Edward III

Edward III (13 November 1312 – 21 June 1377), also known as Edward of Windsor before he became king, was King of England from January 1327 until his death in 1377. He is known for his military success and for restoring royal power after the troubled and unusual reign of his father, Edward II. Edward III made the Kingdom of England one of the most powerful military forces in Europe.

His reign of fifty years is one of the longest in English history. During this time, laws and government changed, especially the growth of the English Parliament. It was also a time when the Black Death, a terrible illness, spread across the land. Edward outlived his eldest son, Edward the Black Prince. He was followed as king by his grandson, Richard II.

Edward became king at the age of fourteen. His father was removed from the throne by his mother, Isabella of France, and her lover, Roger Mortimer. At seventeen, Edward led a successful coup d'état against Mortimer, who was the de facto ruler of England. Then Edward began to rule on his own. After a successful campaign in Scotland, he claimed to be the rightful heir to the French throne. This claim started the Hundred Years' War (1337–1453).

After some early setbacks, the first part of this war went very well for England. It became known as the Edwardian War. Victories at Crécy and Poitiers led to the Treaty of Brétigny (1360). This treaty was very favourable to England. England gained land, and Edward gave up his claim to the French throne. Edward's later years brought failures in foreign affairs and trouble at home. This happened mostly because he became less active and his health grew poor. The second phase of the Hundred Years' War began in 1369. By 1375, England had lost most of Edward's conquests, except for the Pale of Calais.

Edward could be short-tempered. He believed he could do remarkable things, such as healing people by the royal touch, as some earlier English kings had done. He was also capable of unusual mercy. In many ways he was a typical medieval king whose main interest was warfare, but he also had a wide range of interests beyond the military. He was admired in his own time and for centuries afterward. Later, Whig historians criticised him as an irresponsible adventurer. Modern historians, however, credit him with important achievements.

Background

King Edward II of England had court favourites that many nobles disliked, such as Piers Gaveston and Hugh Despenser the Younger. Gaveston was killed during a noble rebellion against Edward II in 1312. Despenser was also disliked by the English nobles. Ordinary people did not like Edward II either, because he kept asking them to serve in the army in Scotland without pay. His campaigns there failed, which made people like him even less. In 1322 he had his cousin, Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, killed and took over the Lancaster lands. The historian Chris Given-Wilson wrote that by 1325 the nobles felt that "no landholder could feel safe" under the king.

Edward II's wife, Isabella of France, also did not trust him. She believed Despenser had turned the king against her. In September 1324 the government declared her an enemy alien. The king repossessed her estates, probably because Despenser encouraged him to. He also broke up her household. Edward II had already been threatened with being removed from the throne in 1310 and 1321. Historians agree that almost everyone was against the king. W. H. Dunham and C. T. Wood blamed his "cruelty and personal faults". They also noted that very few people, even his half-brothers or his son, seemed to care about him. A writer at the time called him rex inutilis, which means a "useless king".

Early life (1312–1327)

Edward was born at Windsor Castle on 13 November 1312. A prophecy from that time called him "the boar that would come out of Windsor". His father, Edward II, had a hard time as king. Soon after he became king, he upset some English nobles and Scottish allies when he stopped his father's war with Scotland. He also kept losing battles to the Scots. He gave his patronage, which means rewards and favours, to a small group of royal favourites instead of to the nobles in general. The historian Michael Prestwich said this "unbalanced the whole system of royal patronage". Still, the birth of a son in 1312 helped Edward II get along better with the French. A moderate group of nobles also calmed the opposition for a while. Edward was made Earl of Chester when he was only twelve days old. One early influence on him was the Bishop of Durham, Richard de Bury, who loved books and collected many of them. Bury was first his tutor and later seems to have become a mentor to the young prince. Under Bury, Edward learned to write and to read French and Latin. He may have read famous works of the time, such as Vegetius's De Re Militari, which had been translated into Anglo-Norman. He could also have read the Mirror for Princes, various psalters and other religious books.

