Key Figures of the Hundred Years' War

The Hundred Years’ War was a war of dynasties, command decisions, and individual personalities. Edward III’s personal command at Sluys and CrécyHenry V’s at AgincourtCharles V’s strategic visionCharles VII’s recovery, and Joan of Arc’s intervention are the conventional turning points; the modern historiography has done much to qualify the personalist reading without abandoning it. Clifford Rogers’ War Cruel and Sharp (2014)Anne Curry’s Agincourt: A New History (2005), and Jonathan Sumption’s multi-volume The Hundred Years’ War are the most useful single-volume syntheses in English.

The figures below are organised by side and by role. The cluster pages Edward III, Henry V, Charles VII, Joan of Arc, and Bertrand du Guesclin treat the principal figures at length; the long-tail pages treat the supporting cast.

English kings

Edward III (1312–1377), king of England from 1327. Came to the throne as a child after the deposition of his father Edward II, took personal rule in October 1330, reopened the French war in 1337, and won the three great English victories of the Edwardian phase — Sluys, Crécy, Poitiers. The second half of his reign was a long political decline: the loss of most of the Brétigny gains, the financial collapse of 1370–1371, the political dominance of John of Gaunt, the king’s dependence on his mistress Alice Perrers, and the death of the Black Prince in 1376.

Edward of Woodstock, the Black Prince (1330–1376), eldest son of Edward III. The Black Prince won his spurs at Crécy, led the English forces at Poitiers, and was Prince of Aquitaine from 1362 to 1372. His campaign in Castile in 1367 (the Battle of Najera) drained English Aquitaine of men and money; his regime in Bordeaux was unpopular; he returned to England in 1371 ill, probably with dysentery or a similar infection, and died a year before his father.

Henry IV (1367–1413), the first Lancastrian king. Took the throne in 1399 by deposing Richard II. Did not reopen the war with France in any serious way; spent his reign fighting the Percy revolt (1403) and the Welsh revolt of Owain Glyndŵr (1400–1415).

Henry V (1386–1422), king of England from 1413. Reopened the war in 1415, won Agincourt, conquered Normandy 1417–1419, and by the Treaty of Troyes (1420) was recognised as regent and heir of France. Died of dysentery at Vincennes on 31 August 1422, seven weeks before Charles VI. His biography treats his reign at length.

Henry VI (1421–1471), king of England from 1422. Came to the throne as an infant; lost Normandy in 1449Gascony in 1451, and the war in 1453. Suffered a major mental breakdown in 1453, recovered, broke down again. The founder of Eton (1440) and King’s CollegeCambridge (1441). Deposed by Edward of York in 1461, briefly restored in 1470, murdered in the Tower on 21 May 1471.

English commanders and nobles

**John of Gaunt (1340–1399)**Duke of Lancaster, third son of Edward III. The dominant political figure of the later reign of Edward III. Fought at Najera in 1367. Conducted an unsuccessful expedition to Castile in the 1380s in pursuit of his claim to the Castilian throne through his second wife Constance. Ancestor, through his first wife Blanche of Lancaster, of the House of Lancaster.

ThomasDuke of Clarence (1387–1421), second son of Henry IV. Henry V’s older brother. Killed at the Battle of Baugé on 22 March 1421, a rare English defeat of the Lancastrian phase.

JohnDuke of Bedford (1389–1435), third son of Henry IV. Regent of France for the infant Henry VI from 1422. Won the Battle of Verneuil in 1424. One of the most capable English commanders of the war; his death in 1435 was a serious blow to the English cause.

John Chandos (c. 1320–1370), seneschal of Aquitaine, the Black Prince’s closest companion. Fought at Crécy, Poitiers, Najera, and the Auray campaign. Killed at the Battle of Lussac-les-Châteaux on 1 January 1370.

Sir John Fastolf (c. 1378–1459), veteran of Agincourt and the Loire campaign. Commanded the English force at the Battle of the Herrings (12 February 1429) and is one of the models for Shakespeare’s Falstaff.

John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury (c. 1384–1453), the “English Achilles.” Fought from Agincourt (1415) to Castillon (1453), with intervals as Lieutenant of Ireland. Captured at a skirmish in 1429 and ransomed. Killed at Castillon.

