How One Empty Throne Drowned Two Nations in a Century of Blood

It's a thought we’ve all had before a daunting task: this will be quick, in and out. That's precisely the sentiment King Edward III of England must have felt when he set his sights on France. What was intended to be a swift assertion of power spiraled into a conflict that spanned 116 years, reshaping two nations forever. Let's delve into what England and France couldn't agree on and why this confrontation burned for so long.

A Crown of Thorns

Historically, English kings held significant lands in France, a legacy of strategic and successful dynastic marriages. Over time, however, a strengthening France began reclaiming its territory, squeezing the English presence. The breaking point came in 1328 when the French king died without a direct male heir. This power vacuum created an opportunity that would ignite one of history's longest wars.

Edward III, the King of England, saw his chance and put forward his own candidacy for the French throne. Did he have a legitimate claim? Absolutely. Through his mother, he was a direct relative of the French ruling dynasty. Yet, his claim was rejected by the French nobility. The core reason for the century of strife was deceptively simple: English monarchs were determined to wear the French crown, and the French were equally determined to stop them. In 1337, Edward III assembled his army and crossed the channel, beginning the first chapter of the war.

The Edwardian Storm and the Black Death

Initially, fortune favored Edward. The French fleet was annihilated at the Battle of Sluys, granting England control of the seas. Then, in 1346, the English achieved a stunning victory at the Battle of Crécy, where the flower of French knighthood was cut down. A year later, the strategic port city of Calais fell into English hands, where it would remain for the next two centuries.

Just as English momentum seemed unstoppable, the world itself seemed to end. The further course of the war was brutally interrupted by the plague. The Black Death swept across Europe beginning in 1346, wiping out, by some estimates, nearly half the population. France, being ravaged simultaneously by an invading army, suffered immensely. England was also grievously weakened, yet Edward was resolute.

In 1356, the war resumed with the Battle of Poitiers. The English, led by Edward's heir, the formidable Edward, the Black Prince, delivered another crushing blow to the French. Not only was their army shattered, but the King of France himself was taken prisoner. What do you think a population devastated by war taxes and a horrific plague did next? They revolted. Uprisings like the Jacquerie in France and the Peasants' Revolt in England unleashed chaos that cost thousands of lives.

By this point, both kingdoms were so utterly exhausted they could no longer fight. In 1360, a peace treaty was signed. England was granted control over nearly a third of all French territory. However, history is shaped by the fine print. The treaty was ambiguous about Edward's formal renunciation of the French throne, and it didn't formally strip the French of their ultimate rights to the ceded lands. These small details would prove to be immensely important.

The French Phoenix and a War of Attrition

While England celebrated, France was methodically preparing for revenge. The new French king, Charles V, was a brilliant strategist. He reformed the economy and rebuilt the army. In 1369, he found a pretext to accuse the English of violating the peace treaty and began reclaiming the lands they had lost.

This time, the French held the upper hand. Charles V avoided catastrophic pitched battles, instead favoring a war of exhaustion. His armies weakened the English through constant small skirmishes, raids, and sieges. England’s fortunes turned. The great King Edward III was now old, and his brilliant son, the Black Prince, was felled by a debilitating illness at the start of this new phase. With its best commanders gone and its fleet defeated by a French-allied navy, England’s continental holdings dwindled until only a few coastal cities like Calais and Bordeaux remained.

By the 1380s, both countries faced internal turmoil once more. The kings of both England and France were mere children, Richard II and Charles VI, respectively. With both populations suffering and discontent simmering, the enemies agreed to a truce in 1389. For a moment, it seemed a lasting peace might be possible.

Madness, Civil War, and the Lion of Agincourt

Peace was not to be. In England, King Richard II was overthrown by his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, who became King Henry IV. In France, King Charles VI began to suffer from severe bouts of madness, creating a power vacuum that tore the French nobility apart. Two factions, the Armagnacs and the Burgundians, plunged the country into a brutal civil war.

Seeing a fractured and weakened France, the new English king, Henry V, decided to press his family’s old claim. In 1415, he launched a new invasion. After capturing a few fortresses, his army was severely weakened by disease. The French, despite their internal divisions, amassed a huge force to crush him once and for all. The two armies met near a small village called Agincourt.

Against all odds, the English won one of the most famous victories in military history. Following this triumph, Henry V conquered most of Normandy and shrewdly allied himself with the Burgundian faction of the French civil war. In 1420, the beleaguered and mentally frail King Charles VI of France signed a peace treaty naming Henry V and his future sons as the heirs to the French throne. But the legitimate heir, Charles's own son, refused to be disinherited. Supported by the Armagnac faction, he continued the fight.

The Maid of Orléans and the Final Bell

In 1428, the English laid siege to the city of Orléans. Its fall seemed inevitable, and with it, the final conquest of France. Then, something happened that no one could have predicted.

A young peasant girl, the mysterious Joan of Arc, arrived at the French court. She claimed she was sent by God to save France. Her conviction and charisma electrified the demoralized French soldiers. With their fighting spirit reborn, they shattered the English siege of Orléans. Joan’s appearance completely altered the course of the war. The inspired French, now led by the rightful heir, Charles VII, began to win victory after victory.

Charles VII used the following years of truce to reorganize his army and finances. When the war reignited, the English could no longer resist the French onslaught. They were decisively defeated at the Battle of Castillon in 1453, an event that effectively marked the end of the Hundred Years' War. Interestingly, no formal peace treaty was signed. England was about to descend into its own civil conflict, the Wars of the Roses, and had no appetite for further campaigns on the continent. Of its vast French territories, only the city of Calais remained, which the French would finally reclaim in 1558.

The Scars and Symbols of a Century of Conflict

The war had a profound impact on both nations. In France, royal power was centralized and strengthened. In both England and France, the long struggle forged a new sense of national identity; people began to see themselves not just as subjects of a king, but as "French" or "English." It was during this period that English finally replaced French as the official language of the court and government in England.

Warfare itself was transformed. The age of the chivalric knight on horseback gave way to organized armies of infantry and mercenaries. For the first time since the Roman Empire, infantry became the decisive force on the battlefield, and artillery, once used only for sieges, began to see use in open battle.

In essence, the Hundred Years' War was a long and brutal series of conflicts, all linked by a single ambition. The pendulum of fortune swung wildly, but in the end, victory belonged to the French. Both countries that entered the war in 1337 were fundamentally different from the ones that emerged from its ashes over a century later.

References

• Seward, Desmond. The Hundred Years War: The English in France, 1337-1453. Penguin Books, 1999.

  This work provides a complete and accessible narrative of the entire conflict. It details the initial English dynastic claims to the French throne and offers vivid accounts of the pivotal battles, such as Crécy and Agincourt, that defined the war's major phases.

• Curry, Anne. The Hundred Years War: 1337-1453. Routledge, 2003.

  Professor Curry's analysis presents the conflict not as one continuous war but as a series of distinct stages. The book is especially insightful regarding the profound and lasting consequences for both England and France, highlighting the formation of national identities and the revolutionary changes in military strategy that signaled the end of the medieval era of warfare.