The campaign was part of the Hundred Years' War. The campaign began on 12 July , with the landing of English troops in Normandy , and ended with the capitulation of Calais on 3 August Edward was under pressure from the English Parliament to end the war either by negotiation or with a victory.
As his forces gathered, Edward vacillated as to where in France he would land. Eventually he decided to sail for Gascony , to succour the Duke of Lancaster , who was facing the much larger main French army. Hampered by contrary winds, Edward instead made a surprise landing on the nearest part of France, the northern Cotentin Peninsula.
The English devastated much of Normandy, and stormed and sacked Caen , slaughtering the population. They then raided the suburbs of Rouen before cutting a swath along the left bank of the Seine to Poissy , 20 miles 32 km from Paris. Turning north, the English became trapped in territory which the French had denuded of food. They escaped by fighting their way across a ford in the Somme river against a French blocking force.
After an eleven-month siege, which stretched both countries' financial and military resources to the limit, the town fell. Shortly afterwards, the Truce of Calais was agreed; it ran for nine months to 7 July , but was extended repeatedly over the years until it was formally set aside in Since the Norman Conquest of , English monarchs had held titles and lands within France, the possession of which made them vassals of the kings of France.
The status of the English king's French fiefs was a major source of conflict between the two monarchies throughout the Middle Ages. French monarchs systematically sought to check the growth of English power, stripping away lands as the opportunity arose. This marked the start of the Hundred Years' War , which was to last years. Although Gascony was the cause of the war, Edward was able to spare few resources for it, and whenever an English army campaigned on the continent it operated in northern France.
