Elizabeth (Plantagenet) Duchess of Exeter

Notes:

Elizabeth Plantagenet (1364 Burford, Shropshire - 24 November 1426) was the third child of John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster and his first wife Blanche of Lancaster. Some sources list her as having been born after 1 January 1363 but prior to 21 February 1363. On 24 June 1380, at Kenilworth Castle, she married John Hastings, 3rd Earl of Pembroke. This marriage was annulled in late 1383. On 24 June 1386, at Plymouth, she married John Holland, 1st Duke of Exeter. After his death in 1400, she married Sir John Cornwall, 1st Baron Fanhope and Milbroke.

She died in 1426 and was buried at Burford Church, Burford, Shropshire.

Children
With John Holland she had five children:


1. Constance Holland (1387 - 1437) who married Thomas Mowbray, 4th Earl of Norfolk and Sir John Grey

2. Richard Holland (c. 1389 - September 3, 1400)

3. Alice Holland (c. 1392 - c. 1406) who married Richard de Vere, 11th Earl of Oxford

4. John Holland, 2nd Duke of Exeter(1395 - 1447)

5. Sir Edward Holland (1399 - 1413)

With John Cornwall she had two children:

1. Constance Cornwall (c. 1401 - c. 1427) who married John Fitzalan, 14th Earl of Arundel

2. John Cornwall (b&d. 1404)


References
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online resource) 2004-2007. (Print version: Oxford dictionary of national biography : in association with the British Academy : from the earliest times to the year 2000 / edited by H.C.G. Matthew and Brian Harrison.) Article on "Elizabeth of Lancaster" by Anthony Goodman.
Weir, Alison (2002). Britain's Royal Family: A Complete Genealogy. The Bodley Head London, U.K.. ISBN 0-7126-4286-2. page 100

John married Blanche of Lancaster (Countess of Derby) 19 May 1359, Reading Abbey, Reading, Berkshire, England. Blanche was born 25 Mar 1345, Bolingbroke Castle Lindsey, Lincolnshire, England; died 12 Sep 1369, Bolingbroke Castle Lindsey, Lincolnshire, England; was buried Old St Pauls Cathedral Cemetery , London, England. [Group Sheet]

Notes:

Blanche of Lancaster (25 March 1345 ? 12 September 1369) Countess of Derby was an English noblewoman and heiress. She was the first wife of John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster and the mother of King Henry IV of England.[1]

Lineage
She was the youngest daughter of Henry of Grosmont, 1st Duke of Lancaster by his wife Isabel de Beaumont. Both she and her elder sister Maud, Countess of Leicester were born at Bolingbroke Castle in Lindsey. Her paternal grandparents were Henry, 3rd Earl of Lancaster and Maud de Chaworth. Her maternal grandparents were Sir Henry Beaumont, 1st Earl of Buchan and Alice Comyn.[1] Her sister Maud married firstly, Ralph de Stafford and secondly William I, Duke of Bavaria.[1] However, Maud produced no surviving children from either marriage.


[edit] Marriage
On 19 May 1359, at Reading Abbey,Reading,Berkshire, Blanche was married to her third cousin John of Gaunt, the third son of the reigning English king Edward III of England and his Queen consort Philippa of Hainault. The title Duke of Lancaster became extinct upon her father's death without male heirs in 1361. However, through his marriage to Blanche, John of Gaunt became Earl of Lancaster, Earl of Derby, Earl of Lincoln and Earl of Leicester (although Gaunt would not receive all of these titles until the death without issue of Blanche's older sister, Maud, in 1362). The Duchy of Lancaster (second creation) would later be bestowed on Gaunt. The influence associated with the titles would lead him to become Lord High Steward of England. The marriage was said to have been happy. Blanche has been described as very beautiful with pale-blonde hair, blue eyes and a serene, calm demeanor. Blanche bore John six children, three of whom survived infancy.


[edit] Bubonic plague
In 1369, bubonic plague struck England for the third time, and among the dead was Blanche of Lancaster. She was living in Bolingbroke Castle, Lincolnshire at the time. Her husband was at sea at the time of her death. Her funeral at St. Paul's Cathedral in London was preceded with a magnificent cortege attended by most of the nobility and clergy. He held annual commemorations of her death for some years thereafter. For one of these commemorations, Geoffrey Chaucer, then a young squire and mostly unknown writer of court poetry, was commissioned to write what became The Book of the Duchess, in her honour. Though Chaucer?s intentions can never be defined with absolute certainty, many believe that at least one of the aims of The Book of the Duchess was an attempt to make John of Gaunt see that his grief for his late wife had become excessive and to subtly prod him to try and overcome his grief. He married his second wife, Infanta Constance of Castile in 1371. It was a political marriage that produced one daughter, Catherine of Lancaster.

