War · May 1337 – 19 October 1453
Hundred Years' War
The kings of England held the Duchy of Aquitaine (Gascony) as vassals of the French crown, a long source of friction. When Philip VI confiscated it in 1337, Edward III answered by claiming the French throne through his mother.
The war that followed was a series of campaigns broken by long truces. In the Edwardian phase England won at Sluys, Crécy and Poitiers, captured King John II and gained an enlarged Aquitaine at Brétigny in 1360. Under Charles V the French recovered almost everything. Henry V reopened the war, won at Agincourt in 1415, conquered Normandy and, allied with Burgundy during a French civil war, was named heir to France by the Treaty of Troyes. Joan of Arc's relief of Orléans in 1429 and Burgundy's return to the French side in 1435 turned the tide; with better artillery and a professional army, France took Normandy and Gascony, leaving England only Calais after Castillon in 1453.
- Dates
- May 1337 – 19 October 1453
- Casualties
- Estimates are very uncertain: one widely repeated compilation counts about 185,000 soldiers killed in battle and some 556,000 military deaths in all, while raiding, famine and the Black Death killed far more civilians, especially in France.
The sides
England and allies
- Kingdom of England 1337–1453
- Duchy of Burgundy 1419–1435
France and allies
- Kingdom of France 1337–1453
- Kingdom of Scotland 1337–1453
- Crown of Castile 1369–1389
Timeline of the Hundred Years' War
- Philip VI confiscates Aquitaine; Edward III claims France
Edward III held Gascony, the remnant of the Duchy of Aquitaine, as a vassal of the French king, and the French crown had long sought to assert its sovereignty there. In May 1337 Philip VI's Great Council declared the duchy forfeit, citing Edward's breach of his duties as vassal and his shelter of Philip's enemy Robert of Artois. Edward replied by reviving his claim to the French throne through his mother Isabella, sister of the last Capetian king.
- Flemish towns proclaim Edward III King of France
The cloth towns of Flanders depended on English wool, and Edward courted them and other Low Countries princes as allies. On 26 January 1340 he received homage as king of France from Guy, half-brother of the count of Flanders, and the civic authorities of Ghent, Ypres and Bruges proclaimed him their king. Adopting the French title let his Flemish supporters claim they were loyal to the true king of France rather than rebels against their overlord.
- English fleet destroys the French navy at Sluys
Edward sailed from England with a fleet of some 120–150 ships and found the much larger French fleet drawn up in defensive formation in the inlet off Sluys in Flanders. Attacking in the afternoon with the wind and sun behind them, the English almost destroyed the French fleet. England dominated the Channel for the rest of the war, which kept the fighting on French soil and made a French invasion of England impractical.
- War of the Breton Succession becomes a second front
With Edward's money running out, the war might have ended, but the death of the duke of Brittany in 1341 started a succession dispute between John of Montfort and Charles of Blois, nephew of Philip VI. Edward backed Montfort and Philip backed Blois, and for years the war centred on Brittany, where towns such as Vannes changed hands several times. The English-backed Montfort finally won the duchy in 1364.
- Edward III invades Normandy and sacks Caen
Edward landed at Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue on the Cotentin peninsula with complete surprise and marched south, his soldiers razing towns and looting as they went. The army captured the rich city of Caen in a single day, then turned north-east, pillaging toward the Low Countries. Finding the Seine bridges destroyed, Edward crossed at Poissy near Paris and then forded the Somme at Blanchetaque, slipping away from Philip's pursuing army.
- English longbowmen rout the French at Crécy
Unable to outmarch Philip VI, Edward chose a defensive position near Crécy. Genoese mercenary crossbowmen were driven back in an archery duel by English and Welsh longbowmen, and the French knights then launched a series of disordered cavalry charges into arrow fire and dismounted men-at-arms. The French suffered heavy losses, including many nobles, and Philip had allowed the attack to begin before his army was ready.
- Scots invade England and are defeated at Neville's Cross
Scotland had been bound to France by the Auld Alliance since 1295. Philip appealed to the Scots to relieve the pressure by invading northern England, and King David II led an army south. Near Durham, at Neville's Cross, it was defeated and David himself was captured. The defeat greatly reduced the Scottish threat to England for the following years and freed Edward to continue his campaign in France.
