It will run through the beginning of the Capetian dynasty to nowadays and will focus on everything related to France and its history.
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Battle of Poitiers (miniature of Froissart)
The Battle of Poitiers was a major battle of the Hundred Years’ War between England and France. The battle occurred on 19 September 1356 near Poitiers, France. Preceded by the Battle of Crécy in 1346, and followed by the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, it was the second of the three great English victories of the war.
Traité d’Arras
The congress gave rise to the Treaty of Arras, which was signed in 1435 and became an important diplomatic achievement for the French in the closing years of the Hundred Years’ War. Overall, it reconciled a longstanding feud between King Charles VII of France and Duke Philip of Burgundy. Philip recognized Charles VII as king of France and, in return, Philip was exempted from homage to the crown and Charles agreed to punish the murderers of Philip’s father John of Burgundy. By breaking the alliance between Burgundy and England, Charles VII consolidated his position as monarch of France against a rival claim by Henry VI of England. The political distinction between Armagnacs and Burgundians ceased to be significant from this time onward. France already hadScotland as an ally and England was left isolated. From 1435 onward, English occupation in France underwent steady decline.
Bataille de Pontvallain et couronnement de Grégoire XI
The Battle of Pontvallain was an important battle in France’s Hundred Years War with England. It was fought the 4 December 1370 in the Sarthe region between English forces that had broken away from the army commanded by the English knight Sir Robert Knolles and a French army under the newly-appointed Constable of France, Bertrand du Guesclin. The battle was in fact two separate engagements, one at Pontvallain and a smaller one at the nearby town of Vaas; they are sometimes named as separate battles. Though the engagements were comparatively small-scale, they were significant because the English were routed, bringing to an end their 30-year reputation for invincibility in open battle.
Les bourgeois de Calais
Les Bourgeois de Calais is one of the most famous sculptures by Auguste Rodin, completed in 1889. It serves as a monument to an occurrence in 1347 during the Hundred Years’ War, when Calais, an important French port on the English Channel, was under siege by the English for over a year.
The story goes that England’s Edward III, after a victory in the Battle of Crécy, laid siege to Calais, while Philip VI of France ordered the city to hold out at all costs. Philip failed to lift the siege, and starvation eventually forced the city to parley for surrender.
Edward offered to spare the people of the city if any six of its top leaders would surrender themselves to him, presumably to be executed. Edward demanded that they walk out almost naked, wearing nooses around their necks, and carrying the keys to the city and castle. One of the wealthiest of the town leaders, Eustache de Saint Pierre, volunteered first, and five other burghers soon followed suit, stripping down to their breeches. Saint Pierre led this envoy of emaciated volunteers to the city gates. It was this moment, and this poignant mix of defeat, heroic self-sacrifice, and willingness to face imminent death that Rodin captured in his sculpture, scaled somewhat larger than life.
In history, though the burghers expected to be executed, their lives were spared by the intervention of England’s Queen, Philippa of Hainault, who persuaded her husband to exercise mercy by claiming that their deaths would be a bad omen for her unborn child.
Gilles de Laval, sire de Rais, compagnon de Jeanne d’Arc, Maréchal de France (1404-1440). Huile sur toile (1835) exposée dans la galerie des maréchaux de France, château de Versailles. (vue d’artiste)
Gilles de Montmorency-Laval (1404–1440), Baron de Rais, was a Breton knight, a leader in the French army and a companion-in-arms of Joan of Arc. He is best known by his reputation and conviction as a prolific serial killer of children.
A member of the House of Montmorency-Laval, Gilles de Rais grew up under the tutelage of his maternal grandfather and increased his fortune by marriage. Following the War of the Breton Succession, he earned the favour of the Duke and was admitted to the French court. From 1427 to 1435, Gilles served as a commander in the Royal Army, and fought alongside Joan of Arc against the English and their Burgundian allies during the Hundred Years’ War, for which he was appointed Marshal of France.
In 1434/1435, he retired from military life, depleted his wealth by staging an extravagant theatrical spectacle of his own composition and dabbled in the occult. After 1432 Gilles engaged in a series of child murders, his victims possibly numbering in the hundreds. The killings came to an end in 1440 when a violent dispute with a clergyman led to an ecclesiastical investigation which brought Gilles’ crimes to light. At his trial the parents of missing children in the surrounding area and Gilles’ own confederates in crime testified against him. Gilles was condemned to death and hanged at Nantes on 26 October 1440.
