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Henry's progress was now stopped by the arrival in France of a Scottish army of around 6,000 men. In 1421, the Earl of Buchan crushed a larger English army at the Battle of Bauge, killing the English commander, Thomas, 1st Duke of Clarence, and killing or capturing most of the English leaders. The French were so grateful that Buchan was immediately promoted to the High Constable of France. Soon after this setback Henry V died at Meaux in 1422. Soon, Charles too had died. Henry's infant son, Henry VI, was immediately crowned king of England and France, but the Armagnacs remained loyal to Charles' son and the war continued in central France.

The English continued to attack France and in 1429 were besieging the important French city of Orleans. An attack on an English supply convoy led to the skirmish that is now known as Battle of the Herrings when John Fastolf circled his supply wagons (largely filled with herring) around his archers and repelled a few hundred attackers. Later that year, a French saviour appeared in the form of a peasant girl from Domremy named Joan of Arc.

French victory: 1429–1453

By 1424, the uncles of Henry VI had begun to quarrel over the infant's regency, and one, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, married Jacqueline, Countess of Hainaut, and invaded Holland to regain her former dominions, bringing him into direct conflict with Philip III, Duke of Burgundy.

By 1428, the English were ready to pursue the war again, laying siege to Orléans. Their force was insufficient to fully invest the city, but larger French forces remained passive. In 1429, Joan of Arc convinced the Dauphin to send her to the siege, saying she had received visions from God telling her to drive out the English. She raised the morale of the local troops and they attacked the English Redoubts, forcing the English to lift the siege. Inspired by Joan, the French took several English strong points on the Loire. Shortly afterwards, a French army, some 8000 strong, broke through English archers at Patay with 1500 heavy cavalry, defeating a 3000 strong army commanded by John Fastolf and John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury. This victory opened the way for the Dauphin to march to Reims for his coronation as Charles VII.

After Joan was captured by the Burgundians in 1430 and later sold to the English and executed, the French advance stalled in negotiations. But, in 1435, the Burgundians under Philip III switched sides, signing the Treaty of Arras and returning Paris to the King of France. Burgundy's allegiance remained fickle, but their focus on expanding their domains into the Low Countries left them little energy to intervene in France. The long truces that marked the war also gave Charles time to reorganise his army and government, replacing his feudal levies with a more modern professional army that could put its superior numbers to good use, and centralising the French state.

A repetition of Du Guesclin's battle avoidance strategy paid dividends and the French were able to recover town after town.

By 1449, the French had retaken Rouen, and in 1450 the count of Clermont and Arthur de Richemont, Earl of Richmond, of the Montfort family (the future Arthur III, Duke of Brittany) caught an English army attempting to relieve Caen at the Battle of Formigny and defeated it, the English army having been attacked from the flank and rear by Richemont's force just as they were on the verge of beating Clermont's army. The French proceeded to capture Caen on July 6 and Bordeaux and Bayonne in 1451. The attempt by Talbot to retake Gascony, though initially welcomed by the locals, was crushed by Jean Bureau and his cannon at the Battle of Castillon in 1453 where Talbot had led a small Anglo-Gascon force in a frontal attack on an entrenched camp. This is considered the last battle of the Hundred Years' War.

Significance

The Hundred Years' War was a time of military evolution. Weapons, tactics, army structure, and the societal meaning of war all changed, partly in response to the demands of the war, partly through advancement in technology, and partly through lessons that warfare taught.

England was what might be considered a more modern state than France. It had a centralised authority—Parliament—with the authority to tax. As the military writer Colonel Alfred Burne notes, England had revolutionised its recruitment system, substituting a paid army for one drawn from feudal obligation. Professional captains were appointed who recruited troops for a specified (theoretically short) period. To some extent, this was a necessity; many barons refused to go on a foreign campaign, as feudal service was supposed to be for protection of the realm.

Before the Hundred Years' War, heavy cavalry was considered the most powerful unit in an army. But by the war's end, this belief had shifted. The heavy horse was increasingly negated by the use of the longbow (and, later, another long-distance weapon: firearms) and fixed defensive positions of men-at-arms—tactics which helped lead to English victories at Crécy and Agincourt. Learning from the Scots, the English began using lightly armoured mounted troops—later called dragoons—who would dismount in order to fight battles. By the end of the Hundred Years' War, this meant a fading of the expensively-outfitted, highly-trained heavy cavalry, and the eventual end of the knight as a military force and the nobility as a political one.