In 1374, five years after her death, John of Gaunt ordered effigies made of himself and his wife. Twenty-five years later, Gaunt was laid to rest next to Blanche; the two are buried at an unknown location in St. Paul's Cathedral.


Family
Blanche?s Children with John of Gaunt:

Philippa (31 March 1360 - 19 July 1415). Queen consort of John I of Portugal.
John (1362 - 1362). Died at birth.
Elizabeth (21 February 1364 - 24 November 1426). Married firstly John Hastings, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, secondly to John Holland, 1st Duke of Exeter, thirdly to John Cornwall, 1st Baron Fanhope.
Edward (1365 - 1365).
Henry IV of England (3 April 1367 - 20 March 1413). Married firstly Mary de Bohun and secondly Joanna of Navarre.
Isabella : (1368). Died young.
Blanche's daughter Philippa married John of Portugal and made Blanche the ancestor of many kings of Portugal and this line leads to Isabella I of Castile, and through Isabella, Blanche is an ancestor of many monarchs in many different countries. Her son Henry became King of England after he overthrew his cousin Richard II of England (Eldest son of John's brother Edward the Black prince). Henry's reign marked the beginning of a cadet branch of the Plantaganet line, making Blanche's family the house of Lancaster the new ruling house in England.

Notes
^ a b c The Complete Peerage

References
The Complete Peerage
Blanche of Lancaster @thePeerage.com
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blanche_of_Lancaster"

Notes:

Edward III (13 November 1312 ? 21 June 1377) was one of the most successful English monarchs of the Middle Ages. Restoring royal authority after the disastrous reign of his father, Edward II, Edward III went on to transform the Kingdom of England into the most efficient military power in Europe. His reign saw vital developments in legislature and government?in particular the evolution of the English parliament?as well as the ravages of the Black Death. He remained on the throne for 50 years; no English monarch had reigned for as long since Henry III, and none would again until George III, as King of the United Kingdom.

Edward was crowned at the age of fourteen, following the deposition of his father. When he was only seventeen years old, he led a coup against his regent, Roger Mortimer, and began his personal reign. After defeating, but not subjugating, the Kingdom of Scotland, he declared himself rightful heir to the French throne in 1340, starting what would be known as the Hundred Years' War. Following some initial setbacks, the war went exceptionally well for England; the victories of Crécy and Poitiers led up to the highly favourable Treaty of Brétigny. Edward?s later years, however, were marked by international failure and domestic strife, largely as a result of his inertia and eventual bad health.

Edward III was a temperamental man, but also capable of great clemency. He was, in most ways, a conventional king, mainly interested in warfare. Highly revered in his own time and for centuries after, Edward was denounced as an irresponsible adventurer by later Whig historians. This view has turned, and modern historiography credits him with many achievements.

Biography
Early life
Edward was born at Windsor on 13 November 1312, and was called "Edward of Windsor" in his early years. The reign of his father, Edward II, was fraught with military defeat, rebellious barons and corrupt courtiers, but the birth of a male heir in 1312 temporarily strengthened Edward II's position on the throne.[1] To further this end, in what was probably an attempt by his father to shore up royal supremacy after years of discontent, Edward was created Earl of Chester at the age of only twelve days, and less than two months later, his father gave him a full household of servants for his court, so he could live independently as if he were a full adult Nobleman.[2]

On 20 January 1327, when the young Edward was fourteen years old, the queen, Isabella, and her lover Roger Mortimer deposed the king. Edward, now Edward III, was crowned on 1 February, with Isabella and Mortimer as regents. Mortimer, the de facto ruler of England, subjected the young king to constant disrespect and humiliation.

Mortimer knew his position was precarious, especially after Edward and his wife, Philippa of Hainault, had a son on 15 June 1330.[3] Mortimer used his power to acquire noble estates and titles, many of them belonging to Edmund FitzAlan, 9th Earl of Arundel. FitzAlan, who had remained loyal to Edward II in his struggle with Isabella and Mortimer, had been executed on 17 November 1326. However Mortimer's greed and arrogance caused many of the other nobles to hate him; all this was not lost on the young king.

