the hundred years' war - brego-weard the hundred years' war is a term invented in the...

The Hundred Years' War1337-1453

Anne CurryOSPREYPUBLiSHING

Essential Histories

The Hundred Years' War1337-1453

Anne CurryOSPREYPUBLISHING

First published in Great Britain in 2002 by Osprey Publishing,

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Contents

Introduction 7

Chronology 10

Background to war

England and France at peace and war: 1259-1328 11

Warring sides

The English and French monarchieson the eve of the Hundred Years' War 20

Outbreak

Mounting tensions: I336-37 27

The fighting

The Hundred Years' War: a narrative 31

Portrait of a soldier

Bertrand du Guesclin;Companions in arms: Andrew Trollope and Osbern Mundeford 69

The world around war

War cruel and sharp 73

Portrait of a civilian

Christine de Pizan 83

How the war ended

The loss of Normandy and Gascony 86

Conclusion and consequences

A defining moment in history? 91

Further reading 93

Index 94

Introduction

The Hundred Years' War is a term inventedin the mid-19th century for the latemedieval conflict between England andFrance, although the actual war lasted for116 years, from 1337 to 1453. England andFrance had been at war on several occasionsbefore 1337 because of the tenurialrelationship of their rulers. The kings ofEngland were dukes of Aquitaine, animportant area of south-west France fromwhich most of England's wine was drawn,but they were not sovereign there, as they

held the duchy of the king of France. Whatseems to mark out the war that started in1337 as different is that it involved a claimby English kings for the crown of France.

Historians have long debated theseriousness of Edward Ill's intentions when

The term 'Hundred Years' War' emerged within anineteenth-century context where the Middle Agestypified romance and chivalry. This is reflected in thispainting of Prince Albert and Queen Victoria as EdwardIII and Queen Philippa at a costume ball in 1842.(Victoria and Albert Museum)

Essential Histories -The Hundred Years' War

he declared himself king of France at Ghentin 1340. Did he really intend to makehimself king? Or was he merely trying to usehis hereditary rights as a potential claimant tothe French throne as a bargaining counter, towin a breakthrough in the disputes that hadplagued him and his predecessors over theirFrench lands? This possibility seems to gainvalidity by the fact that Edward did give uphis title 'king of France' in the Treaty ofBrétigny/Calais of 1360 in return for aterritorial settlement in his favour. Given hisapparent willingness to abandon the title,can we take seriously his resumption of it in1369 when Charles V of France reopened thewar by exploiting loopholes in the treaty of1360? The English did so badly over the next30 years that it is hard to see the claim asanything more than an empty threat.

Yet Edward Ill's successors, Richard II,Henry IV and Henry V, did call themselvesking of France and were all involved inconflict with France. Did they have as theirprincipal war aim the crown of France? Wasthis what prompted Henry V's celebratedinvasion of 1415? If so, why was he preparedto give up the title at the Treaty of Troyes inMay 1420? But why, too, were the Frenchprepared to accept him at that moment asheir and regent of their ruler, Charles VI,thereby disinheriting Charles's own son(later Charles VII) and paving the way for adouble monarchy of England and France - aprospect as remarkable at the time as itmight seem to us now?

As it happened, Henry V died a few weeksbefore Charles VI in 1422. Thus it was hisnine-month-old son, Henry VI, who becameking of both kingdoms. He was crowned asking of England at Westminster Abbey inNovember 1429, and as king of France atNotre Dame in Paris in December 1431. Hiscrowning might suggest that the English hadwon the Hundred Years' War. But the victorywas short-lived. Neither a treaty nor acoronation could make the French accept aruler who was king of their bitterest enemies.

In 1429 the tide began to turn, partly as aresult of the triumphs of Joan of Arc, whichadd a remarkable, and still not wholly

explained, dimension to this stage of theHundred Years' War. By 1450 the English hadbeen expelled from their last remainingstronghold in Normandy, and in 1453Gascony also fell. Only Calais, taken byEdward III in 1347 in the wake of his victoryat Crécy in 1346, remained in English hands,hardly enough to justify the retention of thetitle 'king of France'. Yet English kings didretain this title down to 1801, two and a halfcenturies after they lost their last toehold inFrance - Calais, in 1558.

The Hundred Years' War raises manyproblems over the war aims of the Englishkings and of French responses to them. It isalso an intriguing war in military terms, notleast because of what it suggests about thedevelopment of infantry and artillery, whichsome have deemed to constitute a veritable'military revolution'. The Hundred Years' Warcontains many different styles of warfare:naval and terrestrial; sweeping, long-distancechevauchees (mounted raids); systematicconquest and occupation; 'set-piece' siegesand battles, as well as short, sharp periods ofblitzkrieg; small-scale skirmishes and'unofficial' raiding and piracy. Although itwas fought predominantly in France, Englandwas itself a theatre because of raids on thesouth coast by the French and on northernEngland by their allies, the Scots.

There can be no doubt, too, that theHundred Years' War plays a fundamental partin the formation of both England and Franceas nation states. Taxation developed in orderto finance the war. The demand for aneffective military machine helped to createcomplex administrative structures and movestowards standing armies. There is nothinglike a war, especially a long-drawn-out one, topromote a sense of awareness of nationalidentity and unity. With English governmentsfrequently reminding their subjects that theenemy French were intent upon invading anddestroying the English tongue, it is notsurprising that this tongue should be extolled,and the sense of Englishness therebyenhanced. Although wars in this period werestill basically caused by, and fought over, therights of kings, there can be no doubt that

Introduction

the Hundred Years' War was waged betweenthe peoples of both kingdoms, not leastbecause the rulers made it so.

A hundred years is a long time, even in themedieval period where, without the benefits ofmodern communication methods, events tooklonger to be known outside the area in whichthey had occurred. Whilst we can identifybroad themes and long-term consequences, itis also essential to emphasise the variousphases of the war. But even this disguises themomentous changes in the fate of wholenations which might occur as the result of oneevent - not least, for instance, the few hourson 19 September 1356 which saw the captureof John II at Poitiers, and led to the Englishtriumph in the Treaty of Brétigny/Calais of1360, or the murder of John the Fearless, Duke

The coronation of Henry VI as king of France. This tookplace in Notre Dame in Paris on 16 December 1431.The king had celebrated his tenth birthday on 6December (British Library)

of Burgundy, on 10 September 1419 by theDauphin's supporters, which led to Henry V'sacceptance as heir and regent of France in theTreaty of Troves of 1420.

At a more local, small-scale level,individual French villages might well regardthe brief but often cataclysmic passage ofEnglish troops or of the free-booting routiersas their defining moment of the HundredYears' War, the kind of microcosmic detailthat is necessarily lost in a book of thislength. The aim here is to provide anoverview of the war as a whole.

Chronology

1204-05 Philip II conquers Normandy,Maine and Anjou

1259 Treaty of Paris between Henry III andLouis IX; homage paid for Aquitaine

1294-98 War between Edward I and Philip IV1295 Franco-Scottish alliance1324-27 'War of Saint-Sardos' between

Edward II and Charles IV1328 Death of Charles IV; crown passes to

his cousin, Philip VI1329 Edward III pays homage to Philip1333 Edward defeats Scots at Halidon Hill1336 Pope Benedict XII cancels Philip's

crusade; Philip demands Edwardsurrender Robert of Artois

First phase1337 Philip VI declares Edward's lands

confiscate1339 Edward invades the Cambrésis1340 Edward allies with Flemish and

declares himself king of France;French fleet defeated at Sluys; Edwardbesieges Tournai

1341-42 Opening of Breton theatre1346 Edward defeats French at Crécy1347 Calais falls to Edward after 11-month

siege1355 Black Prince's chevauchée through

Languedoc1356 Black Prince captures John II at Poitiers1359 Edward III attempts to take Reims1360 Treaty of Brétigny/Calais gives Edward

lands in full sovereignty

Second phase1369 Charles V declares Edward Ill's lands

confiscate

1369-74 French recover all save Gasconyand Calais

1372 English fleet defeated off La Rochelle1382 French defeat Flemish townsmen at

Roosebeke1389 Truce agreed, extended in 1396 to

28 years

Third phase1412 Henry IV sends army to assist

Armagnacs1415 Henry V takes Harfleur and defeats

French at Agincourt1417-19 Conquest of Normandy1419 Assassination of John, Duke of

Burgundy1420 Treaty of Troyes makes Henry V heir

and regent of France1423 Anglo-Burgundian victory at Cravant1424 English victory at Verneuil1425-28 English take Maine and move

towards Loire

Fourth phase1429 French raise siege of Orleans and

defeat English at Patay; Charles VIIcrowned at Reims

1431 Henry VI crowned in Paris1435-36 Burgundy defects to France; the

pays de Caux and Paris fall to French1444 Truce of Tours

The end of the war1449 English take Fougéres; French begin

reconquest of Normandy1450 French victory at Formigny1451 Gascony falls to the French1453 English defeated at Castillon

Background to war

England and France at peaceand war: 1259-1328

Enmity between the kings of France andEngland arose because of the landholdings ofthe latter in France. These were at theirgreatest extent between 1154 and 1204 whenthe Angevins ruled Normandy, Maine, Anjou,Touraine, Poitou and Aquitaine. By 1224, allsave Aquitaine had been lost to the French.The Capetians had conquered the lands byexploiting their feudal overlordship.

The Angevin kings were not sovereign intheir French lands but held them as vassals ofthe French king. This was reinforced by theTreaty of Paris, which Henry III made withLouis IX in October 1259. Henry surrenderedhis claims to lost lands in return forconfirmation of his tenure of Bordeaux,Bayonne and their hinterland known asGascony, and the promised reversion of otherareas of the old duchy of Aquitaine, mostnotably Saintonge to the north of theGironde, and Agenais and Quercy on theeastern frontier, as well as rights in the three

dioceses of Périgueux, Cahors and Limoges. Assome of these areas had been in French handsfor over 50 years, boundaries and allegianceswere doubtful. A further complication wasintroduced when the county of Ponthieu, theterritory around the mouth of the Somme,came to the English king in 1279 throughEdward I's wife, Eleanor of Castile.

The most important aspect of the Treatyof Paris of 1259 was that it confirmed thevassal status of the English kings, obligingthem to pay homage to the French king fortheir continental lands. Henry III set theprecedent, kneeling before Louis IX in thegarden of the palace on the Ile de la Cite,close to the newly constructed Sainte-Chapelle.

The Sainte-Chapelle, part of the royal palace complex onthe Ile de la Cite in Paris, was built by Louis IX between1246 and 1248 to house a relic of the Crown of Thorns.(AKG Berlin)

12 Essential Histories - The Hundred Years' War

And for what he shall give us and our heirs,we and our heirs will do him and his heirs, kingsof France, liege homage, for Bordeaux, Bayonneand for Gascony and for all the lands that wehold beyond the English Channel... and we willhold of him as a peer of France and as Duke ofAquitaine. (Treaty of Paris, 1259)

Homage was due at every change ofmonarch on either side of the Channel, andwas renewed in 1273, 1285, 1303, 1308,1320 and 1325, albeit often reluctantly onthe part of the English king. The latter -sovereign in his own kingdom, yet a vassalin his continental dominions - was at adisadvantage. His French overlord could hearappeals by his own vassals against his ruleand could summon him to his court in Paris.

The last quarter of the 13th century sawthe theory and practice of kingship developby leaps and bounds on both sides of theChannel. Edward I sought to assert hissovereignty over vassal rulers of Wales andScotland. Philip IV attempted to extend hisroyal authority over his subjects as a wholeand over his major vassals, in particular theKing of England and the Count of Flanders,ruler of a rich and highly urbanised area in

A general view of Cahors, one of the cities whereLouis IX had passed his rights to Henry III as a resultof the Treaty of Paris of 1259.

northern France with important trading linkswith England. Thus, just as war had brokenout in 1202 when Philip II declared John'slands confiscate, so wars arose between PhilipIV and Edward I in 1294, and between CharlesIV and Edward II in 1324 in the same way.

The war of 1294-98

Both these wars arose out of chargestrumped up by the French. Philipencouraged appeals from Edward's vassals inAquitaine. The actual casus belli arose fromdisputes between sailors of Normandy andGascony, culminating in an attack on LaRochelle by sailors from Bayonne in May1293. In October, Philip summoned Edwardto answer complaints against his Gasconsubjects and officials. His non-appearanceand the failure of negotiations led to theconfiscation of the duchy in May 1294.

The French were already well prepared forinvasion. After a series of successful sieges,

Background to war I 3

Bordeaux itself fell, although Bourg andBlaye held out, being assisted by an armedfleet from England. Bayonne also fell brieflybut was also recovered, thenceforwardbecoming a base for raids into theLanguedoc towards Toulouse which havesimilarities with the chevauch'ee-styleactivities of the Hundred Years' War.Toulouse was one of several bases wherearmaments were being gathered. In 1295,Philip even planned an invasion of England.

These are not the only ways in which thewar of 1294-98 presages the Hundred Years'War. In both, the defence of Gascony relied onthe inhabitants of the area, and relatively fewEnglish troops were sent. Edward I did notfight in Gascony in person, choosing instead

The gateway of Libourne, a fortified town in Gasconynamed after Roger de Leybourne, who had been HenryIll's lieutenant in Aquitaine between 1269 and 1272.(Michael Hughes)


The lands of the English king as confirmed bythe treaty of Paris, 1259

to campaign in Flanders, much as Edward IIIwas to do later. Indeed, no king of Englandwent to Gascony throughout the whole of theHundred Years' War.

Secondly, although the war of 1294-98 wasnot dynastic, it showed that Anglo-French warhad to be waged on a grand scale, as a conflictbetween monarchs with much pride at stake.Thus costs were immense even though theactual war was short. Philip spent at least

£432,000, perhaps 61.5 per cent of his incomefor 1294-98. He tied up large sums in siegesand occupation of castles, many of whichchanged hands with alarming frequency,much as they were to do after 1337. Edwardspent around £400,000 - all of his regular andtaxation income. He had to have recourse to avery heavy customs duty, the maltolte (eviltax), facing much criticism. He desperatelyneeded funds to repay loans - as with his

Background to war 15

successors, there was never enough ready cash.The nobility opposed his demands for militaryservice when he was not campaigning inGascony in person. Thus at Ghent on5 November 1297 he was forced to reissueMagna Carta and to abandon the maltolte,confirming the need to have parliamentaryapproval for the levy of taxation, a majorturning point in English history.

Henceforward no aids, mises or prises will betaken from the kingdom except by the commonconsent of the whole kingdom and for thecommon benefit of the kingdom. (Edward I'sagreement of 5 November 1297)

Thirdly, Edward I sought to divert Philipby campaigning in northern France with theaid of alliances of Low Country and Germanprinces eager to be paid for their militaryservices, and often with their own axes togrind against the French. Flanders wasparticularly ripe ground for this strategy inthe late summer of 1297. A similar policywas adopted by Edward III in the early stagesof the Hundred Years' War, and thenegotiation of alliances remained a majorfeature throughout the conflict.

There is a further 'international' area wherethe war of 1294-98 set the scene: thedevelopment of the Franco-Scottish link, the'auld alliance'. Indeed, it was because Edwardtried to impose his lordship over Scotland bysummoning John Balliol, whom he hadchosen as king in 1291, to provide militaryservice, that Anglo-Scottish relations brokedown and that a Franco-Scottish treaty arosein October 1295. From this point Edward wasalso at war with Scotland, a war that draggedon inconclusively into the next century.Whilst some advances were made, these werelost under Edward II when the Scots, nowunder the rule of Robert 1 (Bruce), defeated theEnglish at Bannockburn (1314), an importantvictory for infantry over cavalry, and began tolaunch raids into England. It was already clearthat Anglo-French wars would not simply be astraight fight between these kingdoms.

A truce came about in 1298. In May 1303 asecond Treaty of Paris restored Edward's lands.

The sting was taken out of the payment ofhomage by him bestowing the duchy on hisson, Edward, Prince of Wales (later Edward II).It was the latter who paid homage in 1308,and whose marriage to Philip IV's daughter,Isabella, was intended to cement peacebetween the two sides. At this stage, no onecould have envisaged that this marriage was tolead to its offspring, Edward HI, being in aposition to claim the crown of France. PhilipIV had three sons, thus the French successionseemed unproblematic.

The war of I324-27

The war of 1294-98 exacerbated the problemsof sovereignty and territory. There were alsonew disputes, not least over the restitution oflands that had fallen into French handsbetween 1294 and 1303. A conference washeld at Périgueux in 1311 but to little avail.Pressure on the frontiers of the English landscontinued. These factors contributed to theoutbreak of another war in 1324.

Again, the war was provoked by the French.Charles IV's officials encouraged the abbot ofSarlat to build and fly the French flag at thebastide of Saint-Sardos in the Agenais, an areatechnically under English rule, but which hadbeen disputed since the war of 1294. Charleswas perhaps anticipating that the Englishmilitary response would be constrained bycommitments in Scotland. The Englishseneschal of Gascony, Sir Oliver Ingham, tookthe bait. He attacked the bastide, allowingCharles to summon Edward to his court, andsubsequently confiscate his lands.

Charles IV himself journeyed down toToulouse - a rare visit of a French king to thesouth - where the nobility of the Languedocgathered in arms in his support. Ponthieu fellwithout resistance. The French took theAgenais and laid siege to La Réole. The warcost the English much less than that of 1294,but there was marked expenditure ondefensive engines at Bordeaux aimed atkeeping enemy shipping at bay. The Frenchtook few places in Gascony thanks to localforces aided by English and Aragonese troops.

Background to war 17

Actual war was conducted for only 15months. In October 1325 Edward, Prince ofWales (the future Edward III), accompanied byhis mother, paid homage to Charles at Paris.Whilst negotiations continued, Queen Isabellareturned to England with her son andengineered the deposition of her husband inJanuary 1327. This was facilitated by the armedsupport of John of Hainault, acquired through

the marriage of his brother the Count'sdaughter, Philippa, to Prince Edward. This linkwas to be important in Edward Ill's search forallies at the outset of the Hundred Years' War.

Edward III ordered a magnificent tomb for his fatherEdward II, in Gloucester The effigy, in alabaster wasintended to emulate the marble effigies of the Frenchkings in the abbey of Saint-Denis. (Published with theconsent of Gloucester Cathedral Chapter)

18 Essential Histories • The Hundred Years' War

In February 1327 the English were stillurging the seneschal of Aquitaine to recruitAragonese troops, whilst the French wereconsidering plans for a full-scale invasion ofthe duchy. An interesting document survivesin the papers of one of Charles IV's councillorsestimating that a 14-month campaign would berequired, and that the cost could be over threetimes the annual average income of the Frenchcrown. It would be impossible, therefore,without exceptionally heavy taxation, aproblem that beset both sides throughout theHundred Years' War. But what is significant isthat the French were contemplating thecomplete removal of the English only a decadebefore the Hundred Years' War began.

The deposition of Edward II and theaccession of his son at the age of 14 made itdifficult for the English to avoid agreeing topeace terms not in their favour. The Frenchwere in no real position to conquer Gascony,but they still had the military upper hand:even as negotiations went on, sieges werebeing conducted along the Dordogne. Thepeace of Paris agreed in March 1327 andproclaimed in September forced Edward topay a war indemnity of 50,000 marks as wellas a relief of 60,000 livres tournois for theduchy, for which he had already paid homagein 1325. Worse still, the Agenais remained inFrench hands, as did the area around Bazas.Disputes over the lands of dispossessedGascons dragged on inconclusively.

England, Scotlandand the French crown

In the meantime, the English attempted torenew war against the Scots but failed toencircle them as they penetrated intoWeardale in July 1327: the English campaignwas marred by a violent dispute between Johnof Hainault's company and English archers.Under such circumstances, Edward III and hisadvisers had little choice but to agree toanother humiliating settlement. On 17 March1328 at the Treaty of Edinburgh (confirmed atNorthampton in May) Edward surrendered'any right in Scotland which we and our

ancestors have sought in past times in anymanner', thereby recognising Robert I as kingof Scotland without requiring any homage.

Into this scenario came a new issue, thesuccession to the crown of France. Charles IVdied on 31 January 1328. All had to awaitthe birth of Charles's posthumous child(1 April 1328). This turned out to be a girl.An assembly had already decided in February1317 that women could not succeed to thekingdom of France. (This decision had beenoccasioned by the potential inheritance ofthe daughter of Louis X, who was passedover in favour of her uncle, Philip V.) Thusthere was little debate in 1328. The rightfulheir had to be Philip of Valois, the deceasedking's cousin, who had acted as regent whilstawaiting the birth of Charles's child.

