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 turned the Kingdom of England into one of the most powerful military forces in Europe.

His fifty-year reign is one of the longest in English history. It saw important changes in laws and government, especially the growth of the English Parliament, and it also saw the terrible spread of the Black Death. He outlived his eldest son, Edward the Black Prince, and was followed as king by his grandson, Richard II.

Edward was crowned at the age of fourteen, after his father was removed from the throne by his mother, Isabella of France, and her lover, Roger Mortimer. At seventeen, he led a successful coup d'état against Mortimer, who was the de facto ruler of England, and then began to rule on his own. After a successful campaign in Scotland, he claimed to be the rightful heir to the French throne, which 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 very favourable Treaty of Brétigny (1360), in which England gained land, and Edward gave up his claim to the French throne. Edward's later years were marked by failures in foreign affairs and trouble at home, mostly because he became less active and his health grew poor. The second phase of the Hundred Years' War began in 1369, and by 1375 England had lost most of Edward's conquests, except for the Pale of Calais.

Edward could be short-tempered, and 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, he was criticised as an irresponsible adventurer by Whig historians, but modern historians credit him with important achievements.

Background

King Edward II of England had court favourites who were unpopular with the nobles, such as Piers Gaveston and Hugh Despenser the Younger. Gaveston was killed during a noble rebellion against Edward II in 1312, and Despenser was also hated by the English nobility. Edward II was unpopular with ordinary people too, because he kept demanding unpaid military service in Scotland. His campaigns there failed, which made him even less popular. In 1322 he executed his cousin Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, 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 distrusted him. She blamed Despenser for poisoning the king's mind against her. In September 1324 the government declared her an enemy alien, and the king repossessed her estates, probably at Despenser's urging. He also disbanded her household. Edward II had already been threatened with being removed from the throne in 1310 and 1321. Historians agree that almost everyone was hostile towards the king. W. H. Dunham and C. T. Wood blamed his "cruelty and personal faults", and noted that very few people, even his half-brothers or his son, seemed to care about him. A chronicler at the time called him rex inutilis, or a "useless king".

Early life (1312–1327)

Edward was born at Windsor Castle on 13 November 1312. A prophecy from that time described him as "the boar that would come out of Windsor". His father, Edward II, had a difficult reign. Soon after becoming king, he upset several English nobles and Scottish allies by giving up his father's war with Scotland, and he kept losing battles to the Scots. He also gave his patronage, meaning 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 male heir in 1312 improved Edward II's relations with the French, and a moderate group of nobles briefly calmed opposition. Edward was made Earl of Chester when he was only twelve days old. An early influence on him was the Bishop of Durham, Richard de Bury, one of the century's major bibliophiles. Bury was first a tutor and later seems to have become a mentor to the King. Under Bury, Edward learned to write and to read French and Latin. He could have read famous works of the time, such as Vegetius's De Re Militari, which had been translated into Anglo-Norman, as well as the Mirror for Princes and various psalters and religious texts.

Since the Norman Conquest had joined the Duchy of Normandy and its French lands to the Crown and England, English kings had held several territories in France, including Poitou, Aquitaine, Normandy, Anjou and Maine. At one point these lands covered more of France than the French king held, and they often led to conflict. In 1325, Edward II's brother-in-law Charles IV of France demanded that he perform homage for the English Duchy of Aquitaine. The King did not want to leave the country, because discontent was brewing at home, especially over his relationship with the favourite Hugh Despenser the Younger. Instead, he made his son Edward Duke of Aquitaine and sent him to France to perform the homage. Edward was accompanied by his mother Isabella, who was King Charles's sister and was meant to negotiate a peace treaty. While in France, Isabella plotted 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 was launched, and Edward II's forces 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 as 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. Mortimer used his position to gain noble lands and titles, and he became unpopular after the English were defeated by the Scots at the Battle of Stanhope Park in the county of Durham and after the Treaty of Edinburgh–Northampton was agreed with the Scots in 1328. Edward married Philippa of Hainault at York Minster on 24 January 1328, and their first child, Edward of Woodstock, was born on 15 June 1330, which added to the tension. Edward decided to act after Mortimer had executed Edward's uncle, Edmund, Earl of Kent, and rumours spread that Mortimer wanted the throne. With his close companion William Montagu, 3rd Baron Montagu and a few trusted men, Edward 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 his rule was shaped more by practical experience than by theory.

A group of English magnates called The Disinherited, who had lost land in Scotland under the peace deal, invaded Scotland and won at the Battle of Dupplin Moor in 1332. 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 besieged Scots set fire to the town, which forced them to treat. Edward's queen was also at one point 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, but these victories were hard to keep. Edward later repaired Roxburgh Castle and launched attacks on the Scots that were not effective, and in 1338 he agreed a truce with them. Concern about France also shaped this change of strategy, since as long as Scotland and France were in an alliance, England faced the risk of fighting on two fronts.

