Key Events of the Hundred Years' War Quiz

Answer: Duchy of Gascony

The Duchy of Gascony (an area of south-west France that was part of the larger region known as Aquitaine) had originally passed into English hands when Eleanor of Aquitaine married King Henry II of England in 1152. In 1329, King Edward III of England (as Duke of Aquitaine) had to pay homage to the new French king, Philip VI - a task that he undertook extremely reluctantly since he himself had held a strong case for inheriting the French throne as a nephew of the previous incumbent. However, the French king was keen to control Gascony as it was a valuable wine-producing region that provided Edward with important income. He renewed the "Auld Alliance" with the Scots and began a campaign of harassing the English administration in Gascony. He also demanded that Edward hand over an exiled French lord - Robert III of Artois - who had been acting as an advisor to the English court. Philip was then able to declare Edward's "disobedience" in this issue a breach of homage and confiscate Gascony. Edward swiftly made plans to invade France and what was to become one of the longest wars in history had begun.

The picture clue shows the Bay of Biscay, which forms much of France's western coast. In French, this is known as the Golfe de Gascogne and is named after Gascony. All of the incorrect options are located on France's north coast.

Answer: Battle of Crécy

Following a successful chevauchée (basically marauding about, pillaging and destroying things) in northern France between 1340 and 1342, King Edward was forced to return to England to regroup and resupply both his forces and his treasury. He didn't return to France to resume his campaign until 1346 when he led his army of approximately 15,000 men back across the channel and set about besieging and pillaging the towns and cities of Normandy. After sacking (i.e. ransacking) the capital at Caen he marched his forces towards the River Somme, where his forces met the defending army of King Philip VI near the town of Crécy-en-Ponthieu. The resulting battle ended in a decisive victory for the (outnumbered) English, who made particularly effective use of the more versatile and efficient longbow while the French relied on the relatively slow and cumbersome crossbow. The French army suffered crippling losses, which had a direct effect on their inability to defend against further English attacks in the following years.

The picture clue shows some cress (Cressy is an alternate spelling of Crécy). The Battles of Cadzand and Arnemuiden both took place in the first year or two of the Hundred Years' War. The Battle of Neville's Cross also occurred in 1346 but took place in northern England after King David II of Scotland led an invasion in response to a plea for help by their French allies (England won that battle as well).

Answer: Calais

This particular siege of Calais (there have been several over the centuries) began on September 4th, 1346, shortly after the English army's victory over the French at Crécy. The English attempted to take the city, but once it became clear that they did not have the necessary equipment to scale or breach the city's walls they turned their attention to placing Calais under siege. Initially they only succeeded in cutting off land supply routes to the city, but eventually the English navy was able to prevent supply ships from entering the harbour and the city's garrison finally surrendered on August 1st, 1347. Once Calais was under English control it became an important foothold in continental Europe and a key supply base for the English forces as the war continued.

Calais remained under English rule for over two hundred years until it was lost in 1558 during the reign of Queen Mary I - after the loss it was famously claimed that she once said: "When I am dead and opened, you shall find 'Calais' lying in my heart".

The picture clue shows a more modern landmark of Calais - the town hall and its clock tower.

Answer: King John II

The ten year gap in the Hundred Years' War between the Battles of Crécy and Poitiers can largely be explained by the fact that Europe was ravaged by the Black Death during the late 1340s and early 1350s. As well as killing off a large proportion of the population of both England and France (and making marching an army around the countryside an extremely bad idea), the disease also claimed the life of the wife of King Philip VI of France in 1349 and Philip himself died the following year at the age of 57. He was succeeded on the throne by his eldest son (pictured), who became King John II and was also known as John the Good (or, in French, 'Jean le Bon'). Therefore it was John who was captured after he led the French troops to a resounding defeat at the Battle of Poitiers in 1356.

John's incarceration meant that control of France passed to his son and heir, the Dauphin (the future King Charles V). He was left with the dual problem of rebuilding the French forces and dealing with a series of revolts - as it turned out that the embittered French people strongly resented the Dauphin's attempts to raise money from them to pay for the said rebuilding.

Answer: A freak storm killed around 1,000 English troops

The bolt of lightning in the picture clue illustrates part of the events that took place on Easter Monday in 1360. The English army were encamped outside the French city of Chartres when a freak thunderstorm caused the death of several people who were hit by lightning.

However, more significantly the freezing rain and giant hailstones that followed destroyed the encampment, damaged supplies and caused the deaths of hundreds more men and thousands of horses. King Edward III supposedly saw the storm as a sign that God was unhappy with his actions and withdrew (the remains of) his forces the following day.

When the French Dauphin made an offer of peace, Edward duly accepted and the resulting negotiations ended with the signing of the Treaty of Brétigny. Given the fact that the English had achieved several key victories over the French in the run up to the truce, it shouldn't be surprising that the terms of the treaty were heavily weighted in their favour - England gained control over large swathes of western France and a ransom of three million écus was set for the release of King John II.

