The Age of Chivalry

by Hywel Williams

  In 1324 the short War of Saint-Sardos, fought in Gascony, provided a foretaste of the mighty struggle to come. Charles IV of France besieged the English fortress of La Réole, which was forced to surrender after a month of steady bombardment. England’s humiliation was complete. The entire duchy of Aquitaine had once been the possession of the English Crown and now only Bordeaux and a narrow coastal strip remained. This cause of national shame had a major domestic consequence: the deposition of Edward II in 1327 by the discontented English nobility and the succession of his son Edward III—a very different kind of ruler. When Charles IV died in the following year it seemed to many—and not just those with English sympathies—that Edward was the legitimate heir to the French throne. Charles was the last representative of the senior line of the Capetian dynasty and his child, born posthumously, was a girl. Edward was not just Charles’s nephew and closest surviving male relative, he was also the only living male descendant of Philip IV. The French aristocracy were, however, appalled by the prospect of being ruled by an English king, and in order to justify their hostility they fell back on the Salic law. This prohibited not only succession by women but also succession by those whose claims descended through a female relative. They turned instead to Philip of Valois, a Capetian who was the nephew of Philip IV. He was already regent and was subsequently crowned Philip VI in 1328, the first king of the Valois dynasty.

  French ambitions on the eve of the conflict centered on Gascony, still held by the English as a fief of the French Crown rather than as their own territorial possession. Edward had been allowed to keep it, but an agreement made in 1331 meant that in return he had to give up his claim to the French Crown. This was an uneasy compromise, and in 1336 Philip made plans to take over Gascony while Edward was preoccupied with making war against the Scots—by now a well-established French ally. In 1337 Philip claimed the whole of Gascony as his own fiefdom, and Edward in return asserted his claim to be the rightful king of France.

  ENGLISH NAVAL MIGHT

  The initial stages of the war went badly for the English, who had allied themselves with Flanders and also with various individual nobles elsewhere in the Low Countries. Paying subsidies to these allies and meeting the costs of maintaining armies on foreign soil placed huge strains on English finances, and by 1340 these alliances were abandoned. The French naval offensive deployed ships and crew supplied by the republic of Genoa, and the disruption to England’s trading patterns was considerable—especially the export of raw wool to Flanders and the import of wine and salt from Gascony. At the Battle of Sluys in 1340, however, the English were able to assert their naval supremacy and for the rest of the war the English Channel was effectively defended from any threat of French invasion. The focus of conflict thereafter shifted to Gascony and to Brittany where the two powers supported rival claimants to the duchy, but in both areas the fighting of the early 1340s was inconclusive.

  ABOVE An anonymous portait of Edward III, who reigned as King of England between 1327 and 1377.

  However, in July 1346 in a major military offensive, Edward led an expedition to France which landed on the Cotentin Peninsula on the Normandy coast. Caen was captured swiftly and Edward then advanced northwards toward the Low Countries, pillaging as he went. At Crécy the two armies confronted each other in battle and the result, greatly influenced by the English and Welsh archers with their longbows, was a decisive defeat for the French. Edward was now able to proceed northwards unopposed, and following a siege he captured the city of Calais in 1347. This was a major coup for the English army, which could once again maintain its troops in a fortified settlement on French soil. Developments in Scotland were also favoring England by this time, and David II was captured following his defeat in the Battle of Neville’s Cross in 1346.

  * * *

  VALOIS KINGS

  1328–1461

  PHILIP VI

  (1293–1350)

  r. 1328–50

  JOHN II

  (1319–64)

  r. 1350–64

  CHARLES V

  (1338–80)

  r. 1364–80

  CHARLES VI

  [“the Mad”]

  (1368–1422)

  r. 1380–1422

  CHARLES VII

  (1403–61)

  r. 1422–61

  * * *

  THE EXPLOITS OF THE BLACK PRINCE

  The next stage of the war saw the rise to prominence of Edward III’s son and namesake, the prince of Wales, also known as the Black Prince. In 1356 the prince landed his troops in Gascony and advanced toward Poitiers, where a major victory was gained in battle over the French. This success was once again attributable to the English and Welsh archers. France’s new king John II (Jean le Bon), a patron of the arts and an indifferent soldier, was captured and taken to England where he was held in captivity for four years while the ransom to release him was being raised in an economically weakened France.

