The dual monarchy of England and France existed during the latter phase of the Hundred Years' War when Charles VII of France and Henry VI of England disputed the succession to the throne of France. It commenced on 21 October 1422 upon the death of King Charles VI of France, who had signed the Treaty of Troyes which gave the French crown to his son-in-law Henry V of England and Henry's heirs. It excluded King Charles's son, the Dauphin Charles, who by right of primogeniture was the heir to the Kingdom of France. Although the Treaty was ratified by the Estates-General of France, the act was a contravention of the French law of succession which decreed that the French crown could not be alienated. Henry VI, son of Henry V, became king of both England and France and was recognised only by the English and Burgundians until 1435 as King Henry II of France. He was crowned King of France on 16 December 1431 in Paris.
In practical terms, King Henry's claim to de jure sovereignty and legitimacy as king of France was only recognised in the English and allied-controlled territories of France which were under the domination of his French regency council, while the Dauphin ruled as King of France in part of the realm south of the river Loire.
The Dauphin was crowned as King Charles VII of France at Reims on 17 July 1429, largely through the martial efforts of Joan of Arc, who believed it was her mission to free France from the English and to have the Dauphin Charles crowned at Reims. In 1435, the Duke of Burgundy, released from his obligations to Henry VI by a papal legate, recognised Charles VII as the rightful king of France.. The defection of this powerful French noble marked the decline of Henry's de facto reign over France The dual monarchy came to an end with the capture of Bordeaux by Charles VII's forces on 19 October 1453 following their final victory at the Battle of Castillon (17 July 1453), thus bringing the Hundred Years' War to a conclusion. The English were expelled from all of the territories which they had controlled in France, with the sole exception of Calais. Charles VII had thus established himself as the undisputed king of almost all of France (save Calais, which remained under English rule for another century).
Background
The English and French had been constantly at war over hereditary sovereignty in France; the Hundred Years' War (1337–1453) escalated, and the conflict between the two nations reached its peak in an intermittent series of belligerent phases, with each phase usually ending with a temporary truce lasting for a few years. In the first phase Edward III won some extraordinary victories against the French, most notably at Crécy and Sluys. His son Edward, the Black Prince also captured the French king John II at the battle of Poitiers in 1356, and routed the French army. The year 1360 marked the end of the first phase and an opportunity for peace.
In the Treaty of Brétigny the French king was ransomed for an amount equal to twice the French kingdom's Gross. In addition, the French granted Edward III an extended Aquitaine, thus restoring one of the main duchies of the previous Angevin Empire. Edward III was, however, forced to give up his title as the rightful king to the throne of France, this claim being based on his mother, Isabella. Charles V ascended to the throne, and in 1369 hostilities were reopened by the French declaring war, thus breaking the treaty. This time they led to embarrassing strategic defeats for the English side. Charles' strategy was to attack the castles, where English victories were less certain, and to avoid pitched battles with the English; with this important strategic move, the extended English holdings in Aquitaine were quickly recaptured. The English, now on the defensive, lost more territory, retaining only parts of Gascony and a few coastal cities. By now, Edward was aging and no longer fit to lead in battle. His son, the Prince of Wales, predeceased him by a year, and so when Edward III died in 1377 it was his grandson Richard II who became king.
There was another truce in 1396 when Richard II married Isabella of Valois, a daughter of King Charles VI of France, thus marking the end of the second phase. Peace did not last long however, as, in 1399, Henry IV usurped Richard's throne while Richard was away in Ireland, thus provoking French hostility in 1403 which marked the beginning of the third phase of the war.
The House of Lancaster and Anglo-French relations
In the beginning, Henry claimed he was retrieving his confiscated region of Lancaster, and wrote to Richard that he had "no wish or right to depose your highness as king". Henry, nevertheless, remained firmly on the throne, and Richard II was deposed. Internal strife reached its climax during his reign, with the rebellions of Owain Glyndŵr (in Wales) and of the Percy family (Henry's old primary supporters) in the North. Henry, however, was least involved politically. Civil War was raging in France, especially between the parties of Armagnac and the Burgundians. Charles VI's brother Louis, Duke of Orléans, was assassinated on the order of the Duke of Burgundy, John the Fearless. This was largely due to a scandalous affair with the Duchess of Burgundy, which started as a rumor but would later involve Charles VII. Henry IV was considered a key ally during the civil war. The Armagnacs even offered to give back the Duchy of Aquitaine in support of military services, although Aquitaine was forgotten when the Armagnacs won. Henry sent an expeditionary force in 1412 to aid them.
The civil war continued with persecution on both sides, the sack of Soissons by the Armagnacs and the control of Paris by the Burgundians. John the Fearless claimed to be the regent of the young dauphin Charles and the insane king Charles VI. Henry IV, the usurper, died in 1413. His son, Henry, was still in his mid twenties when he became king.
The Warrior King
The main feature of Henry IV's reign in England was internal strife and rebellion, and as a result, Henry V took part in battles from an early age. His first test in battle was in the Welsh wars: Henry fought at the Battle of Shrewsbury in 1403. He took a Welsh arrow in the lower part of his face; it passed through his jaw and out the other side. Henry's knights were charging the Welsh positions, so in spite of his wound, Henry refused to leave the field and the English won the day.
