Hundred Years' War (1415–53)
By 1449, the French had retaken Rouen. In 1450 the Count of Clermont and Arthur de Richemont, Earl of Richmond, of the Montfort family (the future Arthur III, Duke of Brittany) caught an English army attempting to relieve Caen at the Battle of Formigny and defeated it. The English army was attacked from the flank and rear by Richemont's force just as they were on the verge of beating Clermont's army. The French proceeded to capture Caen on July 6 and Bordeaux and Bayonne in 1451. The attempt by Talbot to retake Guyenne, though initially welcomed by the locals, was crushed by Jean Bureau and his cannons at the Battle of Castillon in 1453 where Talbot had led a small Anglo-Gascon force in a frontal attack on an entrenched camp. This is considered the last battle of the Hundred Years' War.
Battle of Castillon
The term "Hundred Years' War" is misleading, as the fighting between the English and the French during the period of 1337 to 1453 was more a series of conflicts than a single prolonged war. Thus, the conflict(s) can be examined from the vantage point of various stages. The breakdown of the 1420 Treaty of Troyes began the final stage of the Hundred Years' War. This period from 1420 to 1453 is characterized by Anne Curry as the “wars of the Treaty of Troyes” for control of the crown of France.