1450–1453: Normandy, Castillon and the end of the war

Around the turn of the 1450s, the advantage shifted decisively. The reconquest became methodical: retaking towns, securing regions, and reducing England to a few remaining positions.

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🏰 The Normandy Campaign (1449-1450)

On 31 July 1449, the royal council approved Charles VII’s decision to reopen hostilities in order to liberate Normandy definitively.

Three army corps led by the Count of Saint-Pol, by Jean de Dunois and Pierre de Brézé, and by Duke Francis I of Brittany, invested the strongholds of the Cotentin, Lower and Upper Normandy.

• 1 November 1449: liberation of Rouen. Charles VII presided over the grand Liberation parade.
• 6 July 1450: liberation of Caen
• 12 August 1450: capitulation of Cherbourg after a bloody siege
• 14 April 1450: decisive victory at the Battle of Formigny

Normandy was thus conquered and definitively liberated from English domination after a year of fighting.

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🏰 The Guyenne Campaign (1450-1453)

The liberation of Guyenne proved longer and more difficult than that of Normandy. The people of Bordeaux considered the English as friends and above all as privileged customers in the wine trade.

• September 1450: Jean de Blois-Bretagne seized Bergerac, Jonzac and several strongholds
• May 1451: siege of Bordeaux by Jean de Dunois with 20,000 men
• 24 June 1451: capture of Bordeaux by the French
• 22 October 1452: revolt of the Bordelais who opened the gates to the English under John Talbot
• 17 July 1453: Battle of Castillon — French victory, death of John Talbot
• 5 October 1453: capitulation of Bordeaux
• 19 October 1453: the English embarked definitively

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💥 1453: End of the Hundred Years’ War

The year 1453 marked the end of the Hundred Years’ War and the triumph of Charles VII, the Victorious. King Henry VI of England, meanwhile, sank into madness like his maternal grandfather, King Charles VI of France.

Thus ended the reconquest of France, with the exception of Calais which would only be taken in 1558. Joan of Arc’s prediction was fulfilled: the English were definitively “driven out of France.”

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🧠 Key points

• 1449-1450: reconquest of Normandy (Rouen, Caen, Cherbourg, Formigny)
• 1450-1453: reconquest of Guyenne (Bordeaux, Castillon)
• 1453: end of the Hundred Years’ War on the continent
• The end of the Hundred Years’ War was a process: reconquest, administration, consolidation
• 1453 closed a military cycle and opened a cycle of internal reconstruction