Hello and welcome to today's history lesson.

My name is Mr. Merrett, and I'll be guiding you through today's lesson.

So let's get started.

Today's lesson is looking at the Hundred Years' War, and by the end of today's lesson, we'll be able to describe how the Hundred Years' War was fundamental in the formation of a separate English identity.

In order to do that, we need to use some key terms, and our key terms for today are alliance and campaign.

And alliance is a relationship between two countries for a particular purpose.

And a campaign is a phase of a war involving a series of operations aimed at achieving a specific objective.

Today's lesson will consist of three separate learning cycles, and our first learning cycle is looking at the start of the Hundred Years' War.

So let's get going.

In 1328, Charles IV, the King of France, died without any male heirs.

His closest male relative was his nephew, the 15-year-old King Edward II of England, who's on the screen there in front of you.

I'm pretty sure that that's a later image of Edward III.

To my knowledge, the 15-year-old Edward III didn't have a full beard.

Rather than declare Edward King of France though, the French nobles instead chose to crown Charles's cousin Philippe Valois.

Edward was not strong enough to contest the claim at this point in time, so he accepted Philippe VI as the new king of France.

Sensing weakness, Philippe began provoking the young English king.

Soon after his coronation, Philippe threatened the English wool trade.

Which was England's main export at that point in time by declaring war on Flemish rebels who had removed their unpopular leader.

And Flanders was England's main trading partner.

In 1334, he strengthened the old alliance with Scotland's, an alliance which was specifically created to threaten England's.

And then two years later, he moved the French fleet from the Mediterranean to the coast of Normandy, which was a clear provocation to Edward.

Having said that, Edward was not entirely innocent himself.

One of his main advisors was Robert of Artois, who was Philip's mortal enemy in Philip's own words.

When Edward refused to hand over Robert in 1337, Philip responded by confiscating Edward's Duchy of Gascony and this was a particularly heavy blow.

As the king made enormous profits from imposing tax on wine produced in Gascony when it was imported into England.

And therefore for Edward, this was quite simply a step too far, and he responded instead by declaring himself the rightful King of England.

At this point the battle lines have been drawn.

Well, let's have a quick check for understanding now.

So the Hundred Years' War began when the French King Philippe VI claimed to be the rightful king of England.

Is that true or is that false? Okay, if you chose false, then congratulations that is indeed a false statement.

But let's justify it now, why is that statement false? Is it false because the Hundred Years' War began when the English King Edward III claimed to be the rightful king of France? Or is it false because the Hundred Years' War began when the Scottish King Robert III claimed to be the rightful king of England and France? So choose your justification now.

All right, if you chose A then very well done.

That is indeed the correct answer.

Now, Edward began the war slowly as he needed to raise money and reposition his troops.

The French struck first by raiding the south coast of England, managing to burn the town of Hastings.

And this combined with the raising of taxes in order to pay for the war and the loss of southern Scotland to the Scottish, due to Edward repositioning his troops away from the defences in the north, it caused public opinion to turn against him.

However, Edwards achieved an important victory on the 23rd of June, 1340 at the Batter of Sluys.

In which the outnumbered and outclassed English Navy destroyed the French Navy using superior tactics.

The English Navy at this point in time was mostly merchant ships that they converted into warships, whereas the French had warships.

So nobody expected this victory, but it was purely because Edward's tactics were quite simply better than what the French were able to master.

This victory, the Battle of Sluys ensured that England controlled the channel for the majority of the Hundred Years' War.

Edward was now able to launch attacks on French soil.

His preferred tactic was a chevauchee.

And these were fast moving campaigns aimed not at gaining land, but in pillaging and destroying as much of the landscape as possible so as to weaken France economically and reduce French morale.

The chevauchees had a devastating effect and were the main tactic used by the English throughout the conflict.

From the perspective of the French peasantry, the English must have appeared no better than bandits just marauding through the countryside, taking whatever they can, burning whatever they couldn't, and then just moving onto the next town and doing exactly the same.

It was a pretty horrendous time to be a French peasant.

Right let's have a quick check for understanding now.

So the French alliance with which country was a particular concern to Edward III? Was it Denmark, was it the Holy Roman empire, or was it Scotland? Make your choice now.

Okay.

If you chose C, then well done.