The young, headstrong King had never forgotten the fate of his father, or how he himself had been treated as a child. At almost 18 years old, Edward was ready to take his revenge. On the 19 October 1330, Mortimer and Isabella were sleeping in Nottingham castle. Under the cover of night, a group loyal to Edward entered the fortress through a secret passage-way and burst into Mortimer's quarters. Those conducting the coup arrested Mortimer in the name of the King and he was taken to the Tower of London. Stripped of his land and titles, he was hauled before the 17 year-old King and accused of assuming royal authority over England. Edward's mother ? presumably pregnant with Mortimer's child ? begged her son for mercy to no avail. Without trial, Edward sentenced Mortimer to death one month after the coup. As Mortimer was executed, Edward's mother was exiled in Castle Rising where she reportedly miscarried. By his 18th birthday, Edward's vengeance was complete and he became de facto ruler of England.

Early reign

Edward chose to renew the military conflict with the Kingdom of Scotland in which his father and grandfather had engaged with varying success. Edward repudiated the Treaty of Northampton that had been signed during the regency, thus renewing claims of English sovereignty over Scotland and resulting in the Second War of Scottish Independence.

Intending to regain what the English had conceded, he won back control of Berwick and secured a decisive English victory at the Battle of Halidon Hill in 1333 against the forces of the boy-king David II of Scotland. Edward III was now in a position to put Edward Balliol on the throne of Scotland and claim a reward of 2,000 librates of land in the southern counties - the Lothians, Roxburghshire, Berwickshire, Dumfriesshire, Lanarkshire and Peebleshire. Despite the victories of Dupplin and Halidon, the Bruce party soon started to recover and by the close of 1335 and the Battle of Culblean, the Plantagenet occupation was in difficulties and the Balliol party was fast losing ground.

At this time, in 1336, Edward III's brother John of Eltham, Earl of Cornwall died. John of Fordun's Gesta Annalia is alone in claiming that Edward killed his brother in a quarrel at Perth.

Although Edward III committed very large armies to Scottish operations, by 1337 the vast majority of Scotland had been recovered by the forces of David II, leaving only a few castles such as Edinburgh, Roxburgh and Stirling in Plantagenet possession. These installations were not adequate to impose Edward's rule and by 1338/9 Edward had moved from a policy of conquest to one of containment.

Edward faced military problems on two fronts; the challenge from the French monarchy was of no less concern. The French represented a problem in three areas: first, they provided constant support to the Scottish through the Franco-Scottish alliance. Philip VI protected David II in exile, and supported Scottish raids in Northern England. Second, the French attacked several English coastal towns, leading to rumours in England of a full-scale invasion.[4] Finally, the English king's possessions in France were under threat?in 1337, Philip VI confiscated the duchy of Aquitaine and the county of Ponthieu.

Instead of seeking a peaceful solution to the conflict by paying homage to the French king, Edward laid claim to the French crown as the only living male descendant of his deceased maternal grandfather, Philip IV. The French, however, invoked the Salic law of succession and rejected the claim, pronouncing Philip IV's nephew, Philip VI, the true heir (see below) and thereby setting the stage for the Hundred Years' War. In response, Edward declared himself king of both England and France; by incorporating his own English coat of arms, rampant lions, and France's coat of arms, the fleurs de lys, he presented a new personal shield that proclaimed his claim to both crowns.(see below).[5]

In the war against France, Edward built alliances and fought by proxy through minor French princes. In 1338, Louis IV named him vicar-general of the Holy Roman Empire, and promised his support. These measures, however, produced few results; the only major military gain made in this phase of the war was the English naval victory at Sluys on 24 June 1340, where 16,000 French soldiers and sailors died.

Meanwhile, the fiscal pressure on the kingdom caused by Edward's expensive alliances led to discontent at home. In response he returned unannounced on 30 November 1340. Finding the affairs of the realm in disorder, he purged the royal administration.[6] These measures did not bring domestic stability, however, and a standoff ensued between the king and John Stratford, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Edward, at the Parliament of England of April 1341, was forced to accept severe limitations to his financial and administrative prerogatives. Yet, in October of the same year, the king repudiated this statute, and Archbishop Stratford was politically ostracised. The extraordinary circumstances of the 1341 parliament had forced the king into submission, but under normal circumstances the powers of the king in medieval England were virtually unlimited, and Edward took advantage of this.[7]