The Grandes Chroniques de France tell us thatan English delegation did come to Paris toargue that Edward III, as nephew, was thenearer relative of Charles than Philip as cousin.Some French lawyers may even have agreed,but there was counter argument that Edward'sclaim was weakened by coming through awoman and by his status as a French vassal.The matter was effectively closed by Philip'scrowning at Reims on 29 May.

It was also argued that it had never beenknown and envisaged that the kingdom ofFrance should be submitted to the governmentof the king of England, and that the latter wasa vassal and liege man of the king of France.(Grandes Chroniques de France, on theaccession of Philip VI)

It is difficult to know how seriously theEnglish took the matter of the claim to theFrench throne in 1328. No effort seems tohave been made at that point to use it tonegotiate better terms over Gascony. What wecan be certain about, however, is that the year1328 was momentous for both countries. Eachhad a new king whose title to the throne wasunusual, although not suspect. The outbreakof the Hundred Years' War is linked to howPhilip VI and Edward III tried to assert theirauthority at home and abroad in the decadethat followed.

Warring sides

The English and Frenchmonarchies on the eveof the Hundred Years' War

Edward III and Philip VI

Although both kings were secure on theirthrones, their mode of accession - Philip bythe choice of the magnates, and Edward's bythe deposition of his father - created someweaknesses. The English monarchy remainedweaker for longer, during which time theadvantage lay with the French. At the point oftheir accessions, Edward was only 14, Philip 35.

Philip's position was fortified by an earlymilitary victory. The Count of Flanders, Louisof Nevers, took refuge at the French court in1325 in the face of rebellion led by Bruges. AtPhilip's coronation, Louis again asked for aid.At first, Philip and his magnates werereluctant to act, mindful of the disaster ofCourtrai in 1302 when the flower of Frenchchivalry had been defeated by the Flemishinfantry, but by the end of July 1328 an armyhad been arrayed. On 23 August Philip ledhis men to a cavalry-based victory against theFlemish at Cassel (half-way between St-Omerand Ypres), and Louis was restored. Thematter of Flanders persisted, however, forLouis was driven out again in 1339, leavingthe way open for Edward to ally with theFlemish townsmen. This led directly toEdward's assumption of the title 'king ofFrance' at Ghent in January 1340. Louis'loyalty to Philip led to his own death atCrécy.

His confidence boosted, Philip took anaggressive stance against England, promptedby long-standing issues of vassalage as wellas by an implicit desire to neutraliseEdward's potential claim to the Frenchthrone. If Edward paid homage, he wouldthereby recognise Philip as king. Edward wasvulnerable if he refused, especially when an

assembly of French nobility told Philip thathe could sequestrate the revenues ofGascony and Ponthieu if Edward defaulted.Edward thus paid homage in AmiensCathedral on 6 June 1329, fearing loss ofmoney or, worse, an invasion of his Frenchlands. Philip had been planning an army of5,000 men-at-arms and 16,000 infantry inthe early months of 1329; the English hadresponded by making plans of their own,although by no means on the same scale.Whether these preparations were more thanmere posturing is difficult to tell.

The homage that Edward paid in June1329 was deliberately limited in scope in anattempt to keep his options open. Whilstthis had averted a possible conflict, it led tofurther pressure from Philip in May 1330, towhich Edward had little choice but tosuccumb. Although from October 1330 hewas fully in control of his own government,he could not afford a war with France. Thuson 30 March 1331 he accepted that hishomage should have been liege, though hedid not attend another ceremony.

/ become your man for the duchy of Aquitaineand its appurtenances that I hold of you as dukeand peer of France, according to the peace treatymade in the past... and then the hands of theKing of England were put between those of theKing of France and the kiss was give by the Kingof France to the King of England. This was done atAmiens in the choir of the cathedral on 6 June1329. (Homage of Edward III, from acontemporary text)

Problems raised by the English king's tenureof lands in France could have led to conflict atany time. The French had already shown their

Warring sides 2 I

aggression, but the English were hardly likelyto give up the lands without a fight.Significantly, Edward III chose to reappoint asseneschal Sir Oliver Ingham, whose actionsagainst the bastide at Saint Sardos had led towar in 1324 and whose removal from officehad been required by the French. Inghamproved key to the preservation of the Englishposition in Gascony throughout, especiallywhen war broke out in 1337. But for Edward

Amiens Cathedral, which housed a relic of the head ofSt John the Baptist, was chosen as a convenient andfitting location for the homage of Edward III to Philip VIin 1329. (AKG Berlin)

himself, Scotland was a more pressing issue inthe 1330s.

The death of Robert I on 7 June 1329 lefthis five-year-old son, David II, on the throne.In 1332, Edward Balliol, son of the John who

22 Essential Histories -The Hundred Years' War

had been made king in 1291, chanced his armwith an invasion of Scotland. This may havereceived tacit support from Edward III.Balliol's victory at Dupplin Moor on11 August 1332 and his subsequent crowningon 26 September encouraged Edward to offerassistance. This he did by coming north with

The effigy of Sir Oliver Ingham in Ingham church, Norfolk(early 1340s). Ingham served as seneschal of Gascony intwo crucial periods, 1325-27 and 1331 —43. (Ingham Church)

an army, defeating David II's army at HalidonHill on 19 July 1333. In the following May,David took refuge in France. English armiesoperated in Scotland into the mid-1330s, withEdward campaigning there in person onseveral occasions up to July 1336.

The Franco-Scottish alliance, confirmed asrecently as 1326, ensured Philip's interest inthe matter. More significantly, it enabledPhilip in 1334 to introduce a new demandinto negotiations on the tenure of Gascony,

Warring sides 23

namely that Scotland should be included inany settlement. This threatened toundermine Edward's freedom of action inScotland, a move hardly likely to be pleasingto him when he now had a chance ofreversing the defeats of earlier decades againsthis northern neighbours. Philip's demandwas tantamount not only to preventing anyadvance in negotiations over outstandingproblems in Gascony, but also to preventinga settlement over Scotland. A further

complication here was Philip's intention tolaunch a crusade to the Holy Land.

Military organisation

It is at this point that we need to review themilitary potential of both sides. Both hadrecent experience of war, and thus theraising of armies was well established. InFrance, the king deployed his feudal rights tosummon the nobility to service and to callout the population through the arriere-ban.In practice, the latter was often used to raisemoney in lieu of service. In England, theserights were less formal, but the king was ableto rely on the military support of thenobility and of the shire levies. In bothcountries, all soldiers were remunerated withpay, such developments having begun in thereigns of Edward I and Philip IV.

There was ample armed might at thekings' disposal, although it had to be calledout on each occasion and needed time toassemble. Thus response time was slow. Noone doubted the king's right to wage war.All wars were portrayed as defensive, foughtin defence of the rights of the ruler, butthey were already wars of the king and hispeople, because the king was the defenderof his subjects. His rights were their rights.This could easily be fanned by propagandain which the churches of both countriesassisted with orders for prayers for theking's endeavours. The church was already asource of royal taxation in both countries,the controversy over that being won in theface of wars from 1290 to 1310.

The potential for larger armies(20,000 or more) lay with the Frenchbecause their country had a higherpopulation. Records of a hearth tax (fouage)levied in 1328 suggest a total population of12.25 million. England is unlikely to havehad more than 6 million. Although Francecontained many semi-independentprovinces, this made little difference (savein civil war) to the king's ability to raisemen from a wide geographical area astroops were recruited through the nobility

i


of the areas, as well as through towns underroyal control. Actions would often seetroops drawn from neighbouring locations.Thus Languedoc provided men forcampaigns in Gascony, whereas troops fromnorth of the Loire would be used in thenorthern theatre.

The English were at a disadvantage inthat they had to bring troops over the sea.In their lands in the south-west of France,this problem was partly mitigated by theuse of Gascons in their own defence,something that the large number of pettynobility in the area facilitated. Between4,000 and 7,000 men could be raised inthis way. They were pleased to serve forpay, and in defence of their land. For them,better a distant ruler in England than aFrench king nearer to hand. Moreover,Anglo-Gascon interests were brought closerthrough economic ties, not least the winetrade. There was some danger of defectionsto the French. Particularly significant herewere the larger tenants and neighbours ofthe king-duke, such as the counts of Foix,Albret and Armagnac.

If the defence of the duchy needed to beboosted in the face of a major Frenchonslaught, or if campaigns were to belaunched outside Gascony, then supportfrom England was needed. Even then, theco-operation of the Gascons was a militaryadvantage in both defence and offence, thelatter being well evidenced by their role inthe Black Prince's chevauchées of 1355 and1356. The English position was also helpedby the rocky terrain and long frontier oftheir lands in south-west France. Manysmall fortifications held up any invadingarmy, although places often changed handswith alarming frequency. This generated awar that tied up troops and preventeddecisive outcomes. No major pitched battlesoccurred in Gascony until Castillon in1453, and no king of either side evercampaigned there.

For campaigns in the north of France,the English did not have local support asthey did in Gascony. Ponthieu provided noparallel in terms of troops, and was an area

vulnerable to attack, being surrounded byFrench territory and close to Paris. If theEnglish were to make any impact,Edward III would have to have recourse tothe policies pursued by Edward I and John,namely the purchase of alliances with rulersin the Low Countries and Germany fortroops. This cost money, and also ran therisk of allies pursuing their own interests.

However, without the alliances EdwardIII acquired in the late 1330s (whichbrought 6,200 men at least), it is doubtfulthat he could have maintained a largemilitary presence against Philip in thenorth. It is unlikely that he had more than4,600 men with him from England in 1339.Not until the mid-1340s were systems inEngland amended to allow the English tofield larger armies of their own. Althoughthe military support of allies remainedimportant throughout the whole of theHundred Years' War, it was perhaps neveragain as significant as it was at the outset.

Arms and armour

In terms of armaments, there was probablylittle to choose between the English and theFrench. Already by the beginning of the war,the men-at-arms would have worn platearmour, although its quality improved overthe course of the war. Infantry relied moreon brigandines - cloth or leather armourreinforced with metal strips, such stripsbeing cheaper to mass produce and easier toreplace than full plate. The French did usethe longbow but preferred the crossbowbecause it had an intrinsically longer range.Being essentially mechanical rather thandependent on man-strength, it was easier toshoot and required less training. It was thusa common weapon of the urban militias. Thelongbow was cheaper to manufacture, aswere its arrows, since crossbow bolts had tobe heavier and contain more metal. The realadvantage of the longbow was that it couldissue 10 shots for the crossbow's two. Whenthere were large numbers of archers en masse,the longbow was a lethal weapon.

Warring sides 25

This may be the first representation of a cannon in anEnglish manuscript. It occurs in a book of instruction forEdward III of 1326-27 and may predate slightly thesimilar illustration in the treatise of Walter de Milemete.(British Library)

At the beginning of the war, gunpowderweapons were scarce and unsophisticated.They did exist, as illuminations show, andwere used at Sluys and in otherengagements, but they were not deployed inlarger quantities until the last quarter of thecentury, when wrought- and cast-iron piecescould be manufactured. This helps explainwhy the 14th-century war was largely a seriesof chevauchées and of long and abortivesieges, whereas after 1400, short, successfulsieges predominated since fortifications tooktime to be modified against gunpowderweapons. Both before and after 1400, otherkinds of siege engine were used, variousthrowing devices, as well as large artillerycrossbows or espringalds, the latter also beingused in defence of fortifications. WhilstEnglish towns were not well protected bywalls at this point, their French counterpartsgenerally were.

Fighting on home soil and withintrinsically larger manpower potential, theFrench had the natural advantage. This wasalso the case with naval forces. The Frenchkings had their own navy as well as access toGenoese galleys. The English kings were still

over-reliant on the requisitioning of merchantvessels that were then provided withdefensive structures and fighting platforms.Thus at the beginning of the war, Englishcoasts and shipping were very vulnerable, andthis situation was only resolved by Edward'svictory at Sluys in June 1340. Ships oftencontained large numbers of troops, remindingus that hand-to-hand fighting was common,for the aim was to capture ships. They weretoo scarce and valuable a resource to destroy.Besides, until gunpowder weapons developedthere was no easy way of knocking a ship outof action from a distance.

Money

The French king had the advantage in that hecould finance his armies mainly from hislands, which brought in 26 tonnes of silver perannum. In the reign of Philip IV there haddeveloped the notion of the king's right,without the need for consultation of anyrepresentative assembly, to levy tax for defence,based upon men paying for exemption frommilitary service, but there were manyexemptions, not least that of the nobility.

The English king was dependent upontaxation to boost his landed income, whichlay at only 5 tonnes of pure silver per annum.Taxes on moveable property (the lay subsidy)had begun in earnest under Edward I and


become virtually annual under Edward II, butneeded the consent of the Commons inParliament. This was not necessarily aweakening factor, for it enabled the king topublicise his intentions and galvanise thenation behind his endeavours. As the Englishnobility was smaller than that of France, thecrown needed to recruit more broadly. Thishad already been seen in the Scottish wars,where large numbers of Welsh and Englisharchers and foot soldiers were found, andwere to be found again in the 1340s. But thearmies with which Edward began the war innorthern France were largely made up ofnobles and their 'mixed retinues' ofmen-at-arms and archers, usually in a ratio of1:1. When the English king campaigned inperson, troops served for as long as hedictated. If others led his forces, then thesystem of indenture (contract) wasincreasingly used whereby conditions andduration of service could be agreed inadvance.

Edward III relied very much on loans, ashis grandfather had done. An importantform of security was the English wool exporton which finances depended in the earlystages of the war. The French king was lesswell provided with credit systems.In 1335-36 Philip had to rely on revaluationsof coinage. Shortage of money contributedto making the large royal-led campaignsshort and sporadic.

The proving grounds

Recent military experience was significant.Philip had won a victory at Cassel in 1328,and was intending to crusade in the Levant.Thus he was gathering men, money andships, as well as generating in his own mindand in the minds of his people an emphasison military endeavour. Meanwhile, Scotlandwas providing Edward Ill's proving ground.He had experienced the difficulties ofcontaining a raiding force in Weardale in

1327. In 1333 he had besieged Berwick, andwon a victory in battle at Halidon Hill withan army of 10,000-13,000. Similarities existbetween Edward's tactics at Halidon Hill andat Crécy, not least in the use of arrow fire toimpede the enemy advance, although thiswas then followed up by a cavalry pursuit ofthe fleeing Scots. The victory at Halidonshowed that the English could win, althoughthe Scots were a less formidable andnumerous enemy than the French in thecontext of a pitched battle. Rogers suggeststhat Edward's sweeping campaigns intoScotland between 1334 and 1336 were aprecursor of his chevauchees in France,intended to show his military might and tobring war 'cruel and sharp' to the people whoresisted his authority.

Each division of the English army had twowings of fine archers. When the armies came intocontact they fired their arrows as thickly as therays of the sun, striking the Scots so that they fellin their thousands and they started to flee fromthe English in fear of their lives. (Brut Chronicleon the battle of Halidon Hill)

It must not be forgotten, however, thatEdward had not won his war against theScots. He was obliged to keep some kind ofmilitary presence there even whilst fightingin France. There was always the fear ofScottish raids into England and of Frenchaid to the Scots. The campaigns in Scotlandkept the English military machine well oiled;many of those who served Edward therewere to do so in France. Whilst anobserver in the late 1330s might have giventhe French the edge in any impendingAnglo-French conflict, outcomes of warswere never predictable. At base, neither sidehad the military capacity to defeat the otherin a way that would bring a definitivevictory and settlement. In this respect,therefore, the war that broke out in 1337 wasalready likely to last a long time and tocontain many stalemates.

Outbreak

Mounting tensions: 1336-37

Arguably, had Philip been able to fulfil hiscrusading plans in 1336, Anglo-Frenchconflict might have been averted, although itis likely that conflict over Gascony wouldhave occurred at some point. Whether itwould have arisen over Scotland is moreproblematic, as the French had been prone topromise military aid to the Scots but not todeliver. It seems unlikely that Edward wouldhave gone to war over his claim to theFrench crown: he had already gone too far inaccepting Philip's kingship. The promoting ofthe claim as an apparent war aim arose as aresult of the outbreak of the Hundred Years'War, not as its cause. Not until 1340 didEdward declare himself king. War had alreadybroken out in 1337 over Gascony.

An important turning point came in March1336 when Pope Benedict XII informed Philipthat his crusade could not go ahead becausethe problems of Gascony and Scotland hadnot been reconciled. 'French resources wereliberated for aggressive ventures elsewhere', asSumption puts it. In the summer of 1336, thefleet that Philip had been gathering inMarseilles was diverted to the Channel. TheScots had approached Philip for aid, and hewas now thinking of sending an army there.Edward planned a short raid into Scotland inMay but was afraid of doing more. A councilheld at Northampton on 25 June advised thesending of an embassy to France, but this didnothing to divert the French.

Edward had most to fear at this stage,faced as he was with three possibletheatres - Gascony, Scotland and perhapsEngland itself. As it happened, Philip did notsend aid to the Scots. Although Edwardbegan to organise another campaign toScotland, this was cancelled in November1336. Thenceforward Edward relied onBalliol and a few English troops left for thelatter's assistance. It is easy to dismiss fears of

a French invasion of England in the light ofhindsight, given that we know Philip neverdid launch a major assault. But the Englishgovernment found it a useful propagandaploy at the time of the Crécy expedition in1346 to claim that he had so intended,sending back to England from Caen adocument that purported to show thedetails of his plans for a landing in 1336 of20,000 men, largely Normans, who were themaritime rivals of the southern English.

French ships carried out raids on Orfordand on the Isle of Wight in the late summerof 1336, and there was plenty of panic. At acouncil held at Nottingham on 24 September,an array of troops for defence of the coastswas ordered. This is the point at which, toquote Sumption again, 'the English politicalcommunity accepted that war with Francewas inevitable'. Increasingly, both nationswere put on a war footing, with orders for therequisitioning of ships, the raising of loans,and the seizing of the goods of alienmerchants.

Philip was already planning in late 1336how he might invade Gascony, coming to anagreement with the Count of Foix for theservice of 600 men for two months. At thesame time, Edward sought allies amongstFrance's northern neighbours. Already hewas considering possible action againstPhilip in northern France, either in person orthrough the military aid of such allies, whichwas crucial to him in terms of manpower.Philip's envoys were equally busy at thispoint in acquiring allies and limiting supportfor Edward.

There can be no doubt that Philipprovoked the opening of actual war. InDecember 1336, he ordered Edward to handover Robert of Artois, Philip's brother-in-law, who had fled from France undercharges of murder. Robert's presence in

28 Essential Histories * The Hundred Years' W a r

England had already been a further factorin souring Anglo-French relationsbetween 1334 and 1336. The order tosurrender Robert was delivered not toEdward in England, but to Ingham asseneschal in Aquitaine. Philip's legalauthority over Edward only functioned

where the latter was duke. But Artois was inEngland not Gascony, and it was legallyproblematic whether an action by the king-

Philip VI (r. 1328—50) presiding over the lawsuit ofRobert III of Artois, concerning the claim to the countyof Artois. (MS fr. 18437. Bibliotheque nationale)

Outbreak 29

duke in England was within the remit ofthe French king. Indeed, the matter pointsagain to the underlying problem - thetenure of lands in one kingdom by the kingof another. How much influence Robert ofArtois had over Edward's strategy is unclear,but some have suggested that it was he whoheightened the king's awareness of thepotential value of a claim to the Frenchthrone.

Arguably, Edward could have averted warby surrendering Robert. Since he did notchoose to do so, we must conclude that hewas willing to engage in conflict. Althoughin the spring of 1337 another embassy wassent to France, Edward was now makingformal preparations for war. This isparticularly noticeable at the parliament ofMarch 1337 where six new earls werecreated, with a view to creating a cadre ofmilitary commanders. Edward stillconsidered that armies might be needed forScotland as well as Gascony. He may at firsthave intended to go to Gascony in person,but by early July he had changed his mind.It seems likely that his change of plan wascaused by what he had learned of Philip'sintentions.