Answer: He'd received complaints about the Black Prince's 'Hearth Tax'

In 1366 Prince Edward, the Black Prince, had become involved in a civil war in Castile when he led an army to restore King Peter of Castile to his throne. While he was successful in this aim, Peter refused to reimburse the costs the Black Prince had incurred in the process. When the Black Prince returned to Aquitaine - which his father, King Edward III, had granted him rule over in 1362 - he attempted to recoup the money he had lost by instituting an extremely unpopular hearth tax on its people. The lords of Aquitaine then complained directly to King Charles V of France who, in 1369, took the opportunity to summon the Black Prince to Paris - Edward refused and sent a reply suggesting that the only way he would enter Paris would be at the head of a conquering army. After this provocation, the Hundred Years' War was back on again and Charles re-confiscated the lands England had gained under the Treaty of Brétigny. This second period of the war is generally referred to as the period of French ascendency.

Just to add insult to injury for the Black Prince, a few weeks later his efforts to support King Peter were also rendered useless when Peter's half-brother, Henry of Trastámara, killed him at the Battle of Montiel. Henry was an ally of the French king and quickly lent his support to France in their newly reignited long-running war against England.

Answer: Liverpool

During the 1370s, the French and Castilian navies did a significant amount of damage to various locations along England's coast - however, as they didn't bother to venture up the country's north-west coast, Liverpool (pictured as it looks over 600 years later than the period in question) was not one of those places. The Isle of Wight was one of the first places to be attacked in 1373; several ports suffered the same fate in 1377, including Portsmouth, Plymouth and Dartmouth; and Gravesend on the Thames Estuary was burnt down in 1380. The latter would have been particularly alarming to the English rulers as the resulting fires were visible from central London. These acts maintained the impression of French ascendency in the war, mainly because England was in no position to fight back - King Edward III had died in 1377 and his eldest son, the Black Prince, had predeceased him a year earlier. The throne was occupied by King Richard II, a 13-year-old child under the control of a council of noblemen.

Richard II eventually signed a peace treaty with the French (who also had a new young king, Charles VI) in 1389 - Year 52 of the Hundred Years' War. (Some simple mathematics should give you a clue that it didn't last.)

Answer: Battle of Agincourt

The 1415 Battle of Agincourt is one of the most famous battles of the Hundred Years' War and, frankly, from history in general. England's King Henry V had inherited the throne two years earlier and soon repeated his claim to the French throne and set out to resume war against that throne's incumbent - King Charles VI, who suffered regular bouts of insanity. Henry invaded in August 1415, captured the town of Harfleur and finally met the French army in battle close to Azincourt (a village to the south of Calais). The French army was much larger than the English one, but was heavily reliant on cavalry who were soon decimated by the English longbowmen (apparently they hadn't learned the lessons of the Battle of Crécy in the intervening 70 years).

After the battle Henry returned triumphantly to England. In the following years he was able to demand the hand in marriage of King Charles VI's daughter, Catherine of Valois, and a promise from the French king to disinherit his son and designate Henry and Catherine's future children as his heirs. However, Henry's grand plan was foiled when both he and Charles died in 1422 and the French nobles refused to recognise the six-month-old King Henry VI of England as their king as well.

The incorrect options were other battles that took place during the 15th century.

Answer: Orléans

The Siege of Orléans lasted from October 1428 to May 1429 and marked a clear transition in the course of the war. Despite the death of King Henry V in 1422, English forces had continued to achieve military success during the 1420s and were very much in control of the war when they encamped themselves outside the heavily fortified city of Orléans (a map of which is shown in the picture clue). As the siege went on it seemed more and more likely that it would end in England's favour, until the unlikely figure of Joan of Arc turned up and declared that she had received visions with a message from God that essentially said that she would be the means of winning the war for France. Joan - who was the teenage daughter of a French farmer - rode to Orléans at the head of a relief force, raised the morale of the French troops and inspired them to an unlikely victory. As a result she became a national heroine and gained the title of "The Maid of Orleans".

Joan's success and further military victories encouraged the French Dauphin to march on Reims - the ancient site for the coronation of French monarchs - and have himself crowned King Charles VII. While Joan was eventually captured by the English and burned at the stake in 1431, the tide of the war had turned and the French were soon firmly in the ascendancy.

Answer: True

The name 'Hundred Years' War' is a somewhat inaccurate term for the conflict as its final battle, the Battle of Castillon, took place 116 years after the war first began. The battle was an utter disaster for the English forces who, led by the Earl of Shrewsbury, were outnumbered and outgunned by the French and, unsurprisingly, suffered massive casualties as a result. News of the loss of the Hundred Years' War is often cited by historians as a possible trigger for King Henry VI of England's descent into mental illness. After the battle, England had yet again lost all of its French territories - with the sole exception of Calais - and the country soon descended into the civil war now known to history as the Wars of the Roses.

Although 1453 is generally quoted as being the year in which the Hundred Years' War finally came to an end, in fact there was no formal peace treaty signed between England and France until the Treaty of Picquigny in 1475 (what would have been year 138 of the war).

The picture clue shows the Arc de Triomphe in France, a famous symbol of French victory (albeit related to a much later war).