Fortunes of war
After much inconclusive campaigning in Continental Europe, Edward decided to stage a major offensive in 1346, sailing for Normandy with a force of 15,000 men.[8] His army sacked the city of Caen and marched across northern France. On 26 August he met the French king's forces in pitched battle at Crécy and won a decisive victory. Meanwhile, back home, William Zouche, the Archbishop of York mobilized an army to oppose David II, who had returned, defeating and capturing him at the Battle of Neville's Cross on 17 October. With his northern border having been secured, Edward felt free to continue his major offensive against France, laying siege to the town of Calais, which fell after almost a year?probably the greatest single military operation undertaken by the English state in the Middle Ages[citation needed]?in August of 1347.

After the death of the Holy Roman Emperor Louis IV in October of 1347, his son Louis V, Duke of Bavaria negotiated with Edward to compete against the new German king Charles IV, but Edward finally decided in May 1348 not to run for the German crown.

In 1348, the Black Death struck Europe with full force, killing a third or more of England's population.[9] This loss of manpower, and subsequently of revenues, meant a halt to major campaigning. The great landowners struggled with the shortage of manpower and the resulting inflation in labor cost. Attempting to cap wages, the king and parliament responded with the Ordinance of Labourers (1349) and the Statute of Labourers (1351). The plague did not, however, lead to a full-scale breakdown of government and society, and recovery was remarkably swift.[10]

In 1356, Edward's oldest son, the Black Prince, won a great victory at the battle of Poitiers. The greatly outnumbered English forces not only routed the French but captured the French king, John II. After a succession of victories, the English held great possessions in France, the French king was in English custody, and the French central government had almost totally collapsed. Whether Edward's claim to the French crown originally was genuine or just a political ploy,[11] it now seemed to be within reach. Yet a campaign in 1359, meant to complete the undertaking, was inconclusive. In 1360, therefore, Edward accepted the Treaty of Brétigny, whereby he renounced his claims to the French throne but secured his extended French possessions in full sovereignty.

Later reign

While Edward's early reign had been energetic and successful, his later years were marked by inertia, military failure and political strife. The day-to-day affairs of the state had less appeal to Edward than military campaigning, so during the 1360s Edward increasingly relied on the help of his subordinates, in particular William Wykeham. A relative upstart, Wykeham was made Lord Privy Seal in 1363 and Lord Chancellor in 1367, though due to political difficulties connected with his inexperience, the Parliament forced him to resign the chancellorship in 1371.[12]

Compounding Edward's difficulties were the deaths of his most trusted men, some from the 1361?62 recurrence of the plague. William Montacute, Edward's companion in the 1330 coup, was dead by 1344. William de Clinton, who had also been with the king at Nottingham, died in 1354. One of the earls of 1337, William de Bohun, died in 1360, and the next year Henry of Grosmont, perhaps the greatest of Edward's captains, succumbed to what was probably plague. Their deaths left the majority of the magnates younger and more naturally aligned to the princes than to the king himself.

The king's second son, Lionel of Antwerp, attempted to subdue by force the largely autonomous Anglo-Irish lords in Ireland. The venture failed, and the only lasting mark he left were the suppressive Statutes of Kilkenny in 1366.[13]

In France, meanwhile, the decade following the Treaty of Brétigny was one of relative tranquillity, but on 8 April 1364 John II died in captivity in England, after unsuccessfully trying to raise his own ransom at home. He was followed by the vigorous Charles V, who enlisted the help of the capable Constable Bertrand du Guesclin.[14] In 1369, the French war started anew, and Edward's younger son John of Gaunt was given the responsibility of a military campaign. The effort failed, and with the Treaty of Bruges in 1375, the great English possessions in France were reduced to only the coastal towns of Calais, Bordeaux and Bayonne.[15]

Military failure abroad and the associated fiscal pressure of campaigning led to political discontent at home. The problems came to a head in the parliament of 1376, the so-called Good Parliament. The parliament was called to grant taxation, but the House of Commons took the opportunity to address specific grievances. In particular, criticism was directed at some of the king's closest advisers. Lord Chamberlain William Latimer and Lord Steward John Neville, 3rd Baron Neville de Raby were dismissed from their positions. Edward's mistress, Alice Perrers, who was seen to hold far too much power over the aging king, was banished from court.[16]