When Philip issued the arriere-ban on30 April 1337, two theatres of actionbecame obvious, for the French armies wereordered to assemble by 8 July at Amiens aswell as at Marmande on the frontier ofEdward's duchy, only 50 miles (80km) fromBordeaux. A few hundred troops were sentfrom England to Gascony in late August.Edward took the chance that he could relyon the Gascons to maintain their owndefence, under the guidance of his officialsand their retinues in the duchy. Edward wasnow intending to join his Low Countryallies for a campaign against Philip in thenorth, but for various reasons he did notcross to Brabant until 16 July 1338. By thistime, fighting in Gascony was well underway and serious raids on England hadcommenced.

It is not easy to define the first action ofthe Hundred Years' War. There was no'declaration of war' in the modern sense. As

we saw, there were some French raids in1336, and the Scottish theatre was in someways already a war between England andFrance. But perhaps we might take theopening action as the failed attempt of oneof Philip's officials to seize Saint Macaire inFebruary 1337. Once Philip declared thearriere-ban on 30 April there was no turningback: he had given clear indication of hisintentions to wage war on a large andnational scale. The legal niceties were stillto be performed. On 24 May, after Philip'scouncil had endorsed his decision to declareconfiscate Edward Ill's lands in France, thebailli of Amiens was instructed to takepossession of Ponthieu. By 13 June Philip'sletters declaring Aquitaine forfeit had beendelivered to Edward's seneschal in theduchy, and within a few weeks Frenchtroops were launching their invasion.

The Hundred Years' War thus effectivelybegan, as it was to end, in Gascony. Itseems thus far to be following the patternof the wars fought in 1294 and 1324. So far,too, Edward III had done no more thanexpress his desire to defend his possessionsin France and his perceived rights inScotland. In August 1337, a manifesto wasdistributed to various magnates and royalofficials who were to explain the King'sbusiness to meetings ordered to be held inthe shires. Here Edward's reasons for thewar were clearly stated: the French king hadoffered assistance to the Scots and usurpedEdward's rights in Gascony, and hadmaliciously accused the latter of hinderingthe crusade. Significantly, there was nomention of a claim to the French crown.

[Philip] striving by ail means that he couldto undo the King of England and his people, sothat he could keep what he had wrongfullywithheld and conquer more from him, refusedall offers, but, seeking his opportunities, busiedhimself in aid and maintenance of the Scots,the enemies of the King of England, attemptingto delay him by the Scottish war so that hewould have no power to pursue his rightselsewhere. (Edward's manifesto of August1337, from the Close Rolls)


One of the most important chroniclers of the fourteenth-centuryphases of the war was the Hainaulter, Jean Froissart, as portryayed in a15th-century manuscript of his work. (Anne Ronan Picture Library)

The fighting

The Hundred Years' War:a narrative

The first phase: 1337-60

Given the length and complexity of the war,it is possible here to concentrate only ondirect Anglo-French conflict. It must beremembered, however, that fighting also tookplace in Scotland, the Low Countries andSpain, and that troops from many areas wereinvolved. In this respect, as in the diplomaticcontext, it is fair to see the Hundred Years'War as the first pan-European war.

It began, like the wars of 1294 and 1324,in Aquitaine. In July 1337 the French army,which launched its attack through theAgenais, and the Count of Foix's force, whichentered from the south, pursued campaignsof harassment and small-scale devastation.This is a timely reminder that the Frenchwere often as keen on the chevanchée-styleraid as the English. This strategy waspreferred when troops were few and moneyinadequate for long-term operations andoccupation, and when war was intended tobe waged on more than one front.

In 1338, the French launched furtherattacks through the Agenais and Saintonge.Although these were repulsed by theseneschal and his Gascon supporters, thelack of reinforcements from England meantthat by the spring of 1339 the French wereable to make serious inroads and were nowestablishing garrisons along the Dordogneand Garonne. Bordeaux was threatened withencirclement after the key outposts of Bourgand Blaye fell with the assistance of a Frenchfleet in April 1339.

Philip intended to keep an army of12,000 on the Garonne only until June 1339,at which point he planned to concentrate allhis forces along the Somme in anticipationof the invasion of Edward and his allies. ButEdward's delayed arrival led to Frenchpressure on Gascony continuing. Siege was

now laid to Bordeaux itself, but the attackers'supplies were low and they departed afteronly a week. Ingham was able to carry outsome raids towards Toulouse in October,perhaps even intended as a co-ordinatedmove with Edward's invasion in the north.

The delay in Edward's crossing facilitateda number of damaging hit-and-run raids bythe French on the south-coast ports. Anattack on Portsmouth on 24 March 1338 wasfollowed immediately by an attack on Jersey.The French took control of Guernsey on8 September 1338 and held it for a few years.Although the English tried to raise a fleetagainst such incursions, the French were ableto launch a serious attack on Southamptonon Sunday, 5 October 1338.

In 1339 there were fears that Philip wasplanning a major assault on England fromNormandy. The raid, when it came in May,was less sustained than expected, but enoughto harry the coasts of Devon, Sussex andKent. Only in July had the English gatheredenough ships together to counter a plannedattack on the Cinque ports. Had it not beenfor a mutiny of Philip's Genoese seamen, theposition of England could have been muchmore precarious. In August the Englishbegan to take the war to the French with araid on Le Treport, but this was too little, toolate. The French had already recognised theimportance of taking the war to the English,and of creating uncertainty on the coastsand in the sea lanes. In both Gascony andthe Channel, therefore, the English werelosing the war in its first stages.

The war in the north: 1337-39Over the summer of 1337 Edward brokereddeals with Low Country rulers for militaryaid, being promised almost 7,000 men,including 2,000 from the emperor, Lewis ofBavaria, for two months. These agreements

32 Essential Histories "The Hundred Years' War

own plan may have been to invadeNormandy, with the other princes attackingFrance from the north-east, but thenegotiations had led to an agreement thatthe coalition would operate together fromHainault into the Cambrésis. This served theinterests of the princes and especially theemperor, under whose theoretical imperialauthority Cambrai lav. But Edward was

for September 1337, was postponed andfinally abandoned in late November. A fewEnglish troops crossed under Walter Mauny,carrying out hit-and-run raids on theFlemish coast.

That there was a lull in hostilities afterthis point was due to the attemptedmediation of cardinals over the wintermonths, which led Edward to promise to

The fighting 33

refrain from an attack on France until March1338. Nonetheless, the basic strategy of thecoalition was preserved and formed the basisof the campaigns of 1338. By the end ofFebruary, Edward was raising his army of4,500, finally crossing to Antwerp in theduchy of Brabant on 16 July 1338. Thislanding led Philip to order his own army toassemble on the northern frontier, withPhilip himself arriving at Amiens on24 August. But no military action ensued

because Edward found his allies reluctant tofight without receipt of pay and without thepresence of the Emperor.

Edward travelled to meet Lewis of Bavariaon 5 September at Koblenz and was giventhe title 'vicar general of the Empire', beingauthorised to act 'throughout Germany andFrance and all the provinces and partsthereof. Edward was now able to finalise thecampaign into the Cambrésis, although theinitial start date was again postponed to July1339 as he tried to organise his finances.

Philip intended to be ready for theinvasion. He placed 6,000 troops in garrisonsalong the border with Hainault over thewinter of 1338-39, and planned to combinehis military might, which was potentially ashigh as 50,000, by moving troops from theGascon theatre to the Somme in the summerof 1339. The French nobility received theirsummons to be at Compiégne by 22 July1339, but as Edward's invasion had still notoccurred, the assembly was postponed to6 September. Meanwhile, Edward and hisallies began to assemble at Vilvoorde,beginning their march forward toValenciennes on 18 September 1339. Exactly aweek earlier, Philip had taken the symbolicbanner known as the Oriflamme from SaintDenis. This was, in effect, the real opening offull war between the two kings.

Forth he fared into France ... and all hiscompany. The noble Duke of Brabant went withhim into that land, ready to live or die. Then therich fleur de lis won there little glory. Fast he fledin fear. The rightful heir of that country camewith all his knights to shake him by the beard.(The English poet, Laurence Minot, on theexpedition into the Cambrésis)

Edward and his allies, with an armynumbering 10,000-15,000, entered theCambrésis, where Edward had authority byvirtue of his imperial vicariate. It was nodoubt deliberate that they crossed into

The city of Antwerp, then in the duchy of Brabant, whichbecame Edward Ill's first base in the war in 1338-39, ashe prepared to invade France with the aid of his allies.


The campaigns in Northern France

France on 9 October, the festival of St Denis.They had few supplies with them, implyingthat they thought that Philip would bedrawn to battle quickly. Their need to liveoff the land prompted considerable pillaging- a useful way, too, of undermining Philip'sreputation as a defender of his people. Apapal alms-giving exercise in the followingyear reveals that 45 villages suffered damage.Never before had French civilians beenvictims of war on such a scale.

The French probably intended to givebattle on 14 October, but Edward was notready and withdrew eastwards over the Oise.

A formal challenge was sent by the Frenchfor battle on 21 or 22 October. Edwardaccepted this, and chose his position atBuironfosse. He drew up his army in aformation reminiscent of Halidon Hill, witharchers on the flanks and the customarythree battles in the centre. Many wereknighted by Edward, indicating that hebelieved battle would be given.

There is still controversy over which sidedecided against engagement. Sumptionsuggests that Philip decided to dig in to forceEdward to attack at a disadvantage, but thelatter refused as he was outnumbered two to

The fighting 35

one, and the French were protected bytrenches. Rogers, however, suggests that itwas Philip who withdrew on the advice ofhis council, who explained that 'if he weredefeated he would lose his life and his realm,but if the enemy won, he would not haveconquered the realm of England nor thelands and possessions of the other lords ofEngland'. The campaign thus endedinconclusively, although arguably theEnglish had shown their strength in beingable to cause so much devastationunchecked. But Edward had not claimed thethrone at his invasion, justifying it insteadthrough the imperial vicariate.

The campaign of 1340The campaign of 1340 was more explicitylinked to Edward's claim to the crown. TheFlemish townsmen entered the Englishallegiance, prompted by economic interestsand by the desire to have the rebellion against

their count legitimised. Thus in Ghent on26 January 1340, Edward declared himselfking of France and henceforward waged waras a putative king of that country. Whether hebelieved he had any real chance of becomingking is unclear, but the taking up of the titlemade the war more bitter, and impossible toend without a decisive military event.

Philip's plans were to revenge himself onHainault and Brabant, and he moved hisarmy towards Cambrai. Edward and his allieschose Tournai just to the north to deflectthis French advance, and as a pro-Flemishgesture, since this town had once been inFlemish hands. The plan was for a three-pronged attack by the Flemish militias, theCount of Hainault and other allies, and the

Edward III announced his assumption of the title king ofFrance at Ghent in January 1340. Here he is shownaccepting the quartered arms of France and England,although the costume indicates that this is a late fourteenth-century portrayal of the scene. (Bibliothéque nationale)


English (although Edward himself hadreturned to England in March). But theFrench advance was not prevented, andthere was further devastation caused by theFrench towards Cambrai.

The situation again looked unpromisingfor the English, but there were two areas ofsuccess. In Gascony, the sire d'Albret decidedto throw his lot in with the English, whichplaced the French in the Agenais on thedefensive. But more significant was successat sea. Philip raised a fleet of over 200 vesselsaimed at intercepting Edward when hereturned with 2,000 men in June 1340. But itwas instead the English fleet that caught theFrench in the estuary of the Zwin at Sluys on24 June 1340. This was a complete disasterfor the French, with 90 per cent of theirships being captured, and high losses ofmen, perhaps as high as 18,000.

This enabled Edward to resume the planto besiege Tournai, with another army beingsent into Artois under Robert of Artois. Butthe expedition met with disaster at St-Omer,thus weakening Edward's chances at Tournai,which he had invested on 1 August, byexposing him to the French army. TheFrench drew up at Bouvines, site of theirvictory against King John in 1214. But againPhilip seems to have been reluctant toengage. Through the mediation of Jeanne,the dowager Countess of Hainault, sister ofPhilip VI and mother-in-law of Edward, atruce was agreed on 24 September for ninemonths.

The opening of the theatrein BrittanyAfter the expiry of the truce, the balance ofcontrol in Aquitaine fell to the French, whoplaced 12,500 men in garrisons, but in theautumn of 1342 Ingham launched aninvasion of Saintonge. It was proving difficultfor either side to hold conquests for long. Thisunstable situation, with almost continuousmilitary action, also encouraged the growth ofinformal war. Already mutters were as active inFrench- as in English-held lands.

In the meantime, Edward planned aninvasion for 1341 with 13,500 troops, of which

two-thirds would be archers, the first sign thathe felt that he needed to boost his infantry. Heintended another northern campaign but hisallies were lukewarm and preferred to extendthe truce to June 1342. Thus over the winter of1341-42 Edward turned his attention toScotland, not least because David II hadreturned with French assistance in June 1341.

Into this scenario a new element emerged,the disputed succession of Brittany. DukeJohn III, who had served in Philip's army atTournai, died on 30 April 1341. The deadduke's half brother, John de Montfort, acteddecisively in seizing the main towns. Philipwas reluctant to allow him the duchy, beingmoved by his preference for the rivalclaimant, the late duke's nephew-in-law,Charles of Blois, and by suspicions, whichwere well founded, that Montfort hadalready been in secret discussions withEdward. Philip acted swiftly to recoverNantes and most of eastern Brittany, andimprisoned de Montfort in Paris beforeEdward decided in mid-February 1342 in

The fighting 37

favour of a campaign. Brittany then becamethe main focus of English military efforts,with Scotland being largely abandoned.

An advance force of 234 men wasdespatched under de Mauny in May, and aforce of 1,350 under the Earl of Northamptonin August. The latter, dug in around Morlaix,defeated an attack by Charles of Blois on 30September 1342, which perhaps should havethe credit of being the first real battle of theHundred Years' War, although fought on a smallscale and with no specific gain for the English.

Edward III himself landed in Brittany on26 October with 5,000 men. That the kinghad chosen to campaign here in person issignificant. The most important theatre wasbound to be where the king himself was. Themain focus was a siege laid to Vannes, butraiding parties were also sent out. There waschance of a battle when Philip's son John,Duke of Normandy, advanced towards Vannesin January 1343, but the French drew off.

Edward's campaign proved inconclusivebecause reinforcements from England were

not forthcoming. So a further truce wasagreed from 19 January 1343 to 29September 1346 to facilitate negotiationsunder papal authority at Avignon. Brittanyremained divided, encouraging a war ofattrition for many years: the north and eastlay under de Blois and the French, and thesouth and west under the Montfortians andthe English.

The campaigns of 1345-17Edward repudiated the truce in the summerof 1345, buoyed up by the homage not onlyof John de Montfort, who had escaped fromFrance, but also of a renegade Normannoble, Godfrey de Harcourt. Plans were madefor armies to advance to Brittany, to Gasconyunder Henry of Grosmont (later Duke ofLancaster), and to northern France under theking. The latter did not proceed because of

Saint-Vaast-La-Hougue, where Edward III landed his armyin 1346. and where Thomas. Duke of Clarence, alsolanded in 1412. (Anne Curry)

The fighting 39

uncertainty of the Flemish alliance. InBrittany there was less success as sieges ofQuimper (where John de Montfort died on26 September) and Guingcamp failed, butin the following June, Charles of Blois wasdefeated by Sir Thomas Dagworth atSaint-Pol de Leon.

The Gascon campaign, with 2,000 menfrom England and several thousand locallyraised men, was the first major Englishmilitary effort in the duchy and led to therecapture of the important town of Bergerac.The French in their turn besieged Auberoche,but were attacked by Derby and defeated(21 October 1345). This severelyundermined their attack and led to theEnglish re-occupation of La Réole as well aspenetration into the Agenais by the capture ofAiguillon and elsewhere in the early monthsof 1346. This was serious enough to merit thelaying of siege to Aiguillon in April 1346 bythe Duke of Normandy (later John II).

The position of the English was nowmuch stronger than at any previous point inthe war. The year 1346 was an importantturning point not only in Edward's level ofsuccess on all fronts, but also in the kind ofpreparations he made for his own campaign.Gone was the reliance on allies. Now thefocus was on independent action against theFrench, facilitated by the recruitment of anEnglish army that was more securely funded.

A military assessment had been carriedout of landowners based on their income. A100-shilling landowner was to provide anarcher, a £10 landowner a hobelar (lightlyarmed mounted soldier), whilst those worth£25 were to provide a man-at-arms. Many ofthose assessed are known to have served onthe campaign of 1346 or at the siege ofCalais. Others sent men in their stead, notleast the older men who sent their sons. Thearmy was boosted by those serving in returnfor pardons. Ayton suggests that the footsoldiers were notably undisciplined,especially at the sacking of Caen, despiteEdward's order to the contrary.

It is likely that many Englishmen saw theirfirst service in France in 1346. But how manywere there? Despite a wide range of source

materials, the exact number with whichEdward landed at Saint-Vaast-La-Hougue on12 July 1346 remains uncertain. Sumptionargued for 7,000-10,000, but Rogers hasput the figure at 15,250, comprising2,700 men-at-arms, 2,300 Welsh spearmen,7,000 foot English and Welsh archers, and3,250 mounted archers, hobelars and others.

This was a considerable military effortaimed at a frontal attack on Philip. It wasEdward's first long and swift march of thewar, setting an example that formed thebasis of English strategy for the rest of thecentury. Caen fell to him on 26 July, but hisintention was to make a show rather than aconquest: one isolated base in enemyterritory would not be practicable. He choserather to move ever closer to Paris itself, thefirst time the French crown had been putunder real pressure.

Edward certainly intended battle. So too didPhilip, but the latter hesitated when it might

Ponthieu and the campaignof 1346


have fallen more to his advantage - whilst theEnglish were at Poissy close to the capital. Thusthe encounter was on 26 August at Crécywithin Edward's hereditary land of Ponthieu,and, interestingly, a place that he had visited inthe pre-war period. Although the English wereoutnumbered (the French army numberedaround 20,000-25,000), Edward's position waswell chosen for both attack and defence, withhis archers on the wings, and protection to therear and sides. The French were thus forced tobecome over-concentrated in their attack, andto attack uphill.

Philip was impetuous in allowing hisGenoese crossbowmen to engage before therest of his army was arrayed. In fact, therewas no need to attack that day, as it wasalready 5.00 pm when the French arrived. Hisfolly led to over 1,500 leading French knightsand nobles meeting their death, along withinnumerable others of lower rank. This was amajor blow not only to French pride but alsoto their command structures.

French realisation of the level of Edward'sthreat is witnessed by Philip's order of20 August for John to abandon the siege of

Aiguillon. This opened the gates to furtherEnglish success in the region, facilitatingLancaster's advance into Saintonge inmid-September, which culminated in thesack of Poitiers (4 October) where over600 civilians died. Although the Duke didnot occupy the area, his action created muchinsecurity and further encouraged local feudsand guerrilla warfare.

The French defeat prompted a Scottishinvasion, which was overcome at Neville'sCross near Durham on 14 October. David IIhad taken up a position on high groundmuch as Edward had done at Crécy, but therewere in contrast too many hedges and treesto allow him full frontal freedom. David wascaptured, and not released until 1357.

Edward began to lay siege to Calais from3 September 1346. Rogers argues that this hadbeen his objective for some time. Calais,unlike Caen, only needed defence on the land

The castle of Caen, which fell to Edward III in 1346 but wassoon recovered by the French after Edward moved ontowards Pans. Henry V's conquest of 1417 was longer lasting:Caen did not fall to Charles VII until 1450. (Anne Curry)

The fighting 41

The battlefield of Crécy. The photograph is taken fromthe viewing platform that stands on the site of thewindmill from which Edward III may have reviewed thescene. The French attacked uphill. The Black Prince'sdivision was probably positioned below the trees on theright. (Anne Curry)

side, as it could be protected by sea fromEngland. No longer was Edward willing to relyon his Low Country allies for a regular entrypoint into France. The siege was a major effortfor both sides. Indeed, Rogers suggests that itwas the largest single military operationundertaken by the English until the modernperiod. For Edward, 32,000 man-units wereemployed until the surrender on 4 August1347, although the exact numbers there atany one time are not clear. Again these wereEnglish troops, around half of them archers,assisted by English ships in blockade. Philiptook the Oriflamme on 18 March 1347, andcontemplated engaging the besieging army,but he hesitated too long. By July, the Englishwere exceptionally strong, and Philip departedwithout giving battle. Edward was free todevelop Calais as a naval and military base,repopulating it with Englishmen.