Since the Norman Conquest, English kings had also held several lands in France. These included Poitou, Aquitaine, Normandy, Anjou and Maine. At one point these lands covered more of France than the French king ruled, and they often led to conflict. In 1325, Edward II's brother-in-law, Charles IV of France, asked him to pay homage for the English Duchy of Aquitaine. The King did not want to leave England, because people were unhappy at home, especially about his friendship with the favourite Hugh Despenser the Younger. Instead, he made his son Edward Duke of Aquitaine and sent him to France to pay the homage. Edward's mother, Isabella, went with him. She was King Charles's sister and was supposed to help make a peace agreement. While in France, Isabella made plans with the exiled Roger Mortimer to remove Edward II from the throne. To gain support, she arranged for her son to be engaged to the twelve-year-old Philippa of Hainault. An invasion of England began, and many of Edward II's soldiers deserted him. Isabella and Mortimer called a parliament, and the King was forced to give up the throne to his son. Edward was proclaimed king in London on 25 January 1327. He was crowned Edward III at Westminster Abbey on 1 February, at the age of 14.

Early reign (1327–1337)

Soon after Edward became king, Mortimer was the most powerful man at court and in practice ruled England. He used his position to gain noble lands and titles, and many people came to dislike him. The English were defeated by the Scots at the Battle of Stanhope Park in the county of Durham. Then, in 1328, a peace deal called the Treaty of Edinburgh–Northampton was agreed with the Scots. Edward married Philippa of Hainault at York Minster on 24 January 1328. Their first child, Edward of Woodstock, was born on 15 June 1330, and this added to the tension at court. Mortimer had put Edward's uncle, Edmund, Earl of Kent, to death, and rumours spread that Mortimer wanted the throne for himself. Edward decided to act. With his close companion William Montagu, 3rd Baron Montagu and a few trusted men, he surprised Mortimer and captured him at Nottingham Castle on 19 October 1330. Mortimer was executed, and Edward's own reign began. Historian Mark Ormrod notes that Edward had little training in kingship, so he learned to rule mostly through practical experience rather than theory.

A group of English magnates called The Disinherited had lost land in Scotland under the peace deal. In 1332 they invaded Scotland and won at the Battle of Dupplin Moor. They tried to make Edward Balliol king in place of the young David II, but Balliol was soon forced out and asked Edward III for help. Edward laid siege to the border town of Berwick and defeated a large Scottish army at the Battle of Halidon Hill. Berwick was taken after the Scots set fire to the town, which forced them to treat. At one point Edward's queen was also under siege in Bamburgh Castle, but this came too late to save the Scots' campaign. Edward put Balliol back on the throne and gained land in southern Scotland. These victories were hard to keep, though. Edward later repaired Roxburgh Castle and attacked the Scots, but these attacks did not work well, and in 1338 he agreed a truce with them. Worries about France also shaped this change of plan. As long as Scotland and France were in an alliance, England risked fighting on two fronts at once.

When Edward took power, his nobles were divided into groups after his father's troubled reign. Many family lines had also ended, weakening the nobility. Only the Earls of Arundel, Oxford and Warwick could be counted on as loyal. After the Parliament of March 1337, Edward created six new earls. Over the rest of his reign, he summoned 61 more men to the lords with lesser titles, usually by a writ of summons. The new earls were Hugh de Audley of the Earldom of Gloucester, William de Bohun of Northampton, William de Clinton of Huntingdon, Henry of Grosmont of Derby, William de Montagu of Salisbury, and Robert de Ufford of Suffolk. Many of them had helped Edward against Mortimer or had been his trusted companions. These promotions strengthened Edward's position as war approached. However, most of the earls did not receive the promised 1,000 marks a year, because the royal money was in poor shape. Instead, they often had to wait for land that only became available when its holder died and the land escheated to the King.

