Home Page

Plague

Acts & Documents

Edward III

WARS The Scotch war, inherited from the late reign, was concluded in 1328, but in 1332 the private enterprise of the disinherited lords renewed it, In 1333 the defeat of the Scots at Halidon Hill, near Berwick, appeared to establish the throne of Edward Baliol, but after two years of warfare the English were only in possession of Berwick, and Baliol was living in England. In 1337 war began with France. The old maritime jealousy, rival interest in Flanders, where the commercial towns favoured an English alliance, while the count who quarrelled with the townsmen sought French help, help given by the French to the Scots, and the natural policy of the French to expel English influence from Guienne, all combined to produce war, as they had done earlier under Edward I. The claim to the French crown by Edward III. was a consequence of hostility, not a cause of it. The war began on the sea, and continued in Flanders and Guienne with unsuccessful results to Edward at first.

In 1340 the king won the great naval victory over the French fleet in Sluys Haven. In 1345 the Earl of Derby defeated the French at Bergerac, in Guienne. In 1346 the English and Gascons made the famous defence of Aiguillon, in Guienue, from April till August. In 1346 David of Scotland was defeated and taken at Neville'a Cross , in Durham, but the battle was of no lasting effect beyond prolonging disorder in Scotland. In 1346 the king and the Black Prince defeated the French at Cressy. In 1347 Edward took Calais. In 1350 the king won the naval victory called Les Espagnols-sur-Mer over a Biscayan fleet off Winchelsea. In 1356 the Black Prince with a far inferior English and Gascon army defeated and captured King John of France at Poitiers, a victory which led ultimately to the Treaty of Bretigni.

In 1364 Charles of Blois, the claimant supported by the French in Britanny, was defeated and killed at Auray by the English ally De Montfort.
In 1367 the Black Prince defeated Henry of Trastamare, King of Castile, and Du Guesclin, at Navaretta, on the Ebro. The war, after its renewal in 1369, was mainly one of sieges and minor operations, the French avoiding pitched battles. In 1372, however, the Spaniards completely defeated the Earl of Pembroke in a naval battle off La Rochelle. This was really the decisive battle of the war, and fatal to the English supremacy in Aquitaine.

The real objects of Edward, the safety of Guienne and Gascony, and free intercourse for English trade with these countries, Britanny, and Flanders; had been secured by the previous naval victories, and by the taking of Calais, but were rendered impossible by this defeat The whole commercial policy of England was modified in consequence of it in the succeeding regn.

WAR WITH FRANCE

Another field of glory was beckoning there were many causes of difference with France, the principal of which were England's claims on Gascony and commercial rivalry. Time, moreover, fomented the ill feeling into ferocious hatred. The inevitable conflict was given a national character by Edward's preposterous claim to the Crown of France itself by right of descent through his French mother, Isabella. So, in 1337, began the stupendous folly of the Hundred Years War.

Apart from an annihilating victory (that even Nelson might have envied) over a powerful French fleet at Sluys in 1340, nothing noteworthy occurred till 1346 - and then came Crecy. In that memorable contest, against odds approaching four to one, the English longbowmen and the new battle tactics Won a spectacular triumph. They taught an astonished Europe the might of the English archer and the passing of the supremacy of the old heavy cavalry. Next year Edward took another mighty draught to stake his thirst for fame. He captured Calais and so opened a door into the Continent that English garrisons were to hold for 200 years. Then, in 1356, the lesson of Crecy was driven home. Edward's famous son, the Black Prince, won the hard-fought battle of Poitiers and captured the French King for good measure.

The peak of Edward's triumph was scaled in 1360. By the treaty of Calais, France ceded all the vast Duchy of Aquitaine in the southwest, which had been lost by John and Henry III, together with Calais and Ponthieu in the north. And then came the break-neck fall. The humiliating treaty could never be enforced against a proud nation. When Edward lay on his death-bed nothing of his dazzling conquests in the south remained save a strip of the Gascony coast. His one great lasting gain was Calais.