100 Years War 1337–1453, conflict between England and France.
Its basic cause was a dynastic quarrel that originated when the conquest of
England by William of Normandy created a state lying on both sides of the
English Channel. In the 14th cent. the English kings held the duchy of Guienne
in France; they resented paying homage to the French kings, and they feared
the increasing control exerted by the French crown over its great feudal
vassals. The immediate causes of the Hundred Years War were the
dissatisfaction of Edward
III of England with the nonfulfillment by Philip
VI of France of his pledges to restore a part of Guienne taken by Charles
IV; the English attempts to control Flanders, an important market for English
wool and a source of cloth; and Philip’s support of Scotland against
England. ...
Results of the War The Hundred Years War inflicted untold misery on France. Farmlands were
laid waste, the population was decimated by war, famine, and the Black Death
(see plague), and
marauders terrorized the countryside. Civil wars (see Jacquerie;
Cabochiens; Armagnacs
and Burgundians) and local wars (see Breton
Succession, War of the) increased the destruction and the social
disintegration. Yet the successor of Charles VII, Louis
XI, benefited from these evils. The virtual destruction of the feudal
nobility enabled him to unite France more solidly under the royal authority
and to promote and ally with the middle class. From the ruins of the war an
entirely new France emerged. For England, the results of the war were equally
decisive; it ceased to be a continental power and increasingly sought
expansion as a naval power. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth
Edition. Copyright © 2003 Columbia University Press.
War of the Roses 1455–85 traditional name given to the
intermittent struggle for the throne of England between the noble houses of York
(whose badge was a white rose) and Lancaster
(later associated with the red rose).
About the middle of the 15th cent. Richard, duke of York,
came to the fore as leader of the opposition to the faction (William de la Pole,
duke of Suffolk; Edmund Beaufort, duke of Somerset;
and the queen, Margaret
of Anjou) that controlled the weak Lancastrian king Henry
VI. The Yorkists gained popular support as a result of discontent over the
failure of English arms in the Hundred Years War and over the corruption of
the court, discontent reflected in the rebellion of Jack Cade
in 1450. Also in that year Suffolk was murdered, and the duke of York forced
the king to recognize his claim as heir to the throne. In 1453 the king became
insane, and the birth of a son to Margaret of Anjou displaced York as heir.
The duke was appointed protector, but when the king recovered in 1454, York
was excluded from the royal council. He resorted to arms.
The opposing factions met (1455) at St. Albans—usually taken as the first
battle of the Wars of the Roses. Somerset was killed, leaving Queen Margaret
at the head of the defeated royal party, and York again served as protector
for a short period (1455–56). By 1459 both parties were once more in arms.
The following year the Yorkists defeated and captured the king at the battle
of Northampton. The duke of York hurried to London to assert his claims to the
throne, which were, by laws of strict inheritance, perhaps better than those
of the king himself. A compromise was effected by which Henry remained king
and York and his heirs were declared successors.
Queen Margaret, whose son was thus disinherited, raised an army and defeated
(1460) the Yorkists at Wakefield. York was killed in this battle, and his
claims devolved upon his son Edward, but Richard Neville, earl of Warwick,
became the real leader of the Yorkist party. Margaret’s army rescued the
king from captivity in the second battle of St. Albans (Feb., 1461), but
Edward meanwhile secured a Yorkist victory at Mortimer’s Cross, marched into
London unopposed, and assumed the throne as Edward
IV.
The Lancastrians, after their defeat at Towton (Mar., 1461), continued
(with Scottish aid) to raise resistance in the north until 1464. The deposed
Henry was captured (1465) and put into the Tower of London. Although the
Lancastrian cause now seemed hopeless, a quarrel broke out between Warwick and
Edward IV after the latter’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville in 1464.
Warwick and the king’s brother George, duke of Clarence,
allied against Edward, fled to France (1470), and there became reconciled with
Margaret of Anjou. Supported by Louis XI of France, they crossed to England
and restored Henry VI to the throne.
