Matthew Z. Thomas
and Dr. Carl Edwin Lindgren
In
1328 King Charles IV of France died thus bringing to an
end the Capetian dynasty that had reigned for over 300 years. Charles’ death was not just the end of the
Capetian line but in many ways the true beginning to the Hundred Years War
between the kingdoms of England and France. When Philippe VI assumed the crown he did so
as an indirect heir, the cousin of the late King Philippe IV. In matters of succession there was one
candidate who stood more direct in line to the throne of France, Philippe IV’s
grandson the 16-year-old King of England Edward III. At that time Edward was ill prepared to
challenge for the throne of France, indeed the young king was
not fully in control of his own crown.
Edward’s mother Queen Isabella and her lover Roger of Mortimer kept
control of the
king, ruling the country in his name. Over the course of the next nine years the
situation would drastically change, so much so that by 1337 Edward III was in a
strong enough position to challenge Philippe VI for his crown. On All Saint’s Day 1337 Henry Bergersh, the
Bishop of Lincoln arrived at the court of King Philippe VI in Paris and delivered King Edward
III’s challenge for the lands of Aquitaine and the throne of France.
Tensions
between France and England had existed since the
Norman William the Conqueror claimed the throne of England in 1066. Though William became a king in his own
right, as Duke of Normandy he remained technically a vassal of the king of France. Tensions were for the most part avoided due
to the relative weakness of the Capetian kings at that time, but as their power
grew so did tensions between the kings of France and their vassal kings of
England. In 1152 Henry II of England married Eleanor of
Aquitaine thus acquiring an empire in France and England far greater than the king
of France, but an act of homage was
still required by the king of England for his newly acquired
lands in Aquitaine. After Henry
II died his kingdom passed first to his son Richard I, the Lion-Heart, then to
his youngest son John I. Richard was
strong enough as king to keep the French at bay, but following his death in
1199 King Philippe Augustus of France steadily drove the English out of France
so that by the end of King John’s reign the only remnants of the Angevin Empire
were a few strips of coastline, nothing more.
The
fortunes of the English monarchs in France fluctuated over the next
hundred years, with the duchy of Aquitaine being used as a bargaining
chip by the French monarchs. King John’s
successor Henry III regained control of Aquitaine after swearing fealty to
King Louis IX. Henry III was not a particularly
strong ruler but his son the future Edward I was. Edward’s military prowess helped maintain the
status quo in France while he campaigned against
Scotland in an attempt to unify the island of Briton. The fortunes of the English crown waned
following the death of Edward I in 1307.
His son Edward II proved unable to follow in his father’s footsteps and
saw his unfortunate reign end with a series of losses. In 1314 at the battle of Bannockburn a Scottish army led by
Robert the Bruce, future king of Scotland, routed Edward II’s
army. In 1325 Edward II attempted to
avoid giving homage to the King of France by transferring the duchy of Aquitaine to his then 12-year-old
son, the future Edward III. The decision
soon proved disastrous for the king when his wife Queen Isabella refused to
return from France, instead keeping the young
prince in Paris with her. To make matters worse the queen soon took
Roger of Mortimer as her lover, in open defiance of the king. By September 1326 Isabella and Mortimer were
in open rebellion, landing in Suffolk with an army of some 700
men. Any support for King Edward II
quickly faded so that on 13 January 1327 the king abdicated in favor of his
son, though all were aware the real power behind the throne to be Isabella and
Mortimer.
