[4] The assemblies of the French barons and prelates and the University of Paris decided that males who derive their right to inheritance through their mother should be excluded according to Salic law.

[7] After his elevation to the throne, Philip sent the Abbot of Fécamp, Pierre Roger, to summon Edward III of England to pay homage for the duchy of Aquitaine and Gascony.

[8] After a subsequent second summons from Philip, Edward finally arrived at the Cathedral of Amiens on 6 June 1329 and worded his vows in such a way to cause more disputes in later years.

[14] The English made some retaliatory raids, including the burning of a fleet in the harbour of Boulogne-sur-Mer,[15] but the French largely had the upper hand.

In June 1340, however, in the bitterly fought Battle of Sluys, the English attacked the port and captured or destroyed the ships there, ending the threat of an invasion.

Edward's slender finances would not permit him to play a waiting game, and he was forced to withdraw into Flanders and return to England to raise more money.

[17] After being at Bouvines for a week, Philip was finally persuaded to send Joan of Valois, Countess of Hainaut, to discuss terms to end the siege.

However, Philip was still in a commanding position: during negotiations arbitrated by the pope in 1343, he refused Edward's offer to end the war in exchange for the Duchy of Aquitaine in full sovereignty.

The next attack came in 1345, when the Earl of Derby overran the Agenais (lost twenty years before in the War of Saint-Sardos) and took Angoulême, while the forces in Brittany under Sir Thomas Dagworth also made gains.

The French responded in the spring of 1346 with a massive counterattack against Aquitaine, where an army under John, Duke of Normandy, besieged Derby at Aiguillon.

On the advice of Godfrey Harcourt (like Robert III of Artois, a banished French nobleman), Edward sailed for Normandy instead of Aquitaine.

Edward sacked and burned the country as he went, taking Caen and advancing as far as Poissy and then retreating before the army Philip had hastily assembled at Paris.

However, his troops were disorderly, and the roads were jammed by the rear of the army coming up and the local peasantry, which furiously called for vengeance on the English.

Normandy called off the siege of Aiguillon and retreated northward, while Sir Thomas Dagworth captured Charles of Blois in Brittany.

With the plunder of his Norman expedition and the reforms he had executed in his tax system, he could hold to his siege lines and await an attack that Philip dared not deliver.

After the defeat at Crécy and loss of Calais, the Estates of France refused to raise money for Philip, halting his plans to counter-attack by invading England.

Philip VI died at Coulombes Abbey, Eure-et-Loir, on 22 August 1350[20] and is interred with his first wife, Joan of Burgundy, in Saint Denis Basilica, though his viscera were buried separately at the now demolished church of Couvent des Jacobins in Paris.

They had one daughter: By an unknown woman he had: By his mistress, Beatrice de la Berruère, he had another son: Philip is a character in Les Rois maudits (The Accursed Kings), a series of French historical novels by Maurice Druon.