Medieval kingship rested on a simple bargain: the king provided justice, security and military leadership; the nobility and Church supported his rule. When a king failed to deliver - or threatened baronial power - the result was political crisis. England experienced two explosive succession crises in the 1300s that showed exactly how fragile royal authority could be.
Why succession mattered so much: In medieval Europe there was no elected government. All law, justice and war flowed through the king. A weak, absent or tyrannical king did not just cause bad policy - it threatened the entire order of society. This is why barons were prepared to rebel, depose and even murder kings.
Edward II (1307-1327)
Edward II inherited a powerful kingdom from his father Edward I but was wholly unsuited to medieval kingship. He avoided military campaigns and gave enormous power and wealth to royal favourites - first Piers Gaveston, an unpopular Gascon nobleman, then later the Despenser family. This alienated the great barons who expected to share power at court.
- Over-reliance on favourites - Gaveston monopolised royal patronage, infuriating the earls; they captured and executed him in 1312
- Military failure - Crushing defeat at Bannockburn (1314) against Robert Bruce lost effective English control of Scotland
- Baronial opposition - The Lords Ordainers (1311) forced Edward to accept restrictions on royal power, demanding he dismiss Gaveston and consult barons on key decisions
- The Despensers - After Gaveston, Edward gave power to Hugh Despenser the Elder and Younger; their corruption and land-grabbing united barons and even Edward's wife against him
The crisis reached its climax when Queen Isabella and her lover Roger Mortimer invaded from France in 1326. Edward was captured, forced to abdicate in January 1327, and murdered at Berkeley Castle later that year. His son became Edward III. This was the first forced abdication of an English king - a traumatic event that set a precedent for how a king could be removed.
Significance of Edward II's deposition: Edward II's forced abdication showed that English kingship was not unlimited. Barons could, in extreme circumstances, remove a king who violated the understood rules of good government. This idea would resurface dangerously with Richard II seventy years later.
Richard II (1377-1399)
Richard II came to the throne as a child of ten and grew into an intelligent but autocratic ruler who believed in the divine right of kings. Unlike Edward II, Richard was not simply incompetent - he was a genuine threat to baronial power because he sought to make royal authority absolute.
Favourites and factions (1380s)
Richard relied on a narrow circle of favourites and excluded senior nobles from power. The Lords Appellant - a coalition of leading barons led by the Duke of Gloucester - took control of government in 1386-1388 and executed Richard's closest advisors in what became known as the Merciless Parliament.
Richard's revenge (1397-1399)
After years of apparent compromise, Richard struck back brutally in 1397. He arrested and executed or exiled the Appellant lords, including his uncle Gloucester. He confiscated estates arbitrarily and used forced loans and blank charters to raise money without Parliament.
Deposition and death (1399)
When Richard exiled his cousin Henry Bolingbroke and then seized his inheritance after his father John of Gaunt died, Henry invaded with an army. Richard surrendered, abdicated, and was imprisoned in Pontefract Castle where he died - probably starved - in 1400.
Favourites then Revenge then Deposition - the three-act crisis of Richard II
Edward II - weak king
- Dominated by favourites (Gaveston, Despensers)
- Military failure at Bannockburn
- Lost support through weakness and incompetence
- Deposed because he could not govern effectively
Richard II - tyrannical king
- Tried to rule absolutely without baronial consent
- Arbitrary seizure of estates and use of fear
- Lost support through overreach and vindictiveness
- Deposed because he threatened the baronial order itself
Paper 3 essay link: Examiners want you to analyse why these crises occurred, not just narrate events. The key argument: both Edward II and Richard II failed to maintain the consent of the powerful. Medieval kingship required the cooperation of the nobility - kings who ignored this reality, whether through weakness or tyranny, faced removal. Use both cases to show this was a structural feature of English kingship, not just individual failure.
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The Hundred Years War was not really a single war but a series of conflicts fought between England and France from 1337 to 1453. It was one of the defining events of late medieval Europe, reshaping both kingdoms and ultimately helping to create stronger national identities in each country. The first phase (1337-1360) saw stunning English military victories that seemed to promise English domination of France.
Causes of the Hundred Years War
- Dynastic claim - When French king Charles IV died in 1328 with no direct male heir, Edward III of England claimed the French throne through his mother Isabella (daughter of Philip IV). The French rejected this, choosing Philip VI of the House of Valois instead.
- Gascony (Aquitaine) - England held the wealthy duchy of Gascony in southwest France as a fief of the French king. This created constant tension: England wanted independence for Gascony; France wanted to absorb it. In 1337 Philip VI declared Gascony forfeit.
- Scotland - France supported Scotland (the Auld Alliance), encouraging Scottish raids on England whenever English forces were busy in France.
- Flanders - The wealthy Flemish cloth towns depended on English wool imports and were keen to support English trade interests; Edward cultivated Flemish alliances to put economic pressure on France.
- Personal honour and prestige - Edward III was an energetic warrior-king who saw war as both a path to wealth and a duty of kingship. France was the richest kingdom in Europe; conquering it would make him the greatest king in Christendom.
Multi-causal thinking is essential: Avoid saying the war had a single cause. The best Paper 3 answers link the dynastic claim to the structural problem of Gascony and show how Edward III chose to press his claim at this moment because he had the military capability and political motivation to do so. No one cause explains the war on its own.
