be captured.

The victory came three days before the coronation of Charles V and was crucial to constrain

the power of Charles the Bad, who following the defeat at Cocherel lost his capability

to seriously threaten the French crown. Most of his holdings in Normandy were occupied

and peace was reached in 1365 after a small-scale counterattack failed.

Breton Civil War (1356-1365) and Battle of Auray (1364)

Meanwhile, in Brittany, the conflict was coming to a close. The agreement between Edward and

Charles of Blois had been trembling. Charles was only released from his captivity in England

in 1356, but in the same year, after the Battle of Poitiers, much of his domain had been occupied

by the Duke of Lancaster, who attempted to capture Rennes but his attack was thwarted

by a young Bertrand du Guesclin. The English were followed by the young John of Monfort,

son of the previous claimant John who had died in 1345. In 1362 John came of age and

swore fealty to Edward in exchange for the duchy, to which he returned. This flared up

the civil war up again in 1362, where Charles of Blois besieged the town of Bécherel, which

was followed by a short truce in 1363 where an agreement could not be reached. Finally,

in 1364, John of Monfort besieged the coastal town of Auray. As he was losing support both

in Brittany and at the French court, Charles of Blois desperately attempted to relieve

the town.

John of Monfort fielded around 2000 men, many of them from the English garrisons of Brittany

and Navarese men who had come to recover their possessions in Normandy. Charles of Blois'

army numbered in the three to four thousand, having received the help of Bertrand du Guesclin

and his Breton companies. On the 29th of September Blois arrived at Auray and both armies formed

up for battle. The English placed themselves on a hill behind the river, north of the town,

dividing themselves into three divisions with Sir Chandos taking command. Similarly, Blois

deployed his army into three battle divisions with a reserve. Before the battle, diplomatic

talks were held to resolve the conflict. It seems that Monfort was ready to make large

concessions to his adversaries which delighted the Bretons on both sides, but the English

and du Guesclin insisted on fighting.

Right before the battle commenced a large contingent of Bretons in the de Guesclin contingent

deserted. The English-Breton left wing clashed with the French right, capturing their commander

Jean de Chalon which caused his side to collapse and crash into the centre, where de Guesclin

was still attempting to reorganise his division. Seeing this, the Bretons with Charles decided

to follow their compatriots and left the pretender isolated, an opportunity which was pounced

upon by Monfort and Chandos. In the melee, Charles of Blois was slain with his companions,

which caused the definitive route of the rest of his army pursued by the English reserve.

The defeat was complete for the Blois faction, with around 1500 men being captured including

de Guesclin who was ransomed for 100.000 francs.

All the Blois supporters submitted soon after to the young Monfort. In 1365 the Treaty of

Guérande was ratified which put an end to the Breton Civil War. John of Monfort offered

his homage to Charles V for the duchy, while Blois widow, Jeanne de Penthièvre was allowed

to keep her lands in the duchy for herself and her heirs. While the conflict had ended

for the English-supported faction, the lack of a threat meant that the Monforts no longer

needed the support of their previous guardians, and after 1365 the English influence in the

peninsula slowly declined.

Castilian Civil War (1350-1373) and Battle of Najera (1367)

Following the end of the two civil wars, Charles had to deal with the rampaging routiers while

the Treaty of Bretigny was in effect. To do this and to secure the kingdom of Castille

as an ally, Charles decided to intervene in the Iberian peninsula as did the Black Prince.

To understand the situation in the region, we must turn back the clock to the year 1350,

when the King of Castile Alfonso the Eleventh passed away. He was succeeded by his fifteen-year-old

son Pedro, who was under the strong influence of his mother Maria of Portugal and the Portuguese

noble Alburquerque in the first years of his reign. Maria had been ignored by Alfonso for

his favourite Leonora de Guzmán, who bore him ten illegitimate children, so when Pedro

ascended the throne Leonora was executed in 1351, with a number of nobles hostile to the

Crown. The illegitimate children of Alfonso, the oldest being Henry, Count of Trastamara,

shortly rebelled a few times against Pedro but were pardoned. In 1354 another rebellion

exploded, led now by Alburquerque and Henry de Trastamara, which was nearly successful

and captured the king, but internal disagreements among the nobles proved detrimental for their

effort, as Pedro escaped from captivity and retook control of his kingdom.

In 1356 war broke out between the Kingdoms of Aragon, ruled by King Pere IV, and Castille,

known as the War of the Two Peters, officially over Aragonese piracy in Castilian ports,

but in reality, it was a conflict fomented by the Aragonese who saw a moment of weakness

in its rival and wished to conquer the disputed region of Murcia. After an unsuccessful attack

against Ibiza, in 1357 Pedro moved into Aragon with blistering chevauchees, or cavalgadas,

and occupied the town of Tarazona. After the swift action at the start of the war, the

conflict slowed soon down, where some short truces were often broken by Pedro in low-intensity

operations and sieges along the border, where captured Aragonese towns had their population

expelled and repopulated with Castilian settlers, while Aragonese counterattacks were mostly

organized by the exiled brother of Pedro, Henry de Trastamara. In 1359 the Castilians

were defeated at the Battle of Araviana, but by this point, Castilian soldiers occupied

large swaths of Aragonese land and a Castilian fleet, with Portuguese and Granadan contingents,

came to threaten Barcelona. In 1361, after a coup in Granada had toppled

Pedro’s ally Muhammad V, the Castillian king was forced to seek a truce where he relinquished

his conquests in Aragon. Pedro then moved to Granada, where he reinstated his ally to

the throne, and in 1362 he broke the truce capturing by surprise the town of Calatayud,

and once again Castille occupied much of western Aragon and Pedro’s troops came to threaten

Valencia in 1364. Meanwhile, the s and French courts’ relations were bad: Pedro had married

Blanche of Bourbon, cousin of John II, in 1353, but three days after the marriage he

had abandoned her for another woman and imprisoned her in a castle where she would die in 1361

in mysterious circumstances. Also in 1362 Pedro and the Black Prince had signed a formal

alliance. So by 1364, a plan was prepared by the French

and Aragonese to move the many routiers out of southern France and to create problems

for the pro-English Castillian kingdom. Henry de Trastamara would lead as the figurehead

an expedition into Iberia, with the Breton Bertrand de Guesclin being the one actually

in command of the routiers that the expedition was composed of. The expedition would have

Papal support using the pretext of a crusade against the Islamic remnant of Granada as

the final goal. In Autumn 1365 the mass of men, composed of

routiers of all ethnicities and French noblemen traversed France and entered the Kingdom of

Aragon by the end of the year. They followed the course of the River Ebro, destroying the

countryside in the process. In February 1366 the vanguard commanded by the Englishman Hugh

Calveley retook the Castilian-occupied towns of Magellón, Borja and Tarazona, and by March

the whole army traversed the southern tip of the Kingdom of Navarre and entered the

Castilian town of Calahorra, where Henry was proclaimed king on the 16th of March. Pedro,

who expected Navarre to close its borders and had placed his army at the approach to

Soria, saw his cause collapse and he fled south to Seville and from there to Galicia.

Soon after Henry entered Burgos and from there he crossed the Kingdom arriving at Seville,

where the royal treasury had been captured and was used to pay off the many routiers

among his ranks, who were dismissed except for a select few, like de Guesclin and Calveley.

The attack on the Black Prince’s ally had taken the Gascon court by surprise, and no

relief army had been formed in time. In August Pedro met with Prince Edward and Charles of

Navarra where an agreement was reached: Gascony would organize an army to retake the Castilian

throne and Navara would allow free passage. In exchange, Pedro would reimburse the cost

of the whole expedition and cede the Basque provinces to his allies. In January 1367 a

heterogenous army of around 10000 to 8000 men, composed of many of the same men who

had participated in de Guesclin’s expedition the previous year, traversed the Pyrenees

and entered Castille. Henry’s position was extremely precarious much like his rival had

been just 12 months before: he had dismissed most of the troops that had accompanied him

and his treasury was exhausted. Many towns and nobles flocked to Pedro’s side as news

of his arrival filtered from Gascony. The invader’s plan was to flank north around

the main approach to Burgos, the old capital of Castile, to surprise the enemies, but the

land was barren and hard to forage on, so once they reached Vitoria they found their

road barred by the Trasmara army. After a stalemate, at the end of March, the Black

Prince moved south and encamped at the town of Logroño, while Henry shadowed them to

the town of Nájera.

Going against his military advisors, Henry decided he needed a victory to save face and

stop the haemorrhaging of support in his lines: on the first of April, he advanced towards

his enemies and left his entrenched position behind the river Najerilla to take up a new

one behind the smaller stream Yalde. The following day Pedro and the Black Prince moved out of

Logroño and encamped at Navarrette. The invading army numbered around 8000 archers and men

at arms, formed up as follows: the vanguard was commanded by a young John of Gaunt and

Sir Chandos, where 3000 English and Gascon routiers and the majority of archers were

located. Both wings, approximately 2000 men each, were composed on the left by the men

of the Count of Foix, who was also in command with Captal de Buch, while the right was led

by the Count of Armagnac and Lord of d'Albret at the head of their retinues. Finally, the

main body under the Black Prince himself numbered in the 3000 and was composed of Gascon and

English knights, other routiers, and companies of Navarrese and Majorcans, Pedro’s loyalists,

Castilian defectors and Aragonese outcasts.

The Castilian army was only around 4500 men, of which 1000 were French and Breton men at

arms under de Guesclin and other French routiers. Similarly to his opponent, the Trastamaran

army had a vanguard with the French men at arms accompanied by the best Castilian knights

who fought dismounted and a handful of missile troops and mustered recruits. Right behind

it was the main body under Henry composed of around 1500 Iberian men at arms and infantry.

A group of 1000 light cavalry was placed on the left flank, while the right wing was composed

of another 1000 men from Aragon under the Count of Denia, cousin of King Pere.

On the third of April, at dawn, the Black Prince marched his army out of Navarette.

Instead of taking the main road as his opponents expected, Edward went north around a steep

ridge and fell upon his unprepared enemies from a position that took them by surprise.

The first to react to this was de Guesclin, who in good order managed to reposition his

men to confront the enemies. While his contingent performed the manoeuvre with ease, most of

the Castilian infantry and part of the light cavalry began to flee. Seeing this, the Breton

commander ordered them to charge out of their position and they clashed against the English

vanguard, where the fresher defenders found initial success, but soon their adversaries

found their footing and the battle devolved into a fierce melee. The Castilian left under

Don Tello, brother of Henry, tried to come to the rescue of their companions but they

were met by the arrows of the enemy right flank - the unarmoured horses were cut down

by the hail of missiles and the attack became first a retreat and then a complete rout.

Henry tried the same with the remaining cavalry, first trice against the English left, and

then against the main body where their horses fell. At the same time, the wings of Edward’s

army fell upon the Trastamaran vanguard. Isolated, the different parts of the army were crushed,

while the main Castilian body who did not participate in the battle was then attacked,

routed and massacred as they attempted to flee. The defeat of Henry was total and around

half of his army was killed, while the English only suffered light casualties. Most of the

French-Castilian command was taken captive, who were nearly hunted for their ransom, but

not Henry himself, who managed to flee to France.

Following the victory, Pedro swiftly reoccupied the Kingdom of Castile, but he continuously

delayed the cession of the Basque provinces and was unable to reimburse the Duke of Gascony,

which crippled the Gascon finances for decades since much of the sums for the invasion had

been anticipated by Edward himself: he could do little but return home by the end of the

summer. It did not take long for the French court to resupply Henry with arms and already

in September 1367 he traversed the Pyrenees with 500 men at arms and on the 26th he reentered

the Kingdom, where many nobles flocked to him, either previous supporters or new enemies

of Pedro who had suffered his vengeful wrath. He reoccupied Castile proper and Leon and

by the end of April 1368, he laid siege to the capital Toledo. Pedro retreated with his

army to the valley of Guadalquivir, close to his allies in Granada and Portugal, where

he unsuccessfully besieges the town of Cordoba, supporter of the Trastamara cause. In winter

1369 Henry was once again joined by de Guesclin at Toledo, while Pedro was forced to relieve

the besieged capital: he moved north to join up with his loyalist in Leon and then east.

He was surprised by the forces of Henry and de Geusclin near the Castle of Montiel on

the 14th of March 1369, where his forces were routed and he barricaded himself in the castle

with few followers. Here he attempted to bribe de Guesclin to switch sides and join him,

but instead the Breton led the king out of the castle and into his camp, where he was

accompanied into a tent and met face to face with his half brother. The two pretenders

began to wrestle each other with their knives which ended when Henry killed his brother.

Henry could be crowned king of Casile. In exchange for the help received, he would support

the French fleet in the Atlantic with his own and remained loyal to the French in their

cause. While the Civil War between the two half brothers finished, Henry still had to

subdue internal rebels, especially in Galicia, and he had to fend off his position against

a number of pretenders, such as the King of Portugal Ferdinand I who attacked with Aragon

in 1369-70 and in 1372-73, and John of Gaunt, brother of the Black Prince, who married Pedro’s

eldest daughter Costanza to claim the throne of Castille in 1371, but this had the effect

of strengthening the alliance between France and the Trastamaras. The conflict continued

between Castille against Portugal and Navarre up until 1373, while the peace of Almazan

which ended the conflict with Aragon was signed in 1375.

Start of Caroline Phase By the time Edward returned to Bordeaux in

the late 1360s, he was growing ill from a disease contracted in Spain, and his direct

rule in Aquitaine was creating discontent among long-time English subjects, not only

the lands gained at Bretigny. To pay for his military campaigns and the court of Bordeaux,

Aquitaine’s overlord had been imposing harsh taxes for years, but when he declared yet

another fouage - or ‘hearth tax’ in 1368, some of the highest feudal lords in the realm

revolted, petitioning Charles V for assistance - it was the chance he had been waiting for.

