Conflict Between England and France in the 13th Century

The Hundred Years War took place between France and England in the 14th and 15th centuries, but the causes of the war are many and complex. Here, Jonathan Riley looks at how France and England interacted during the 13th century, including the framework between France and England, and France’s alliance with Scotland.

If you missed it, you can read Jonathan’s first piece on the rise of Capetian power here, and the expansion of Plantagenet power here.

An apparent depiction of King Edward I of England.

The cause of The Hundred Years War were a series of territorial and legal disputes between the French crown and their vassals, the kings of England, regarding their continental holdings. The Treaty of Paris in 1259 established a framework of peace between both kingdoms. It lasted until the Anglo-French war of 1294 to 1298, with the peace ending due to Philip iV of France’s war in the Netherlands and alliance with Scotland. The peace was only temporarily restored with the second marriage of Edward I of England and Princess Margaret, the daughter of King Philip III of France.

Constitutional Legal Framework

The constitutional legal framework that sparked the conflict was King Edward I of England’s inability to pay homage to the King of France in the 1290s. His inability to come to Paris caused the war to begin. Historians debate why King Philip, known as Philip the fair or Philip the Iron King, restarted the conflict with the Plantagenet kings of England. Some believed Philip was given poor council and others described Philip as highly intelligent and like an “owl all-seeing” (Brown, 2012). Regardless of the reasons, the most plausible is that Philip was a long line of Capetian kings that have merely continued the dynasties policy of centralizing the kingdom within the feudal structures of their age by reducing the powers and independence of its leaders. By the late 13th century the dukedom of Normandy was incorporated into the Royal French lands permanently with the lands of Poitier, Champagne, Valois, greater Anjou and Artos going to cadet branches of the ruling French dynasties. In this context, we have a strong plausible reason why the conflict known as the Hundred Years War was destined to happen (Hallam & West, 2020). No feudal dynasty would willingly give up their ancestral lands. This meant the Plantagenets had no choice but to keep fighting to expand or retain what remained of their continental holdings, which the family did until their disposition in 1485 CE (Jones, 2015).

Origins of the Hundred Years War

Before the Hundred Years War there was an alliance between King John I of Scotland and King Philip iV of France. This alliance would last until 1560, and was known as the Auild alliance or old alliance. The reason why this alliance made the Hundred Years War inevitable was that King Edward I of England was establishing a legal framework for him to be the arbitrator of justice and law in the kingdom of Scotland. King Edward undermined the King of Scots royal authority, which led to a 30 years war between the kings of England and Scotland over control over the kingdom of Scotland. This began with Edwards’ first invasion in 1295 over the alliance between Scotland and France, which was deemed a direct threat to the English crown. With the continued backing of the French crown for the kings of Scotland, this meant that for the kings of England to subdue Scotland, they would have to make peace with France or fight a two-way war, one to the north against Scotland and one to the south protecting the Plantagenet domains in Gascony and the English Channel from French invasions.

Wars in the 1290s

King Edward I became King of England in 1272, and he was England’s fifth Plantagenet king since 1154. In practical terms, this meant that the dynasties transformed from one being a descendant of William to a legitimate and established kingdom with its own legal and royal traditions that were becoming increasingly independent, and an English identity was starting to emerge. It was this growing independence and the growing confidence of the English nation and the English kingship that enabled Edward I of England to have the support of his nobility when fighting. Wars in France, the Netherlands, Wales, Gascony, and Scotland with the support for the four-way conflict shows that the balance between the monarchies of England and France was changing (King, 2016). Previous Plantagenet kings could not rely on their nobility when it came to conflicts with the kings of France. With this dynamic changing, it meant that England’s seventh Plantagenet king, Edward III of England, who reigned from 1327 CE until 1377 CE, had the support and dynastic legitimacy to fight a war against the kings of France and the descendants of Charlemagne - something that previous Norman and Plantagenet kings of England did not have.

What do you think of the engagements between England and France in the 13th century? Let us know below.

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