Edward fled, but with the aid of Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy, returned
to England in 1471, regained London, and recaptured Henry. In the ensuing
battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury (1471), Warwick and Henry’s son, Edward,
were killed. Margaret was imprisoned. Soon thereafter Henry VI died, probably
slain at the orders of Edward IV. After 12 relatively peaceful years, Edward
IV was succeeded (1483) by his young son Edward
V, but soon the boy’s uncle Richard, duke of Gloucester, usurped the
throne as Richard III.
Opposition to Richard advanced the fortunes of Henry Tudor, earl of Richmond,
now the Lancastrian claimant. In 1485, Henry landed from France, defeated and
killed Richard at Bosworth Field, and ascended the throne as Henry
VII.
Henry VII’s marriage to Edward IV’s daughter, Elizabeth, united the
houses of Lancaster and York. Except for various efforts during Henry’s
reign to place Yorkist pretenders on the throne, the Wars of the Roses were
ended. It is generally said that with them ended the era of feudalism in
England, since the nobles who participated suffered heavy loss of life and
property and were too weak, as a class, to contest the strong monarchy of the
Tudors. The middle and lower classes were largely indifferent to the struggle
and relatively untouched by it. The
Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Copyright © 2003 Columbia University
Press.
The Aztec Account of
the Spanish Conquest of Mexico
Visión de los
Vencidos Relaciones indígenas de la Conquista
Bartolomé de Las Casas, "Of the Island of
Hispaniola" (1542)
This extract from Las Casas’s Very Brief Account of the
Destruction of the Indies describes the island of Hispaniola
(present-day Dominican Republic and Haiti), the island Columbus described in
his letter to Luis de Sant’ Angel. Las Casas wrote this gory and explosive
account in 1542 to be read at a forum on Spanish colonization called by the
Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. Widely translated, this account gave rise to a
flood of anti-Spanish and anti-Catholic propaganda throughout Europe deriding
the Spanish settlement of the Americas.
Masons
Narrative of the Pequot War
A Brief History OF THE
PEQUOT WAR: Especially of the memorable Taking of
their Fort at Mistick in Connecticut in 1637. Written
by Major John Mason, a principal Actor therein, as then chief Captain and
Commander of Connecticut Forces. With an
Introduction and some Explanatory Notes by the Reverend Mr. Thomas Prince.
BOSTON: Printed and Sold by S. Kneeland and T. Green in
Queen Street, 1736.
The Pequot War
Mystic Voices: The Story of the Pequot War a film
documentary.
The first of the many wars between whites and Indians was fought in 1637
between the Pequots and New England settlers. The Pequots were a warlike tribe
centered along the Thames River in southeastern Connecticut. By 1630, under
their chief, Sassacus, they had pushed west to the Connecticut R. There they
had numerous quarrels with colonists, culminating in the murder by the Pequots
of a trader, John Oldham, on July 20, 1636. On Aug. 24 Gov. John Endicott of
Massachusetts Bay Colony organized a military force to punish the Indians, and
on May 26, 1637, the first battle of the Pequot War took place when the New
Englanders, under John Mason and John Underhill, attacked the Pequot
stronghold near present-day New Haven, Conn. The Indian forts were burned and
about 500 men, women, and children were killed. The survivors fled in sall
groups. One group, led by Sassacus, was caught near presentday Fairfield,
Conn., on July 28, and nearly all were killed or captured. The captives were
made slaves by the colonists or were sold in the West Indies. Sassacus and the
few who escaped with him were put to death by Mohawk Indians. The few
remaining Pequots were scattered among other southern New England tribes.
Carruth, Gorton. "The Encyclopedia of American Facts and Dates".
10th Ed. New York: Harper Collins Publishers. ©1997.
English Civil War (1642–48),
the conflict between King Charles
I of England and a large body of his subjects, generally called the
“parliamentarians,” that culminated in the defeat and execution of the
king and the establishment of a republican commonwealth.
The Columbia
Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Copyright © 2003 Columbia University Press.