Technically Charles no longer had sovereignty over Aquitaine, but used a loophole in the

Treaty of Bretigny as an excuse to receive the discontented nobles and again formally

confiscate English possessions in France during late 1369. Despite attempted peace overtures

by Edward III, Charles V was eager for revenge and the war was back on. The French attacked

immediately, seizing the thinly defended counties of Ponthieu and Rouergue with new tactics

- smaller, mobile contingents of soldiers replaced the large, massed armies which had

been defeated at Crecy and Poitiers. Charles V also commanded that his generals refuse

battle with the English, wary of suffering the bitter defeats of the 1340s and 1350s

again. Battle of Pontvallain (1370) and Siege of

Limoges (1370) As Aquitaine’s unwieldy new borders were

being attacked, Edward III’s son John of Gaunt launched a limited chevauchée in Normandy

before withdrawing back to Calais not long after. In the following year - 1370, a notorious

captain called Sir Robert Knolles was contracted to lead 4,000 troops to do the same thing.

The English columns, composed of different companies of English routiers, set out on

a devastating raid from Calais in August and, from there, devastated northern France before

approaching Paris from the southeast. Again, Charles V restrained his knights from meeting

the English in open battle and realising he needed a military leader with whom he saw

eye to eye. France’s Valois king made the pragmatic Breton routier captain Bertrand

de Guesclin the new Constable of France. The English then split up into two columns: one

began to pillage in lower Normandy while the others remained south of Paris until they

again met up around Vendôme and Tour where they idled, attempting to coordinate with

other English routiers. Bertrand de Guesclin quickly made a base at Caen and raised a force

to meet Knolles’ 4,000, while another army formed up at Vendôme under Marshal Sancerre.

Bickering among the English officers on where to winter broke the army up, as Knolles, with

the greater contingent headed for Brittany, while the rest split up into three smaller

parts. But it was too late: unbeknownst to the English, on the first of December, Guesclin

had marched out of Caen and swiftly reached Le Mans on the third, while simultaneously

the army at Vendôme approached from the east.

Hearing of the English positions, the Breton ordered a night march even though his men

were exhausted, and at the dawn of the fourth of December, the French army, numbering in

the 4000, reached the village of Pontvallain. Here, they ambushed one of the English contingents

under the command of Sir Grandison, completely unaware of the enemy's position. Grandison

and some of his men tried to form a line and move north to a more defensive position, but

they were caught and overwhelmed by 300 French dismounted men at arms after a bloody melee.

Most of Grandison’s contingent, numbering between 600 to 1200, were either killed or

captured. A second English contingent under Sir Fitzwalter headed south to the fortified

Abbey of Vaas. Beneath its walls, Fitzwalter was assaulted by Sancerre’s army coming

from the east, who were soon joined by Guescelin’s vanguard. After a day of fighting, the French

defeated their enemies and stormed the abbey, massacring its defenders. Knolles and the

fourth English contingent managed to enter Brittanny unscathed with their loot, but when

they attempted to return to England in the spring, they were harassed by French cavalrymen,

while the survivors of the Battles of Pontvallain and Vaas were pursued into English-held Aquitaine.

The victory at Pontvallain gave a great morale boost to the French, who had finally defeated

the English in a pitched battle. In the south, French forces under Charles

V’s brother, the Duke of Anjou, continued the English disaster by capturing Agenais,

Limousin and Buzac, with many local lords defecting from their Plantagenet overlords

and going over to the Valois. The now-ailing Black Prince was livid about the treachery

of his lords and reacted violently when the bishop of Limoges - his own son’s godfather

- betrayed the town to the French. Three weeks after the French army had left

Limoges, he marched there, and a five-day siege commanded by his brother John of Gaunt

began. It was noted that part of the wall was built upon softer limestone, so mines

were excavated underground to reach the wall. The defenders tried to dig their own counter-mines

and managed to enter the enemy mines, but here they were beaten back in hand-to-hand

combat. On the 19th of September 1370, the timber supporting the English mine was set

ablaze, causing the mine to collapse and, with it, the wall laying upon it. The attacker

seized the opportunity and the city was stormed and brutally sacked, causing significant damage

to the town. Sickly and demoralised by the death of his

eldest son, the Black Prince went home to England in 1371 a tired man, leaving John

of Gaunt in charge of Aquitaine. Meanwhile, Du Guescelin and other French commanders spent

1371 securing the many castles that were occupied by English garrisons following the chevauchées

of the previous years and continued the campaign against the English positions in the south-west,

while John of Gaunt recaptured some towns in Perigord. England’s position in France

was plagued by disastrous finances and the loss of some of their best commanders, such

as the Earl of Warwick and Sir Chandos, who died, and Captal de Buch, who was captured

the following year. In late 1371, Limoges submitted to Charles the Fifth, although the

province remained under the control of English routiers, while in 1372, Bertrand de Guesclin

and the Duke of Berry began the recapture of the Poitou.

Battle of la Rochelle (1372) Edward III realised more help was needed,

and so he sent the Earl of Pembroke3 to Aquitaine with 160 soldiers in 20 ships, 3 of which

were larger battle-worthy vessels with archery towers on them.

As Pembroke was approaching La Rochelle harbour at the head of a coastal inlet, however, he

was confronted by a smaller fleet of Castilian combat galleys which were waiting for him

to arrive. Castile’s ships launched their attack first and came into close quarters

with the outnumbering but outmatched English, inflicting a few losses among the non-combat

craft. Nevertheless, Pembroke’s meagre number of archers managed to do their job incredibly

well, laying down a precise rain of arrows on the Iberian ships. At the same time, his

spear-wielding men-at-arms managed to bravely fight off boarding attempts by the enemy until

dusk, when the fleets separated. Pembroke sailed slightly out to sea and set anchor

while the Castilians waited just off La Rochelle until dawn the next day. The English were

nervous - they couldn’t escape because the enemy galleys were faster than their own ships,

nor could they pass through the treacherous shallow waters of La Rochelle at low tide.

However, some Poitevin knights and their retinues did row out to join the English during the

night. Pembroke kept his ships anchored, not expecting an enemy attack until high tide.

However, the Castilian ships used their shallower draught and closed on the English while they

were still immobile, spraying their decks and rigging with oil before lighting the fuel

with flaming arrows. This was the end of the battle in a complete victory for France’s

Iberian ally - many English were burned alive, most of their ships were destroyed and Pembroke

himself was taken prisoner. English naval superiority established at Sluys in 1340 met

its end at La Rochelle, and a planned expedition by Edward III himself was cancelled.

Following the disaster at La Rochelle, the English defences began to shatter: Poitiers

capitulated in the summer, as did many castles in southern Aquitaine, such as Aiguillon and

Port-Saint-Marie, while La Rochelle itself surrendered in September. Soon after, Thouars,

the Saintogne and Angoumois fell to the French. In 1373, the remaining English forces around

Niort were defeated by the Constable at the Battle of Chizé, bringing the last pockets

of resistance in Poitou to surrender. In Britany, nobles commanded by Olivier de

Clisson had brought John of Montfort to ally himself with the English again, but when the

French army arrived under the walls of Rennes in 1372, he reneged the treaty; however, the

English had managed to create a foothold in the west around Brest, and John did little

to dislodge them. Losing their patience, the Duchy was occupied by French officials in

1373, and Monfort left for England, leaving only Brest, Derval and Auray in the hands

of the English. In August 1373, John of Gaunt led around 10,000

men out from Calais on the so-called ‘Great Chevauchée’, laying waste to a massive

swathe of Picardy, Champagne and Burgundy. From there, he entered Bourbonnais and Auvergne,

where the harsh winter conditions killed many English, and finally, they entered Bordeaux

in December. Nevertheless, the French did not engage the English in pitched battle,

instead harassing John’s vulnerable supply lines and picking off any stragglers or raiding

columns that strayed too far: only half of John's men reached Gascony.

This effectively limited the damage, and even though the Chevauchée pulled Valois soldiers

away from Aquitaine, by the close of 1373 almost all of the province was under French

control. In the summer of 1374, a truce was discussed thanks to the mediation of the Pope,

which brought to peace talks which took place in the spring of 1375 at Bruges, led by Philip

of Burgundy and John of Gaunt. While these talks were taking place, the war continued

both in Aquitaine, where de Geusclin was mopping up different English strongholds - Cognac

among them, and the English routiers base at Saint Sauveur was taken after a year-long

siege, in the first siege where cannons were a decisive factor. An English army of 4000

men led by John of Monfort landed in Brittany, and after three months of slow progress, he

managed to encircle the Breton nobility that opposed him at Quimperlé, but as they were

about to surrender, news came from Bruge. A two-year truce would take place, and all

hostilities were to be halted, while current positions were to be maintained. Montfort

could do nothing but let his foes go and leave the duchy. After six years of war, English

territory in France had been reduced to its pre-war levels once again.

Between 1376 and ‘77, the truce mostly held between the two sides, although skirmishes

in Gascony nearly broke down the peace talks in Bruges. In England the Parliament of 1376

was called, where many of the grievances that had accumulated in the previous years of war

came to light, and a commission was set up to make amends and create reforms. However,

the demands of the Parliament were overturned by John of Gaunt in the Parliament of the

following year, becoming increasingly unpopular with the population. As the truce between

the two countries was about to expire, disaster struck the English crown.

Death of the Black Prince and Edward III In June of both 1376 and 1377, England suffered

a great loss. The bedridden Black Prince - formerly the great model of medieval chivalry, succumbed

first, followed the year after by his legendary father, Edward III, who perished after a reign

of half a century, widely viewed as a golden age for the Kingdom of England. The successor

was Richard II - the second son of the Black Prince. Since he was still a minor, however,

true authority would be wielded by a regency council until the king came of age. Only days

after Richard II’s coronation, the boy king’s realm was beset by a series of lightning shipborne

raids on its channel ports. From Rye in the east to Plymouth in the west, the French pirates,

led by a talented knight and admiral called Jean de Vienne, used their dominance of the

sea to viciously plunder and loot. Simultaneously, the Duke of Burgundy launched

an unsuccessful attack against the heavily fortified town of Calais, where after taking

a few castles, he was forced away by the inhospitable conditions of the marshy terrain. In Gascony,

the Duke of Anjou advanced in Périgord, retook Bergerac and successfully conquered the towns

up till Saint-Macaire before the arrival of winter. The English responded by expanding

their hold in Brittany and occupying Cherbourg, in order to keep a series of strongpoints

on the French north coast from where to launch maritime raids and other chevauchees much

like Calais had been used in the previous decades. In the same year, 1378, the Western

Schism took place, splitting the union of Catholic Europe.

In late 1378, the Bretton Duchy was officially confiscated by Charles V, who accused John

of Monfort of treason. The Duchy was already, for the most part, controlled by French officials

following their invasion in the previous years, but this political action sparked the revolt

of the great Breton nobles that had supported the French up til that point, including the

Blois. They recalled John IV of Monfort from England, who, in the summer of 1379, retook

control of nearly all his duchy without a fight. As an agreement could not be reached

between the French and the Bretons, the latter formulated an alliance with the English, giving

them free passage through their territory to relieve Gascony. In 1380, Thomas of Woodstock,

Earl of Buckingham and fifth son of Edward III, was put in command of an army of around

6000 men that was meant to reinforce the Gascon holdings. He departed from Calais and followed

the same route that John of Gaunt and Robert Knolles had marched the previous decade. After

a month, they reached the great town of Troyes in Champagne. Here 4000 French defenders had

been concentrated under the Duke of Burgundy, who was prepared to give battle, but after

surveying the battlefield, he thought against it and brought his men back behind the walls.

Woodstock moved west, followed by the Duke, but news in Paris shook the campaign. On the

16th of September, Charles V suffered a stroke and died, following the great Bretton commander

De Geusclin, who had died in July. The French army melted away as the succession struggle

commenced in Paris while the English arrived in Brittany without obstacles, where they

besieged the French-held city of Nantes from November until January 1381 without any success.

John IV of Montfort was meant to help the English, but following the death of Charles

V, he came to an agreement with the Parisian throne, being reconfirmed as the Duke of Brittany

with the same freedoms he had before the confiscation in exchange for a lump sum of money and the

breaking of all ties with the English. The lack of resources on both sides brought war

operations to a halt.

End of Caroline Phase Thus, France’s political situation changed

when, in mid-September 1380, Charles V ‘the Wise’ - France’s Valois monarch who had

held his kingdom together in its darkest hour and doggedly led the reconquest of Aquitaine,

died of an illness. He left the crown to the eleven-year-old Charles VI, who was also in

his minority. This situation gave the king’s four uncles - the so-called ‘princes of

blood,’ an opportunity to form a regency council as well - the Dukes of Anjou, Berry,

Bourbon and Burgundy. The Duke of Burgundy - Philip the Bold - was the younger son who

was captured with Jean II at Poitiers in 1356, and his dynasty would bring Burgundy to power

in the fifteenth century. Unfortunately for France, the regency also gave the dukes an

opportunity to exploit their positions to gain more power, and they squandered the carefully

maintained treasury of Charles V. Wat Tyler Rebellion

Also England was rocked by rebellions caused by high taxes and war exhaustion. In 1377

and 1379, two “poll taxes” had been raised on the population, a fixed-sum tax on every

person in the realm. In 1381, a third one was raised, and when officials began to enforce

it, peasant rebellions broke out in Essex and Kent, which came under the leadership

of Wat Tyler, a tiler, and John Ball, a priest. After destroying documents and killing people

who were accused of collaborating with the Ministers of the King and John of Gaunt, who

were seen as the culprits of the bad governance of the latter years, the rebels stormed London

on the 11th of June, where the lower classes of London joined them. The king and his closest

collaborators barricaded themselves in the fortified Tower of London. The king tried

to discuss terms with the rebels two days later at Greenwich, sailing there by boat,

but the rebels would not talk unless he landed. The rebels had broken open most of London’s

prisons and destroyed the property of those seen as their enemy, including John of Gaunt’s

palace. On the 14th, the king rode out to Mile End to meet with the head of the rebellion.

