Hundred Years' War

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Welcome to this episode of Gone Medieval from History Hit. I'm Matt Lewis. I don't have a guest joining me today. I thought instead we could talk a bit about the Hundred Years' War. It was a prolonged series of offensives, battles and political manoeuvrings in a war between England and France. A struggle for the French crown that began in 1337 and lasted for roughly a hundred years.

years depending on when you consider it to have ended precisely. It saw sporadic warfare that for a long time left France in tatters, financially ruined and militarily embarrassed. I thought I'd take a look at some of the most important moments in this period, mainly from a military perspective.

There are so many different ways to cut the Hundred Years' War, so many people and moments that we could discuss that this will necessarily not be an exhaustive tour of the conflict. We do have lives to get back to, but rather a way to anchor it. in the history of the medieval period and understand its key moments. The Hundred Years' War was, to some extent, a problem France brought upon itself.

between the two neighbouring kingdoms had been steadily building since the Norman conquest. That seismic moment had seen a vassal of the French crown, the Duke of Normandy, become a king, complicating the relationship between them. Matters got worse when Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine came to the throne of England. Henry was Duke of Normandy, but he was also Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, and, thanks to Eleanor, Duke of Aquitaine.

He actually owned more of what we call France today than the French kings did. And they invested time and effort in splitting the Plantagenet family apart to break up these holdings. King John, Henry and Eleanor's youngest son, famously lost Normandy and the territory held by the English crown shrank until only Gascony, an ill-defined region in southwestern France that had been part of Aquitaine.

remained. It was here that trouble erupted in 1337. Following a dispute about homage for the region, King Philip VI of France decided to take Gascony into his own hands and in return, King Edward III of England laid claim not just to Gascony but to Philip's crown. The basis for his claim lay in the break in direct male descent of the French crown in 1328 when Charles IV, the last Capetian king, died without an heir.

Charles was the last of three brothers to have sat on the throne of France. Philip IV had died in 1314. He was succeeded by his oldest son as Louis X. who died two years later in 1316. Louis had a son born after his own death, but John I would only live for five days. Louis' younger brother reigned next as Philip V, but only for less than six years. When he died in 1322 without a son, the last remaining brother became Charles IV until his death in 1328.

The death of Charles IV created a moment of real political turmoil in France. The House of Caput had ruled France for 341 years in an unbroken line from father to son. or at least a brother at worst. That ended in 1328 and left two distinct choices. One was Philip Count of Valois, a grandson of King Philip III. The other was a grandson of Philip IV, but he was problematical.

The main issue was that he was King Edward III of England and the French were not keen to have the Crown of France handed to the King of England nor to have a non-native as a King of France. The other issue with Edward's claim... was really more like a good excuse to overlook him. The Salic Law was an ancient and largely unused code that was almost a thousand years old. New life was breathed into it because it prevented women from inheriting land.

or the crown or so it was claimed. It's far less clear than that. In the late 6th century a provision was added that if a man had neighbours but after his death sons and daughters remained As long as there were sons, they should have the land just as the Salic law provides. And if the sons are already dead, then a daughter may receive the land just as the sons would have done had they lived.

Nevertheless, the French establishment focused on the idea that a woman couldn't inherit the throne or pass on a claim to it as a way to discount Edward as a potential heir. From the early 15th century, the phrase Salic law became synonymous with this single concern of female inheritance of the crown of France. This was how the House of Valois became kings of France.

Philip VI would rub salt into Edward III's wounds with his decision to take Gascony as part of an ongoing disagreement about doing homage for the region.

Edward retaliated by claiming Philip's entire kingdom, resurrecting the succession dispute of 1328. France was, on paper, the favourite as hostilities broke out. It was richer than England and had a larger population and so prepared a fleet at Sluice on the coast of Zeeland. There were naval skirmishes at Kadzand in 1337 and Arnwoodin in 1338. On 24 June 1340, the English took the initiative and attacked the French fleet.

There was a fierce naval battle that raged all day and into the night. Opposing ships would be lashed together as they came close and hand-to-hand combat was supported by archers and crossbowmen. The French tactic of chaining many of their ships together backfired as the English pushed from one ship to the next until the French fleet broke.

More than 150 ships were captured and more than 20 were sunk with thousands of French casualties lost in the water. The first large-scale battle of the Hundred Years' War had been a catastrophe for France. Throughout the early 1340s, there was a series of battles on French soil as Edward took the fight to Philip. The English used large-scale, fast-moving, hard-hitting raiding tactics known as the chevauché.