Yet the real adversary of the Commons, supported by powerful men such as Wykeham and Edmund de Mortimer, 3rd Earl of March, was John of Gaunt. Both the king and the Black Prince were by this time incapacitated by illness, leaving Gaunt in virtual control of government. Gaunt was forced to give in to the demands of parliament, but by its next convocation, in 1377, most of the achievements of the Good Parliament were reversed.[17]

Edward himself, however, did not have much to do with any of this; after around 1375 he played a limited role in the government.[18] Around 29 September 1376 he fell ill with a large abscess. After a brief period of recovery in February, the king died of a stroke (some sources say gonorrhea[19]) at Sheen on 21 June.[20] He was succeeded by his ten-year-old grandson, King Richard II, son of the Black Prince, since the Black Prince himself had died on 8 June 1376.


Achievements of the reign

Legislation
The middle years of Edward's reign were a period of significant activity. Perhaps the best known piece of legislation was the Statute of Labourers of 1351, which addressed the labour shortage problem caused by the Black Death. The statute fixed wages at their pre-plague level and checked peasant mobility by asserting that lords had first claim on their men's services. In spite of concerted efforts to uphold the statute, it eventually failed due to competition among landowners for labour.[21] The law has been described as an attempt "to legislate against the law of supply and demand", making it doomed to failure.[22] Nevertheless, the labour shortage had created a community of interest between the smaller landowners of the House of Commons and the greater landowners of the House of Lords. The resulting attempts at suppression of the labour force angered the peasants, leading to the Peasants' Revolt of 1381.[23]

The reign of Edward III coincided with the so-called Babylonian Captivity of the papacy at Avignon. During the wars with France, opposition emerged in England against perceived injustices by a papacy largely controlled by the French crown. Heavy papal taxation of the English Church was suspected to be financing the nation's enemies, while the practice of provisions?the Pope providing benefices for clerics, often non-resident aliens?caused resentment in an increasingly xenophobic English population. The statutes of Provisors and Praemunire, of 1350 and 1353 respectively, aimed to amend this by banning papal benefices, as well as limiting the power of the papal court over English subjects.[24] The statutes did not, however, sever the ties between the king and the Pope, who were equally dependent upon each other. It was not until the Great Schism in 1378 that the English crown was able to free itself completely from the influence of Avignon.

Other legislation of importance includes the Treason Act of 1351. It was precisely the harmony of the reign that allowed a consensus on the definition of this controversial crime.[25] Yet the most significant legal reform was probably that concerning the Justices of the Peace. This institution began before the reign of Edward III, but by 1350, the justices had been given the power not only to investigate crimes and make arrests, but also to try cases, including those of felony. With this, an enduring fixture in the administration of local English justice had been created.[26]


Parliament and taxation
Parliament as a representative institution was already well established by the time of Edward III, but the reign was nevertheless central to its development. During this period membership in the English baronage, formerly a somewhat indistinct group, became restricted to those who received a personal summons to parliament.[27] This happened as parliament gradually developed into a bicameral institution. Yet it was not in the House of Lords, but in the House of Commons that the greatest changes took place. The widening of political power can be seen in the crisis of the Good Parliament, where the Commons for the first time?albeit with noble support?was responsible for precipitating a political crisis. In the process, both the procedure of impeachment and the office of the Speaker were created. Even though the political gains were of only temporary duration, this parliament represented a watershed in English political history.

The political influence of the Commons originally lay in its right to grant taxes. The financial demands of the Hundred Years' War were enormous, and the king and his ministers tried different methods of covering the expenses. The king had a steady income from crown lands, and could also take up substantial loans from Italian and domestic financiers. To finance warfare on Edward III's scale, however, the king had to resort to taxation of his subjects. Taxation took two primary forms: levy and customs. The levy was a grant of a proportion of all moveable property, normally a tenth for towns and a fifteenth for farmland. This could produce large sums of money, but each such levy had to be approved by parliament, and the king had to prove the necessity.[28] The customs therefore provided a welcome supplement, as a steady and reliable source of income. An 'ancient duty' on the export of wool had existed since 1275. Edward I had tried to introduce an additional duty on wool, but this unpopular maltolt, or 'unjust exaction', was soon abandoned. Then, from 1336 onwards, a series of schemes aimed at increasing royal revenues from wool export were introduced. After some initial problems and discontent, it was agreed through the Ordinance of the Staple of 1353 that the new customs should be approved by parliament, though in reality they became permanent.[29]

