The Hundred Years' War: Everything You Wanted To Know | HistoryExtra Podcast - HistoryExtra
"'The Hundred Years War never existed. That might seem a daft comment to make right at the beginning. But it's something that's been defined into existence in the early 19th century. It seems to be a term invented in France, le guerre de cent ans. But of course, it's a great shorthand, isn't it? Historians love to categorize things. And I think readers and people who are interested in history like that as well. We'd like to have pegs on which to hang our knowledge… there was no peace treaty in 1453. In fact, the nearest real peace treaty where the King of England stopped calling himself King of France, because that's really what it's all about, was 1801. So I don't know how long that is. But in fact, in the 20th century, somebody invented the idea of a second Hundred Years War for all those wars between England and France in the 18th century, the Marlborough Wars, the War of, of Austrian succession, the Seven Years War, all that kind of thing, because again, it was emphasizing the fact that we really were old enemies, and we were still at it. But when the Entente Cordiale came in 1904 some people were quite surprised and maybe even today, some people think that we're still enemies of the French rather than their allies'...
'In 1328, the King of France Charles the Fourth died without a male heir. And therefore they had a difficulty in knowing whom the heir should be. The nearest heir, the nephew, was Edward the Third of England, but his inheritance was through his mother, the sister of a previous number of French kings, and the French didn't like that idea of inheritance through a woman. And not just that, they didn't like the idea of the King of England becoming King of France. So I think it’s inevitable, given that the English and the French were, were already at war in fact in 1324 to 1327, that they should go further out in the royal family, look at the male line only, and choose a descendant of a king, a few dynasty, a few few decades back, Philip the Sixth, of the line of the Valois kings, and so Philip the Sixth became King of France, not Edward the Third. But of course, the point is here that there's been a claim, a claim of blood. And Edward the Third did have a claim, and indeed, even some lawyers at the time, thought that claim through his mother was fine. And so we've got really something that's, that's going to erupt into an already delicate situation.'...
‘And so how did it all begin it? I guess it just began with an English invasion led by Edward the Third. Is that is that correct?’
‘Ah, no, actually, when we look at the war, it begins with a French invasion, a French declaration of war... For Philip the Sixth who became King of France at the choice of the French nobles, if you like, it was absolutely essential for him to neutralize any claim that Edward the Third might have and so he spent all his time trying to get Edward to come to France to pay homage to him. So we almost have a Cold War in the 1330s. At the same time, the English kings, Edward the Third amongst them are trying to get overlordship of Scotland, very similar kind of thing to what the French kings wanting in, in France, and Philip thinks aha, if I stir up things in Scotland for Edward the Third, then he's bound to give into me in terms of paying homage as Duke of Aquitaine. So that adds another element into it. An alliance between France and Scotland was revived, it had started in 1296, but it's revived again in the mid 1330s. So we have things really ripe for disaster and there are various other small causes till eventually in 1337 Philip the Sixth claims that Edward the Third is a contumacious vassal and therefore, he confiscates his property from him, not just Aquitaine. But by this time, the English also have the county of Poncteux [sp?]. That’s the area around the Somme, as well. And so Philip takes all those lands away from Edward. So really, it's the French who declare war in 1337’...
[On Henry V surviving and England taking over France] ‘Would the English have like the idea of their king always being in France, because he probably would have had to be there quite a lot of the time. And we know, even in the Parliament of 1420, December 1420, there were certain noises about, it's gonna mess up legislation here cos the King’s not here to approve it. Also, hang on a minute. We don't want England to be subordinate to France. And so we're gonna have reissued a statute of 1340 that says, that'll never happen. Okay. He's King of France. But we're equal partners. Yeah. So and also, they weren't very happy about Henry being away. So I think it could have caused problems in England. So it might have solved one thing, if Henry had lived longer, but it could have created other problems in the long term in England.’...