French kings

Philip VI of Valois (1293–1350), king of France from 1328. The first Valois. Cautious, indecisive, more a feudal magnate than a national monarch. Lost the war’s three great Edwardian engagements: Sluys, Crécy, and the early years of the war’s finances. Died in the year of the Black Death’s arrival in France.

John II (1319–1364), king of France from 1350. Captured at Poitiers in 1356 and held in England until the Treaty of Brétigny in 1360. Died in captivity in London.

Charles V, the Wise (1338–1380), king of France from 1364. Built the French recovery of the Caroline phase. Cultivated the strategy of avoidance associated with du Guesclin, reformed the French administration, and patronised a famous library of more than 1,000 volumes. Died before the next major outbreak of the war, leaving a 12-year-old heir.

Charles VI, the Mad (1368–1422), king of France from 1380. Began to suffer episodes of mental illness in 1392. The long Armagnac-Burgundian civil war of his reign (1407–1435) divided France and made the English invasion of 1415 possible. The treaty of Troyes (1420) disinherited his own son, the Dauphin. Died on 21 October 1422, seven weeks after Henry V.

Charles VII (1403–1461), king of France from 1422. The disinherited Dauphin, who held out at Bourges, was crowned at Reims in 1429 after the Loire campaign, recovered Normandy in 1449 and Gascony in 1451–1453, and built the centralised French state of the late Middle Ages. His epithet in French historiography is “le roi bien servi” (the well-served king), referring to his ability to choose and keep capable servants. He was also, less flatteringly, called the “king of Bourges” by his enemies. The legend that he was a weak and pleasure-loving monarch is largely a product of the 15th-century Burgundian and English propaganda that produced Procès de Jeanne d’Arc and the Vergier d’honneur.

French commanders

**Bertrand du Guesclin (c. 1320–1380)**Constable of France from 1370. A Breton by birth, he rose to prominence during the civil wars of Charles V’s minority. The principal architect of the French reconquest of the Caroline phase. Killed by a projectile at the siege of Châteauneuf-de-Randon in July 1380.

Arthur de Richemont (1393–1458), constable of France from 1425. A Breton like du Guesclin, he commanded at the Battle of Castillon. Politically indispensable to Charles VII.

Jean Bureau (c. 1390–1463) and Gaspard Bureau (c. 1395–1469), the brothers who built the French train of field artillery. Jean was Master of the Mint and the principal architect of the train; Gaspard was his field commander. The brothers’ artillery was the decisive factor in the reconquest of Normandy and Gascony.

Jean II Le Maingre, “Boucicaut” (1366–1421), marshal of France. A celebrated chivalric figure. Captured at Agincourt in 1415 and held prisoner in England until his death in 1421.

Jean de Dunois (1402–1468), the Bastard of Orléans. The illegitimate son of LouisDuke of Orléans. Commanded the Orléans garrison during the siege and fought alongside Joan of Arc in the Loire campaign. His later career, under Charles VII, was the political hinge of the post-Joan reconquest.

La Hire (c. 1390–1443), the nickname of Étienne de Vignolles. A routier captain who fought alongside Joan of Arc and the French regular armies in the Loire campaign.

Pierre Cauchon (c. 1371–1442), bishop of Beauvais the presiding judge at Joan’s trial. A French cleric in the English faction; his role in the trial was one of the major pieces of evidence in the rehabilitation process.

Joan of Arc (c. 1412–1431)

A peasant girl from Domrémy, in the duchy of Bar, who approached the Dauphin Charles in early 1429, persuaded him to send her with a small army to the relief of Orléans, and saw the Dauphin crowned at Reims on 17 July 1429. Captured at Compiègne on 23 May 1430, sold to the English, tried for heresy, and burned at the stake in Rouen on 30 May 1431. The rehabilitation process opened in 1450 under Pope Nicholas V; the verdict was annulled in 1456 under Pope Callixtus III. Beatified in 1909, canonised by Benedict XV on 16 May 1920. Her full biography is in the cluster; the trial and capture are treated in long-tail articles.

The Burgundians

The dukes of Burgundy were nominally vassals of the French crown and often de facto independent. Their alliance with the English (the Treaty of Troyes, 1420) was the single most important reason the Lancastrian conquest succeeded. The duke of Burgundy in 1420, John the Fearless (1371–1419), was assassinated in 1419; his grandson Philip the Good (1396–1467) broke the English alliance at the Congress of Arras in 1435. The duchy of Burgundy in this period is treated in the role of the Duke of Burgundy.