The Plantagenets Mini-Series Part IV: Edward III and Richard II

Edward III

Born: 13 November 1312, Windsor Castle, Berkshire, England

Edward III (r. 1327-77)

Succeeded: Edward II (his father)

Coronation: 1 February 1327

Marriage: Philippa of Hainault (24 January 1328 – 15 August 1369 [her death])

Reigned: 25 January 1327 – 21 June 1377

Died: 21 June 1377, Sheen Palace, Richmond, England

Preceded: Richard II (his grandson)

Edward III was the eldest son of Edward II and thus his heir to the throne. Examining his reign, it is not hard to see why Edward III is typically regarded as one of the greatest kings in English history. David Starkey describes Edward as embodying the ‘perfect contemporary image of kingship…[he] personified the values of his age.’ Let’s get into it then!

Edward’s first task as king was to actually become king. Upon Edward II’s deposition, his estranged wife and her lover, Roger Mortimer, had taken control of England. Mortimer saw Edward III as a threat to his rule and it is little wonder why. By 1330, Mortimer had got wind of conspiracy against him, so summoned Edward to Nottingham to interrogate him against a council. In a move that would not seem out of place in A Game of Thrones, Edward III snuck a band of knights into Nottingham Castle on 19^th October 1330 through an underground tunnel, and they surprised Mortimer, overpowered him and had him arrested. He was then executed as a common criminal at Tyburn. However, Edward spared his mother, Isabella. He sent her off to Berkhamsted Castle, where she was entitled to a yearly pension of £3000 for the rest of her life. Edward III could finally rule in his own right, almost three years after his coronation. 

The main issue concerning Edward in the early 1330s was – unsurprisingly – Scotland. The kingdom to the north had eluded his grandfather and humiliated his father, so for Edward III, war against Scotland was a matter of honour. His first major victory was at the Battle of Dupplin Moor, on 10^th-11^th August 1332. Robert the Bruce had died in 1329, leaving his infant son David II in charge of Scotland. Naturally, this was an opportunity too good for Edward to miss. Having learned from his father’s defeats against Scotland, Edward III opted for a different military tactic – the use of longbows. And it paid off. The majority of the Scottish army did not even reach the English army, as they were slaughtered by English longbows. The longbow was a vital weapon and was to pay dividends throughout Edward’s reign.

Militarily, Edward III’s tactics relied on the enemy attacking first – unlike at Bannockburn in 1314 when the English attacked first and were defeated, or where William Wallace got the upper hand in 1298 at Falkirk. A year later at Halidon Hill, just outside of Berwick, Edward once again utilised the longbow to defeat the Scots once more – another vital victory for the young king.

Edward’s next target was France, the kingdom that lad been won and lost by his ancestors since Henry II’s reign. In winter 1337-38, there was a revolt in Flanders (then French territory), led by Jacob van Artevelde. His issue was that the people of Flanders survived on the business of making cloth. In order to make cloth, they needed wool, and the best quality wool came from England. Under French domination, Flanders was banned from trading with England. This is typically one of the major possible starts of the Hundred Years War.

On 26^th January 1340, Edward III landed at Flanders and proclaimed himself King of France, his claim being that he was the only male descendant of Philip IV, his grandfather. By early February, in order to fund a conquest into France, Edward left Flanders to return to England to gather troops and reinforcements, but King Philip VI of France had also turned his attention to the North Sea. Philip had managed to gather a fleet of just over 200 ships, while Edward had amassed 150.

The Battle of Sluys, 24th June 1340

On 24^th June 1340, Edward entered the Bay of Sluys in Northern Flanders. The French fleet was ahead of them, facing the English and chained together so as to create an impenetrable barrier. The English ships bore down on the French fleet, and after four hours of combat – including archers and foot soldiers crossing onto enemy ships – the first line of French ships was broken. The rest of the French ships tried to escape, but Edward III’s army captured all but 23 of the 213 ships. Estimates of between 16,000 and 18,000 French seamen and soldiers had lost their lives, including all of Philip VI’s admirals. However, the victory was short-lived. Edward had run out of money to pay the soldiers before the campaign had even begun, so had to agree to a truce with the French on 15^th September.

The early 1340s were, for the most part, spent rebuilding finances and developing the taxation system in England – something Edward II had little regard for. In 1341, David II had returned to Scotland, and there was a general peace between the two nations. However, by 1346, Edward had war on two fronts.

The Battle of Crécy, 26th August 1346

On 26^th August 1346, Edward was once again drawn into war against the French, this time at Crécy. However, the odds were not in Edward’s favour. The English were outnumbered 8 to 1 by the French, but Edward was victorious with his longbows once again. The French army also faced artillery fire from English cannons, which was another turning point in military history: it is the first use of artillery in a European battle. The French army fled the battlefield, leaving 4000 knights dead and enormous numbers of foot soldiers. The contemporary French chronicler Jean le Bel wrote about the Battle of Crécy, describing what he saw as:

“It was found that there were nine great princes lying there, and around 1200 knights, and a good fifteen or sixteen thousand others – esquires, Genoese, and others – and they found only 300 English knights dead.”

Crécy was a bloodbath. However, there was little time for the English to celebrate, as Philip VI had rested his hopes on the shoulders of David II as part of the Auld Alliance to help drive Edward III out of France for good. On 17^th October, English forces met a Scottish army at Neville’s Cross, Durham. The Archbishop of York led the English forces in Edward’s absence and not only did the English forces destroy David II’s army, but David himself was captured and sent to London as a prisoner.

Over the course of the next eleven months from September 1346 onwards, Edward besieged Calais, and by mid 1347, Edward had had enough. He brought over the biggest English army of the medieval period, and, after four days of relentless siege warfare, the French army finally surrendered on 3^rd August 1347, opening the gates of Calais to the English. It was another territorial gain for the English, and at a pivotal time. Over the course of the next year, Europe was ravaged by the worst natural disaster in the history of mankind: the Black Death.

A medieval plague
doctor

Estimates of up to half the population England was said to have died from bubonic plague (Black Death), which returned in swathes over the next century. However, Edward III did not close England’s ports, even in 1348 when plague was at its worst. Closing the ports would have meant isolating trade and cutting himself off from his fellow monarchs including his own daughter Joan, who was on her way to Castile to marry Prince Pedro, son and heir of King Alphonso XI of Castile. Ironically, Joan herself contracted plague on the journey and died. Moreover, closing England’s ports would also have cut him off from his newly acquired territory of Calais, as well as other English territories in France including Ponthieu, Brittany and Gascony.

In order to combat plague and the sheer number of deaths from it, Edward III introduced legislative measures, the most famous being the Statute of Labourers (1351). This Statute aimed to reduce peasants’ wages to pre-plague levels: during the Black Death, as more peasants died, there was more work for the remaining peasants to undertake – therefore, they demanded higher wages, which many landowners deemed as excessive, hence the introduction of this legislation.

