Edward I and the Anglo-French War: the relief of Gascony, 1294-97

This study aims to provide a new interpretation of Edward I’s army in Gascony throughout the Anglo-French war (1294-1297). The conflict has been viewed as a futile cause because only very small numbers of English troops departed for the duchy, yet it will be the intention here to explore the military effectiveness of these contingents. This will be achieved through an assessment of the organisation, strategy, and tactics of the expeditionary forces. This is important for it will highlight how the English pursued the same military policy, with increasing success, from 1294 through to victory at Poitiers in 1356. The first part of the thesis, chapters two and three, will investigate the military composition of the expeditionary forces, providing a qualitative and quantitative assessment of the king’s overseas army. Chapters four and five will assess the strategy of the military command against the backdrop of a French ambush at Bellegarde and the scorched earth policy of the earl of Lincoln. The second part, chapters six and seven, will highlight the contribution of Edward’s continental allies, from the mounted retinues of Gascon and Aragonese troops to the resurgence of a Grand Alliance across the Low Countries. And finally, chapter eight will set the Anglo-French war within the ever-expanding military revolution debate, here proposing that an evolutionary process was taking place within the Edwardian army. Overall, the thesis will place the Anglo-French war at the head of a series of late medieval conflicts between the English and French, but more importantly, it will be argued that the campaign was the catalyst for the Hundred Years War, both in its origins as a dispute over ancestral right and sovereignty, and in the ways the English military command conducted the expeditions