English claims to the French throne usually omitted from regnal lists. English claims to the French throne From the 1340s to the 19th century, excluding two brief intervals in the 1360s and the 1420s, the kings and queens of England (and, later, of Great Britain) also claimed the throne of France. The claim dates from Edward III, who claimed the French throne in 1340 as the sororal nephew of the last direct Capetian, Charles IV. Edward and his heirs fought the Hundred Years' War to enforce this claim, and were briefly successful in the 1420s under Henry V and Henry VI, but the House of Valois,
Battle of the Dunes (1658) French received all of Artois, England had eliminated the greatest Spanish privateering base with the result that merchant shipping losses were much reduced. Cromwell died two months after the battle and was succeeded by his son's protectorship, which ended nine months later, and the Commonwealth fell into confusion, whereupon Charles II returned to the throne in May 1660. Charles would sell Dunkirk back to the French in 1662 for £320,000. The Grenadier Guards can trace their origins back to Lord Wentworth's Royal Regiment of Guards which was one of five regiments raised in 1656. The Life Guards can trace their