When the Black Death was arguably at its worst, on St. George’s Day 1349 Edward III formed the Order of the Garter, thus increasing his Arthurian image further. It was an order of 26 men who would joust and pray together once a year and conduct themselves like Arthurian knights: the Order would play an important role in Edward’s later life.

When the Black Death had calmed down in England, Edward once again focused on both Scotland and France simultaneously, and it was during the early 1350s that he was at the peak of his popularity. He was the quintessentially English king: Middle English had replaced French as the primary language spoken in England, and according to the Walsingham Chronicle, the English people thought that a new sun had risen because of the abundance of peace in England and the glory of the victories.

One of the most notable of these victories was at the Battle of Poitiers, on 19^th September 1356. Yet this was not Edward III’s victory to claim: it was his son, Prince Edward (better known as the Black Prince due to the colour of his armour) who led the troops and succeeded. It was such a significant victory for England because the Black Prince had shown that he was as competent as his father, something which Edward II had failed to do, and thus a worry of the English people. Poitiers was also significant because the King John II of France was captured and sent to London. David Starkey refers to Poitiers as “the climax of Edward’s wars, the greatest victories England had achieved for over a century and a half.” The contemporary chronicler Henry Knighton was also full of praise for the Black Prince, stating that “The Pope is a Frenchman, but Jesus is an Englishman; now we shall discover who is stronger.”

However, Edward III was never able to take advantage of his position and assert himself as King of France, and due to financial issues, in 1360 he signed the Treaty of Brétigny, renouncing his claims to the French throne. Although he had consolidated his territorial gains, a victory on the scale of Crécy or Poitiers eluded Edward III and his sons for the remainder of his life.

The 1360s saw Edward slow down dramatically, both mentally and physically. As stated earlier, the victories had dried up, but many of his leading earls and barons had also died, some due to plague and some due to old age. By the early 1370s there was serious concern for the health of both Edward III and the Black Prince. In 1376, both Edward and the Black Prince were too ill to attend the Parliament of 1376. The Black Prince’s son, also called Edward, died in France, so further questions about the succession of the Plantagenets incurred – it was decided that Richard, the Black Prince’s second eldest son should succeed him when he died.

However, the Black Prince would remain a prince. On 8^th June 1376, Prince Edward, the hero at Poitiers, died aged 45. His second eldest son Richard was officially in line to succeed as king after his grandfather’s death – and England once more faced the daunting prospect of a boy king. Then the Order of the Garter really came into fruition: Edward III made both Richard II and Henry Bolingbroke (Richard’s cousin through his uncle John of Gaunt) Knights of the Garter in April 1377, meaning that they both would fight together, and not against one another.

Finally, after a fifty-year reign, Edward III died at Sheen aged 64. His reign is one of the most fondly remembered (and romanticised) in English history. The English Brut sums it up by arguing that “[Edward III] was forsooth of surpassing goodness, and very full of grace even by comparison with all the worthy men of the world: for by his virtue and even the grace given to him by God, he surpassed and shone above his predecessors, who were themselves noble and worthy men.” Yet despite Edward’s death, the problems of succession were to plague Richard for the majority of his reign. Once again, a boy king was set to rule England.

Richard II

Richard II, (r. 1377-99)

Born: 6 January 1367, Bordeaux, Aquitaine, France

Succeeded: Edward III (his grandfather)

Coronation: 16 July 1377

Marriage: Anne of Bohemia (m. 1382, d. 1394); Isabella of Valois (m. 1396)

Reigned: 22 June 1377 – 29 September 1399

Died: c. 14 February 1400

Preceded: Henry IV (his cousin)

Although Richard II succeeded the throne due to decisions made by Edward III and through a very legitimate bloodline, it did not mean that there was no controversy. Four of Edward III’s sons who survived until manhood would fight between themselves and their families for the next one hundred years: the Black Prince’s family, John of Gaunt, Lionel and Edmund. Gossip and rumours had suggested that John of Gaunt was most likely to usurp Richard’s reign, hence why Edward III had taken the initiative to make Richard and Henry Bolingbroke (John of Gaunt’s son) Knights of the Garter – so that they had to vow that they would not fight against each other.

John of Gaunt, one of the key
figures in Richard's reign

Richard’s reign was not to get off to the smoothest start. As a child, he had a set of dice that were loaded so that he would always win – and this action essentially summed up his attitude throughout his reign. Royal power relied on the support of the nobility, so Richard had to tread carefully. Chief of the nobles was John of Gaunt. When Edward III had made Gaunt Duke of Lancaster on 13^th November 1362, he had almost given him unchallenged power in the north of England. By 1377, Gaunt had 30 castles across England, and his House of Lancaster a private army of 4000 men – the sheer numbers simply reflect the power he held.

Even thirty years after the Black Death had ravaged Europe, England was still feeling it’s impact. Richard felt he had no other option but to introduce poll taxes (three of which he introduced between 1377 and 1381), where he demanded a shilling from every adult in the land, whether a Duke, a merchant or a peasant. The weight of the taxation was much heavier on the peasants, and it triggered one of England’s most famous revolts: the Peasants’ Revolt.

However, contrary to popular belief, the rebels did not target Richard II. Instead, they targeted the noble families around him – they felt it was an injustice that they were being taxed the same amount as families who earned over a hundred times more than the peasants themselves did – the peasants were after a relative taxation reform.

Led by a Kentish man called Wat Tyler, the peasants marched from Essex and Kent onto London and pillaged the city from May to November 1381. Richard, his mother, Henry Bolingbroke and a few other nobles were ushered into the Tower of London for safekeeping. However, with enormous courage, the fourteen-year-old Richard went out to face the rebels with a small entourage, first at Mile End, where he offered them a charter of liberties, then at Smithfield. He approached Tyler, addressing him as a “brother”, and asked why the men of Kent and Essex had not gone home.

The Peasants' Revolt, 1381.

Unfortunately, Richard’s diplomacy was undermined when the Lord Mayor of London attacked and murdered Tyler, but Richard quickly alerted the attention of the shocked rebels by shouting “I am your leader, follow me.” Miraculously, the mob did as they were commanded and followed the young king out of harm’s way so that a full-scale battle could not erupt. Now leaderless and their grip on the capital broken, the rebels were easily dispersed by the London militia. All of a sudden, Richard’s appearance as a man of the common people had vanished. The manipulative teenager king image was to haunt him for the rest of his kingship. He even went to watch the executions of some of the rebels, formally acknowledging that any sympathy he had shown – or had pretended to show – had gone.