The
reign of Edward III began rather ingloriously with Mortimer maintaining a type
grip over the young monarch. The
situation in Aquitaine deteriorated as well as
King Charles IV seized the most fertile portions of the duchy from Edward. In order to maintain his control over the
remnants of Aquitaine, Edward was forced to not
just give homage but to pay 50,000 livres to the French king as well. Charles IV died shortly afterwards, leaving
behind a pregnant widow and the future Philippe VI as regent. When Charles’ infant proved to be female
Philippe was crowned king of France, though Edward did send a
delegation to Paris to argue his case. King Philippe wasted little time pressing the
Aquitaine issue with Edward, demanding the young king pay
homage to him for the duchy. For two
years Edward postponed his oath until Philippe at last threatened to seize the
remainder of his duchy. After intense
legal wrangling over the exact wording of the oath to be given Edward III knelt
before the French king in June 1329 and affirmed the Oath of Amiens. The Oath’s exact wording was vague and
Edward’s simple affirmation kept matters rather ambiguous. By July 1330 lawyers for King Philippe were
demanding a new oath from Edward, one pledging him as liege vassal to the
French king. Such a step would have made
Edward subject to Philippe’s feudal authority, a rather embarrassing and
restricting position for a fellow monarch.
Edward delayed giving an immediate response; three months later the
young king’s position had been completely altered.
When
Edward II abdicated in favor of his son in 1327 it proved to be an unfortunate
decision for both of them. Edward II
spent his last few months in prison before dying under mysterious
circumstances, while Edward III served as a façade for the true rulers of England, Queen Isabella and Roger
of Mortimer. As the daughter of King
Philippe IV, Isabella was a powerful woman in the tradition of her predecessor
Eleanor of Aquitaine. She was also
highly independent and ambitious and she realized she could play a bigger role
as the king’s regent rather than his wife.
In France the queen and her retinue
gained shelter at the residency of the Count of Hainault; after Edward III was
betrothed to the Count’s daughter Philippa in 1326 Isabella had gained a
valuable ally. With men raised by the
Count’s brother John, Isabella and Mortimer landed in England and swiftly deposed the
unpopular King Edward II. After
concluding the final peace with France, which ceded the most
valuable lands of Aquitaine to Charles IV, Isabella and
Mortimer turned their attention to ruling England.
The adulterous couple proved
to be unpopular leaders, more given towards increasing their revenue and
landholdings than governing the country.
In 1329 the Earl of Lancaster attempted an uprising against the pair,
only to see his forces melt away. The
next year Edward’s uncle the Earl of Kent became convinced that Edward II still
lived and offered his support to free him, an act for which he was duly tried and
executed by Isabella and Mortimer. While Mortimer had no qualms about
eliminating the king’s uncle, Edward himself was untouchable. Mortimer attempted to circumvent the king’s
presence by excluding him from all policy decisions and appointing the officers
who served in Edward’s household. When
Edward III married Philippa in 1328 the Queen and Mortimer had little choice
but to grant the king his own house, it was their hope that by appointing the
officers who served him they could maintain their control. The plan backfired as many of the officers
who served the king grew disgusted with Mortimer and began to associate more
closely with Edward. Chief among these
men was William Montagu; a former protégé of Mortimer’s who was to play a
crucial role in Edward’s liberation. By
the summer of 1330 Mortimer decided to reign in the young monarch, forcing
Edward to join Isabella and himself at their fortress in Nottingham. Mortimer handpicked Edward’s personal
attendants, and spies were planted to report all actions the king took. In mid-October Mortimer publicly humiliated
the king in front of his officers, accusing Edward of plotting against the
government of England, this proved to be the
final straw for Edward and his supporters.
On 19 October 1330 William Montagu led a small
band of men into the fortress via an underground passage. Once inside the king joined the men and burst
into Queen Isabella’s chambers, catching her by surprise. Mortimer was found in a nearby room with a
number of attendants, after a brief fight in which two of Mortimer’s men were
killed, Roger of Mortimer was captured and sent to London to await his fate. On 29 November Mortimer was executed at
Tyburn while Queen Isabella was allowed to live out the rest of her life in
comfortable obscurity. Edward III was
not yet 18 but free from the domination of Mortimer and his mother and prepared
to stand up to King Philippe now.
