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.Inthe meantime, Philip VI had assembled ships for a crusade, but the proj-ect was suddenly halted by the pope, who said that peace in the West Historical Overview xlvtowns became an integral part of the greater problems of the HundredYears War.France s strained relations with Flanders found its equivalent in Eng-land s strained relations with Scotland.Not as strategic geographically asFlanders, Scotland had nonetheless been a perennial rival of England, asituation aggravated after 1295 when France signed its first alliance withScotland.England experienced a humiliation similar to that of theFrench at Courtrai, when Scotland defeated Edward II at Bannockburnin 1314.Since then England had been unable to repress the Scottish urgefor independence.While these problems festered in Flanders and Scotland, Aquitaine re-mained the real bone of contention.French kings, as suzerains, controlledtheir English vassals through the homage ceremony, which required re-newal at the start of each new reign.This was a continual irritant to Eng-lish kings, especially when the short reigns of the sons of Philip theFair Louis X, Philip V, and Charles IV called for three ceremonies intwelve years.But France wanted more than control; it had an appetitefor acquisition.It was as if French kings, in the general move of themonarchy toward centralization, were exploiting the feudal relationshipto the point where they could extinguish it, ending England s presencein France.A second mechanism of interference was judicial in nature.France wielded control over the local Gascon inhabitants by declaringthe Parlement of Paris to be the court of last resort, which gave theFrench courts the possibility of overturning English verdicts.Those whobrought grievances against their English suzerain to French courts stoodto gain a decision in their favor, disposing them favorably toward theFrench.French rulers found reason to confiscate Aquitaine three times in1294, 1324, and 1337.The first seizure resulted from a naval dispute, butthe fief was returned.The second confiscation, provoked when the Gas-cons burned a French bastide (fortified town) encroaching on Gascon ter-ritory, caused the war of Saint-Sardos (1324).The settlement was anEnglish humiliation.The French king, Charles IV, refused to return theentire duchy to Edward II, holding back Perigord and the Agenais fordamages.When the last Capetian king, Charles IV, died in 1328, a major dy-nastic quarrel further damaged French and English relations.Charles IVwas the third son of Philip the Fair to die without leaving a male heir in xlvi Historical Overviewtwelve years.When the eldest son, Louis X, had died in 1316, the mid-dle son, Philip V, solved the dynastic crisis by disinheriting Louis daugh-ter in favor of himself.Philip displaced his niece by nonchalantlyasserting that women do not succeed to the crown of France.Theyoungest son, Charles IV, used the precedent set by his brother Philip toascend the throne in his turn, disinheriting Philip s four daughters.WhenCharles IV died, the only remaining descendent of Philip the Fair washis daughter Isabella, the widow of King Edward II of England andmother of the young Edward III.The direct male heirs of the Capetiandynasty had come to an end.The French barons quickly elected PhilipVI of Valois as their king.He was a mere cousin of the deceased Capet-ian, but he was experienced, French, male, and on good terms with thebarons.To the anger of the Plantagenets, Edward III, crowned king ofEngland the previous year following his father s dethroning and murder,was quickly passed over.Yet the threat that Edward s blood claim posedto Philip s elective kingship even if through a woman must have beenuniversally acknowledged.In England, resentment at Edward s disinher-itance was made worse by France s failure to return the confiscated partof Aquitaine.In a move to recover his usurped rights, Edward signed let-ters on May 16, 1328, appointing two bishops to debate his rights to thekingdom as rightful heir. 2 The response of Philip s lawyers to Edward sdemands was to dismiss them.Two weeks later Philip VI was crowned atReims, with Edward III conspicuous by his absence.The start of the fledgling Valois dynasty was unexpectedly strong
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