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BACKGROUND 1337 - 1360 1360 - 1396 1397 - 1428 1429 - 1453 AFTERMATH

CAMPAIGNS 1360 – 1396
By the time King john died in 1364, still a prisoner, his son Charles V had spent almost a decade exercising the reins of power.  The never intended to abide by the Bretigny treaty of 1360 and he had surrounded himself with experienced warriors.  On 29 September, he challenged the English at Auray.  One of his generals had devised a tactic for neutralizing English archery by dismounting his men-at-arms and advancing behind pavises.  This worked in so far as the French reached the anglo-Breton battle line, but they were then defeated, Charles of Blois being killed and du Guesclin captured. Thus Brittany remained in English hands until 1379.

In 1366, Charles had influenced a coup in Castile.  This coup alarmed Edward prince of wales who as ruler of Aquitaine, perceived a threat from a pro-French dominated Castile.  In 1367, he marched into Spain and his English longbows routed the charging franco-castillian force.  In fact, Edward won the battle but lost the war. In1368, he returned to spain, but the huge cost of the expedition, paid out of heay taxes in Gascony, undermined English rule.

 
With both Edwards ill, there was a lack of leadership and direction in England.  By 1374, the French had pinned the English back into the territories they had held in 1337.  Prince Edward died in 1376, and Edward III in 1377, leaving Richard II to succeed as a minor.  Campaigns in 1380-81 to Brittany and Portugal failed miserably.  In 1372, a combined Genoese-Castillian fleet in French service defeated the English off La Rochelle and recovered the port.  Between 1385 and 1387, Charles mustered 180 French vessels and hired many more.  Charles was able to threaten a full-scale invasion of England for the first time in half a century.
The English found a defensive war increasingly expensive to pursue, and heavy taxation provoked the Peasants Revolt of 1381.  English strategy became increasingly disjointed.  From 1390 to 1396, there were a series of complex peace negotiations in which Charles VI’s madness gave England the upper hand and resulted in Richard II marrying the French Kings sister.  Even so, English territories in France were reduced to Calais and a coastal strip from Bordeaux to Bayonne in Gascony.  Decades of failure had dulled memories of Edward III’s successes; but with good leadership the claim to the French throne might yet be revived.