The Hundred Years War Was A Long, Complicated War With Essays

The Hundred Years War was a long, complicated war with it's roots in political struggles, the want of Kings and the people of their nations to expand territory, and to take territory that they believe is theirs. This war lasted more than a century, from 1337-1453, and was a actually a series of wars broken only temporarily by treaties doomed to fail. The English king controlled much of France, particularly in the fertile South. These lands had come under control of the English when Eleanor of Aquitaine, heiress to the region, married King Henry II of England in the mid-12th century. There was constant bickering along the French-English frontier, and the French kings always had to fear an English invasion from the South. Between Flanders in the North and the English in the South, they were caught in between the two English colonies. The French responded by doing the same to the English. They allied with the Scots in an arrangement that persisted well into the 18th century. Thus the English faced the French from the south and the Scots from the north. The French trap would only work if the French could invade England across the English Channel. Besides, England could support their Flemish allies only if they could send aid across the North Sea, and, moreover, English trade was dependent upon the free flow of naval traffic through the Channel. Consequently, the French continually tried to gain the upper hand at sea, and the English constantly resisted them. Both sides commissioned what would have been pirates if they had not been operating with royal permission to prey upon each other's shipping, and there were frequent naval clashes in those constricted waters. The last son of King Philip IV, the fair, died in 1328, and the direct male line of the Capetians finally ended after almost 350 years. Philip had had a daughter, however. This daughter, Isabelle, had married King Edward II of England, but her and a group of barons had murdered him, because they thought he was incompetent. So, Edward III their son was declared king of England. He was therefore Philip's grandson and successor in a direct line through Philip's daughter. The French could not tolerate the idea that Edward might become King of France, and French lawyers brought up some old Salic Laws, which stated that property, including the throne, could not descend through a female. The French then gave the crown to Philip of Valois, a nephew of Philip IV. Nevertheless, Edward III had a valid claim to the throne of France if he wished to pursue it. Although France was the most populous country in Western Europe and also the wealthiest, England had a strong central government, many veterans of hard fighting on England's Welsh and Scottish borders, as well as in Ireland, a thriving economy, and a popular king. Edward was disposed to fight France, and his subjects were more than ready to support their young king who was only 18 years old at the time . Also many went to "loot and pillage the fair and plenteous land of France."1 The war truly started in 1340. The French had assembled a great fleet to support an army with which they intended to crush all resistance in Flanders. When the ships had anchored in a dense pack at Sluys in modern Netherlands, the English attacked and destroyed it with fire ships and victory in a battle fought across the anchored ships, almost like a land battle on a wooden battlefield. The English now had control of the Channel and North Sea. They were safe from French invasion, could attack France at will, and could expect that the war would be fought on French soil and thus at French expense. "A three year truce was signed by England and France in 1343, but in 1345 Edward again invaded northern France1." The Black Death had arrived, and his army was weakened by sickness. As the English force tried to make its way safely to fortified Channel port, the French attempted to force them into a battle. The English were finally pinned against the coast by a much superior French army at a place called Crecy. Edward's army was a combined force: archers, pikemen, light infantry, and cavalry; the French, by contrast, clung to their old-fashioned feudal cavalry and used the powerful, but slow firing crossbow. The English had archers using the longbow, a weapon with great penetrating power that could sometimes kill armored knights, and often the horses on which they rode. Also, the longbow could fire three of its arrows to the crossbow's one