Richard was reluctant to give up power now that he had tasted it. He gave is favourites in Parliament positions of high power, and on numerous occasions had to be reminded of his great-grandfather’s (Edward II) fate for doing the same. Richard ignored these warnings and his reign began to decline. The royal government was completely unlike his grandfather’s: it became a high-tax, high-spend affair. The taxpayer’s money went nowhere – it was squandered on his royal favourites and failed campaigns in Scotland and France.

By 1386, Parliament had had enough. Due to failed campaigns in France, England faced the real possibility of a French invasion. The so-called ‘Wonderful’ Parliament had agreed to help Richard financially and militarily if he dismissed his favourites from government. Richard retorted by saying that he would not listen to Parliament even if they wanted him to dismiss his kitchen scullion. Parliament raised their demands, and Richard said that he would invite the French to help him aginst Parliament.

He was twenty years old and acting like a petulant child. Parliament threatened Richard with deposition, and he finally surrendered to Parliament, which bound him to ordinances, setting up a ruling council like in the reigns of Henry III and Edward II. Parliament also impeached one of Richard’s favourites, Michael de la Pole, and instituted an enquiry into royal finances and spending. Richard stormed off in anger and went on a tour of his kingdom.

But Richard’s tour was not because he had any genuine interest in his subjects. It was an attempt to gather armed support against the nobility, Parliamentarians, and to gain legal judgements to rescue his prerogative. However, the nobility was not finished yet. One of their natural leaders was the Duke of Lancaster’s son and Richard’s cousin, Henry Bolingbroke. Ten years after the two boys had sworn never to take arms up against each other, tensions rose.

Richard II and Henry Bolingbroke were two very different men, and the conflict was largely a clash of political values. Richard believed that a king was God on Earth, Henry that he was a first among equals. On 19^thDecember 1387, the two sides met at Radcot Bridge, just outside Oxford. The Royal Army was led by Robert de Vere, the nobles’ army by Henry himself. Henry won a resounding victory, and de Vere fled into exile, leaving Richard without his troops and powerless.

Richard had hidden for safety in the Tower of London when he heard the news that Henry’s forces had won, and there was no other option for him than to humiliatingly surrender. The ‘Merciless’ Parliament of 1388 dismantled Richard’s power: his friends were driven into exile, and the kingdom was to be ruled by a committee of the lords and even Richard’s personal affairs were to be put into the hands of a board of guardians, as if he was either a child or insane.

The only thing Richard was left with was the official title of King of England. But it was enough. Slowly but surely, he rebuilt his power structure. In February 1388, shortly after his 21^st birthday, he made a plausible case to Parliament that he had matured from a boy into a man. He reached out for the support of his uncle and Duke of Lancaster, John of Gaunt, who agreed to use his influence to pacify the country. He rebuilt his personal following and treated his former enemies with mercy.

But Richard was still the manipulative man he had been all those years ago in the summer of 1381. The depth of his hatred – although stemmed for a few years – was still fresh. When his Royal Army leader Robert de Vere died in exile in 1395, Richard arranged a funeral for him, and all of the noble lords who had fought against him were obliged to attend.

By 1397, Richard was strong enough to strike. One by one, the lords who had rebelled against him were either exiled or executed on highly exaggerated charges of treason. He also surrounded Parliament with his Cheshire archers who he had gathered on his tour of England in 1387. Richard had regained his prerogative.

However, Richard saved the best revenge for the man who had undermined and betrayed him the most – his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke. When Henry had a quarrel with another nobleman (Thomas Mowbray), Richard ordered that the two of them should fight to the death, and God would be on the just man’s side. The King of England was not acting so much like a petulant child this time, but like a Roman Emperor in the Colosseum. Just as the combatants were about to charge at each other, Richard threw down his staff, stopping the fight and resuming judgement to himself. The final decision was that Henry was to go into exile for ten years, while Mowbray was to go into exile for the rest of his life.

While in exile in Paris in 1399, Henry Bolingbroke heard the news that his father John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster had died. He also heard the news that Richard had wasted no time in seizing all of Lancaster’s possessions – and thus Henry’s inheritance. This act of greed from Richard only spurred Henry on in his return to England.

Although Richard still felt relatively safe in England as he thought that France was on his side, his luck would soon change. The Duke of Burgundy was forced out of Paris because of plague, and that ultimately left Henry Bolingbroke free to do as he pleased. Henry left France with a fleet of ten ships and landed on the Yorkshire coast. Upon hearing this news, Richard fled to Wales and sought safety in some of Edward I’s great Welsh castles.

Henry knew that his cousin was likely to flee and managed to persuade him out of hiding with the promise that he had only returned to claim his inheritance and had no intention of threatening the crown itself. This was a lie, but it worked. As Richard emerged from the gates of Flint Castle in North-East Wales, an ambush of Henry’s men laid in wait for him. The King of England was now his cousin’s prisoner.

Richard abdicated his throne to God (having no legitimate children), but Henry Bolingbroke took the empty throne for himself. His claim was also a legitimate one: like Richard, he was descended directly from Henry III: Richard from Henry’s eldest son Edward (Edward I), Bolingbroke from Henry III’s second son Edmund, Earl of Lancaster.

Henry IV, (r. 1399-1413).
The first king of the House of
Lancaster.

In less than twelve weeks, Henry Bolingbroke had gone from landless exile to Henry IV, King of England. However, even though Richard II had been deposed by law, he was still an anointed monarch, which Henry was not. Henry knew this, and he also knew from Richard’s last ‘exile’, that he was not safe unless Richard was dead. Nevertheless, Henry did not wat blood on his hands (literally) for the murder of Richard. Instead, he left him to starve to death in Pontefract Castle. And sometime circa St. Valentine’s Day 1400, Richard II died, a starved wreck of a man he could have been.

Richard II should never have been king. But then again, the same could easily be said for Henry II, the very first Plantagenet. The Plantagenet dynasty had come to an end. Almost 150 years of direct descendants from 1154 to 1399 had finally culminated with a king who had the attitude of a manipulative and spoiled child. No other medieval European dynasty would hold as much power as the Plantagenets in the High Middle Ages, and especially not into the fifteenth century. Over the course of the next one hundred years following Richard II’s death there were seven kings, in comparison to the eight Plantagenets in 150 years. Of those seven kings, three were murdered, one was killed on the battlefield, three died in their beds and one followed Henry IV’s own personal example of usurping the throne. But that’s a completely different story for another blog post! 

The Plantagenets Mini-Series Part III: Edward I and Edward II

Edward I

Born: 17 or 18 June 1239, Palace of Westminster, London, England

Succeeded: Henry III (his father)

Coronation: 19 August 1274

Marriage: Eleanor of Castile (m. 1254, died 1290); Margaret of France (m. 1299)

Reigned: 20 November 1272 – 7 July 1307

Died: 7 July 1307, Burgh by Sands, Cumberland, England

Preceded: Edward II (his eldest surviving son)

Edward I (r. 1272-1307)

Edward I (also known as Longshanks for his 6’2” height) was in Sicily in 1272 when he learned of his father’s death. However, he did not rush back to England. Firstly, he paid homage to King Philip III of France (the son and heir of Louis IX), and allegedly said to him: ‘I do you homage for all the lands which I ought to hold of you.’