Bataille d’Azincourt
The Battle of Agincourt was a major English victory against a numerically superior French army in the Hundred Years’ War. The battle occurred on Friday, 25 October 1415 (Saint Crispin’s Day), near modern-day Azincourt, in northern France. Henry V’s victory crippled France and started a new period in the war, during which, first, Henry married the French king’s daughter and, second, his son, Henry VI, was made heir to the throne of France (although Henry VI later failed to capitalise on his father’s battlefield success).
Henry V led his troops into battle and participated in hand-to-hand fighting. The French king of the time, Charles VI, did not command the French army himself as he suffered from severe, repeating illnesses and moderate mental incapacitation. Instead, the French were commanded by Constable Charles d’Albret and various prominent French noblemen of the Armagnac party.
The battle is notable for the use of the English longbow, which Henry used in very large numbers, with English and Welsh archers forming most of his army.
Queens of England, Katherine of Valois, 1401 - 1437
Katherine was born at the Hotel-St-Pol, on 27th October 1401, daughter of King Charles VI of France and Isabella of Bavaria. Katherine’s childhood was unstable due to her father’s madness and the political instability that this and the Hundred Years’ War caused in France. As part of a treaty for peace, Katherine was married to Henry V of England on 4th July 1420. Katherine was crowned in Westminster Abbey on 23rd February 1421, by this time she was already pregnant.
Katherine gave birth to the future Henry VI on 6th December 1421, his father would never see the child as he died of dysentery in France on 31st August 1422. Katherine was left a widow, with a young child, at the age of 20. Her future remarriage was a cause for concern with the Kings councillors, a bill was even passed in 1428, stating that a dowager queen could not remarry without consent from the King.
Katherine fell in love with Owen Tudor, probably the keeper of the queen’s wardrobe. They were married secretly, probably around 1431, although later this was disputed, as no records to prove their marriage could be found. Around this time Katherine left the Kings household and moved to her own establishment. Katherine and Owen between four and six children and lived quietly together for several years. Their lives were shattered when Owen Tudor was arrested in 1436 on charges of treason, Katherine was pregnant at the time. Katherine entered Bermondsey Abbey after his arrest and died there, separated from her husband, shortly after giving birth to her final child.
Owen lived until 1461, when he was executed fighting on the side of his stepson, Henry VI, during the War of the Roses. Henry VI promoted his Tudor siblings at court, arranging good marriages for them and showing them favour. It was from this Tudor line that Henry VII came, his right to the throne coming from his mother, Margaret Beaufort, who had married Katherine’s son, Edmund Tudor.
Katherine’s corpse became a tourist attraction years after her death. In 1669, Samuel Pepys wrote in his diary of how he kissed Katherine on his birthday :
I did see the body of Queen Catherine of Valois, and had the upper part of the body in my hands, and I did kiss her mouth, reflecting upon it I did kiss a Queen: and this my birthday and I thirty-six years old and I did kiss a Queen.
Katherine’s body was not re-interred properly until the reign of Queen Victoria.
La bataille de Verneuil, par Martial d’Auvergne, enluminure issue de l’ouvrage Vigiles de Charles VII, Paris, France, XV°siècle.
The Battle of Verneuil ) was a strategically important battle of the Hundred Years’ War, fought on 17 August 1424 near Verneuil in Normandy and a significant English victory. It was a particularly bloody battle, described by the English as a second Agincourt. Altogether some 7262 French and allied troops were killed, including 4000 Scots. English losses were 1600, including two men-at-arms and “a very The Scots army, led by Archibald, Earl of Douglas and John Stewart, Earl of Buchan (both of whom were killed), was almost destroyed. Many French noblemen were taken prisoner; among them the Duke of Alençon, Pierre, the bastard of Alençon, and Marshall Lafayette. After Verneuil, the English were able to consolidate their position in Normandy. The Army of Scotland as a distinct unit ceased to play a significant part in the Hundred Years’ War, although many Scots continued to serve in France.
Painting depicting the Battle of Castillon (Hundred Years´ War, 1453), by the French painter Charles-Philippe Larivière (1798-1876).
The Battle of Castillon in 1453 was the last battle fought between the French and the English during the Hundred Years’ War. It resulted in a decisive French victory.
Picture of Violante of Aragon and the future Charles VII of France 1430
Yolande of Aragon, (11 August 1384 – 14 November 1442), was a throne claimant and titular queen regnant of Aragon, titular queen consort of Naples, Duchess of Anjou, Countess of Provence, and regent of Provence during the minority of her son. Yolande played a crucial role in the struggles between France and England, influencing events such as the financing of Joan of Arc’s army in 1429 and tipping the balance in favor of the French.
