Edward III of England
For the play, see Edward III (play).Edward III (
13 November 1312 –
21 June 1377) was one of the most successful
English kings of
medieval times. His fifty-year reign began when his father,
Edward II of England, was deposed on
25 January 1327, and lasted until 1377. Among his immediate predecessors, only
Henry III ruled as long, and it would be over 400 years before another monarch would occupy the throne for that duration.
[ See: List_of_Kings_of_England#Plantagenets] Edward's reign was marked by an expansion of English territory through wars in
Scotland and
France. Edward's parentage and his prodigious offspring provided the basis for two lengthy and significant events in European and British history, the
Hundred Years' War and the
Wars of the Roses, respectively.
Edward III, also later referred to as Edward of Windsor, left little information concerning his early years. His birthplace (perhaps Windsor castle) and details of his childhood were not well chronicled. The most significant event of his youth was when he was forced to do homage in place of his father. This both placed him in the French court with this mother, who was despised there and unhappy with her husband,
Edward II and created problems for his later territorial claims. Crowned at age 14 and married at 15, it
is known that he was strongly influenced by women throughout his long life. His mother literally captured his throne for him, his wife carefully guided him through many years of war, and his mistress shoved him into and through his dotage. The chronicles imply that Edward III welcomed these female influences, and he seemed eager to accept a new woman each time an older one became useless to him.
Edward III was crowned on
1 February 1327, at the age of 14, and married
Philippa of Hainault on
24 January,
1328. The couple produced thirteen children, including five sons who reached maturity. Their eldest son and Edward's heir apparent,
Edward the Black Prince (so called because he wore a black suit of armor) was born in
1330 and was a famed military leader. In the same year as Edward's marriage, his uncle
Charles IV of France died without male heirs. Charles' brothers had also died without male heirs. Charles' sister,
Isabella, was Edward's mother, making Edward the senior surviving male descendant of King
Philip IV (Charles' and Isabella's father) and giving Edward a strong claim to the French throne. At the time Edward's younger brother
John, Earl of Cornwall, was the only other living male descendant of Philip IV.
[Later, daughters of Louis X and Philip V produced further male issue, such as King Charles II of Navarre, Hereditary Duke Philip of Burgundy and Count Louis of Flanders)]Edward's accession to the English throne was of questionable legality as his father,
Edward II, was still alive at the time and was deposed in order for Edward to become king. There is still a debate today whether anyone had the authority to depose him. The deposition however set a precedent that would return after Edward's death. As Edward was still a teenager at the time the main actors were his mother
Isabella of France and her lover,
Roger Mortimer, who proceeded to rule the country in Edward III's name.
In
1330, the seventeen-year old Edward seized control over the English court, overthrowing Mortimer, who was executed, and removing Isabella from power and public life.
The reign of Edward III was marked by continued war with
Scotland, but much more by the
war with France. His first major military success was the
Battle of Halidon Hill in
1333, which he won in support of his puppet, the new Scottish king,
Edward Balliol, and to the detriment of his own brother-in-law
David II of Scotland, the Bruce, claimant and husband of Edward's sister
Joan of the Tower, princess of England.
Edward's claim to the French throne was contested by French nobles who invoked
Salic law, which held that the royal succession could not pass through a female line (such as Edward's mother Isabella, or Queen
Joan II of Navarre). The French nobles therefore asserted that the legitimate king of France was
Philip VI, Edward's cousin and heir to Charles of
Valois, a younger son of
Philip III. This however was only one issue in a war that would out live all of the original actors.
The conflict was rooted in one that dated back to
William the Conqueror. Since the English kings were also land holders in France there were continual issues that arose whenever these two came into conflict. The performances of homage and fealty were sources of contention. Every time a new King ascended to the French throne they would summon the Kings of England as holders of at first
Normandy and later Aquitaine to perform their duties as French lords. Since Edward outlived many of the French kings this was an often occurring source of conflict. Edward's main objective in the conflict was to secure his rights to his land in Aquitaine as Duke of Aquitaine. His claim to the French throne, although it can be considered legitimate, was used as a political tool of war.