Iroquois War 1642-1653
The Five Nations, armed by the Dutch, who sought to divert the
northern and interior fur trade of the Huron and Algonquin to their own posts,
with the Iroquois as intermediaries, attacked the Hurons on the Richelieu
(erected by the French at the mouth of the Richelieu River, 1642) was burned
(1647), with raids deep into the Huron country which forced the Jesuits to
abandon their last Huron mission (1650) and the Hurons to retreat as far west
as Wisconsin, where they were joined by other fugitive tribes from the Ottawa
Valley, the Ohio, and southern Michigan. Raids along the St. Lawrence
penetrated to the Saguenay-Rupert River country (1652). Victorious, though
dangerously overextended, the Iroquois signed a peace with the French (5 Nov.
1653).
Morris Jeffrey and Richard. "Encyclopedia of American History: seventh
edition". New York: Harper Collins Publishers. ©1996.
KING PHILIP'S WAR (1675-1676)
History
of the U.S.
Goffstown,
NH History From 1904 History of the United States, Henry William Elson
(interesting popular account, not scholarly, very anti catholic, and anti
French)
King Philip's War began with a massacre of colonists at Swansee, Plymouth,
by a band of Indians. The war was started by King Philip after three of his people
were executed by the English for murdering an Indian in English employ.
Brookfield, Massachusetts was attacked and destroyed by Indians. They were
later forced to retreat under an assault led by Major Simon Willard.
Deerfield, Massachusetts, was set aflame by attacking Indians.
Lancaster, Massachusetts, was attacked by Indians led by King Phillip. The
settlement was destroyed by fire after all the men were killed and the women
and children taken prisoners.
King Philip's War (1675-1676) was ended when the Wampanoag leader was
surprised and shot by an Indian in the service of Capt. Benjamin Church. The
conflict had grown to include the Wampanoag, Nipmuck, Narragansett, Mohegan,
and Podunk tribes and ended with their virtual destruction, opening southern
New England to unimpeded colonial expansion.
Carruth, Gorton. "The Encyclopedia of American Facts and Dates".
10th Ed. New York: Harper Collins Publishers. ©1997.
KING WILLIAM'S WAR (1689-1697)
History
of the U.S.
Goffstown,
NH HistoryFrom 1904 History of the United States, Henry William Elson
(interesting popular account, not scholarly, very anti catholic, and anti
French)
Glorious Revolution (1688–89)
in English history, the events of 1688–89 that resulted in the deposition of
James II and the
accession of William III
and Mary II to the
English throne. It is also called the Bloodless Revolution.
QUEEN ANNE'S WAR (1702-1713)
History
of the U.S.
Goffstown,
NH HistoryFrom 1904 History of the United States, Henry William Elson
(interesting popular account, not scholarly, very anti catholic, and anti
French)
To prevent the close cooperation, if not the amalgamation, of France and
Spain on the death of Charles II of Spain (1 Nov. 1700), the Grand Alliance (7
Sept. 1701), the Grand Alliance (7 Sept. 1701) declared war on France (4 May
1702). In New England the war followed the pattern of the previous conflict.
The Abenakis raided Main settlements (10 Aug. 1703), and destroyed Deerfield,
Mass. (28-29 Feb 1704), and attacked Winter Harbor, Me. (21 Sept. 1707). To
eliminate the source of Abenaki supplies and sieze control of the Acadian
fisheries, a force of 500 New Englanders under Col. Benjamin Church the
destroyed French villages of Minasand Beaubassin (1, 28 July 1704). After 2
unsuccessful sieges of Port Royal (1704, 1707), a third expedition under Co.
Francis Nicholson and Sir Charles Hobby reduced that stronghold (16 Oct.
1710). In Newfoundland, a mixed force of French and Native Americans operating
out of Placentia destroyed an English settlement at Bonavista (18-29 Aug.
1704). In Newfoundland, a mixed force of French and Native Americans operating
out of Placentia destroyed an English settlement at the capture of St. Johns
(21 Dec. 1708) brought the eastern shore under French control. In the South
the Carolina assembly authorized (10 Sept. 1702) an expedition to seize St.
