Page:General History of Europe 1921.djvu/389

 England and France during the Hundred Years' War 283 III. THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 469. Edward III claims the French Crown. There had been, as we have seen, a long struggle between the French and English kings in the times of the Plantagenets, which had resulted in the English kings' losing all their French territory except the duchy of Guienne (375). This arrangement lasted for many years, but, in the time of Edward III, the old line of French kings died out and Edward declared himself the rightful ruler of France because his mother was a sister of the last king of the old line. This led to a long series of conflicts known as the Hundred Years' War. 470. Battle of Cressy. The French set up a king of their own, and in 1346 Edward landed in Normandy with an English army, devastated the country, and marched up the Seine toward Paris. He met the troops of the French king at Cressy, where a cele- brated battle was fought, in which the English with their long bows and well-directed arrows put to rout the French knights. Ten years later the English made another incursion into France and again defeated the French cavalry. The French king (John II) was himself captured and carried off to London. 471. Edward III finds it Impossible to conquer France. Edward III found it impossible, however, to conquer France, and Charles V, the successor of the French king John II, managed before Edward died in 1377 to get back almost all the lands that the English had occupied. For a generation after the death of Edward III the war with France was almost discontinued. France had suffered a great deal more than England. All the fighting had been done on her side of the Channel, and in the second place, the soldiers, who found themselves without occupation, wandered about in bands maltreating and plundering the people. 472. The Bubonic Plague of 1348-1349 (the "Black Death"). The horrors of war had been increased by the deadly bubonic plague, which appeared in Europe early in 1348. In April it had reached Florence; by August it was devastating