A further success arose in Brittany. ThereCharles of Blois trying, like David II, to createa diversionary tactic, laid siege to La RocheDerrien in late May 1347, keen to drawThomas Dagworth to battle. But the planmisfired, and in a hard, hand-to-hand fight,Blois was captured.

Further military action was threatened butboth Edward and Philip were suffering fromwar exhaustion. Thus a papally mediatedtruce intervened, and the Black Deathprevented further action for a while, althoughthe informal actions in the south-west neverabated. In August 1349 the French broke thetruce with an invasion of Saintonge andPoitou against English-held fortresses. InDecember, Lancaster responded by acounter-move down the Garonne into theAgenais and Languedoc towards Toulouse,during which many villages were burned. Thismay have served as an inspiration for theBlack Prince's chevauchée of 1355.

The campaigns of the 1350sPhilip VI died on 2 August 1350. The newking, John II, carried out military reforms in1351, ensuring that all men were withincompanies of between 25 and 80. Previously,discipline and command had beenundermined by the tendency of men tomove between retinues as it suited them.Fortnightly musters were also introduced.But a cloud was on the horizon with threatsthat Charles of Navarre, grandson of Louis X,and a large landholder in Normandy, mightally with the English.

The war dragged on rather inconclusively.On 29 August 1350, Edward defeated aCastilian fleet off Winchelsea, although hisramming tactics almost brought disaster.


There were many small-scale actions, such assorties from Calais, and actions in Brittany.The south-west remained on a war footing,with both sides deploying companies ahundred or so strong to effect recovery ofplaces. Such actions even occurred duringpeace negotiations directed by the cardinals.The proposed settlement, that Edwardshould have full sovereignty in Aquitaine,

Poitou and the Limousin, reveals theperceived level of his military success to daterather than acceptance of the seriousness ofhis claim to the throne.

The French reneged on these negotiations.In response Edward planned another majorassault. Lancaster was to lead a force toNormandy in July 1355 to ally with Charles ofNavarre. But Navarre changed his mind, and

The campaigns of Edward the Black Prince 1355-56

The fighting 43

This portrayal of John II, the first known portrait of aFrench king, has been dated to 1360, the year of hisrelease from imprisonment in England. (Louvre)

the expedition was cancelled. Edward's owncampaign to Picardy did proceed, bringing inthrough Calais 5,000 men to join 1,000 allies.But John II's scorched-earth policy forced anearly withdrawal, and the Scottish capture ofBerwick needed Edward's attention.

An army of 2,200 was despatched underthe Black Prince to Bordeaux in September.The intention was to launch, with Gasconaid, a swift raid into Languedoc aimedlargely at the lands of the Count ofArmagnac. What made this chevauchée,which reached almost as far as theMediterranean, such a success was the levelof booty taken and the almost complete lackof risk. There was no French counter-attack,and the Prince wisely avoided large fortifiedcentres. The raid did much damage to thelocal economy, for nothing on this scale hadbeen seen before: Languedoc was an areapreviously outside the actions of the war.

More importantly, the raid of 1355emboldened the Prince. Over the winter theEnglish took key places as well as booty inraids up the Dordogne. By the summer of1356 another two-pronged attack hadbeen planned, with Lancaster landing atSaint-Vaast-La-Hougue on 18 June, to joinwith Charles of Navarre's brother, Philip,and troops from Brittany. An encirclingchevauchée was conducted through LowerNormandy, with much pillaging. In themeantime, the Prince moved off fromBordeaux on 6 July with around 7,000 men,some two-thirds of whom were Gascons. Hismove towards the Loire was as audacious asthat of 1355, but it did not prove possible tomake the intended reconnoitre withLancaster or to cross the Loire.

Thus the Prince began his return march,but found the French blocking his route atPoitiers. If he did not engage, there would bethe danger of an attack on his rear as hemoved towards Bordeaux. At first he

The surrender and capture of King John II at the battle ofPoitiers was a great blow to the French. Here we see afifteenth-century representation of his courteousreception by the Black Prince. (Bibliothéque Nationale)


The church of Saint Rémi at Reims, which housed the holy oil that was used in theanointing of French kings, oil that was believed to have been brought by the holy spirit forthe baptism of the first Christian king. Clovis, in the late sixth century. (Anne Curry)

The fighting 45

negotiated for a withdrawal, which theFrench refused. Then mindful of hisexperience at Crécy, on 19 September hetook up a defensive position on a hill,protected in the rear by woodland and byvarious hazards, including a hedge andmarsh in front. Although the English archersagain slowed down the French advance, andmowed down the first French battle, equallysignificant was the feigned retreat of the Earlof Warwick, which drew French troops intothe marsh, and the mounted manoeuvre ofthe Gascon captain, the Captal de Buch,around the rear of the French army. As atAgincourt, it seems that the retreating firstbattle of the French collided with the secondas it advanced. Thus although the Frenchhad the numerical superiority with at least10,000 men, their weight of numbers in aconfined space contributed to their undoing.

But the true importance of the battle lay-in the capture of John II. This foreclosedformal military activity but stimulatedinformal action by demobilised soldiers asFrance coped with crisis and civil warbetween the Dauphin and Charles ofNavarre. Even the English may have kept upthe pressure through unofficial activity:witness, for instance, the raids of RobertKnolles in the Auvergne. When negotiationsdragged in the summer of 1359, Edwarddecided on a massive military action aimedat taking Reims, the royal crowning place.

Perhaps this was the only time in the warthat Edward seriously considered taking theFrench throne, assisted by the captivity ofJohn. This would certainly explain the armyof 10,000, the largest since 1347 and possiblyeven the largest of the reign, with which helanded at Calais on 28 October 1359. Itscomposition was also interesting, in that itwas almost wholly mounted, containing4,000 men-at-arms and 5,000 archers, alongwith 700 foreign troops. Its ratio of men-at-arms to archers was almost 1:1, a departurefrom his campaigns of the 1340s but similarto those of the opening of the war. Almostthe whole army was recruited by indentureswith captains who brought along equalnumbers of men-at-arms and archers. There

was a great variation in the size ofcompanies, from the 1,500 under the BlackPrince to a company of nine under SirRichard Pembridge.

This was the triumph of the professional'mixed retinue', at the expense of infantryraised through the shire levies, who wereneeded at home in the face of diversionaryraids commissioned by the Dauphin. Englisharmies for the rest of the century followedthis model.

Siege was laid to Reims on 4 December,and an assault attempted. But maintaining along siege was well nigh impossible over thewinter months. Such a large army neededtoo much food and was best kept on themove. But to where? Edward was unsure.There were several abortive moves towardsParis even as late as early April: this was bynow an exceptionally long time to have keptan army in the field. Edward decided to callit a day, being exceptionally short of victuals.

At Brétigny near Chartres on 8 May 1360,a treaty was struck giving Edward fullsovereignty in Calais, Ponthieu, Poitou andan enlarged Aquitaine. In return he wouldrefrain from calling himself king of France.Indeed, the ransom of 3 million ecus that hehad accepted for John confirmed the latter'sright to rule. The kings met at Calais on24 October to confirm the treaty. The warwas at an end. Edward had surely won thiswar, for he had gained what his predecessorscould only have dreamed of - sovereign ruleof half of France.

The second phase: 369-99

Although England and France weretechnically at peace during the 1360s,soldiers from both countries were involvedin various formal as well as routier activities.Civil war continued in Brittany until a forceof English and Bretons under Sir JohnChandos defeated and killed Charles of Bloisat Auray on 29 September 1364. The Frenchcivil war with Charles of Navarre alsodragged on until du Guesclin's victory atCocherel on 16 May 1364.


But by far the most important theatre wasCastile, where English and French intervenedon behalf, respectively, of Pedro II and hishalf-brother, Henry of Trastamara. The mostcelebrated engagement was the Black Prince'svictory at Najera on 3 April 1367, not leastbecause of the immense logisticalachievement of taking an army through thePyrenees. The Prince's army consisted ofthree groups - 3,000 under Sir John Chandosand the Prince's brother, John of Gaunt,Duke of Lancaster, deployed as the vanguard,the Prince with his retinue, members of theGreat Company and of Pedro's troops in themain battle, numbering another 4,000 men.The Lords of Armagnac and Albret held theright wing with 2,000 men and the Captal deBuch the left, with another 2,000.Trastamara's force was about 5,500, but waschaotically organised.

The Prince took the Castilians by surpriseby using a hill to mask his advance. He wasable to prevent co-ordinated action betweendu Guesclin and Trastamara, and to impedethe latter's advance by arrow fire. But thefierceness of the hand-to-hand fighting isrevealed by the wound through Chandos'svisor, which destroyed the sight in one eye.

The victory enhanced the Prince'sreputation but led to severe financial problemsfor him. The high tax that he subsequentlyplaced on his principality of Aquitaine led toappeals to Charles V by Albret and Armagnac.This, as well as loopholes in the treaty of 1360,enabled Charles to claim the right to hearappeals as overlord and to the confiscation ofEnglish lands in November. Edward III initiallytried to negotiate to avoid war, but on 3 June1369 made war inevitable by resuming thetitle king of France.

It was announced that Charles, son of John,the former King of France, had usurped thesovereignty of the King of England ... and hadexpelled him by his armies (his banners havingbeen unfurled) from his lands in Ponthieu andelsewhere ... and was still holding the same inhostile fashion, and had assembled armed shipsand galleys in order to invade the kingdom ofEngland and to overthrow the king, thus making

open war in a malicious way against his oathand against the form of peace made with theKing of England. (Roll of Parliament)

In fact, hostilities had already broken outsix months earlier. The French took theEnglish undefended and by surprise, leadingto early losses that made Edward's resumedroyal title an empty gesture. The King'sbrother, Louis, Duke of Anjou, tookRouergue and Quercy in early January 1369.Relations between the Black Prince and hissubjects had deteriorated so far that Gasconassistance could no longer be relied upon.Thus in January 1369 the English raised asmall expeditionary force under Edward'sfourth son, the Earl of Cambridge, and theEarl of Pembroke, which came to the rescueof English possessions in Périgord.

In April, the French entered Abbeville,capital of Ponthieu. The English haddispatched 250 troops there in February, butthey were too few to hold the area. The fallof Ponthieu raised concerns over Calais, sothat other troops intended for Gascony werediverted to Calais in May, and a new captain,Gaunt's son, the Earl of Hereford, appointedwith 900 men.

Edward III realised that a majordemonstration of military might was needed.He thus planned to campaign himself innorthern France, and began to negotiate withallies for troops. About 1,000 men fromBrabant and Juliers joined with Gaunt, whowas sent ahead of his father to Calais in lateJuly 1369 with 2,000 to counter French attackson England. The English, not threatened formany decades, had let their home defencesslip. Thus from mid-June there was a flurry oforders to fortify Thanet, Portsmouth (whichwas attacked in September), Southampton andPortchester, with the shire levies also beingcalled out in July. The English launched a shortraid on Sainte-Addresse, the ports of UpperNormandy being the likely place from whichany attack on England would be made. Therewere even fears that the French might enterthrough Wales with the aid of the inhabitants:on 24 December, Edward instructed lords withlands there to see to their safekeeping.

The fighting 47

The Black Prince, here portrayed on his fine tomb in Canterbury Cathedral, wasundoubtedly one of the most renowned war leaders of his age, although his ruleof the principality of Aquitaine in the 1360s was less impressive, leading as it didto heavy taxation and appeals to the French king. (Canterbury Cathedral)


One of the problems facing the English at the outset of thesecond phase of the war was the increasing age of EdwardIII (b. 1312). He was unable to participate in the campaignsafter 1369 and by the time of his death in 1377 wasshowing signs of senility. (Roger-Viollet)

The intention was that Gaunt shouldharry Picardy and Thérouanne in standardchevauclée style. He came close to battle withCharles's brother, Philip, Duke of Burgundy,

at Tournehem on 23 August, but only askirmish occurred. Gaunt then fell back toCalais in September. By the middle of themonth another 2,000-strong army under theEarls of Warwick, March, Salisbury andOxford landed at Calais. Edward was notwith them, probably because of the death ofhis wife on 15 August, although he may-have decided to stay in England in case theFrench did invade.

The fighting 49

The actions of this composite army underGaunt's overall command show that theEnglish aimed to attack the areas from whichinvasion might come. It carried out acampaign of devastation in UpperNormandy, being assisted by the Englishfleet, which harried the coast. In October thearmy returned to Calais before the end of itscontract. Gaunt had been cautious andlimited in his actions, but the threat ofinvasion had indeed been averted.

In the following year, a more audaciousmove was planned. Four thousand men werecontracted under Sir Robert Knolles for twoyears' service. The plan was to allow Knollesto emulate the activities of the routiers,taking pay only for the first three monthsand then letting his force live off the land,conducting raids when and wherevernecessary. Knolles' first action was a fast anddamaging chevauchée from Calais around theeast of Paris and thence to Poitou andBrittany. But his rearguard was ambushed bydu Guesclin near Le Mans, and the armydisbanded only six months into its contract.Du Guesclin had already demonstrated hisskill in weakening the effectiveness of thechevauchée by deploying his troops inflanking actions to delimit the path of theEnglish, and to prevent any conquests.

The French under Anjou continued theiradvances in the south-west in 1370, takingthe Agenais, Limousin and Buzac. Furiousthat the bishop of Limoges had entered intonegotiations with the French, the BlackPrince rushed to sack the city, an act mostcertainly against the conventions of war andchivalry. By now he was seriously ill, andreturned to England in 1371, dying in 1376.The defence of English Aquitaine, or whatwas left of it, was entrusted to Gaunt, butonly small forces of 500 and 800 men weresent for his support.

French penetration of Saintonge andPoitou prompted the dispatch of the Earl ofPembroke in April 1372 with 1,500 men andenough money to raise an army of 3,000 inGascony. But his transport fleet had onlythree armed escorts to guard it, and wasintercepted by Castilian galleys off

La Rochelle. On 23 June, the Castilians sentflaming arrows into English ships caught inthe shallows of the harbour. Virtually thewhole fleet was lost. La Rochelle fell on8 September. Equally galling was the factthat the money for the Gascon troops was atthe bottom of the sea. The defeat alsothwarted plans for Edward III to cross fromSouthampton with a force of 4,000 (theintended location of this campaign is notclear). Instead, the troops were sent to seaagainst the threat of further French navalaction, although none materialised.

Thus in 1372 the English position alreadylooked very bleak. There was only oneglimmer of hope - a renewed alliance withthe Duke of Brittany in June 1372, althoughthis led to the confiscation of his duchy andits occupation by French troops. An advancearmy of 600 men under John, Lord Neville,landed there in October. It was in thefollowing year that the English raised theirlargest army of this second phase,6,000 strong, and containing the Dukes ofLancaster and Brittany as well as three earls,12 foreign captains and nearly 250 knights.The intention was to effect a great chevauchéefrom Calais to Artois and Champagne. Notsurprisingly, this caused consternation to theFrench, but Gaunt then decided to turnsouth to reinforce the position in Gasconyrather than moving on Paris.

Why was no move made by either sidetowards a battle? Throughout this phase ofthe war, Charles V was not prepared to runthe risk, even if this meant that Englisharmies could raid without much constraint.There is little indication that the Englishwere keen on engagement. Theexpeditionary forces they dispatchedbetween 1369 and 1380 were all of mountedmen alone, and with men-at-arms andarchers in the ratio of 1:1. Thus they weremore suited to raiding than to battleformation, where the lack of archers wouldhave made them vulnerable. Thiscontributed to the stalemate of the phase.

Stalemate also arose in the territorialposition once La Réole surrendered to theFrench in 1374, reducing the English to the


The treaty of Brétigny/Calais (1360) and the campaigns of thesecond phase of the war

Gascony of 1337. The sending of regularsmall companies from England during thelater 1370s to hold the garrisons and launchoccasional sorties on the frontier made itdifficult for the French to penetrate further.In 1375, the English decided to concentratetheir efforts on Brittany, raising an army of4,000 under the Earl of Cambridge and theDuke. Its actions were cut short by a papallyinitiated truce, but when war reopened in1377, du Guesclin and Anjou began topenetrate Gascony, besieging Bergerac. Thetown fell on 2 September, and other towns

along the Dordogne soon followed. SeveralGascon lords defected, but Bordeaux wassaved by counter-actions under JohnNeville.

Even so, the English position in 1377 wasperhaps weaker than ever. The Frenchlaunched serious raids on the south coast,facilitated by the recent establishment of aroyal shipbuilding yard at Rouen. TheEnglish position was not assisted by thedeath of Edward III on 21 June 1377, and theaccession of his 10-year-old grandson,Richard II.

The fighting 5I

Further disasters followed. A 4,000-strongforce for Brittany in 1379 was reduced to1,300 and then destroyed by sea storms offCornwall and Ireland. In 1380, Edward Ill'syoungest son, Thomas of Woodstock, Earl ofBuckingham, led 4,000 along the, by now,customary chevauchée route from Calaisthrough Champagne, Beauce and Anjou toBrittany, before laying siege to Nantes for

two months without success. The Duke ofBrittany came to an agreement with the

Already in a strong position against the English, thediplomatic position of Charles V was further boosted bythe visit to Paris of the Emperor Charles IV in 1374.Here the two rulers are portrayed at a banquet. Thescene on the right may be a reminder of hopes of a jointcrusade against the Saracens. (Bibliothéque Nationale,Grandes Chroniques de France).


French on 15 January 1381, and remainedlargely neutral in the war thenceforward.

After 1380, the English sent no more largeexpeditionary forces to France: the expensethat they generated had not been matchedby their achievements. But a presence wasmaintained in Brittany, for Brest had beenleased from the Duke of Brittany 'for theduration of the war with France', andCherbourg from the King of Navarre. Theseusually housed 100 men, along with a goodquantity of ordnance.

It was during this second phase of thewar that the value of gunpowder artillerywas first seen, at the French recovery ofSaint-Sauveur-le Vicomte in 1375. Bresthoused at least nine guns, with morebrought over from England when the Frenchlaid siege in 1386. Cherbourg had 10 guns,seven firing 24-in. (61cm) stones, and three15-in. (38cm) stones. But these were butpinpricks in what was otherwise anever-strengthening French position, andthe English failed in their attempts to take

The fighting S3

other bridgeheads in France such asSaint-Malo, Harfleur and La Rochelle. Thiswas partly because the French had donemuch from the 1360s onwards to ensure themaintenance of fortifications.

After 1380, the English concentrated theirmilitary endeavours outside France. The hopeof exploiting the Flemish alliance was dealt ablow by the French defeat of the townsmen atRoosebeke on 27 November 1382. The Englishwere only able to finance an army in thefollowing year by launching it as a crusade

against those who supported a schismaticpope. This way taxation could be levied fromthe church to pay for it. Bishop Despencer ofNorwich's force managed to take the coastbetween Gravelines and Blankenberghe andto lay siege to Ypres, but the advance of theDuke of Burgundy prompted his withdrawal.

There was failure for Gaunt in Castile in1386, and the expedition that Richard II hadled to Scotland in 1385, made financiallyviable only by resurrecting the royal right tofree service in the feudal levy, was not enoughto keep the Scots at bay. In 1388, they invadedagain, winning a victory in battle at Otterburnon 5 August. In 1386-87, the French laid siegeto Brest. This prompted what was in effect anaval chevauchée under Arundel in 1387, witha further sea-borne campaign in 1388.

These were the last campaigns of thisphase of the war. A short truce agreed on18 June 1389 led in time to a 28-year trucein March 1396, cemented by the marriage ofRichard II to Charles VI's daughter on4 November. Cherbourg was handed back in1393, and Brest in 1397. The English nowheld only the Gascony of 1337 and Calais.

The English military effort required in thisphase was exceptionally intensive andexpensive, with over 30,000 troops raised forexpeditionary armies between 1369 and1380. Evidence suggests that the armies werewell organised and disciplined, yet theyachieved little because of the nature of thecampaigns and the numbers of theatres inwhich the English had to engage. The Frenchwere better prepared for attack, and had wonmuch advantage by their swift actions in1369. In addition to reforming companysizes and discipline, Charles V had initiated asystem of provision of troops by parishes inthe early 1360s against the routiers. This gavethe French 3,000 troops on standby.