Here, their demands were known, which consisted of the abolishment of serfdom, removal of

most laws and taxations, the execution of the officials who were responsible for the

latest taxation increases, and the abolishment of noble privileges, to create a society of

all men equal under the King. Richard was forced to accept these demands at least nominally,

hoping to disperse some of the peasant’s numbers. While Richard was out, 400 men stormed

the Tower, which had its drawbridge lowered, awaiting the king's return. The treasurer

Hales and the Archbishop of Canterbury were executed, as were many other officials, judges

and foreigners.

As the appeasement strategy had not worked, a plan to kill the ringleaders was prepared.

The following day, the king, with a 200-strong retinue who had their weapons concealed, met

with them at Smithfield, where the peasant mob had assembled drawn up in military ranks.

As the king asked Wat Tyler why his men had not dispersed, he was met with more demands,

including redistribution of land and confiscation of church estates. During the meeting, an

altercation broke out, which degenerated into a melee. Tyler was wounded by the Mayor of

London Walworth, and he barely managed to return to his ranks. The peasants were about

to shoot their bows against the retinue, but Richard rode up and asked them to reassemble

in a nearby field. The peasants, not desiring to disobey the king, started to do so, but

before that could happen, 2000 men drawn from Sir Richard Knolles men and members of the

higher classes of London surrounded them. The rebels agreed to disperse and returned

to their homes, while the ringleaders, including Tyler, were executed, and the English government

retook control of the situation. The death of the leaders cooled any plans of rebellion

in other regions of England, except for a few events that were suppressed with arms.

While the King and his government were once again safe, the Peasant rebellion had the

effect of reducing the willingness of the Parliament to increase taxes, reducing the

king’s ability to wage war. Flanders and Battle of Roosebeke (1382)

In 1379, the region of Flanders had been hit by a wave of discontent. The rich towns of

the Low Countries had for a few decades been estranged to the war and had returned under

the rule of the Count Louis de Mâle. However, in the 1370s the economic situation of the

towns declined, which brought discontent among the artisans and lower echelons of the urban

society. In September 1379, a revolt sparked in Gent, which soon spread to the other towns

of Flanders, either by local revolts or occupation. Only in late spring and summer of 1380 was

Louis able to retake control of the county with the help of local allies, except for

the town of Ghent, which held out. After a few years of raids and counter-raids, in 1381,

a harsh blockade of the city was enacted, which starved the city of food and resources.

In the region, nobles and knights supported the Count while many neighbouring towns supported

Ghent, creating a polarisation in the Low Countries.

As the town was about to surrender in January 1382, Philip Van Artevelde of the weavers

guild took power and rejected the peace terms, killing in the process members of the craftsmen

guild and grain importers who supported the peace treaty. On the third of May 1382, Van

Artevelde attempted a daring assault on Bruge, taking advantage of a local festivity, where

they defeated an inebriated Brugeois army and Louis’ retinue, which was followed by

the occupation of the city with the help of the local weavers guild. Following Count Louis’

defeat, who barely escaped the city pursued by his adversaries, Ypres and many of the

Flemish-speaking towns revolted once again, cutting the blockade that strangled the city

of Ghent. In October, a French army was assembled. It

was initially destined to attack Gascony, but was soon diverted north against the Flemish

rebels, much to the joy of the Duke of Burgundy, who had married Margareth of Flanders, daughter

and sole heiress of Louis of Flanders. The French army, commanded by the new Constable

Oliver de Clisson and accompanied by a young Charles VI, was composed of around 10,000

men, 2000 of them Burgundian. Around 6500 of them were men at arms, 2000 pikemen and

1200 archers and crossbowmen. Accompanying them was also a host of Flemish nobles and

others from the Low Countries under Louis of Flanders. Opposing them were around 30

to 40.000 flemish men, the majority of them townsfolk with little to no battle experience,

safe for a few hundred English archers and German mercenaries. They were at Oudenaarde,

where they had besieged this stronghold of Philip for four months. The French advanced

from Arras on the 12th of November towards Ypres: they were preceded by Louis’ host,

who attempted to take control of one of the few unbroken bridges over the Lys river but

was brutally repelled. Only when the French vanguard arrived did they manage to traverse

the river after a strongly contested crossing. They then moved up to Ypres, which surrendered

while smaller towns were brutally sacked. Van Artevelde marched his army west to confront

the French, and on the 26th of November, he encamped south of the village of Westrozebeke,

or Roosebeke in French. Positioned on a high ridge and flanked by woodlands, the Flemish

dug a trench and positioned themselves behind it in a compact mass. The French encampment

was just 6 miles south of this position, and on the 27th, they advanced in three divisions.

Once they were at the feet of the hill, the men at arms dismounted, and as the morning

mist cleared, they charged up, where they were met with missiles and artillery. The

mass of Flemish footmen managed to keep their discipline in front of the advancing line

of iron-clad men, much better than their counterparts had expected them to. The arrows and cannon

shot forced the French centre to retreat, but the two wings scaled the hill and outflanked

the enemies, crashing into their defenceless back. As the side of the French centre began

to envelop the flanks of the townsfolk, the Flemish began to panic and broke their lines,

fleeing through the French lines, while their adversaries began to massacre them. Mounted

soldiers gave chase to the fleeing Flemings, and the few pockets of resistance that reorganised

were brutally cut down. Once the battle ended, at least 27000 Flemish corpses were counted,

Van Artevelde being one of the casualties, nearly the majority of them being crushed

by their companions as they attempted to flee, while 3000 others that were found wounded

were executed.

The defeat at Roosebeke ended the rebels' cause, as all of the towns surrendered and

were punished, either sacked or forced to pay a heavy fine, as Count Louis returned

to the throne, though under heavy French influence. Only Ghent continued to resist, which provoked

an English expedition which came under the disguise of a Crusade against the supporters

of the Avignon pope in the framework of the Western schism. The expedition arrived in

Calais in the spring of 1383, and they attempted to besiege Ypres in the summer before giving

up on the arrival of a French relief force. Ghent’s resistance would continue for two

more years when they would reach an agreement for an amnesty with the new Count of Flanders,

the Duke of Burgundy Philip the Bold, who succeeded his father-in-law in 1384. The effects

of the Battle of Roosebeke were also felt in France, where emboldened of this victory,

the King and the princes of blood curtailed the power of the French town, which had rebelled

the previous years against war taxation, and managed to impose heavier taxes by royal decree

instead of being agreed upon with the local councils.

Change of regimes (1385-1414)

After a few years of truce, in 1385, hostilities restarted. A direct invasion of England was

planned in the late spring from Scotland and the Thames river, and it was meant to depart

from Sluys. The English knew this and prepared a preemptive strike against the harboured

fleet, but this had little success. The French army under Admiral de Vienne arrived in Scotland,

where he launched a combined assault into England. The French took the border castle

of Wark by storm while the Scotsmen watched. there were disagreements between the two factions

on how to conduct the war, as the Scots were used to quick and mobile raids in which the

main prize was cattle, while the French hoped to take towns to lock down a substantial part

of English resources for the defence of the northern frontier. The disagreement provoked

the split of the army, where the French continued down the Tweed River and raided the lands

along the coast down til Morpeth, where their allies followed their allies home at the arrival

of a large English force under Richard himself, who himself did not accomplish much. The failed

invasion from Scotland brought to the French court the knowledge that the Scottish countryside

could hardly supply a Scottish army, let alone a French invasion force, so no more attacks

from Scotland would be attempted.

In 1386, John of Gaunt attempted another invasion of Castille to claim his throne with little

local success, but it managed to distract the French court from launching a direct invasion

against England in 1386 and ‘87. The English also managed to find success in raiding French

trade fleets. By 1388, both sides had exhausted their resources and peace talks began to open

up as internal conflict began to brew in both countries.

The political situation had changed again in both kingdoms by the late 1380s as both

kings asserted their independent rule. In France, Charles VI embarked on a personal

rule, dismissing the Valois magnates from his council in November of 1388 and replacing

them with a group of his father’s old advisors known as the ‘marmousets’. His rule started

well and the people began to call their king ‘the Beloved’, but on the other side of

the English Channel Richard II’s reign descended into a tyranny throughout the last decade

of the fourteenth-century. While the king managed to forge a 28-year truce with the

French, his internal problems began to get worse. This all came to a climax when John

of Gaunt’s son - Henry Bolingbroke, was cast out of England for ten years as a political

threat. The former didn’t react to his son’s exile, but when Gaunt died in 1399 and Richard

II both extended his banishment for life and confiscated his vast Duchy of Lancaster, the

Rubicon had been crossed. Henry Bolingbroke returned and landed at the Humber estuary

in June, and almost immediately most of Richard’s nobles deserted him, unnerved by the king’s

actions. Richard - who had travelled to Ireland to put down a rebellion there, was deposed

and died a few months later in prison, while the House of Lancaster became the royal house

of England when its usurping patriarch came to the throne as Henry IV.

The reign of Lancastrian usurper-king Henry IV did not begin well, and almost immediately

rebellions sprang up to resist his rule, first by Owain Glyndŵr in Wales and then three

years later by a disaffected member of the Percy family known as ‘Hotspur’1. As he

was closest to the rebels, the king’s sixteen-year-old son - Henry of Monmouth - skillfully blocked

Welsh and Percy forces from uniting with one another and then played a decisive role in

the royalist victory at Shrewsbury in 1403, charging his victorious division into Hotspur’s

flank and winning the battle. It was just a taste of the military prowess the young

prince would display in the future. Despite the victory, further revolts broke out during

the first decade of the fifteenth-century and Wales remained recalcitrant. Henry IV

also began to suffer from numerous illnesses during the later part of his reign which left

him more and more incapable of ruling his realm. From around 1407 onwards, governance

of England would increasingly fall to the heir - Henry of Monmouth, who even at this

early stage was noted as a diligent administrator and capable leader.

As the new royal House of Lancaster was solidifying its hold over England, their Valois rivals

in France were busy destroying any unity the French kingdom might have had. Two and a half

decades earlier, twenty-five year-old Charles VI suffered a psychotic episode whilst riding

through a forest, and from that point descended quickly into total madness, famously believing

himself to be made of glass. This deficiency on the throne created a power vacuum which

would bring disaster to France. Louis I - Duke of Orleans took the reins of government following

his elder brother’s fall to madness, continuing the war with England whilst also increasing

his own wealth and power on the side. As the second son of Charles V, Orleans had the status

of a Valois ‘prince du sang’ or ‘prince of the blood’, and was therefore among the

highest nobility in France. The main victim of this state of affairs was the House of

Valois-Burgundy, Dukes of Burgundy since the Capetian cadet house’s extinction. Jean

II granted the vacant Duchy as a fief to his youngest son Philip the Bold in 1363, and

that son had subsequently been the dominant force in Charles VI’s minority. Upon Philip’s

death in 1404 the powerful Duchy of Burgundy2, which now included wealthy Flanders and Artois

in the north, passed to John the Fearless. Jonathan Sumption describes him as ‘a short,

bull-headed man of unprepossessing appearance, graceless, awkward and taciturn.’, but aside

from his less-than-perfect personality, he was a man of supreme talent. John’s military

experience was extensive, culminating in his leading of the French contingent in the Battle

of Nicopolis, while his excellent administrative skills often led his father to rely on John

as a capable deputy during times of need. A bitter struggle for power and control over

the kingdom began between John the Fearless and the Duke of Orleans which quickly turned

violent. The two men clashed on almost every single important policy issue. While John

supported the pope in Rome and opposed continued war with England due to the danger it caused

to trade in Flanders, Orleans deferred to the Avignon Papacy and wanted to continue

the conflict. Factions began to develop around both parties - Orleanists, later called ‘Armagnacs’

followed Louis and Burgundians rallied to John, with street brawls even occurring between

both groups of supporters in the capital city streets. This simmering tension finally boiled

over when, on November 23rd 1407, the Duke of Orleans was dragged from his mule and brutally

bludgeoned to death on a Paris street by assassins sent by John. Louis’ young son Charles inherited

the Dukedom and, advised by the late Louis’ father in law the Count of Armagnac, swore

an oath of vengeance against the Duke of Burgundy. This started a vicious civil war between the

‘Armagnac’ and ‘Burgundian’ factions which was to last for decades. After securing

power in Paris by means of a coup d'état, John the Fearless was besieged in the city

by the Armagnacs in 1411, led by the Duke of Berry - another prince of the blood. Seeking

assistance, the Duke of Burgundy sent envoys to Henry IV in England, promising territory

in Flanders and other concessions in return for aid. A few weeks later, 3,000 English

troops under the Earl of Arundel ventured to France and managed to break the siege before

returning home. The harsh rule of John the Fearless angered

Paris’ civilians, and in 1413 the Duke was forced out of the city, isolating himself

in his own vast domains while the Armagnacs secured most of the country. Unfortunately

for them, time had run out. In England, Henry IV passed away of chronic illness in March

of 1413 and was succeeded by his son, who was coronated as Henry V on April 9th as a

snowstorm raged outside of Westminster Abbey. The new ruler consciously transformed his

behavior upon coming to the throne. From an unruly and riotous Prince of Wales fond of

wine, women and quarrelling with his father, now-King Henry V immediately began conducting

himself with gravitas and level-headedness, taking his responsibilities as a monarch seriously.

He gathered worthy, incorruptible advisors around himself, kept household costs low,

engaged personally in ensuring justice in his realm and subdued lawlessness wherever

and whenever he could. Yet, he also delved into Christianity and became a religious zealot

capable of extraordinary brutality when he thought it necessary. When Henry’s heretical

old friend John Oldcastle plotted to kidnap him, the king had him and all of his followers

burned alive. Above all, however, was Henry V’s desire to regain the rights and territories

of the English royal family in France. It was clear that the new king would not maintain

the truce for long. Start of Lancastrian Phase

In late 1414, a grand embassy was sent to Paris to discuss proposals for peace, but

Henry’s demands were extremely high. The 1360 Treaty of Bretigny was to be fully re-implemented

and England’s stolen territories in Aquitaine, Poitou and Ponthieu were to be returned. More

than that, any outstanding funds from Jean II’s ransom agreement would be paid along

with an additional £330,000, the annexation of Normandy, Maine and Anjou as well as overlordship

of Brittany, Flanders, Beaufort and Nogent. Perhaps Henry V was simply attempting to regain

lost English lands in France, but such untenable terms might have been intended to be rejected.