Augustine before it could be reinforced by the French. A mixed force of 500
colonists and Native Americans seized, burned, and pillaged the town (Dec.)
after failing to capture the fort. Another mixed force under former Gov. James
Moore destroyed all but one of the 14 missions in the Apalachee country
(1704), opening the road to Louisiana. But the Carolinians were unable to
penetrate the Choctaw screen protecting the French Gulf settlements. By the
Treaty of Utrecht (11 Apr. 1713) Newfoundland, Acadia, and Hudson Bay were
ceded to Great Britain, but France retained Cape Breton Island and the islands
of St. Lawrence. The failure to define the boundaries of Acadia, Hudson Bay,
and the interior of the continent left the door open to later conflict. Great
Britain was also accorded (26 Mar.) the Assiento, a contract allowing the
South Sea Co. (formed 1711) to import into the Spanish colonies 4,800 Africans
a year for 30 years and to send 1 trading ship a year to the Spanish colonies.
Morris Jeffrey and Richard. "Encyclopedia of American History: seventh
edition". New York: Harper Collins Publishers. ©1996.
Queen Anne's War (1702-1713), the second of the French and Indian Wars,
began May 4, 1702. In Europe it was known as the War of the Spanish
Succession. The Grand Alliance (England, the League of Augsburg, Denmark,
Portugal, and the Netherlands) declared war on France and Spain to prevent
union of the French and Spanish thrones following the death of King Charles II
of Spain. In North America British and French colonial forces, with their
Indian allies, raided and attempted to capture a number of border settlements.
New England colonists successfully attacked the French settlements of Minas
and Beaubassin in Nova Scotia in July 1704, while the French destroyed
Deerfield, Massachusetts, in February and took the English colony of Bonavista
on Newfoundland in August. The most notable colonial success was the British
capture of Port Royal, Nova Scotia, on Oct. 16, 1710, following unsuccessful
assaults in 1704 and 1707; however, a British naval attack on Quebec in 1711
failed. In the South, Carolina forces captured the town of St. Augustine,
Florida, in September 1702, although the fort there held out. Another force
wiped out all but one of fourteen missions in northwestern Florida in 1704.
-
Deerfield, a western outpost of Massachuestts, was attacked by a force
of French and Indians, who massacred 50 men, women, and children and
carried off over 100 more after burning the town to the ground. The raid
was one of the bloodiest events of Queen Anne's War (1702-1713), the
second of the French and Indian Wars.
-
Haverhill, Massachusetts was attacked and razed by the French and
Indians.
-
Queen Anne's War was ended by the Treaty of Utrecht, which brought the
War of Spanish Succession to a close in Europe. By the treaty France ceded
the Hudson Bay territory, Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia to Great Britain.
France also agreed to a British protectorate over the Iroquois Indians.
France kept Cape Breton Island and the islands of the St. Lawrence.
Carruth, Gorton. "The Encyclopedia of American Facts and Dates".
10th Ed. New York: Harper Collins Publishers. ©1997.
LOVEWELL'S WAR (1718-1725)
Goffstown,
NH History
Participant's
in Lovewell's War From 1904 History of the United States, Henry William
Elson (interesting popular account, not scholarly, very anti catholic, and
anti French)
Jenkins’s Ear, War of
1739–41, struggle between England and Spain. It grew out of the commercial
rivalry of the two powers and led to involvement in the larger War of the Austrian
Succession. The incident that gave the name to the war occurred in 1731
when, according to Robert Jenkins, master of the ship Rebecca, he had his
ear cut off by Spanish coast guards. English smuggling and resentment at
exclusion from the Spanish colonial trade caused the war, but Jenkins’s story
in the House of Commons (1738), reinforced by the showing of his carefully
preserved ear, had a tremendous propaganda effect and forced the reluctant Sir
Robert Walpole to
declare war. The hostilities with Spain up to 1741 were marked only by the naval
engagements of Admiral Edward Vernon in the West Indies.
The
Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition.