Why, then, were the French not able toeffect a total victory? The answer lies in thestrains that they also began to feel around

The castle of Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte, in the Cotentin,which was held by Sir John Chandos in the mid-14thcentury and which fell again into English hands during the15th-century occupation. (Anne Curry)


1380, with tax rebellions and increasingpolitical divisions during the minority ofCharles VI. A stalemate thus arose, in which along truce was acceptable to both sides. Thismight have signalled the end of the war had itnot been for the outbreak of civil war betweenthe Burgundians and Orléanists (or Armagnacs)in the wake of Charles's growing insanity, andthe change of circumstances in Englandfollowing the deposition of Richard II in 1399.

The third phase: 1399-1429

Although technically the truce wasmaintained until Henry V invaded in August1415, the circumstances of the first 15 yearsof the 15th century are best portrayed ascold war. There was disquiet amongst some

This gilded parade helmet of Charles VI, dating fromaround 1410, belies the fact that the king, increasinglyinsane from 1392 onwards, was unable to play an activepart in defending his kingdom or in controlling theArmagnac and Burgundian factions. (Louvre)

Gascons at the usurpation of Henry IV, butthis was subdued by a small, but promptmilitary showing by the English. From 1403the French launched several incursionsunder Louis, Duke of Orleans. Losses wereincurred in the Agenais, towards Saintongeand on the frontier with Périgord. Bordeauxitself was threatened when sieges were laid toBourg and Blaye, but these proved abortivein the early months of 1407. In November ofthat same year the danger receded when theDuke of Orleans was assassinated at the orderof John, Duke of Burgundy.

The fighting 55

This famous portrayal of Henry V was painted after his death. The King was agedaround 28 at the time of Agincourt, but had already had several years of militaryexperience in Wales. (Anne Ronan Picture Library)


The ensuing escalation of the French civilwar made Henry IV aware that Frenchweakness could work to his benefit.Negotiations recommenced, but, moreimportantly, both the Burgundians and theArmagnacs sought English aid in their ownstruggle. In October 1411, a force of 800men-at-arms and 2,000 archers under theEarl of Arundel was sent to assist Burgundyat the behest of Henry, Prince of Wales.

In the following year, a full-scale army of1,000 men-at-arms and 3,000 archers wasdispatched at the King's order to aid theArmagnacs, who had promised in return tohonour the terms of Brétigny. This army wascommanded by the King's second son,Thomas, Duke of Clarence, accompanied byEdward, Duke of York, and Thomas, Earl ofDorset (later Duke of Exeter). All three laterserved in the Agincourt campaign. The armylanded at Saint-Vaast-la Hougue, asEdward III had done in 1346, and carried outsome raids into Normandy. It then movedtowards Blois where it was to join with theArmagnacs, but was bought off when thetwo sides in the civil war came to anagreement. Clarence then led his men toBordeaux before returning to England.

There can be little doubt that Henry Vwas encouraged in his own aggressive stancetowards France by these precedents and bythe opportunities offered by French internaldivisions. His hard line in diplomacy wasmatched by his major military effort tolaunch an expedition in 1415. The armyraised numbered over 12,000, and wasnotable for the extremely large number ofmen who indented to bring troops. This wastruly the nation at war. Most of the activepeerage served. The King's two brothers, theDukes of Clarence and Gloucester, each ledcompanies of around 1,000 men, with theroyal household forming an even largerdivision: even men such as the surveyor ofthe works at the royal palaces, or the porter

A later 15th-century image of the battle of AgincourtThe artist's view of the landscape is particularlymisleading as the battle was fought on flat ground thatfell away only slightly on each side. (Lambeth Palace)

The fighting 57


The Agincourt campaign 1415

of the hall, brought along small retinues.Even more notable were the many esquiresand yeomen who indented in person with ahandful of archers.

The ratio of all the retinues was alsodistinctive, at one man-at-arms to threearchers, a notable increase in the proportion ofarchers compared with the campaigns of thetwo 14th-century phases of the war. Inaddition, there were companies of over 500archers from Lancashire, Wales and Cheshire,all with close links to the crown. This ratio isfirst seen in the campaigns in Wales. It wouldbe tempting to say that it was testimony to the

realisation of the firepower of archers, but itwas more likely moved by the fact that archerscost half the daily wage of a man-at-arms - asignificant factor when Henry had cash to payfor only the first three of 12 months' intendedservice, and had to provide jewels as securityfor the following three months.

Whereas Henry IV had concentrated hisefforts on Gascony, his son launched a newenterprise aimed at Normandy. It is highlylikely that the first expedition of 1415 wasaimed at conquest. But the siege of Harfleurtook longer than anticipated and Henry lostat least a third of his army to disease and to

The fighting 59

the need to garrison his conquest. Thus aform of chevauchée ensued, although oneaimed at showing a presence rather thantaking booty, for Henry was careful to restrainhis troops, perhaps because he realised thevulnerability of his diminished and wearyarmy, not least as he was forced to march sofar inland to find a crossing of the Somme.

Henry's order that the archers shouldprepare stakes was made in anticipation notof battle but of ambush by the French, whowere stalking him all the way as well aspreparing a major army at Rouen in the hopeof revenging themselves for Poitiers: theirarmy was equally lustrous in terms of theparticipation of the peerage, and numberedat least 20,000. But this was not to be.Although they chose to bring Henry to battleat Agincourt on 25 October, he was able toexploit the natural features of the site tofunnel and limit their attack.

The French battle plan, which stillsurvives, included an intended cavalry chargeagainst the archers, which might indeed havetaken them out. But the charge was limited,and the archers were thus able to harry themain French foot advance. Accounts of thebattle suggest that the French lost theirmomentum, were too closely packed to usetheir weapons, and piled on top of eachother, where they were easy pickings for men-at-arms and archers alike. The carnage on theFrench side was immense, with importantprisoners being captured, not least the King'snephew, Charles, Duke of Orleans. Yet wemust be mindful of the fact that Henry hadbeen uncertain enough of victory to order thekilling of prisoners when he feared a renewedFrench attack.

In the opinion of the French, it was whatinjured them the most which assured theEnglish of victory, especially the continuous hailof arrow shot which rained down on our men.As the English archers were lightly armed andtheir ranks not too crowded, they had freedomof movement and could deal mortal blows withease. Many of them had adopted a weaponuntil then unknown - great lead-covered malletsfrom which one blow to the head could kill a

man or knock him senseless to the ground.(Chronicle of the Religieux of Saint-Denis)

Less remembered but equally significant forHenry's plans was the naval victory of hisbrother, the Duke of Bedford, over the Frenchand their Genoese allies in the mouth of theSeine on 15 August 1416. This battle was hardfought, lasting around seven hours with highlosses on both sides. But for the English itsecured the safety of Harfleur, and facilitatedHenry's second campaign by weakeningFrench maritime defences. On 1 August 1417he landed again in Normandy, at the mouthof the Touques. This time his intendedsystematic conquest met with completesuccess. Caen withstood siege for two weeks.Henry then moved south to take Alencon andother places on the frontier with Maine.

Once Falaise fell in February 1418, after asiege of over two months, Lower Normandywas divided into two by the English conquest,and Henry could divide his forces forcampaigns to the west and east. The Cotentinfell swiftly save for Cherbourg, which held outfor five months until September 1418. Thearea towards the Seine fell by mid-summer,and Henry began his siege of Rouen in lateJuly. Rouen held out for six months, but onceit was in English hands, the remainder ofUpper Normandy fell with little resistance. Bythe summer of 1419 virtually the whole of theduchy was in Henry's hands, with Englishgarrisons distributed in key points.

Henry had been assisted by an army in1417 of at least 10,000, with reinforcementscrossing in subsequent years. With suchnumbers, and with experienced commandersof high status, he had been able to employ amulti-pronged approach, thereby speedingup the conquest. His use of artillery is alsonotable, as defences were inadequate to resistbombardment. Henry consciously distributedlands to his soldiers, demanding in returnboth defensive and offensive militaryobligations, thus giving many a vestedinterest in maintaining and extending theconquest. This was a new and imaginativeploy, reinforced by his good treatment of theNormans.


A general view of the city of Rouen, which surrenderedto Henry V in January 1419, and which became thecentre of English rule in France after the loss of Paristo Charles VII in 1436. (Anne Curry)

There seems little doubt that Henry's waraim was to take and hold Normandy. Thatwas the focus of his negotiations with theFrench in 1419, but his ambitions wereboosted when the civil war took anotherturn for the worse. Duke John of Burgundyhad taken advantage of the English attackto take Paris in May 1418, and control ofthe mad king. Efforts to reconcile him withthe Armagnacs, now led by the DauphinCharles, came to nothing when he wasassassinated at Montereau on10 September 1419. This led directly to anAnglo-Burgundian alliance and to Henryincreasing his war aims to the crown itself.By the Treaty of Troyes of May 1420 hebecame heir and regent of Charles VI.

One of the clauses of the treatycommitted Henry to making war on theDauphin and the Armagnacs until all ofFrance accepted the treaty. This was a tallorder as Henry's last two years revealed.

Even close to Paris, there were places thatresisted: Henry spent most of his last yearsin France in sieges to the east of thecapital. The siege of Meaux, his lastengagement where he contracted dysentery,began in October 1421 and lasted untilMarch 1422. The move southwards by theDuke of Clarence had led to his death inbattle at Baugé on 22 March 1421, abattle that saw further important casualtiesand prisoners.

Henry's early demise in 1422 did notmake the matter any easier. Many placessupported the Dauphin. Mont-Saint-Michel,for instance, was never captured despiteseveral sieges by land and sea, and evenwithin Normandy and the Ile de France, theArmagnacs recovered places from time totime. The Dauphin was assisted by Scottishtroops, although two major blows wereserved to his cause by the defeats suffered atCravant (31 July 1423) and Verneuil (17August 1424). The latter opened the way foran offensive into Maine, which fell to theEnglish over 1425-28, and then to theLoire, culminating in the siege of Orleanslaid in October 1428.

The fighting 61

The cathedral of Troyes, where the treaty of 1420 was sealed. The marriage of Henry andCatherine, daughter of Charles VI, took place in the church of St John. (Anne Curry)

The fighting 63

Throughout the 1420s the English hadsent regular expeditionary forces to France,and had also been able to draw on valuablemilitary assistance from the Burgundians,who had themselves developed animpressive military and artillery presence.What is particularly notable about thisperiod of the war is the strong defensiveprovision in the form of garrisons placedthroughout Normandy and the other areasunder Anglo-Burgundian authority. Thesefollowed the precedents laid down byHenry V, and were well organised during theregency of John, Duke of Bedford, beingadministered through French systems andfinanced through local taxation.Considerable attention was paid to themaintenance of military discipline and togood relations with the civilian population.

The fourth phase: 1429-53

The victory at Verneuil had enabled theEnglish to scale down their garrisons as well

The fortified abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel, which was theonly part of Normandy that the English failed to conquerin the 15th-century phase of the war. (AKG Berlin)

as to extend their territory. But theiradvance came to an end when the French,inspired by Joan of Arc, raised the siege ofOrleans in May 1429. The English hadmaintained a strong siege with over4,000 men, but had been damaged by thedeath of their commander, the Earl ofSalisbury, from a gunshot early in thesiege, and by the withdrawal of Burgundiantroops in April.

The French, whose numbers are unclear,now carried all before them, defeating theEnglish in pitched battle at Patay on18 June 1429, where the English archerswere encircled by the French cavalry charge.Two leading English commanders, the Earl ofSuffolk and John, Lord Talbot, were captured.The French then conducted a veritableblitzkrieg, capturing many places en route toReims, where the Dauphin was crowned on17 July as Charles VII.


The Maid sends you news that within eightdays, she has chased the English out of every placethey held on the river Loire. Many of them are deador taken prisoner and they have been discomfortedin battle ... I pray and request that you be ready tocome to the anointing of your gracious kingCharles at Reims. (Letter of Joan of Arc to theinhabitants of Tournai, 25 June 1429)

Paris was itself under threat. It is fair tosay that the Anglo-Burgundians had felt sosecure in their conquests that they had madelittle defensive provision once they hadstarted the advance towards the Loire. Theevidence we have of English military activityin 1429-30 shows just how much energy andmoney had to be expended on the defence ofParis and the Norman frontiers. The garrisonestablishment was increased from less than2,000 men to 3,500, and extra companieswere installed in the vulnerable places on theeastern frontier.

The first known portrayal of Joan of Arc is found in themargin of the Register of the Paris parlement next to anentry that notes her success at Orleans. A later scribehas added a note of her capture at Compiégne on25 May 1430. (Archives Nationales, Paris)

Paris was saved, largely because Charleslost his nerve and the English poured in over7,000 troops from England during 1430-31.The English were thus able to prevent furtherlosses. Louviers was recovered after two longsieges, thus returning most of Normandy toEnglish hands. Joan was captured andremoved from the scene in May 1431 afterher trial at Rouen. The young king Henry VIwas then able to travel in some safety toParis for his coronation in December 1431.

But whilst the early 1430s saw someconsolidation, the strains of the years1429-31 continued to tell, not least in warfinances and in the need to maintaindefence. It soon became apparent that theEnglish could not hope to extend theirterritory. Even in Normandy, Frenchincursions began to increase. This mostcertainly heightened anti-English feeling inthe duchy and contributed to the revolt ofthe peasants of the pays de Caux in 1435 andthe French penetration of much of UpperNormandy, including the key ports ofDieppe and Harfleur. This forced the Englishon to the defensive once more, and restrictedtheir war aims to the recovery of the lostareas of the duchy. Shortly before the revolt,the Duke of Burgundy finally declared histrue colours and came to treat with CharlesVII at Arras. A week earlier, the Duke ofBedford had died at Rouen. 1435 was surelythe English annus horribilis, and 1436promised to be no better when Burgundylaid siege to Calais, and Paris fell to Charles.

Again it is perhaps surprising that theEnglish held on and that the war did not endat this point. That it did not is testimony tothe massive military effort that the English

The interior of the cathedral at Reims, the traditionalcrowning place of the kings of France. The fact thatCharles VII was crowned here in 1429 was a tremendousfillip to his war against the English. (Anne Curry)

The fighting 65


Garrison detachments serving in the field 1424

For sieges and field actions the English relied not only onexpeditionary armies from England but also ondetachments from the garrisons. The need to face aFranco-Scottish army at Verneuil on 17 August 1424 ledto a duchy-wide call out of troops, whereas for thesubsequent siege of Mont-Saint-Michel, only places in thenear vicinity were asked,

made in 1436, sending a total of around10,000 troops to the defence of Calais and toNormandy, where the garrison establishmentwas raised to its highest level of almost 6,000.The English were also helped by Burgundiandisinterest and by Charles's caution. Thisenabled them to recover much of what theyhad lost in Normandy. Harfleur, an importantsymbol of English conquest, was recovered inNovember 1440.

But a defensive position is never easy tomaintain. The French held on to Dieppe,placing a garrison of over 1,000 men there atthe time of the English siege of 1442. Theyalso held Evreux and Louviers from 1440,forcing a wedge into the English positionsouth of the Seine. Moreover, war damageand economic crisis in Normandy combinedto make the pays de Caux a depopulated and

unprofitable area. Taxation income fell,whilst defence costs increased. Largenumbers of troops from England continuedto be needed. Between 1440 and 1443, over13,000 were sent.

Gascony had been largely devoid of •conflict until the late 1430s as both Englishand French concentrated on the northernlands. The English government's interest inGascony was renewed in 1439 when therewas the possibility of a peace settlement.England now wished to ensure thatGascony's boundaries were as extensive aspossible. Thus an expeditionary force of over2,000 - the largest since 1412 - was sentunder the Earl of Huntingdon. Charles VIIresponded by fortifying the fortresses of theCount of Albret. Initially, Huntingdon'sadvance met with success, but he was recalledin 1440. In 1442, Charles launched aninvasion, taking Dax and St Sever.

The only major surviving feature of the castle at Rouenis the so-called Tour Jeanne d'Arc, although it is uncertainwhether Joan was housed here during her trial.(Anne Curry)

The fighting 67

Essential Histories - The Hundred Years' War

The English responded slowly. Interestsin Normandy and in Gascony began tocompete for resources. Initially, it was plannedthat John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset, shouldcross to Gascony with 800 men-at-arms and3,400 archers (the increased proportion ofarchers being clear indication of the financialdifficulties in which the English crown founditself), but his charge was subsequentlychanged to Normandy, and he crossed in 1443with 800 troops fewer than his indenture haddemanded. His strategy of taking the war tothe French on the frontiers of Brittany was acomplete failure, and had deprived not only

Gascony but also Dieppe, to which siege wasthen being laid, of much needed succour.

This was the last expedition to France. On28 May 1444, the English agreed a truce withthe French, the first cessation of hostilitiessince 1415. Between these dates, therefore, wehave the longest continuous period of conflictof the whole of the Hundred Years' War.

The castle of Dieppe housed an English garrison fromits surrender in February 1419. The English felt so securehere that by 1435, only four men-at-arms and 12 archerswere stationed there. It is not surprising that the placefell easily to the French in December of that year. (AKGBerlin)

Portrait of a soldier

Bertrand du Guesclin;Companions in arms: AndrewTrollope and Osbern Mundeford

Bertrand du Guesclin

Bertrand du Guesclin (c.1320-80) came froma relatively poor cadet branch of the Bretonminor nobility, but rose to be France's greathero. Within seven years of his death, apoem on his life was composed by a Picard,Jean de Cuvelier, confirming du Guesclin asa legend in his own time. The poet even tellsus that mothers in France, when chastisingtheir children, would say 'be quiet, or else duGuesclin will come to get you'. Richard theLionheart had been similarly invoked bymothers in the past.

Du Guesclin was short in stature, ugly andcareless about his appearance. According toCuvelier, even when he was a child, hisparents despaired of his violence: he wasalways ready to fight, and organised hispeasant friends into rival groups. He ranaway to Rennes in his late teens and beganto demonstrate his prowess in tournaments,especially that held in June 1337 to celebratethe marriage of Jeanne de Penthiévre andCharles of Blois. Here, with a borrowedhorse, he felled 15 other combatants beforerevealing his identity, to the amazement ofthe crowd.

In the early stages of the Breton civil war,du Guesclin led a small group of partisans inthe region of Rennes in support of Charles'sclaim to the duchy. In 1350, he took theEnglish-held stronghold of Fougeray bytrickery. He waited until the commander hadtaken most of the garrison to Vannes toassist Thomas Dagworth, and then disguised30 of his own soldiers as peasants, and evensome as women, so that they could enter theplace under the guise of delivering timber.These actions were those of a freelance

guerrilla. It was not until the death of hisfather in 1353, when he inherited the familymanor, that he joined the royal army,serving under the marshal of France, Arnould'Audrehem, in Lower Normandy.

In 1357, Rennes looked poised to fall toHenry, Duke of Lancaster. Du Guesclin, thenin the company of Pierre de Villiers, captainof Pontorson, managed to bring muchneeded supplies into the city. He followedthis with a sortie against the English, whowere thereby forced to raise the siege,bringing the French their first piece of goodfortune since the capture of King John.Du Guesclin was rewarded by the Dauphinwith a grant of 200 livres tournois, hardly ahuge sum, but he had come to the notice ofthe right people.

When de Villiers was called to Paris,du Guesclin took over control of Pontorson,a key garrison on the frontier of Brittany andNormandy, with 120 men under hiscommand. Over the next 23 years he wasinvolved in almost every major theatre,rising through a series of regional commandson behalf of the King and the princes of theblood. He was much relied upon to clearroutiers from various areas, and for royalactions against Charles of Navarre. Using theage-old tactic of a feigned retreat, hesucceeded in defeating the latter at Cocherelon 16 May 1364.

This led to his being created royalchamberlain and Count of Longueville. Buthe was captured at the battle of Auray on29 September 1364 when fighting in thecause of Charles of Blois, a reminder thatmilitary service for men like du Guesclin wasnot exclusively for the King. The Kingassisted in payment of his ransom, and his


service thus continued in the later 1360s,leading a 12,000-strong force in support ofHenry of Trastamara's ambitions in Castile.Here he was captured again in the BlackPrince's victory at Najera on 3 April 1367,by Thomas Cheyne, a man of relatively lowrank - a timely reminder that in militaryaction, neither social status nor military

Bertrand du Guesclin's tomb was placed close to that ofCharles V in the royal necropolis of Saint-Denis. Theeffigy may give some idea of the constable's appearance.(Roger-Violett)

reputation rendered combatants lessvulnerable. Charles V again assisted in thepayment of ransom, which was set byEdward III at 100,000 francs, testimony to duGuesclin's perceived significance.