That is the correct answer.

And another check for understanding now.

Which battle prevented the French from attacking the British Isles from most of the Hundred Years' War? Was it the Battle of Agincourt? The Battle of Crecy? Or the Battle of Sluys? Make your choice now.

Okay, if you chose C, then well done.

That is the correct answer.

Right let's go for our first task for today.

And there is two part of this one.

First of all, I'd like to link one or more of the factors to each of the below causes of the Hundred Years' War.

So there's causes of the bullet points on the screen in front of you there.

So you've got the confiscation of Gascony, the potential loss of the wool trade with Flanders, the French fleet stationed off the coast of Normandy, the French Alliance of Scotland, Edward harbouring a French fugitive and Edward's claim to the French crown.

So firstly link at least one or potentially more than that of the factors to each of those bullet points.

Once you've done that, I'll like you to choose one of the causes and explain how your chosen factor or factors link to that particular cause.

So pause the video now I you do this and I'll see you again in just a moment.

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully got okay with that task.

So let's think what you could have said then.

So from my perspective, I think that the confiscation of Gascony links to economic resources and the governments.

The potential loss of the wool trade with Flanders also links to economic resources.

The French fleet stationed off the coast of Normandy links to war.

The French Alliance of Scotland links to war and the governments.

Edward harbouring a French fugitive links to key individuals.

And Edwards claim to the French crown links to key individuals and governments.

Now if you've linked these causes to different factors to myself, that's absolutely fine as long as you can justify it.

That's what we're looking for here.

So don't worry if you've got different answers to myself.

The important thing is that you can justify how this cause is linked to the factors.

In terms of the second parts of this first task, my explanation for my choice of factors for one of the causes, I'd gone for the confiscation at Gascony and I said that the confiscation of Gascony links to economic resources as it produced a large amount of money for the kings of England.

So they would feel strongly about protecting their interests there.

It also links to government as King Philippe VI confiscated it 'cause he had more political power than Edward III in France in regards to Edward's role of Duke of Aquitain, a king outranks a duke.

Again, if you've got a different explanation to me, that's absolutely fine as long as you are able to justify it, that's the key thing there.

Right let's move on then to our second learning cycle of the day, which is looking at the events of the Hundred Years' War.

Now, the Hundred Years' War was not a continuous state of war, but rather as frequent campaigns interrupted by generally forced periods of peace, whenever both kingdoms needed to raise more money to pay for their next campaigns.

As a result, the tide of the conflict regularly shifted back and forth.

England though did come extremely close to win the conflict on several occasions, most notably after the Battle of Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt.

the Battle of Crecy saw English and Welsh longbowmen wipe out a superior French cavalry force.

And by superior I mean that in a sense that they had significantly more numbers than the English for the perspective of the time periods.

Everybody would've also expected a French victory because a French knight was just better than an English or Welsh longbowmen.

That was the perception at this point in time.

The French Knights were generally of the upper echelons of society, within nobility and the longbowmen came from the peasantry.

So many people believed that nobility were just born better than the peasantry and there's no way that a peasant could stand up to, or potentially even kill one of the knights Froissart who was a contemporary French chronicler, placed the number of French casualties at 30,000 captured or killed.

It's likely he's exaggerated that number, but what we can glean from that is that the number of French who were either captured or killed was extraordinarily high.

As well as being an obvious blow on a war fitting.

It's a real blow to the psyche of the French as well because the French nobility the French knights wouldn't even recognise the existence of these English and Welsh longbowmen because they were peasants.

They just weren't even worth acknowledging.

And the fact that so many of them have been captured or killed by these peasants would've been enormously damaging to the French at this point in time.

Now, the battle Crecy enabled Edward to conduct a long siege of Calais.

Which the French were too weakened to relieve.

I think it was about an 11 month siege of Calais and generally speaking, you expect within that time an army to come and help you out.

So defending army to come help you out, that wasn't the case.

There was nobody to come and help out Calais.

Calais would remain in English hands for the next 200 years.

Crecy was also the first time that we see gun powder being used on a European battlefield.

So that's another reason why the battle of Crecy is quite a significant moment in history.

At the Battle of Poitiers, Edward's son, who was also called Edward, and historians actually referred to him as the Black Prince, partly to a lead from that confusion.

