Is this a fair comment about the Hundred Years War?

Would it be fair to say that:

1) The hundred years war was a conflict between two descendants of the French royal family over who had the better claim to the throne. It's just that one of them also happened to be the king of England.

2) One of the major consequences of the war was the development of a French and an English "national identity", based on not being English and not being French respectively.
 
I'd say yes to part two, part one maybe if you throw in Edward iii wanting a convenient excuse to not do homage
 
1) I think this needs to be qualified, a bit. The original English claim was really more about leverage, and after that it became part of the royal identity, and a sign of relative strength and weakness. I'd say most English claimants didn't really sincerely believe in it.

2) Much more true for England than for France. The French saw the HRE and Burgandy as just as much a natural rival if not more, and Spain was close. England was to France a bit more like Wales or Scotland was to England (aside from during the brief Angevin ascedancy); a constant bleeder that would always need to be accounted for, and ideally subdued, but rarely actually worth the bother with all the other enemies at hand. It's like how people from England can all quote their World Cup win over France...like 1964?...but to people in France their wins over the Dutch, Germans and their loss to Spain are much bigger deals. Iow, England looms larger the in the French psyche than the reverse, though of course the rivalry's real both ways.
 
1/ In a simplistic sort of way, yes. However more accurately it was caused by constant intermarriage between England and France's lines, which eventually intersected in 2 places.

2/ It finished off what had been going on since 1066 for England and 987 for France. Definitely, after the war the two countries were distinct entities, but they had been separating since their formations.

I won't call either of your points wrong, because they are not. However they don't tell the full story. Of course, that is a little difficult to achieve with 2 lines of text.

- BNC
 
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