Hundred Years' War: Difference between revisions

[[File:0815410530_01_LZZZZZZZ_1547.jpg|frame|Year 78]]

 

''W. C. Sellar & R. J. Yeatman: "1066 and All That"'' }}

 

 

The conflict was a large-scale [[Succession Crisis]], which came about after the death of the last French Capetian king, Charles IV the Fair. Contrary to common belief, Edward III and his successors ''didn't'' want to rule France; they were willing to set aside their claims at any time if the French kings acknowledged their overlordship in Aquitaine (their main source of salt and Bordeaux wine).

 

 

The war ended with the majority of the English being forced out of France. However, 100 years of war, pillaging, epidemics and famine had reduced France to a third of its pre-war population. England became an island nation again since before the Norman Invasion, which affected its outlook and development for the rest of the millennium. But first, it had to deal with the [[Wars of the Roses]].

----

* [[Badass]]: It's to be expected. Quickly: the Black Prince, Henry V, Bertrand du Guesclin, Jeanne d'Arc, the Bastard of Orléans (Count of Dunois), [[Badass Nickname|La Hire]] (Étienne de Vignolles). John Talbot, nicknamed the "English Achilles", deserves a mention: he was still fighting [[Badass Grandpa|at age 69]]. John of Bohemia also fought at the Battle of Crécy at fifty years old, while blind in one eye.

* [[BFG]] Jean Bureau's [[Storming the Castle|siege]] artillery.

* [[Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass]]: Charles VII of France was a spindly neurotic whose own mother claimed he was a bastard, and had a deathly fear of wooden floors after the floor of an overcrowded inn collapsed on him, and bridges after he saw John the Fearless murdered on one. Despised by virtually everyone, for much of his early reign he was taken advantage of by a succession of "favorites" who would use the borrowed authority to acquire wealth and power. Thing is, they would also centralize power in France--thinking they'd be the ones to enjoy it--then get killed by the next "favorite", allowing Charles to gradually increase his power while [[Not So Harmless|everyone was busy despising him.]] The end result--by the time the English collapsed into civil war, Charles was the ruler of a powerful, fairly united France, with a large, loyal army. [[The Magnificent|And that resulted in Charles winding up with the nickname "Charles the Victorious".]] It wasn't exactly [[Obfuscating Stupidity]], as he really was a neurotic mess, but he was [[The Chessmaster|a lot smarter than people realized]]. [[Magnificent Bastard|And his son, Louis XI was even more badass.]]

* [[Les Collaborateurs]]: Some French people worked for the English. The most infamous is probably [[Sinister Minister|Pierre Cauchon]], the bishop of Beauvais, who presided over Jeanne d'Arc's unfair trial.

** Similarly, the "English" kings were largely linguistically and culturally French.

** Also, many parts of modern day France, such as the Bordeaux region, had been English for over 150 years (see Henry II's father and wife).

** Fun fact: In the Breton War of Succession, England and France took the exact opposite positions to the ones they took in the main war ''re'' male and female succession.

* [[Handicapped Badass]]: King John of Bohemia. Despite he was blind for a decade, he still fought at the frontlines in the Battle of Crécy on the side of the French. It's said that his last words were ''"[[Pre-Ass-Kicking One-Liner|Let it never be the case]] [[Badass Boast|that a Bohemian king runs from a fight.]]"''

* [[Honor Before Reason]]: Two Johns: King John the Blind of Bohemia fought at Crécy on the French side and was unsurprisingly killed. King John II the Good of was captured at Poitiers (the French call it Maupertuis) and released when in the treaty of Brétigny (1360), he ceded large parts of France and promised a huge ransom, leaving his son, the duke of Anjou, in England as a hostage. When the duke managed to escape before the ransom was fully paid, John II felt duty-bound to return to London himself in 1364, where he died the same year.

** King John II was only captured at Poitiers because, as a member of the Order of the Star (which he himself had created), he was not allowed to retreat more than four steps in battle.

** The charge of John II, King of Bohemia, in the battle of Crécy. He was killed along with fifteen knights who escorted him.

* [[Leeroy Jenkins]]: The French knights. The Brits used it for their great advantage.

* [[Lightning Bruiser]] : Knights, whether on horseback or on foot

* [[Long Runners]]: Well, ''duh''.

** Etienne de Vignolles, nicknamed "La Hire", which is said to come from English soldiers calling him "''la Hire-Dieu''" (God's anger).

** Also the Merciless Parliament (1388) in England.

 

----

== [[Film]] ==

* The 1948 ''Joan of Arc'' movie, starring Ingrid Bergman.

* The 1999 movie ''Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc'', directed by Luc Besson. Notable for being [[Darker and Edgier]] and leaning on [[Deconstruction]] at times. [[Love It or Hate It|A fairly polarizing movie.]]

 

== [[Literature]] ==

* ''Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, by the Sieur Louis de Conte'' by [[Mark Twain]]: In which the French are the good guys, but just barely. Twain's favorite of his own works.

 

* The Joan of Arc campaign and the Battle of Agincourt single mission in ''[[Age of Empires II]]''.

* Various games dealing specifically with the story of Joan of Arc.

* ''Bladestorm:[[The Hundred Years War]]'' has the PC as a mercenary involved in the war fighting for both sides.

 

[[Category:Hollywood History]]

[[Category:Military and Warfare Tropes]]