Although they had a tactical advantage, "nevertheless the size of France prohibited lengthy, let alone permanent, occupation," as the military writer General Fuller noted. Covering a much larger area than England, and containing four times its population, France proved difficult for the English to occupy.

An insoluble problem for English commanders was that, in an age of siege warfare, the more territory that was occupied, the greater the requirements for garrisons. This lessened the striking power of English armies as time went on. Salisbury's army at Orleans consisted of only 5,000 men, insufficient not only to invest the city but also numerically inferior to French forces within and without the city. The French only needed to recover some part of their shattered confidence for the outcome to become inevitable. At Orleans they were assisted by the death of Salisbury through a fluke cannon shot and by the inspiration of Joan of Arc.

Furthermore, the ending of the Burgundian alliance spelled the end of English efforts in France, despite the campaigns of the aggressive John, Lord Talbot, and his forces to delay the inevitable.

The war also stimulated nationalistic sentiment. It devastated France as a land, but it also awakened French nationalism. The Hundred Years' War accelerated the process of transforming France from a feudal monarchy to a centralised state. The conflict became one of not just English and French kings but one between the English and French peoples. There were constant rumours in England that the French meant to invade and destroy the English language. National feeling emerged out of such rumours that unified both France and England further. The Hundred Years War basically confirmed the fall of the French language in England, which had served as the language of the ruling classes and commerce there from the time of the Norman conquest until 1362.

The latter stages of the war saw the emergence of the dukes of Burgundy as important players on the political field, and it encouraged the English, in response to the seesawing alliance of the southern Netherlands (now Belgium, a rich centre of woollen production at the time) throughout the conflict, to develop their own woollen industry and foreign markets.

Weapons

The most famous weapon was the English longbow of the yeoman archer: while not a new weapon at the time, it played a significant role throughout the war, giving the English tactical advantage in the many battles and skirmishes in which they were used. The French mainly relied on crossbows, often employed by Genoese mercenaries. The crossbow was used because it took little training or skill to operate, and it had a tremendous firing power against both plate and chain mail. However, it was slow to reload, heavy, and vulnerable to rain-damage; and it lacked the accuracy of the longbow. The longbow was a very difficult weapon to employ, and English archers had to have practiced from an early age to become proficient. It also required tremendous strength to use, with a draw weight typically around 620–670 newtons (140–150 lbf) and possibly as high as 800 N (180 lbf). It was its widespread use in the British Isles that gave the English the ability to use it as a weapon. It was the strategic developments that brought it to prominence. The English, in their battles with the Welsh and Scots, had learned through defeat what dismounted bowmen in fixed positions could do to heavy cavalry from a distance. Since the arrows shot from a longbow could kill or incapacitate armoured knights (and particularly their costly horses), a charge could be dissipated before it ever reached an army's lines. The longbow enabled an often-outnumbered English army to pick battle locations, fortify them, and destroy opposing armies. As the Hundred Years' War came to a close, the number of capable longbowmen began to drop off. Given the training required to use such powerful bows, the casualties taken by the longbowmen at Verneuil (1424) and Patay (1429) were significant. As a result, the longbow became less viable as a weapon since there were not enough men to wield them. In addition, improvements in armour-plating from the 15th century meant that expensive armour was almost arrow-proof. Only the most powerful longbows at close-range could stand a chance of penetrating.

A number of new weapons were introduced during the Hundred Years' War as well. Gunpowder for gonnes (an early firearm) and cannons played significant roles as early as 1375. The last battle of the war, the Battle of Castillon, was the first battle in European history in which artillery was the deciding factor.

War and society

The consequences of these new weapons meant that the nobility was no longer the deciding factor in battle; peasants armed with longbows or firearms could gain access to the power, rewards, and prestige once reserved only for knights who bore arms. The composition of armies changed, from feudal lords who might or might not show up when called by their lord, to paid mercenaries. By the end of the war, both France and England were able to raise enough money through taxation to create standing armies, the first time since the fall of the Western Roman Empire that there were standing armies in Western or Central Europe (excluding the Eastern Roman Empire). Standing armies represented an entirely new form of power for kings. Not only could they defend their kingdoms from invaders, but standing armies could also protect the king from internal threats and also keep the population in check. It was a major step in the early developments towards centralised nation-states that eroded the medieval order.