Edward’s first task as king was to reunite his realm, divided by the bitter baronial wars under Henry III. Yet rather than punishing the barons for defying the Crown, Edward instead forgave them and allowed them to buy their properties (which had been confiscated) back. This was a good diplomatic move from Edward: it made him seem magnanimous, while it also raised funds for the Crown. Moreover, Edward had also learned from the rebel barons that the power lay in the towns and villages, so set out to find information on corruption, once again reinforcing the relationship between the king and the people versus the ‘fat cats’. This particular corruption was recorded in a document known as the Hundred Rolls.

The Hundred Rolls were too detailed to gather any real problems, though. For instance, one example is that of Hugo Bunting, bailiff of Stamford, who levied an illicit toll of five shillings on William Gabbecrocky when he took some of his millstones through the middle of the town. Imagine this level of detail, multiplied by the entire country! As a result, very few prosecutions took place, but the public relations counted: Edward was showing that he could guarantee rights for all of his subjects, and that he cared about the people. It was a fantastic start to his reign and also an effective answer to the barons who claimed that a strong royal government equated to an oppressive royal government.

The next problem facing Edward was from over the border: Wales. By the 1270s, Wales had experienced their first taste of nationhood: taking advantage of Henry III’s baronial wars, Llwelyn the Great and his grandson Llwelyn ap Gryffydd had extended control over the majority of Wales from their base in Snowdonia in 1276, but Edward did not want to accept Wales as an independent power. Instead, Edward insisted on the homage – or ritual submission – which the rulers of Wales traditionally paid to the kings of England. Llwelyn was summoned three times and refused all three times. As a result, Edward declared war on Wales on 12 November 1276.

Llwelyn’s army was no match for Edward’s, and Wales were forced to accept English laws by 9 November 1277. It had taken Edward just short of a year to force the Welsh king into submission. Upon the victory, Edward imposed a peace treaty on Wales, but they found it humiliating, and it also failed to give Daffydd ap Gryffydd (Llwelyn’s brother) the rewards he expected. In 1282 the Welsh rebelled again.

Wales faced another huge English army, but rather than the hand-to-hand combat of the 1276-77 campaign, Edward instead opted to lay siege to Snowdonia and starve them out. Wales was crushed under this military occupation. Edward also declared that waging war against the king was treason – a new crime which needed a new punishment. Daffydd was the first to suffer at the hands of this punishment: he was hung, drawn and quartered. It was another resounding victory for Edward I against Wales.

By the mid-1280s, Edward’s empire was at its peak: it stretched from east to west across the British Isles, but the Philip III was threatening his lands in Gascony, while Scotland was almost about to fall into his hands. In 1286, King Alexander III of Scotland was killed when he fell off his horse, and his only granddaughter, Margaret the ‘Maid of Norway’ was seen as his heir. Edward I proposed that she should marry his son and heir, Prince Edward. The Scottish magnates agreed to this proposal at the Treaty of Birgham in July 1290, but insisted that Scotland should retain its own laws and customs.

John Balliol (r. 1292-96)

Unfortunately for Scotland, Margaret died aged 6 in Orkney in September 1290. Edward seized this opportunity to assert his overlordship for the throne of Scotland. He proposed John Balliol to be king of Scotland (Balliol’s claim was through the fact that he was David I’s [r. 1124-53] great-great-great-grandson through his mother, and therefore one generation closer than his main rival Robert Bruce, grandfather of the famous Robert the Bruce). On St. Andrew’s Day 1292, Balliol was enthroned and proclaimed King of Scotland at Scone.

Yet this had not gone as smoothly as it seems. In order to fund the conquests and parliaments in Scotland, Edward had had to tax the population heavily, and eventually he expelled the Jews in 1290. Approximately 3000 left and did not return until they were invited back by Cromwell over 300 years later. Anti-Semitism was rife in England in the late thirteenth century, and ne chronicler reported that knights of the shire were so pleased about the Jews’ expulsion that they offered one-fifteenth of their goods to Edward I as tax, while the church also donated generously. It yielded £116,000 – the single biggest tax collected in Britain during the entire Middle Ages. Historian Marc Morris actually states that the expulsion of the Jews was ‘the most popular act Edward ever committed.’

Up until Balliol’s crowning, Edward was justified in his claim that his actions had helped to maintain peace in Scotland. But from 1292 onwards, his controlling treatment of the Scots ultimately provoked a long and disastrous war. In 1295, Edward summoned the Model Parliament (as per Magna Carta, people could not be taxed without their consent, and Edward needed the funds in order to wage war against Philip IV and Scotland) in order to vote whether to continue funding for his conflicts. Fierce resistance to the English did not help the Scottish cause, and war had also broken out in France.

Edinburgh Castle

However, as Scotland had been so close to Edward’s grasp since 1292, he did not give up on the Scottish cause. This contributes to Edward’s namesake, ‘Hammer of the Scots.’ Scotland was provoked into rebellion, and Berwick was the first town to fall. Edward reclaimed it, and then took Dunbar. He famously besieged Edinburgh castle overnight in November 1296 after five days, and then Sterling fell before Edward had even arrived. Edward I boasted that Scotland had fallen in just 21 weeks. Most significantly in the Siege of Edinburgh Castle, Edward I had removed the Stone of Scone, the sacred stone on which Scottish kings had been crowned upon for 400 years. He took it to Westminster Abbey and it was kept there for the next 700 years!

After defeating the Scots so easily in 1296, Edward turned his attention to France. He left for Gascony on 24 August 1297, and left John de Warenne to subdue to Scottish revolts. On 11 September, de Warenne’s forces met the Scottish leader William Wallace’s forces on the banks of the River Forth, near Sterling Bridge. After lengthy negotiations, Huge Cressingham (England’s treasurer of Scotland) lost patience and crossed the bridge to meet Wallace. Wallace’s troops slaughtered the vanguard while the English could do nothing but look on helplessly. Cressingham was killed, and his skin was apparently made into a belt for Wallace.

In France, the Flanders campaign was collapsing. None of the German soldiers Edward had paid for turned up, while the French were suffering financial problems of their own, so a truce was agreed in October 1297.

Edward returned to England in March 1298. In May, he moved his government to York, to help administer the war effort. In June, he mustered an army of 28,000 men at Roxburgh just over the Scottish border, and battle commenced on 22 July 1298. Similarly to his Welsh campaigns of the 1270s and 1280s, the English army completely outnumbered their opponents, and they won a resounding victory.

