The Hundred Years’ War is traditionally characterised as a relatively straightforward conflict between rival kings of England and France. The war in fact lasted for 116 years during 1337-1453 and its length was immeasurably prolonged by its forgotten third player – Burgundy. In the late Middle Ages, France was the richest kingdom in Christendom with a large geographical size and population. By contrast, England was a small country and should have theoretically never made the dramatic headway that it did in France. By 1422, Henry VI ruled both England and France but his French throne would not have been possible without Burgundian support.
The English profited greatly from a civil war between the Armagnacs and Burgundians. Both sides were cadet branches of the French royal family who fought for hegemony in the power vacuum created by the mental illness of King Charles VI (r.1380-1422). This internal conflict began in 1407 but it was immeasurably magnified by the assassination of Duke John the Fearless of Burgundy in 1419. John had been murdered in the presence of the Dauphin Charles, Charles VI’s heir and an Armagnac supporter. Relations irretrievably broke down between the two sides and it was later said that John’s battered skull was “the hole through which the English entered France”.
John the Fearless was a rash, ruthless politician whose machinations against the Armagnacs led to his own demise and set Burgundy on a unscrupulously independent path