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The Kings of England occupied a slightly strange place in medieval France.
You need to understand that nation states in the way that we understand them in the 21st century were not a concept that existed in the same form in the early Middle Ages.
Kings would grant lands to powerful magnates who would rule those areas with a considerable degree of autonomy. In return they would pay homage to the king.
Normandy is a case in point.
History in a nutshell...Viking raiders from Scandinavia had ravaged large parts of Europe.
In England we tend to see the Viking raids as something unique to England or maybe the British Isles.
But Vikings didn’t just limit themselves to the British Isles raiding into modern day Russia and down into the Mediterranean even attacking Constantinople (modern day Istanbul) at about the same time as Alfred The Great was desperately trying to stop them over running England.
And just as the English resorted to paying a Danegeld (treasure) to buy peace so there rulers gave them land.
One such Viking beneficiary of this land-for-peace deal was Rollo, who was allowed to settle in lands around the mouth of the River Seinne by the King of France.
In return Rollo paid the King homage (or at least he was supposed to).
This area of land, Normandy and it’s viking descended rulers - the Dukes of Normandy - are a classic example of just how much autonomy these localised rulers had, because in 1066 one of Rollo’s descendants - William - conducted an invasion of England without any reference to the King of France.
So now, we had William Duke of Normandy a vassal of the King of France getting a Kingdom is his own right.
This dual role of the Kings of England caused tensions.
As Kings of their own realm, England, which was every bit as rich & powerful as France, they resented paying homage for their French lands.
By the time of the east Plantagenet rulers of England, their Angevin empire stretched from Hadrian’s Wall to the Pyrenees. England, and large parts of Wales and Ireland were under their direct control.
Meanwhile a huge swathe of France was ruled by them but as vassals to the French king (who at this time had less land in France under his direct control than the Plantagenets).
By the time Henry II’s great-grandson Edward III sat on the English throne these tension were reaching a boiling point.
That in itself could give cause for a war between the Kings of France & England.
Indeed over the years since King John (Edward’s grand fathers) reign the French kings had successfully been taking lands off their Plantagenet vassals.
But by 1337 another, equally (if not more) dangerous situation had developed. It centred around who should be King of France itself.
Phillip IV of France was Richard The Lionheart’s contemporary, fellow Crusader, and rival. When he died the phone went to his eldest son, Louis X.
Louis died just two years later.
His wife was pregnant at the time.
As there were no pregnancy scans at the time no one knew if his unborn child would be a girl or a boy.
Louis’ brother was appointed regent and declared that following the Salic rules on inheritance, if the baby was a boy it would be king, but under that Salic law, a girl could not inherit the throne, and so he, Uncle Phillip would be king.
5 months later the widowed queen gave birth to a....boy - who was proclaimed King John I of France.
Uncle Phillip would continue as Regent until the boy king came of age but the crown would not be his.
5 days later, King John died.
And so, the crown did indeed pass to Uncle Ph