Editing Philip VI of France (section)

===Hundred Years' War===
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[[File:Disguised as a seller of fish the Flemish leader went down into the French camp.jpg|thumb|Flemish leader as fish seller went to search in French camp]]
[[File:Philippe VI and Jeanne de Bourgogne.jpg|thumb|left|Philip VI and his first wife, Joan of Burgundy]]
Philip entered the Hundred Years' War in a position of comparative strength. [[France in the Middle Ages|France]] was richer and more populous than [[England in the Middle Ages|England]] and was at the height of its medieval glory. The opening stages of the war, accordingly, were largely successful for the French.

At sea, French privateers raided and burned towns and shipping all along the southern and southeastern coasts of England.<ref>''Oars, Sails and Guns:The English and War at Sea, c.1200-1500'', Ian Friel, ''War at Sea in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance'', ed. John B. Hattendorf, Richard W. Unger, (The Boydell Press, 2003), 79.</ref> The English made some retaliatory raids, including the burning of a fleet in the harbour of [[Boulogne-sur-Mer]],<ref name="Sumption320-328">Jonathan Sumption, ''The Hundred Years War:Trial by Battle'', 320–328.</ref> but the French largely had the upper hand. With his sea power established, Philip gave orders in 1339 to begin assembling a fleet off the [[Zeeland]] coast at [[Sluys]]. In June 1340, however, in the bitterly fought [[Battle of Sluys]], the English attacked the port and captured or destroyed the ships there, ending the threat of an invasion.<ref name="Sumption320-328"/>

On land, Edward III largely concentrated upon [[Flanders]] and the [[Low Countries]], where he had gained allies through diplomacy and bribery. A raid in 1339 (the first ''[[chevauchée]]'') into [[Picardy]] ended ignominiously when Philip wisely refused to give battle. Edward's slender finances would not permit him to play a waiting game, and he was forced to withdraw into Flanders and return to England to raise more money. In July 1340, Edward returned and mounted the [[Siege of Tournai (1340)|siege of Tournai]].<ref>Jonathan Sumption, ''The Hundred Years War:Trial by Battle'', 349.</ref> By September 1340, Edward was in financial distress, hardly able to pay or feed his troops, and was open to dialogue.<ref name="Sumption354-359">Jonathan Sumption, ''The Hundred Years War:Trial by Battle'', 354–359.</ref> After being at [[Bouvines]] for a week, Philip was finally persuaded to send [[Joan of Valois, Countess of Hainaut]], to discuss terms to end the siege.<ref name="Sumption354-359"/> On 23 September 1340, a nine-month truce was reached.<ref name="Sumption354-359"/>

So far, the war had gone quite well for Philip and the French. While often stereotyped as chivalry-besotted and incompetent, Philip and his men had in fact carried out a successful [[Fabian strategy]] against the debt-plagued Edward and resisted the chivalric blandishments of single combat or a combat of two hundred knights that he offered. In 1341, the [[War of the Breton Succession]] allowed the English to place permanent garrisons in [[Brittany]]. However, Philip was still in a commanding position: during negotiations arbitrated by the pope in 1343, he refused Edward's offer to end the war in exchange for the [[Duchy of Aquitaine]] in full sovereignty.

The next attack came in 1345, when the [[Henry of Grosmont, 1st Duke of Lancaster|Earl of Derby]] overran the [[Agenais]] (lost twenty years before in the [[War of Saint-Sardos]]) and took [[Angoulême]], while the forces in Brittany under Sir [[Thomas Dagworth]] also made gains. The French responded in the spring of 1346 with a massive counterattack against [[Aquitaine]], where an army under [[John II of France|John, Duke of Normandy]], besieged Derby at [[Aiguillon, Lot-et-Garonne|Aiguillon]]. On the advice of [[House of Harcourt#The Harcourts and the Hundred Years' War|Godfrey Harcourt]] (like [[Robert III of Artois]], a banished French nobleman), Edward sailed for [[Normandy]] instead of Aquitaine. As Harcourt predicted, the [[Normans]] were ill-prepared for war, and many of the fighting men were at Aiguillon. Edward sacked and burned the country as he went, [[Battle of Caen (1346)|taking Caen]] and advancing as far as [[Poissy]] and then retreating before the army Philip had hastily assembled at Paris. Slipping across the [[Somme (river)|Somme]], Edward drew up to give battle at [[Crécy-en-Ponthieu|Crécy]].<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |title=Philip VI|encyclopedia=Britannica |date=18 August 2024 |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Philip-VI#ref102999}}</ref>

Close behind him, Philip had planned to halt for the night and reconnoitre the English position before giving battle the next day. However, his troops were disorderly, and the roads were jammed by the rear of the army coming up and the local peasantry, which furiously called for vengeance on the English. Finding them hopeless to control, he ordered a general attack as evening fell. Thus began the [[Battle of Crécy]]. When it was done, the French army had been annihilated and a wounded Philip barely escaped capture. Fortune had turned against the French.

The English seized and held the advantage. Normandy called off the siege of Aiguillon and retreated northward, while Sir [[Thomas Dagworth]] captured [[Charles, Duke of Brittany|Charles of Blois]] in Brittany. The English army pulled back from Crécy to mount the [[Siege of Calais (1346–1347)|siege of Calais]]; the town held out stubbornly, but the English were determined, and they easily supplied across the [[English Channel]]. Philip led out a relieving army in July 1347, but unlike the [[Siege of Tournai (1340)|Siege of Tournai]], it was now Edward who had the upper hand. With the plunder of his Norman expedition and the reforms he had executed in his tax system, he could hold to his siege lines and await an attack that Philip dared not deliver. It was Philip who marched away in August, and the city capitulated shortly thereafter.