The King of France, Charles IV., surnamed the Fair, had died in 1328; and, a short time after his death, the queen his wife had given birth to a daughter. The Salic law prohibiting the accession of females to the throne, the peers of the kingdom and the States-general had decreed that the crown belonged to the cousin of the deceased king, Philip of Valois, grandson of Philip the Bold, by his youngest son, Charles of Valois; and the new sovereign had taken undisputed possession of the throne. {293} King Edward III. was scarcely sixteen years of age, and, although maintaining from that time forth, in England, that his right was superior to that of Philip of Valois, his mother Isabel being the daughter of Philip the Fair, he accepted the invitation of the King of France to render fealty and homage to him for the Duchy of Aquitaine, and again performed the same ceremony in 1331, when he had attained his majority and was king _de facto_. But, in 1336, the young King of England felt that he was securely seated upon his throne, and being piqued by the support which Philip of Valois openly gave to the Scotch, he publicly declared that the peers of France and the States-general had acted as rogues and robbers rather than as judges, and that for the future he would not recognize their decisions, but would maintain his own just rights. Thus began that disastrous war which has been called the "Hundred Years' War," but which, in reality, was waged from 1338 until 1453, during the reigns of five kings of France--Philip VI., John the Good, Charles V., Charles VI., and Charles VII.--and of as many kings of England--Edward III., Richard II., Henry IV., Henry V., and Henry VI. It cost the lives of millions of men, brought plague and famine with it, and caused unheard-of misery, without any result for the two nations other than a feeling of international hatred which has scarcely died out in our own time.