Flanders, he led a French army against Flemish rebels and won a resounding victory at
Cassel in August.
Throughout his reign, Philip VI had to maneuver among conflicting political
groupings whose ability to cause him trouble was enhanced by the existence of other
descendants of St. Louis who might claim the French throne. Philip IV the Fair, Louis X,
and Philip V all had grandsons who were disqualified by the decision to exclude princes
whose claims were through their mothers. Two of these, Edward III of England and the
future Charles II of Navarre (r. 1349–87), presented malcontents with attractive
alternatives to whom to give allegiance. To avoid alienating the count of Flanders and
duke of Burgundy, Philip had to rule against his friend and cousin Robert of Artois in the
disputed succession to Artois, and Robert then gave his allegiance to Edward III. When
Philip ruled in favor of his nephew Charles de Blois in the disputed Breton succession
(1341), the opposing claimant, Jean de Montfort, also turned to Edward. Many nobles of
the north and west felt more closely tied to England than to the Valois, and they disliked
Philip’s queen, Jeanne of Burgundy. Perhaps because of her influence, Philip tended to
distrust this important regional aristocracy and to draw a disproportionately large number
of his advisers from regions like Auvergne and Burgundy.
Amid growing discontent in the north and west, Philip’s relations with England
steadily deteriorated. The two monarchies could not resolve differences over Aquitaine,
and Philip supported Scottish opposition to Edward, while the latter built up an anti-
Valois coalition in the Low Countries. In 1337, the Hundred Years’ War began, with the
first years marked by expensive preparations and little military action. Edward then
defeated the French fleet at Sluys in 1340 and gained a valuable new fighting front the
next year with the disputed succession in Brittany. Always short of money, Philip gave
great power to the leaders of the Chambre des Comptes, whose aggressive fiscal
measures did not produce the military success needed to offset the antagonism they
caused.
In 1345, the military situation began to deteriorate seriously. The English victory at
Auberoche that autumn secured important gains in Aquitaine. The next year, Edward III
invaded Normandy, threatened Paris, and then crushed Philip’s army at Crécy. In 1347,
the English in Brittany won a major victory at La Roche-Derrien, while Philip could not
save Calais from capitulating to Edward III in August.
At the end of 1347, the Estates General convened in Paris and demanded
governmental reforms before endorsing plans for each region to raise large taxes to pay
for an effective army. Before this initiative could achieve results, France began to be
ravaged by the Black Death, which eventually claimed the lives of Philip’s queen and
daughter-in-law and left government and society in disarray. The plague also produced a
lull in the war, but when he died in August 1350, Philip left behind many problems for
his son and successor, John II the Good.
John Bell Henneman, Jr.
[See also: BLACK DEATH; CHARLES OF VALOIS; CRÉCY; EDWARD III;
HUNDRED YEARS’ WAR; VALOIS DYNASTY]
Cazelles, Raymond. La société politique et la crise de la royauté sous Philippe de Valois. Paris:
Argences, 1958.
Henneman, John Bell. Royal Taxation in Fourteenth Century France: The Development of War
Financing, 1322–1356. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971.
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