Course and key battles
| Date | Event | Significance |
|---|---|---|
| 1340 | Battle of Sluys (naval) | England destroyed the French fleet, securing control of the English Channel and making invasion of England impossible |
| 1346 | Battle of Crecy | Edward III's longbowmen devastated the French cavalry; English tactical superiority demonstrated clearly for the first time |
| 1347 | Capture of Calais | England won a strategic port on the French coast that it held until 1558; Calais became the main English bridgehead into France |
| 1356 | Battle of Poitiers | Edward the Black Prince (Edward III's son) captured the French king John II; a catastrophic humiliation for France |
| 1360 | Treaty of Bretigny | France recognised English sovereignty over an enlarged Gascony; Edward renounced his claim to the French throne. England at its peak. |
Why did England win the first phase?: Three factors combined: the longbow (massed archers could break cavalry charges at Crecy and Poitiers); chevauchee tactics (mounted raids that burned crops and towns, undermining French royal authority by showing Philip VI could not protect his subjects); and Edward III's leadership (he kept his army disciplined and coherent where French commanders failed to coordinate). The military revolution favoured the English heavily in this period.
The chevauchee was not just looting - it was a deliberate political weapon. By destroying villages and taxing peasants across France, English armies showed that the French king could not protect his own realm, undermining his legitimacy. This is why the English consistently chose this method even when pitched battle was available.
Impact and significance of 1337-1360
For England
Massive prestige for Edward III and the English crown. War boosted trade (merchants profited from supplying armies) and strengthened Parliament, which had to grant taxes to fund campaigns. English identity began to crystallise around the war effort - English, not French, became the language of the English court during this period.
For France
Catastrophic humiliation. The capture of King John II at Poitiers (1356) created a power vacuum. His son the Dauphin faced the Jacquerie peasant rebellion (1358) and the Etienne Marcel urban revolt in Paris simultaneously. France was pushed to the edge of collapse before the Treaty of Bretigny gave it breathing room.
The Black Death (1347-1351)
The plague killed perhaps a third of Europe's population and disrupted both sides. Labour shortages changed social relations; peasants could demand higher wages. The disruption made it harder for both kingdoms to sustain prolonged military campaigns and contributed to the lull after Bretigny.
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The Treaty of Bretigny (1360) paused the war but solved nothing. France resented the territorial losses; England struggled to govern and tax its enlarged French territories. When Charles V of France came to power, he rebuilt French royal authority methodically and found new ways to fight the English. The second phase of the war (1369-1389) reversed the English gains almost completely.
Why the war re-emerged in 1369
- Bretigny left deep resentments - France ceded large territories but never fully accepted the settlement; French nobles in 'English' Gascony appealed to the French king, who was looking for grounds to intervene
- The Black Prince's Spanish campaign - The Black Prince fought in Castile (1367) and imposed a hearth tax on Gascon nobles to pay for it; the unpopular tax drove Gascon lords to appeal to Charles V of France
- Charles V's legal move - Charles V accepted the Gascon nobles' appeal in 1369 and declared war, giving France a legal as well as military justification for re-entering Gascony
- English weakness - Edward III was ageing, the Black Prince was dying of illness, and England faced financial exhaustion after decades of war spending
Charles V and the French recovery
Charles V (reigned 1364-1380) was called 'the Wise' for good reason. Rather than seeking the pitched battles where French knights had been massacred at Crecy and Poitiers, he instructed his commander Bertrand du Guesclin to use Fabian tactics. This was a brilliant adaptation: it denied England the decisive victories it needed while slowly recovering French territory.
Avoid pitched battle
Du Guesclin refused to meet the English in open battle where the longbow dominated. Instead he besieged garrisons, cut English supply lines and used the terrain against English raiders. This neutralised England's main military advantage.
Tax reform and finance
Charles V reformed French royal finances, creating a more regular hearth tax (fouage) that funded a professional standing army - less dependent on feudal levies and more reliable than the English contract armies that needed constant re-hiring.
Naval and Castilian alliance
France allied with Castile, which provided a powerful fleet. Franco-Castilian ships raided English south-coast towns including Rye, Winchelsea and Plymouth in the 1370s, putting the English on the defensive at sea for the first time.
Territorial recovery
By Charles V's death in 1380, France had reconquered virtually all of the territories England had won at Bretigny. Only Calais and a narrow coastal strip of Gascony remained in English hands. The war had almost come full circle.
Avoid battle, Tax well, Naval alliance, Recover territory - Charles V's four-step comeback
The Peasants' Revolt (1381) and the war: The cost of the war directly caused the Peasants' Revolt in England in 1381. Parliament introduced a flat-rate poll tax to fund military campaigns; this fell heavily on the poor and provoked the most serious uprising in English history, led by Wat Tyler. Though crushed, the revolt showed how war finance strained English society and how the burden of endless conflict was shifting from the nobility to ordinary people.
Why the war stalled after 1380
After Charles V died in 1380, France was governed by his young son Charles VI under regents who were more interested in fighting each other for control than in pursuing the war. England meanwhile was embroiled in the crisis of Richard II's reign. Both sides were exhausted financially and politically. A series of truces and the Truce of Leulinghem (1389) brought a formal pause. The war did not resume until 1415 under very different circumstances.
Phase 1 (1337-1360): England wins
- Crecy and Poitiers show English tactical dominance
- Longbow + chevauchee give England the initiative
- France humiliated; King John II captured
- Treaty of Bretigny: huge English territorial gains
Phase 2 (1369-1389): France recovers
- Charles V avoids pitched battle; uses du Guesclin's Fabian tactics
- French financial reform creates professional army
- Franco-Castilian naval raids put England on defensive
- England loses almost all gains from Bretigny by 1380
Linking the Hundred Years War to the succession crises: The best Paper 3 essays see connections between topics. The Hundred Years War shaped England's succession crises: war provided Edward III with prestige that kept him secure; but the costs and failures of the later phases weakened royal authority and fed the financial grievances that destabilised Richard II. France's weakness in the 1350s and 1380s also shows how external war pressure could trigger internal political breakdown - a theme running through all of Section 3.