History of the Hundred Years War

Ephraim Emerton

• Publisher: Endymion Press
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781531292126
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European Medieval History
• Index: History

The long conflict between France and England, to which historians have given the name of "The Hundred Years' War," interests us chiefly as an illustration on a great scale of the transition from the mediæval, feudal order of society to the modern, national idea of political organization. Its nearer causes were largely feudal, and its methods were still, to a great extent, those of the earlier period. Its remoter causes, however, and the motives that kept it alive are to be sought on both sides in a steadily growing sense of national unity and national honor. Under the feudal régime it may fairly be said that it mattered little to the landholding aristocracy whether it were under the sovereignty of one king or another. The thing it really cared about was whether its privileges were such as it had a right to expect, and whether these privileges were likely to be fully and honorably maintained. So long as this was the case the barons found their profit and their glory in standing by their king in those undertakings which had a certain national character. But if their rights were tampered with, or if another sovereign offered equal guaranties of privilege, they easily took advantage of the flexible feudal arrangements to shift their allegiance...

III.

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THE EIGHT YEARS BETWEEN THE campaign of Crécy-Calais and the campaign of Poitiers were occupied by both France and England in preparations for a conflict which both felt to be inevitable. Truces were made and from time to time extended; but they were little observed. The war in Brittany was hardly interrupted, and in the south the continual attempts of the French crown to assert rights over lands claimed by England were an endless source of bitterness. The internal policy of Philip VI, his persistent determination to enforce the rights of the crown against clerical and feudal privilege, his heavy taxation, all tended to weaken his government as against a determined foreign enemy. The monarchy was indeed gaining, but Philip of Valois was not the man to utilize for great national ends the vast resources of the country. At his death in 1350 the all important question of the English war was as far from settlement as ever.

The accession of John, the eldest son of Philip VI, confirmed the Valois dynasty, but changed nothing for the better. John’s surname, le Bon, expresses his character. He was emphatically the “good fellow,” popular in the sense of making himself well liked when he would, but without persistence of purpose; “honorable” in the feudal meaning of the word, but insensible to the obligations of business honesty; brave in his own person, but incapable of leadership at a crisis when the one thing most needed was to concentrate the whole strength of the state upon the national defence; hopelessly lacking in largeness of view and in command of himself. Over against this “good” king appears the “bad” Charles, king of Navarre, count of Évreux and lord of other wide estates in Normandy, a direct descendant in two lines from St. Louis and distinctly the ablest politician in France. His restless ambition aimed at nothing less than the French crown, and he became the center of a series of conspiracies, chiefly in the north, which fully occupied the opening years of King John’s reign. The succession of blackguardly murders and royal reprisals reads more like the story of an Italian tyrannis than like the record of a well-ordered state. Our interest in it lies only in the reaction upon the English question. The renewal of the great war was the direct consequence of the action of King John against Charles of Navarre, who called in Edward III of England to his aid in Normandy.

As in the campaign of 1346, so now it was not clear until the last moment whether the decisive action was to be in the north or in the south. The defence of Guienne was intrusted to Edward, the “Black” Prince of Wales, who had won his spurs at Crécy and now, as a youth of twentysix, was displaying exceptional military capacity. The campaign of 1355 was little more than one continuous raid through the fertile lands of Languedoc. Its object was simply destruction, in order that the resources of the country might not be used against the English in the following year. It was in all respects parallel to the raiding of King Edward through Normandy in 1346, and it was equally successful. When the Black Prince went into winter quarters at Bordeaux he left behind him a desolated country, worth little to his enemies, but far from being won to the English cause. It was good warfare, but bad statesmanship.

Meanwhile King John, at his wits’ end for resources to meet the coming attack, was suffering the pains of negotiating for support with his bourgeois subjects. The Estates-General of the North, the Languedoil, which now for more than a generation had been gaining in consciousness of their power, were willing to help the king, but only upon terms that must have seemed to him derogatory to his royal right. More and more clearly comes out the distinction between the monarchy and the nation. The Estates were loyal to France, but profoundly and with right distrusted the king. They were willing to approve a general tax, provided they could be assured that it would be honestly collected from all classes of the people and applied directly to its purpose; namely, the maintenance of an army for the national defence. To this end the Estates constituted themselves a permanent financial check upon the king, with their own officials to superintend the collection of the tax and its application to the purpose intended. They provided for regular future meetings and for the probable outbreak of new wars. They were really nothing less than a Committee of the National Defence, made necessary by the imminence of the danger and the incapacity of the king to adjust himself to the demands of a new time.

