So, how did it start and when did it end?
Isabella of France married Edward II in 1308. She was the daughter of Phillip IV and the sister of Charles IV, the last king of the direct Capetian line. French law functioned under ancient Frankish custom which denied women the right to rule in their own right, but didn't necessarily bar a woman from transmitting a royal claim to the throne. Probably knowing his sister and not wanting the Plantagenets to get more of a foothold in France, Charles IV fixed that by decreeing in 1316 that women couldn't transmit royal inheritance to their children. Charles IV died in 1328 and Isabella, never one to bother with rules, claimed the French throne on behalf of her son, Edward III. The French simply ignored her, crowned the first Valois king Phillip VI at Rheims and got on with their lives. For awhile, the French and English were willing to accept this status quo. Then Phillip made the mistake of allying with Scotland against Edward III and Edward, not to be outdone, reasserted his dormant claim to the French throne. The war was soon on, more than 130 years of it. Battles such as Crecy, Patay and Agincourt were fought to settle this claim. Leaders such as Edward III, Henry IV and Henry V spent blood and treasure defending it. A young woman from Domremy, Joan of Arc, lost her life in defense of her chosen Valois King.
After Henry V's victory at Agincourt, the French cause seemed lost. By the 1320 Treaty of Troyes, Charles VI of France agreed to disinherit his own son, the future Charles VII, and make Henry and his heirs Kings of France. Henry V was married to Catherine of Valois, Charles VI sister. Charles VI's wife, Isabeau of Bavaria, was believed to have had an affair with his brother, the Duke of Orleans, making the Dauphin illegitimate. Henry V died in 1422, as did Charles VI. Their joint heir was a baby who became Henry VI. The French once again ignored the English and their claim, preferring an adult male, Charles VII, who was crowned at Rheims in 1429, with Joan of Arc standing beside him in the cathedral at Rheims. Also in 1429, Henry VI was crowned King of England. The French, spurred on by Joan's heroism and the skill of their commanders, began making deep inroads into English territory in France.
In 1453, the French won the final Battle of Castillon and the English were left with little else in France besides Calais and the area around it known as the Pale. In England, Henry VI's tenuous hold on sanity finally snapped. He was incapacitated until Christmas 1354, and when he finally came around, he had problems of his own. His throne was seriously in jeopardy from his cousin, Richard of York and later Richard's son the future Edward IV. Henry died a prisoner in the Tower in 1471, but the English never gave up the idea that they were Kings of France through two Plantagenet marriages with French princesses, Isabella of France, and Catherine of Valois. Both sides bickered the point for years. Calais was last in 1558, during the reign of Mary I Tudor. France lost vast stretches of empire in North American courtesy of the Seven Years War (1755-1763), yet king after King, Plantagenets, Tudors, Stuarts and Hanoverians continued to claim themselves by the Grace of God, King of England, France, Scotland and Ireland.
It took the aftermath of the French Revolution, 1789-1795 and some royal housekeeping in 1800 to make the English forego a claim that had long since become pure historical fiction. In 1800, the Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland were formally united. Previously, they had been joined as a dynastic union, through the person of each sovereign, but with a form law it wouldn't matter who inherited the throne. As part of the Acts, the English King, George III finally gave up quartering the French fleur-de-lys and styling himself King of France. The arms of England, Scotland and Ireland were combined, and that was Kingdom enough for George's descendants to the present day.
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