As noted earlier, the new
king of France Philippe VI had demanding a liege homage from Edward III and
threatened to confiscate all of Aquitaine should he refuse. Aquitaine and all that entailed was
one of the driving forces behind the Hundred Years War, Scotland was the other. In 1295 while Edward I was earning his
reputation as the “Hammer of the Scots” France and Scotland concluded an alliance of
friendship. Robert the Bruce became king
of Scotland after the battle of Bannockburn, filling the void left
after the deposition and arrest of John Balliol by King Edward I. Balliol had been made king by Edward I following
the death of King Alexander III in 1288, and had therefore sworn fealty to
Edward. When the Old Alliance between France and Scotland was formed in 1295 it was
in direct violation of Balliol’s responsibilities as a vassal to the king of England. Edward promptly invaded Scotland and deposed Balliol,
sending him to the Tower of London by the end of the
year. England and Scotland remained at war for the
next 30 years until the Treaty of Northampton in 1328 recognized Scottish
independence. Edward III signed the
Treaty into effect, but it had been Mortimer and Isabella who brokered the
deal. In June 1329 King Robert I died
leaving his six year old son David II king under the regency of the Earl of
Moray. By this time the Balliol clan had
come full circle with John’s son Edward swearing fealty to King Edward
III. Edward Balliol wasted little time
challenging David’s right to the throne, and with the assistance of Henry
Beaumont the former Earl of Buchan, he led a small invasion force into Scotland during the summer of
1332. At the battle of Dupplin Moor 11
August 1332 Balliol’s forces managed to defeat a much larger Scottish army led
by Lord Robert Bruce, the illegitimate son of the late king. On 24 September Balliol was crowned king of Scotland, but the chances of his
reign lasting were still very much in doubt.
Balliol, desperate to hold onto his crown, offered liege homage to
Edward III and proclaimed Scotland a fief of England. By the end of 1332 Balliol was in dire need
of English support having been driven completely out of Scotland by forces loyal to David
II.
The next year Edward III led
an army into Scotland, and at the battle of
Halidon Hill on 19 July 1333 he avenged his father’s
disastrous defeat at Bannockburn. Balliol was once again installed upon the
throne of Scotland, but again his rule would
be short and tenuous. David II and his
court left Scotland for Paris and appealed to Philippe in
the name of the treaty of 1295. Now the
issue of Aquitaine was tied together with the issue of Scotland. King Philippe refused to discuss terms for
the restoration of Edward’s duchy unless the Scottish issue was addressed as
well. King Philippe went so far as to
threaten Edward with sending French troops to restore David to his throne. Balliol was expelled from his kingdom a
second time in 1334 and once again arrived at Edward’s court asking for
assistance. While Edward and David
managed to negotiate a temporary truce, relations between England and France deteriorated
progressively. In May 1337 Philippe VI
seized control of Aquitaine, in October Edward III
rejected his Oath of Amiens, and on All Saint’s Day the Bishop of Lincoln
arrived in Paris to offer Edward’s challenge
for the throne of France. The Hundred Years War had officially begun.
Hostilities might have been
declared between the two nations in 1337, but getting medieval armies into the
battlefield took great time and expense.
Edward first crossed the channel in July 1338 landing at Antwerp before travelling to Germany. There he concluded an alliance with the Holy
Roman Emperor Ludwig of Bavaria, but no military action was
forthcoming. The next year French and
Castilian ship’s raided the English coast with impunity, indeed for the first
few years of the war England had no answer to Philippe’s
naval superiority. That same year Edward
again crossed the channel with an army, seizing the town of Cambrai before his campaign stalled
out again. At Bouironfosse the armies of
England and France faced off against each
other before withdrawing in a stalemate.
The only notable event for Edward that year was his adoption of the
title of king of France and adding lilies to his
coat of arms at the insistence of his newly acquired Flemish allies.
The next year the first
major naval battle of the Hundreds Year War took place off Sluys, where a fleet
of 250 English ships led by the king himself engaged a fleet of over 400 French
and Castilian ships, on 24 July 1340. The large number of Franco-Castilian ships
benefited the English, as most of the fleet was jammed together in the harbor of Sluys. Edward sent his ships forward in units of
three, two ships consisting of archers, one of men-at-arms. With this tactic the English were able to
overwhelm their enemies so much so that only 30 Castilian ship’s managed to
escape. The defeat for the French was so
overwhelming that the king’s jester was forced to break the bad news to
him. “Why are the English knights more
cowardly than the French? Because they
did not jump in their armor into the sea, like our brave Frenchmen.” While Edward III enjoyed great prestige from
his victory at Sluys he was unable to capitalize on it. Edward was unable to bring the French to
battle and so he agreed to a year long truce brokered by the Pope. In 1341 King David II invaded Northern England, forcing Edward back home
to defend his kingdom.
