Characters

"Let the boy win his spurs."

Edward III transformed England into the dominant military power in Western Europe. Through his mother Isabella of France — daughter of Philippe IV — he claimed the French throne upon the death of the last Capetian king, triggering the Hundred Years' War. A brilliant administrator and military innovator, he reorganized English taxation to fund continental warfare and championed the longbow as his decisive weapon. His reign saw the catastrophic Black Death, but also the founding of the Order of the Garter and the great victories of Crécy and the siege of Calais.

"It is not yet time for me to die, and God will not have it so."

The Black Prince was the most celebrated English warrior of his age — a living embodiment of chivalric ideals who also won two of the war's most decisive battles. His nickname is thought to derive from his black armor or shield. At sixteen he commanded the right wing at Crécy; at twenty-six he captured the King of France at Poitiers. His brutal sack of Limoges in 1370 — where he ordered the massacre of the town's population — stands in grim contrast to his chivalric reputation. He died of illness before his father, never becoming king.

"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more."

Henry V was the warrior king who brought England to its greatest continental triumph. A serious, devout, and tactically brilliant commander, he invaded France in 1415 and won the immortal victory of Agincourt against overwhelming odds. By 1420 he had forced France to sign the Treaty of Troyes, naming him heir to the French throne and regent of France — the fulfillment of Edward III's original claim. He died suddenly of dysentery at age 35, before he could inherit France, leaving an infant son to hold what he had won.

"I am not afraid. I was born to do this."

Joan of Arc remains one of the most extraordinary figures in military history — a teenage peasant girl from Lorraine who, guided by visions of saints, convinced the despairing Dauphin to give her command of an army and then actually delivered victories that changed the course of the war. She broke the seven-month English siege of Orléans in nine days, cleared the Loire valley of English forces, and escorted Charles VII to his coronation at Reims. Captured by Burgundian forces in 1430, she was sold to the English, tried for heresy in a corrupt ecclesiastical court, and burned at the stake in Rouen on May 30, 1431. She was nineteen years old. The Catholic Church canonized her in 1920.

"This kingdom was given to me by God, through the Maid, and I will keep it with His help."

Charles VII began his reign as the 'King of Bourges' — mocked by his English enemies as barely controlling the southern rump of France. With Joan of Arc as his catalyst, he was crowned at Reims in 1429 and spent the next two decades methodically reconquering his kingdom. He modernized the French army, creating the first permanent professional standing army in Western Europe and supporting Jean Bureau's revolutionary artillery corps. By 1453 he had driven the English from all of France except Calais. Called 'the Victorious,' he transformed France from a feudal patchwork into a centralized monarchy.

"It would be quite against my honour if I were not to strike a blow in this battle."

John of Bohemia was the epitome of medieval chivalric romance — a warrior king who had fought across Europe, gone completely blind by 1340, and still refused to stop fighting. Ally of France and one of the most famous knights of his age, he rode into the Battle of Crécy on August 26, 1346, despite being totally unable to see. His reins were tied to those of two knights who would guide him into the melee. He was found dead the next morning, still tied to his companions, all slain together. His adopted crest of three ostrich feathers and motto 'Ich Dien' were taken by the Black Prince as a tribute to his bravery.

"Never strike a blow for ransom or for love of wealth, but for the love of France."

Bertrand du Guesclin was ugly, rough-mannered, and of minor noble birth — everything the chivalric ideal was not — yet he became the greatest French commander of the fourteenth century. After the disasters of Crécy, Poitiers, and the capture of King John II, du Guesclin convinced Charles V to abandon pitched battles against the English longbow and instead use guerrilla tactics: harassing English forces, cutting supply lines, and retaking castles one by one. Between 1369 and his death in 1380, he reconquered nearly all of France without fighting a single major engagement. He is the only non-royal figure buried among the French kings at Saint-Denis.

"I will not surrender while I have the strength to draw a sword."

John Talbot was the most feared English commander in France for three decades — the French called him 'the English Achilles' and the mere rumor of his approach could scatter French garrisons. He served in France from the 1420s onward, winning numerous engagements and earning his earldom for his services. He was captured at Patay in 1429 by Joan of Arc's forces and held for years before ransom. Returned to France at age 66, he died in the last battle of the war at Castillon when a cannonball felled his horse and he could not rise from the ground in his armor.

"The realm of France cannot pass to a woman, nor through a woman."

Philippe VI became King of France in 1328 through the Salic Law, which excluded women and their male descendants from the French succession — the very law that Edward III of England used as the pretext for his rival claim. Philippe's reign was a series of humiliations: his fleet was destroyed at Sluys, his army annihilated at Crécy, and his kingdom ravaged by the Black Death. His refusal to cede any territory despite these defeats kept the war alive, and his failure to develop a counter to the English longbow condemned French knights to repeated slaughter.

"A man may be counted wise when he fights only on ground of his own choosing."

Sir John Fastolf was one of the most successful English captains in France — wealthy, cunning, and a capable commander who won the unusual victory of the 'Battle of the Herrings' in 1429. His reputation was permanently destroyed at Patay two months later, where he fled the field when Joan of Arc's cavalry shattered the English army before it could form. He was stripped of his Garter for cowardice (though later rehabilitated), and his name — slightly altered to 'Falstaff' — became synonymous with cowardly braggadocio in Shakespeare's plays. In reality, he spent his later years as a wealthy Norfolk landowner and patron of letters.