Whatever the case, the French did indeed reject them and that made the resumption of war inevitable.

With his rejection the dauphin of France - Louis of Guyenne, sent the English king an insulting

gift, arrogantly stating to the ambassadors that he would ‘send to King Henry, because

he was young, little balls to play with and soft pillows to sleep on to help him grow

to manly strength’. In response, Henry stated to his advisors that “If perchance they

thought to lie abed with soft pillows, then I, perchance before they wish, shall arouse

them from their slumbers by hammering on their doors at dawn’. With that, orders were sent

out to raise the largest English army since Crecy. 320 captains were contracted to muster

troops in various regions around the kingdom under an indenture - a legal contract between

a soldier and the man he served under. It specified the conditions and length of service,

disciplinary practices, pay grades and other matters, and was a sign that mobilising troops

in England was becoming more professionalised. Other feudal lords raised retinues from their

own fiefs and Henry himself even drew warriors from his royal lands in Cheshire, Lancashire

and South Wales. Overall, the army which gathered in Southampton was around 12,000 strong with

a large archer contingent. After dealing with a plot to depose him and

executing its ringleaders, Henry V and his invasion force embarked from England on August

11th 1415 in around 700 ships. The king himself and his closest advisors sailed aboard a 500

ton flagship known as Le Trinite. The armada reached the Normandy coast three days later

and disembarked near Chef du Caux at the mouth of the Seine River.

Siege of Harfleur (1415) Rather than launching a devastating chevauchée

through the area as his royal predecessors had, Henry marched to the strategic port of

Harfleur and set up his base at the priory of Graville, from where he expected the small

garrison to capitulate soon. The town had a ring of old walls, but its defences had

been reinforced in the expectation of an English arrival with ditches and wooden barbicans,

and the local commander, the Lord of Estouteville, had further preparations made by closing off

the harbour with chained ships. The river Lézarde had its sluices opened, flooding

the plain north of the town and giving time to Raoul de Gaucourt to reinforce the defences

with 300 men at arms, bolstering the defenders’ numbers up to 400 men at arms, a number of

crossbowmen and the local town folks who joined it the defence of their homes. Henry took

up position to the west of the town on the 17th of August, while he sent his brother

Duke of Clarence, Thomas, to the east, but the floodplains slowed him down, and he was

in position only two days later, while the English navy prevented any supplies from entering

the town by sea. Henry summoned Harfleur to surrender, but his demand was rejected, so

the siege began. The English set up their batteries, which continuously pounded on the

defences, protected by wooded shields and trenches. The defenders doggedly held on to

their outer position as long as they could and defended tenaciously the breaches created

by the artillery, and during the night, the breaches were repaired as best as they could.

They launched sorties to keep the enemy cannons as far away from the walls as possible. English

mines, deep tunnels dug underneath the defences meant to collapse the walls, were stopped

by French countermines. The defenders also managed to increase the water level of the

Lézarde, forcing some of the English to fall back. Still, slowly on the eastern side, the

attackers managed to creep up on the outer trenches, where they placed their cannons

at point-blank range. By the end of August, they managed to divert the river's flow, lowering

the water level and depriving the defenders of fresh water. By the start of September,

most of Harfleur’s outer defences were destroyed, towers and walls were damaged and their food

supplies were running out, but still the French commanders decided to hold on and repelled

English assaults on the breaches in the walls for two more weeks.

Finally, by the 15th of September, the defenders asked for a truce and for the city to be surrendered

if a French army would not arrive to relieve them before the 23rd. As the dauphin was still

assembling it and it wasn’t ready to march, Harfleur was surrendered to the English king

on the agreed date - its 260 surviving members of the garrisons and the other combatants

would be kept for ransom. Still, the unexpectedly dogged resistance of the small garrison had

held off the English king for six weeks, during which the English army was ravaged by outbreaks

of malaria and dysentery, which eventually killed or debilitated almost a third of its

troops.

Battle of Agincourt (1415) At the time he was doing so, a large French

army of about 20,000 men was slowly gathering in Rouen under the dauphin, ready to intercept

the English. Henry V wasn’t the only thing Charles had to worry about. John the Fearless

declared himself eager to join the fight against England, but his presence was judged to be

detrimental, as it would only cause divisions in the army. So the dauphin asked the Duke

of Burgundy to send 800 troops instead of coming himself, but this insulted the Duke

and he instead refused to send any assistance. Throughout the entire campaign, the nominally

‘Armagnac’ French leaders would have to keep one eye on Burgundy - it had long been

rumoured that he was collaborating with the English. Nevertheless, the delay at Harfleur

put King Henry into a predicament. It was late in the campaigning season now, but he

could not just sail back to England without achieving anything more. Nor could he risk

marching towards Bordeaux as he had intended, or Paris itself - the army was too depleted

and an attack on the capital might forcibly reunite the French factions. Instead it was

decided that the army would head immediately for Calais, so that Henry might tread the

same steps through ‘his’ lands in Normandy and Ponthieu that his great-grandfather Edward

III had. After garrisoning the newly-captured Harfleur

the English army set out on its march, intending to remain on the coast all the way to Calais.

The trek started well enough and rivers near Dieppe and Eu were easily forded, but this

all changed on the 13th. As Henry’s army approached the old Roman ford over the Somme

at Blanchetaque, where the king planned to cross, a captured Gascon prisoner informed

him that an advance guard of 6,000 French under Constable Charles d’Albret was waiting

and ready to block any attempt to cross. Realising that he would have to cross further inland,

Henry pivoted right and marched upstream, shadowed all the way by d’Albret on the

other side of the bank. After managing to shake his pursuers off however, the English

managed to cross at Nesle, but it was already too late. In the meantime, the main French

army under Bourbon5 cut across the Somme at Amiens and proceeded to unite with d’Albret

near Peronne. The tired English, wracked by hunger, disease and now almost completely

depleted of supplies continued marching north, and on October 23rd reached Blangy. It was

there, as Henry’s army crossed a tributary of the great river, that it witnessed a terrifying

sight. Drawn up on a slightly elevated ridge about a mile in front of them was the entire

French army - rank after rank of magnificent mounted knights and men-at-arms, a sight which

led the English king to draw up in battle formation as well. After a tense, hour-long

standoff, the French pulled back even further and took up position for the night in a blocking

position on the road to Calais near a small hamlet known as Agincourt.

On the night of October 24th, Henry ordered complete silence in the English camp, while

the French could be heard rejoicing and celebrating across the rain-filled night air. The battlefield

which both sides lined up on the following morning was an area of sodden, recently ploughed

field in an area between the village of Agincourt in the west, Tramecourt in the east and Maisoncelles

in the south, bounded by forested terrain on the flanks of each army. Henry V’s depleted

army was now about 8,500 strong and severely lopsided in composition, with 7,000 archers

and only 1,500 dismounted knights and men-at-arms. Due to its limited numbers, it was arrayed

in a single line of battle. In the centre were three small divisions of melee infantry,

known as ‘battles’, with units of longbowmen between them. The left ‘battle’ was under

the command of the veteran Baron of Camoys, the right was led by Edward, Duke of York

while Henry V took control of the central division. Even more archers were equally placed

on both the left and right flanks, with a significant portion in the woods on each side

of the field. The archers were under the authority of Sir Thomas Erpingham. All of the army was

protected by a defensive wall of stakes and caltrops, designed to blunt cavalry charges.

On the other side of the field, a grand French royal army of around 20,000 was under the

nominal, but insecure dual command of Constable Charles d’Albret and Marshal Boucicaut6,

professional men whose relatively low birth meant that they were outranked by high nobles

such as the Dukes of Orleans, Alencon and Bourbon. Their army was deployed in three

lines of battle - the first and second comprising most of France’s proud dismounted knights

and men-at arms for use as a sledgehammer against the English, while a line of mainly

archers and crossbowmen were kept in the rear - it was the duty of the nobility to win the

battle, not mere bow-wielding peasants. On both flanks a heavily armoured cavalry force

of around 750 knights each was in the process of forming up8, while more units were slowly

trickling into the French army as time went by.

Having learned the harsh lesson from their defeats at Crecy and Poitiers, the French

did not charge right away and instead remained where they were. It was clear to d’Albret

and Boucicaut that while their enemy’s army would only wither away with time, their own

would get even stronger. Whatever its merits, the impetuous knights and nobles of France

chafed at this ‘cowardly’ strategy of delay. Seeing that the French weren’t going

to attack him, Henry V knew he had to make the first move before it was too late. So,

after conferring with his captains the king ordered his entire army to uproot its stakes

and slowly shift forward in an orderly manner, supposedly shouting to his troops “Felas,

lets go!” After advancing into longbow range, the army once again hammered down its stakes,

after which English archers immediately began loosing heavy volleys at the surprised knights

out in front. This withering arrow fire panicked the hastily-formed French cavalry units and

they now charged full-tilt at Henry’s line9. Erpingham had the longbowmen knock an arrow

and draw their bowstrings back and then commanded them to wait. Then, as the French mounted

knights - drawn from the very best horsemen in the army came close to the line through

the soaking mud of the field, Erpinham shouted “Now, strike!” and his archers loosed

at point blank range from the front and treeline. The sky darkened for a second before hundreds

of knights and their horses were struck and slain by the dense volley of bodkin-tipped

arrows. Those who did manage to get through were trapped on the sharp stakes or routed

back to their own lines. While the massacre of the mounted charge was going on, a group

of peasants and cavalry led by a few Burgundian nobles looted Henry’s baggage train, stealing

the king’s bedding, his crates of cash and even one of his crowns. It didn’t affect

the course of the battle until later. d’Albret’s first line of infantry was

trudging with difficulty through often knee-deep mud at the same time, made worse by the preceding

cavalry charge. A combination of the bad terrain, heavy armour and having their cohesion disrupted

by their own retreating cavalry left the French vanguard sitting ducks for lethally accurate

English longbowmen, who loosed volley after volley into the almost immobile mass and inflicted

horrific losses. Despite the setbacks, the flower of France’s military might smashed

into the thin English line like a tidal wave and immediately forced it back before the

equally stubborn men-at-arms under Henry halted the push. While a vicious melee began at the

point of contact, the second line of infantry now pushed forwards also, but they caused

a crush upon nearing the vanguard which prevented most of the army from engaging and most frontline

troops from retreating. Though the French were suffering, Henry’s melee infantry was

taking a mauling. In the right division, Edward Duke of York was cut down in some of the fiercest

fighting, while Henry V himself was almost killed and a portion of his crown cut off.

When the archers on the flanks ran out of arrows, they charged in from the wings with

whatever weapons they could find to assist their own warriors. Shortly after noon, the

French attack collapsed, and the English took many prisoners of low and high rank, including

the Dukes of Bourbon, Orleans and Marshal Boucicaut.

At that moment, someone in the English formation shouted that enemy reinforcements were incoming,

perhaps having seen the looters at the camp earlier in the battle. With the amount of

captives they had taken, it was plausible that a prisoner uprising re-armed with discarded

equipment, along with fresh foes might doom Henry’s army. The English king therefore

ordered 200 archers to go to the camp and kill almost every single soldier the army

had taken captive. With thousands dead on the field of Agincourt and even more prisoners

slaughtered in the din of battle, the terrified remainder of French forces retreated.

That night, King Henry V of England made the captured Dukes of Orleans and Bourbon wait

on his feasting table, before reaching Calais and sailing home in mid-November.

As Henry V sailed from Calais in late 1415, he left a deeply shocked France behind him.

With the royal army destroyed and much of the Armagnac faction leadership with it, the

civil war appeared as though it was only going to get worse. Back in England, the jubilant

king didn’t bask in his success for long and immediately began raising funds, mustering

troops, and assembling a great navy for a follow-up attack on France, while at the same

time depriving the divided enemy kingdom of its allies. Aiming to heal the Western Schism,

Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund arrived in England in early 1416 but ended up forming an alliance

with Henry at Canterbury and denouncing France instead. At sea, the king’s commanders crushed

the Franco-Genoese fleet in 14164 and 14175, leaving the channel open for another crossing.

By the middle of that year, Henry had his army together and sailed to Normandy, this

time going to conquer it entirely. On September 20th the dominos began to topple as Caen surrendered

after a short siege. No relief was anywhere close because any royal force which might

have assisted was busy facing off against the Burgundians2. Next to fall was the great

Norman capital at Rouen. Henry put France’s second city to siege at the end of July 1418

and, after a brutal siege lasting over half a year, its garrison finally surrendered.

With that, almost every other castle in the duchy surrendered and, by the turn of the

decade, Normandy was under English control for the first time in two centuries.

Treaty of Troyes (1420) This frighteningly quick conquest horrified

both the Armagnacs and Burgundians. Despite the latter’s covert talks with Henry V,

they realised such a full conquest wouldn’t benefit them at all. Realising something had

to be done, both John the Fearless and France’s new dauphin - the future Charles VII, agreed

to negotiate. However, when the Duke of Burgundy knelt before his Valois prince, Armagnac retainers

accompanying Charles suddenly came forward and hacked John the Fearless to death - revenge

for Louis of Orléans’ death over a decade before. Whatever the motive, it was a disaster

for France. As Francis I stated a century later when shown the mutilated skull of the

dead duke - “This is the hole through which the English entered France.” Wide swathes

of the kingdom burst into uproar or panic at the Armagnacs’ brutal murder of John,

but when the news reached his son and heir Philip in Flanders, he is said to have thrown

himself on his bed, teeth grinding in grief and rage. Seething and eager for revenge,

the new Duke of Burgundy formed an alliance with Henry V. The former would recognise the

English king’s claim to the throne of France, while the latter ensured Philip’s territories

were enlarged and secure. This was the last straw. Battered by the English invasion and

tired of civil war, the barely lucid Charles VI signed the Treaty of Troyes3 on May 21st,

1420. Henry V would be heir and regent of France, he would marry the mad king’s daughter

- Catherine of Valois, and their child would be king as well.