The first famous encounter came on 26 August 1346 with the Battle of Cressy. Edward III surprised onlookers and chroniclers with his preparations. He found a ridge of land protected at the rear by a woodland. There was nothing unusual there. It was a sound, defensible position. But then he ordered his archers to join his men-at-arms, who all dismounted to fight.

Archers would usually be lined up in front of the infantrymen, but Edward mixed them together, most of the archers, on the flanks of the men-at-arms, and he abandoned any cavalry. Edward also ordered pits to be dug, each a foot deep. and a foot wide to hinder a cavalry attack. Edward's other novelty was the positioning of cannons on the battlefield, a relatively new technology used primarily for sieges.

Edward thought they might be useful in the Battle of Cressy, even if just to make a noise to spook the French horses. The king then took up a position in a nearby windmill that allowed him to oversee the entire area and waited for the French. As Philip approached, he lost control of his army as it strained to get at the English. It became a matter of honour to attack quickly and to attack first. Realising his authority was wobbling, Philip

gave the order to attack before he even reached the battlefield. The chronicler, Foissart, complained that they engaged without any proper preparation whatsoever. As Philip's Genoese crossbowmen approached, their protection and most of their ammunition stuck further back in the baggage train, the English archers opened fire.

Fassar recorded that the English archers poured out their arrows on the Genoese so thickly and evenly that they fell like snow. Shocked by the accuracy as they were peppered with arrows, the crossbowmen fell back. Next, the impatient French cavalry launched a thundering attack. They didn't even wait for the Genoese to get out of the way but trampled them as they tried to retreat.

The archers showed their worth once more, barbed arrows biting the horses and sending them crashing out of control around the field. In the late afternoon the main French force finally reached the battlefield. and, seeing the embarrassing carnage inflicted on their vanguard, were determined to throw everything they had at the English. The lie of the land before the English army forced the French cavalry to funnel in to the English right in order to attack.

This slowed their momentum and decreased the advantage of their numbers. It was here, in the hottest part of the battlefield, that Edward III placed his 16-year-old son and heir, Edward, Prince of Wales, known as the Black Prince. In this bottleneck, he and his men held firm to pack more and more French cavalry into an ever tighter press. The chronicler Geoffrey LeBaker recorded that

crushing helmets under his blows, and all the while he encouraged his men, pulling fallen friends to their feet and setting everyone an example. The prince was hard pressed and a few men reached the king to ask for assistance. Edward III refused to send aid, Fassar recording him saying, go back to him and those who sent you and tell them from me that they are not to send for help again, whatever happens, as long as my son is still alive.

Tell them that my orders are that they should let the boy win his spurs, for I wish the day to be his, if God wills it, and that he and his companions shall have the honour of it. The prince was knocked to the ground and his standard fell. but it was recovered. The king relented and sent his son reinforcements to help him, but by the time they arrived, the prince was already back on his feet and fighting fiercely again.

Crecy saw King Philip VI wounded in the face by an arrow after having two horses killed under him. Several French noblemen had been killed. Another of the casualties on the French side was John the Blind, the King of Bohemia. Determined not to miss out on the chance of glory, John's horse had been lashed to two of his knights, one on either side, to guide him on the battlefield. He was found dead after the battle with the two knights who had remained at his side.

Prince Edward was so struck by John's courage that he adopted John's insignia as his personal badge, and to this day, the ostrich feathers of John the Blind, King of Bohemia, are the badge of the Prince of Wales. A week after Cressy, Edward III's forces began a siege of Calais, a fortified seaport that would play a pivotal role for the rest of the medieval period. The siege lasted almost a year from early September 1346 until early August 1347.

In July 1347, Philip VI had marched to try and relieve Calais but found the English siege too entrenched and impossible to dislodge. Low on food and supplies and unable to get support from the French crown, Calais was forced to surrender on 3 August 1347. It would remain in English hands and provide a critical enclave across the Channel. until 1558. The year of Cressy and the capture of Calais was a new high for England and a dangerous moment for France.

The arrival in Western Europe of the Black Death which caused devastation to life across the continent peaking from 1346 to 1353 caused the fighting to largely cease. Queen Joan of France, Philip's wife, and one of Edward III's daughters, also named Joan, were casualties as an estimated one-third to half of the population of Europe were lost to the disease.