KING GEORGE'S WAR (1744-1748)
History
of the U.S. From 1904 History of the United States, Henry William Elson
(interesting popular account, not scholarly, very anti catholic, and anti
French)
The invasion of Silesia by Frederick II of Prussia (16 Dec. 1740) followed
the death of Emperor Charles VI (20 Oct.) touched off a series of continental
wars with France, now allied with Prussia (5 June 1741), invading southern
Germany. With the signing of the Second Family Compact (25 Oct. 1743) between
France and Spain, France joined the war against England (15 Mar. 1744).
Neither side prosecuted the war in America vigorously. The French made an
unsuccessful assault on Annapolis Royal (Port Royal, Nova Scotia, 1744), and
an expedition of New Englanders under William Pepperrell (1696-1759, Bt.,
1746) in cooperation with a fleet under Sir Peter Warren captured Ft.
Louisbourg (16 June 1745). The Maine towns were raided by the French and
Native Americans (from Aug. 1745). In New York William Johnson (p. 1072),
Mohawk Valley Indian trader and commissary of New York for Indian affairs
(1746), succeeded in getting the Iroquois on the warpath, with resultant
French retaliatory raids on Saratoga (burned, 28-29 Nov. 1745) and Albany. The
inconclusive Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (18 Oct. 1748) restored the status quo
ante in the colonies and returned Louisbourg to France.
Morris Jeffrey and Richard. "Encyclopedia of American History: seventh
edition". New York: Harper Collins Publishers. ©1996.
King George's War (1744-1748), the third of the French and Indian wars, was
known as the War of Austrian Succession in Europe, where it began in 1740. The
war included most of the European nations in a complicated series of
alliances. It began after the death of Charles VI, the Holy Roman Emperor and
ruler of the Hapsburg lands. The Archduchess Maria Theresa succeeded her
father but there were counterclaimants. Fighting began when King Frederick II
of Prussia invaded Austrian-held Silesia. In America and elsewhere in the
world, France and England fought for colonial power and possessions. The
French unsuccessfully attacked Port Royal, Nova Scotia, in 1744, the year in
which fighting broke out in America.
-
French and Indian forces began the year (1745) with raids on English
fortifications in Maine.
-
Fort Louisbourg, a powerful French stronghold on Cape Breton Island in
Nova Scotia, was captured by New Englanders under William Peppercell and
an English fleet under Sir Peter Warren.
-
Saratoga, New York was attacked and burned by the French and Indian
forces after the English had succeeded in persuading the Iroquois league
to enter the war against the French.
The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was signed on October 18, 1748, ending the
War of the Austrian Succession, known in America as King George's War
(1744-1748). For the most part it restored the status quo in the New World,
returning Fort Louisbourg, on Cape Breton Island in Canada, to France. The New
Englanders, whose forces had fought brilliantly to capture heavily defeated
Louisbourg, were outraged. As a result, the English Crown agreed to bear the
cost of the expedition. Great Britain's privilege of transporting slaves to
Spanish America was renewed, but the treaty turned out to be merely a truce
before the last and greatest of the French and Indian Wars.
Carruth, Gorton. "The Encyclopedia of American Facts and Dates".
10th Ed. New York: Harper Collins Publishers. ©1997.
Seven Years War
1756–63, worldwide war fought in Europe, North America, and India
between France, Austria, Russia, Saxony, Sweden, and (after 1762) Spain on
the one side and Prussia, Great Britain, and Hanover on the other.
Nature of the War
The struggle was complex in its origin and involved two main distinct
conflicts—the colonial rivalry between France and England and the
struggle for supremacy in Germany between the house of Austria and the
rising kingdom of Prussia. It was preluded in America by the outbreak of
the last of the French
and Indian Wars and in India by fighting among native factions and the
struggle there between the French governor Dupleix
and the British statesman Robert Clive.