Through the steady taxation of Edward III's reign, parliament?and in particular the Commons?gained political influence. A consensus emerged that in order for a tax to be just, the king had to prove its necessity, it had to be granted by the community of the realm, and it had to be to the benefit of that community. In addition to imposing taxes, parliament would also present petitions for redress of grievances to the king, most often concerning misgovernment by royal officials. This way the system was beneficial for both parties. Through this process the commons, and the community they represented, became increasingly politically aware, and the foundation was laid for the particular English brand of constitutional monarchy.[30]

Chivalry and national identity

Central to Edward III's policy was reliance on the higher nobility for purposes of war and administration. While his father had regularly been in conflict with a great portion of his peerage, Edward III successfully created a spirit of camaraderie between himself and his greatest subjects.

Both Edward I and Edward II had conducted a policy of limitation, allowing the creation of few peerages during the sixty years preceding Edward III's reign. The young king reversed this policy when, in 1337, as a preparation for the imminent war, he created six new earls on the same day.[31] At the same time, Edward expanded the ranks of the peerage upwards, by introducing the new title of duke for close relatives of the king.

Furthermore, Edward bolstered the sense of community within this group by the creation of the Order of the Garter, probably in 1348. A plan from 1344 to revive the Round Table of King Arthur never came to fruition, but the new order carried connotations from this legend by the circular shape of the garter. Polydore Vergil tells of how the young Joan of Kent, Countess of Salisbury ?the king's favourite at the time?accidentally dropped her garter at a ball at Calais. King Edward responded to the ridicule of the crowd by tying the garter around his own knee with the words honi soit qui mal y pense?shame on him who thinks ill of it.[32]

This reinforcement of the aristocracy must be seen in conjunction with the war in France, as must the emerging sense of national identity. Just like the war with Scotland had done, the fear of a French invasion helped strengthen a sense of national unity, and nationalise the aristocracy that had been largely Anglo-French since the Norman conquest. Since the time of Edward I, popular myth suggested that the French planned to extinguish the English language, and like his grandfather had done, Edward III made the most of this scare.[33] As a result, the English language experienced a strong revival; in 1362, a Statute of Pleading ordered the English language to be used in law courts[1] and, the year after, Parliament was for the first time opened in English.[34] At the same time, the vernacular saw a revival as a literary language, through the works of William Langland, John Gower and especially The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.

Yet the extent of this Anglicisation must not be exaggerated. The statute of 1362 was in fact written in the French language and had little immediate effect,[2] and parliament was opened in that language as late as 1377.[35] The Order of the Garter, though a distinctly English institution, included also foreign members such as John V, Duke of Brittany and Sir Robert of Namur.[36] Edward III?himself bilingual?viewed himself as legitimate king of both England and France, and could not show preferential treatment for one part of his domains over another.


Assessment and character
Edward III enjoyed unprecedented popularity in his own lifetime, and even the troubles of his later reign were never blamed directly on the king himself.[37] Edward's contemporary Jean Froissart wrote in his Chronicles that "His like had not been seen since the days of King Arthur".[38] This view persisted for a while, but, with time, the image of the king changed. The Whig historians of a later age preferred constitutional reform to foreign conquest and discredited Edward for ignoring his responsibilities to his own nation. In the words of Bishop Stubbs:

? Edward III was not a statesman, though he possessed some qualifications which might have made him a successful one. He was a warrior; ambitious, unscrupulous, selfish, extravagant and ostentatious. His obligations as a king sat very lightly on him. He felt himself bound by no special duty, either to maintain the theory of royal supremacy or to follow a policy which would benefit his people. Like Richard I, he valued England primarily as a source of supplies.
William Stubbs, The Constitutional History of England[39] ?

Influential as Stubbs was, it was long before this view was challenged. In a 1960 article, titled "Edward III and the Historians", May McKisack pointed out the teleological nature of Stubbs' judgement. A medieval king could not be expected to work towards the future ideal of a parliamentary monarchy; rather his role was a pragmatic one?to maintain order and solve problems as they arose. At this, Edward III excelled.[40] Edward had also been accused of endowing his younger sons too liberally and thereby promoting dynastic strife culminating in the Wars of the Roses. This claim was rejected by K.B. McFarlane, who argued that this was not only the common policy of the age, but also the best.[41] Later biographers of the king such as Mark Ormrod and Ian Mortimer have followed this historiographical trend. However, the older progressive view has not completely been neglected; as recently as 2001, Norman Cantor described Edward III as an "avaricious and sadistic thug" and a "destructive and merciless force."[42]