  RIGHT An illustration depicting the murder of Etienne Marcel, 1358. Marcel was about to open the gates of Paris to the king of Navarre’s armed bands, but Jean Maillart prevented him, and killed him before the Porte Saint-Antoine (from The Chronicles of Jean Froissart).

  By now much of the French countryside was collapsing into a state of anarchy, with professional soldiers turning to brigandage and pillaging the land. In 1358 there was a major peasant rebellion (the Jacquerie) and deep divisions were also emerging among the French élite. Charles the dauphin was trying to rule as regent in his father’s absence, and in October 1356 he summoned the Estates-General, a representative body consisting of the three orders of clergy, nobility and townspeople. Étienne Marcel, leader of the Paris merchants, enjoyed the support of many nobles in his refusal to grant money to Charles and in his attempt to impose substantial restrictions on royal power. Charles’s resistance led Marcel to support the king of Navarre, whom he hoped to place on the French throne and whose armed bands were on the outskirts of Paris by the beginning of 1358.

  English forces were keen to capitalize on this domestic French crisis, and in 1358 Edward III once again launched an invasion force but was unable to capture either Paris or Rheims. Charles was able to call on support from the provinces in reasserting control over Paris and its urban mob, whose violence had alienated previously sympathetic members of the nobility. By the terms of the Treaty of Brétigny (1360) a third of western France—Aquitaine, Gascony, western Brittany and the countship of Calais—was ceded to England, whose Crown held these territories without having to pay homage. A ransom of three million crowns was fixed as the price to be paid in installments for the king’s release. Although England gave up Normandy and, at least in theory, the claim to the French Crown, the treaty marked the high point of English fortunes in the Hundred Years’ War, and it now ruled a much-expanded Aquitaine. The enormous sums paid in ransom by the French boosted their enemy’s treasury for the rest of the century and consequently increased the English capacity to wage war. As a guarantee of the future payment, and after paying one million crowns, John II had to give up two of his sons as hostages to the English. When his son Louis escaped from England in 1362 King John II decided to give himself up. An amiable captivity in England seemed preferable to the burdens of exercising kingship in France, and on his death in 1364 John was succeeded by his son who reigned as Charles V.

  THE FIRST PERIOD OF PEACE

  During the first period of peace (1360–69) Charles contemplated two issues: how best to regain the French lands lost to the English and how to rid the countryside of those mercenary soldiers who had been disbanded and were now causing social chaos. He found a solution in Bertrand du Guesclin, a minor noble from Brittany who had learned advanced guerrilla techniques while engaged in the duchy’s internal conflicts. Du Guesclin had crushed the forces of Charles II of Navarre in Normandy in 1364, and Charles V now placed him in command of the mercenary bands whose energies could be used to further the cause of the French Crown.

  Castile in the 1360s was cons
umed by a civil war, with the English supporting the cause of Pedro the Cruel while his opponent and brother Don Enrique enjoyed French support. Du Guesclin’s men forced Don Pedro out of Castile in 1365, at which point he attracted the support of the Black Prince, who was then ruling in Aquitaine as his father’s viceroy. At the Battle of Najera in April 1367 the Anglo-Gascon force inflicted a heavy defeat on du Guesclin’s men. It was the Black Prince’s last major victory, and he subsequently developed the dropsy which would later claim his life. His rule in Gascony-Aquitaine became increasingly autocratic, and when Pedro defaulted on his debts the prince resorted to extraordinary taxation measures. Gascon nobles at that point petitioned the French Crown to come to their aid, and Charles V summoned the prince to Paris to answer charges. When he refused to do so the king charged him with disloyalty and deemed that the English had broken the terms of the peace treaty. In May 1369 Charles declared war and hostilities resumed.

