Hundred Years' War
The Hundred Years' War was a series of conflicts waged from 1337 to 1453 by the House of Plantagenet, rulers of the Kingdom of England, against the French House of Valois, over the right to rule the Kingdom of France. Each side drew many allies into the war. It was one of the most notable conflicts of the Middle Ages, in which five generations of kings from two rival dynasties fought for the throne of the largest kingdom in Western Europe. The war marked both the height of chivalry and its subsequent decline, and the development of strong national identities in both countries.
Second Hundred Years' War
The French military rivalry continued with British opposition of the French Revolution and the ensuing wars with first the new French Republic and then the Empire of Napoleon. His defeat in 1814 was followed by his abdication and exile, but he escaped the following year to begin the Hundred Days. These came to a close with his military disaster at the Battle of Waterloo, facing an Allied force commanded by the Duke of Wellington. The end of the Napoleonic Wars effectively ended the recurrent conflict between France and Britain. However, Britain and her allies' goal of restoring the French Bourbon monarchy in the Treaty of Paris and the subsequent Congress of Vienna, which sought to prevent further revolutions in Europe, ultimately failed with the later Revolutions of 1848.