At the first major battle of the war, the Battle of Crécy, it is said that the age of chivalry came to an end in that heavy-cavalry charges no longer decided battles. At the same time, there was a revival of the mores of chivalry, and it was deemed to be of the highest importance to fight, and to die, in the most chivalrous way possible. The notion of chivalry was strongly influenced by the Romantic epics of the 12th century, and knights imagined themselves re-enacting those stories on the field of battle. Someone like Bertrand Du Guesclin was said to have gone into battle with one eye closed, declaring "I will not open my eye for the honour of my lady until I have killed three Englishmen." Knights often carried the colours of their ladies into battle.

In France, during the captivity of King John II, the Estates General attempted to arrogate power from the king. The Estates General was a body of representatives from the three groups who traditionally had consultative rights in France: the clergy, the nobles, and the townspeople. First called together under Philip IV “the Fair”, the Estates had the right to confirm or disagree with the “levée”, the principal tax by which the kings of France raised money. Under the leadership of a merchant named Etienne Marcel, the Estates General attempted to force the monarchy to accept a sort of agreement called the Great Ordinance. Like the English Magna Carta, the Great Ordinance held that the Estates should supervise the collection and spending of the levy, meet at regular intervals independent of the king’s call, exercise certain judicial powers, and generally play a greater role in government. The nobles took this power to excess, however, causing in 1358 a peasant rebellion known as the Jacquerie. Swarms of peasants furious over the nobles’ high taxes and forced-labour policies killed and burned in the north of France. One of their victims proved to be Etienne Marcel, and without his leadership the Estates General divided.

England and the Hundred Years' War

The effects of the Hundred Years’ War in England also raised some questions about the extent of royal authority. Like the French, the English experienced a serious rebellion against the king during a gap in the succession caused by the death of Edward III when his grandson had not yet reached maturity. Called the Peasants' Revolt and also Wat Tyler’s Rebellion, the 1381 uprising saw some 100,000 peasants march on London to protest the payment of high war taxes and efforts by the nobility to reduce English peasants to serfdom. The mob murdered and burned the houses of government officials and tax collectors. The young king-to-be, Richard II, met the peasants outside his castle, defusing their violence by promising to meet their demands. At the same time, agents of the throne murdered Wat Tyler, a key leader of the revolt, and Richard II sent the peasants back to their homes in the countryside. After they left, however, he reneged on his promises and kept taxes high.

Initially the success of the campaigns brought much wealth to English monarchy and the nobles. As the war continued, the upkeep and maintenance of the region proved too burdensome and the English crown was essentially bankrupted, despite the wealth of France continuously being brought back by the nobles. The English monarchy began to seek truce, abandoning many of their subjects in France. Many English subjects with claims and holdings were greatly disillusioned with the crowns. The conflict became one of the major contributing factors to the Wars of the Roses.

At the end of the war, England was left an island nation, except for Calais. Already on the fringe of Europe, it appeared destined for obscurity. However, the European discovery of the New World beyond the western boundary of the Atlantic Ocean in 1492 meant that seafaring nations like England were well-suited to take advantage of the new opportunities for trade, commerce and conquest it soon afforded.