Du Guesclin served on subsequentcampaigns under the King's brother, theDuke of Anjou, against the routiers inLanguedoc, and under Trastamara in Castile.He was to play a fundamental role in CharlesV's battle-avoiding strategy when warreopened in 1369, being appointed constableof France in 1370, and containing the greatEnglish chevauchees of 1370 and 1373. Healso prevented the English seizing Saint-Maloin 1378, although his willingness to negotiatetheir withdrawal led to criticism at theFrench royal court. Although du Guesclinhad an excellent reputation as a war leader,his relatively low social origin was neverforgotten by some. Warfare did offeropportunities for those who could prove theirvalue, yet armies of both sides remained veryclass based in their structures of command.

Du Guesclin had made it to the topthrough his own prowess and bravery. At theassault on Charles of Navarre's stronghold ofMelun in 1359, for instance, he fought ondespite being hit on the head by a largeprojectile. He was a firm disciplinarian, buthe was also much loved by his soldiersbecause he lived as they did. He was also fullof guile and cunning, and was prepared totake risks. Du Guesclin was thus aquintessential soldier who rose from theranks, not only to be constable, but also tobe buried at the order of Charles V next tothe King himself in the royal necropolis ofSaint-Denis. Cuvelier's poem ends with apoignant death-bed scene where the dyingconstable calls the marshal to his side.

I entrust to you the care of France. Deliver upto the King of France my sword of temperedsteel. Commend me to the King and to all thelords of the land. Pray for me, all of you, for mytime has come. Be men of honour. Low eachother and serve your crowned king with totalloyalty. (Jean Cuvelier, The Life of the ValiantBertrand du Guesclin)

Portrait of a soldier 71

Andrew Trollopeand Osbern Mundeford

Trollope came from Thornley, a village insouth-east Durham, and was related to clothdyers. We find him in 1427 as a mountedman-at-arms at the garrison of Fresnay-le-Vicomte on the southern frontier ofNormandy, serving under the captaincy ofSir John Fastolf. Amongst his colleagues wasOsbern Mundeford of Hockwold in Norfolk,whose father had served on the Agincourtcampaign and who was of low-gentry status.

Trollope moved in 1428 to Tombelaine, aparticularly uninviting sand-banklocation established against French-heldMont-Saint-Michel, but he and Mundefordfound themselves together again in Fresnayin the early 1430s. Mundeford was soonspecialising in military administration asmarshal of the garrison, responsible fordiscipline and the provision of victuals.Trollope was often deployed in fielddetachments. In 1433 he was in Fastolf'scompany reinforcing Caen, and in 1440

served on a raid into Picardy under MatthewGough, a soldier whose own renown gavehim a place in Welsh poetry. Trollope musthave distinguished himself with the overallcommander, John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset,since he then joined the latter's personalretinue, but by 1442 he was back inFresnay as lieutenant to the then captain,Sir Richard Woodville.

Mundeford also participated in some fieldactions in the 1430s, but by 1445 wascombining military and civil command asbailli and captain of Le Mans and captain ofBeaumont-sur-Sarthe. His commander wasnow Edmund Beaufort, who had succeeded hisbrother, John, as Earl of Somerset in 1444.Mundeford found himself in a difficultposition when asked to implement the royaldecision of December 1445 to surrender Maineto the French, but he had to obey orders, evenif at first he questioned them. Once EdmundBeaufort had arrived as lieutenant-general of

The English placed a garrison on the rocky outcrop ofTombelaine, close to French-held Mont-Saint-Michel.Andrew Trollope was stationed here in 1428. (Anne Curry)


Normandy in 1448, Mundeford was madetreasurer of the duchy, attempting an overhaulof tax collection in 1449. He was also madecaptain of Pont-l'Eveque and of Fresnay.

In 1449 Trollope was Mundeford'slieutenant at Fresnay. The men were by nowbrothers-in-law, for Andrew had marriedOsbern's sister, Elizabeth. Also in the garrisonat Fresnay were John Clipsby, a relation onhis mother's side, and John Berney, who washis brother-in-law or possibly his stepson,and whose son was given the name Osbern.When Charles VII reopened the war in July,Mundeford was collecting revenues andfoodstuffs for English garrisons betweenVernon and Mantes, and on 12 Augusthe was amongst those captured atPont-Audemer. Ten days later he was aprisoner at Chateaudun, where he wasinterrogated about the fall of Pont-Audemer.

He told us on oath that at 11 or 12 at nighthe was lying in his bed when he heard a noisein the town and the alarm was raised. He gotup but only had time to put on his shirt withhis brigandine over the top ... he soon foundwhere the French had broken ten or twelve ofthe palisades and was able with the help ofthree or four other English to drive them back... but two days later, in the middle of theafternoon, he was told that the town was onfire and the French had launched an assault ...as the fire spread, the English took refuge in astronghold. (Deposition of Mundeford,Bibliothéque Nationale, MS fr. 4054, f. 147).

Trollope as lieutenant surrendered Fresnayto the French in March 1450, but he had notforgotten his companion and brother-in-law:one of the terms of the composition was thatMundeford should be released. The story ismade all the more interesting by the factthat both men continued their militarycareers after the loss of Normandy. In theearly 1450s Mundeford was marshal of Calais

and Trollope master porter under EdmundBeaufort as captain.

As the Wars of the Roses escalated, theyfound themselves 'by the sword divided'.Mundeford was back in England supportingthe Lancastrians, but Trollope, still at Calais,was chosen by the Earl of Warwick to taketroops to England to assist Richard, Duke ofYork. Yet old Beaufort loyalties, based onexperiences in France, died hard. On theeve of the battle of Ludford Bridge(12 October 1459), Trollope was persuaded todefect to the Lancastrians, plunging theYorkists into disarray when he disclosed theirintended plan of action. He then joinedEdmund Beaufort's son, Henry, in an attemptto take Calais from the Yorkists, and wasinstalled as captain of nearby Guines.

The lives of Mundeford and Trollope wereagain entwined. In June 1460, Mundefordassembled troops at Sandwich to reinforceGuines, but Yorkists from Calais fell uponhim. Taken across the Channel, he wassummarily executed on the sands below theTour de Rysback. Trollope was forced tosurrender Guines. He made his way back toEngland where he gained prominence inthe Lancastrian victory at Wakefield on31 December 1460, using subterfuge toentice the Yorkists from their stronghold atSandal. He also participated in theLancastrian victory at St Albans(17 February 1461), being knighted after thebattle, in which he had been wounded in thefoot by a calletrappe (a device for damaginghorses' hooves).

When the Yorkists seized London,Trollope had a price put on his head. He methis end at the battle of Towton (29 March1461), sharing command of the Lancastrianvanguard with the Earl of Northumberland.Thus, both Trollope and Mundeford foughtand died for their king in France and inEngland, and, no doubt like many, forgedfriendships and relationships as they did so.

The world around war

War cruel and sharp

A war against civilians?

A very important point can be made about thenature of warfare in the Hundred Years' War.Most of it, whether on land or at sea, wasconducted within a civilian context. Onlybattles were restricted to the soldiery. Thechevauchée was chosen because it was againstsoft, civilian targets and could have animmediate, demoralising effect. Soldiers on themove ate their way through an area, and tookmoveable booty as well as burning storedcrops and houses. Fortified centres andengagements with enemy troops weregenerally avoided. It was extremely difficult to

respond effectively enough, in that theattackers swiftly moved on to their next target,and communication problems made militaryintelligence less effective. No one quite knewwith chevauchées where the attacker wouldmove next. Sieges both involved and affectedcivilians. Lengthy sieges were particularlyharsh on the inhabitants of towns. We are toldthat the citizens had to eat dogs, cats and evenvermin during the six-month siege of Rouenover the winter of 1418-19.

Very little survives of medieval Calais. This sixteenth-century view shows how well defended the town and portwas after two centuries of English rule. (British Library)


War was deliberately taken to the people.Such actions against civilians might bedeemed legitimate acts of war as they hadbeen licensed by the king. But there weremany other acts of destruction anddisruption carried out by soldiers of theirown volition. Garrison soldiers of both sidesoften went out 'on their own adventure',and no doubt were given some freedom indeciding from whom booty could be taken,despite disciplinary ordinances for botharmies which tried to prevent their attackingcivilians. Piracy was encouraged by both theEnglish and French, not least during theperiod of truce in the late 14th and early15th centuries.

In France there was also the problem of thelawless bands known as the routiers, whocontinued the war against civilians when theyfound themselves out of regular militaryemployment. To this we must add the impactof two extremely bitter and violent civil wars,namely between the Dauphin and Charles ofNavarre in the late 1350s, which had aparticularly marked effect in the Paris Basin,and between the Armagnacs and Burgundiansin the early 15th century. Both becameenmeshed with the Anglo-French war. Atbase, it was French war failures thatencouraged public disorder and infighting.

Effects on France

It was hard to believe that this was the

country I had seen in the past ...I could hardly

recognize anything that I had seen before in this

kingdom which was once so rich and which was

now reduced to ashes. (Petrarch, commentingon the state of France)

There can be little doubt that France wasseverely damaged physically andeconomically by the Hundred Years' War.The very title of Henri Deniflé's influentialbook published between 1897 and 1899, Ladesolation des églises, monastéres et hopitaux enFrance pendant la Guerre de cent ans,epitomises the approach taken and theconclusions drawn, with not even the

church being exempt from attack, especiallyby the routiers. Detailed studies of the Ile-de-France, the Auvergne and Anjou, as well asof major cities such as Toulouse, Tours,Poitiers and Périgueux, have confirmed thisview. The values of rents in rural Anjou, forinstance, fell by 30-40 per cent over thesecond half of the 14th century.

A study of Reims is particularly indicative,not least because the city saw a siege byEdward III in 1359 as well as thedisturbances of the Navarrese civil war andlater English chevauchees. Over manydecades, peasants flocked into the city forprotection, swelling some parishes by 50 percent. Prices of cereals rocketed: the situationwas particularly bad in the late 1350s and1360s when military actions disrupted theusual trade with towns in the vicinity. Thefortification of Reims in the 1350s cost over100,000 livres tournois, much of it sustainedout of local purchase taxes, and involved thedemolition of dwellings and religious

The world around war 75

establishments in the suburbs and in thesurrounding area to create a cordon sanitaire.

Although there was some recovery in theearly 15th century, conditions worsened inthe fourth phase of the war. Frenchincursions into Gascony from the early1440s destroyed vines, which took years ofregrowth to recover. In Normandy, the battlefor the pays de Caux after 1435 led toeconomic crisis, not least for the ports. Thehinterlands of Harfleur and Dieppe weredevastated by English armies sent in torecover these places. At Dieppe, the suburbof Le pollet outre I'eau (on the other side ofthe harbour from the main town) wasvirtually deserted in 1437-38, its residentshaving 'gone to live elsewhere because of thewar'. The English subsequently placed theirsiege camp there in 1442-43, after which thearea was noted as 'completely demolishedand ruinous'. It proved impossible to attractthe inhabitants back until the English hadbeen driven out of the duchy.

A study of Louviers reveals the damagingeffects of recurrent sieges: the town changedhands five times between 1418 and 1440.Revenues from tolls on grain fell from £29 in1424 to £13 in 1432, with the total value ofthe town falling from over £.191 to £115 overthe same period. After the French took thetown in 1440 they demolished the cloth hallso that its materials could be used inrebuilding the outer fortifications. Decliningrents and agricultural production in the late1430s and 1440s were so marked that GuyBois went so far as to term it 'Hiroshima inNormandy', although he admitted that notall economic problems were due to the war.Such circumstances affected not onlyNormans but also the occupier, for manyEnglish had been granted lands in the duchywhich were now often of little or no value.

Little now survives of the defences of Harfleur, but thisgraffito inside the church of St Martin may give someimpression, although with artistic licence. (Anne Curry)


Sir John Fastolf, for instance, lost a third ofhis income of £600 from his French lands asa result of the loss of the pays de Caux andthe subsequent economic crisis.

The routiers

Generally speaking, civilians were in a moreprotected position when conflict wasbetween royal armies. Even then, the goodbehaviour of soldiers could not beguaranteed. Indeed, the Jacquerie of 1358had its immediate cause in a group of theDauphin's soldiers installing themselves inthe fortified abbey of Saint-Leu and ignoringtheir master's recent order that 'no soldiertake, pillage or rob our subjects of corn, wineor any other victuals'.

But the people of France were much morevulnerable when they were exposed to thebands of routiers. There can be little doubtthat had it not been for the Anglo-Frenchwar, the problem of the routiers would nothave arisen. It had generated a great need forsoldiers, more than ever before, but fromtime to time such men found themselveswithout paid employment, especially in theaftermath of Brétigny, although the civil warbetween the Dauphin and Charles of Navarrein the late 1350s had already generated alawless soldiery prone to waging what wasessentially their own war.

Such men were predominantly French butincluded English and Spanish amongst theirnumber. Interestingly, their organisationoften aped that of the formal militarystructures, in the 'Great Companies' whichgenerated their own war leaders prepared topunish, often savagely, their own men. Theraiding practices of the royal armies weretempting to copy - fast-moving, exciting,with easy gains, and a relatively low chanceof having to fight against other soldiers.Living off the civilian population wasunchallenged at times when centralauthority was weak. As noted earlier,civilians were a soft target with little in theway of defence, although Wright hasemphasised the solidarity generated in their

attempts to resist. As he notes, in theJacquerie the peasants of Saint-Leu weremoved by the fact that the Dauphin's orderhad encouraged them to act against soldierswho misbehaved:

and if soldiers do pillage, we wish andcommand that anyone may resist them by anymethod which seems best to them, and to call forhelp from neighbouring villages by the sound ofbells. (Order of March 1357 by the DauphinCharles)

It was essentially the problem of theroutiers that led Charles V to restructure hisarmy in the 1360s and 1370s. But it isimportant to remember that these companieswere also from time to time recruited intoroyal service, not least for activities in Spainin the 1360s and in the invasion ofEnglish-held lands after 1369. By the end ofthe century, employment was also beingfound further afield, most notably in Italy.

There was a danger of the problemresurfacing in the fourth phase of the war,but not with the same scale or geographicalextent as in the previous century. TheEnglish had brought in several thousandmore soldiers in the mid-1430s, but reducedthe garrison establishment again from theearly 1440s. This generated the problem of'men of no retinue or garrison' who wereliving off the land on the fringes of society.They were a useful pool of manpower onwhich the English could draw whenvacancies arose in garrisons: indeed, theirpresence explains why such vacancies couldbe filled very quickly.

The problem of demobilisation wasalso realised by the French. After thetruce of Tours, English and French actedco-operatively in rounding up unemployedsoldiers of both sides for a campaign underthe Dauphin Louis in Switzerland. Later, theEnglish ordered all of their unemployedsoldiers to gather south of Argentan. Somewere found garrison posts, those with craftsand lands were ordered to return to them. Butall the rest, English, Welsh or Irish, who werefound 'not suitable for arms' were marched


under guard to Cherbourg and Barfleur inorder to be shipped back to England.

Raids on southern England

Raids on England can be compared with theeffect of chevauchées in France, for they toowere conducted against soft civilian targetsand were difficult to respond to effectively. Bythe time the shire levies were called out anddispatched to the coast, the sea-borne raiders,often in oared ships, had moved on to theirnext target. Sea-borne raids also went for softtargets, with attacks on merchant shipping.The inhabitants of England had notexperienced this style of war before, and hadlittle defence against it at the outset of the war.

The raids, or even the threat of them, hada damaging psychological effect. At Fristonand East Dean in Sussex, it was reported in

1341 that men did not dare to cultivate theirlands 'for fear of the Normans'. A recent studyhas suggested that it was the rural poor of thesouth-east who suffered most from the fearand impact of raids, for the wealthy hadbetter defences and enough capital to redeemlosses. Indeed, the lack of defence afforded bythe crown was certainly a factor in Kentishinvolvement in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381.

Kent felt the impact of the war in otherways too. The produce of its coastal areas wasoften reserved for the provisioning of Calais.The latter lay in such an infertile area andoften housed such a large garrison - 1,000 ormore - that it needed constant resupply fromEngland. This was not popular in the countyas it created artificial shortages and higher

The western defences of Southampton, erected over thefronts of existing houses and warehouses in the half-century following the raid of 1338. (Michael Hughes)


prices. The crown was notoriously slow too inpaying for the food it requisitioned for Calaisor indeed for anywhere else. There wascertainly much complaint early in the waragainst the king's rights of purveyance -essentially rights of pre-emption, which oftenresulted in low prices to producers andconsiderable delays in payments being made.Parliamentary protest led to limitations onthe king's rights in the 1350s. Subsequentlythe crown tended to use contractors to raiseits supplies. Generally speaking, the issue wasless pronounced in the 15th century whenarmies could be fed within the occupiedterritories, but the problem never wentaway fully.

Kent and Sussex also expressed annoyancein a petition to Parliament in 1429 about thequartering of soldiers, asking that theyshould not take food without paying for itand that, to improve discipline, soldiers'wages should be distributed before theyarrived in the area. It is not surprising,therefore, that the same counties should beamongst those complaining in 1442 aboutrobberies, rape, extortion and violencecommitted by the soldiery.

The raid on Southampton on 5 October1338 provides us with a useful case study. Atthis point, the only defence of the southernand western waterfronts was the gating ofstreets. (The ability to close off streets was acommon policy in French towns too in aneffort to keep local order.) There had been noneed for defences in the past, andwarehouses and houses fronted directly onto the quayside. The raid was carried out ona Sunday when the townspeople were atmass. There can be no doubt of the level ofdamage caused. The houses of the wealthy inFrench Street were burned out and layunoccupied for several years, only beingredeveloped towards the end of the century.Over 40 per cent of the properties belongingto the hospital of God's House seem to havebeen destroyed, leading to a considerable fallin rent income. A licence to appropriatechurches granted later to the priory of StDenys noted that even the charters andother muniments held by the priory had

been destroyed by the French. The town sealand weigh beam were certainly carried away,and, of the 194 tuns of red wine in the town,only two tuns remained after the Frenchraiders departed!

No wool was exported from Southamptonfor a year following the raid, and customsincome fell by a half. Likewise atPortsmouth, no customs were collected inthe year following its raid of March 1338.


Southampton also suffered long-term declineas Italian merchants transferred their customto Bristol for the next few years. The townhad also been important in the importationof Gascon wine, a trade that more than anyother reveals the impact of war.

Clearly there was a need for thefortifications of Southampton to bestrengthened, and not least for walls to bebuilt along the southern and western sides of

the town. These were finally completed bythe end of the century, disrupting the earlierpattern of lanes, buildings and private quays,and blocking off direct access to thewaterside. The cost had essentially fallen on

Construction of God's House Tower in the south-eastcorner of Southampton, intended to control the sluicesof the moats and to carry heavy guns, began around1417. (Michael Hughes)

Essential Histories • The Hundred Years' War

the inhabitants through the levy of localtaxes: in 1376 the townsmen requested theKing that he should take the town under hiscontrol as they could not support the cost ofthe defences.

Some interesting developments are seen inthe late 14th and 15th centuries as the use ofgunpowder artillery increased. The West Gateof Canterbury, which was begun in 1380, ispossibly the earliest building constructedwith artillery defence in mind. TheCatchcold Tower at Southampton was builtin the early 1400s with three keyholegunloops and a vaulted roof to take theweight of cannon. God's House Tower datesfrom slightly later. In the face of invasionthreats in 1386, Thomas Tredington,chaplain, was installed in the castle atSouthampton, not only to celebrate thedivine service but also to keep the artillerybecause of his expertise in this area. By1449-50, the town's gunner, 'Harry Gunner',was kept busy making chambers for thebreech-loading guns common in this period,

as well as in buying gunstones, and 'two bagsof leather for putting the gunpowder in'.

War and English trade

War, trade and international relations werehighly interdependent. Communicationsbetween England and its continentalholdings were completely dependent on thesea route. As Gascony was not a very fertilearea, it imported much of its grain, as wellas other commodities such as wool andcloth, from England. In return, it wasEngland's main source of sweet wine, andsalt also came into England from the Bay ofBiscay. Friendly relations with Brittany werethus vital in ensuring the security of theroute, and Breton pirates were a majorproblem when relations with the duchywere hostile. Flanders was England's majortrading partner, but technically part ofFrance. It is no coincidence that Edward IIIbegan his attack on Philip VI by


manipulating the wool supply in order toforce alliances from the Brabanters andFlemish, nor that the Flemish cloth towns ofBruges, Ypres and Ghent, so dependentupon English wool, should pursue differentpolicies from their count. For the English,Calais became a staple port through whichexports had to pass.