Mid-reign (1337–1360)

Further information: Hundred Years' War, 1337–1360

In 1337, Philip VI of France took the English king's Duchy of Aquitaine and the county of Ponthieu. Edward answered by laying claim to the French crown, since he was the grandson of Philip IV of France. The French rejected this, using their rules of agnatic succession, and the conflict led to the Hundred Years' War. At first, Edward tried to build alliances. In 1338, Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor named him Vicar general of the Holy Roman Empire. The Anglo-Portuguese Treaty of 1373 also set up an Anglo-Portuguese Alliance. These efforts did not bring many results. The main English win of this early stage was a naval battle at Sluys in June 1340, which gave England control of the English Channel. Many French sailors were killed. The French captain Nicolas Béhuchet, who could otherwise have expected to be ransomed, was executed at the yardarm of his own ship. The cost of the alliances caused unrest at home. Edward returned to England in 1340 to restore order, but he clashed with John de Stratford, Archbishop of Canterbury. Stratford's relatives Robert Stratford, Bishop of Chichester, and Henry de Stratford were punished. Nicholas Rodger questioned whether there was a royal navy before Henry V, but King John had already built a fleet of galleys, and Henry III continued this work. A formal naval administration grew up during Edward's reign. Robert de Crull held the post of Clerk of the King's Ships for longer than anyone else. Later naval bodies under Henry VIII and Charles I grew from this system. Edward's armies were led by members of his court, including his eldest son, Edward, Prince of Wales, and by Knights Banneret, who could lead other knights. Leaders sometimes disagreed. During the 1369 Loire campaign, the Earl of Pembroke refused to serve under Sir John Chandos, who had been made seneschal of France. By this time, men of all ranks were paid for their service, unlike in the earlier feudal levy. The historian Andrew Ayton called this change a "military revolution".

By the early 1340s, Edward's alliances had cost a great deal and gained little, so English armies became more directly involved, including in the Breton War of Succession. In July 1346, Edward sailed for Normandy with about 15,000 men. His army sacked the city of Caen and marched toward Flemish forces in Flanders. At Crécy, north of the Somme, he chose good ground and faced a larger French army led by Philip VI. He won the Battle of Crécy on 26 August. Later, an English army defeated and captured King David II of Scotland at the Battle of Neville's Cross. Edward then began laying siege to Calais, the greatest English effort of the war. The town surrendered in August 1347. After this, events beyond Edward's control forced him to slow the war. In 1348, the Black Death killed a large part of the population. The Ordinance of Labourers and the Statute of Labourers tried to limit rising wages. Royal officials such as William Edington and William de Shareshull helped the country recover. In 1356, Edward's son won the Battle of Poitiers, capturing the French king, John II. Edward's campaign of 1359 did not finish the war, so in 1360 he accepted the Treaty of Brétigny. He gave up his claim to the French throne but kept his French lands in full sovereignty. Edward also kept the public informed through regular reports to convocation, the City of London, and the archbishops. These reports helped keep up morale at home.

Government

During the middle years of Edward's reign, many important laws were passed. The best-known was the Statute of Labourers of 1351. It was made because there were not enough workers after the Black Death, a terrible illness that spread across the land. The law set wages at their level before the illness and tried to stop peasants from moving to find work. It did not work, because landowners competed hard for workers. Some people said it tried "to legislate against the law of supply and demand". The shortage of workers did bring the smaller landowners of the House of Commons and the greater landowners of the House of Lords closer together. However, the new rules made the peasants angry, and they led to the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. Edward's reign also overlapped with the time of the Babylonian Captivity of the papacy at Avignon. Many English people were upset that the Pope was mostly controlled by the French king. This led to the laws of Provisors and Praemunire, passed in 1350 and 1353. They tried to limit the Pope's power in England, but they did not break the link between the king and the Pope. Other laws included the Treason Act 1351 and changes to the Justices of the Peace. By 1350, these local officials could look into crimes, make arrests, and hear cases, including those of felony.

Parliament was already well established, but Edward's reign helped it grow. Only those who received a personal summons to Parliament could be part of the baronage. Parliament became a bicameral institution, meaning it had two houses. The Commons changed the most. In the Good Parliament, the Commons, with support from some nobles, caused a political crisis. After this, the process of impeachment and the office of the Speaker were created. Parliament's influence also grew because it had the right to agree to taxes. Edward had money from crown lands and loans, but he needed taxes for war. An "ancient duty" on wool had existed since 1275. Edward I had tried an unpopular extra tax called maltolt, but he gave it up. The Statute of the Staple of 1353 said that new wool taxes should be approved by Parliament, though in practice they became permanent. Parliament also presented petitions about poor government. The king's ministers began to argue his case before Parliament. Some attempts to avoid Parliament failed. For example, a forced loan on wool in 1338 was called a "lamentable failure" by E. B. Fryde. Edward also tried to bring back old rights, such as the return of goods and chattels of felons to the Crown, and scutage, but these plans fell apart. In February 1339, Edward gave the Great Crown of England to the Archbishop of Trier as a promise of payment, which he called pawning. He owed £16,650. When he met his creditors in Ghent in 1340, he could not pay them and quietly left.