The years from 1298-1303 saw very little action north of the border, and any of the minor campaigns achieved very little. The Lanercost chronicler commented on the campaign of 1300, saying that ‘the king did nothing remarkable this time against the Scots whose land he entered, because they always fled before him, skulking in moors and woods; wherefore his army was taken back to England.’

However, in 1305, William Wallace was betrayed by Edward I, and Edward decided to make an example of him. He put him on trial and executed him in London in the same manner Daffydd had been 23 years earlier. In Scotland, Robert the Bruce crowned himself king in 1306, despite the absence of the Stone of Destiny. As with Wales in the 1280s, Edward saw Scottish resistance not as war, but as rebellion against his legitimate rule.

In 1307, Edward was on his way north to Scotland to wage war against Bruce when he fell ill. On 7 July 1307, Edward I died. His body was sent back to Westminster Abbey, and the words ‘Malleus Scoturum’ (Hammer of the Scots) are inscribed on his tomb. Edward’s death was kept a secret for almost a fortnight. 

The chronicler Walter of Guisborough wrote that anybody who spoke about it was imprisoned. Most chroniclers wrote about how England was in despair after Edward’s death, and when the news reached Pope Clement V he reportedly could not stand because of grief. Other chroniclers also shared their views about Edward’s death: Peter Langtoft, an English chronicler, wrote that ‘[Edward I] was so noble and great, so potent in arms, that a man could talk of him for as long as the world endures.’ In contrast, Scottish chronicler John of Fordun wrote that ‘[Edward I] stirred up war as soon as he had become a knight…he troubled the whole world by his wickedness and roused it by his cruelty…’

Edward I’s legacy as a king is second to none. Undoubtedly, he was one of the greatest kings in the medieval world, and certainly one of the most renowned Plantagenets. His reputation is helped slightly by the fact that his reign was so successful because he fell in between to less-successful kings. But nevertheless, he deserves all praise in his own right. He subdued the Welsh and the Scots, and for brief periods between 1296-97 and 1304-06, he ruled over the entirety of the British Isles. No monarch had managed to do this before him, and it would not be achieved again until the seventeenth century. However, the story of Edward I’s successor, Edward II, is very different.

Edward II

Born: 25 April 1284, Caernarfon Castle, Gwynedd, Wales

Succeeded: Edward I (his father)

Coronation: 25 February 1308

Marriage: Isabella of France (m. 1308)

Reigned: 8 July 1307 – 20 January 1327

Died: 21 September 1327, Berkeley Castle, Gloucestershire, England

Preceded: Edward III (his eldest son)

Edward II (r. 1307-27)

Edward II was the fourteenth child of sixteen children that Edward I and Eleanor of Castile had, and the fourth eldest son: all three of his older brothers (John, Henry and Alphonso) all died before they were 12 years old, and before Edward I died. Edward II’s chance of becoming king was slim from the onset, but stranger things have happened in British history for sure!

Edward II was born in Caernarfon Castle in Wales on 25 April 1284, two years after his father had subdued the second Welsh rebellion. In April 1290, he was betrothed to Margaret Maid of Norway, but she died before they had even met. In 1299, in order to facilitate an Anglo-French peace, Edward was betrothed to Philip IV’s daughter Isabella, but they did not marry until after Edward came to the throne. In 1301, Edward became the first heir to the English throne to bear the title ‘Prince of Wales’.

There were accusations that Edward II had a homosexual relationship with a French nobleman called Piers Gaveston. This plagued Edward’s reign and his reputation as a king. He had asked Edward I to bestow some lands upon Gaveston, and Edward I allegedly replied ‘You want to give lands away? You, who never won any?’ and threw him out of a room. Gaveston was then exiled from England for six months.

Edward II was crowned upon his father’s death. He was present at Loudon Hill in Scotland where Edward I died. According to the fourteenth-century chronicler Jean Froissart, upon his death, Edward I asked Edward II to carry his bones on campaign with him in Scotland. Instead, Edward II sent his body back to Westminster, and this is what cursed his reign, according to Froissart.

After the failure at Loudon Hill in 1307, Edward II stayed out of Scotland for three years. He returned again in the winter of 1310-11, and it was another military disaster. England lost 10 castles. David Simpkin argues that it was either an example of his determination to succeed in Scotland like his father or an attempt to avoid meeting his adversaries in London and face the repercussions of another failed campaign. The anonymous chronicler and author of the Vita Edwardi Secundi contended that had Edward returned to London in the immediate aftermath of the campaign, that ‘death, imprisonment or worse would perhaps befall him.’

The result of the failed 1310-11 campaign led to the establishment of the Ordinances, a group of ‘Ordainers’ whom Edward was to consult before any further military campaigns. This idea relates to John and Henry III, and the struggles they both faced after the implementation of Magna Carta in 1216. 

Robert the Bruce (r. 1306-29)

In 1312, Piers Gaveston was captured and allegedly tried for treason, and then executed. Edward was furious and accused the Ordainers of murder, but nothing came of it. The Ordainers had removed the threat of Gaveston to the English throne by their logic. Edward then stayed out of Scotland for a further two years after 1312, and this was a huge diplomatic error, as it gave Robert Bruce more power and the upper hand in the Scottish Wars of Independence. Bruce reclaimed Roxburgh Castle and Edinburgh Castle in early 1314 and essentially invited Edward into battle with him. 

The resulting confrontation was the Battle of Bannockburn, one of the most catastrophic defeats in English military history. Although it only lasted from 23 – 24 June 1314, the losses were enormous. From their camp on the south side of the Bannockburn, an English knight (Alexander de Seton) slipped away into the Scottish camp and told Bruce’s forces that morale was low: ‘Sir, if ever you intend to undertake to reconquer Scotland, the time is now. The English have lost heart and are discouraged.’ However, de Seton’s escape from the English camp was not the reason for defeat at Bannockburn.

The Earl of Gloucester argued with the Earl of Hereford over who should lead the vanguard, and he also argued with Edward II, leading to Edward accusing Gloucester of cowardice. Provoked by the king’s comments, Gloucester advanced to meet the Scottish forces and was killed. The Scots pushed the English back into the Bannockburn stream, and, hemmed in against the river banks, the English lost formation and broke rank. The battle was a disaster. According to the contemporary chronicler John of Trokelowe, Edward ‘fought like a lion’ and had to be dragged away from the battlefield. Regardless of personal bias from the chroniclers, it was clear that the defeat humiliated Edward as a military leader, especially given the success of his father on the battlefield.

In the aftermath of Bannockburn, the Vita Edwardi Secundi argued that Bruce’s army numbered 40,000 men to England’s 20,000. This has since been disproved: it is highly unlikely that Bruce’s army numbered even 6000 men, compared to England’s 20,000 soldiers. Harold Hutchinson, one of the few historians sympathetic towards Edward II, argues that the huge numbers of English soldiers undoubtedly led to overconfidence among the ranks.