Major battles

• 1337, November—Battle of Cadsand: initiates hostilities. The Flemish defenders of the island were thrown into disorder by the first use of the English longbow on Continental soil.
• 1340, June 24—Battle of Sluys: Edward III destroys the Franco-Genoese fleet of Philip VI of France off the coast of Flanders ensuring England will not be invaded and that the majority of the war will be fought in France.
• 1345, October 21—Battle of Auberoche: a longbow victory by Henry, Earl of Derby against a French army at Auberoche in Gascony.
• 1346, August 26—Battle of Crécy: English longbowmen soundly defeat French cavalry near the river Somme in Picardy.
• 1346, September 4–1347, August 3—Siege of Calais: Calais falls under English control.
• 1350, August 29—Les Espagnols sur Mer: English fleet defeats Castilian fleet in a close fight.
• 1351, March 26—Combat of the Thirty: Thirty French Knights from Chateau Josselin under Beaumanoir call out and defeat thirty English Knights under Pembroke and Robert Bramborough.
• French army under De Nesle defeated by English under Bentley at Mauron in Brittany, De Nesle killed.
• 1356, September 19—Battle of Poitiers: Edward the Black Prince captures King John II of France, France plunged into chaos.
• 1364, September 29—Battle of Auray: End of Breton War of Succession, Du Gueschlin captured.
• 1367, April 3—Battle of Nájera (Navarette): Black Prince defeats a Castilian/French army at Nájera in Castile.
• 1372, June 22—Battle of La Rochelle: Castilian-French fleet defeats the English fleet, leading to loss of dominance at sea and French piracy and coastal raids.
• 1380—Castilian fleet commanded by Fernando Sánchez de Tovar sacks and burns English port towns.
• 1385--Battle of Aljubarrota: Nuno Álvares Pereira, commanding a small Anglo-Portuguese army, defeats the Castillan-French forces in Portugal.
• 1385—Jean de Vienne, having successfully strengthened the French naval situation, lands an army in Scotland, but is forced to retreat.
• 1415, October 25—Battle of Agincourt: English longbowmen under Henry V defeat French under Charles d'Albret.
• 1416—English defeat numerically greater French army at Valmont near Harfleur.
• 1417—Naval victory in the River Seine under Bedford.
• 1418, July 31–1419, January 19—Siege of Rouen: Henry V of England gains a foothold in Normandy.
• 1419—Battle of La Rochelle: Castilian fleet defeats Anglo-Hanseatic fleet.
• 1421, March 22—Battle of Bauge: The French and Scottish forces of Charles VII commanded by the Earl of Buchan defeat an outmanoeuvred English force commanded by the Duke of Clarence.
• 1423, July 31—Battle of Cravant: The French and Scottish army is defeated at Cravant on the banks of the river Yonne.
• 1424, August 17—Battle of Vernuil: The Scots forces are decisively defeated.
• 1426, March 6—French besieging army under Arthur de Richemont dispersed by a small force under Sir Thomas Rempstone in "The Rout of St James" in Brittany.
• 1428, October 12–1429, May 8—Siege of Orléans: English forces commanded by the Earl of Salisbury, the Earl of Suffolk, and Talbot (Earl of Shrewsbury) lay siege to Orleans, and are forced to withdraw after a relief army accompanied by Joan of Arc arrives at the city.
• 1429, February 12—Battle of the Herrings: English force under Sir John Fastolf defeats French and Scottish armies.
• 1429, July 17—Battle of Patay: In a reverse of Agincourt/Crécy, a French army under La Hire, Richemont, Joan of Arc, and other commanders break through English archers under Lord Talbot and then pursue and mop up the other sections of the English army, killing or capturing about half (2,200) of their troops. The Earl of Shrewsbury (Talbot) and Hungerford are captured.
• 1435—Battle of Gerbevoy: La Hire defeats an English force under Arundel.
• 1435 : French forces take Paris.
• 1450, April 15—Battle of Formigny: A French force under the Comte de Clermont defeats an English force under Thomas Kyriell.
• 1451: French forces conquer Gascony.
• 1453, July 17—Battle of Castillon: Jean Bureau defeats Talbot to end the Hundred Years' War. This was also the first battle in European history where the use of cannon was a major factor in determining the victor.

Important figures

The French "Reconquista"

In 1557 France conquered Calais and its surroundings, which had been under English rule for two centuries. In the aftermath, the region around Calais, then-known as the Calaisis or Calaysis, was renamed the Pays Reconquis ("Reconquered Country") in commemoration of its recovery by the French.

Since the French were well aware of the importance of the Reconquista in the history of their neighbours to the south, and since the French reconquest of Calais occurred in the context of a war with Spain (Philip II of Spain was at the time the consort of Mary I of England), French use of the term might have been intended as a deliberate snub to the Spanish. However, and just as likely, the term might have simply had a higher frequency of use at that time in Western Europe, in light of the Reconquista. And therefore, the French would have merely thought it to be a politically appropriate and authoritative word for their own reconquest of land.

