The Precarious State of English Normandy

By the late 1440s, England’s once-formidable hold over Normandy had deteriorated into a fragile occupation. What had been a crown jewel of Plantagenet ambitions now teetered on the brink of collapse. Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset and the newly appointed Lieutenant-General of Normandy, faced an impossible task. Garrison strength had dwindled from 3,500 to just 2,100 soldiers, with widespread desertion and supply shortages crippling morale. Many troops resorted to plundering local villages to compensate for lost wartime spoils—such as the Welsh soldier arrested in 1448, described as a “thief, robber, and scourge of the countryside, keeping packs of dogs fed with peasants’ coin.”

Somerset’s reforms—dismissing corrupt officials, abolishing tax collectors’ profit-taking privileges, and auditing accounts—proved futile. The deeper issue was strategic: France had effortlessly reclaimed Maine, stripping Normandy of its southern buffer. With French forces entrenched in Évreux and the Caux region, Normandy’s porous defenses left it vulnerable to multi-pronged attacks. The stage was set for disaster.

Charles VII’s Military Revolution

While England faltered, King Charles VII of France orchestrated a military renaissance. His 1446 creation of the Francs-Archers—a national militia of trained bowmen—marked a watershed. Recruited from parishes (one man per 50 households), these soldiers enjoyed tax exemptions in exchange for mandatory drills and service. Equipped with standardized arms and armor, they formed the backbone of France’s first semi-professional standing army.

This reform bypassed feudal lords, forging direct ties between the Crown and commoners—a deliberate step toward centralization. By 1448, France’s revitalized bureaucracy and taxation systems could fund sustained campaigns, while England’s war-weary Parliament resisted further expenditures.

The Powder Keg of Normandy

Tensions escalated through 1447–48. English freebooters, including Sir Roger de Camoys (a recently ransomed knight), rebuilt border forts like Saint-James-de-Beuvron—violating truce terms and provoking Brittany. Charles VII seized on these breaches, accusing Somerset of arrogance (the Duke’s letters addressed him as merely “the uncle of the King of England”). Tit-for-tat confiscations of church revenues and lands further eroded diplomacy.

Meanwhile, England’s attention fractured. The Scottish war consumed resources; the 1448 Battle of Sark saw 2,000 Englishmen slaughtered in a tidal riverbed. When Somerset’s envoy Reginald Boulers pleaded for reinforcements in 1449, Parliament—dominated by landowners with dwindling Continental interests—allocated only half the requested funds.

The Crumbling of an Empire

The consequences were swift. In 1449, Charles VII launched his reconquest, exploiting Normandy’s decayed fortresses and demoralized garrisons. Towns fell with minimal resistance. By 1450, the English presence in Normandy—painstakingly built over 30 years—had evaporated.

This collapse reverberated politically: Somerset’s failure fueled the rival Yorkist faction, hastening the Wars of the Roses. For France, it cemented Charles VII’s legacy as the architect of a centralized state. The Francs-Archers model endured, evolving into the standing armies of early modern Europe.

Legacy: The High Cost of Neglect

Normandy’s fall underscored a pivotal lesson: empires wither without sustained investment and political will. England’s inability to reconcile parliamentary frugality with military needs doomed its Continental ambitions. Meanwhile, France’s fusion of nationalism, administrative reform, and tactical innovation previewed the rise of the modern nation-state—a template that would dominate European warfare for centuries.

For historians, the 1440s remain a masterclass in how logistical neglect and institutional inertia can unravel even the most storied conquests. The echoes of Somerset’s doomed administration—caught between a distracted monarchy and an indifferent public—resonate in the decline of empires across the ages.