The War of the Austrian
Succession (1740–48) had left Austria humiliated. Seeking to recover
Silesia from Prussia, Empress Maria
Theresa even before the conclusion of that war had secured the
alliance of Elizabeth
of Russia. In the years following the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748), Kaunitz,
as Austrian ambassador to France and then as chancellor, worked for a
rapprochement with France
The War Begins
In 1755, when hostilities broke out in North America, George II, king of
England and elector of Hanover, negotiated the Treaty of Westminster with Frederick
II of Prussia, who guaranteed the neutrality of Hanover. This event
hastened the alliance (1756) of France and Austria, sometimes called the
“diplomatic revolution.” Shortly afterward Frederick II opened
hostilities by invading Saxony. In Jan., 1757, war was declared on the
aggressor in the name of the Holy Roman Empire. Austria concluded
alliances with France and Russia and was joined by Sweden. The main
European phase of the war began with the Prussian invasion of Bohemia
early in 1757.
Conduct of the War
Victorious at first, Frederick was severely defeated by the Austrians
under Daun at Kolin (June, 1757) and had to evacuate Bohemia. The fighting
was carried into Saxony and Silesia, where Frederick gained the great
victories of Rossbach (Nov., 1757) and Leuthen (Dec., 1757) over the
French and Austrians. The Russians, who had invaded Prussia, were defeated
by Frederick at Zorndorf (Aug., 1758). The English and Hanoverians, at
first unsuccessful against the French in NW Germany, began a vigorous
effort when William Pitt (later earl of Chatham)
came into power; the troops then won the victories of Krefeld (June, 1758)
and Minden (Aug., 1759).
However, Frederick soon found himself in an almost desperate situation.
He was badly beaten by Daun at Kunersdorf (Aug., 1759) and in Nov., 1759,
Daun captured a Prussian army of 13,000 at Maxen. In Oct., 1760, the
Russians took Berlin. Days later, as Frederick’s army approached, they
evacuated it, and in November Frederick defeated Daun at Torgau.
Nonetheless, his situation remained critical, especially after the fall of
Pitt (1761) deprived him of British subsidies. The death (Jan., 1762) of
Elizabeth of Russia and the accession of Peter
III, Frederick’s ardent admirer, helped save him from defeat.
Peace
By the Treaty of St. Petersburg (1762) Russia made peace and restored
all conquests; Sweden made peace in the same year. Now fighting alone in
the east, the Austrians were soundly defeated at Burkersdorf (July, 1762).
The French, too, had suffered severe reverses. In America they had lost
Louisburg (1758), Quebec (1759), and some possessions in the West Indies;
in India, the British victories at Plassey (1757) and Pondichéry (1761)
had destroyed French power; on the sea, the French took Port Mahón from
the British (1757) but were defeated by Hawke in Quiberon Bay (1759). The
entry of Spain into the war under the terms of the Family Compact of 1761
was of little help to France, where the war had never been popular.
After protracted negotiations between the war-weary powers, peace was made
(Feb., 1763) among Prussia, Austria, and Saxony at Hubertusburg,
and among England, France, and Spain at Paris (see Paris,
Treaty of, 1763). The treaty of Hubertusburg, though it restored the
prewar status quo, marked the ascendancy of Prussia as a leading European
power. Through the Treaty of Paris, Great Britain emerged as the world’s
chief colonial empire, which was its primary goal in the war, and France
lost most of its overseas possessions. For Russia the Seven Years War was
the first great venture into purely European affairs.
Bibliography
See studies by L. J. Oliva (1964), R. Savory (1966), and H. H. Kaplan
(1968).
The
Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Copyright © 2003 Columbia
University Press.
The French and Indian War
(1754-1763)
French and Indian War
From 1904 History of the United States, Henry William Elson (interesting
popular account, not scholarly, very anti catholic, and anti French)
Fall
of Quebec History of the U.S.
French
and Indian War History of the U.S.
History
of Manchester, NH
History
of Goffstown, NH
Roger's
Rangers
The French and
Indian War http://web.syr.edu/~laroux/
This site gives information about French soldiers who came to New France from
1755 - 1760 to fight in the French and Indian War.
Revolutionary War and Frontier Conflicts (1775-1811)
American
Revolution
The American
Revolutionary War --See our other site devoted to the Revolutionary War!
Westford,
MA at the Battle of Bunker Hill
Some
Prisoners Taken at the Battle of Bunker Hill
CCD >
HIS 201 > Conquest
>
Wars