After capturing a few more towns loyal to the dauphin, Henry spent Christmas in Paris

before going back to England and crowning Catherine his queen. While this was happening,

Thomas - Duke of Clarence was defeated and killed at Baugé during March 1421, a defeat

which convinced Brittany to defect to the dauphin’s reduced kingdom. In October however,

Henry returned to France and took a few castles at Dreux, Vendome, and Beaugency before putting

Meaux to siege. It was there that King Henry fell ill with his army but insisted on staying

with the troops, which he did until the city fell in May 1422. Though he returned to Paris,

the king fell deeper into sickness and began to take measures for the succession - naming

Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester regent in England while his brother - the Duke of Bedford would

lead in France in the name of the newborn Henry VI. England’s great Lancastrian king,

perhaps the greatest in the country’s history died at Vincennes on August 31st, 1422 at

the age of just 35. The mad king Charles VI finally died only two months later, and his

son declared himself the king. Nevertheless, all of France north of the Loire came under

Anglo-Burgundian rule, while his son only retained the loyalty of the south with a moving

court. Battle of Verneuil (1424)

In 1423, the Treaty of Amiens was signed, bounding together the Duchy of Burgundy, the

Duchy of Brittany and the Kingdom of England and recognizing Henry VI as the King of France.

It was sealed with Bedford marrying Anne, the Duke of Burgundy's sister, but the actual

allegiance of Brittany would sway with the strongest party in the following years. In

July 1423, as the English were fortifying their positions north of the Loire river and

besieging strongholds loyal to Charles, an army loyal to the dauphine accompanied by

a large contingent of Scots and smaller Italian and Spanish units under Sir John Stewart and

Louis of Vendôme marched through the territories of the duke of Burgundy to relieve their allies

and to threaten Paris. They were defeated at Cravant near Auxerre by an English army

under Salisbury with the help of Burgundian units. However, the French found fortune in

the west, where an English raiding army was caught and destroyed at La Brossinière by

local Norman garrisons loyal to Charles. In the spring of 1424, a contingent of 6500

Scottish soldiers under the Earl of Douglas landed in France, joining the army of the

dauphin. As the campaigning season began with the usual change of control of border forts,

in August, the dauphin's army under the count of Aumale moved towards the castle of Ivry

to relieve it from a siege. As it became clear that they were too late and that the English

position was too strong for a direct attack, the Armagnacs deviated west and took over

Verneuil, where reinforcements from Italy came. Here, the English army under Bedford

joined them on the 17th of August, furious that the French had not joined in battle at

Ivre as previously agreed upon. The English army numbered around 8000 men, with a significant

number of them being Norman noblemen, while the French numbers were between 14000 to 16000,

of which 6500 were Scottish archers and axe wielders, 2,000 were heavily armoured Lombard

knights, and some other soldiers came from Spain.

On a plain a mile north of Verneuil, the English positioned themselves with a compact contingent

of men at arms on foot, flanked by longbowmen with their sharp stakes, while around 1000

lightly armoured men were placed in the back with the task of guarding the baggage train

and the horses and stop any attack from the back. The French also dismounted many of their

men at arms, but the Lombard knights and some of the French remained saddled. To the surprise

of the English, they did not position themselves on the wings as customary but instead formed

up in front of the contingent on foot. After a short exchange of arrow fire, the Lombard

mercenaries charged against the enemy. Bedford had some of his archers moved in front of

his lines to counter it, but the missiles could do little against the superior Italian

armour, which also covered their steeds. The knights ploughed straight through the English

lines, splitting the division in two as men were either cut down or moved away to make

place for the unstoppable force. Emerging from the other side, the Milanese continued

their charge against the baggage guard and chased them off the battlefield. Understanding

that he had to achieve victory before the Italians returned, Bedford regrouped his foot

soldiers and ordered them to advance. So did the French and Scottish contingent, but the

latter proved less disciplined in their advance, and as a fierce and confusing melee began,

the English and Norman men at arms slowly proved superior. When the lightly armoured

longbowmen finally joined the fray, the French line broke and a brutal killing field began

where many French nobles and all their commanders perished around the ditch defending the town,

as did most of the Scots, for over 7000 dead. As the Lombards returned, expecting the French

to win, they were driven away, while a few important nobles, such as the Duke of Alencon,

were taken captive. The defeat at Verneuil was disastrous for the future Charles VII,

as it has been remembered as a 'second Agincourt,' and it forced him to rethink his plans to

be crowned at Reims, while Bedford's prestige was increased and he had the momentum for

the rest of the year. Siege of Orléans (1428-1429) and Joan of

Arc Unfortunately for the English, Gloucester’s

blundering6 meant that Bedford was forced to return to England for two years to put

things straight, and only sailed back to France in March 1427.

He and Salisbury now started planning a campaign to capture Orléans - the ‘Key to the Loire’.

If this great riverine lynchpin was conquered, the English could easily launch further attacks

to knock the dauphin out for good. After capturing more than 40 towns and fortresses along the

way, Salisbury approached Orléans in early October 1428 - at the time garrisoned by 2,400

regular soldiers and a further 3,000 militia. A contingent of the English army under Suffolk

captured both Jargeau and Chateauneuf to isolate the city, while Salisbury encamped opposite

French defences on the southern end of Orléans’ 350-meter-long bridge. He began an initial

artillery bombardment on the 17th, and four days later ordered his men to storm the fortified

gatehouse known as Les Tourelles. This attack was driven away by the defenders after each

side took around 200 losses, with the dauphinist French being constantly resupplied with food,

drink, and arms by the city’s women. When the direct attack failed, Salisbury abandoned

this approach and instead sent sappers to undermine the foundations. Realising this

was happening, the guardians of Les Tourelles retreated deeper into the city on the night

of October 23rd, destroying a small part of the bridge behind them. The fall of this fortification

seemed like Orléans’ doom, but as the aggressive Salisbury climbed atop Les Tourelles to decide

where to attack next, a stray cannonball clattered through the window, killed one of his companions,

and flung an iron bar at the Earl, slicing half his face off. Incapacitated and in agony,

he was replaced by William - Earl of Suffolk, before dying a week later. The more cautious

Suffolk decided on a prolonged siege, and in the next week, the English began constructing

siegeworks. At about the same time, Orléans received some additional reinforcements from

the southeast - the city was too large to be entirely cut off by such a small force.

The city’s defenders started bracing for an extended engagement as well by burning

and tearing down the suburbs outside the walls, depriving the English of cover and winter

quarters by doing so. Starting on November 8th, English boats began ferrying men across

the Loire and constructing siege positions to the north and west of the city. The French

responded with a few unsuccessful sorties, and to compound these failures, by the turn

of December the besiegers had been reinforced. While the northern bank siegeworks were being

constructed, the English launched a failed probing assault across the broken Loire bridge.

The defenders responded with massive 26-pound shots from a new bombard and by completing

the levelling of their suburbs. As 1429 began, Orléans’ would-be captors shifted focus

to the now-fortified north bank with a number of easily-repelled assaults on the Porte Renard

in January. The loose nature of the encirclement also allowed a supply convoy including hundreds

of sheep and pigs to reach the city. As gallant resistance continued, 200 men of the garrison

slipped out of Orléans and joined a 3,000 strong French force at Blois. Having received

reports of an enemy supply caravan approaching from Paris to resupply the besiegers, they

marched to intercept near Rouvray. However, when the French and Scots under Clermont found

the 1,500 strong caravan on February 12th, their assault over the open country was repulsed

and counterattacked from behind a ring of supply wagons. 400 of the dauphin’s troops,

mainly Scots were killed, and Clermont subsequently withdrew to Tours along with a number of other

commanders, certain of defeat. At Chinon, Charles was so demoralised by the grand city’s

seemingly inevitable fall that he considered abandoning his kingdom completely. However,

events many hundreds of miles to the east were about to thoroughly rejuvenate the French

cause. Three years before, a fifteen-year-old girl

named Joan began hearing voices and by 1428 became convinced she was being granted a task

from God, delivered by the Archangel Michael in addition to Saints Margaret and Catherine.

Her task? To lead an army against the English so that Orléans might be relieved, and to

have the dauphin traditionally crowned as Charles VII in Reims Cathedral, where Louis

the Pious had succeeded to the Frankish throne six centuries earlier. Through aid from Robert

de Baudricourt - a pro-Valois commander in Vaucouleurs, Joan undertook a dangerous journey

to Chinon and then to Poitiers, where her faith was declared true and her virginity

assured. To test whether this woman’s extraordinary claims were true, she would be sent to Orléans

in an attempt to break the siege. After being granted armour, horses, a special banner and

supposedly finding a legendary sword, she went to Blois and joined a gathering relief

force. Upon her arrival, the deflated mood among French soldiers and officers immediately

began changing at her holy presence. Leaders who had withdrawn from the siege previously

- such as Clermont, or who had avoided getting involved at all now rallied to the cause,

inspired by Joan’s patriotic mission. While the dauphin’s army mustered, the lull at

Orléans following Rouvray allowed English forces, who were aware that a relief attempting

was incoming, to construct a number of formidable fortifications - the Bastille de Saint-Loup

to the east, the Boulevard de la Pressoir-Ars on April 9th, the Bastille Saint Pouair on

the 15th and Bastille de Saint-Jean-le-Blance five days later. Notably, new English commander

Glasdale created an external earthen rampart outside Les Tourelles, making it into a citadel.

Joan and her relief force set out for Orléans on the 26th and, after a miraculous crossing

of the Loire at Checy and bypassing Saint-Loup without opposition, entered the city through

its Burgundian Gate three days after leaving Blois7. After resting for the night, Joan

was eager to go on the attack. Because one wasn’t planned for that day, she walked

across the Loire bridge to the Belle Croix stronghold and asked the English to lift the

siege. Glasdale shouted back that she was a mere cowherd and they would burn her if

she was captured. Nevertheless, Joan’s threat to kill all prisoners their forces had taken

if her heralds were not released worked, and they were indeed set free. Also, on that day,

a lengthy skirmish was fought when French commander La Hire sortied out against the

northern English fortification at Saint-Pouair, but was eventually forced back inside. This

inability led the overall defending leader Jean de Dunois - the Bastard of Orléans,

to slip out of the city on May 1st and return to Blois, where he sought reinforcements.

While he was gone, Joan didn’t remain inactive. She rejuvenated the morale of Orléans’

long-besieged citizens who crowded to meet her and give their Maid gifts, whilst also

performing military reconnaissance against Glasdale’s positions to see which were weak

and which were strong. Dunois returned on May 4th with much-needed reinforcements, and

shortly after an attack began spontaneously on England’s eastern fort at Saint-Loup

by 1,500 troops. Joan was resting at the time, but when informed either by an angel’s voice

or any of the other mortal voices in the city, rode out as swiftly and eagerly as possible

to join the attack. For three grueling hours, Joan inspired her warriors to fight. Despite

fierce resistance by the English garrison, the French soldiers managed to finally capture

and raze Saint-Loup to the joy of Orléans people. Despite her jubilation at the victory,

Joan of Arc wept for the 140 slain English soldiers, who had died without confession.

Still, the officers remained cautious, but this was shattered when news came from Paris

of a large incoming Anglo-Burgundian relief army - led by John Fastolf. It was now clear

that the siege had to be broken before it got to Orléans, or all their bravery would

be for nothing. On the 5th, French forces crossed the Loire in order to attack Saint-Jean

le Blance - an earthen fortification protecting Les Tourelles, but when the English withdrew

to the gatehouse itself, the defenders managed to occupy the outlying position. The next

day, Joan crossed the Loire again, pushing the troops forward against the Bastille des

Augustins. After a ferocious clash in which the French had to use a cannon to take down

a particularly big Englishman, they overran the fortress. Glasdale’s remaining fortresses

retreated behind the boulevard protecting Les Tourelles. With divine favour seemingly

on their side and momentum at their back, the French attacked Les Tourelles’ outer

defences on the 7th by escalade, but were repelled at first with heavy losses. During

the fighting, Joan herself was even struck between the shoulder and neck by an English

arrow, but fought on nonetheless. After going off to pray in a nearby vineyard for guidance,

Joan of Arc returned with her banner in hand, motivating the French to a final attack in

which they managed to drive the besiegers from the fortification in front of the Les

Tourelles gate. The Maid of Orléans called on Glasdale to surrender but he refused. When

he subsequently attempted to lead his remaining troops across the drawbridge and to the inner

gatehouse, the timber cracked under the weight of so many soldiers and dropped many into

the Loire. Glasdale himself, clad in heavy armour along with many of his men, drowned.

Morale inside the inner fortress crumbled after this loss and the surviving English

inside quickly surrendered. On the northern Loire bank, the remaining English troops abandoned

their siege lines and formed up in two large battle formations, challenging the French

to open battle. When Joan and the other commanders lined up in front of them and prepared for

battle, however, the besiegers lost their nerve and turned to march away. Their army

split, one group moving to garrison Jargeau8, while another went to man Meung9, all the

way being harried by French troops who disobeyed orders to ride them down. After 210 days,

the Siege of Orleans was over, the dauphin’s loyal, the capable army had held firm and

Joan of Arc was enshrined forever in history as the Maid of Orleans. Joan pushed for an

immediate advance to crown Charles, but the French commanders that with the English still

holding castles on the Loire, weren't yet in a position to do that. So, in mid-June,

the army, with an enthusiastic Joan of Arc in tow, began retaking them one by one. Jargeau

fell on the 12th, Beaugency on the eve of the 17th, and then finally Meung at dawn on

the 18th. Battle of Patay (1429)

The remaining English forces under Talbot retreated north and united with Sir Fastolf's

southward marching relief army, bringing their strength up to around 5,000. While Fastolf,

commanded of the united forces, preached caution, he was overpowered by his subordinates headed

by Talbot, who wanted to help the strongholds on the Loire. As they were about to relieve

Meunge, news of the fall of Beaugency had reached them. Worried they would be trapped

between the two French forces, they began to march north. The French, discovering the

English army's movement, prepared a vanguard of around 1500 men at arms under La Hire and

Jean de Xaintrailles and sent them north. Fastolf learned that he was hotly pursued

when he was near the village of Patay on an old Roman road: he had to set his army up

to confront them, most of them being longbowmen. The English positioned themselves in a defensive

position on a ridge, with the baggage and artillery positioned on the flank near a forest,

while 500 of their best archers were sent in an advanced position to ambush the French

vanguard. Once the English ambush force was in place, a stag ran into them, which raised

an alarm among the archers, giving away their positions to the nearby French scouts.