Led an outnumbered Anglo-Gascon force to victory, which resulted in the capture of the French King Jean II.

After popular uprisings across France, the Treaty of Bretigny on the 8th of May, 1360, saw King Jean II ransomed for 3 million gold coins, as well as the granting of an extended Aquitaine to the English, which was to be ruled directly by the Black Prince.

It was roughly about a third of what is now modern day France, would've been given to the Black Prince, and effectively that would've been his own separate kingdom, although I'm sure that when the plan was when Edward III died and the Black Prince took over to become Edward IV, then he would've eventually combined those two territories together to create a new Angevin empire really.

In return, Edward III gave up his claim to the French throne.

The French campaign of 1369 though saw them retake much of what they had lost.

Now let's a quick check for understanding.

So I'd like you to pick out two consequences of the battle of Poitiers.

So was it that the Holy Roman empire campaigned on the French side? Was it that Italian states campaigned on the English side? Was it that there was the capture of the French king or was it that England gained a third of France? So choose two of those options now.

Okay, if you chose C and D then very well done.

Those are the correct answers.

So the closest England came to victory in the Hundred Years' War was following the Battle of Agincourt.

The French King at the time Charles VI, suffered from bouts of mental illness, which affected his ability to rule.

So England's King Henry the V, chose to exploit the confusion and infighting that this caused in the French court to invade France once again.

After taking the Port of Harfleur, half of Henry's men were struck down by disease.

And while attempting to make his way to Calais and then home effectively to kind of call it a day, Henry's army was blocked by a French army three times the size of his own on the 25th of October, 1415.

In scenes reminiscent of Crecy though, English and Welsh longbowmen wiped out thousands of French knights with few losses of their own.

This was quite a contentious battle once again because so many English and Welsh peasants had killed so many French knights.

It was difficult for the French to come to terms with that, but also because a lot of these knights had originally been taken as prisoners and then when a relieving force came up behind Henry's lines, the decision was made to kill the prisoners.

Otherwise, they might have reunited with the main French force and effectively they'd have been fighting two armies either side of his battle line.

So Henry made the contentious decision to kill the prisoners, which was brutal, but understandable given the situation.

In any case, the resulting Treaty of Troyes in 1420 saw Henry marry Charles IV daughter, Catherine of Valois, made Henry and his sons the successors to Charles.

In a cruel twist of fate though, Henry died on the 31st of August, 1422.

So just a couple of years after this treaty was signed, and then in an even more cruel twist of fate, he was followed by Charles just two months later, Henry's infant son therefore Henry VI was unable to press his claim to the throne of France, and so the Hundred Years' War resumed once more.

Although the chevauchees of the English forces were terrible for the French peasants, the periods of peace brought little relief either.

Unemployed soldiers formed bands known as routier who played the French countryside.

Pillaging and killing wherever they went.

English peasants also suffered during the Hundred Years' War, although not in the same way.

Heavy taxation was a major cause of the peasants revolt in 1381 and also helped cause a serious Welsh rebellion.

As well as that piracy became common along the English coast and frequent bouts of plague swept across the country as well as across Europe at this point in time.

Right, let's have a quick check for understanding now.

So which battle won by Henry V in 1415 almost brought an end to the Hundred Years' War in England's favour? Was it the battle of Agincourt? Was it the battle of Castillion? or was it the Battle of Crecy? Make your choice now.

Okay, if you chose a then very well done.

That is the correct answer.

Let's go for our next task for today now then.

So I'd like you to pick out two useful features of the source on the screen in front of you for an historian studying the Hundred Years' War.

So the source is a painting of the Battle of Crecy from Froissart's Chronicles.

And Froissart was a contemporary French chronicler who wrote extensively about the Hundred Years' War.

He interviewed witnesses for many of the events that he wrote about.

So pause the video while you complete this task and I'll see you in just a moment.

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully you got okay with that task there.

So let's think about what you could have said then.

So I've said one useful feature of the source for a story in studying the Hundred Years' War is the depiction of the weapons in the source, in particular, the longbows.

The Battle of Crecy was a victory for the English thanks to the use of English and Welsh longbowmen, and these types of soldiers are shown in the source.