In July 1341 Jean de
Montfort arrived in England to claim the Earldom of
Richmond and to enlist Edward’s assistance in securing the Dukedom of
Brittany. Montfort had been in line for
the Dukedom along with Charles of Blois, King Philippe’s nephew. The king naturally supported his relation for
the title prompting Jean to swear fealty to Edward III in exchange for military
support. Jean did gain Edward’s support
but shortly after his return to France he was captured and
imprisoned, leaving his wife Jeanne and his infant son holed up at their castle
in Hennebont. In the spring of 1342 Sir
Walter Manny arrived at Hennebont to support Jeanne followed shortly afterwards
by William de Bohun, the Earl of Northampton.
On 30 September 1342 Northampton and his forces defeated
those of Charles of Blois at Morlaix, gaining valuable breathing space for
Jeanne and the Montfort cause. In
January 1343 another papal driven truce, the Truce of Malestroit was enacted;
the fighting in most of France ceased with the exception
of Brittany. In 1345
Henry, Earl of Derby and future Duke of Lancaster arrived to take command in Aquitaine. Within a year Derby had defeated the French at
Auberoche and gained full control of Brittany. The victory came too late however for Jean
and his wife, the Duke dying earlier in the year followed by his wife going
mad.
By the summer of 1346 Edward
was determined to continue the war in France, landing in Normandy on 11 July. Originally Edward had planned to return to
Aquitaine but had been persuaded to land at Normandy by a Norman lord Godfrey
de Harcourt who told the king “Normandy is one of the richest countries…I
promise you…it will be easy to land there.
There will be no serious resistance.” Edward III duly landed at Saint-Vaast with an
army estimated at 10,000 of which at least half were archers. The campaign in Normandy marked the first military
adventures for Edward’s son, Edward the Prince of Wales who would be known to
history as the Black Prince. Immediately
following their arrival Edward knighted his son as well as a number of other
young adventurers including Roger Mortimer, the grandson of Edward’s old enemy. The English army promptly set out through the
Norman countryside, arriving at the town of Caen on 26 July. The former home of William the Conqueror fell
quite easily, and by August the English continued their march through Normandy. After the fall of Caen French resistance
stiffened, and Edward and his army had great difficulty finding a crossing over
the river Seine. On 15 August the English
managed to cross the Seine near the village of Poissy, upon which they turned
north intent to reach the Channel coast.
Again the English had difficulty finding a crossing over the river Somme and were forced to march
westward in search of one. Outside the village of Boismont Edward was shown ford that his
army could cross at low tide but a force of some 3,000 Frenchmen guarded the
other side. A vanguard force led by Sir
Hugh Despenser and supported by Northampton succeeded in driving off
the French and by nightfall all of Edward’s army was safely across the river
and encamped near the forest of Crecy. That same night an army led by King Philippe
VI made arrived and made camp at the nearby village of Abbeville. The stage was now set for the first pitched
battle between Edward and Philippe outside the village of Crecy.
Edward III spent the morning
of 26 August arranging his forces in a defensive position on a low ridge that
ran between the villages of Crecy and Wadicourt. The Prince of Wales with the Earls of Warwick and Oxford supporting him commanded
the right flank, while Northampton held the left. Their forces were composed of dismounted
knights and men-at-arms with archers positioned on their flanks. The center and reserve forces were commanded
by the king himself. The French army,
which outnumbered the English some three to one, spent most of the day getting
into position. As the day progressed King
Philippe was advised to wait until the next day to give battle, but his over
anxious lords refused to delay any further.
