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regular meetings of Parliament was the easiest way to ask for their approval and to deal with other government business. In 1295, Edward convened what has become known as the Model Parliament. It followed the format of de Montfort’s assembly with nobles, clergy, knights, and burgesses. The first meetings divided the assembly into three groups: (1) nobility and knights, (2) clergy, and (3) burgesses. By the 1300s, however, the knights and burgesses found they had similar concerns and formed a single group. From then Teaching Idea on, Parliament was divided into the House of Lords, which included high- Shakespeare’s Henry V is set during ranking clergy as well as nobles, and the House of Commons, made up of knights the Hundred Years‘ War. It contains and burgesses. several famous speeches by King Henry V that can be extracted from The Hundred Years’ War the larger play and read aloud for stu- The Hundred Years’ War was actually a series of conflicts between France and dents. The king’s speech before England that occurred between the 1330s and the 1450s. The English claimed Harfleur in act 3, scene 1—”Once large pieces of French territory and the French throne itself. Later, rivalry over the more unto the breach, dear friends, wool trade in Flanders added to the problems between the two kingdoms. once more!”—is an inspirational Another reason for the war was French support for Scotland against the English, speech delivered before renewing an who were attempting to subjugate Scotland. attack on a French city. A second Over the years, England at times won additional territory in France and at speech delivered by Henry before other times lost it. Several peace treaties were negotiated and signed, only to be Harfleur in act 3, scene 3—”How yet discarded when a new monarch took the throne in either country. The conflict resolves the governor of the finally ended in 1453, when the English lost all their territory in France, except town?”—is essentially a threat. It the port of Calais. details the horrible things the English will do to the French if they do not Joan of Arc surrender, and gives a taste of the A major force in defeating the English in the last phase of the Hundred Years’ ugliness of medieval warfare. Finally, War was a young woman named Joan of Arc, who in life and then in death there is the famous inspirational inspired the French to fight on. At the age of 17, she approached the Dauphin speech before the battle of Agincourt, (the heir to the French throne), who was attempting to recapture rule of France in act 4, scene 3, in which Henry from the English. She told him that the voices of St. Catherine and St. Margaret chides those who wish the English spoke to her and told her to lead the French army against the English. had more troops: “What’s he that At this point in the Hundred Years’ War, the English had defeated the French, wishes so?” and the French had had to sign a treaty giving their throne to the English king. The former French king had died and his son, the Dauphin, was attempting to gain back the throne. Joan convinced the Dauphin to give her an army and she would lead it to vic- Cross-curricular tory. Joan and a small French force drove the English from Orleans. Joan is some- Teaching Idea times called the Maid of Orleans for this feat. Later that same year, the Dauphin After studying biographical writing in was crowned Charles VII. The English still held French territory, however, and books and magazines, have students Joan continued to command the army. She was captured in 1430 and tried for write a narrative summary (learned heresy. Found guilty, she was burned at the stake. 34 in Language Arts) about Joan of Arc. The conviction of Joan of Arc for heresy was overturned in 1453. In 1920, she Ask students to retell her story as if was made a saint of the Roman Catholic Church. it were for a magazine. The Black Death The Black Death is the name given to the outbreak of the devastating plague that spread across Europe between 1347 and 1351. One in three people in Europe

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