Edward relied on the higher nobility for war and for running the country. Unlike his father, he worked to build friendship with his most important subjects. In 1337 he created six new earls on the same day. He also introduced the title of duke for close relatives of the king, creating the first English dukedoms of Cornwall, Lancaster, and Clarence. In 1351 the Earl of Lancaster was raised to the Dukedom of Lancaster. Edward also created a new order of chivalry to help his nobles feel like a community. In January 1344, a great feast at Windsor Castle was followed by jousting, and Edward was named champion. Adam Murimuth wrote about this in his chronicle. The King then announced plans for a Round Table of King Arthur, with a first meeting planned for Whitsun, but the plan was later dropped. Instead, probably in 1348, Edward founded the Order of the Garter. Its circular garter had links to the legend. His experiences at Crécy in 1346 seem to have led him to drop the Round Table plan. Polydore Vergil tells a story about how Joan of Kent dropped her garter at a ball at Calais. Edward tied it around his own knee and said honi soit qui mal y pense, which means "shame on him who thinks ill of it". The wars in France and Scotland helped create a sense of English national identity. They also made the aristocracy feel stronger. Since the Norman Conquest, the aristocracy had mostly spoken French. English was revived. A Statute of Pleading in 1362 ordered that English be used in law courts, and Parliament was opened in English the next year. Writers also used English, including William Langland, John Gower, and Geoffrey Chaucer, who wrote The Canterbury Tales. However, this change should not be exaggerated. The 1362 statute was written in French, and Parliament was still opened in French as late as 1377. The Order of the Garter was clearly English, but it also included some foreign members, such as John IV, Duke of Brittany and Robert of Namur.

Later reign (1360–1377)

Main article: Alice Perrers

Edward's later years were less successful than the early part of his reign. He did not pay much attention to running the country day to day, so in the 1360s he depended more on helpers, especially William Wykeham. Wykeham became Keeper of the Privy Seal in 1363 and Chancellor in 1367. In 1371, Parliament made him give up the chancellorship because of political problems, partly linked to his lack of experience. Many of Edward's most trusted men died, including William Montagu, 1st Earl of Salisbury, who died in 1344, and William de Clinton, 1st Earl of Huntingdon, who had also been with Edward at Nottingham and died in 1354. William de Bohun, 1st Earl of Northampton died in 1360. Henry of Grosmont, Duke of Lancaster, probably one of Edward's greatest captains, died the next year, probably of plague.

Edward then gave more military leadership to his sons. Lionel of Antwerp tried to bring the Anglo-Irish lords in Ireland under control by force, but he failed. His only lasting mark was the harsh Statutes of Kilkenny of 1366. In France, the years after the Treaty of Brétigny were fairly calm until King John II died in England on 8 April 1364. His successor, Charles V, worked with the skilled Bertrand du Guesclin, Constable of France. When the war started again in 1369, Edward's son John of Gaunt led a campaign that failed. The Treaty of Bruges in 1375 left England with only the coastal towns of Calais, Bordeaux, and Bayonne.

Alice Perrers had first been one of Queen Philippa's household ladies. After Philippa died, she is thought to have become close to the old King. She ran her own business as a moneylender and received gifts from people who wanted favours from the King. Edward gave her land, manors, and jewels. In 1371, some of these had belonged to Philippa. To keep these gifts safe after the King's death, she placed them in a series of enfeoffments, which meant the Crown could not resume them. The chronicler Thomas Walsingham saw her as a woman of low birth who grew rich through her own ambition.