After an intense rainstorm that began in the evening the French forces began
their attack. While the English were
drawn up in organized formations, the French army quickly became
disorganized. Eight divisions were
arranged, each under the command of a great lord, with 6,000 Genoese
crossbowmen as the advance party. The
Genoese advanced to within 200 yards of the Prince of Wales division before
firing their first volley. The afternoon
rainstorm however would prove fatal for them as it shortened their range and
the force of their bolts. After the
initial volley the English archers let loose a decimating volley into the
Genoese. The English archers carried the
longbow, six feet long with a pull of 100 pounds and an accurate range of 250
to 300 yards, it was a weapon which took years to master but was lethal in
battle. The volleys from the English
quickly broke the Genoese who turned to flee back to their lines but were run
down by the advancing cavalry led by the Duke of Alencon, who felt the Genoese
had betrayed them by their poor showing.
Before the first French charge struck its order had been broken by the
muddy ground and murderous fire from the English. The Prince of Wales led his forces down to
meet the French, and in the ensuing melee the Duke of Alencon was killed before
the French retreated. For the rest of
the day the French kept attacking in waves and the English continued the pattern,
deadly opening volleys by the archers followed by an advance from the infantry
while the archers enfiladed the French.
No less than 12 to 15 separate French assaults failed until sometime
after midnight King Philippe was persuaded to leave the battlefield. The English had lost an estimated 500 men at Crecy, while the French
reportedly lost over 10,000 men including the Dukes of Alencon and Lorraine, the Counts of Blois and Flanders, and the blind King John of
Bohemia who rode into battle tethered to his
bodyguards. In honor of the King of Bohemia Prince Edward adopted his
badge of ostrich feathers and his motto Ich
dene, I served.
Edward III wasted no time
basking in his victory, marching north for Calais the very next day. The siege of Calais began September 1346 and
lasted until 4 August 1347. During that period Lancaster completed his conquest of Aquitaine, capturing the city of Poitiers in 1347. The war had also spilled over to the British
Isle when in October 1346 King David II crossed the Tweed into Northumbria to help relieve the
pressure on King Philippe. King David
believed that Edward had taken all available forces with him to France but he was mistaken. King Edward had anticipated such a move by
the Scots, and had therefore deliberately left the northern lords of his
kingdom behind. On 17 October at the
battle of Neville’s Cross and English army led by the Bishop of Durham and the
Lords Percy and Neville utterly routed the Scots and captured King David. In France King Philippe made one
half-hearted attempt to raise the siege in July of 1347 but withdrew without a
fight, leaving the garrison to hold out for another few weeks before
surrendering to King Edward. Infuriated
at the duration of the siege Edward threatened to execute many of the defenders
but was persuaded by Queen Philippa to show mercy. The capture of Calais was the crowning
achievement of a decade of war; Edward made the city the premiere English port
in France and transferred the wool
trade to Calais, making it a commercial haven. After Calais the French agreed to a new
eight-year truce which began in September 1347.
The year 1348 saw King
Edward III at the height of his powers and prestige; on St. George’s Day that year he created
the Knights of the Garter. Twenty-six
knights became the charter members including the Prince of Wales, the Duke of
Lancaster, Sir Walter Manny and Sir John Chandos, and two Gascons Jean de
Grailly and the Captal de Buch. The year 1348
also saw the introduction of the Black Plague in Western Europe and both England and France were hard hit. While the Plague wrought havoc throughout the
land it did not deter the fighting. In
1349 Geoffrey de Charny, a French nobleman, attempted to bribe the captain of Calais, an Italian knight Aymeric
de Pavia. De Pavia quickly relayed this
information to King Edward who in December of that year sailed to Calais with his son in
disguise. On New Year’s Eve 1349 de
Charny was let into Calais where he was ambushed and
captured by the king’s forces. Another
naval battle took place the following year off the coast of Winchelsea. Edward III led a fleet of 50 ships against a
sizable Castilian fleet, and using the same tactics as Sluys captured half of
the Spanish ships. The year 1350 came to
an end with a new king seated on the French throne. Philippe VI died in August leaving his son
John former Duke of Normandy the new king.
