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Edward III and the Beginnings of the Hundred Years War
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 February 2009
Extract
Historians have long been concerned with the circumstances in which the Hundred Years War began, and their interest shows no sign of slackening. During the present century not a little has been added to our knowledge of the matter through the labours of scholars in this country, in the United States and on the continent. This means that by now a formidable array of evidence bearing on the subject has been brought to light, while numerous books and articles, packed with comment and explanation, lie ready to hand. It is true that important sources still remain unprinted, although not unused, but the scholars of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries made available most of the chronicles and some of the records, while more documents have steadily found their way into print during the last fifty years
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- Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1952
References
page 69 note 1 There is a full bibliography of all but the most recently printed material in Lucas, H. S., The Low Countries and the Hundred Years War, 1326–1347 (Ann Arbor, 1929)Google Scholar.
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page 70 note 1 The following are of particular importance: ‘La France sous Philippe de Valois’, Revue des Questions Historiques, lix; ‘Itinèraire de Philippe de Valois’, Bibliotheque de l'Ècole des Chartes, lxxix, lxxxiv; ‘Philippe de Valois, dèbut du régne’, ibid, xcv.
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page 70 note 4 A case in point is the American symposium, The English Government at Work, 1327–1336, vols. i–iii, edited by Willard, J. F., Morris, W. A., Strayer, J. H., Dunham, W. H., (Medieval Academy of America, 1940–1950)Google Scholar.
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page 71 note 1 There is a brief but masterly sketch of these matters in Perroy, E., La Guerre de Cent Ans (Paris, 1945), pp. 12–56Google Scholar.
page 71 note 2 Like most folk who have wrestled with this subject, I have found myself in a difficulty over the use of the terms Gascony, Guienne and Aquitaine. Although the purist may shudder, these terms are in fact, almost of necessity, used very loosely. There is a comfortable if not very scholarly precedent in the. practice of the Chancery. There the clerks often used these terms inter-changeably to denote the English lands in south-western France, and that is what I have done.
page 72 note 1 ‘From this period we may date the commencement of that great animosity which the English nation has ever since borne to the French, which has so visible an influence on all future transactions, and which has been, and continues to be, the spring of many rash and precipitate resolutions among them’, History of England, (ed. 1841), ii. 143Google Scholar.
page 72 note 2 Ibid., ii. 140–1.
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page 76 note 2 Hume, D., History of England, ii. 219Google Scholar; Hallam, , Middle Ages, i. 51Google Scholar.
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page 77 note 1 Before 1337 Edward III wrote on many occasions to individuals and to groups explaining and justifying both what he had done and what he intended to do. The recipients of these confidences included the pope, the king of France, the people of London, his vassals and his officers in Gascony, and the English bishops and clergy. A representative selection of these documents can be found in Rymer, T., Foedera (ed. 1707), iv. 449, 529, 540, 553, 557, 568, 650, 658, 705, 742Google Scholar. An example of the economical use made of the truth on these occasions is to be seen in the letters written between August 1332 and May 1333, when Balliol's invasion of Scotland was in. progress. At first Edward III strove to represent himself as a disinterested and somewhat shocked spectator, and then to justify his intervention on the ground that the Scots had first attacked him (ibid., iv. 529, 540, 553, 557).
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page 80 note 1 Halphen, L., ‘La place de la royautè dans le système fèodal’, Revue Historique, clxxii. 249–56Google Scholar.
page 80 note 2 Henry III, Edward I and Edward II tried the experiment of transferring their Gascon rights and obligations to their eldest sons. It is probable that in the circumstances of the time this kind of solution was the one best calculated to secure general acceptance. However, it was not persisted with. Perroy, , op. at., pp. 47–8Google Scholar.
page 81 note 1 Foedera, iv. 344, 345, 346, 347, 354, 367.
page 81 note 2 Ibid., iv. 536, 539, 548, 590, 614.
page 84 note 1 Foedera, iv. 481, 482, 483, 485, 486.
page 84 note 2 Perroy, , op. cit., pp. 43–4Google Scholar; Lodge, , Gascony under English Rule, p. 74Google Scholar.
page 84 note 3 Quoted ibid., p. 75.
page 85 note 1 Rothwell, H., ‘Edward I's case against Philip the Fair over Gascony in 1298’, English Historical Review, xlii. 572–82Google Scholar; Cuttino, , op. cit., pp. 73–83Google Scholar.
page 85 note 2 E. Deprez, ‘La Conference d'Avignon (1344)’, in Essays presented to T. F. Tout, p. 306. At the same time, as Professor Perroy reminds us,
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page 87 note 1 Rothwell, op. cit.
page 88 note 1 Cuttino, op. cit., passim. He also notes that when Philip's intentions towards Scotland were becoming more obvious, Edward Ill's counsellors instinctively looked back to his grandfather's time, for, as they saw it, he had known how to get himself out of tight corners with some agility (ibid., p. 70).
page 88 note 2 The first French agreement with the Scots dated from 1295, and what the Scots later called ‘the auld alliance’ had already become a tradition of French policy by the time of Philip VI.