Originally Edward concluded an alliance with
Emperor Louis IV in July
1337, declared war on
Philip VI and later declared himself king of France on
January 26 1340 in Ghent. It was only from 1340 on that he asserted his claim to the French throne even though he had a claim in
1328. The conflict became known as the
Hundred Years' War, continuing in hot and cold phases up to the
1450s. The war did not begin smoothly for Edward. He was forced to borrow large sums of money in order to finance his alliance with the Holy Roman Emperor. He bankrupted his creditors, was forced to pawn his crown, and eventually turned to a disastrous foray into the wool trade. However, in
1346, Edward defeated the French at the
Battle of Crecy, accompanied in this campaign by his sixteen year old son, the
Black Prince. This victory turned the war in favor of the English for a time. Because of the victory Edward was able to capture Calais, which became an English entry point to France.
The Black Prince commanded England's victorious army at the
Battle of Poitiers, in
1356. The first phase of the Hundred Years' War was concluded in
1360 with the
Treaty of Brétigny, marking the height of English influence in France and providing a three million crown ransom for the release of the captured French king,
John II.
While these victories were eventually reversed, and then won and lost again in the resulting generations of war, English and, later, British monarchs would continue to claim the title "King of France" until the
Treaty of Amiens in 1802. Edward III quartered his
coat of arms with "France Ancient", the Azure semé-de-lis (a blue shield with a tight pattern of small golden
fleur de lis of the French royal house), and it remained a part of the
English Coat of Arms until removed by
George III. For more information see
English Kings of France.
While the king and the prince campaigned abroad, the government was left largely in the hands of the prince's younger brother,
John of Gaunt. The war with France caused an unintentional shift in the English Economy. Until Edward's reign the main export of England had been wool going to the cloth centers in Flanders. The tax burden that was placed on the wool trade along with the shipping disruptions that it brought were responsible for the production of cloth to begin in England itself.
Edward's constant warfare overshadows considerable achievements in domestic affairs. Edward accomplished what no other medieval king was able to do: he created nationalism. Although this was partly accomplished by manipulating public opinion during the Hundred Years' War, Edward always kept public opinion and Parliament in mind. He was adept at unifying the country and the military under the throne of England and not under the manor's lord.
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Edward III depicted in Cassell's History of England (1902) |
The
Black Death, which struck twice during Edwards reign, has recently been shown not to be as large of a retarding factor on the English economy as once believed. Its main impact was to recede the expansion into marginal lands that had been undertaken in the previous half century. Taxation was the main source of royal revenue, which directly resulted in
Parliament's power increasing. Edward tried to keep Parliament's power limited by exploring alternate ways to raise funds but none proved as effective or easy as a Parliamentary tax.
The
Parliament of England became divided into two houses. At the beginning of Edward's reign,
French was still the language of the English
noblesse, following the
Norman invasion, but by the end this had changed - in 1362 English was made the official language of the law courts.
The king also founded an order of
knighthood, the
Order of the Garter, allegedly as a result of an incident when a lady, with whom he was dancing at a court ball, dropped an item of intimate apparel (possibly a sanitary belt, though sources describe it as being made of
velvet). Gallantly picking it up to assuage her embarrassment, Edward tied it around his own leg, and remarked
Honi soit qui mal y pense ('Shame on him who thinks evil of it'), which became the motto of the Order of the Garter. The woman in the incident is known only as the "Countess of Salisbury". Some say it was Edward's daughter-in-law,
Joan of Kent, but a more likely candidate is Joan's mother-in-law from her first marriage. This order was part of the war machine that Edward turned England into. The Order of the Garter headquarters would become Windsor Castle, a castle that was largely improved upon by Edward himself. Windsor became England's premier royal residence and castle during his reign.
