The Hundred Years’ War erupted between England and France, a bloody clash of monarchs for power and territory that would forever alter Europe. This long and bitter struggle ignited from the age-old quest for land. Since William the Conqueror’s victory, England’s kings held claims to French territories, fueling a tense rivalry.
King Edward III saw his dwindling French holdings and his denied claim to the French throne (through his mother) as an injustice. When Philip VI of France seized Aquitaine and fueled a Scottish invasion of England, war became inevitable. Edward formed alliances, his son, the Black Prince, sowed discord within France… the stage was set for a brutal confrontation.
In 1346, Edward’s army landed in Normandy, laying waste to the countryside. At Crécy, 14,000 English troops met Philip’s 12,000. The French heavy cavalry and Genoese crossbowmen were no match for a weapon that would change warfare – the English longbow. Arrows rained down, decimating the French charge. By nightfall, Philip’s forces were shattered, his own brother among the dead.
Edward’s triumph at Crécy shattered the French army like a vase flung to the ground. The path lay open for his brutal campaign to continue. By 1347, Calais had crumbled beneath his might, a fallen bastion transformed into a lifeline for English reinforcements. The grim demise of Charles VI in 1350, followed by the Black Death’s gruesome dance through Paris and across the land, dealt France blow after staggering blow.
Over the years, the French army withered, desperately scrambling to block the English tide only to be crushed in pitched battles. The largest of these bloody clashes came at Poitiers on 19 September 1356 – a chilling echo of Crécy. Arrows rained like a vengeful storm, eviscerating the French forces. In a humiliating climax, King John II himself became a prized English captive, a symbol of the French downfall. It was a victory orchestrated by the legendary Black Prince, a name whispered in both fear and awe.
The Black Prince’s death in 1376, followed by that of Edward III a year later, left the crown on the head of a mere boy – Richard II. Still, fueled by insatiable ambition, this child-king snatched more and more French soil for his own. The wounds inflicted by the English were not just on the land; the very spirit of France was shattered as its nobles descended into a cannibalistic struggle for power. By 1407, civil war devoured the nation as the mighty Houses of Orléans and Burgundy grappled for the crown.
As France bled from within, Constable Charles I of Albret rallied its decimated armies to face the English yet again. Just like the French throne, now in the hands of the ailing Charles VI, the English crown had changed heads under the relentless torrent of war. Its new master, Henry V, yearned to finish what his ancestors had started. His blood ran hot with a twisted belief that France was his birthright. On October 25, 1415, he marched into Agincourt, ready to write a blood-soaked chapter in the seemingly endless saga of the Hundred Years’ War.
The fields of Agincourt ran red, choked with the bodies of France’s finest. Charles and Albret, their mighty army shattered – a force rumored to number in the tens of thousands – bled into the mud. Arrows rained like a savage storm upon the French ranks, unleashed by the longbows of Henry’s outnumbered, battle-hardened men. When the dust settled, thousands of Frenchmen lay dead, their hopes of victory extinguished with chilling brutality.
Agincourt was a killing blow that forced Charles’ hand. With his nation in disarray, the English king, his iron grip now undeniable, stood poised to claim the throne. Yet fate played a cruel hand – both Henry and Charles lay dead within months, leaving a shattered kingdom and rival heirs locked in a bloody struggle for power.
Henry VI, desperate to cling to his crown, pressed into Orleans. In 1428, his siege seemed poised for victory, but from the ashes of desperation, a miracle flared. A peasant girl, Joan of Arc, set aflame with divine visions, rallied a broken nation. Her presence shattered English morale, and her martyrdom, a pyre of righteous fury, ignited France’s vengeful heart.
Joan’s fire sparked a revolution. The Dauphin, emboldened, won back a powerful ally – the Duke of Burgundy. Now crowned Charles VII, the French surged, fueled by a burning need for retribution and armed with terrible new cannons that tore through English ranks.
Orleans and Burgundy, once fractured, stood united – a tide turning against the English invaders. Charles, shrewd and relentless, pushed his enemies to the sea. At Formigny, English blood mingled with the sand. Their spirit broken, their strongholds seized, they were utterly routed. The Hundred Years’ War thundered to a close, sealed in English defeat.
A century of bloodshed had redrawn the map of Europe. England, humiliated, spiraled into chaos. The Plantagenets collapsed, their dynasty in tatters. From the rubble, Henry Tudor rose, seizing a crown stained with the horrors of war.
For France, there was both triumph and ruin. Charles VII, the wounds of his nation still gaping, began the arduous task of rebuilding. His reign sowed the seeds of French ascendancy, a testament to a shattered kingdom that emerged from the ashes of war stronger than ever before.
