Gascony under the English

This question gives the impression – I'm not saying it's necessarily an accurate one – that the setter was reading about Gascony, saw the dates during which it was under English rule, and spotted a quiz question.

Makes sense ... up to a point. Only thing is, it's not that simple for the person who has to answer the question. I reckon you'd need to be a bit of an expert in this period of English (and/or French) history, and/or French geography, to be able to pick out Gascony as the correct answer.

I've said before on this website that history is not really my subject; and neither is geography. I just try to pick out the facts that I need to know in order to answer quiz questions. As John Smith put it in How to Win Any Pub Quiz: not so much deep draughts from the font of knowledge, as tiny eclectic sips.

And this is what I think my investigations into this particular topic have established:

England ruled a considerable portion of France at this time, owing to the cross–fertilisation between the royal houses of the two nations (beginning with the Norman Conquest).

Normandy came with William the Conqueror in 1066, and Anjou came with Henry II in 1154. Aquitaine (including Gascony) also came with Henry II, but in 1152 through his marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine. Gascony is the only one of these territories that is undisputably an area of south–west France, which is why a knowledge of French geography would help you to answer the question.

Anjou and Normandy were lost in 1204, during the reign of King John; his son, Henry III, renounced his claim to those lands in the 1259 Treaty of Paris.

Philip VI of France confiscated Aquitaine in 1337. England fought to retain it in the Hundred Years' War, and Edward III claimed the title 'King of France and the French Royal Arms' in 1340. He captured Calais in 1347, and that city was formally assigned to English rule by a treaty of 1360.

Unfortunately for Edward's successors, England lost the war. This meant the loss of Aquitaine and Gascony in 1453, leaving Calais as England's only possession in France. That was recaptured by the French in 1558 – prompting Mary Tudor to lament that when she was dead and opened, they would find 'Calais' lying in her heart (along with 'Philip' – her husband, Philip II of Spain).