SHORT HISTORY OF THE HUNDRED YEARS WAR

In 1535, a French official in English service, Jean de Rinel, explained that it was universally acknowledged that 'For 100 years, by battles and other deeds, evils and irreparable damages have continually multiplied both by sea and on land.' The war was 'over the right and title to the Crown of France'. The term Hundred Years War came into use in the 19th century and for the sake of this book the conflict is focussed on the years 1337-1453 between England and France. The war was brutal. Towns were sacked, villages burned, crops destroyed, political life punctuated by assassinations. This was an age of Orders of Knighthood, of grand tournaments and magnificent displays. Chivalry was an aristocratic ethos and individual deeds of arms had significant implications for the conduct of war. Yet for many it was a business with the potential of making huge profits from ransoming prisoners and recent work has brought this aspect of the conflict into sharper focus. A bitter dynastic fight between Plantagenet and Valois, the war was fought out on the wider stages with battles often epic in scale. This vivid new history involves its large and charismatic individuals - Edward III, claimant to the French throne; his son Edward of Woodstock, the Black Prince; Condottiere John Hawkwood, Commander of the White Company who exported the war to Italy; wily architect of the first French victories Bertrand du Guesclin; inspirational leader Henry V, the unlikely winner at Agincourt (1415), who so nearly succeeded in becoming King of France; and the martyred Maid of Orleans, Joan of Arc, thought to be divinely inspired. Offering a bold new analysis of military strategy and tactics including the deadly power of English archery, Michael Prestwich sets the wider politics in a masterful account of the war as a whole, from English victory at Sluys in 1340, to the turn of the tide and French revival as the invader was driven back across the Channel. 226 page paperback, illus. and maps and genealogical tables and Timeline.