Because of this, Talbot ordered them to move to another place, but before the longbows

could take up position with their sharpened stakes near the hedges where the baggage train

was, the French vanguard crashed upon them. The knights cut through their lightly armoured

enemies before they could fire their deadly volleys. Remnants of the English vanguard

fled back to the main contingent of Englishmen. Still, the French men-at-arms took advantage

of their confused and unprepared enemies, and hit the main contingent on the undefended

flank, destroying and slaughtering anything that was unfortunate enough to be on their

path. Many of the English captains were captured except for Sir Fastlof, who was mounted and

managed to escape with around half of his force: the English suffered around 2500 killed

or captured, while the French losses were negligible. The French heavy cavalry had finally

defeated the English longbowmen, which had caused so many defeats such as Crecy and Agincourt,

dispelling the myth of the invincibility of England's armies in the field for good.

Such a great victory in the open field finally encouraged the dauphin to accompany Joan of

Arc and his newly enlarged 12,000 strong army in a march towards Reims. There, on July 17th,

1429, the long-beleaguered son of Charles the Mad was crowned as Charles VII in the

city’s grand cathedral as the Maid of Orleans stood at his side, holy banner in hand. This

was militarily insignificant, but a propaganda triumph.

The momentous coronation of Charles VII at Reims in the summer of 1429 gave England’s

regent in France - the popular and capable John of Bedford, time to brace Paris itself

for an assault by the new king’s inspired forces. When it came in late August, once

again with Joan of Arc leading the charge, Bedford was prepared and, after a few skirmishes

and a brief siege, the French were repelled. The momentum of Orleans had run its course

and Charles ordered his army away for winter. By this point in the war, Joan was becoming

politically troublesome for the restored Valois monarchy despite her role in boosting French

morale in the dark decade of the 1420s. After continuing campaigns on her own for a few

months, she was captured at Compiegne by the Burgundians and then sold to the English in

November. After one of the most notorious religious trials in world history, the Maid

of Orleans was burned at the stake by English soldiers in Rouen, convicted as a heretic.

At the time of her death in May 1431, Joan of Arc was only nineteen years old. Charles

VII made no attempt to save her. Resurgence of France (1431-1441)

On the military front, Bedford managed to stabilise the situation by reestablishing

control around Paris by taking some towns and castles, including Château Gaillard and

Louviers. This gave Bedford an opportunity to emulate Charles’ propaganda coup of two

years prior. On December 16th of 1431, Henry VI of England was also crowned Henry II of

France. However, his Burgundian allies did not manage to make any advances as Philip

of Burgundy had to establish control over his newly inherited Duchy of Brabant. As small

attempts of peace talks were made, which led to nothing, the Duke of Burgundy used his

ambiguous position to play the two sides against each other and try to obtain the most out

of the situation, signing intermittent truces with the Armagnacs. In the following years,

much of the military operations were concentrated around Paris, where sieges and raids were

launched against different forts. The French attempted to cut the communication lines between

Paris and Normandy and along the Normandy-Maine border.

However, all things taken into account though, the war was not going well for the English,

who no longer had adequate finances or manpower to defend its 350-mile long line of contact

in France, fund the modern war with gunpowder siege weapons, or maintain its many garrisons.

It was only through Bedford’s capability and love of him among the Anglo-French that

the lands were maintained.

Despite minor English success in retaking some rebellious Norman castles in 1434, the

revolt continued to bleed the occupiers of much-needed resources and their situation

continued to deteriorate. Even more unfortunately for the English, their most important ally

could see the way the winds were blowing. The dual-monarchy suffered two body-blows

in quick succession during 1435. On September 14th the ailing Duke of Bedford finally passed

away at Rouen and was replaced by Richard of York. Worse still was the Treaty of Arras,

signed on September 20th between King Charles VII and Philip of Burgundy. This finally reconciled

the feuding French factions in a settlement which granted the Duchy of Burgundy even more

territory in return for Philip’s formal recognition of Charles VII as the French king.

This political sea change had an immediate effect, as unrest began to occur all over

the English lands in France. Moreover, the armies of Charles VII defeated an English

army at Gerberoy, which allowed them to strengthen their control over Picardy, and managed to

capture Saint-Denis in the summer 1435 and Meulan in September. Although the burial site

of the French king was briefly lost between September and February, these two conquests

encircled Paris, blocking the most critical supply routes to the capital, which saw its

food prices soar: this caused discontent among the citizens, which ultimately led to the

start of a siege on Paris, where Armagnac and Burgundian men joined forces. The Burgundianphile-Paris

returned to Charles' hands on the 13th of April, with the remnant English garrisons

leaving the city a few days later. At the same time, the Armagnacs made headway in northern

Normandy, where the two important coastal towns of Dieppe and Harfleur were captured.

They were crucial for ferrying reinforcements and supplies across the channel, and without

them, the English had hard time launching campaigns on the continent.

The Duke of Burgundy attempted to take advantage of the situation and invested the town of

Calais in 1436, but the arrival of an English relief army under Beaufort lifted the siege,

allowing the town to stay in English hands for another century. In 1437, Talbot attempted

one of the last advances along the Seine: after having secured some parts of upper Normandy,

he recaptured the important town of Pontoise, but by this point, English military policy

was to hold on to their lands in Normandy while the French slowly took castle by castle

on their border or that had remained under England in their backs. As Henry VI came out

of the minority and began to govern in his own name in 1437, peace negotiations in 1439

failed, and over the next few years, England's position on the continent only got worse,

and their operations in Picardy and Normandy ended in failure, safe for the reconquest

of Harfleur. First Meaux in 1439 and then Creil and Pontoise - the last English foothold

in the French crownlands, where the powerful artillery train of Jean Bureau was put into

good use, fell in 1441, as did Evreux; the year after Gascony was attacked for the first

time in decades while English, where Charles VI relieved the besiege Tartas and captured

some towns. The English responses - an attempt to besiege Dieppe and a campaign into Anjou-

did not yield results. Peace talks and reforms (1441-1445)

Because a group favouring peace with France at any cost, led by the Duke of Suffolk, had

great influence with the king in England, the latter led an embassy to Tours in early

1444 for a conference. France’s delegates were unwilling to make

any kind of compromise, the deal was in reality a desperate one for Suffolk. In return for

an extendable two-year truce, Henry VI would be betrothed to the niece of Charles VII - Margaret

of Anjou, and England would cede Maine to France. Though the peace came as a great relief

to English civilian settlers in Northern France - who were on the receiving end of increasing

French attacks, it was generally received with fury in England3, and served as one of

the factors which made the Wars of the Roses inevitable a decade or so later. As Henry’s

realms started falling apart, Charles made good use of the truce to embark on a series

of military and monetary reforms which would forever change the feudal France which he

had fought so hard to inherit. The taille - a direct land tax which had only been occasional

until this point, became permanent and funded the king’s changes. Feudal French armies

had been hired by contract for centuries and usually went home at the end of the year.

Starting in 1444 however, only the poorer quality units were discharged, while the better

contingents were retained as the core of a new standing army.

On January 5th, 1445, the French royal government officially announced the formation of compagnies

d’ordonnance - regular units of troops supplemented by bringing the highest quality bands of routiers

and écorcheurs, many of whom were dismissed mercenaries, to the king’s service. To ensure

their continued loyalty, discipline and relatively high moral standards, these new professional

soldiers were paid monthly with the new revenues. Recruitment of former freelance soldiers cut

down the amount of banditry in the kingdom while also making use of an untapped reserve

of experienced manpower. Other, less reputable écorcheurs were viewed as an impediment to

peace, little better than the outlaws which had tormented France for decades.

Another vital part of Charles’ modernisation of the French army was his integration of

‘modern’ gunpowder artillery, which emerged in European armies during the early fifteenth-century.

Particularly revolutionary was the development of so-called ‘crumbled’ gunpowder, which

didn’t disintegrate into its separate components when moved and was therefore far more reliable,

and far more effective. Other technological advances including multiple powder chambers

on breech-loading cannons meant that newer cannons could have a surprisingly high rate

of fire. Enter the brothers Jean and Gaspard Bureau - sons of a merchant in the service

of Charles VII. After being appointed to the task, the duo regularised the haphazard and

sporadic variety of cannons currently used by inexperienced French forces. Proper usage

for each type of gun was specified and a greater level of training and professionalism was

instilled into a previously relatively neglected arm of the military. In addition, the brothers

used France’s new fiscal strength to purchase standardised, higher-quality bronze gun barrels.

Larger bombards were retained for heavier siege duties such as battering down castle

walls, while smaller caliber guns such as the culverin would be used against infantry

targets. Recovery of Normandy (1448-1450)

In Normandy and the formally relinquished County of Maine, it was becoming clear that

the Duke of York and his military forces in France weren’t going to dance with the conciliatory

tune of Henry VI’s advisors. To them, it was inevitable that more territory would fall

if the French weren’t resisted now, and so the garrisons of Maine refused to leave

their fortresses - such as the capital at Le Mans. This provoked threats of renewed

warfare with France in late 1447, but the garrisons did hesitantly withdraw from Maine

in March 1448, further diminishing the English position in now-exposed Normandy. Soon after,

York was sent to govern Ireland as a means of getting him out of the way and was replaced

in France by his great rival Edmund Beaufort - Duke of Somerset. The tension in Normandy

finally came to a climax when the captain of Verneuil - Francois de Surienne, attacked

a Breton fortress at Fougeres with Suffolk’s backing in March 1449. The town was badly

sacked and its fall prompted the then-neutral Duke of Brittany Francois I to ask Charles

VII for help. Somerset refused to apologise for his subordinate’s act and the French

retaliated by quickly seizing castles at Pont-de-l’Arche, Gerberoy and Conches by late May. France offered

to exchange Fougeres for these towns, but was refused. This made the resumption of war

inevitable and it was finally declared at the end of July.

Charles VII crossed the Loire in August and took personal command of the southernmost

of four armies which now simultaneously invaded the weakened English lands in Normandy. It

was a total walkover. On the 8th, French forces took Pont-Audemer, and Somerset’s other

castles began to fall with alarming frequency - their garrisons having been consistently

reduced over the decades. A few weeks later on the 26th, the inhabitants of Mantes rose

against the English, seized control of a gate, and forced the garrison to surrender to Charles’

troops. In September, Breton forces completed their conquest of the Cotentin Peninsula south

of the Grand-vey and handed it over to French royal officials, while at the same time the

Duke of Alencon took back the city which bore his name, which had been beyond the man’s

control for decades. On October 16th the king’s personal force - led by Dunois, besieged the

glorious Anglo-Norman capital at Rouen. Knowing no relief was coming, Somerset surrendered

the city in less than a week and was allowed to march with his garrison to English-held

Caen. So driven were the French to complete the reconquest that their operations continued

into winter, and they eventually managed to recapture the crucial channel ports at Harfleur

and Honfleur. By the time Charles’ offensive halted, England only retained a small area

of central-western Normandy around Caen and Bayeaux, in addition to the Cotentin Peninsula’s

northern segment with Cherbourg as its most important city.

In England, two of the most powerful figures in the kingdom - Queen Margaret and Suffolk,

raised a formidable army of 4,500 men and the ships with which to transport them to

Normandy. Sir Thomas Kyriell was put in command of the force. He was a veteran of the war

in France and a Knight of the Garter who came from a family of middle-ranking knights which,

for centuries, had served the kings of England as sheriffs and in other similar roles. However,

the expedition was delayed because of a lack of ships and the onset of winter. Worse still,

when the army learned that their second installment of pay was to be postponed, they mutinied

and killed one of the king’s officials. Suffolk was widely regarded as the cause of

the unrest through maladministration, and when he attempted to flee across the channel

to escape his enemies he was assassinated in May of 1450.

Despite a false start to the campaign, Kyriell and his soldiers sailed from Portsmouth as

soon as the weather in 1450 permitted, landing at Cherbourg on March 15th. These reinforcements

instantly boosted the faltering morale of the English in Normandy and led to Kyriell’s

army receiving a further 1,800 reinforcements from the large nearby garrisons. France’s

garrison at Valognes realised that it was in danger and requested support from the south,

but Kyriell pounced too quickly, besieging the castle for three weeks before it finally

surrendered on April 10th. The squire in charge of the fortification - Abel Rouault, was permitted

to depart with his garrison, supplies, horses, and possessions in return for the capitulation.

After learning of the new English invasion, Charles VII sent some of his best units and

most capable lieutenants to inform and reinforce his commander in the area - Jean de Clermont.

Having missed the opportunity to save Valognes, he established himself at Carentan on the

main road that Kyriell would most likely use to move south. There, Clermont sent word to

the Breton Constable of France - Arthur de Richemont, asking him to move his forces to

Saint-Lo in case Kyriell marched that way. Meanwhile, the English moved slowly south,

absorbing manpower, artillery and other siege weapons along the way. French scouts informed

their commander that rather than passing by his location, Kyriell and the English army

were instead executing a potentially dangerous, but incredibly well-executed march through

the low-lying tidal marshlands near the Grand-Vey, which they accomplished on April 14th with

only minor resistance. Local farmers and other peasants were supplemented by a company of

men-at-arms, but were easily brushed aside. Matthew Gough - one of the English captains,

supposedly shouted at them “Mad dogs! We crossed despite you!” After successfully

getting past the harsh terrain, Kyriell’s army set up camp for the night at a village

known as Formigny, while Gough was sent ahead to Bayeaux in order to get reinforcements.

