This is the first volume of Jonathan Sumption's monumental work The Hundred Years' War, which details the long and brutal British attempt to dismember the most powerful state in Europe, a series of wars that constitute one of the seminal chapters in European history, beginning with the funeral of Charles IV of France in 1328 year, The Hundred Years' War Volume I: Trial by Battle traces the course of the Hundred Years' War up to the capitulation of the city of Calais in 1347. The book traces the origins of the conflict, the early failures and victories of Edward III, and the major military campaigns of Sluys, Crécy and Calais, which first established his name as a commander and his subjects the reputation of the most brutal and effective warriors of his time."The Hundred Years' War Volume I Trial by Battle is an account of a pivotal period in French and British history from Wolfson History Prize-winning historian Jonathan Sumption.