  HOSTILITIES RESUMED

  The second major phase of the Hundred Years’ War saw a steady improvement in French fortunes. Charles opted for a policy of attrition that was calculated to engage English forces across a broad front while seeking to avoid a major battle. In pursuing this policy the French relied on the effective strategies of du Guesclin, who was appointed constable of France in 1370. He drove back the major English offensive in northern France using both hit and run raids and the persuasion of bribery. The French could also rely on the navy of Castile, since du Guesclin had captured Pedro the Cruel and the region’s throne was occupied from 1370 onward by France’s ally, Enrique. England now suffered from a dearth of effective commanders. The Black Prince’s illness meant that he was deprived of his command in 1371, and his father, the king, was too old to take to the field of battle. The loss of John Chandos who, as seneschal, was the administrator of Poitou, and the capture of their Gascon vassal Jean III de Grailly, deprived the English of two of their greatest military leaders. In 1372 du Guesclin avenged an historic French defeat by retaking Poitiers, and five years later his forces captured Bergerac. Charles’s policy of negotiating with cities and regions the French had lost was also highly effective, and by 1374 he had regained all the lands ceded under the peace treaty with the exception of Calais and Aquitaine. The death of the Black Prince in 1376 and of Edward III in 1377 meant that the prince’s son Richard of Bordeaux succeeded to the throne during his minority. Du Guesclin’s death in 1380 and the resumption of a major Scottish military offensive in the 1380s, including the Battle of Otterburn (1388), meant that it suited both sides to engage in peace negotiations. These were eventually concluded in 1389.

  THE SECOND PERIOD OF PEACE

  The period of the second peace (1389–1415) was one in which both countries saw a resumption of domestic challenges to the authority of the Crown. Charles V’s brothers, who dominated the regency council that ruled in the name of his infant son, quarreled among themselves and the authority of the Crown diminished accordingly. When Charles VI started to govern in his own name he proved to be a trivial figure, and his descent into madness in 1392 put his uncles back in power. An open contest for power developed between two factions. The Orléanist group—subsequently known as the Armagnac—supported the king’s brother, Louis of Valois, duke of Orléans. Those who championed the cause of the king’s cousin, John II, duke of Burgundy, were known as the Burgundians. The Burgundian group were responsible for the assassination of Louis, duke of Orléans, in 1407, and thereafter leadership of those opposed to John of Burgundy passed to Bernard VII, count of Armagnac. By 1410 both these factions were seeking English assistance in a period that was effectively one of French civil war.

  The English Crown was also embroiled in domestic conflict. Richard II failed to quell the Irish uprising that preoccupied him for most of his reign, and his cousin Henry Bolingbroke seized the throne in 1399. From 1400 onward Henry IV was challenged by a major Welsh rebellion under the leadership of Owain Glyndwr, and until 1410 much of Wales was lost to the English. In the north the English regime change led to a series of renewed Scottish attacks along the border. These were countered by an English invasion in 1402 and the defeat of the Scots at the Battle of Homildon Hill. However, that battle sowed the seeds of another conflict, since Henry and the earl of Northumberland quarreled over the fruits of their victory. A long and bloody struggle ensued between the two for control of the northern English region, and this was only finally resolved in 1408 when the Percy family had to concede defeat. These troubles, along with the resumption of major French and Scandinavian raids on English shipping, meant that England was in no state to renew the French campaign until 1415.

  AGINCOURT AND AFTER

  England’s declaration of war in 1415 sought to capitalize on the French domestic mayhem that followed cessation of hostilities between the two nations in the late 1390s. In 1414 Henry V had turned down an offer from the Armagnac faction to support his claim to the throne in return for their restoration of the frontiers established under the Treaty of Brétigny signed in 1360. Henry’s declared war aim was the restoration of the French territories possessed by the English during the reign of Henry II (1154–89).

  ABOVE Henry V is portrayed in this elaborately gilded anonymous painting of the 15th century.