- Calais falls to the English after a long siege
After Crécy, Edward marched north unopposed and besieged the Channel port of Calais, which held out until it surrendered in 1347. The town became England's main base in France, letting it land and supply troops safely in the north. Calais stayed English long after the war ended, until the French retook it in 1558. Together with Crécy and Neville's Cross, its capture capped a run of English successes in 1346–1347.
- The Black Death reaches Paris
The plague pandemic that swept Europe arrived in Paris in 1348 and killed a very large share of the population of both kingdoms; estimates for France run to 6–12 million deaths, 30–60 percent of the population, and for England 2–3 million. Fighting was largely suspended while the epidemic raged. The losses strained recruitment and royal finances on both sides, and English campaigning on a large scale resumed only in 1355.
- The Black Prince's great raid from Gascony to Narbonne
Edward III's eldest son, Edward of Woodstock, later called the Black Prince, led a chevauchée, a mounted raid designed to ruin the enemy's lands and revenue, from Bordeaux across southern France. His army pillaged Avignonet, Castelnaudary, Carcassonne and Narbonne. Such raids, repeated throughout the war, burned towns and crops and fell hardest on the peasants of France rather than on its armies.
- Black Prince captures King John II at Poitiers
On a second raid the Black Prince was overtaken near Poitiers by King John II. The French, some 14,000–16,000 strong, attacked about 6,000 Anglo-Gascons in a strong defensive position. A mounted force led by the Gascon captal de Buch, hidden in a wood, struck their flank and cut off their retreat, and John and many nobles were captured. With the king a prisoner, his son the Dauphin Charles ruled as regent amid growing disorder.
- Hailstorm devastates Edward's army: 'Black Monday'
Edward invaded France a third time, hoping to be crowned at Reims, but the city held out for five weeks, and the Dauphin refused battle. After skirmishes outside Paris the English moved toward Chartres, where a freak hailstorm struck their camp at Easter and killed more than 1,000 men. The disaster pushed Edward to negotiate when the French approached him.
- Treaty of Brétigny gives England a greatly enlarged Aquitaine
Drafted at Brétigny near Chartres and ratified at Calais in October, the treaty gave Edward full sovereignty over a much larger Aquitaine, including Gascony, Poitou, Saintonge, Limousin and other lands, plus Calais and Ponthieu. In return he gave up Normandy, Touraine, Anjou and Maine and his claim to the French crown. John II's ransom was set at three million écus, with hostages held as guarantee.
- War resumes as Charles V backs Gascon lords and Castile
In Castile's civil war the Black Prince restored Peter of Castile by winning the battle of Nájera, but the campaign left him in debt. His new hearth tax in Aquitaine provoked Gascon lords to appeal to Charles V, who summoned the prince to Paris; the prince refused, and war broke out again in 1369. That year Henry of Trastámara, backed by France, killed Peter, and Castile became an important French naval ally.
- Castilian fleet defeats the English off La Rochelle
Castile's new Trastámara regime repaid French support with naval help. In 1372 a Castilian fleet defeated an English fleet off La Rochelle, an important port in western France. The defeat weakened English control of the sea routes to Aquitaine, and under the cautious strategy of Charles V and his constable Bertrand du Guesclin, who avoided pitched battles, the French steadily took back English-held towns.
- By Charles V's death, England holds only Calais and a few ports
Charles V's small professional army under du Guesclin had pushed the English back so far that when the king died in 1380, the vast lands won at Brétigny had shrunk to Calais and a few coastal towns. The Black Prince had died in 1376 and Edward III in 1377, and England, ruled for the boy king Richard II, faced heavy war taxation and the Peasants' Revolt of 1381.
- Truce of Leulinghem begins a long pause in the war
With the war unpopular in England and neither side able to pay for major campaigns, negotiations led to the three-year Truce of Leulinghem, signed on 18 June 1389. Renewed several times, it brought a long lull. In the following decades Charles VI of France suffered bouts of madness, and the rivalry of the dukes of Burgundy and Orléans turned into civil war between Burgundians and Armagnacs, both of which sought English help.
- Henry V wins a crushing victory at Agincourt
Henry V landed in August 1415 and took Harfleur after a long siege. Marching toward Calais with a tired, hungry army, he was forced to fight a much larger French army near Agincourt. English archers and men-at-arms on a narrow, muddy field inflicted catastrophic losses, killing many leaders of the Armagnac faction. Fearing an attack, Henry ordered most of the French prisoners, perhaps thousands, to be killed.