Henry would employ the English and Welsh archers on a massive scale in his campaign at Agincourt. Upon the death of Henry IV, Thomas, Duke of Clarence (Henry V's younger brother) was supported as the heir rather than Henry. The dauphin was made Duke of Guyenne, which was English Gascony, as the Armagnacs wanted Gascony back under their own sovereignty. Clarence was to lead the English in Gascony, not Henry; this would give him a chance to take the throne of England. While Clarence was away in Gascony, Henry V took the throne. Henry had also successfully fended off the dauphin's designs on the Guyenne region. As Henry started his reign in 1413, and the civil war in France was still on, Henry demanded that the King of France give him back an extended Aquitaine, Normandy, the ports of Provence, the old county of Toulouse (which was vassal to the Angevin empire), and the provinces of Maine and Anjou. The French refused to accept his demands, and they ignored his claims. In 1415, at the age of twenty-eight, Henry began his invasion of France which would culminate in the Battle of Agincourt.
1415 campaign
On 11 August 1415, Henry sailed for France, where his forces besieged the fortress at Harfleur, capturing it on 22 September. Afterwards, Henry had to march with his army across the French countryside towards Calais. On 25 October 1415, on the plains near the village of Agincourt, he turned to engage a pursuing French army in battle. Despite his men-at-arms being exhausted and outnumbered, Henry led his men into battle, decisively defeating the French who died in the thousands. Most of those taken prisoners were slaughtered by order of Henry, who spared only the most illustrious. This victorious conclusion, from the English viewpoint, was only the first step in the campaign.
People of England, cease your work and pray, For the glorious victory of Crispin's day; Despite their scorn for Englishmen's renown, The odious might of France came crashing down.
This Latin epigram was one of many produced after the battle and came from a long tradition of such work in Chronicles.
1417 campaign
So, with those two potential enemies gone, and after two years of patient preparation following the battle of Agincourt, Henry renewed the war on a larger scale in 1417. Lower Normandy was quickly conquered, and Rouen cut off from Paris and besieged. The French were paralysed by the disputes between the Burgundians and the Armagnacs. Henry skilfully played them off one against the other, without relaxing his warlike approach. In January 1419, Rouen fell. The Norman French who had resisted were severely punished: Alain Blanchard, who had hung English prisoners from the walls, was summarily executed; Robert de Livet, Canon of Rouen, who had excommunicated the English king, was sent to England and imprisoned for five years
By August, the English were outside the walls of Paris. The intrigues of the French parties culminated in the assassination of John the Fearless by the Dauphin's partisans at Montereau (10 September 1419). Philip the Good, the new duke, and the French court threw themselves into Henry's arms. After six months of negotiation, the Treaty of Troyes recognised Henry as the heir and regent of France (see English Kings of France), and, on 2 June 1420, Henry married Catherine of Valois, the daughter of Charles VI of France. From June to July, Henry's army besieged and took the castle at Montereau, then Melun in November, returning to England shortly thereafter. Henry VI was born the following year.
1421 campaign
On 10 June 1421, Henry sailed back to France for what would be his last military campaign. From July to August, his forces besieged and captured Dreux, thus relieving allied forces at Chartres. That October, his forces lay siege to Meaux, capturing it on 2 May 1422. Henry V died suddenly on 31 August 1422 at the Château de Vincennes near Paris, apparently from dysentery, which he had contracted during the siege of Meaux. He was thirty-five years old. Before his death, Henry V had named his brother John, Duke of Bedford regent of France in the name of his son Henry VI, then only a few months old. Henry V did not live to be crowned King of France himself, as he might confidently have expected after the Treaty of Troyes, as the sickly Charles VI, whose heir he had been named, survived him by two months. His son Henry, who was born the year before, succeeded his father as king Henry VI of England and, six months later, his maternal grandfather as king of France.
1422: The question of regent upon French succession
After Henry V's death, the issue of the regency to the infant king Henry VI was resolved by meetings between Bedford, Burgundy and the French Estates-General. The Settlement of Troyes was reaffirmed in accordance with it; Bedford was made keeper of Normandy and Burgundy and may have been named regent for the king of France. Bedford was a little uncertain whether Burgundy would relinquish his status as keeper of Normandy, so he wrote to London five days later to advertise his position as Regent of England, then of France. Bedford had no reason to contradict Henry V, but if he could not be regent for his French king, he would be as his English Regent. At the time, Bedford was still referring to himself as "gubernator Normandiae", governor of Normandy, on 1 November six days after the letter was dispatched to London. Bedford started to emerge as French regent for his nephew King Henry VI of England and France. At the same time the Treaty of Troyes was reaffirmed, and on 19 November Bedford presided as French regent in the Parlement de Paris and dedicated himself to be working for the good of France.
Henry VI was also now King of France united with Normandy, and Gascony, by the Treaty of Troyes, passed directly to the French king Charles VI; when Henry VI of England succeeded to the French crown in 1422 it was included as part of the jurisdiction. The Duke of Bedford was content and he made no appeal to return to England, returning only in 1425 to England in an urgent meeting with Bishop Henry Beaufort. Philip of Burgundy could hardly resist English wishes, for he needed their support after the murder of his father, John the Fearless by the henchmen of the dauphin (now de facto Charles VII of France). Henry V's arrangements had one fatal flaw: not until the last few days of his life had he thought he would predecease Charles VI. Moreover, the treaty had restricted Henry's freedom on his deathbed. The arrangements he had made were to cover the short term (up to Charles VI's death) and the long term (when Henry VI would become king of both France and England). This is a major reason for Burgundy's alliance with England and the steadfastness of English commanders to the battlefield.