Another useful feature is that the provenance states that Froissart was a contemporary French chronicler who interviewed witnesses for his account of the Hundred Years' War.

Therefore, it is likely that Froissart would've interviewed witnesses of the battle of Cresy.

So his account of the battle will be more accurate.

If you've got different things that you've picked out from the source than myself, that's absolutely fine as long as you've explained the how they are useful for a historian, and that's the key aspect here.

Right, let's move on into our third and final learning cycle of today.

Which is looking at the end of the Hundred Years' War.

Now, the Hundred Years' War actually ended in quite surprising fashion.

The forces of Henry the VI were besieging the city of Orleans in April 1429.

When a French relief force under the command of a 17-year-old peasant girl by the name of Joan of Arc, successfully drove them away.

Joan then continued to push the English further backwards, which raised the morale of the French army.

Joan had actually gone to the king, the French King at this point in time, claiming that she'd hear the voices of Saints telling her that she could beat the English, and the king in desperation granted Joan command of this particular relief force and it worked.

Even after her death, the English actually managed to capture Joan and they burnt her at the stake, accusing her of being a witch.

The French forces continued to defeat the English forces that they faced.

This genuinely was a turning point in the war.

By 1450, England had lost Normandy and the Hundred Years' War came to an effective end in 1453 when Gascony itself was overrun.

The 116 year long on off war involving five different English kings and five different French kings was now over.

There were a number of long-term consequences of the Hundred Years' War.

In 1362, the English language became the official language of England.

Before this point, the Royal Court had spoken French, but now this was seen as the enemy language.

With very little continental territory left, England developed its own separate identity, which differed from that Normandy or Gascony or any other parts of France that had a traditional English influence.

Successes such as Cresy, Poitiers, and Agincourt as well as other battles we're not mentioned here today, brought pride to the English and provided focal points that a national identity could be forged around.

English people began to refer to themselves as English rather than the region they were from.

Rivalry and conflict with the French also became a staple part of the English identity right up until pretty much the 20th century.

With nothing left to fight for on the continent.

The end of the Hundred Years' War also encouraged England to look outside of Europe for areas to expand into.

Well let's look at a check for understanding now.

So which French national hero led their country to an unlikely victory in the Hundred Years' War? Was it Charles Martel? Was it Joan of Arc? Or was it Napoleon Bonaparte? Make your choice now.

Okay.

If you chose B, then very well done.

That is the correct answer.

And another check for understanding, so true or false statements.

due to the Hundred Years' War, English became the official language of England.

Is that true or is that false? Okay, if you chose true, then well done.

That is indeed the correct answer.

But let's justify now why is it a true statement? Is it true because French had previously been spoken at courts but was now seen as the language of the enemy? Or is it true because the gathering of soldiers from all over the country standardise the English language from regional dialects? So choose your justification now.

Okay.

If you chose A, then well done.

That is the correct answer.

Right, let's go for our next task then.

So I'd like you to explain two significant consequences of the Hundred Years' War.

So pause the video whilst you complete this task, and I'll see you again in just a moment.

Okay, welcome back.

Hope got along fine with that task.

Let's think about what you could have said then.

So I've said one significant consequence of the Hundred Years' War was that English became the official language of England.

This important because English is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world today.

Which may not have been the case if not for the Hundred Years' War.

Another significant consequence was that the Hundred Years' War brought the people of England together to forge a national identity and gave them a sense of what it means to be English.

For example, English people began to refer to themselves as English rather than the region they were from.

If you've chosen different consequences to myself, that's absolutely fine as long as you explain them and then link them to the Hundred Years' War that's the key aspect of this task here.

Right, let's summarise today's lesson then.

So King Edward III claimed that he was the rightful king of France in 1337 after being provoked by the French king, Philippe VI.

Philippe had strengthened the Auld alliance and confiscated Edward's rich lands in Gascony.

The English won several major battles during the Hundred Years' War, such as that Sluys, Cresy, Poitiers, and Agincourt.

The tide shifted against the English when Joan of Arc emerged and helped to lead the French to victory in 1453.

And England lost almost all of its continental possessions, but also developed a national identity which separated itself from the rest of Europe.

Thank you very much for joining me today.

Hopefully you've enjoyed yourself.

Hope you learned something, and hopefully I'll see you again next time.

Bye-Bye.