- Murder of John the Fearless drives Burgundy into alliance with England
Henry conquered Normandy, taking Caen in 1417 and Rouen in January 1419. Meanwhile the Burgundians had seized Paris in 1418. On 10 September 1419 Duke John the Fearless of Burgundy was killed by one of the Dauphin Charles's attendants during a meeting on the bridge at Montereau, and his son Philip the Good allied formally with England. The Anglo-Burgundian alliance gave Henry control of Paris and much of northern France.
- Treaty of Troyes makes Henry V heir to the French throne
Sealed at Troyes with the insane Charles VI, the treaty disinherited the Dauphin Charles and named Henry and his heirs successors to the French crown. Charles VI remained king for life, and Henry married his daughter Catherine of Valois. Henry entered Paris later that year. The Dauphin, holding much of France south of the Loire, rejected the treaty, so the war became a contest between two claimants.
- English destroy the Dauphin's army at Verneuil
Henry V died in August 1422, two months before Charles VI, leaving a baby son, Henry VI, as king of England and, by the treaty, of France. His brother the Duke of Bedford ran English France. At Verneuil in Normandy, Bedford's archers devastated a Franco-Scottish army, virtually destroying the Dauphin's field army and ending the Scots' role as a major force in France for the rest of the war.
- Joan of Arc helps lift the English siege of Orléans
The English had besieged Orléans, the key to the Loire valley, since October 1428, and hunger threatened to force its surrender. Joan of Arc, a peasant girl who said God had sent her to drive out the English, persuaded the Dauphin to send her there, and she entered the city on 29 April. Within days the revived French attacked the English forts and the siege was lifted, followed by victories along the Loire and at Patay.
- The Dauphin is crowned Charles VII at Reims
The victory at Patay, where French cavalry broke the English rearguard and captured John Talbot, opened the road through English- and Burgundian-held country to Reims, the traditional coronation city. Charles was crowned there on 16 July 1429, strengthening his claim against the Treaty of Troyes. An attack on Paris in September failed, and Henry VI was crowned king of France in Paris in 1431.
- Joan of Arc is burned at the stake in Rouen
Burgundian troops captured Joan at Compiègne in May 1430 and handed her to the English. At Rouen, the seat of English government in France, a church court led by Pierre Cauchon, bishop of Beauvais and an ally of the English, convicted her, and she was burned on 30 May 1431. A later church inquiry overturned the verdict about 25 years afterwards, and she became a lasting French national symbol.
- Burgundy changes sides at the Congress of Arras
England, France and Burgundy met at Arras in the summer of 1435 in what has been called Europe's first real peace congress. The English demands were seen as unrealistic, and after they left, Philip the Good of Burgundy made peace with Charles VII in the Treaty of Arras, recognising him as king. The loss of its main ally was a severe blow to England, and the treaty returned Paris to the French king.
- French victory at Formigny completes the recovery of Normandy
During long truces Charles VII reorganised his army into a professional force with powerful artillery that could take castles in days. The French retook Rouen in 1449. At Formigny an English army marching to relieve Caen was attacked by the Count of Clermont and then struck in flank and rear by Arthur de Richemont. It was the last significant English field army in Normandy, and the remaining strongholds soon fell.
- French artillery defeats the English at Castillon
Charles VII turned to Gascony, England's last province; Bordeaux surrendered in 1451, but its people, largely sympathetic to the English, welcomed back an army under John Talbot in October 1452. At Castillon, Talbot attacked a French camp laid out by the artillery master Jean Bureau and was cut down by its cannon. Talbot and his son were killed in what is usually considered the last battle of the war.
- Bordeaux surrenders, ending English rule in Gascony
The fall of Bordeaux ended English rule in Gascony and the fighting of the Hundred Years' War. England kept only Calais. No peace treaty was signed until 1475, when the Treaty of Picquigny formally ended the war, and English and later British monarchs kept the title king of France until the early nineteenth century. Defeat abroad fed the discontent that led to the Wars of the Roses in England.
Related
Other wars of the time
- Wars of the Roses 22 May 1455 – 16 June 1487