Clermont moved to close the distance with the English at dawn on the 15th and sent another

message to de Richemont asking to be reinforced. After receiving the call for aid, he too set

out for Formigny early on the 15th, but wouldn’t reach the field before the fighting began.

Battle of Formigny (1450) At the English position, Kyriell’s 6,000

troops spent the morning hours constructing a line of field entrenchments, made up of

ditches, potholes, earthen palisades, and sharpened stakes to block the main eastward

road. Accompanying this was a smaller series of fortifications to the east of Formigny,

they had made the village a makeshift fortress. As midday approached, English outriders returned

from the west and informed Sir Kyriell that a French army was approaching. In a hurry,

the English knight had Gough recalled from Bayeaux. Realising he was about to be engaged,

Kyriell drew up his archer-heavy forces in a battle array. His own 4,500 were placed

on the right side of the line, anchored on the village of Formigny, while Gough led about

1,500 troops on the left near the Val stream. Clermont’s 3,000 strong army of men-at-arms,

mounted crossbowmen and some artillerists began to enter the area shortly after noon,

led by an elite Scottish vanguard compagnie. When his forces approached the Val, they wisely

halted about 600 meters away from their enemy, well out of longbow range. At a safe distance,

the French forces formed up west of a bridge between them and the English, and for three

hours Clermont’s men remained where they were while the general conferred with his

advisors. The older captains cautioned restraint, while their younger counterparts urged an

immediate attack before the English defences grew any stronger. Clermont - who would later

be known as the ‘Scourge of the English’, opened the battle by sending forward two light

culverins protected by a few hundred crossbowmen and men-at-arms. When the cannons opened fire,

stationary English troops suffered heavy casualties from the unexpected artillery fire.

Matthew Gough reacted first, sending 500 archers across the bridge to attack the small artillery

position. They drove away the French gunners, captured the culverins, and killed those protecting

them. Panicked by the setback, Clermont ordered a group of local peasants to scour the countryside

south of the battlefield in order to find de Richemont; he needed reinforcements as

soon as possible. At the same time, the French commander sent a larger unit of men-at-arms

under Pierre de Brézé to reinforce their beleaguered comrades and engage the enemy

troops. Though this fierce melee started well for the French under Clermont, Kyriell sent

more reinforcements to bolster Gough’s soldiers and it began to tilt in favour of the numerically

superior English. Official reports to the French king written only days after the battle

later state that if Kyriell’s army had launched a full-scale attack at this point, Clermont

would have been defeated. That attack never came. As the clash went on in the center,

a small army of around 1,000 men emerged onto the plateau south of the battlefield. The

English were jubilant, celebrating that reinforcements had arrived to finish the French off from

the flank. However, as the third force got closer, the sight of French and Breton banners

made both sides realise what was happening - Arthur de Richemont’s army had arrived

and Kyriell was now the one in danger of being hit from the rear.

De Richemont rode quickly with his advance guard to confer with Clermont while the main

Breton force remained on the English side of the Val. This was tactically problematic

for Kyriell’s army, but it is likely that his numbers still considerably outstripped

those of either French commander. In response, Sir Kyriell had Gough’s smaller contingent

on the left start to redeploy, pivoting to face de Richemont’s main army to the south.

However, the elite Breton advance guard used the opportunity to fight their way across

the bridge, slaying six-scores of their English enemy whilst doing so and disrupting Gough’s

redeployment effort. With disarray now the order of the day among his enemy’s troops,

the Breton Constable returned to his main army and advanced northeast towards the English

rear, while at the same time Clermont assaulted their front.

Also, at the same time, Pierre de Brézé had mounted a few hundred men and rode around

the field, seizing control of the eastern fortifications and preventing any substantial

retreat. Kyriell did his best to rally the now disorganised and demoralised English in

the village, but Brézé charged them from behind while both main armies attacked from

different angles. To make this worse, the town peasants rose up and joined in the developing

slaughter. The main English army was totally destroyed, only Gough and Robert Vere survived

to lead their surviving soldiers back to Bayeaux and Caen respectively. One group of 500 longbowmen

withdrew to a garden next to the Val and were on their knees begging for mercy. Nevertheless,

Clermont’s troops slew them anyway. The English commander Sir Thomas Kyriell was taken

prisoner, along with about 1,200 others, while around 3,800 of the knight’s men perished

at Formigny. This defeat finally broke the back of England’s

military hopes in Normandy. Most garrisons had contributed forces to Kyriell’s army

and his defeat now denuded them of defenders. Just over two months after the triumph of

France’s armies at Formigny, it had also seized Vire, Avranches, and Bayeaux on May

16th. In June, Caen was besieged and taken a few weeks later. Charles VII rode north

and ceremonially entered the city on June 6th. With only little resistance, the Cotentin

Peninsula city of Cherbourg finally went down on August 22nd, 1450 - all of Normandy was

now under French control for the first time in almost three decades.

Recovery of Gascony (1449-1453) The Duke of Somerset’s complete loss of

northern France in such a blitzkrieg-like manner sent yet another political shockwave

throughout England and pushed the kingdom closer to civil war. The duke was briefly

imprisoned in the Tower, and this internal strife only distracted the government from

dealing with new problems on the continent. France was able to turn its efforts fully

south towards Gascony with the victory. Back in 1449, local forces subordinate to Charles

had already captured Cognac, Saint-Megrin, and Mauléon. Meanwhile the Count of Foix

- a powerful magnate in the south of France, allied with the ascendant king in the same

year and put his considerable military force to good use, capturing Guiche and 15 other

castles. Despite this preliminary success, Gascony in its entirety would probably be

far more difficult to capture and hold than Normandy. It had been a fief of the Kings

of England for over three centuries compared to Normandy’s thirty years, and most of

the area’s nobility and population still remained loyal to their long-time rulers.

There were many reasons for this, but trade was a primary factor. Between 1445 and 1449,

for example, wine exports to England reached never before seen heights. Gascon merchants

and lords were making vast profits from their overlords and weren’t keen to see the status

quo change. Only two months after the fall of Cherbourg,

in October 1450, French forces opened the attack on Gascony by putting Jonzac under

siege. The castle fell in short order and the army marched south, clashing with a small

Anglo-Gascon force outside Bordeaux and crushing it before withdrawing to Angoulême for the

winter. Campaigning began again in spring 1451 and the French army quickly captured

Montguyon after a short siege. From that point, just like in the fall of Normandy, Gascon

castles fell very quickly - Blaye was captured on May 24th, followed by Bourg, Saint-Emilion,

and Castillon in the five days after that. The speed of the conquest was made possible

by strong French artillery, in addition to well-executed diplomacy and bribery which

undermined baronial resistance. A decisive instance of the latter occurred on June 23rd

when the central city of Bordeaux surrendered without a fight, as its mayor1 received a

generous pension from the French king as a reward. Just over a month later, Bayonne too

was captured, and the feuding English could do nothing but watch in horror as their last

continental possession, save for Calais, slipped away. Unfortunately for the French, they hadn’t

learned from the Black Prince’s mistake after the Treaty of Bretigny and started levying

heavy taxation on the newly acquired Gascon territory in order to pay for its defence.

Not surprisingly this, along with the rapaciousness of French soldiers, meant that resentment

immediately began to build. At the same time, the Kingdom of England was

not prepared to let Gascony go without a fight, but military preparations were slow, impeded

by a deteriorating political situation that seemed to reach its climax in early 1452.

Richard of York owned vast estates on the Welsh borders, and it was there while he was

in Ireland that the tenants rose up in revolt against Henry VI in February. The rebels persuaded

their lord to return from his quasi-exile and put an end to the queen’s regime. An

army quickly gathered around York when he crossed back into England and he began moving

towards London. The Lancastrians mustered a force of their own and faced off against

York at Dartford. Rather than attacking, the Duke of York presented Henry with a list of

grievances and demands which included the arrest of Edmund Beaufort - the Duke of Somerset

and York’s bitter rival who was accused of badly mismanaging the defence of France

in previous years. The weak monarch initially agreed to the demand, but the power behind

his throne - Margaret of Anjou, intervened and eventually forced York to back down and

reaffirm his loyalty to the crown. Somerset was left in charge of the government. While

this was going on, indentures had managed to raise an army of some 3,000 troops under

the command of a sixty-five-year-old John Talbot - the Earl of Shrewsbury. Setting the

stage for his attack was the situation in Gascony. Unrest had turned to subterfuge and

envoys reached London in 1452 inviting the English back and offering to provide assistance

if they returned. After English ships swept their French counterparts

off the seas, Talbot audaciously sailed the long distance to Gascony and disembarked on

the Medoc Peninsula on October 17th. Less than a week later, the pre-planned anti-French

uprising in Bordeaux led to the city’s capitulation. Most other castles in western Gascony fell

by the end of the year, save a few holdouts. It was obvious that Talbot’s bold attack

had taken Charles VII totally by surprise, as his forces had been shifted to Normandy

in order to counter a possible invasion there. The English received 4,000 additional troops

and supplies from home during the winter while Charles, enraged at the Gascon treachery,

hurried to send advanced forces south to reinforce those castles still under French control,

while he prepared to lead an invasion of the recalcitrant province in person. In early

June 1453, four separate, smaller armies began to muster at different points along the frontier

with Gascony, preparing to invade on multiple fronts. Two southern armies assembled in Languedoc

under the Count de Clermont and Gaston IV - Count of Foix, who prepared his forces nearby

at Béarn. In the north, a third army commanded by Marshals de Jalonges and Loheac readied

to march from around Angoulême. Charles VII headed a strategic reserve army stationed

in the Lusignan region. The king made sure that all of the contingents were well supplied

with siege engines and gunpowder artillery, particularly the northern one at Angoulême,

which was accompanied by Charles’ artillery master Jean Bureau.

Battle of Castillon (1443) The combined French advance began almost simultaneously

in early June. In the south, Foix and Clermont marched in close cooperation from the start,

moving north towards Bordeaux until the latter received a message from Talbot offering battle.

Being close enough to help, Foix reinforced his comrade to face the challenge together,

but this made the English commander withdraw to Bordeaux. The two forces subsequently split

up and remained near the city in order to deal with any English sally. The northern

army meanwhile began a methodical thrust through the Dordogne valley, approaching the city

of Castillon from the east in mid-July 1453. When Charles heard of the army’s progress

at his base at Saint-Jean-d’Angely, the king ordered it to besiege the city, which

was at the time held by about 50 men-at-arms and 350 archers. In contrast, the assaulting

army was a relatively standard one, about 8,000 men strong but with an especially formidable

siege train. Castillon itself was a strongly fortified town with the fast-flowing Dordogne

River in the south - running east to west, and extensive forests to the north. In a clearing

on the edge of this woodland, surrounded on three sides by trees was the Priory of Saint-Florent,

located on elevated ground. Rather than encircling and cutting off Castillon

with fortifications as in a traditionally conducted siege, Jean Bureau - who was put

in overall command of conducting the operation, didn’t want to be trapped in a pincer between

Talbot and the garrison if English forces moved to relieve the city. Instead, he sent

a thousand crossbowmen to hold the priory while he supervised the army’s 700 engineers

in constructing a fortified artillery park on the Plain of Colles, made up of 300 guns

- both heavy and light, operated by 700 gunners. To protect the weapons, defensive ditches

were dug on three sides, backed by raised earthen ramparts topped with formidable timber

defences. To screen the open northern flank of his enclosure, Bureau sent a thousand Bretons

to hold the village of Capitourlan. In Bordeaux, Talbot received an urgent letter from the

English garrison in Castillon, which led to immense pressure from the Gascon city leaders

to go out and relieve it. Possibly before he was ready, Talbot marched out with 6,000

English infantry, 2,000 Gascons, and 1,000 mounted archers and men-at-arms to do just

that. After bypassing a few of their own towns and marching through quiet forested paths

in the Hills of Horable to maintain surprise, the aging Talbot’s Anglo-Gascon vanguard

of 1,300 mounted troops assembled near the priory at dawn on July 17th, 1453. When formed

up, they burst out from the forest and attacked the priory from an unexpected direction, killing

120 of the French missile troops and capturing it after a brief, but fierce fight. The remainder

were harried in their retreat by the English cavalry until some of their own horse came

in support. With that, Talbot’s forces were pushed back but managed to get valuable information

about Bureau’s artillery enclosure which was reported to the commander, whose main

force had just reached the priory, its morale high from the vanguard’s initial easy victory.

Talbot initially decided not to follow up his attack immediately, believing that his

troops needed to rest after the long march and initial skirmish. However, at the artillery

park, Bureau was preparing for a fight by dismounting all of his horsemen5 and sending

the horses away with their grooms. The movement of such a vast amount of horses kicked up

a cloud of dust which was spotted by English scouts and misinterpreted as a French retreat.

When they reported back to Talbot that the enemy army was getting away, the commander

reversed his judgment and decided to resume the assault, against the advice of a capable

subordinate - Sir Thomas Evringham. It is said that the Earl swore to his personal chaplain

that he could not hear Christian mass until he had defeated the French army. With promises

of loot at the enemy camp given, Talbot led his arrayed army along the northern bank of

the Dordogne towards Bureau’s fortification, speeding ahead with his mounted advance units

while the main body of infantry followed up in the rear. Their approach was spotted by

French outriders who reported the incoming force to Bureau, while they were also followed

by some supply ships in the river. As the English vanguard turned 90 degrees left to

face the artillery park, Bureau was in the process of concentrating his 300 small cannons

- mainly culverins and ribauldequins, on the southern rampart, facing Talbot's vanguard.

The latter ordered his troops to dismount and fight on foot, but the completely unarmoured

English commander - who was so unprotected because of his oath to never ‘bear arms’

against Charles VII ever again, remained in the saddle.

