Refugees, Forced Migration and Henry VIII’s Conquest of France, 1544–46

Refugee crises in the modern era are often the products of wars launched against civilians and typically involve the targeted destruction of homes and sources of food. We find all these conditions present during the war King Henry VIII of England fought in France in the 1540s, which was directed against civilians. While historians have typically been reluctant to apply terms such as ethnic cleansing and forced migration to the medieval and early modern periods, this chapter situates the experience of the sixteenth century firmly in relation to modern examples of this type of warfare in order to give a common frame of reference for these concepts across different historical eras.