The Hundred Years' War was a series of conflicts waged from 1337 to 1453 between the House of Plantagenet rulers of the Kingdom of England, against the House of Valois for control of the Kingdom of France. Each side drew many allies into the war.
For their French possessions, the English kings since the Norman Conquest were vassals of the kings of France. The French kings had endeavored, over the centuries, to reduce the possessions of their over-mighty vassals, to the effect that only Gascony was left to the English. The confiscation or threat of confiscating this duchy had been part of French policy to check the growth of English power, particularly whenever the English were at war with the Kingdom of Scotland an ally of France.