John the Good as he would become known as was of a mind to avenge his
father’s losses, and in 1351 French armies were once again on the march.
King John’s met with very
little success during his initial campaigns.
In 1351 his forces marched on Aquitaine but were defeated by a
smaller English contingent led by Sir John Beauchamp. In August 1352 a French army led by Marshal
de Nesle was defeated at Mauron by a much smaller English army under the
command of Sir Thomas Bentley. The Pope
once again attempted to broker a peace settlement between the two kings and in
the spring of 1353 under the direction of Pope Innocent VI a peace conference
was held at Guines. Finalized in April
1354 the terms of the Peace of Guines were greatly in Edward III’s favor. In exchange for renouncing his claim to the
French throne he was to receive Aquitaine and Normandy without having to give
homage. With the ratification of the
treaty Edward III stood to regain the entirety of the Angevin Empire of Henry
II. The treaty was ratified in autumn of
1354 but there was a delay in signing it that proved fatal. In 1355 the French rejected the treaty
outright and the war once again resumed.
In the spring of 1356 Henry of Lancaster landed in Normandy, he had been
proceed to France in the autumn of 1355 by Edward Prince of Wales, 25 years old
and already a hardened veteran.
Though only twenty-five Prince Edward
had already experienced much and was earning a reputation as one of the
greatest commanders of the war. At the
age of three he had been made Earl of Chester, at seven Duke of Cornwall, and
at 13 he was made Prince of Wales. His
performance and courage in command of the right wing at Crecy had earned him the
admiration of the English and the respect of the French. Now at Bordeaux he was in charge of his own
army and would soon have the opportunity to display his full martial
skills. In the autumn of 1356 King John
led his army out of Paris, their first action was to
harry Lancaster back into Normandy. Having accomplished this, John marched south,
his sights set on Prince Edward. The
Prince had been enjoying his time in France, leading successful raiding
parties north from Bordeaux. By September however he was aware of King
John’s movements and determined to return to the safety of Bordeaux. The Prince was too late however for King John
had stolen the march on him and entered Blois on 16 September. The next day advance scouting parties from
both sides encountered each other forcing the Prince to draw up his forces in a
wooded ridge outside the city of Poitiers. The Prince of Wales commanded an estimated
six to eight thousand men, half of whom were archers. The Earls of Warwick and Oxford commanded the vanguard, the
Earls of Suffolk and Salisbury the rearguard, while the
center was under the command of the Prince and his two advisors, Sir James
Audley and Sir John Chandos. The Gascon
Captal de Buch was in charge of the Prince’s cavalry division that remained in
reserve. The French army under King John
numbered at least 30,000 and included a large contingent of Scots led by Sir
William Douglas. A veteran of the
Scottish-English wars, Sir William was well aware of the devastation the
English archers could impose on mounted cavalry and therefore he recommended to
the king that his knights advance on foot rather than mounted. Before the battle negotiations took place
between the two armies during which the French offered free passage to the
English if the Prince surrendered himself and 100 of his best knights. The offer was duly refused.
On the morning of 19
September the Prince ordered his baggage train to withdraw farther from the
battlefield. To the French this action looked
like a retreat and an advance cavalry force of 500 was sent to attack. This force, led by the two Marshals of France
Clermont and Audrehem charged headlong at the English, unaware of the English
archers who were hidden from view. In
the initial assault Clermont was killed and Audrehem was captured, the
remaining survivors quickly retreated from the slaughter. The first wave of French infantry was led by
the Dauphin Charles and numbered some 2,000 men. This initial assault managed to reach the English
line unbroken but the combination of English infantry and enfilade fire from
the archers proved too much forcing the French to withdraw. The second wave under the command of the Duke
of Orleans simply withdrew without fighting.
