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Plantagenet

Edward III

1327-77

Early Life

The charismatic Edward III, one of the most dominant personalities of his age, was born at Windsor Castle on 13th of November, 1312 and created Earl of Chester at four days old.

Edward was aged fourteen at his ill fated father's abdication, he had accompanied his mother to France where she and her lover, Roger Mortimer, Earl of March, planned his father's overthrow. Edward II was later murdered in a bestial fashion at Berkeley Castle. Although nominally King, he was in reality the puppet of Mortimer and his mother, who ruled England through him.

A tall, handsome and approachable youth, Edward drew inspiration from the popular contemporary tales of chivalry. He was married to his first cousin, Phillipa, the daughter of William the Good, Count of Hainault and Holland and Jeanne of Valois, granddaughter of Phillip III of France. The marriage, celebrated at York Minster on 24th January, 1328, was a happy one, the two became very close and produced a large family. Phillipa was kind and inclined to be generous and exercised a steadying influence on her husband. Their eldest son Edward, later known as the Black Prince, was born on 15th June 1330, when his father was eighteen. Phillipa of Hainault was a popular Queen Consort, who was widely loved and respected, and theirs was a very close marriage, despite Edward's frequent infidelities. She frequently acted as Regent in England during Edward's absences in France. Froissart describes her as being "tall and upright, wise, gay, humble, pious, liberal and courteous."

Personal Rule

It seems Edward had been fond of his father Edward II. By the Autumn of 1330, when he reached eighteen, he strongly resented his political position and Mortimer's interference in government. Aided by his cousin, Henry, Earl of Lancaster and several of his lords, Edward lead a coup d'etat to remove Mortimer from power. The Dowager Queen's lover was arrested at Nottingham Castle. Stripped of his land and titles, Mortimer was accused of assuming Royal authority. Isabella's pleas for her son to show mercy were ignored. Without the benefit of a trial, Mortimer was sentenced to death and executed at Tyburn. Isabella herself was shut up at Castle Rising in Norfolk, where she could meddle in affairs of state no more, but she was granted an ample allowance and permitted to live in comfort. Troubled in his conscience about the part he had been made to play in his father's downfall, Edward built an impressive monument over his father's burial place at Gloucester Cathedral.

Edward renewed his granddfather, Edward I's war with Scotland and repudiated the Treaty of Northampton, that had been negotiated during the regency of his mother and Roger Mortimer. This resulted in the Second War of Scottish Independence. he regained the border town of Berwick and won a decisive victory over the Scots at Halidon Hill in 1333, placing Edward Balliol on the throne of Scotland. By 1337, however, most of Scotland had been recovered by David II, the son of Robert the Bruce, leaving only a few castles in English hands

The Hundred Years War

The Capetian dynasty of France, from whom King Edward III descended through his mother, Isabella of France, (the daughter of Phillip IV, 'the Fair') became extinct in the male line. The French succession was governed by the Salic Law, which prohibited inheritance through a female.

Edward's maternal grandfather, Phillip IV died in 1314 and was suceeded by his three sons Louis X, Philip V, and Charles IV in succession. The eldest of these, Louis X, died in 1316, leaving only his posthumous son John, who was born and died that same year, and a daughter Joan, whose paternity was suspect. On the death of the youngest of Phillip's sons, Charles IV, the French throne therefore descended to the Capetian Charles IV's Valois cousin, who became Phillip VI.

As the grandson and nephew of the last Capetian kings, Edward considered himself to be a far nearer relative than a cousin. He quartered the lilies of France with the lions of England in his coat-of-arms and formally claimed the French throne through right of his mother. By doing so Edward began what later came to be known as the Hundred Years War. The conflict was to last for 116 years from 1337 to 1453.