Memory and impact

Lowe (1997) argues opposition to the war helped to shape England's early modern political culture. Although anti-war and pro-peace spokesmen generally failed to influence outcomes at the time, they had a long-term impact. England showed decreasing enthusiasm for a conflict deemed not in the national interest, yielding only losses in return for the economic burdens it imposed. In comparing this English cost-benefit analysis with French attitudes, given that both countries suffered from weak leaders and licentious soldiers, Lowe notes that the French understood that warfare was necessary to expel the foreigners occupying their homeland. Of course, Joan of Arc had a higher and more durable charisma quotient than Henry V. Furthermore French kings found alternative ways to finance the war - sales taxes, debasing the coinage - and were less dependent than the English on tax levies passed by national legislatures. English anti-war critics thus had more to work with than the French.

See also

• Timeline of the Hundred Years' War
• French military history
• British military history
• Anglo-French relations
• Medieval demography
• Second Hundred Years' War- this is the name given by some historians to the near-continuous series of conflicts between Britain and France from 1688–1815, beginning with the Glorious Revolution and ending with the Battle of Waterloo.

Notes

1. French as a mother-tongue in Medieval England
2. Ben Lowe, Imagining Peace: A History of Early English Pacifist Ideas, 1340-1560 (1997)

Bibliography

• Allmand, Christopher, The Hundred Years War: England and France at War, c.1300-c.1450, Cambridge University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-521-31923-4
• Bell, Adrian R., War and the Soldier in the Fourteenth Century, The Boydell Press, November 2004, ISBN 1-843-83103-1
• Braudel, Fernand, The Perspective of the World, Vol III of Civilization and Capitalism 1984 (in French 1979).
• Burne, Alfred, The Agincourt War, Wordsworth Military Library, ISBN 1-84022-211-5
• Crane, Susan. The Performance of Self: Ritual, Clothing, and Identity During the Hundred Years War (2002) excerpt and text search
• Curry, Anne, The Hundred Years War, Macmillan Press, (2nd ed. 2003)
• Dunnigan, James F., and Albert A. Nofi. Medieval Life & The Hundred Years War, Online Book.
• Green, David. The Battle of Poitiers, 1356 (2002). ISBN 0-7524-1989-7.
• Keegan, John. The Face of Battle (1976), covers the battle of Agincourt, comparing it to modern battles
• Neillands, Robin, The Hundred Years War, Routledge, 2001, ISBN 978-0415261319
• Nicolle, David, and Angus McBride. French Armies of the Hundred Years War: 1328-1429 (2000) Men-At-Arms Series, 337 excerpt and text search
• Perroy, Edouard, The Hundred Years War, Capricorn Books, 1965.
• Rogers, Clifford J. "The Military Revolutions of the Hundred Years War," The Journal of Military History 57 (1993): 241-78. in Project Muse
• Ross, Charles, The Wars of the Roses, Thames and Hudson, 1976.
• Seward, Desmond, The Hundred Years War. The English in France 1337–1453, Penguin Books, 1999, ISBN 0140283617 excerpt and text search
• Stone, John. "Technology, Society, and the Infantry Revolution of the Fourteenth Century," The Journal of Military History 68.2 (2004) 361-380 in Project Muse
• Sumption, Jonathan, The Hundred Years War I: Trial by Battle, University of Pennsylvania Press, September 1999, ISBN 0812216555
• Sumption, Jonathan, The Hundred Years War II: Trial by Fire, University of Pennsylvania Press, October 2001, ISBN 0812218019
• Villalon, L. J. Andrew, and Donald J. Kagay, eds. The Hundred Years War: A Wider Focus (2005) online edition; also excerpt and text search
• Wagner, John A., Encyclopedia of the Hundred Years War, Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, August 2006. ISBN 031332736X

External links

• The Hundred Years War Underground. A discussion forum for the Hundred Years War Period
• Jeanne d'Arc. Online University research project.
• The Hundred Years War and the History of Navarre
• Timeline of the Hundred Years War
• Extensive website about Joan of Arc
• The Hundred Years' War (1336–1565) by Dr. Lynn H. Nelson, University of Kansas Emeritus
• The Hundred Years' War information and game
• The Company Of Chivalry: Re-enactment Society at the time of the 100 Years War
• Jean Froissart, "On The Hundred Years War (1337–1453)" from the Internet Medieval Sourcebook

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