It was only in 1355 that Edward felt able to refocus on his efforts to win the French crown. Philip VI had died in 1350 and been succeeded by his son, King John II. Five years into his reign, John was 36 when Edward III, now in his early 40s and supported by his 25-year-old heir, the famed Black Prince, returned his gaze to France. The next famous and defining engagement came on 19 September 1356 with the Battle of Poitiers.

The Black Prince was undertaking a chevauché when King John II saw an opportunity to intercept the English force with superior numbers. The armies finally encountered each other near to the Aquitanian city of Poitiers. The French may have had almost double or even triple the English numbers and must have felt that they had the upper hand. When the prince was told that the fields were covered with French men-at-arms, he reportedly replied, Well, in the name of God.

Let us now study how we shall fight with them to our advantage. The Black Prince lined his forces up on a ridge near a bend in the River Moisson. protected by the terrain on both flanks and the approach uneven to hamper the French cavalry. The French... filled up the plains below, most of the force dismounting with small cavalry units positioned on the flanks to harass the English archers. A delegation of churchmen led by the Cardinal of Perigore tried to negotiate terms.

Neither side seemed interested in a compromise. The French demanded the return of all towns and any prisoners the English held, along with a promise not to take up arms for seven years against John. They clearly felt they had the numbers and the English ought to be worried. In return, the Black Prince demanded marriage to one of John's daughters with an astronomical dowry.

Needless to say, no agreement was reached, but both sides had given the appearance of taking part. Battle was now imminent. In the early morning of 19th September... One flank of the Prince's army suddenly began to move away with all its baggage train. Spotting the retreat, the French launched their attack but they had been deceived. As soon as they charged, the English flank hurried back into position.

They had tricked the French into attacking early rather than waiting out the smaller, hungrier English army. The first lines of French cavalry slammed into the English and broke the lines. The archers moved around the side to get a better angle to fire at the cavalry and the supporting men-at-arms to devastating effect. The attack was eventually defeated and driven back, but now...

King John himself was gathering a horde of fresh soldiers to attack again. The English took a decisive tactical decision. Sending a small contingent to circle behind the enemy, they mounted up for a cavalry charge, an unexpected tactic that caught the French unawares. When they were also attacked from behind they fell into disarray. King John and his closest companions, all knights of the Order of the Star, who had taken a solemn oath never to retreat from a battle, fought on.

Eventually, amid the carnage and death, King John and his youngest son, the 14-year-old Philip, were surrounded and captured. King John was well treated by the Black Prince in a chivalrous manner. the prince serving the king at table, and when he was taken back to London as a prisoner, he was welcomed as an honoured guest and celebrated. King John of France spent the next four years as an English prisoner, leaving his oldest son

the Dauphin Charles, Dauphin being the French equivalent of the Prince of Wales, the King's heir, to rule a broken France. John remained a prisoner until the settling of the Treaty of Bretigny. which brought to an end what is known as the Edwardian phase of the Hundred Years' War. The treaty was agreed in 1360 and finally ratified on 24th October. It saw England return some portions of land but retain much of what it had taken around Gascony, effectively enlarging Aquitaine.

This was now to be held without the need to give homage to the French crown for it and Edward III also officially gave up his claim to be the rightful king of France. John was freed with a vast ransom of three million crowns, which was more than two years' revenue for the French crown. He left hostages, including two of his sons, and was released to raise the ransom.

When one son, Louis, escaped in 1363 John was so embarrassed and dishonoured that he travelled back to England and surrendered himself as a prisoner again in early 1364.

Within a few months, in April 1364, he died and was succeeded by Dauphin Charles as King Charles V. In May 1369 Charles declared war on England. Edward III was now in his late 50s and his health was beginning to decline. His son, the Black Prince, was almost 40 and after campaigning in Castile, was based in Gascony as his own health declined too.

Charles summoned the prince to Paris as part of a dispute in Gascony and when the prince refused to attend, Charles took the opportunity to renew hostilities. France gained the upper hand in early engagements, even attacking the English coast. A French and Castilian navy destroyed an English fleet at La Rochelle in June 1372. Charles consolidated his hold on Normandy but struggled to raise taxes.

In England, the Black Prince died on 8 June 1376 and his father, Edward III, passed away a year later on 21 June 1377. Edward's grandson, the Black Prince's son, succeeded as Richard II at the age of ten. Charles V died in September 1380 and was succeeded by his son as Charles VI.