Once again Evringham advised caution against attacking such a well-prepared position, instead

suggesting that it be starved out. Talbot refused and overruled him, fearing that any

hesitation might harm his reputation. Seeing that Bureau hadn’t yet finished moving all

the cannons, Talbot ordered Evringham to lead the first change. With a cry of ‘Saint George!’

he led the first attack, advancing across the field and assaulting the ramparts. At

such close range, the French light artillery inflicted heavy casualties on Evringham’s

men, supposedly killing six men with a single shot. The leader himself managed to get to

the top of the wall but was shot and killed by one of the French culverins. Despite the

losses, fighting on the artillery’s park’s southern edge went on. The main body of several

thousand Anglo-Gascon infantry was now coming up whose commander - Lord Kendall, was ordered

against the enclosure’s right flank. Because the troops were coming in unit by unit, the

attack commenced piecemeal, with contingents being fed into the fight as they arrived6.

Now reinforced by the infantry, Talbot’s vanguard troops received a morale boost and

attacked with renewed ferocity, inflicting casualties of their own but suffering badly

from the French culverin fire. Though Talbot’s numbers were larger than Bureau’s, the latter’s

strong fortification stalled the English attacks. After an hour of grinding and inconclusive

combat on the ramparts, however, French forces were thinning and those who remained were

tiring. But at that moment, the 1,000 Bretons marched onto the battlefield from the northern

hills, having received a message from Bureau earlier in the day. While their footmen streamed

into the fortified artillery park and reinforced the beleaguered defenders, the Breton cavalry

swept around the eastern trenches and crashed into Talbot’s exposed right wing. Wreathed

in smoke and noise given off by the French gunpowder weapons, the English were taken

totally by surprise.

The aged earl turned to meet the assault but was wounded in the arm by a projectile. That

wasn’t the end of it. Seeing the English struck in the flank, French forces inside

the fortification launched a counterattack from the front, some of them even remounting

to do so. What happened next is unclear and varies in the sources, but it seems like Talbot’s

lines began to break, routing towards the Dordogne. While this happened, the commander

himself rallied a small contingent alongside his son and acted as a rearguard so his army

could get away. However, a cannon shot the earl’s horse out from under him and trapped

its rider under it. A family legend claims that while trapped, Talbot urged his son to

flee, stating “Leave me, the day belongs to the enemy, there is no disgrace in flight,

this is your first battle.” In what was perhaps the last gasp of chivalry the medieval

age had to offer, the son refused and was killed alongside his father - who died from

an ax to the skull. When the English commander’s banner fell, the army lost heart and totally

collapsed. Some soldiers drowned attempting to cross the Dordogne at Rauzon ford, others

were run down by the victorious Breton horsemen, while about a thousand found refuge in Castillon

itself. The Anglo-Gascon casualties are uncertain, ranging from a low of 500 to a high of 4,000,

while French losses were quite light in comparison. When Jean Bureau found Talbot’s corpse on

the field, he had the old soldier given a burial with full honours. Similarly, when

his banner and collar of office were given to Charles VII, the king remarked “God have

mercy on a good knight.” Talbot had never broken his oath.

Castillon was taken on July 20th and the French king even rode with his army to quell a small

internal squabble. That strife was nothing compared to Gascony which, despite stubborn

resistance, was falling one castle at a time. Bordeaux was put under siege and ten weeks

later, after being strangled and battered from both land and sea, finally fell to Charles

VII. On October 19th, 1453, French banners were raised above the city and the English

in Gascony were forced to leave.

Aftermath With the second capitulation of Bordeaux,

the Hundred Years War came to an effective end, although contemporaries were unaware

of this. Of the great Angevin Empire that had spanned from the English Channel to the

Pyrenees, only Calais and a few satellite forts remained in Plantagenet hands. England

went from a state with a continental element to a purely insular one. No treaty was signed

in 1453, and the two kingdoms remained in a state of war, as French privateers would

continue to raid the English coast for prisoners to ransom, and sizable garrisons were kept

in Normandy and Gascony to prevent further English expeditions and to quell dissent in

the newly integrated provinces. Only in 1475 did this state of war actually conclude; in

that year, the first English army to invade France since Talbot's touched Calais with

the stated goal to divide up the French Realm with the Burgundians and Brettons, but as

the French and English army faced off, the Treaty of Picquigny between Edward IV of England

and Louis XI of France was signed. This was officially a seven-year truce but became the

de facto peace treaty that ended the war. In exchange for a sizeable yearly stipend

and an upfront payment, the English would leave France, and both sides would not support

the other's internal rebels. The peace would be remarkably durable and last until 1492,

and no English King would seriously attempt to reclaim the French throne, although they

would still style themselves Rex Franciae until the Napoleonic era. The Pale of Calais

would instead be lost in the closing years of the Italian Wars, when in 1558, a lighting

attack by the French took most of the ring of fortresses around Calais and forced the

city to surrender in a week, kicking the English out from the continent for good.

The immediate political effects were acutely felt in England. The Lancastrian throne had

always been weak after the death of Henry V, as the late king was the son of a usurper

and left his infant son, Henry VI, as the sole male heir. It was thanks to the regency

of the Duke of Bedford and his connections with the House of Burgundy that the English

had managed to keep a hold over northern France. When the king, a shy and weak personality,

came of age, he did not give any leadership to the country, and his rule was overshadowed

by court factionalism between different family members and his wife, Margaret of Anjou. In

late 1453, Henry VI fell into a catatonic state, completely unable to rule. This exacerbated

a political struggle between Richard of York and Edmund of Somerset, who was temporarily

detained. The struggle culminated in 1455, when it degenerated into civil war at the

Battle of Saint Albans, marking the beginning of the War of the Roses, which we have already

covered in a previous video. Many of the grievances that were the causes of the civil war can

be traced back to the conduct of the Hundred Years' War and the financial and territorial

losses. Also, Edward III had created duchies for his sons during his reign, which had given

royal princes enormous wealth and following that could threaten the position of the King,

as the subsequent civil war would show. King Charles VII of France had mostly pushed

the English out of the continent, but he did not feel secure. Local supporters had supported

every English invasion, whether from Flanders, Normandy or Brittany or during periods of

internal conflict such as the civil war between the Armagnacs and Burgundians. The different

provinces that composed the kingdom and their rulers looked much more at their own interests

than those of the kingdom as a whole, and they had the threat of opening up to an English

to pursue these goals. The King was acutely aware of this. A Gascon noble was executed

in 1454 after plotting to capture Bayonne in the name of the English, while the lands

of the Dukes of Alençon and Armagnac were confiscated in the following years, as they

were conspiring with the English or were likely to do so. Calais wasn't attacked both because

of its easily defensible terrain and position but also because of the uncertain support

of the Dukes of Burgundy. The successor of Charles VII, Louis XI, embarked

on a centralization effort to further curtail the autonomy of the appanaged nobles and intended

to absorb his main rivals, the Duchies of Brittany and Burgundy. Notably, the dukes

of Burgundy, Philip the Good and his son Charles were formidable adversaries to the French

royal power. They spearheaded the noble uprising of the League of the Public Weal in 1465,

supported the Yorkist side in the English Civil War against the French-backed Lancastrian

one and facilitated the English landing of 1475. The Burgundian house died out in 1477,

allowing the Crown to absorb much of their French holding and would lead to a century-long

conflict with the Habsburg family, while Brittany would be integrated during the subsequent

generation following the Mad War. Other princely appanages such as Anjou and Orleans were reabsorbed

into the royal domain by the end of the century. The Treaty at Formigny had taken away the

ability of the Princes to threaten the King with an external invasion credibly, and the

risks of being tried for treason and executed showed that the nobility didn't have the same

political freedom as before. Charles of Bourbon would attempt something similar during the

Italian Wars in the 1520s but failed also because of the lack of support from other

members of the nobility. Still, the French nobility would not lose all its influence,

as once the monarchy found itself without a strong king after Henry II's death, the

country fell again into civil war, this time with religion as the fault line but with factions

headed by great noble houses. The French Kings would use their newly found stability and

power to venture into foreign expeditions, which would begin sixty years of conflict

against the Spanish-Imperial Von Habsburg dynasty for the control of Italy and the hegemony

over Europe, that we have covered in our series on the Italian Wars.

The transition from a feudal system to a more centralized one can be observed particularly

in taxation and army recruitment. These developments took place in different capacities in most

of Western Europe, but the War characterised the paths of England and France. During the

1430s, Charles VII managed to greatly increase taxation by annually summoning the General

Estates to demand taxes. In 1439, he issued an ordonnance proclaiming that only the king

was entitled to raise troops and taxes, threatening the autonomy of the princes who rebelled in

1440 during the "Praguerie" and in 1442 at a meeting at Nevers, where a group of princes

attempted to wrangle away power from the crown unsuccessfully, as the King had the support

of the towns, of the Church and his minister of lower birth and managed to quell them with

light concessions. Crucially, Charles managed to impose the principle of permanent taxation

during his reign without the need to have it accepted by the estates, leveraging the

aides and tailles after the war's end, although regional differences in privileges made taxation

heterogeneous. Also, during the truce in the 1440s, he created the compagnies d'ordonnance,

professional permanent armies fully funded by the king's tax revenue, which would become

the backbone of the army that fought against the nobles in the 1460s and 80s and invaded

Italy in 1494. England had already been quite centralised for its time before and during

the war, although the power of the Parliament increased as the kings became more desperate

for taxes, and it would maintain a constraint on the monarchies in the following centuries.

Because of this and its isolated geography, the English monarchy would not have a standing

army until Cromwell, while most states developed them during the sixteenth century. Another

critical development in warfare was the introduction of gunpowder, with cannons becoming an evermore

important element in sieges as the war progressed. The Hundred Years War left a stronger national

identity in both countries, fostered by mutual antagonism. The war brought the state closer

to the population with the high taxation and broad recruitment of archers, so the population

was more invested as a whole in the war than what a Burgundian might have been. Within

a generation, the English nobility dropped the use of French, which had been their mother

tongue, in favour of English. France had a long history of regional identities that frustrated

the ability of the French king, but a century of war and crisis weakened these borders,

allowing for more power of the central state to spread to the peripheries. The French identity

was reinforced in decades of war, plundering and occupation of garrisons. While in the

first half of the war, the population's hatred was generally against soldiers, following

the battle of Agincourt, this hatred was directed against the "English enemy."

The scars of the war would endure on the population of France. First, as with most of Europe,

the Black Death devastated both countries. Then, after a relatively long truce following

the Carolinian period, the war sparked up again with the Lancastrian period. The regions

that became the battlefield, particularly in northern France, felt the effect for a

century and would spend decades to recover as villages were left depopulated and fields

were reclaimed by forest. The regions that recovered the fastest were those around Paris,

where large churches and monastic orders had enough capital to invest in rebuilding villages

and cutting wood. Cities managed to mostly escape the worst thanks to their walls, although

they had to deal with the destruction of their suburbs and the arrival of refugees from the

countryside. When the war ended, some cities were fast to surpass the prewar population.

England was not ravaged nearly as much as France, although many coastal raids remained

in the common consciousness, and the threat of Scottish attacks was ever-present. What

changed most for the country was their cut off from their biggest export market, wool.

The wool trade had been nationalised during the reign of Edward III, and the monarchy

was able to control its export in Calais as it was the only source of high-quality wool

in northern Europe. With this control, it became a foreign policy tool, with exports

being blocked to those countries hostile to the King, such as the Low Countries and Castille,

during various periods. What had been an extremely important revenue for the crown became less

reliant as it was used as a foreign policy tool and with the growth of the local textile

industry. The loss of Gascony, which for centuries had been part of the English Crown had been

damaging in particular for individuals who had invested in land or had been assigned

titles, and the trade of Gascon wine halted following 1453, but it would resume a few

decades later. The Hundred Years War was the longest series

of Medieval conflicts and probably the period's most famous war, with surprising reversals,

fascinating figures, grandiose battles and effects that were felt in all of Western Europe.

It shaped the trajectory that both France and England would take. France came out stronger,

with a more centralised state and would be one of the most important actors in European

politics in the following centuries, while England was relegated to its island and weakened

its connection to the continent.

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Key Vocabulary

Vocabulary	Meanings
war /wɔːr/ A2	noun - a state of armed conflict between different countries or different groups within a country
battle /ˈbætl̟/ A2	noun - a fight between armed forces during a war verb - to fight in a battle
king /kɪŋ/ A1	noun - a male ruler of a country who usually inherits his position and rules for life
army /ˈɑːrmi/ A2	noun - a large organized group of armed forces trained for war, especially on land
siege /siːdʒ/ B2	noun - an act of surrounding a town or building with armed forces in order to capture it
cavalry /ˈkævəlri/ B2	noun - soldiers who fight on horseback
victory /ˈvɪktəri/ B1	noun - an occasion when you win a game, competition, election, or war
defeat /dɪˈfiːt/ B1	noun - the act of winning against someone in a war, competition, sports, etc. verb - to win against someone in a war, competition, sports, etc.
conquest /ˈkɒŋkwɛst/ B2	noun - the act of taking control of a country or city, usually by force
treaty /ˈtriːti/ B1	noun - a written agreement between two or more countries
invasion /ɪnˈveɪʒən/ B1	noun - an occasion when a lot of people or animals enter a place or country in order to take possession of it
rebellion /rɪˈbeljən/ B2	noun - an act of refusing to obey or fighting against an authority or government
dynasty /ˈdaɪnəsti/ B2	noun - a series of rulers of a country who all belong to the same family, usually in order of birth and for many years
campaign /kæmˈpeɪn/ B1	noun - a series of actions intended to achieve a particular political, military, or commercial goal
garrison /ˈɡærɪsən/ B2	noun - a group of soldiers living in or defending a town or building
fortress /ˈfɔːrtrəs/ B2	noun - a large, strong building or place protected against attacks, where soldiers live
artillery /ɑːrˈtɪləri/ B2	noun - large guns that fire bullets or shells
monarch /ˈmɒnərk/ B2	noun - a person who is the ruler of a country, for example a king or queen
brilliant /ˈbrɪljənt/ B1	adjective - extremely clever and skillful