'Compulsively readable' (History), this is the first volume in a series that details the long and violent endeavour of the English to dismember Europe's strongest state, a succession of wars that is one of the seminal chapters in European history. Beginning with the funeral of Charles IV of France in 1328, it follows the Hundred Years War up to the surrender of Calais in 1347. It traces the early humiliations and triumphs of Edward III: the campaigns of Sluys, Crecy and Calais, which first made his name as a war leader and the reputation of his subjects as the most brutally effective warriors of their time.
Chapter 2. The England of Edward III
Chapter 4. Crises of Succession
Chapter 5. War in Scotland 1331–1335
Chapter 6. The Failure of Diplomacy: The Threat at Sea 1335–1337
Chapter 7. Grand Strategy 1337–1338
Chapter 8. Cambrai and the Thiérache 1338–1339
Chapter 9. The Flemish Alliance and the Campaigns on the Scheldt 1339–1340
Chapter 10. Sluys and Tournai: The War of the Albrets 1340
Chapter 11. Brittany 1341–1343
Chapter 12. The Truce of Malestroit 1343–1345
Chapter 13. Bergerac and Auberoche 1345–1346
Chapter 14. Aiguillon and Crécy 1346
Chapter 15. The Siege of Calais 1346–1347