The French were utterly defeated in a naval battle at Sluys on 24th June, 1340, which safeguarded England's trade routes to Flanders. This was followed up by an extraordinary land victory over Phillip VI at Crécy-en-Ponthieu, a small town in Picardy about mid-way between Paris and Calais. The Battle of Crecy was fought on 26th August, 1346, where a heavily outnumbered English army of around 15,000, defeated a French force estimated to number around 30,000 to 40,000. French losses were enormous and it was at Crecy that the King's eldest son, Edward, Prince of Wales, otherwise known as the Black Prince, so named for the colour of his armour, famously won his spurs.

Edward then laid siege to the port of Calais in September, which, after a long drawn out siege, eventually fell into English hands in the following August. Edward was determined to make an example of the unfortunate burghers of Calais, but the gentle Queen Phillipa, heavily pregnant, interceded with her husband, pleading for their lives. Calais was to remain in English hands for over two hundred years, until it was lost to the French in 1558, during the reign of the Tudor queen, Mary I.

The war with Scotland was resumed. Robert the Bruce was long dead, but his successor, David II, seized the chance to attack England while Edward III's attention was engaged in France. The Scots were defeated at the Battle of Neville's Cross by a force led by William Zouche, Archbishop of York and the Scot's king, David II, taken prisoner to England, where he was housed in the Tower of London. After spending eleven years a prisoner in the Tower, he was released and allowed to return to Scotland for the huge ransom ransom of 100,000 Marks

The Black Prince covered himself in glory when he vanquished the French yet again at Poiters in 1356. Where the French king, John II, was captured. A ransom was demanded for his return which ammounted to the equivalent of twice the country's yearly income. King John was accorded royal privileges whilst a prisoner of the English and was allowed to return to France in attempt to collect the huge ransom. Claiming to be unable to raise the ammount, he voluntarily re-submitted himself to English custody and died a few months later. Peace was then negotiated and by the Treaty of Bretigny of 1360 England retained the whole of Aquitaine, Ponthieu and Calais, in return Edward relinquished his claim to the French throne.

The Order of the Garter

Edward III was responsible for founding England's most famous order of chivalry, the The Order of the Garter. Legend has it that while dancing with the King at a ball, a Lady (said by some sources to be the Countess of Shrewsbury) was embarrassed to have dropped her garter. The King chivalrously retrieved it for her, picking it up, he tied it around his own leg, gallantly stating "Honi soit qui mal y pense."(evil to him who evil thinks). This became the motto of the order, a society of gartered knights based at St.George's Hall, Windsor Castle.

The Black Death

Disaster struck England in Edward III's reign, in the form of bubonic plague, or the Black Death, which cut a scythe across Europe in the fourteenth century, killing a third of it's population. It first reached England in 1348 and spread rapidly. In most cases the plague was lethal. Infected persons developed black swellings in the armpit and groin, these were followed by black blotches on the skin, caused by internal bleeding. These symptoms were accompanied by fever and spitting of blood. Contemporary medicine was useless in the face of bubonic plague, it's remorseless advance struck terror into the hearts of the medieval population of Europe, many in that superstitious age saw it as the vengeance of God. The population of England was decimated. King Edward III's daughter, Joanna, died of the plague whilst on her way to Bordeaux to marry Pedro of Castille.

In the aftermath of the Black Death there was inevitable social upheaval. Parliament tried to legislate on the problem by introducing the Statute of Laborers in 1351, which attempted to fix prices and wages.

The Death of Edward

Queen Phillipa died in August, 1369, of an illness similar to dropsy. The last years of Edward III's reign saw him degenerate to become a pale shadow of the ostentatious and debonair young man who had first set foot in France to claim its throne. His heir, Edward, the Black Prince, the flower of English chivalry, was stricken with illness and died before his father in June, 1376.

The King began to lean heavily on his grasping and avaricious mistress, Alice Perrers. Government of the kingdom passed to Edward's ambitious third son, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. In September 1376 the king was unwell and was said to be suffering from an abscess. He made a brief recovery but, in a fragile condition, suffered a stroke at Sheen on 12th June, 1377. It was said that Alice Perrers stripped the rings from his fingers before he was even cold. He was buried in Westminster Abbey and was succeeded by his grandson, Richard II, the eldest surviving son of the Black Prince.

Edward the Black Prince

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