From , English monarchs , beginning with the Plantagenet king Edward III , claimed to be the rightful kings of France and fought the Hundred Years' War , in part, to enforce their claim.
This was despite the English losing the Hundred Years' War by and failing to secure the crown in several attempted invasions of France over the following seventy years. From the early 16th century, the claim lacked any credible possibility of realisation and faded as a political issue.
Edward's claim was based on his being, through his mother , the nearest male relative of the last direct line Capetian king of France, Charles IV , who died in However, Philip of Valois , from a cadet branch of the Capetians, became king instead, as the French magnates preferred a French rather than a foreign monarch.
The justification given was that the crown supposedly could not be inherited through the female line and Philip was Charles's nearest male relative through the male line. From , Edward spent most of the rest of his life at war with Philip and his Valois successors, in part, to pursue his claim to the throne, although Edward's main concern was, in fact, to protect his rights to his lands in Gascony , in south west France.
He never succeeded in taking the French crown and after he died in , the war petered out. However, subsequent English monarchs traced their claim to the French throne to Edward. In , Henry V , revived the claim after a period of peace and invaded France. Following his crushing defeat of the French at Agincourt , he succeeded in taking control of northern France and was declared heir of the Valois king, Charles VI.