Later, the tenure of Flanders and anincreasingly large part of the Low Countriesby the dukes of Burgundy furthercomplicated Anglo-French relations. TheAnglo-Burgundian alliance was central to thesuccess of the English in the third phase ofthe war, and even in the fourth phase whenthe Duke defected to Charles VII, truces wereagreed to allow commercial links betweenEngland and the Low Countries to continue,a reminder that wars in this period did notnecessarily lead to the complete severance oftrade. The French had important alliancestoo, not least those that brought them navaland military support - the Genoese in thefirst phase of the war, and the Castilians in

A breech-loading handgun from the mid-15th centurynow in the Musée des Beaux Arts at Rouen. These gunswere easy to manufacture but prone to backfire or tobreak as the shot was issued. (Anne Curry)

the second. Raids on England were muchassisted by the galleys provided as a result.

There was undoubtedly an effect on trade.A graph of the quantities of wine shipped toEngland, on which the crown took custom,shows a major downturn at the opening ofthe war. In 1335-36, 74,000 tuns had beenexported from Bordeaux. The figure fellto 16,500 tuns in the following year, andto 6,000 tuns in 1348-49. The trade neverfully recovered.

Another cause of economic loss for traderswas the crown's right to impress merchantships and crews. The English crown neverhad a large navy of its own and wasdependent on impressment to provide notonly transports but also warships. This cutinto trading activities. Norfolk fishermenparticularly resented being called out at theheight of the herring season. GreatYarmouth's decline in the post-Black Deathperiod has been traced to the disruption ofshipping as a result of the war. Given thelocation of Edward Ill's early campaigns, itwas frequently called upon to supply vessels:between 1335 and 1340 half of its merchantfleet was customarily in royal service. Englishwool export also certainly declined, but therewas some compensation in the stimulus todomestic cloth production for export.

War and taxation in Englandand France

In England, the consent of the Commons inParliament was needed for the grant of thelay subsidy. This brought the war fully withinthe public gaze. Whilst Parliament could notin practice refuse grants, it might imposeconditions, such as the appointment of wartreasurers at times when it felt that some ofthe taxes were being diverted to domesticpurposes or into the pockets of certainofficials. In 1376 and 1386, impeachments of


ministers occurred where charges includedpeculation and the mishandling of funds forthe war. The English were doing particularlybadly at this stage. Efforts to raise morerevenues through new taxes - the poll taxeslevied on everyone over a certain age - led tothe Peasants' Revolt of 1381.

Thenceforward, the English crown had tomake do with its lay subsidy, which it wasforced to reduce for some places in the wakeof economic decline in the 1430s and 1440s.Thus the previous income of around £38,000fell to around £30,000, with the income oftaxation from the clergy showing a similarfall from £20,000 in the 14th century to£10,000-17,000 in the 15th. As Ormrod hasshown, revenue from customs duties fellfrom the 1360s onwards. Thus there can beno doubt that the kings of England were in aweaker financial position in the 15th centurythan they had been earlier. That theyachieved so much after 1415 was due to theirconquest of territory in France that enabledthem to levy taxation there. When theirterritorial control diminished in the fourthphase of the war, they found themselves inconsiderable financial difficulties and unableto raise enough revenue on either side of theChannel.

In France, the Hundred Years' War led toa considerable extension of the taxingpowers of the crown. At the outset, tax wasessentially an occasional payment in lieuof military service when the arriere-ban wascalled. From 1341 royal income wasincreased by virtue of the salt tax (gabelle),but Henneman's study of finances showshow precarious the French positionremained, not least in the wake of thedefeats of 1346 and 1356 when there was nochoice but to call the Estates. John's ransomalso prompted the levy of more hearth taxes(fouages) and purchase taxes (aides andquatriémes), and was a major burden for all.

Reims was forced to contribute 20,000 ecusdespite its fragile economic state in the wakeof the military action of 1359, and had toborrow from Italian financiers. These loanswere still being repaid when the city had afurther burden on it for the coronation ofCharles V in 1364, to the tune of over77,000 livres tournois.

On his deathbed Charles V abolished thefouage, 'wishing to relieve the people to somedegree of the taxes imposed upon them',and his son's government was soon forcedto abolish the aides and gabelle too. Initialattempts to reimpose them led to popularrebellion in 1382, but the failure of therebellion, very much connected to thevictory over the Flemish rebel militias atRoosebeke in 1382, led to their re-introduction. Two years later, direct tailles,like the English lay subsidy, began to beimposed. In order to win support in the civilwar, John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy,abolished the aides in 1418: the Dauphinhad little choice but to do the same in hisarea of control. But the demands of warforced their renewal again. By 1439, taxationwas in practice permanent in the Franceruled by Charles VII, and was instrumentalin his setting up of what was in effect astanding army in the companies of theordonnance and francs archers.

The French crown had the greatestpotential to increase its tax revenues. Despiteseveral false starts it succeeded in increasingits revenue during the war. Thus, whereasEnglish royal tax income diminished overthe course of the Hundred Years' War, Frenchrevenues from the same source increased,about 45,000 livres tournois being raised in1338, rising to 70,000 in the 1340s, and155,000 by 1460. There was a furtherphenomenal rise under Louis XI, especiallythrough the taille, so that his revenue in1483 was at 450,000 livres tournois.

Portrait of a civilian

Christine de Pizan

Christine was born in Venice around 1365,but came to France in the late 1360s whenher father took up office as astrologer andphysician at the court of Charles V. In 1379,she married a Picard nobleman, Etienne deCastel, one of the King's secretaries andnotaries, but by the late 1380s she had lostboth father and husband, and found herself

with two young children and little income.She had been well educated by her father,and continued to read avidly. At first, shemade money by copying manuscripts but

Christine de Pizan is here portrayed, clad in the distinctivegarb of a widow, presenting her work, the Epitre d'Othée,to Charles VI around 1400. (Bodleian Library, Oxford)

Essential Histories ' The Hundred Years' War

then began to compose her own works,which together make her one of the mostfamous and respected authors of the MiddleAges. Her output was prolific in poetry andprose, and covers a wider range of themes.For our purposes, she is of interest becauseshe lived through three phases of the warand produced writings reflecting herexperience of them. Furthermore, she wasliving in Paris at the very heart of affairs,and certainly had personal knowledge ofmany of the principal actors in the war.

The second phase of the war isrepresented in her life of Charles V, whichshe was commissioned to write by one ofhis sons, Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy,in 1404. The tone of this work is wellreflected in its title, Le Livre des faits etbonnes moeurs du roi Charles V le sage (TheBook of the Deeds and Good Habits of KingCharles the Wise). In the military context,Christine singles out for praise hisreorganisation of the army, so that eachcompany was under its own leader. Hispreparedness for war after he had sent hisdefiance to the English is also praised. Hewas careful in ensuring the promptpayment of his troops. Although he wasobliged to raise large armies, he levied theresultant taxes 'without oppression'. 'Ourking was a chivalrous sovereign ... thedefender and faithful guardian of all.' ButChristine also stresses his wisdom inavoiding battle.

But fearing reversal of Fortune, he judgedwisely that it was not healthy for the Prince toput himself into battle save in dire necessity.For the whole body and its limbs will beweakened if the head is damaged. The captureor death of the king leads to the effective deathof all his subjects. (Christine de Pizan, TheBook of the Deeds and Good Habits of KingCharles the Wise)

Christine's works also reflect thedestructive impact that the civil warbetween the Burgundians and theArmagnacs had on French society. This isparticularly noticeable in the letter that she

addressed to Queen Isabeau, the wife ofCharles VI, in 1405. At this point, the Dukeof Orleans was assembling his men againstthe Duke of Burgundy in Paris. Christineurged Isabeau to 'heal the sickness anddivision in the kingdom' by acting asmediator, a role often assigned to royal andnoble women in this period. There was littledoubt in Christine's mind that 'thekingdom will be destroyed if it is dividedamongst itself, as it certainly was at thispoint, with 'the heirs and children of thenoble blood of France pillaging thekingdom'.

The third phase of the war was an evenmore demoralising experience for the French.The defeat at Agincourt prompted Christineto write a work of spiritual consolation,L'Epistre de la prison de la vie humaine (TheLetter of the Prison of Human Life) (1416-18),for Marie de Berry, daughter of the Duke. Itdoes not mention the battle by name. (Ratherlike actors who wish to avoid bad luck byspeaking of the 'Scottish play' instead ofMacbeth, so the French spoke of 'the accursedday' rather than saying 'Agincourt'.) But it isclear from the text that this event was thestimulus, as it had brought so much sorrowto the 'ladies of honour' of France throughthe deaths and captivities of their loved ones.Marie had lost her son-in-law, the Count ofNevers, in the battle and had had herhusband, Jean de Bourbon, and her son, theCount of Eu, captured.

In the summer of 1418, as the Englishadvanced in their conquest of Normandy,and the Burgundians entered Paris,Christine, a supporter of the Armagnacfaction, took refuge in the nunnery at Poissy,where her daughter was already a nun. Herson John went south with the Dauphin anddied in exile. But Christine lived to see thetide turn.

In 1429 the sun began to shine again ... thereason is that the rejected child of the rightful kingof France, who has suffered many a greatmisfortune ... has risen up, coming as a crownedking in might and majesty, wearing spurs of gold.(Christine de Pizan, Ditié de Jeanne d'Arc)

Portrait of a civilian 85

She celebrated Joan of Arc's raising of thesiege of Orleans and the subsequentcrowning of Charles VII with her last knownwork, Ditié de Jeanne d'Arc (The Tale of Joanof Arc), written only two weeks after thecoronation. This also provides us with theearliest panegyric on Joan, who had savedthe kingdom - 'something 5,000 men couldnot have done' - although, to be fair,Christine does give some praise to 'youtrusty men-at-arms who carried out the taskand proved yourselves to be good and loyal'.Christine compares Joan with Old Testamentheroines and predicts that she will leadCharles to the ultimate victory, thereconquest of the Holy Land.

Christine displays throughout her writingsa keen interest in the war, but nowhere moreso than in her Livre des fais d'armes et dechevalerie (Book of the Feats of Anns andChivalry), written in 1410 probably undercommission from John the Fearless, Duke ofBurgundy. It was completely unprecedentedthat a woman should write a militarytreatise. Although the work is dependentupon Honoré de Bonet's military treatise of1386, the Tree of Battles, and on the fourth-century treatise of Vegetius, De re militari,which was the main military manualthroughout the whole of the Middle Ages,Christine does add her own perspective. Forinstance, she recalls the battle of Roosebekein 1382 when the French defeated theFlemish townsmen. She also gives muchdetail on the provisions and equipmentneeded for the defence of strongholds. All inall this is an intriguing work by an equallyintriguing writer, and one that found its wayto an English audience through Caxton'stranslation and printing of 1489.

Let us consider 200 men-at-arms with theirservants, two each, to be fed for six months.You would need 110 measures of wheataccording to the Parisian measure, a third ofwhich should be in the form of bread and therest as flour... twelve cannons throwing stones,

Charles VII as portrayed by Fouquet. Once he had beencrowned king, Joan of Arc's role became less significant,despite Christine de Pizan's hopes expressed in the Ditiéde Jeanne d'Arc. (Louvre)

two of which will be larger than the others inorder to break up the machines, manteletsand other coverings ... 3,000 pounds of leadto make shot for the cannons, six dozeniron-tipped lances ... eight bellows forcountermining ... six dozen wooden shovels ...(Christine de Pizan, Book of the Feats of Annsand Chivalry, part 2, chapter 16)

How the war ended

The loss of Normandyand Gascony

The end of the Hundred Years' War camewith the loss of Normandy in 1449-50,followed by that of Gascony in 1453. Theseevents reflect the success of recent Frenchmilitary reforms, whilst also demonstratingthe political and military disarray in whichthe English had put themselves after thetruce of Tours of May 1444.

If the English intended to use the truce tofortify their position, as the Duke of Suffolkimplied to the parliament of 1445, then theywent a strange way about it. They undertookdefence cuts to save money, since, in time oftruce, they could not ask for heavy taxationfrom the Norman Estates. The garrisons inNormandy were reduced from about 3,500 to2,500 men in June 1444, and may have fallento 2,000 by 1448. Inadequate attention waspaid to the maintenance of fortifications andto the provision of artillery. Castles andtowns were thus easy pickings for Charles VIIafter he declared war on 17 July 1449. Byreducing the garrisons, the English had lostthe capacity to send detachments into thefield. The expeditionary forces dispatchedfrom England in 1450 were too little, too late.

The French, on the other hand,capitalised on the truce. Building on thearrangements made by Charles V, the Kingcreated more companies of cavalry toproduce 12,000 men. Each companycontained 100 'lances', each containing aman-at-arms, a coutiller ('knife man'), a page,two archers (still crossbow-men), and a valetde guerre. To these he added, by means of anorder issued in 1448, the obligation thateach parish should provide one archer,producing a total of 8,000 francs archers.Together these constituted an army onpermanent standby, although only paidwhen in active service, and stillsupplemented by troops raised through thesemonce des nobles and arriere-ban. A strong

artillery train was also developed under thedirection of the Bureau brothers. Charles hadalso gained the important military alliance ofDuke Francis of Brittany.

We have now taken steps to ensure thesafety of our kingdom in case the truce betweenus and our nephew of England does not bringpeace. For it is right and proper that we shouldestablish in our kingdom a number of men forits defence whom we can use in our service intime of war without having to employ thosewho are not our subjects ... in each parish thereshall be one archer who will keep himselfalways ready and equipped for war with asallet, dagger, sword, bow, sheath of arrows,jerkin and a short coat of mail. (Order ofCharles VII, 28 April 1448)

Charles cannot have been unaware of theweakness of the English defences. Henry VIhad already shown himself vulnerable topressure, for in December 1445 he hadagreed to surrender Maine. Although thiswas intended to assist in peace negotiations,it was a foolish decision because it weakenedhis diplomatic position and underminedmorale. English soldiers such as OsbernMundeford could not believe that their kingand commanders had agreed to it, but theyhad little choice but to withdraw from Mainein March 1448. The sight of demobilisedsoldiers and settlers drifting throughNormandy can hardly have boosted theconfidence of those in the garrisons of theduchy, whose own pay was increasinglyerratic now that the tax income was reduced,but who found their freedom of action andopportunities for booty limited by the needto observe the truce.

Under such circumstances, it seems evengreater folly that the English should give theFrench an excuse to break the truce by

Essential Histories - The Hundred Years' War

The castle of Fougéres in Brittany, just across the frontierof Normandy, which was seized by Francois de Suriennein March 1449, leading to the reopening of the Anglo-French war after almost five years of truce. (Anne Curry)

capturing Fougéres on 24 March 1449. Thisfortress lay within Brittany. Thus the attackon it served to bring the Duke closer tosupport of Charles VII. The English hadhoped to do the opposite: their plan had beento put pressure on Duke Francis to releasefrom captivity his pro-English brother, Giles.

The assault on Fougéres was a gamble.War leaders tried to argue that it was anindependent action carried out by anArragonese mercenary who had long been intheir pay, Sir Francois l'Arragonais.(L'Arragonais is himself a fascinatingexample of the kind of soldier the warproduced - holder of the Garter, but latermaster of the Duke of Burgundy's artilleryand the recipient of a pension from LouisXI.) Research has shown that the plan wasofficially endorsed: the garrisons of LowerNormandy had been reinforced shortlybefore, with a campaign in Brittany perhapsintended. The taking of Fougéres might have

assisted the English military and diplomaticposition had it been followed up by furtheraction, but instead l'Arragonais foundhimself without aid and was forced toevacuate the place.

The truce had already shown itself afragile beast, being renewed only for shortperiods, with many disputes over supposedinfractions. It is clear that Charles was keenfor an opportunity to attack (his readinessfor invasion and his diplomatic dealingswith Brittany give sound proof of this), butas the English were so obviously unprepared,it was suicidal that they should give him theexcuse he needed.

In Normandy there was a change ofleadership. The lieutenant-general, Richard,Duke of York, had been recalled at the end of1445. A year later, Edmund Beaufort, Duke ofSomerset, replaced him, but he did not crossuntil May 1448. He was certainly not lackingin experience or ability, and tried hard toimprove military discipline and to deal withthe complaints of inhabitants. He was fullyaware of the vulnerability of the duchy, ashis letter read in Parliament in the spring of1449 makes clear.

How the war ended

If war should occur, which God forbid,Normandy is no way sufficient in itself to offerresistance against the great might of the enemy.For there is no place in the King's obedienceprovided for in terms of repairs, ordnance, or anykind of artillery ... almost all places have falleninto such ruin that even were they to be stockedup with men and ordnance, they could not bedefended. (Roll of Parliament)

Somerset also said that the Estates ofNormandy could bear no more taxation. ButParliament was reluctant to vote Englishmoney. Its suggestion that those Englishgranted lands in the duchy should donatepart of their revenues was a good example ofhow little those at home knew of the realitiesof the situation: many settlers had lost theirlands after 1435 or else seen incomesdiminished by war and by an economicdownturn. The situation was not assisted bythe King's lack of enthusiasm, or by growingpolitical machinations, which encouragedmany leading captains to stay in England.

The loss of the duchy further exacerbatedpolitical problems at home. A scapegoat hadto be found. Suffolk thus found himselfimpeached early in 1450 whilst the townsand castles of the duchy continued to fall.Sentenced to exile, he was lynched on hisway out of England. Popular disquiet thatthe duchy fell so easily and without theEnglish government offering resistance isalso demonstrated by Cade's rebellion inMay-June 1450. Amongst other things, therebels urged that the 'traitors' responsibleshould be brought to book. In the years thatfollowed, York, who had himself lost muchland in Normandy, stressed the culpability ofSomerset. This was in effect the origin of thedispute that culminated in the first battle ofthe Wars of the Roses at St Albans in 1455,where Somerset met his death.

The loss of Normandy was swift andlargely unchallenged. Places had alreadystarted to fall even before the declaration ofwar. Pont-de-l'Arche, an important defence forRouen, was captured on 16 May 1449 with theaid of a merchant of Louviers. The willingnessof the inhabitants of Normandy to betray their

towns to the French king is revealed on manysubsequent occasions over the next year,reminding us that military outcomes were asdependent upon local opinion as on theeffectiveness of troops. It is easy to say that theNormans had simply been waiting forliberation from the foreign occupier, and thatthey had only been kept in check by Englishmilitary presence, but the issue of loyalty wasmuch more complex and varied, and muchaffected by the desire of civilians to preservetheir own livelihoods. For them, the powerworthy of support was the one that couldmaintain the peace. Before 1449 this had beenthe English, now it was the French.

Normandy was invaded from thenorth-east by the Counts of Saint-Pol andEu, from the east along the Seine by theCount of Dunois and Duke of Alencon andlater the King along the Seine, and from thesouth-west by the Duke of Brittany and hisuncle, Arthur de Richemont, a veteran ofAgincourt. Literally, they swept everythingbefore them in a blitzkrieg. Scarcely anywhereheld out for longer than a few days. OnceRouen surrendered on 29 October at thebehest of its inhabitants, the English causewas irredeemable. Charles 'le très victorieux'(the most victorious) was welcomed into theNorman capital and elsewhere in triumph.

By January 1450, only Caen, Bayeux,Falaise and the Cotentin remained in Englishhands. Here a brief revival occurred whenEnglish reinforcements under Sir ThomasKyriell arrived at Cherbourg, but a decisiveblow was dealt at the battle of Formigny on15 April, where the English were emphaticallydefeated. This battle is significant because itsoutcome depended on the Count ofClermont's judicious use of gunfire to drawthe larger English army out of its defensiveposition. The potential power of the artillerytrain built up by Charles had already beenapparent at the capture of Mantes, but therethe inhabitants had decided to surrender toavoid destruction of the walls on which theyhad lavished much taxation. After Formigny,the French moved inexorably up the Cotentin.On 12 August, the last English-held place,Cherbourg, surrendered.