For a moment it appeared to the English that the day was won, but the
final wave had yet to attack. This force
of over 8,000 men was led by King John himself with the national banner the
Oriflamme leading the charge. At the
advice of Sir John Chandos Prince Edward led his remaining forces forward to
directly meet the charge while the Captal de Buch circled behind to take the
French in their flank. This maneuver
caught the French completely off guard and sealed the victory at Poitiers for Prince Edward and the
English. To his credit King John
remained fighting with his youngest son Philippe before being overwhelmed. The king eventually surrendered himself to a
French knight fighting for the English, Sir Denis de Morbeque, who turned the
king and his son over to the prince. English
losses at Poitiers were negligible, while the French lost some 2,000
dead and 2,000 captured including the king and his son.
In May of 1357 King John was
sent to London as an honored prisoner of King Edward III, upon his
arrival negotiations took place for securing the king’s release. The First Treaty of London, proposed in
January 1358 set John’s ransom at 4 million gold ecus and gave full sovereignty
to Edward III of Aquitaine and other French
territories amounting to approximately one-third of France’s total territory. As harsh as the deal was France was willing to accept it,
but Edward made a fatal error. While the
Dauphin Charles struggled with revolt in France Edward sought to take advantage
of this by increasing the demands of the original treaty. The Second Treaty of London, issued in March
1359 increased the amount of land to be ceded to Edward to nearly one-half of France. These demands proved too much for the French
who to the shock of Edward III rejected the Second Treaty of London. King Edward responded by landing a sizable
English army at Calais in November 1359, taking along his sons Prince Edward
and John of Gaunt. This new campaign
proved fruitless as the French refused to meet the English in open battle,
choosing instead to adopt hit and run and guerilla tactics. By the summer of 1360 Edward III and his
forces returned to England and ratified Treaty of
Bretigny, the terms of which were similar to the First Treaty of London with
the exceptions of a reduced ransom of 3 million ecus and less territorial
demands. For a short time the terms of
the treaty held, King John returned to France in exchange for part of the
ransom and hostages to take his place, including the king’s second son Louis of
Anjou. Louis however was a newlywed and
the prospects of being away from his wife proved too much for the prince to
take. He fled his captivity at Calais, prompting an ashamed King
John to turn himself back over to the English. King John the Good died in London on 8 April 1364, his son the Dauphin became Charles V of France.
Few would have thought so at
the time but by 1364 England under Edward III was on the
decline. In March 1362 Edward’s best
general Henry, Duke of Lancaster died of the plague, the
first notable member of Edward’s inner circle to fall victim to the Black
Death. In 1364 the situation for England still looked positive. Prince Edward, who in 1362 had been given the
elevated principality of Aquitaine, married Joan, Countess of
Kent. In September Jean de Montfort,
son of the old Duke Jean, defeated and killed Charles of Blois at the battle of
Auray, securing the duchy of Brittany after 25 years of fighting. In 1366 the exiled king of Castile, Pedro the Cruel arrived at
Prince Edward’s court in Bordeaux seeking military assistance
in regaining his crown. Pedro’s
half-brother Henry of Trastamara had overthrown Pedro and concluded an alliance
with Charles V. Pedro promised the
Prince huge sums of money and territorial concessions in exchange for his
aid. By January 1367 Prince Edward was
bound for Castile with an army of some 10,000
men. The initial stages of the invasion
did not go well for the English as 400 men under the command of Sir Thomas
Felton were attacked at Arinez by a vastly larger force of Franco-Castilian knights. The English were killed to a man, but
inflicted severe damage on the victors.
On 3 April outside the town of Najera the two armies met and gave
battle. For the first time yet in the
Hundred Years War the English took the initiative and charged their
opponents. The Franco-Castilian forces
were ably led by Marshal Audrehem and Bertrand du Guesclin, the most talented
of all of France’s generals. The advancing forces of the English were led
by the prince’s brother John of Gaunt and Sir John Chandos. They succeeded in holding the main forces
while the wings of the English army outflanked and surrounded the enemy. The battle of Najera was over in minutes,
with the Franco-Castilians losing over 5,000 men. Henry of Trastamara managed to escape but both
Audrehem and du Guesclin were captured.
The victory was the pinnacle of Prince Edward’s military career but it
proved fleeting. Pedro the Cruel quickly
reneged on his promises to the prince and after suffering through disease and
the Castilian summer, a much reduced English force abandoned Castile and returned to Aquitaine. The victory also proved fatal to Prince
Edward for during his stay in Castile he picked up the infection
that would eventually kill him.