Edward was also the first English king to grant the French Noble title of Duke to an English lord. His son Edward became the first English Duke by being named the
Duke of Cornwall. Most notable among the dukes that Edward created was the
Duke of Lancaster,
Henry of Grosmont, Edward's most trusted military commander and one of his followers who helped him remove Roger Mortimer and his mother from power.
Despite having an unusually happy marriage, and producing thirteen children with Philippa, Edward was a notorious womaniser. After Philippa's death in
1369, Edward's mistress,
Alice Perrers, became a byword for corruption.
Facing a resurgent French monarchy and losses in France, Edward asked Parliament to grant him more funds by taxing the wine and wool trades, but this was badly received in
1374â€"
1375 as a new outbreak of the
Black Death struck. The "
Good Parliament" of
1376 criticised Edward's councillors, including Alice Perrers' family, and advised him to limit his ambitions to suit his revenues.
Edward died of a
stroke brought on by severe constipation in
1377 He was said to have been infected with gonnorhoea by Alice Perrers. Supposedly, she was there when he died and removed the rings from his fingers before fleeing. Edward was buried in
Westminster Abbey. His son Edward, the Black Prince, predeceased him in
1376, and Edward III was succeeded by his young grandson, King
Richard II of England, son of Edward, the Black Prince.
Edward III is "often described as the ancestor of the British upper-middle class" (
Burke's Presidential Families of the USA, 1981) because he has many millions of living descendants, mostly through his sons
John of Gaunt and
Lionel of Antwerp. See
Royal Descent.
The sons and the Wars of the Roses
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Edward III and the Black Prince |
The
Wars of the Roses were a civil war over the throne of England fought among the descendants of King Edward III through his five surviving adult sons. Each branch of the family had competing claims through seniority, legitimacy, and/or the gender of their ancestors.
(1)
Edward, the Black Prince (
1330â€"
1376),
Duke of Cornwall,
Prince of WalesThe eldest son of Edward III predeceased his father and never became king. Edward's only surviving child was
Richard II who ascended to the throne but produced no heirs. Richard II designated as his
heir presumptive his cousin
Roger Mortimer, 4th Earl of March, senior heir of the female line, the grandson of Lionel of Antwerp, but this succession never took place as Richard II was eventually deposed and succeeded by another of Richard's cousins,
Henry IV, "Bolingbroke", who was senior heir of the male line.
(2) William of Hatfield (
16 February 1337 â€"
8 July 1337), he was buried at
York Minster.
(3)
Lionel of Antwerp (
1338â€"
1368),
Duke of ClarenceLionel also predeceased his father. Lionel's only child,
Philippa, married into the powerful
Mortimer family, which as noted above had exerted enormous influence during the reigns of Edward II and Edward III. Philippa's son
Roger Mortimer, 4th Earl of March was the designated heir of Richard II (but predeceased him, leaving his young son
Edmund as heir presumptive).
Anne Mortimer, Edmund's eldest sister, Lionel of Antwerp's great-granddaughter, married
Richard, Earl of Cambridge of the House of York, merging the Lionel/Mortimer line into the York line.
(4)
John of Gaunt (
1340â€"
1399),
Duke of Lancaster.
From John of Gaunt descended
legitimate male heirs, the
Lancasters (
Henry IV, who deposed Richard II, and then
Henry V and
Henry VI). This line ended when Henry VI was successfully deposed by
Edward IV, of the York faction, and Henry's son
Edward was killed. The Lancaster kings derived their ancestry also through Blanche, wife of John Gaunt, from Edmund of Lancaster the Crouchback, who was son of
Henry III of England â€" a legend without foundation was developed claiming that Edmund was older than his brother Edward I but passed over in the succession because of physical infirmity.
