Entry taken from the book The Plantagenets
The war that for one hundred and sixteen years (1337-1453) confronted France and England in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries is known as the «Hundred Years' War» . Battles took place in that war (Crécy, Poitiers, Agincourt) and distinguished characters (Henry V, Edward "The Black Prince", the English archers) who have been the subject of attention in many literary and cinematographic works since the time of Shakespeare .
However, the objective of this entry is not to narrate the outstanding events that occurred during this war, but rather to try to explain its origin.
For this we have to place ourselves in France in 1328. In the neighboring country, the old norm of the ancient Salian monarchy had just been recovered, which established the exclusion of women in the line of succession to the French crown (for more information regarding the recovery of the Salic Law and the causes that led to it, see the entry dedicated to the subject in this blog:The preference of men in the French monarchy.
In 1328, Carlos IV «El Hermoso», the last monarch of the Capetian dynasty, died (previously his older brothers Luis X «El Obstinado» and Felipe V «El Largo» died). »). Carlos dies without sons, and when his posthumous son is born and turns out to be a girl, in application of the Salic Law, Carlos's cousin (until then regent), Felipe VI, accedes to the throne.
However, Charles IV also had a sister:the former queen of England, Elizabeth, mother of Edward III. This postulated his candidacy for the French throne arguing that one issue was that his mother Elizabeth had not inherited the crown while his three brothers did, and another very different issue was that he could not transmit his hereditary rights to his sons, that is to say to his own Eduardo, especially because in England the Salic Law was not valid (in fact the English kings defended their legitimate rights to the French crown until well into the 19th century). Eduardo, in any case, did not raise this question of succession at the time of the death of Carlos IV and even paid homage to Felipe de Valois as King of France. The fact that it took almost ten years to try to assert his rights shows that there was something else behind his claim.
Although this was the official and formal cause of the start of the Hundred Years' War, there are those who maintain that the ultimate reasons behind Edward III's decision were other, such as the worsening of trade disputes between the two countries in the Netherlands and the English Channel and the support that France had been giving Scotland. And the most generalized theory maintains that behind his claim was the old problem between the French and English kings:Aquitaine. In fact, Edward's claim to the French throne came months after Philip VI invaded the duchy in May 1337; According to more than one author, the declaration of war was nothing more than an excuse to avoid having to pay homage over the disputed territory of Gascony to a king with whose kingdom the conflicts were multiplying (he could not declare war on Philip as long as he accepted this as a feudal lord over Gascony without risking excommunication). In addition, that would give their barons and lords the opportunity to exercise in the noble and high principles of gallant chivalry that were so fashionable in England at that time, having recovered and updated the legends of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. .
In December 1336, France demanded that England hand over the aristocrat Robert of Artois, who had gone from being a great friend of Philip VI to his worst enemy and who had sought and found refuge at the English court. In the negative response given to this request by Edward, he addressed "Philip de Valois, who calls himself King of France." And in 1340, at a meeting with his Flemish allies in Ghent, Edward was presented with his new coat of arms in which the three rampant lions typical of the Plantagenets were added the fleurs-de-lis on a blue background of the French monarchy. In English eyes it was no longer, as on other occasions, a war of vassal against lord, but of legitimate king against usurper. The challenge was launched and it was a matter of seeing where and when hostilities would break out.
The first major battle of the war was maritime and took place on the Flemish coast, off Sluys, in June 1340… but that's another story.
Image| Edward III
Dan Jones:The Plantagenets;
Peter Ackroyd, History of England. Vol I:Foundations
Roy Strong, The Story of Britain