The Castilian campaign had
been an enormous financial burden on the prince. Even before the campaign the prince had been
in serious financial difficulties, a combination of his lavish court and the
relative poverty of his lands in Aquitaine. Upon his return to Bordeaux the prince attempted to impose
taxes on his lands but met stiff resistance from many of the French lords who
served him. Two of these lords, Jean
d’Armagnac and Lord d’Albret appealed to King Charles V, an act of open
defiance against Prince Edward’s rule.
King Charles was more than happy to get involved and in 1369 he sent the
Seneschal of Toulouse to Bordeaux to demand the prince’s
appearance in Paris. The Seneschal was promptly thrown in the
dungeon. On 2
May 1369 war was once again declared, but by this time Prince Edward was so
sick he had to be carried on a litter.
The English campaign’s produced very little results; Sir John Chandos
led the Prince’s army until he was killed in January 1370 in Poitou. As the war progressed a number of towns in Aquitaine declared their loyalty to
the French. At Limoges an outraged Prince of Wales
had all the inhabitants of the town slaughtered. The dual strains of war and sickness had
begun to take a heavy toll on the prince’s state of mind. John of Gaunt briefly commanded King Edward’s
forces in France, but his attention was focused more gaining the throne of
Castile via his marriage to Princess Constanza than fighting to preserve his
brother’s and father’s domains in France.
After the massacre at Limoges Prince Edward, along with his wife Joan
and their infant son Richard, left France for good. The withdrawal of the Black Prince of Wales
underscored how low the English fortunes had sunk. By 1374 most of Aquitaine was in the hands of Charles
V, the spoils of 40 years of war had been almost completely lost in only five
years. On 8
June 1376 Prince Edward died at Westminster, he was 46 years old. As the chronicler Knighton wrote “Thus died
the hope of the English: for while he lived they feared no invasion of the
enemy, no onslaught of battle.” King Edward III died one year later, a broken
man, a shadow of the great warrior he had once been.
The Hundred Years War
dragged on until 1453, 116 years in total.
English fortunes revived only briefly during the reign of King Henry
V. Henry V succeeded in echoing the
great victories at Crecy and Poitiers when he defeated an
immensely larger French army at the battle of Agincourt in 1415. The reign of Henry V marked the last hurrah
of the English fortunes in France. Over the next 40 years the rulers of France succeeded in unifying their
forces and steadily pushed the English out of France. By 1453 all that remained of the great
English domains in France was Calais. It would be another hundred years before the
French regained possession of that important port city. In many ways the start of the war was
inevitable. William the Conqueror’s
victory in 1066 intertwined the fates of the two nations, and while the new rulers
of England were still more Norman than English this was
acceptable. By the time Edward I ruled
however the kings and lords of England felt themselves distinctly
English and they fostered this new sense of nationalism. In many ways Edward III’s decision to go to
war was an attempt to assert English nationalism in France and on the island of Britain itself. In this sense Edward III and his son the
Black Prince were ultimately victorious for they instilled a strong sense of
what it meant to be English among the people and upon their deaths they became
two of the greatest heroes of English history.
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Chandler, David, The Oxford History of
the British Army, New York 1996.
Chandler, David, Battlefields of Europe, London 1965
Fowler, K., The
Hundred Years War, London 1971.
Froissart, Jean, Chronicles,
London 1978.
Giles, F., The
Knight in History, New York 1984.
Harding, Alan, England in the Thirteenth Century, London 1993.
James, Lawrence, Warrior Race, A History of the British at War, New York 2001.
Neillands, Robin, The Hundred Years War, New York 1990.
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Ormrod, W.M., The
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Prestwich, Michael, Edward I, Yale 1997.
Prestwich, Michael, The Three Edwards: War and State in England, 1272-1377, London 1997.
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Sumption, Jonathan, The Hundred Years War I, Trial by Battle, Philadelphia 1991.
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Weir, Alison, Eleanor
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