John of Gaunt's
illegitimate heirs were the
Beauforts, his descendants through his mistress (later, his wife)
Katherine Swynford. A daughter of the house, Gaunt's great-granddaughter
Margaret Beaufort, married into the
House of Tudor, producing a single child who would become
Henry VII. While the Beaufort offspring had been legitimized after Gaunt's eventual marriage to Swynford, this was on the condition that they be barred from ascending the throne. Undeterred by this, upon the failure of the primary Lancastrian line, the Tudors claimed precedence to the Yorks and eventually succeeded them.
[Note: John of Gaunt also had legitimate descendants through his daughters Philippa, Queen of Portugal, the mother of King
Duarte of Portugal; Elizabeth, Duchess of Exeter, the mother of
John Holland, 2nd Duke of Exeter; and Queen Catalina of Castile, a grand-daughter of
King Pedro I and the mother of
King Juan II, but these
Castilians engaged in their own wars over the Spanish succession and did not assert any claims to the English throne in the
Wars of the Roses â€" and they all were of the female line, something the Lancaster Claim avoided because they were originally secondary to certain senior female descents such as the Mortimers.]
(5)
Edmund of Langley (
1341â€"
1402),
Duke of York.
His descendants were the
Yorks. He had two sons:
Edward, Duke of York, killed fighting alongside
Henry V at the
Battle of Agincourt, and
Richard, Earl of Cambridge, executed by Henry V for treason (involving a plot to place heir presumptive
Edmund Mortimer, 5th Earl of March, Cambridge's brother-in-law and cousin, on the throne). As noted above, Richard had married Anne Mortimer, this giving their son (and the House of York), through Lionel of Antwerp, a more senior claim than that of both the House of Lancaster, which descended from a younger son than Lionel, and the House of Tudor, whose legitimized Beaufort ancestors had been debarred from the throne.
(6) Thomas of Windsor (
1347).
(7) William of Windsor (
24 June 1348 â€"
5 September 1348).
(8)
Thomas of Woodstock (
1355â€"
1397),
Duke of Gloucester.
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The Great Seal of Edward III |
Thomas, who was one of the
Lords Appellant influential under
Richard II, was murdered or executed for treason, likely by the order of Richard II; his eventual heir was his daughter
Anne, who married into the Stafford family, whose heirs became the
Dukes of Buckingham.
Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, descended on his father's side from Thomas of Woodstock, and on his mother's side from
John Beaufort. He rebelled against
Richard III in
1483 but failed to depose him. This failed rebellion left Henry Tudor as the Lancastrians' primary candidate for the throne.
Thus, the senior Plantagenet line was ended with the death of
Richard II, but not before the execution of
Thomas of Woodstock for treason. The heirs presumptive through
Lionel of Antwerp were passed over in favour of the powerful
Henry IV, descendant of Edward III through
John of Gaunt. These Lancaster kings initially survived the treason of their
Edmund of Langley (York) cousins but eventually were deposed by the merged Lionel/Edmund line in the person of
Edward IV. Internecine killing among the Yorks left
Richard III as king, supported and then betrayed by his cousin
Buckingham, the descendant of
Thomas of Woodstock. Finally, the Yorks were dislodged by the remaining Lancastrian candidate, Henry VII of the House of Tudor, another descendant of
John of Gaunt, who married the eldest daughter of Yorkist King
Edward IV.
The daughters
*
Isabella of England (
1332–
1382), married
Enguerrand VII de Coucy, 1st
Earl of Bedford*
Joan of England (1334-1348) died of the plague in
Bayonne, on her way to marry
Peter I of Castile*
Blanche Plantagenet (1342)
*
Mary Plantagenet (1344–1362), married
John V, Duke of Brittany*
Margaret Plantagenet (1346–1361), married
John Hastings, 2nd Earl of PembrokeSee also :
English monarchs family treehttp://economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=6795473
*
Chivalry during the Reign of King Edward III*
Edward III of England*
Genealogists Discover Royal Roots for All -- info on Edward III
See also
*
The Society of the Friends of St George's and Descendants of the Knights of the Garter
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