PART ONE

BROADER HORIZONS OF THE HUNDRED YEARS WAR THE HUNDRED YEARS WARS: NOT ONE BUT MANY

Kelly DeVries Loyola College

When the English King Edward III (1327–1377) launched his major invasions of France in 1339 and again in 1340, it was ostensibly to recover his crown as king of France, a crown which had been legalisti- cally “stolen” from him in 1328 when, despite being the closest heir to the dead king, Charles IV (1322–1328), he was declared ineligible to receive it because this royal descent was gained through a woman. The throne instead was given to a cousin, Philip of Valois, who was then crowned as King Philip VI of France (1328–1350). This action is recognized by most historians as the rst blow struck in what would become known as “The Hundred Years War.” The initial military action taken by Edward would lead in 1339 to a geographically-extensive, but ultimately-impotent campaign fought across the northern French counties of Cambrai, Vermandois, and Thiérarche. There followed in 1340 a major English naval victory at Sluys, counterbalanced by the unsuccessful siege of Tournai. The idea that two nations could ght a war lasting more than a cen- tury, as France and England did in the last two centuries of the Middle Ages, seems to most modern military historians to be the very de nition of the words “medieval warfare.” And yet, in de ning the Hundred Years War in this manner, these same historians have misconstrued the con ict by narrow-mindedly focusing upon the ghting between those two kingdoms. They have all too often ignored or at least downplayed as an integral part of the con ict the fact that each of these major combatants was also conducting military activity against third parties and that these parties engaged in con ict between themselves without direct French or English involvement. In fact, the Hundred Years War was not fought only during the period 1337–1453, the most commonly given dates, nor was it fought only by England and France. Its origins can be traced at least to the late-thirteenth century with the establishment of the “Auld Alli- ance” between Scotland and France (1295–1296) followed by William