Military failures and the cost of constant wars caused unrest in England, especially over money. The problems reached a peak in 1376 at the so-called Good Parliament. The House of Commons criticised some of the King's closest advisers. William Latimer, 4th Baron Latimer, the Lord Chamberlain, and John Neville, 3rd Baron Neville de Raby, the Steward of the Household, were dismissed, and Alice was sent away from court. The real opponent of the Commons was John of Gaunt, who was in almost complete control of government while the King and his eldest son were ill. At the next Parliament in 1377, most of the Good Parliament's achievements were undone, and a poll tax was introduced to pay for the war.

Edward became seriously ill with a large abscess around 29 September 1376. After a short recovery, he died of a stroke at Sheen on 21 June 1377. He was succeeded by his ten-year-old grandson, King Richard II. In 1376, Edward had signed letters patent setting out the order of succession. This placed John of Gaunt second and passed over Philippa, daughter of Lionel of Antwerp, Duke of Clarence. This order later led the House of Lancaster to the throne in 1399. Under the earlier rule set by Edward I, Philippa's descendants, including the House of York and Richard of York, would have had the stronger claim. Many historians think these disputes helped lay the groundwork for the Wars of the Roses in the fifteenth century.

Family

Edward III and his wife Philippa had seven sons and five daughters over about 25 years. People at the time saw this as a success and a sign of God's favour. Historian Ormrod believes Edward understood the value of a "strong and united royal family." He used marriages to build friendships with English nobles and with royal families across Europe. This plan slowly fell apart as England lost its lands in Europe near the end of the century. For example, in 1332 he arranged for his sister Eleanor of Woodstock to marry the Count of Guelders. This was part of a pro-Netherlandish policy that opposed France. Ormrod says that from about 1340, "the Hundred Years' War became a family enterprise." Edward the Black Prince led an army at Crécy, and his younger brothers later joined the war too. By the mid-1360s, his family had supported his plans in Europe, so he allowed his son Edward and his daughter Isabella to marry for love. Edward's son married Joan of Kent in a secret wedding. His daughter married Enguerrand VII de Coucy, a French hostage. Neither marriage helped the King much. Ormrod concludes that by 1377, the king's family had become smaller, his lands had shrunk, his plans in Europe had failed, and he had lost control of affairs.

Some books say a fourth son, Thomas of Windsor, was born in 1347 and died the next year. However, the historian Kathryn Warner suggests that this Thomas was probably a mix of different people. She says the story comes from two chroniclers who wrote that Philippa was expecting a baby when she spoke for the citizens of Calais in 1347. The medievalist Nicholas Orme has noted that medieval chroniclers were especially careful when recording royal births. Edward's descendants have spread widely. The geneticist Adam Rutherford has calculated that Edward had over 300 great-great-grandchildren and more than 20,000 descendants by 1600. Because of this, it is "virtually impossible" that a person with mostly British ancestry is not descended from Edward III. The magazine Who Do You Think You Are? reported in 2024 that his legitimate and illegitimate descendants are believed to number more than four million. In 2021, Graham Holton, a tutor at the University of Strathclyde, estimated about two million living descendants of Edward I.

Main article: Issue of Edward III of England

Ancestry

Personality

Mark Ormrod has noted that in this period, politics was often shaped by the personality and character of the king. People also expected a king to rule well and wisely, and to be seen doing so. Ormrod argues that Edward III did not start his reign with these skills, but unlike many of his fellow Plantagenet kings, he learned them. His collection of chronicles shows that he was interested in history, and he sometimes even talked with their authors. He may have especially wanted to copy Henry II and Edward I, whose military skill and success would have impressed him. His tastes were traditional, and his hobbies showed this. His father enjoyed hard physical work such as carpentry, thatching and rowing. Edward III preferred the usual pleasures of the nobility, and his main interest was architecture. His religious views were also traditional. He supported friaries and visited shrines. He also gave regular almsgiving to the poor. Alongside this traditional side, he had a showy streak. Ormrod calls him a "natural showman." For example, he was quick to heal people with scrofula by his royal touch. Between 1338 and 1340, he touched people with scrofula in England and while campaigning in France. He was generous, sometimes to an extreme. Another view comes from Norman Cantor, who has described Edward as an "avaricious and sadistic thug."