Following the defeat in Scotland and upon his return to England, circumstances went from bad to worse for Edward II. Torrential rains in the summer and autumn and a harsh winter of 1314-15 killed sheep, cattle and other livestock, and led to a famine in England. The bad weather continued almost relentlessly until 1321, but it was between 1315-17 that the famine affected England the most. The famine also affected Scotland too, and both English and Scottish forces on the border raided their opposing country to try and steal crops. It was during this period that Bruce raided as fair south as Yorkshire.

And Edward’s next conflict was in Yorkshire – the Battle of Byland Abbey, on 14 October 1322. Once again, it was another defeat for Edward. The Scots had surpassed the English with their warfare techniques, and had abandoned the warhorse for more foot soldiers, resulting in a quick and resounding victory for the Scots.

In an attempt to bring peace between England and Scotland, Andrew Harclay, First Earl of Carlisle, signed a secret peace treaty with Bruce in January 1323. The treaty would recognise Bruce as rightful king of Scotland in return for protection of the northern English counties from Scottish raids. Edward II found out about the treaty and was enraged and had Harclay executed. Rather hypocritically and ironically, Edward then signed the Truce of Bishopthorpe in May 1323 which recognised Bruce as the rightful king of Scotland, and was to keep peace for fifteen years.

It was not just Scotland that troubled Edward II. In France, the War of Saint-Sardos broke out in 1324. Edward’s brother-in-law Charles had become king of France in 1322 (Charles IV), and was significantly more aggressive than his predecessors. In 1323, he demanded that Edward come to Paris and pay homage to him. Edward refused, and a group of Edward’s soldiers hung a French official in October 1323, leading to relations to sour further between the two kings, leading to a confrontation in Gascony.

Edward’s army in Gascony was 4400 strong, while Charles’ – commanded by Charles of Valois – was 7000 strong. Valois took the Agenais and cut off Bordeaux, and successfully ended the war less than six weeks after it had begun. It was another military failure for Edward, although given the numbers of the armies, it is understandable that the English did not win.

The fact that Edward had invaded his wife’s lands infuriated her. For the most part, they were a distant couple anyway (which enhanced rumours of Edward’s alleged homosexuality), but he still expected her to return to England. Instead, she stayed in France with her brother and Edward’s son and heir, Prince Edward.

By 1326, when Isabella had still not returned to England, it was clear that she was having an affair with Roger Mortimer, one of the exiled Marcher Lords from the “Civil War” of 1321. Both Isabella and Mortimer wanted rid of Edward II and a noble family who had been on the royalist side of the 1321 conflict, the Despensers. Edward’s opponents gathered around Isabella and Mortimer in France, and Edward feared that they would invade England.

In August and September 1326, Edward mobilised defences along the south and east coasts of England to protect against a possible invasion. He also issued a nationalistic appeal for people to defend England, but as both he and the Despensers were widely disliked, it came to little avail.

On 24^th September 1326, Roger Mortimer, Isabella, Prince Edward and Edward II’s half-brother Edmund of Woodstock arrived on the Suffolk coastline and were met with very little resistance. From his base at the Tower of London, Edward attempted to gather support from Londoners, but instead his government turned against him. Edward fled from England, and into Wales.

Upon reaching Cardiff, Edward went into hiding in Caerphilly Castle, while his authority completely collapsed in England, under Isabella and Mortimer’s rule. He then fled to Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire, where it was deemed more secure, but on the night of 21 September 1327, Edward II died.

According to some contemporary chroniclers, Edward was murdered with the aid of a red-hot poker, but again this is just a claim likely related to the rumours of his homosexuality. Nevertheless, on 23 September, Edward III was informed of his father’s death, and the tumultuous start to his reign begun.

Edward II’s legacy is a difficult one to decipher. For some contemporaries, he was a useless king, a homosexual and a weak military leader, and this rhetoric was also echoed by historians up until the late twentieth century. However, as societal changes came around in the twenty-first century, historians do not regard Edward’s possible homosexuality as a weak factor in his kingship. It is also worth noting that Edward II’s reign followed Edward I’s and preceded Edward III’s – two of the finest warrior kings in medieval Europe, and they were always going to overshadow Edward II’s reign. But more on Edward III next time!

The Plantagenets Mini-Series Part II: King John and Henry III

The Plantagenets Mini-Series Part II: King John and Henry III

This is to accompany the second podcast episode and is Part II of the Plantagenets Mini-Series. This episode covered King John and Henry III.

King John

John (r. 1199-1216)

Born: 24 December 1166 in Beaumont Palace, Oxford, England

Succeeded: Richard I (his younger brother as Richard had no legitimate children. He was also Henry II’s youngest son)

Coronation: 27 May 1199

Marriage: Isabella, Countess of Gloucester (m. 1189, ann. 1199); Isabella, Countess of Angouleme (m. 1200 – John’s death)

Reigned: 27 May 1199 – 19 October 1216

Died: 19 October 1216, Newark Castle, Nottinghamshire, England

Preceded: Henry III (eldest surviving son)

John was coronated as King of England less than two months after the death of his older brother, Richard I. From the outset, it appeared that John was to be an unpopular king: according to historian Nicholas Vincent, John had been ‘spoiled by his mother, intimidated by his father and [he] had shown signs of unpleasantness from his early youth.’ When Henry II made John the overlord of Ireland at the tender age of 18, he apparently outraged the Irish kings by pulling their beards and laughing at them.

In expected fashion, the section covering King John in 1066 And All That is entitled ‘John: An Awful King’. Although it is a parody, it still enforces the common perception that John was indeed a bad king. But that is open to discussion!

Less than a year into his reign, John divorced his first wife to be betrothed to a southern French heiress in 1200. Isabella of Angouleme had previously been betrothed to a local baron who was so outraged that he openly rebelled against John. John’s fifteen-year-old nephew, Arthur of Brittany, also joined the baron in rebellion: Arthur was John’s older brother Geoffrey’s eldest surviving son (Geoffrey had died in 1186) and many contemporaries thought that Arthur had a better claim to the throne than John as the son of an elder brother, rather than the ‘wicked uncle.’ Nevertheless, John managed to crush Arthur’s rebellion, and – in similar fashion to Richard III almost 300 years later – the king’s nephew was imprisoned and then miraculously disappeared, never to be heard of again.

Like his father and brother, John spent the majority of his reign in Plantagenet territory on the Continent until his circumstances changed in December 1203. Philip II invaded Normandy, but rather than staying to fight, John left on a ship to Portsmouth. On 6 December 1203 (which was almost 49 years to the day that Henry II landed in England as the first Plantagenet king), Philip conquered Normandy. However, the loss of Normandy was not entirely John’s fault: both Henry II and Richard I had left England for long periods of time (in fact, England had not seen as much of their king since Stephen’s reign until John came to the throne), and they had left huge financial dents in the Crown.