‘I suggested this was the first pan European war. And I think that's a valid point to make. Right from the start in the 1330s, France and England looked for allies. So for instance, the French would get Castille, one of the kingdoms of Spain and the English word get an alliance with Aragon, the other main kingdom. In the Low Countries, you get their alliances of one sort or another. One point, the count of Flanders favors the French. On another occasion, he favors the English. So it is really a war of allies, and the Scots are the allies of the French really throughout the whole period. So I think in the 14th century, particularly the first phase and the second phase as well, this pan European quality is absolutely essential. In fact, in that period of peace - 1360 to 69, this Hundred Years War was fought out in Spain, where the the French support one claimant to the Castillian throne, and the English support the other claimant to the Castillian throne. The Black Prince invades, wins a battle, but then it costs too much. At the end of the day, the French claimant is the one who wins the throne. So it is very, very important element. It does explain why they remained bitter enemies with the Scots. The French had a cunning plan from time to time, which was they would invade southern England, and they'd get the Scots to invade Northern England at the same time, a very dangerous situation for the English. And so in return, we would invade Flanders, modern day Belgium, and we even had a recovery of our troops from the beach at Dunkirk, much as, in 1383, much as they had in in 1940’...
‘[Cannon] is a bit like the atomic bomb of the 15th century, that just the threat of it could be enough to make the other side surrender. And that happens at Monte [sp?] in 1449, where Charles VII, draws his guns up outside the town. And there's negotiations and the townspeople, who've just spent a lot of good money on building those walls up, yeah, say, you know, I think we'd rather surrender than have our walls blitzed. So they are very interesting. So the threat as much as a practice.’
‘Now, how did the French view the Hundred Years War?’...
‘Well, we all study the bits of the war we like. So there's a hell of a lot of writings about Joan of Arc, as you can imagine. There's also a lot of writings about Charles the Fifth, he’s the king that reversed the trend in the 1370s and 80s. So I think one thing you could say is that they choose to study the bits where they were winning, and they choose to study the end of the war and the recovery of authority under Charles VII, you know, the God given King and that. I mean, of course I tend to speak to academics and academics are broad minded, and therefore, you know, they're searching the truth. And they're very interested in the arguments that I’ve put forward. And they will look as I know, some of them have done at the chaos France was in, 1415, to 20. So they're approaching it in a very different way. But I think for the French public as a whole, the Hundred Years War means Joan of Arc. I really do. I think it boils down to that. And although it's something that they study, they study it, because they won, at the end of it. Yep. So I think it's a curiosity. But that generates a national heroine who like and eventual French victory’
‘So she kind of the French equivalent of Henry V, or is she more elevated in France than Henry V would be in England?’
‘I think she's more elevated because I, for instance, I don't think Henry V was used much as an icon in the First and Second World War, whereas Joan of Arc certainly was used by the French. There’re even war memorials for the First World War with Joan of Arc on them. And she was certainly a heroine of the Vichy regime, there’s a very famous poster of her tied to the stake in Rouen and the Rouen buildings, modern buildings, they're being destroyed and on fire. And the French, the Vichy regime had that the enemy always returned to the scene of their crimes, and so a reference to the fact that the English had burnt Joan, in Rouen 1431. And here they were coming back and bombing Routen. How could they be the true, true friends? If, if you like. The so interesting use of history, there. I think Jane was used also in adverts for the war bonds. And even in America, for instance. So the uses of Joan as a patriotic woman in wartime, you see quite a lot of that in in France, so I think she does epitomize very much the the National Salvation, the National Rescue and the pride that the French have in themselves. But also the religious dimension, although France is officially a secular country became that really for them the revolution onwards, I think, indeed, there was quite a lot of controversy over the canonization of Joan. It often comes as a surprise to people that she wasn't made a saint until 1920, yeah. But I think that is because of this tension between secularization and religion there, but the pressure eventually, and with the First World War, and France being redeemed, eventually in, in that. I think made her, fortified her position very much as as the National Heroine who just also happened to be a very Holy person.’"