  In pursuit of this highly ambitious goal, Henry arrived with an army at Harfleur in August 1415 and, after taking the town, he marched on toward the safety of English-occupied Calais. However, he now found himself outmaneuvered and his supplies were running low. He therefore decided to make a stand at Agincourt, a site north of the River Somme. In the ensuing battle (October 25th, 1415) a comparatively larger and better-equipped French army was defeated by the English. Subsequent English propaganda may have inflated the disparity in numbers in order to emphasize the scale of the victory, but there can be no doubt that, for the French, Agincourt was a defeat on the scale of Crécy and Poitiers. Henry went on to take most of Normandy, including Caen in 1417 and Rouen in January 1419. Normandy was once again under English control for the first time in two centuries.

  These were great victories for English arms, but they also owed much to the intensity of French factionalism. Charles, duke of Orléans, was captured by the English at Agincourt, and Bernard VII, count of Armagnac, was murdered in 1417 by a mob of Burgundian supporters in Paris. After 1417 the Burgundians controlled both Paris and the king himself, and their conflict with the Armagnacs meant that French forces could not concentrate on the campaign against the English in Normandy. Although the two factions agreed to a truce in 1419, the Burgundians retained their ambitions and the grouping decided to ally themselves with England.

  It was this Burgundian influence that brought pressure to bear on Charles VI, who had now descended into insanity. Under the terms of the Treaty of Troyes signed in 1420 the French king recognized Henry V of England as his heir. Henry would marry Charles’s daughter Catherine, and Henry’s heirs were recognized as rightful rulers of France. The dauphin, later Charles VII, was declared to be illegitimate and thereby disinherited. Late in 1420 Henry entered Paris in triumph, and the Anglo-French agreement was ratified by the Estates-General.

  A CHANGE IN FRENCH FORTUNES

  It was at this point, however, that the Scottish dimension to the conflict reemerged. A substantial Scottish force led by the earl of Buchan landed in France and engaged the English in battle. Thomas, first duke of Clarence, was killed at the Battle of Bauge in 1421 and most of the other English commanders were either killed or captured. The death of Henry V at Meaux in 1422 was followed by that of Charles soon after. Henry’s infant son was crowned as Henry VI, king of England and France. The Burgundians continued to support him as English allies, but the Armagnacs’ fidelity to the cause of Charles’s son ensured the continuation of the war. By 1429 the English were besieging Orléans, a city that seemed on the point of surrender. It was at this stage that a remarkable peasant girl named Jeanne appeared, and her message transformed French prospects.

  Jeanne d’Arc mai
ntained that she had received a vision from God telling her that it was her destiny to drive the English out of France. In 1429 she appeared before the dauphin and persuaded him that she should be sent to Orléans, where she had a galvanizing effect on morale. The French troops subsequently went on the offensive and forced the English to lift the siege. The French proceeded to take several English positions along the Loire valley, and at the Battle of Patay (1429) a French army defeated a superior force led by John Talbot, first earl of Shrewsbury. Not even the famed archers of England and Wales, hitherto an invincible military resource, could withstand the French advance. With his position thus strengthened, the dauphin was able to march to Rheims where he was crowned Charles VII that same year.

  ABOVE A late-15th-century miniature portrait of Jeanne d’Arc, who inspired French soldiers with her leadership and divinely inspired sense of mission.

  Jeanne was subsequently captured by the pro-English Burgundian faction, sold to the enemy and burned at the stake. For a while the French advance ground to a halt as both sides engaged in peace negotiations. The breakdown in relations between the English and the Burgundians heralded the end of the war. The infancy of King Henry VI of England had been marked by quarrels between his uncles who ruled as regents. One of these uncles, Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, was married to Jacqueline, countess of Hainault. Humphrey decided to invade the province of Holland in order to regain her former territories, and this action brought him into direct conflict with Philip III, duke of Burgundy. In 1435 Duke Philip changed sides, and the Burgundians therefore decided to sign the Treaty of Arras, a development that enabled French royal forces to regain control of Paris. From now on the Burgundian faction had to concentrate on defending their interests in the Low Countries, and that strategic need dictated their withdrawal from the French civil war.