about 18 months ago James heard one of
his favorite podcasters say he was
making podcasting his full-time gig and
we've wanted to help out ever since
coordinating our schedules was almost
comically difficult but now that Rob's
brand-new minature member of his family
has arrived we're sending him on some
much-needed fraternity leaf to bond with
his daughter Congrats Rob in his stead
please welcome David Crowther from the
always excellent history of England
podcast David's going to be reading for
this series so you can get a sample of
the dulcet and beautifully British tone
of his voice and after the app be sure
to go check out his podcast at the link
in the description so without further
ado take it away David thank you very
much Matthew but come the Hundred Years
War the pageants and tournaments of
chivalry nights in burnished armor the
English Archer destroying the flower of
French chivalry the great battles of
crécy Poitier's and Agincourt
or just a sign of the brutality of the
Middle Ages senseless war found
destruction the death of thousands in
the mud of France for nothing more than
the greed and ambition of kings there's
all of this and more in the Hundred
Years War it's a story of courage the
clash of Nations a story of human
endeavor and the timeless struggle for
supremacy yet there's also another story
here the story of a war that helped
define England her sense of herself her
language her role in the world the
Hundred Years War helped form a nation
welcome to the extra history of England
[Music]
it's 1328 the new King of England is a
young man called Edward the third but
he's powerless because his mother's
lover a man named Roger Mortimer had
seized control of his throne but Edward
was a warrior and a leader of men in
1330 at the age of only seventeen he
gathered some friends and by pale
moonlight snuck into Mortimer's castle
he cut down the guards and seized
Mortimer himself the interloper was
dragged through the jeering crowds of
London drank to the gallows known as the
Tyburn tree where countless traitors
would dive over the centuries and hung
by the neck until dead from that point
Edward was determined that England and
his royal court would be a shining
example of culture to all Christendom
the court of the young King was a
pageant of color music tournaments and
poetry he surrounded himself with the
enormous ly wealthy nobility and modeled
his court on the glory of the ancient
and mythical Camelot of King Arthur a
celebration of the cult of chivalry but
part of that cult was that the King
would lead his Nobles to war wealth and
glory and while at times the nobility
did strain against the Kings Authority
for the most part they were his natural
allies holding their lands from him and
working with him to govern his kingdom
and his people and so with his greatest
Nobles at his side Edward did what he
loved most and was born for he led his
nobility to war and crushed the Scots in
battle but then in 1337 Edwards world
was threatened the French were at the
gates well over literal gates actually
it's a complex dynastic claim involving
several hundred years of medieval
inheritance law and international
politics we should be able to cover that
in just a few sentences for centuries
the French and English royal dynasties
had fought over land in France in the
blue corner the French royal dynasty the
Valois and in the red corner the English
royal dynasty the Plantagenets and the
Valois King of France King Philip the
sixth of France was determined to take
the last of Edwards French lands away
from him because medieval kingdoms
didn't follow modern borders or rules
they were the property of a king and his
nobles English claims in France went all
the way back to 1066 when a French noble
called William the bastard decided that
he deserved more than the lands he held
in Normandy he made the most of a
distant claim to the English throne
sailed across the channel
beat up the English and became known to
history as William the Conqueror the old
anglo-saxon landowners were swept away
and England became the property of
french-speaking Lords French was the
language of the nobility of literature
of the Kings Court English was the
language of the peasant and the serf
fast forward a hundred years and in 1155
a young man called Henry became King
Henry ii of england henry came from
Anjou in France and so more French land
was added to those holdings in Normandy
that came from old Billy the conch plus
Henry then married the richest heiress
in Europe who was good way of paying the
bills
the powerful cultured and intelligent
Eleanor of Aquitaine and she brought
even more French land to the English
crown Henry and his successors the
Plantagenet royal family now owned
almost half of modern France they spoke
French they loved France they were
French if they had to choose between a
castle and a full English breakfast
it'll be the croissant every time but
there's a catch most of these lands
where in theory still owned by the kings
of France like all medieval vassals
everyone with lands in France were
supposed to kneel and pay homage to the
Valois kings for them in practice though
the likes of Billy the Konkan henry ii
were simply too powerful to be forced to
do what the Valois
told them to do so they just paid lip
service to the French king's theoretical
rights and got on with the party but
over the centuries bit by bit the Valois
had used their rights to take back most
of that land while weaker Plantagenet
were on the English throne by the time
Edward the third was born most of those
lands have been successfully reclaimed
by the French leaving only a single
province left in English hands a place
called Gascony the fal were King Philip
the sixth was determined to take that
last province away from the Plantagenet
and England Philip had no doubt he could
achieve this after all France was the
most powerful and glorious country in
all Christendom it was one of the
leading centers of culture and learning
Philip only counted as his equals the
Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor and
that's it England was just a small damp
and slightly grubby country somewhere in
the North Sea the French nobility with a
shining exemplar of chivalry while the
English nobility were not fill it make
trouble for Edward
he made an alliance with
the Scots against the English and then
at his court in 1337 he formally
confiscated Gascony Edward tried to talk
Philip told him to talk to the hand
Edward told him to talk to the edge of
his sword he would defend his rights the
confiscation was not just an insult to
Edward it was also a threat to English
merchants England had two great sources
of wealth one was in the wine trade with
Gascony the Gascon merchants as well as
the English hated the idea of losing the
wine trade with England even more
important though was the wool trade with
the county of Flanders in the modern-day
Belgium the textile industry was far and
away the biggest industry in medieval
Europe other than agriculture no other
industry was a fraction of its value and
the textile industry was dominated by
the densely populated towns of northern
Italy and Flanders English wool fed that
trade English wool was the best in all
Europe finer with longer strands making
it easier Center yarn and creating the
softest strongest woolen cloth every
year thousands of huge wool sacks were
sold to Flemish merchants and every year
customs Jews from the trade filled the
English Treasury but the Count of
Flanders was a subject of the French
King and now King Philip tour Flanders
they could no longer trade with the
English the Flemish were as horrified as
the English without English woe their
industry would die and that people would
starve so one Friday in the bustling
market square in Ghent in Flanders the
people gathered excitedly round a wooden
stage it was covered with colourful
pennants and flags but I saw a new flag
the arms of England quartered with the
royal arms of France and they wondered
what that could mean a young powerful
man stepped forward his name he declared
was King Edward the third he had been
wrongfully banned from his lands in
France and he would reclaim his right
the people cheered but there was more by
the right of his french mother he was
claiming the very throne of France
itself the flemish cheered the French
giggled war was now unstoppable at stake
on the English side was trade the
English role in Christendom the King's
lands in France held by right for a
hundred and fifty years and the
reputation and honor of the King on the
French side a unified country national
prestige and the right of their monarch
to his throne so join us next time as
these two great kings marshal their
forces and the Hundred Years War begins
[Music]