Any author tackling the broad canvas of the Hundred Years War in a single volume is faced with a daunting task: Jonathan Sumption’s magisterial and comprehensive series of five volumes stretches to over 4,000 pages of densely printed text. The challenge is not only to decide what to include and what to omit but also where to place the emphasis. There are aspects which perhaps merited more attention in this book, such as the period of the Truce of Tours (1440-49). Conversely, Hoskins deals at some length with the English victory over the Scots at Dupplin Moor in 1332, arguing that this battle set the standard English tactics for set-piece battles with men-at-arms dismounted, flanked by bodies of archers, when arguably the Battle of Halidon Hill the following year would have been a better example since the young Edward III, who was to use these tactics to his advantage at Crécy in 1346, was present on this occasion. However, all authors and historians who write on this subject naturally bring their own perspective and interpretation; Michael Livingston is no different.
Despite the sub-title of the book, Michael Livingston argues that the war now known as the Hundred Years War (1347-1453) was in fact part of a much longer war, which he calls the Two Hundred Years War (1292-1492), and the book is structured around this premise, to which I shall return later.
The Introduction gives a brief overview of the origins of France, the impact of the arrival of the Vikings, the Norman conquest of England, and what the author terms the First Hundred Years War between the Plantagenets and Capetians between 1159-1259, ending with the Treaty of Paris which left Henry III of England with only a rump of Aquitaine in mainland France—and that, crucially, subject to homage to the king of France for the first time.
In Chapter 1, Livingston takes a minor incident between Gascon and Norman seamen in 1292 as the starting point for his Two Hundred Years War. This incident escalated into open war at sea and the sack of La Rochelle by mariners from Bayonne in May 1293—a prime cause for the first confiscation of Aquitaine by Philip IV later in the year and the outbreak of war which lasted until 1303. Chapter 2 covers events in France, England, Wales, and Scotland between 1303-1314, finishing with the English defeat by the Scots at Bannockburn. Chapter 3 takes the reader through the troubled years in France with the rapid series of successions of the Capetian dynasty culminating with the death of the last of them, Charles X, in 1328 without a direct male successor, followed by the accession of Philip VI as the first Valois king. It also covers the short War of Saint-Sardos in Gascony in 1324, the accession of Edward III to the English crown in 1327 under the tutelage of his mother Isabella and Roger Mortimer, and Edward’s reluctant homage for Aquitaine.
The subsequent eight chapters take us from the seizure of personal power by Edward III in 1330, through the outbreak of war between England and France in 1337, and the remainder of the traditional Hundred Years War to the expulsion of the English from Gascony in 1453 after the defeat of the Earl of Shrewsbury, John Talbot, at the battle of Castillon. In the final of these chapters, Livingston extends his history to define the finish of the Two Hundred Years War with the Treaty of Étaples between Henry VII and Charles VIII in 1492. A short conclusion takes us through to the French capture of Calais in 1558.
In arguing for his thesis that we should take a longer view of the wars between England and France, Livingston rightly points out that the term Hundred Years War is a nineteenth-century construct, the start being the declaration by Philip VI of France in 1337 that the duchy of Aquitaine—centred on Bordeaux and held by the king of England—was forfeit, the end being the expulsion of the English from Aquitaine in 1453. He also rightly points out that no contemporary would have identified the period as a single war; indeed, the Hundred Years War as we see it today was a series of wars spanning 116 years, punctuated by periods of uneasy peace.
Livingston argues that the Two Hundred Years War was defined by the period when the principal objective of French kings was to permanently remove England’s presence in France. Thus, he starts his Two Hundred Years War in 1292 with the incident that served as a catalyst for the first confiscation of Aquitaine by the king of France. In arguing for such a single-minded and continuous objective, perhaps Livingston is falling into the same trap as those who defined the Hundred Years War—a retrospective view which may not have been identifiable to contemporaries, when there were periods when French kings, notably during the reigns of John II, Charles VI, and Charles VII, were prepared to settle for an English presence in exchange for homage and a renunciation of English claims to the crown of France. It could be argued, however, that these were temporary expediencies and did not signal a deviation in the long term from the overriding objective of expelling the English. If we do accept the thesis of a French long-term objective of expelling the English from the Continent, then arguably the first step was the Treaty of Paris of 1259, whereby Henry III was left with a much-truncated duchy of Aquitaine and, most importantly, recognised that he and his successors would render homage to French kings for their lands in France.
As noted above, Livingston’s Two Hundred Years War ends with the Treaty of Étaples of 1492, by which Henry VII renounced all his claims to territory in France save Calais. However, this had been the de facto situation since 1453 when the English were expelled from Aquitaine. The Treaty of Étaples simply confirmed this situation on paper, and Calais remained an English settlement. However, even the peace of Étaples was not definitive. It was scheduled to expire one year after the death of the last of the two principal signatories. If the French objective was the expulsion of the English from France, then arguably the fall of Calais to the duke of Guise in 1558 was the final achievement of the French objective. Perhaps we should be looking at a Three Hundred Years War from the Treaty of Paris to the fall of Calais?
The book’s subtitle is “A New History of the Hundred Years War,” despite the theme being that we should take a longer view of the wars stretching over two centuries. One wonders why the title did not embrace this concept. The back cover blurb tells us that the book “critically revises our understanding of how modern Europe arose from medieval battlefields.” I am not entirely convinced that Michael Livingston achieves this objective. However, as always, he writes with an easy, flowing style which makes the book an easy and interesting read. That he provokes us into reconsidering the conventional view of the Hundred Years War is also a welcome aspect of the book, just as in other works he has challenged the conventional wisdom on other aspects of the Anglo-French conflicts. One drawback is the lack of maps. For those already familiar with the war this is perhaps of little importance, but for those coming new to the period, or with limited knowledge of France, this is a disappointing omission. Overall, the book is an absorbing read and a valuable addition to the body of works on this subject.