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The Hundred Years' War sat in abeyance for a long period. Richard II faced a long minority, followed by internal problems with his government. Charles VI had frequent bouts of ill health that saw him attack courtiers, believe he was made of glass and might shatter, refuse to wash or change, or even able to recognise his own family at times. Richard II lost the throne of England in 1399 to his cousin Henry Bolingbroke, who became King Henry IV, the first monarch of the House of Lancaster.

Henry was kept focused on England by several uprisings and then his own poor health until his death in 1413. With the accession of his oldest son, King Henry V, the Hundred Years War was almost immediately resurrected by England. Henry V's precise reasons for launching into the war with France are uncertain, but there were obvious benefits to it.

The Lancastrian regime had met resistance and England had been focused internally for decades under Richard II and Henry IV. Nothing unified the nation quite like a war on foreign soil. It had opportunities for glory, chivalry, brotherhood, adventure and incalculable wealth. It would distract from internal strife.

I also wonder whether there was an element of Henry seeking to place the Lancastrian claim to the throne of England before God for judgement It would certainly make sense of some of his later actions In 1415, Henry sailed from England. He had written to King Charles VI of France to offer him the opportunity of handing over the crown without any bloodshed. Charles declined and Henry assembled a fleet and an army.

for what would prove a fateful campaign. The assault began with the Siege of Harfleur, invested on 18 August and completed with the town's surrender just over a month later on 22 September 1415. On the march to Calais, the English army was shadowed by a much larger French force. Henry offered single combat to the Dauphin Louis to settle the matter without further bloodshed. Louis declined.

The two armies would meet at Agincourt in the county of St Paul, a place usually called Agincourt by the English. As they marched across the French countryside, the English had become hungry and sick, many suffering with dysentery, the bane of all campaigning armies. They were between maybe six and eight thousand strong, made up mostly of archers.

The French were well provisioned and had vastly superior numbers, some estimates giving them 15,000 or more. Like Crecy and Poitiers, the French felt they had the upper hand and should win the battle easily. Henry managed to select the location for the battle, a fact that altered the course of the day. He chose a narrow strip of field with woods on either side for protection and the ploughed earth was made boggy by rain during the night.

buried stakes into the ground against a cavalry charge. Some were reportedly so ill that they cut the backs out of their hoses so they could simply endure their diarrhoea where they stood. The French plans seem to have been hampered by too many noblemen demanding the honour of leadership. They all jostled to be at the front of what looked like an easy win, but with no clear single voice in command.

Discipline slipped and organisation was lost. After several hours of stalemate, Henry realised he had to act. The French army could wait, but he couldn't. He ordered the archers to dig up their stakes, carry them forward and replant them within longbow range of the French lines. One of the great mysteries of Agincourt is why the French allowed this to happen without attacking the exposed and vulnerable English.

Had they done so, they might have won a swift victory, but whether they thought the English meant to make a full advance to the French position, or they were simply unprepared for a cavalry charge, they missed their window. The stakes were driven back into the ground and the English archers, confident of their range, sent an arrow storm amongst the French forces. History has made this world of ours.

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The French cavalry charged, but like at Crecy, sharp arrows fell into the horses and drove them wild with pain. The stakes in front of the archers stopped the advance until panic caused them to turn around. Under heavy fire and with many horses out of control, the cavalry rode down its own infantry moving up behind. As the French knights abandoned their horses and advanced on foot, they found the wet mud churned up by the cavalry. sucking clay

pulled on their legs as they tried to step over fallen comrades. The English archers continued to fire until they ran out of arrows, at which point they took up swords and axes and even the mallets they'd used to knock the posts into the ground. and fell upon the tired French men at arms. The bodies of the slain mounted up. Henry himself fought in the front lines.

When he received word that his youngest brother Humphrey had been knocked to the ground and wounded, the king took his personal bodyguard and stood over his brother's prone body while he was dragged to safety. It was at this moment that Henry received an axe blow to the helmet that knocked off a piece of the crown he wore. Henry's decision to wear a crown on his helm was an unusual one. It made him instantly identifiable and therefore a target.

But I think it was also his way of placing the contested, fragile Lancastrian claim to the throne of England before God for the ultimate judgment. As he looked at the fallen French and the hundreds of prisoners his small force had taken, He must have felt vindicated. But the day was not done yet, and there was a moment still to come that has long seen Henry criticised as a monster. At some point in the chaos, Henry ordered the killing of the French prisoners.