For the moment there was nothing for the king but to yield. He accepted everything, relying doubtless on his expected success in war and the imperfect organization of the “constitutionalist” party to clear himself of all unpleasant restraints. In the early spring of 1356 similar measures, displaying the same distrust of the king, were passed by the Estates of Languedoc. In neither case, however, were the Estates well supported by the country. The mediæval view of taxation as something imposed from above by a superior power rather than as a pledge of citizenship was not to be overcome for many a long day yet. King John was indeed in a hard place. If he could have turned without reserve to face the danger in the south, he might have captured or beaten the small force at the disposal of Prince Edward. He chose rather to meet what doubtless seemed the worse evil, the revolt of Normandy under the lead, open or secret, of Charles of Navarre. Instead of paying their dues to the officials of the Estates for the support of a national army, several Norman leaders broke openly with the king. John was not lacking in personal bravery. At Rouen, where his son, the Dauphin Charles, had invited Charles of Navarre to dine, he presented himself at the table with a following strong enough to arrest the chiefs of the conspiracy and to take the heads of several before any resistance could be made. The spectacle of the king of France shaking his royal brother of Navarre about the room by the hair, while a Navarrese squire strikes him in the breast with a dagger, is not an edifying one, but it was the kind of feat that, in lack of the deeper sentiments of loyalty, might decide the fate of kingdoms. Lower Normandy was thrown upon the English side, and English troops ravaged the province again as far as the town of Verneuil.

King John stood in Upper Normandy with an army of perhaps fifty thousand men, when news came that the Black Prince had left Bordeaux (July, 1356) and was on his way northward to join the English forces in Normandy. From Bordeaux the young prince moved in a direct line towards Orléans on the Loire, spending more than a month on the way and crossing at least a dozen water courses without opposition or loss. When nearly at Orléans he learned that King John with a very strong force was coming southward from Chartres; and, turning westward, he struck the Loire near Tours. He did not cross the river, but turned southward again and began a rapid march back to his “own” country. It was the story of the march to Crécy over again; only that this time the French won the race and succeeded in turning the English position, so that the prince found himself near Poitiers, well placed indeed, if fight he must, but little desiring to fight. His army was not above eight thousand men. That of the French may have been four or five times as large. At the last moment, after two cardinals in the name of the pope had exhausted every means to bring about a truce, young Edward had determined to retreat and had already moved two of his three “battles” across a stream, when the third under the earl of Salisbury was attacked by the French advance. Seeing that it was now too late to retreat, the prince called back his men, and so admirable was the English discipline that they re-formed and arrived in time to meet the French assault.

On the French side the same causes produced the same results as at Crécy. Horsemen were sent forward within range of the English bowmen, horses became unmanageable, and heavily armed men were sacrificed without a chance to show what they could do. Then, following the English example, men at arms dismounted and came into the fight on foot but unprotected by archers, and the English, taking advantage of this moment, mounted and charged. Prodigies of valor were performed on both sides, and the loss was far more evenly divided than at Crécy. King John holding in reserve his “battle,” more numerous, it was said, than the whole English host, at last brought it into the fray, but in vain. Nothing could break the steady discipline of the English, and as, one after another, his chief followers fell around him or deserted the field, there was no escape but death or surrender. Again it had been demonstrated that the heart of the French people was not yet in this war.

The captivity of King John, his transportation to England, and the negotiations for his release are of importance to the national cause only as giving to the sole remaining element of unity in the state, the Estates-General, its opportunity to show what it could do. As before, they were called upon to provide first of all for the national defence, and that meant first money, but also it meant leadership. The history of the Estates of 1356-1357 is one of the most important chapters in the story not merely of the French nation but of government by the people throughout Europe. Nowhere in the early records of parliamentary government is there a more impressive picture of a popular representation coming together with entire comprehension of what needed to be done and apparently with the amplest resources and the best intentions to do it. Nowhere is there a more dismal record of failure to grasp the real nature of the problem, to see that what gives security to any government must be some solid element of the people willing to stand by it and work with it. Such an element the feudal monarchy – as far as it went – had found in the great military and landed aristocracy. The question in France in 1356-1357 was whether the new financial state was going to find a similar support in the rising power of the industrial and trading classes. Would those classes take their place as loyal supporters of the Valois monarchy and help it to drive the foreigner from their shores?

The answer seemed at first likely to be favorable. Under the lead of a remarkable man, Étienne Marcel, prévôt des marchands, the chief of the Parisian bourgeoisie, the Estates rose for the moment to the height of their great opportunity. In a series of notable enactments they provided for a new levy of troops and for money to pay them. They began negotiations with the Dauphin and with Charles of Navarre on the basis of a permanent share in the administration of government to be given the Estates. Regular meetings with well-defined powers seemed to promise them a leadership in national affairs distinctly more effective than that of the Parliament in England. It was, however, precisely on the administrative side that the weakness of the Estates was most pronounced. As a check on the monarchy they might prove its salvation. As a substitute for it they were limited by an entire lack of traditions and by the pressure of a social order as far as possible from sympathizing with them. From an early moment in their brief career it became evident to their leaders that they could accomplish results only with the help of the monarchy, and the visible representative of the monarchy was the young Charles, later to be known as Charles the Clever (le Sage). The first aim of the Estates was to force him to take the head of affairs with advisers of their choosing. Their method was rude but, for the moment, effective. Marcel, at the head of an ever-ready Parisian mob, burst into the Dauphin’s palace and murdered before his eyes the two counselors on whose advice he was relying. Then, acting in harmony with Charles of Navarre, who was looking for his own profit in the distress of the Valois, they persuaded the Dauphin to take the title of Regent and thus to give royal sanction to their acts. For about a month the clever youth allowed himself to remain under the tutela...

Table of contents

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