Edward could be impulsive and quick-tempered, as his actions against Stratford and the ministers in 1340/41 showed. Some of his adventures were impulsive and risky, such as in 1349, when he sailed to Calais with only a small bodyguard. He was also well known for his mercy. Mortimer's grandson was pardoned and later played an important part in the French wars. He was eventually made a Knight of the Garter. Edward's favourite pursuit was the art of war, which matched the medieval idea of good kingship. One modern military historian has called him the greatest general in English history. He seems to have been unusually devoted to Queen Philippa. Much has been said about Edward's personal life, but there is no clear evidence of problems in his marriage before Alice Perrers came into his life. By then, the Queen was already very ill. His devotion extended to his family too. Unlike many of his predecessors, Edward never faced opposition from any of his five adult sons.

Legacy

See also: Cultural depictions of Edward III of England

Michael A.R. Graves says that Edward III left two important legacies. One was a large family of children and grandchildren. The other was his claim to the French throne. His sons became Dukes of Clarence, Lancaster and York. Their families later became part of both the royal family and the nobility. After Henry Bolingbroke took the throne from Edward's grandson, Richard II, these family lines caused trouble for the Lancastrian dynasty. At first, Edward's war in France went well. People at the time compared Henry V's victory at Agincourt with Edward's victories at Crécy and Poitiers. Later, the English began to lose in France, and this weakened the dynasty. The war in France also caused problems for the House of York, as well as for Lancaster.

Edward IV probably followed his namesake when he invaded France in 1475. However, the Treaty of Picquigny that followed was not what he had wanted. Morgan says that Edward IV looked back on Edward III's reign as a model to copy. Even when the Plantagenets finally ended at Bosworth in 1485, Edward III's good image was not harmed after his death. He was also the most recent king from whom Henry VII could claim descent.

Historiography

Edward III was very popular during his own lifetime. Even the troubles near the end of his reign were not blamed directly on him. The writer Jean Froissart wrote in his Chronicles that "His like had not been seen since the days of King Arthur." Having many children, and most of them growing up, was seen as a sign of God's favour. Historian D. A. L. Morgan has noted that Edward stayed popular into the next century. By 1500, The Great Chronicle of London said that Henry VII could have been the greatest king of England if he had not been so greedy for wealth (avarice), and it compared him to Edward III. Over time, however, Edward's image changed. The Whig historians of the 1800s preferred political reform to winning new lands in foreign wars. They criticised Edward for neglecting his duties to England. Bishop Stubbs wrote that Edward was "a warrior" who was "ambitious, unscrupulous, selfish," and that, "like Richard I, he valued England mainly as a source of supplies."

Later historians have been kinder to Edward. Mark Ormrod believes earlier historians went too far in rejecting the positive medieval view of Edward, and he points out the many problems Edward had to solve. May McKisack noted that Stubbs judged Edward by standards from the future, when a parliamentary monarchy would exist. A medieval king, she argued, was expected to keep order and solve problems as they came up, and Edward did this very well. K. B. McFarlane argued that Edward's generous gifts to his younger sons did not cause the conflict that later led to the Wars of the Roses, since such policies were common and sensible at the time. Later biographers such as Ormrod and Ian Mortimer have followed this more positive view. Not everyone agrees. Cantor has called Edward a "destructive and merciless force." Still, Chris Given-Wilson and Michael Prestwich wrote in 1999 that Edward III's reputation "rests secure."

Later events

Edward's grandson, the young Richard II, had many political and economic problems. Many of these came from the Black Death, including the Peasants' Revolt that spread across the south of England in 1381. Over the next few decades, Richard and groups of nobles fought for power and for control over how England dealt with France. In 1399, Henry of Bolingbroke became king with the support of Parliament. As Henry IV, he ruled with a royal council and Parliament. He also wanted everyone to follow the same political and religious rules. His son, Henry V, restarted the war with France and came close to a big success shortly before he died in 1422. Henry VI became king when he was only nine months old. After this, both the English government and the English army in France began to fall apart.

A series of civil wars, later called the Wars of the Roses, began in 1455. They were caused by an economic crisis and a common feeling that the government was weak. For a long time, even into the 1800s, many people believed Edward III was to blame for these wars. Historians questioned this view in the 1900s.