Sources are confused and uncertain about when and why precisely this happened. It seems likely that either there was news of a French force about to attack from the rear, which would have been able to free and rearm the prisoners, who might well have outnumbered their captors by this point. or that the French launched a new assault in the front that meant there would not be enough men to guard the prisoners who could simultaneously attack the English from the rear.

It is possible that not many prisoners were actually killed before it became clear the danger had passed and the order was cancelled though some historians believe hundreds, perhaps thousands, were slaughtered. The only thing that is certain is that no contemporary source, English or French, criticised Henry's decision in the heat of the battle. When the battle was finally over, it was a crushing defeat for the French.

Three dukes, nine counts and around a hundred lords were among the dead. The dukes of Orléans and Bourbon and the counts of Eau, Vendôme, Richemont. and Harcourt, as well as the Marshal of France, Jean Lemengre, better known as Marshal Bossicourt, were among the prisoners. On the English side, the Duke of York and Earl of Suffolk were the highest profile casualties.

The victory was against all the odds and its reputation among the battles of the medieval period was sealed. The French leadership was decimated. Those who remained blamed each other for what went wrong as their king's health. continued to cause problems. Henry pressed his advantage in the years that followed. He conquered Normandy, with another controversial and brutal moment taking place at the Siege of Rouen in the winter of 1418-19.

As the siege bit, the authorities within the city threw out all the women and children and those unable to fight to preserve food and supplies. Henry refused to let them pass the English blockade and those within were forced to watch their fellow citizens starve to death in the gnawing cold at the foot of Rouen's walls. Was Henry cruel, or those who remained inside the walls refusing to surrender? I think most of us would say both.

England's ascendancy led to the Treaty of Troyes in 1420. This marked a high point in the Hundred Years' War for England. Charles VI's mental health continued to suffer. Two of his three sons had died. The French leadership had not recovered in the five years since Agincourt, during which Henry had seemed unstoppable. Henry had become allied to the Burgundians.

In 1418, John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, occupied Paris. Under the guise of peace talks on a bridge at Montreux, Charles' remaining son, the Dauphin Charles, had murdered Duke John. A Carthusian monk showing John's skull to King Francis I in the following century reflected that the hole in this skull was the doorway through which the English had entered France.

John's son, Philip the Good, threw his full weight behind the English in vengeance for this act, and the Dauphin struggled to secure support. By 1420, King Charles VI had been forced to the negotiating table. The treaty that was agreed at Troyes would settle the ongoing war for the French crown in England's favour. Henry would marry one of Charles' daughters, Catherine of Valois.

Henry would be the heir to the French crown, becoming king on Charles' death, and would act as regent of France in the meantime. Dauphin Charles was to be utterly dispossessed. Needless to say... he was less than happy with his father's settlement. Two years after the Treaty of Troyes, Henry V died on 31 August 1422 at the age of 35.

Charles VI of France died just weeks later on the 21st of October, aged 53. This threw the Treaty of Troyes and the settlement it represented into turmoil. Henry was succeeded by his nine-month-old baby son...

as King Henry VI. When Charles died, Henry VI of England effectively became King of France too, but Dauphin Charles used the chaos to press his own claim. Initially... Burgundy remained behind England and Brittany joined an alliance against Charles. The English Kingdom of France was controlled by John, Duke of Bedford, the brother of Henry V, who acted as regent. Henry V's youngest brother, Humphrey, who had been injured at Agincourt, played a role in English politics.

winning the Battle of Vernouis on 17th August 1424, a battle dubbed the Second Agincourt. The next turning point came in 1429, with the emergence of Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orleans. A peasant girl from northeast France, she spoke of receiving visions of the archangel Michael and others who told her to support Dauphin Charles as the rightful king of France.

Charles, styling himself King Charles VII but as yet uncrowned, was sceptical. Was Joan a prophet sent to save him or a witch who would damn his soul? Unsure, he sent her with an army that was to try and relieve... the Siege of Orléans. When success came just nine days after her arrival, Joan was vaunted as a hero. Charles swept through English-held lands and reached Reims, the traditional site of coronations of kings of France.

and was crowned as King Charles VII. The English suffered another crushing defeat at the Battle of Jargot on 12th June 1429 and at the Battle of Pate on 18th June 1429. Joan though was captured by the Burgundians in May 1430. Handed over to the English, she was tried for heresy. The result was a foregone conclusion, the trial a political stunt to undermine the resurgent French cause by tainting it with ungodly heresy.