This is the likely reason John became an ‘English’ king – he was forced to spend his time in England building up resources to attempt to recover Normandy. He was essentially duty-bound to do this: by 1204, Philip had overrun Normandy, Anjou, Maine, Touraine and all of Poitou bar La Rochelle. As unfortunate circumstances would have it, Philip was now a much more formidable enemy than he had been in Richard I’s reign.

John was also notorious for arguing with the Church: in 1205, he clashed with Pope Innocent III over a disputed election over the see of Canterbury, and in 1208 Innocent laid an interdict on England and Wales demanding that all church services were to be suspended for six years. As David Starkey states, the papal interdict was a ‘clerical strike, in which the clergy refused to say mass, bury corpses, or marry couples.’

Papal relations went from bad to worse for John, and in 1209 he was excommunicated. Although initially John appeared unfazed (because he had confiscated the Church’s estates which eased his financial problems), it would only be a matter of four years before he was back asking for forgiveness.

In 1212, Philip II planned to cross the Channel (which also coupled with a baronial rebellion), and this was enough to scare John into realising how vulnerable he was to invasion and rebellion because of his excommunication. He agreed to make peace with the Church so that he could have a free hand to deal with his enemies. However, this was not at a cheap cost: John had agreed to surrender his kingdom (England and Ireland) to the Pope and receive it back from him as a feudal dependency. John had also promised an annual sum of 1000 marks to Innocent III and his successors in perpetuity. Henry Knighton, a fourteenth-century chronicler, wrote that John had ‘turned himself from a free man into a slave’ for this submission to the Papacy.

Nevertheless, John led an army to Poitou in 1214 – almost ten years after his territory had been lost – but he was roundly defeated at the Battle of Bouvines on 27 July 1214. The battle was a huge gamble: the English were close to winning at one point when Philip II had been thrown off his horse, but the French fought back and overwhelmed the English. John could do nothing: he was at the mercy of his subjects.

Luck appeared to be on John’s side this time, though: in order for a successful rebellion, the rebels required leadership – but there were no obvious leaders. All of John’s brothers were dead, so there was no rival brother of the king to turn to; Prince Arthur had been ‘eliminated’ roughly ten years before this, and Prince Louis (the son of Philip II) was a Capetian Prince – hardly an attractive anti-king rebel leader.

Instead, the rebels devised a new form of revolt: a programme of reform. The rebels captured London and met John at a place near Windsor called Runnymede, and presented him with a document which became known as Magna Carta. The document was (as historians John Gillingham and Ralph A. Griffiths put it) ‘a hostile commentary on some of the more objectionable features of the last 60 years of [Plantagenet] rule.’

An extract from Magna Carta (1215)

Attempts to implement Magna Carta – which was unacceptable to John – led to further debates, revisions and quarrels. John appealed to Pope Innocent III saying that he had been forced to sign Magna Carta. Shockingly, Innocent agreed, and declared Magna Carta null and void.

Civil war broke out. Louis reached England in May 1216, and this was enough to make John sign Magna Carta. On 19 October 1216, King John died ‘unmourned and unloved’, leaving behind his nine-year-old son Prince Henry as his successor. The thirteenth-century chronicler Matthew Paris stated that ‘Foul as it is, hell itself is made fouler with the presence of John.’ This was one contemporary opinion that has survived through the ages to paint a picture of how we imagine most contemporaries felt under John’s rule.

So what legacy did John leave behind? Paris’ statement suggests that John’s reign was woeful, and this seems to be true for the most part, with regard to his atypical Plantagenet rage and personality, coupled with England’s territorial losses. Norman Davies argues that John ‘[lost the trust of his subjects] through repeated acts of tyranny, lost the Duchy of Normandy through defeat…and lost the initiative in English politics through the concessions of Magna Carta.’

Interestingly, John’s submission to Innocent III was the central issue in the history of his reign to many medieval chroniclers. There is more emphasis on this in Thomas Gray’s Scalachronica, the Eulogium Historiarum and even  in John Capgrave’s fifteenth century Chronicle of England. This highlights the importance of religion to the chroniclers of the time, and it is likely that only recently historians have begun viewing his social and domestic policies (such as his attitude, his loss in Normandy or the outbreak of civil war leading to Magna Carta) as worse than his submission to the Pope due to societal changes.

It does not help John’s cause that he came after a largely favoured, romanticised warrior king in Richard I, and a seemingly harmless king in Henry III, making him seem all the more unsuccessful, evil and selfish. However, as ever with Plantagenet kings, nothing is as easy as it seems – and this was definitely the case for Henry III.

Henry III

Born: 1 October 1207, Winchester Castle, Hampshire, England

Henry III (r. 1216-72)

Succeeded: John (his father)

Coronation: 28 October 1216 at Gloucester Abbey; 17 May 1220 at Westminster Abbey

Marriage: Eleanor of Provence on 14 January 1236 at Canterbury Cathedral

Reigned: 28 October 1216 – 16 November 1272

Died: 16 November 1272, Westminster, England

Preceded: Edward I (eldest son)

Despite being named after his grandfather, Henry III bore very few similarities to Henry II. Nicholas Vincent states that he was ‘one of those unfortunate kings famed neither for great wickedness nor for outstanding worth.’ This is a typical overview of Henry III – and a largely true one. Although he ruled England for 56 years, Henry III is still one of the most understudied Plantagenet kings, and very few biographies have appeared on him in recent years. He is mostly known for the longevity of his reign, his enthusiasm for building churches, and his infatuation with Edward the Confessor.

Henry was only 9 when he ascended the throne upon his father’s death. In fairness to John, he had insisted with papal authority that he wanted Henry to succeed him in order to keep the Plantagenet dynasty alive. Henry was coronated immediately in Gloucester Abbey after his father’s death: it was a clear attempt to prevent the barons organising a coronation for Prince Louis in Westminster Abbey first where he might be ‘officially’ received as king.

The question of Magna Carta had not yet disappeared: it was reissued in 1217, and the idea of Parliament was born: the King as the highest member of the council by which England was governed. Even though Henry had very little say in the early years of his reign (he was a minor, so was governed by a body of representatives), his reign initially appeared to be one of success: the ageing regent William Marshal was victorious at the Battle of Lincoln on Saturday 20 May 1217 against Prince Louis’ forces, while Hubert de Burgh (the Justiciar of England) was victorious at the Battle of Sandwich where he intercepted a Capetian fleet off the coast of Dover on 24 August 1217.