The battlefield of Formigny, to the west of Bayeux, wherethe English were defeated on 15 April 1450. Their removalfrom Norman soil was now only a matter of time.(Anne Curry)

Charles now turned his attention toGascony with an army of 7,000, many ofwhom had served in Normandy, knowingthat he had already received offers of supportfrom nobility in the duchy. Bordeauxsurrendered to Dunois on 30 June 1451. TheEnglish raised an army of 3,000 under SirRichard Woodville, a veteran of the Normancampaigns, but the dispatch of the forcewas postponed from its original date of18 October 1450, and it is unlikely that anytroops reached the duchy. By August it hadbeen cancelled because of fears of a Frenchinvasion of south-west England and the needto send reinforcements to Calais.

In the following year there werecompeting interests: Calais and the ChannelIslands; an armed fleet at sea; and relief to

Gascony. An army of 5,000 was raised underTalbot for the sea, but then sent to Gascony,where it recaptured Bordeaux on 20 October1452 with the aid of partisans. The Frenchhad expected Talbot to land in Normandy.Many of the cavalry companies were stillstationed there, and the francs archers hadalso been summoned to the coast. Gasconyhad thus been left relatively undefended.

A relief force of 2,000 was sent fromEngland in the spring of 1453, but anotherdue in August never crossed. Charles was ableto deploy a force of 8,000. Talbot was defeatedand killed at the battle of Castillon on 17 July.Here he used the customary tactic of an attackon foot. But on this occasion it was theEnglish who were mown down by Frencharrow fire, and also by gunshot. Bordeauxheld out for a further three months, butwithout the possibility of aid from Englandthe city had to surrender on 19 October 1453.The English now had only Calais.

Conclusion and consequences

A defining moment in history?

We might expect a war to end with somekind of peace settlement that reflected andreinforced the victory of one side over theother. There was no negotiated settlementfor the end of the Hundred Years' War. Calaisremained in English hands until 1S58, andit was not until the Treaty of Amiens of1801 that the title 'king of France' wasabandoned: by then, of course, France nolonger had a monarch.

A recurrent theme in the history of Europebetween the late-15th century and themid-19th century was Anglo-French hostility.But 1453 has much to recommend it as boththe end of an era and the end of a war. Itmarked the final loss of the lands insouth-west France which had been held byEnglish kings since the 12th century. If weaccept that these lands were the reallong-term cause of Anglo-French hostilities,then their loss was a major turning point inAnglo-French relations. Never again were theEnglish able to support a meaningful claim tothe French throne by virtue of a majorpresence in France.

The fact that Normandy had been lostonly a few years earlier was most significant.The occupation of Normandy had given theEnglish control of one of the wealthiest andmost strategically significant areas of France.And it had been lost all too easily. Worse still,it proved impossible to effect any recovery ofany of the lost lands. Resources had to bepoured into the defence of Calais. Henry VI'sdescent into madness in the summer of 1453,which created governmental paralysis andfurther fanned divisions, not least betweenSomerset and York, towards civil war, was nodoubt a major factor in why no effort wasmade to invade France again after 1453,although a shortage of money was alsoinfluential. The enormity of the task wasself-evident, not least because Charles VII, at

first worried that the English would return,had ensured the firm defence of hisconquests, and had encouraged attacks onthe English coasts and shipping.

French historians have made it quite clearthat Charles's authority was much boostedby the recovery of Normandy and Gascony.So emphatic were the victories that he choseto exploit them for propaganda purposes andhis loyal people followed in his wake.Economic recovery was slow but was assistedby the fact that the recoveries had been easyand not physically destructive.

With the heart of a lion and courage of aprince he entered Normandy with a large armyand by sieges, battles and surprise attacks aswell as other means he drove you English out inone season, which is a very short time indeed.He has left you not a single place ... conqueringall that you and your king Henry hadconquered in thirty-time years. (Treatiseknown as The Debate of the Heralds of Englandand France, c.1455)

All in all, therefore, the French emergedstronger from the war and the Englishweaker. Even though both suffered civil warin the decades that followed, it was inEngland that royal authority was dealt amajor blow in the Wars of the Roses,whereas both Charles VII and his son, LouisXI, began the road to absolutism. Theirmilitary reforms and increased use ofgunpowder artillery, backed up by a furtherexpansion in royal authority and taxingcapacity, paved the way for the large armiesof the early modern period and in particularfor French intervention in Italy at the turn ofthe century. In England, the armiesimploded on themselves. Many who servedLancaster and York in the Wars of the Roseshad been in the English army in France. We

92 Essential Histories "The Hundred Years' War

saw two examples earlier in Trollope andMundeford.

From the historian's privileged position ofhindsight, there can be no doubt that theend of the Hundred Years' War, and indeedthe whole war itself, were defining momentsin English and French history. The war hadbeen by far the most long-standing, and themost militarily and politically significant,conflict in western Europe in the laterMiddle Ages. It had involved virtually everyother state at one time or another. It haddivided France twice, in 1360 and in1420 - events that did much to embitter theFrench towards the English. Their veryfreedom and existence were under threat.

The claim to the French throne wasperhaps at the forefront of English ambitionsonly from the assassination of John theFearless in 1419, but its very use since 1340had elevated the war to a new status - nolonger a war between vassal and sovereign butbetween two sovereigns. In such a scenario itis not surprising that ideas of nationalidentity hardened and insults were tradedbetween the two nations. They remained'wars of kings' throughout, but the nature ofthe fighting, which targeted civilians in a waythat they were powerless to resist, and thelevel of the taxation burden made them also'wars of peoples'. The expression 'society atwar' does indeed seem appropriate.

There can be no doubt of the war'simportance in military terms. Because of itslength and intensity, and the fact that it wasoften waged in several areas simultaneously,it had prompted an increase in the numberof men for whom soldiering was a primary

occupation. It had persuaded the English andFrench to increase the proportion of archersin their armies in order to generate numericalpresence and effective 'human mass artillery'.It had increased demands for weapons,armour and fortifications, and had no doubtencouraged the development of gunpowderartillery. In this, the English had not movedas quickly as the French, being toocomplacent in their defence of Normandyand Gascony, and being constrained by thedifficulties of holding lands overseas. But ithad generated in Normandy what wasessentially an English standing army, whichwas then outmatched by Charles VII'smilitary advances of the mid-1440s.

The Hundred Years' War saw many forms ofwarfare, but a final note can be sounded aboutits major battles. It has become fashionable todownplay the significance of battles and tobring to mind that they were the leastcommon form of conflict. None of the battlesof the war was decisive - no form of medievalwarfare could be decisive, as the scale was toosmall and the impact too localised. But Sluys,Crécy, Poitiers, La Rochelle, Agincourt, Patayand Formigny all had marked catalytic effectson the course of the conflict in a way that noother forms of action did or could have done.For contemporaries these were the definingmoments, and clear testimony of theseriousness and bitterness with which theHundred Years' War was fought.

The battlefield of Agincourt. The road between thevillages of Tramecourt and Agincourt probably passesthrough the heart of the battle. The clump of trees is thesite of a grave pit. (Anne Curry)

Further reading

Allmand, C. T., The Hundred Years War:England and France at War c.1300-c.1450,1988.

Allmand, C. T., Lancastrian Normandy: TheHistory of a Medieval Occupation1415-1450, 1983.

Allmand, C. T., Society at War: The Experienceof England and France during the HundredYears War, new edition, 1998.

Ayton, A., Knights and Warhorses: MilitaryService and the English Aristocracy underEdward III, 1994.

Barber, R., Life and Campaigns of the BlackPrince, 1979.

Barnie, J., War in Medieval Society: SocialValues and the Hundred Years War1337-1399, 1974.

Bennett, M., Agincourt 1415, 1991.Contamine, P., War in the Middle Ages,

English edition trans. M. Jones, 1984.Curry, A., ed., Agincourt 1415: Henry V, Sir

Thomas Erpingham and the Triumph of theEnglish Archers, 2000.

Curry, A., The Battle of Agincourt: Sources andInterpretations, 2000.

Curry, A., The Hundred Years War, 1993.Curry, A. and Hughes, M., eds, Arms, Armies

and Fortifications in the Hundred Years War,1994.

DeVries, K., Medieval Military' Technology,1992

DeVries, K., Infantry Warfare in the EarlyFourteenth Century, 1996.

Fowler, K., The Age of Plantagenet and Valois,1967.

Fowler, K., Medieval Mercenaries, Vol. 1: TheGreat Companies, 2001.

Friel, I., The Good Ship: Ships, Shipbuilding andTechnology in England 1200-1520, 1995.

Froissart, Jean, Chronicles, ed. G. Brereton,1968.

Green, D., The Black Prince, 2001.James, T. B. and Simons, J. (eds), The Poems

of Laurence Minot, 1989.Jones, M., Ducal Brittany 1364-1399, 1970.

Jones, M. and Vale, M. G. A., eds, Englandand her Neighbours in the Middle Ages,1989.

Keen, M., The Laws of War in the Late MiddleAges, 1965.

Keen, M., ed., Medieval Warfare: A History,1999.

Lewis, P., Later Medieval France: The Polity,1968.

Lucas, H. S., The Low Countries and theHundred Years War, 1929.

Nicolle, D., Medieval Warfare Sources Book,Vol. 1: Warfare in Western Christendom,1995.

Palmer, J. J. N., England, France andChristendom, 1377-1399, 1972.

Pernoud, R. and Clin, Marie-Veronique, Joanof Arc: Her Story, 2000.

Perroy, E., The Hundred Years War, 1951.Pollard, A. J., John Talbot and the War in

France 1426-1453, 1983.Prestwich, M, Armies and Warfare in the

Middle Ages: The English Experience, 1996.Rogers, C. J., War Cruel and Sharp: English

Strategy under Edward III, 1327-1360, 2000.Rogers, C. J., ed., The Wars of Edward III,

2000.Sumption, J., The Hundred Years War, Vol. 1:

Trial by Battle, 1990.Sumption, J., The Hundred Years War, Vol. 2:

Trial by Fire, 1999.Vale, M. G. A., English Gascony 1399-1413,

1970.Vale, M. G. A., The Angevin Legacy and the

Hundred Years War 1250-1340, 1990,republished as The Origins of the HundredYears War, 1996.

Vale, M. G. A., War and Chivalry: Warfare andAristocratic Culture in England, France andBurgundy at the End of the Middle Ages,1981.

Willard, C, ed., The Book of Deeds of Annsand of Chivalry, by Christine de Pi7.an, 1999.

Wright, N., Knights and Peasants: The HundredYears War in the French Countryside, 1998.

Index

Figures in bold refer to illustrations

Abbeville 46Agenais 15, 18, 31, 36, 41, 49Agincourt, battle of (1415) 56-57, 58, 59, 84, 92Aiguillon 40Albert, Prince Consort (1819-61) 7Amiens 29, 33

Cathedral 20, 21Treaty of (1801) 91

Anglo-French conflicts(1294-98) 12-15(1324-27) 15-18, 21(1336-37) 27(1337-60) 31-45, 34(1341-59) 38(1350s) 41-45(1355-56) 42(1369-99) 45-54, 50(1399-1429) 54-63(1415-28) 62(1429-53) 63-68,87

Anglo-Scottish conflicts(1314) 15(1327) 18, 26(1333-36) 26(1346) 40

Anjou and Anjevins 11, 50Antwerp 32-33, 33Aquitaine 7, 11, 12, 18, 28, 31, 42, 45archers 24, 26, 34, 36, 58, 92armies 39, 41

strength and deployment of 23-24, 31-32, 33, 40,41, 43, 45, 46, 53, 56, 59, 64, 66, 66

weapons of 24-25, 25, 25, 52, 80-81arriere-ban (call to arms) 23, 29Auberoche 39'auld alliance' see Franco-Scottish alliancesAuray, battle of (1364) 45, 69Auvergne 45

Balliol, Edward 21-22Balliol, John (1250-1313) 15, 27Bannockburn, battle of (1314) 15Bayonne 11, 13Beaufort, Edmund, Duke of Somerset 71, 86, 88-89Bergerac 39, 50Berwick 43

siege of (1333) 26Black Death 41Book of the Deeds and Good Habits of King Charles the Wise

(Pizan) 84Book of the Feats of Anns and Chivalry (Pizan) 85Bordeaux 11, 13, 15, 31, 43, 50, 90Brètigny/Calais, Treaty of (1360) 8, 9, 45, 50, 76Brittany 49, 51, 52,88

campaigns 36-39, 41, 42, 50civil war 45

Buironfosse 34Burgundy 63, 64Buzac 49

Caen 39, 59castle 40

Cahors 11, 12Calais 8, 39, 40-41, 42, 43, 45, 46, 48, 49, 51, 53, 73, 90, 91Cambrai 32, 35, 36Cambrésis 32, 33campaigns see Anglo-French conflicts; Anglo-Scottish

conflicts; wars and campaignsCassel, battle of (1328) 20, 26Castile 46, 53

Castillon, battle of (1453) 24, 90Catchcold Tower, Southampton 80Chandos, Sir John 45, 46Channel Islands 31, 90Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor (1316-78) 51Charles IV, King of France (1294-1328) 12, 15, 17, 18Charles V, King of France (1337-80) 8, 46, 49, 51, 53, 70, 76,

84, 96Charles VI, King of France (1368-1422) 8, 83

helmet of 54Charles VII, King of France (1403-61) 8, 45, 63, 64, 66, 74,

76, 85, 85, 86, 91, 92Charles of Blois 36, 37, 39, 41, 45, 69Charles of Navarre 41, 42, 45, 69, 70, 74, 76chevauchées (mounted raids) 8, 13, 24, 25, 26, 31, 41, 43, 48,

49, 51, 53, 70, 73, 74, 77civilians, warfare against 73-74Cocherel, battle of (1364) 45, 69Compiégne 33Crécy, battle of (1346) 8, 20, 26, 27, 40, 41

Dagworth, Sir Thomas 39, 41'Dauphin, The' see Charles VII, King of FranceDavid II, King of Scotland (1324-71) 21, 22, 36, 40De re militari (Vegetius) 85Dieppe 64, 68

castle 68Dordogne 18, 31, 43, 50Dupplin Moor, battle of (1332) 22

Edward, Prince of Wales (The Black Prince) (1330-76) 24, 41,47

campaigns(1355-56) 42-45, 42(1367) 46(1370) 49

Edward I, King of England (1239-1307) 12, 13-15Edward II, King of England (1284-1327) 12, 15deposition 17, 18descendants 16tomb 17Edward III, King of England (1312-77) 7-8, 14, 15, 17, 22, 24,

26, 27-29, 31-33, 39-41, 42, 45, 46, 48, 49, 56, 70, 74accession 18death 50declared King of France 7-8, 35, 35, 46and Gascony 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 27, 31, 36homage to Philip VI 20status in 1337 20-26

Eleanor of Castile, Queen of Edward I (1246-90) 11English Royal pedigree 16

Falaise 59finance and taxation 14-15, 18, 23, 25-26, 46, 53-54, 81-82Flanders 15,20, 32, 43Formingny, battle of (1450) 90Fougéres castle 88, 88France

attacks on south coast 31, 46, 50, 77-80effects of war on 74-76

Franco-Scottish alliances(1295) 15(1326) 22

French Royal pedigree 19Fresnay-le-Vicomte 71, 72Froissart, Jean 30

Garonne 31, 41Gascony 12, 13, 15, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 27, 29, 50, 53, 58,

80, 86, 90campaigns 31, 36, 37, 39, 46, 49, 66

Ghent 15,20, 35

Index 95

God's House Tower, Southampton 78-79, 80Grandes Chroniques de France 18Guesclin, Bertrand du (1320-80) 45, 46, 49, 50, 69-70, 70gunpowder weapons 25, 25, 52, 80-81

Halidon Hill, battle of (1333) 22, 26, 34Hainault 32Harfleur 53, 64, 66, 74-75

siege of (1415) 58-59Henry III, King of England (1207-72) 11Henry IV, King of England (1367-1413) 8, 54, 56, 58Henry V, King of England (1387-1422) 8, 9, 54, 55, 56, 58, 63

death 60Henry VI, King of England (1421-71) 8, 9, 86, 91crowned King of France (1431) 64Henry of Grosmont, Duke of Lancaster 37, 40, 41, 43, 49Henry of Trastamara 46homage 11-12, 15, 17, 18, 20

Ingham, Sir Oliver 21, 28, 31, 36effigy of 22-23

Isabella, Queen of Edward II (1295-1358) 15, 17

Joan of Arc (1412-1431) 8, 63, 64,85John, King of England (1167-1216) 12John II, King of France (1319-64) 9, 39, 41, 43

capture 45John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster (1340-99) 46, 48, 49, 53John of Hainault 17, 18John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy 9, 92

Knolles, Robert 45Koblenz 33

La Réole 49La Rochelle 49, 53Languedoc 13, 24, 41, 43, 70L'Arragonais, Sir Francois 88Letter of the Prison of Human Life (Pizan) 84Lewis, of Bavaria, Emperor 31, 33Libourne 13Limousin 42, 49Loire 43Louis IX, King of France (1215-70) 11Louis of Nevers, Count of Flanders 20Ludford Bridge, battle of (1459) 72

Magna Carta 15Maine 11, 60, 86Marmande 29military developments 8, 23-25Mont-Saint-Michel Abbey 63Montfort, John de 37, 39Morlaix 37Mundeford, Osbern 71-72

Najera, battle of (1367) 46, 70Nantes, siege of 51naval conflicts 25, 36, 41-42, 46, 49, 59Neville, Lord John 49, 50Neville's Cross, battle of (1346) 40Normandy 11, 12, 31, 32, 43, 49, 52, 59, 63, 86, 88, 89, 91

Oriflamme, the 41Orleans, siege of (1428) 60, 63Otterburn, battle of (1388) 53

Paris 60, 64peace agreement (1327) 18Treaties

(1259) 11, 12, 14(1303) 15

Patay, battle of (1429) 63Peasants' Revolt (1381) 77pedigrees

English 16French 19

Pedro II 46Périgord 46Perigueux conference (1311) 15Petrarch 74

Philip II, King of France (1165-1223) 12Philip III, King of France (1245-85)

descendants 19Philip IV, King of France (1268-1314) 12, 13, 15Philip VI, King of France (1293-1350) 18, 22, 26, 27-29, 28,

31, 33, 35, 39-41status in 1337 20-26

Philippa of Hainault, Queen of Edward III (1314-69) 17Picardy 43, 48Pizan, Christine de 83, 83-85Poitiers 43, 59

battle of (1356)43, 45sack of 40

Poitou 11,41, 42, 45,46, 49Ponthieu 11, 15, 20, 24, 29, 39, 45, 46populations 23Portsmouth 31, 46, 78

Reims 18, 74Cathedral 65siege of (1359) 45, 74

Rennes 69Richard II, King of England (1367-1400) 8, 50, 53

deposition 54Robert I ('the Bruce'), King of Scotland (1274-1329) 15, 18, 21Robert of Artois 27-29, 36Roosebcke 53'Roses, Wars of the' (1455-85) 72, 89, 91Rouen 50, 59, 60, 89

castle 67siege of 59, 73

routiers 9, 36, 53, 74, 76-77Royal pedigrees

English 16French 19

St. Albans, battle of (1455) 89Saint-Chapelle, Paris 11Saint Macaire 29Saint-Malo 53Saint-Pol de Leon 39Saint Rémi church, Reims 44Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte 52, 52-53Saint-Vaast-La-Hougue 36-37, 39, 43, 56Saintonge 31, 36, 40,41,49Scotland 15, 18, 21, 26, 27, 32, 36, 40, 43, 53 see also Anglo-

Scottish conflictsSluys, battle of (1340) 25, 36Somme 31south coast of England, attacks on 31, 46, 50, 77-80Southampton 31, 46, 77, 78, 79, 80

Tale of Joan of Arc (Pizan) 85taxation see finance and taxationThérouanne 48Thomas of Woodstock, Earl of Buckingham 51Tombelaine 71Toulouse 13, 31, 41Touraine 11Tournai 35, 36trade 80-81Treaty of Edinburgh (1328) 18Tree of Rattles (Bonet) 85Trollope, Andrew 71-72Troyes

Cathedral 61Treaty of (1420) 8, 9, 60

Vannes 37Victoria, Queen of Great Britain (1819-1901) 7

wars and campaigns see also Anglo-French conflicts; Anglo-Scottish conflicts; chevauchées

against civilians 73-74financial aspects 14-15, 18, 23, 25-26, 53-54,

81-82trade aspects 80-81

'Wars of the Roses' (1455-85) 72, 89, 91weaponry see armies: weapons ofWeardale raids (1327) 26Winchelsea, battle of (1350) 41

the hundred years' war - brego-weard the hundred years' war is a term invented in the...

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