A History of British Claims to the French Throne

     In the past weekend, the world witnessed the commemorations in France of the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, which proved to be a defining point not just in the course of World War II, but also in the course of 20th Century history.

     Her Majesty the Queen took center stage in those commemorations since she is the only living head of state who served in the war and can vividly remember what it was like to have lived through it.

     The commemorations took place as the Queen was concurrently paying a state visit to France, and wherever she went, the Queen was met with warm applause and affection, and the French president - Francois Hollande - was noted for paying respect toward the 88 year old monarch by bowing to her throughout the visit.

     With all the affection on display for the Queen in France, it is easy to remember that Britain and France were not always on good terms with each other. For centuries, the two countries were at each others throats, and some of the past enmity resulted from English - and later British - claims to the French throne.

Sculpture of William I, Duke of Normandy and King of England at Lichfield Cathedral.
Image Credit: WikiWikiPhil via Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)

     The complicated history has its roots in the Norman Conquest of 1066, for as Duke of Normandy, William I of England (the Conqueror) was also a vassal to the kings of France. This resulted in a vague relationship in which the King of England was at once, a subject and inferior to the French king within France, as well as his equal as a sovereign monarch.

     The situation became more muddled when Henry II ascended to the throne in 1154. His father's family - the Plantagenet's - held French lands as the Counts of Anjou (becoming known as the Angevin's as a result), and his mother Matilda was the only living legitimate child of Henry I of England - the younger son of William the Conqueror.

Henry Plantagenet, who succeeded to the
English throne as Henry II, and ruled over a vast empire.
(Public Domain-US)

     Upon the death of his only legitimate son William, Henry made Matilda his heir, but upon his death, his nephew Stephen seized the throne whilst Matilda was away in France. The two cousins then become embroiled in a bitter civil war to wrest control of the crown known as the Anarchy. In France, Geoffrey Plantagenet snatched Normandy away from Stephen, and passed it to his and Matilda's son, Henry.

     The conflict was finally resolved when Matilda agreed to give up her fight for the crown in exchange for Stephen recognizing Matilda's son as his heir in England.

     By the time Henry II became king, he already controlled French lands in Normandy, Anjou, and Aquitaine (through his marriage to his wife, Eleanor). This amounted to almost half of France, which made Henry the most powerful vassal in France - just as powerful as the French kings, who were suppose to be his nominal overlords. Now as King of England, he presided over an empire - the Angevin Empire, which stretched from the Pyrenees in France to the Scottish borders.

The Angevin Empire at its height in solid yellow. The checkered
yellow represents the Angevin influence sphere of influence.
Image Credit: Cartedaos via Wikimedia Commons cc

     Throughout reigns of Henry II and his sons, Richard I and King John, the French kings attempted to assert their authority over the Plantagenet's in France, and fought in series of armed conflicts against them. But after Henry and Richard - two strong kings - came John, who proved to be inept against the effectiveness of Philip Augustus, who gradually drove John from his ancestral lands in Normandy, Anjou, and several other territories in France. By the end of John's reign in 1216, he was left with territories in the south, including Aquitaine and Gascony, as well as the Channel Islands off the coast of Normandy.

     The situation remained unchanged for about 80 years, until Philip IV of France attempted to confiscate Gascony in the late 1290's and early 1300's, partly to fulfill French obligations under its secret mutual assistance pact with Scotland (the Auld Alliance), which was fighting a war of independence against England and its king, Edward I.

Lands of the English kings in France. After King John, the territory was
mostly confined to the Duchy of Aquitaine and the Channel Islands of Normandy.
Image Credit: Lotroo (Public Domain)

     Under King Edward, Gascony stayed in English hands under an 1303 treaty in which Edward's son and heir (also named Edward) married Philip's daughter Isabella. But Edward II lost it during his reign, and this was a factor in him being deposed by Isabella and her lover Roger Mortimer. She was able to secure Gascony and the rest of Aquitaine for her and Edward's son, the new king, Edward III.

     In 1337, King Edward asserted his claim French throne through his mother as the daughter of Philip IV. When Isabella's father died, he was succeeded by his son Philip V, who died without a heir and was succeeded by his brother Charles IV, who also died without an heir.

The Coat of Arms of Edward III. To represent his French claims,
Edward quartered the lions of England with the fleur-de-lis of France.
Image Credit: Sodacan via Wikipedia Commons cc

     This left Edward as the closest living male relative of the dead king, but Salic law prohibited succession through the female line, so the French throne was passed on to Philip VI - Charles IV's cousin through his father's younger brother. Edward, as Duke of Aquitaine, owed feudal homage to the French king - just as his predecessors had done - but he refused to do the same for Philip on the grounds that he was not the rightful heir to the French throne. 

     The result was over a century of on-and-off conflict between England and France known collectively as the Hundred Years' War. During the reign of Henry V of England, the English defeated the French at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, which in five years resulted in the Treaty of Troyes. This treaty recognized Henry as the legitimate heir of Charles VI of France and provided for the marriage of Charles' daughter Catherine to Henry.

     In 1422, Henry and Charles died within two months of each other, leaving Henry's nine-month-old son as King of England and France in the form of Henry VI. But Charles' son took advantage of the situation and seized the French throne as Charles VII, with his coronation being held at Reims Cathedral on July 17, 1429.

     In response, Henry VI's French coronation was held two years later at Notre Dame, but English fortunes on the continent were on the wane. Henry VI more-or-less did not take an interest in war with the French, and by 1453, the Hundred Years' War ended with England losing all of its territories in continental Europe, except for Calais along the French coast, and this was lost by Queen Mary I over a century later.

     Nevertheless, English and British monarchs continued to assert a nominal claims to the French throne, and styled themselves as King or Queens of England, Scotland (later merged to become Great Britain), France, and Ireland, even though no serious efforts were made to take the throne after 16th Century.

     This finally came to an end on January 1, 1801, when Acts of Union passed by the British and Irish parliaments came into effect, which formally merged the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. 

Flag of the United Kingdom.

     Upon this union of a new country, George III, now King of the United Kingdom, took the opportunity to drop his pretentious title as King of France, which had become irrelevant anyway because of the French Revolution.

     However, the British monarch is still known as the Duke of Normandy (regardless of gender) because he or she still retains sovereignty over the Channel Islands of Guernsey and Jersey, which are the remnants of the Duchy of Normandy once ruled by William the Conqueror.