However, the relations between Henry’s advisors soon soured as they all fought for personal and political gain. In particular, Hubert de Burgh and Peter des Roches (the French-born Bishop of Winchester) clashed, and in 1223 des Roches attempted to persuade Pope Honorius III to rid Henry’s minority of excessive governors: this plan backfired, and it was eventually de Burgh who edged des Roches from power. Finally, at the age of 19, Henry was declared of age and fit to rule independently.

Henry wanted to recapture Plantagenet territory that had been lost during John’s reign, but none of his advisors had any particular enthusiasm for this, as their families did not have lands in France. Amidst one of these quarrels, the now King Louis VIII of France captured La Rochelle and threatened to take Gascony in 1224. An expedition in 1225 consolidated the position in Gascony but made no attempt to recapture Poitou. After 1224, Gascony was the only territory that remained in Henry III’s hands from what Henry II, Richard I and even John had briefly held.

The 1230s were Henry’s most peaceful years, and arguably, for that reason alone, his most successful years as king. Contemporaries even wrote fairly favourably about him, including Matthew Paris, although this is debatable: Paris tells us (in parchment which was presumably not shown to Henry III) that Henry was interested in the writing of chronicles, and often asked Paris – whom Henry befriended – to show him what he had been writing. Naturally, Paris would not have shown Henry any documents which wrote critically about the Crown.

Cultural developments also came about in England, but not solely in the form of architecture: in 1235, Henry was gifted three ‘leopards’ (probably lions due to their geographical distribution and translation errors) by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. They were kept in the Tower of London and fascinated locals, who eventually had to pay to come and see them, or alternatively bring a cat or dog to feed to them. This collection of animals grew and became London’s first zoo. King Haakon IV of Norway gifted Henry ‘a magnificent white bear’ (likely a polar bear) in 1252 which swam and hunted for fish in the River Thames, and Louis IX gave him an African elephant in 1255.

However, the onset of the 1240s brought about a different tone in Henry’s reign. The construction of Westminster Cathedral had begun in 1245, and almost bankrupted Henry. It was not to be completed for another 25 years. However, due to Magna Carta, the barons began to have more of an influence in these years, and things took a turn for the worse when Henry invited his half-siblings over from France in 1247.

The Lusignans (Henry’s half-siblings and their families from his mother’s previous marriage) automatically assumed positions of political importance, much to the barons’ distaste. The barons did not appreciate that foreigners could automatically assume governmental positions, and found themselves a leader to contest this notion in the form of another one of English history’s most famous names: Simon de Montfort.

Simon de Montfort was, ironically from the barons’ perspective, a Frenchman. He had been Earl of Leicester since 1231, and Henry made him his governor of Gascony. In 1238, de Montfort married Eleanor (Henry’s youngest sister). Henry admired de Montfort, but this feeling was not mutual – de Montfort felt that Henry was dispensable while he was not: ultimately, their relationship collapsed in 1252 when Henry sacked de Montfort from his position in Gascony. This was a grave tactical error on Henry’s behalf, as de Montfort inadvertently became the ideal leader figure for the barons.

Similarly, in 1252, Pope Innocent IV offered Henry the kingdom of Sicily and Henry accepted on his son Edmund’s behalf in 1254. However, Sicily was already held by Manfred (an illegitimate son of Frederick II). Henry absurdly agreed to finance the conquest of Sicily and pay of the Pope’s debts (135,000 marks). The barons had had enough. They took governmental power out of Henry’s hands and it resulted in a far-reaching programme of reform.

Firstly, the Provisions of Oxford in October 1258 asserted the authority of the barons’ representation in the King’s government and also demonstrated the barons’ ability to press their concerns in opposition to the monarchy. The Provisions of Westminster in October 1259 also reinforced the earlier provisions, as well as furthering taxation reforms. Naturally, Henry was outraged that power had been taken out of an adult king’s hands, and England teetered on the brink of civil war. Eventually, this culminated in the period known as the Second Barons’ War (1264-67).

Simon de Montfort led the rebels against Henry. Fortunately for the rebels, de Montfort had been a crusader, and crushed Henry’s forces at the Battle of Lewes on 14 May 1264. Prince Edward, Henry’s eldest son, fought valiantly and won his area of the battle, but de Montfort’s forces were too well organised and defeated Henry’s army. Prince Edward escaped from captivity and raised another force over the course of a year. Fifteen months later, the two forces met again, at the Battle of Evesham on 4 August 1265. This time, Prince Edward was successful. Not only did his army defeat de Montfort’s, but de Montfort was killed, and dismembered on the battlefield.

Despite the threat of de Montfort being no more, the civil war lingered on until 1267, when the final pockets of resistance were looted out. The Statute of Marlborough passed in 1267 effectively ended the Second Barons’ War (much how the 1217 signing of Magna Carta had ended the First Barons’ War), and thus brought the civil war in England to an end as well. Some contemporaries and historians alike have compared Simon de Montfort to Thomas Becket, but that can be a whole other topic for a different podcast altogether!

Westminster Abbey. Henry III's greatest
legacy?

By 1269, Westminster Abbey had finally been completed, and was the grandest church in Western Europe. Henry had nearly bankrupted the crown, but he had a monument left to unite parliament and royalty in a magnificent church. At the heart of the Abbey was a shrine to Edward the Confessor.

Henry III died in Westminster, on 16 November 1272, aged 65. His 56 year reign had seen two civil wars, but it had also seen the building of one of the finest churches in England, the introduction of exotic animals to England, and a fairly agreeable middle ground between the King and Parliament. Although this issue was to plague monarchs for the majority of English history, Henry III should not be seen as a ‘boring’ king just because he was not a warrior or involved in massive controversies. 

His eldest son Edward succeeded him and started the Edwardian period of the Middle Ages – a period which brought about changes in warfare, politics and domestic policy that had never been seen before. Plantagenet focus shifted from France to Scotland, and a war on the northern frontiers of the Plantagenet empire erupted. More of that next time though!

 Further Reading

If you found this interesting, or you’d like to read more around it, here’s a list of books I can recommend. I’ve used some of them in this blog post (see the books in bold) and cited the relevant authors where necessary. The majority of these books can be picked up cheaply second-hand from websites such as eBay, Amazon and Abe Books.

Norman Davies, Europe: A History (London: The Bodley Head, 2014)

John Gillingham & Ralph A. Griffiths, Medieval Britain: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000)

Chris Given-Wilson, Chronicles: The Writing of History in Medieval England (London: Hambledon and London, 2004)

Simon Jenkins, A Short History of England (London: Profile Books Ltd, 2012)

W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman, 1066 And All That (London: Methuen & Co. Ltd, 1930) (the edition I’ve used is the 1999 reprint)

David Starkey, Crown & Country. The Kings and Queens of England: A History (London: Harper Press, 2010)

Nicholas Vincent, A Brief History of Britain 1066-1485: The Birth of the Nation (London: Robinson, 2011)