Heresy could only lead to a death sentence for a repeat offence and so when Joan continued to wear the clothes of a male soldier it was taken as a relapse, a second offence and the death penalty was handed down. Joan, just 19 years old, was tied to a tall pillar of wood in the Vieux Marchais in Rouen on 30 May 1431. A crucifix was held before her as the pyre was lit and the crowd watched her burn to death. Her remains were thrown into the River Seine to prevent any relics being collected.

This is one of those dark moments in history which seems all the worse because it's happening to one person and we can feel the injustice and flinch at the pain. Joan's death and the hope she had given France laid the foundation for the endings of the Hundred Years' War. The alliance between England and Burgundy began to unravel. John, Duke of Bedford, had been married to Anne, a sister of Duke Philip the Good. When she died in 1432, John married Jacketta of Luxembourg.

Philip either took offence at the swift remarriage without consulting him or took the opportunity to break his alliance with England. He was reconciled with Charles VII, the man responsible for his father's murder, by the Treaty of Arras in 1435. Within months of the completion of this new alliance, John, Duke of Bedford, died on 14th September 1435.

The respect in which John was held by his enemies was demonstrated years after the French finally retook Rouen, where John was buried. Some of Louis XI's men wanted to tear down his tomb, but Louis, Charles VII's son, prevented them saying what honor shall it be to us or to you to break up this monument and to pull out of the ground and take up the dead bones of him whom in life neither my father nor your progenitors with all their power

Puissance and friends were able to make fly one foot backward, but by his strength, wit and policy kept them all out of the principal dominions of the realm of France, and out of this noble and famous Duchy of Normandy. Wherefore I say, first God have his soul, and let his body now lie in rest.

which when alive would have disquieted the proudest of us all. And as for the tomb, I assure you, it is not decent nor convenient for him, as his honour and acts deserve, although it were much richer and more beautiful. Powerful words indeed from an enemy. England tried to stabilise the situation in France until Henry VI came of age to complete his father's work. As Henry grew...

it became more and more clear that he had little interest in war with France. In 1431, Henry had been crowned King of France in Paris, making him the only person in history crowned King of England and King of France in both countries. In 1445, he married Margaret of Anjou, a niece of Charles VII's wife, accepting poor terms to secure peace with France. The war had well and truly turned.

Paris had surrendered to the French in 1436, driving the English back into Normandy. On 29 October 1449, Rouen, the capital of Normandy, fell. The Battle of Formigny on 15th April 1450 saw a smaller French army defeat a much larger English force in a reverse of previous English victories. and the English were pushed out of northern France with only Calais remaining in English hands. In 1453, Henry VI decided to go on the offensive.

A fresh army, under John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, the most experienced and famous English general remaining, was raised and sent to France. Talbot fought the Battle of Castillon on 17th July 1453. A raid lured the Earl, who was in his mid-60s, into chasing the French army. The English were routed. Talbot and his son were killed in the fighting. It was a final, crushing defeat.

Cassian in 1453 is widely considered the final action of the Hundred Years' War that had begun in 1337 and the news of the defeat may well have contributed to the breakdown in Henry VI's mental health. Edward IV, who took the throne from Henry VI as part of the Wars of the Roses, invaded France in 1475, but was brought off by Charles' son, King Louis XI.

a man known as the Universal Spider for the webs of intrigue that he span. In early 1483, France made aggressive moves towards England, but Edward IV died in April and Louis also passed away in August. England retained Calais until 1558, and English and then British monarchs would continue to claim to be kings and queens of France until 1801, when France had shed its monarchy in favour of becoming a republic.

Perhaps the epilogue to the Hundred Years' War came in 1485. France, mired in its own minority crisis that would lead to civil war between 1485 and 1488, was wary of Richard III in England. He had refused to be brought off during the 1475 invasion. France sponsored Henry Tudor, the exiled Earl of Richmond, to invade England at the Battle of Bosworth on 22 August 1485.

Henry Tudor defeated Richard III and became King Henry VII, the first of the Tudor monarchs. France had effected regime change in England. Bosworth in 1485 was perhaps the final act. of the Hundred Years War. I hope you've enjoyed this episode and I hope that's helped to make a little bit more sense of what is a really difficult and prolonged period to get a grip of.

You can join Dr Kat Charman on Tuesday for another brand new episode and you can tell all of your friends and family that you've gone medieval. Anyway, I'd better let you go. I've been Matt Lewis and we've just gone medieval with History Hit.