The Hundred Years' War was a series of conflicts waged from 1337 to 1453 between the House of Plantagenet, rulers of the Kingdom of England, against the House of Valois for control of the Kingdom of France. Each side drew many allies into the war.
For their French possessions, the English kings since the Norman Conquest were vassals of the kings of France. The French kings had endeavored, over the centuries, to reduce the possessions of their over-mighty vassals, to the effect that only Gascony was left to the English. The confiscation or threat of confiscating this duchy had been part of French policy to check the growth of English power, particularly whenever the English were at war with the Kingdom of Scotland, an ally of France.
Through his mother, Isabella of France, Edward III was the grandson of Philip IV of France, and nephew of Charles IV of France, the last king with direct lineage to the House of Capet. In 1316, a principle was established denying women succession to the French throne. When Charles IV died in 1328, Isabella, unable to claim the French throne for herself, claimed it for her son. The French rejected the claim, maintaining that Isabella could not transmit a right which she did not possess. The French denial of Edward III's claim to the French throne initiated the period of conflict between England and France now known as the Hundred Years' War. Several overwhelming English victories in the war raised the prospects of an ultimate English triumph. However, the greater resources of the French monarchy precluded a complete conquest. Starting in 1429, decisive French victories at Patay, Formigny, and Castillon concluded the war in favor of France, with England permanently losing most of its major possessions on the continent.
The war owes its historical significance to multiple factors. By its end, feudal armies had been largely replaced by professional troops, and aristocratic dominance had yielded to a democratisation of the manpower and weapons of armies. Although primarily a dynastic conflict, the war gave impetus to ideas of French and English nationalism. The wider introduction of weapons and tactics supplanted the feudal armies where heavy cavalry had dominated. The first standing armies in Western Europe since the time of the Western Roman Empire originated during the war, composed largely of commoners and thus helping to change their role in warfare. With respect to the belligerents, English political forces over time came to oppose the costly venture. The dissatisfaction of English nobles, resulting from the loss of their continental landholdings, became a factor leading to the civil wars known as the Wars of the Roses (1455–1487). In France, civil wars, deadly epidemics, famines, and bandit free-companies of mercenaries reduced the population drastically. Shorn of its Continental possessions, England was left with the sense of being an island nation, which profoundly affected its outlook and development for more than 500 years.
