French nobles awarded it, instead, to Philip VI, the first Valois king of France. (See
Genealogy 8.1: Kings of France and England and the Dukes of Burgundy during the
Hundred Years’ War.) Edward’s claims led to the first phase of the Hundred Years’
War. Looking back on it, the chronicler Froissart tried to depict its knightly fighters as
gallant protagonists:
As soon as Lord Walter de Manny discovered... that a formal
declaration of war had been made... he gathered together 40 lances
[each lance being a knight, a servant, and two horses], good companions
from Hainaut and England... [because] he had vowed in England in the
hearing of ladies and lords that, “If war breaks out between my lord the
king of England and Philip of Valois who calls himself king of France, I
will be the first to arm himself and capture a castle or town in the
kingdom of France.”^5
In fact knights like Walter de Manny and his men were outmoded; the real heroes of
the war were the longbowmen—non-knightly fighters who, by wielding a new-style
bow and arrows that flew far and penetrated deeply, gave English troops the clear
advantage. By 1360, the size of English possessions in southern France was
approximately what it had been in the twelfth century. (Look at Map 8.2 again, this
time considering “English Possessions in 1360,” and compare it with Map 6.4 on p.
206.)