When Edward took power, his nobility was divided into factions after his father's troubled reign and weakened by the failure of many family lines. Only the Earls of Arundel, Oxford and Warwick could be counted on as loyal. After the March 1337 Parliament, Edward created six new earls and, over the rest of his reign, summoned 61 more men to the lords with lesser titles, usually by 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, but most of the earls did not receive the promised 1,000 marks a year, because royal finances were in poor shape. Instead, they often had to wait for land grants that only became available when a 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 as 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. Edward first tried to build alliances. In 1338, Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor named him Vicar general of the Holy Roman Empire, and the Anglo-Portuguese Treaty of 1373 set up an Anglo-Portuguese Alliance. These efforts produced few results. The main English victory of this early stage was the naval battle at Sluys in June 1340, which secured control of the English Channel. Up to 16,000 French sailors were killed, and the French captain Nicolas Béhuchet, who could otherwise have expected to be ransomed, was hanged from his own yardarm. The cost of the alliances caused unrest at home. Edward returned to England in 1340 to bring order, but he clashed with John de Stratford, Archbishop of Canterbury, and 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, and 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 the earlier feudal levy, and the historian Andrew Ayton called this change a "military revolution".

By the early 1340s, Edward's alliances had proved too costly and gained too 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 fought a larger French army led by Philip VI in the Battle of Crécy on 26 August, winning the battle. 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, which ended when 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 third or more of the population, and 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, which 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, which tried to deal with the shortage of workers caused by the Black Death. It fixed wages at their level before the plague and tried to keep peasants from moving to find work. The law failed because landowners competed fiercely for workers. It has been described as an attempt "to legislate against the law of supply and demand". The labour shortage did bring the smaller landowners of the House of Commons and the greater landowners of the House of Lords closer together, but the measures that followed angered the peasants and led to the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. Edward's reign also overlapped with the so-called Babylonian Captivity of the papacy at Avignon. Anger at a papacy largely controlled by the French crown led to the statutes of Provisors and Praemunire, passed in 1350 and 1353. They tried to ban papal benefices and limit the papal court's power over English subjects, but they did not break the ties between king and Pope. Other laws included the Treason Act 1351 and reforms to the Justices of the Peace, who by 1350 could investigate crimes, make arrests, and try cases, including those of felony. Parliament was already well established, but Edward's reign was central to its growth. Membership in the baronage became limited to those who received a personal summons to Parliament, and Parliament developed into a bicameral institution. The Commons changed the most. In the Good Parliament, the Commons, with noble support, caused a political crisis, and the procedure of impeachment and the office of the Speaker were created. Parliament's influence grew from its right to grant taxes. Edward had income from crown lands and loans, but for war he needed taxes. An "ancient duty" on wool had existed since 1275, and Edward I had tried an unpopular extra duty called maltolt, which was abandoned. The Statute of the Staple of 1353 said the new wool customs should be approved by Parliament, though in reality they became permanent. Parliament also presented petitions about misgovernment, and it became the norm for the king's ministers to argue his case before Parliament. Attempts to avoid Parliament failed, such as a forced loan on wool in 1338, which E. B. Fryde called a "lamentable failure". Edward also tried to reinforce ancient rights, such as the return of goods and chattels of felons to the Crown, and scutage, but these schemes collapsed. In February 1339 he effectively pawned the Great Crown of England to the Archbishop of Trier, promising repayment of £16,650. When he met his creditors in Ghent in 1340, he could not pay them and secretly rode away.

Edward relied on the higher nobility for war and administration. Unlike his father, he built a spirit of friendship with his greatest subjects. In 1337 he created six new earls on the same day, and he 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 strengthen the sense of community among his nobles. In January 1344 a great feast at Windsor Castle was followed by jousting, in which Edward was declared champion, as Adam Murimuth recorded in his chronicle. The King then announced the founding of a Round Table of King Arthur, with a first meeting planned for Whitsun, but the project was later stopped. Instead, probably in 1348, Edward founded the Order of the Garter, whose circular garter carried links to the legend. His experiences at Crécy in 1346 seem to have led him to drop the Round Table plan. Polydore Vergil tells how Joan of Kent dropped her garter at a ball at Calais, and Edward tied it around his own knee with the words honi soit qui mal y pense, meaning "shame on him who thinks ill of it". The war in France, like the war with Scotland, helped create a sense of English national identity and strengthened the aristocracy, which had been largely Anglo-Norman since the Norman Conquest. English was revived: a Statute of Pleading in 1362 ordered English to be used in law courts, and Parliament was opened in English the next year. Literature also used English, through the works of William Langland, John Gower, and The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. However, this Anglicisation should not be exaggerated, since the 1362 statute was written in French and Parliament was opened in French as late as 1377. The Order of the Garter was distinctly English but also included 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 his early reign. He had little interest in the day-to-day running of the country, so in the 1360s he relied more on helpers, especially William Wykeham. Wykeham became Keeper of the Privy Seal in 1363 and Chancellor in 1367, but Parliament made him give up the chancellorship in 1371 because of political difficulties linked to his inexperience. Many of Edward's most trusted men also died, including William Montagu, 1st Earl of Salisbury, who died as early as 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, and 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 largely independent Anglo-Irish lords in Ireland under control by force, and 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 captivity in England on 8 April 1364. His successor, Charles V, worked with the skilled Bertrand du Guesclin, Constable of France. When the war began 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's death, she is thought to have become the old King's mistress. She ran her own business as a moneylender and gained gifts from people who wanted favours from the King. Edward gave her land, manors, and jewels, and in 1371 these included some that had belonged to Philippa. To keep these gifts safe after the King's death, she placed them in a series of enfeoffments, which meant they could not be resumed by the Crown. The chronicler Thomas Walsingham saw her as a low-born woman who grew rich through her own ambition. Military failure 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, where 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 banished from court. The real opponent of the Commons was John of Gaunt, who was in near-total control of government while the King and his eldest son were ill. At the next convocation of Parliament in 1377, most of the Good Parliament's achievements were undone, and a poll tax was introduced to pay for the war. Edward fell 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, which 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 argues that Edward understood the value of a "strong and united royal family." Through marriages, he could form alliances with English nobles and with royal families across Europe. This policy gradually fell apart as England lost its European lands toward the end of the century. In 1332, for example, he arranged the marriage of his sister Eleanor of Woodstock to the Count of Guelders as part of a pro-Netherlandish, anti-French policy. Ormrod says that from about 1340, "the Hundred Years' War became a family enterprise." Edward the Black Prince led a force at Crécy, and his younger brothers later joined the war too. By the mid-1360s, his family had helped his policy in Europe enough that he let his son Edward and his daughter Isabella marry for love. Edward's son married Joan of Kent in a secret marriage, and his daughter married Enguerrand VII de Coucy, a French hostage. Neither match helped the King much. Ormrod concludes that by 1377, the king's family had been reduced, his lands had shrunk, his diplomacy had failed, and his control of affairs had been lost.

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, and that the story comes from two chroniclers who wrote that Philippa was pregnant when she spoke for the Calais citizens in 1347. The medievalist Nicholas Orme has noted that medieval chroniclers were especially accurate 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. It was also expected that a king should not only rule well and wisely, but also be seen to do so. Ormrod argues that Edward III did not begin his reign with these skills, but unlike many of his fellow Plantagenet kings, he gained them. His collection of chronicles shows an interest in history, and he sometimes even consulted their authors. He may have been especially keen to copy Henry II and Edward I, whose military skill and success would have appealed to him. His tastes were conventional, and his hobbies reflected this. Unlike his father, who enjoyed hard physical work such as carpentry, thatching and rowing, Edward III enjoyed the usual pleasures of the nobility, and his main interest was architecture. His religious views were also conventional, shown through his support of friaries and his visits to shrines. He also gave regular almsgiving to the poor. Alongside this conventional side, he had a showy streak. Ormrod calls him a "natural showman," especially because he was quick to heal people suffering from scrofula by his royal touch. Between 1338 and 1340 he touched people with scrofula in England and while campaigning in France. He was generous to the point of extravagance. In a different view, Norman Cantor 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 not only impulsive but also dangerous, such as in 1349, when he sailed to Calais with only a small bodyguard. At the same time, he was well known for his mercy. Mortimer's grandson was not only pardoned but later played an important part in the French wars and was eventually made a Knight of the Garter. Edward's favourite pursuit was the art of war, and in this he matched the medieval idea of good kingship. One modern military historian has described him as the greatest general in English history. He seems to have been unusually devoted to Queen Philippa. Much has been said about Edward's behaviour in his personal life, but there is no evidence of unfaithfulness on his part before Alice Perrers became his lover, and by then the Queen was already seriously ill. This 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 argues that Edward III left a "dual legacy": a large family of children and grandchildren, and his claim to the French throne. His sons became Dukes of Clarence, Lancaster and York, and 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. Edward's war in France began successfully. People at the time compared Henry V's victory at Agincourt with Edward's victories at Crécy and Poitiers. But when the tide turned against the English in France, the dynasty was weakened, and war in France was also a problem for the House of York as well as Lancaster.

Edward IV probably followed his namesake when he invaded France in 1475, though the Treaty of Picquigny that followed was not what he intended. Morgan argues that Edward IV's reign looked back on Edward III's reign as a model to copy. Even the final end of the Plantagenets at Bosworth in 1485 did not harm Edward III's image 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 of his later reign were never 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, most of whom lived to become adults, was seen as a sign of God's favour. Historian D. A. L. Morgan has noted that Edward remained 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 not for his avarice, comparing 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, and 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 primarily 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 arose, 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, as 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, faced political and economic problems. Many of these came from the Black Death, including the Peasants' Revolt that broke out across the south of England in 1381. Over the following decades, Richard and groups of nobles competed for power and for control of policy towards France. In 1399, Henry of Bolingbroke took the throne with the support of Parliament. As Henry IV, he ruled through a royal council and Parliament, and he tried to enforce political and religious conformity. His son, Henry V, restarted the war with France and came close to a major success shortly before he died in 1422. Henry VI became king when he was only nine months old, and both the English political system and the military situation in France began to fall apart.

A series of bloody civil wars, later called the Wars of the Roses, broke out in 1455. They were driven by an economic crisis and a widespread feeling that the government was poor. For a long time, even into the 1800s, many people believed Edward III was to blame for these wars. Historians challenged this view in the 1900s.