From what we know of Edward's character, he could be impulsive and temperamental, as was seen by his actions against Stratford and the ministers in 1340?41.[43] At the same time, he was well-known for his clemency; Mortimer's grandson was not only absolved, but came to play an important part in the French wars, and was eventually made a knight of the Garter.[44] Both in his religious views and his interests, he was a conventional man. His favourite pursuit was the art of war, and, as such, he conformed to the medieval notion of good kingship.[45] As a warrior he was so successful that one modern military historian has described him as the greatest general in English history.[46] He seems to have been unusually devoted to his wife, Queen Philippa. Much has been made of Edward's sexual licentiousness, but there is no evidence of any infidelity on the king's part before Alice Perrers became his lover, and, by that time, the queen was already terminally ill.[47] He is quite unusual among medieval English monarchs in having no known illegitimate children. This devotion extended to the rest of the family as well; in contrast to so many of his predecessors, Edward never experienced opposition from any of his five adult sons.[48]


Fictional portrayals
Edward is the central character in the play Edward III, sometimes attributed to William Shakespeare. He also appears as a boy in Edward II by Christopher Marlowe.

Edward III has rarely been portrayed on screen. He was portrayed by Charles Kent in the silent short The Death of King Edward III (1911), Michael Hordern in The Dark Avenger (1955), about Edward, the Black Prince, and as a boy by Stéphane Combesco in the French TV adaptation of Marlowe's play Edward II (1982) and by Jody Graber in Derek Jarman's version of Edward II (1991).

Though he did not appear in the film, Edward is implied to be the son of Isabella and the Scottish rebel, William Wallace, in the film Braveheart. This is impossible, as Wallace died 5 years before Edward was born. In truth, it is extremely unlikely William Wallace and Isabella ever met.

Edward appears in the Bernard Cornwell novel Harlequin.


Titles, styles, honours and arms

Arms
Like his father and grandfather before him, Edward's arms as heir-apparent were differenced by a label azure of three points, which he lost when he acceded the throne.[49]. Part-way through his reign, in 1340, he altered those arms by quartering them with those of France, to signal his claim thereto.


References

General

King
McKisack, M. (1960). "Edward III and the historians". History 45.
Mortimer, Ian (2006). The Perfect King: The Life of Edward III, Father of the English Nation. London: Jonathan Cape. ISBN 0-224-07301-X.
Ormrod, W.M. (1987). "Edward III and his family". Journal of British Studies 26.
Ormrod, W.M. (1987). "Edward III and the recovery of royal authority in England, 1340?60". History 72.
Ormrod, W.M. (1990). The Reign of Edward III. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-04876-9.
Ormrod, W.M. (2006). "Edward III (1312?1377)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/8519. Retrieved on 2006-05-31.

Reign
Bothwell, J.S. (2001). The Age of Edward III. York: The Boydell Press. ISBN 1-903153-06-9.
McKisack, M. (1959). The Fourteenth Century: 1307?1399. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-821712-9.
Prestwich, M.C. (1980). The Three Edwards: War and State in England 1272?1377. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. ISBN 0-297-77730-0.
Prestwich, M.C. (2005). Plantagenet England: 1225?1360. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-822844-9.
Waugh, S.L. (1991). England in the Reign of Edward III. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-31090-3.
Ziegler, Philip (1969). The Black Death. London: Collins. ISBN 0-00-211085-7.

War
Allmand, Christopher (1988). The Hundred Years War: England and France at War c.1300-c.1450. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-26499-5.
Ayton, Andrew (1994). Knights and Warhorses: Military Service and the English Aristocracy Under Edward III. Woodbridge: Boydell Press. ISBN 0-85115-568-5.
Curry, Anne (1993). The Hundred Years' War. Basingstoke: Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-53175-2.
Fowler, K.H. (1969). The King's Lieutenant: Henry of Grosmont, First Duke of Lancaster, 1310?1361. London: Elek. ISBN 0-236-30812-2.
Nicholson, Ranald (1965). Edward III and the Scots: The Formative Years of a Military Career, 1327-1335. London: Oxford University Press.
Rogers (ed.), C.J. (1999). The Wars of Edward III: Sources and Interpretations. Woodbridge: Boydell Press. ISBN 0-85115-646-0.
Rogers, C.J. (2000). War Cruel and Sharp: English Strategy under Edward III, 1327?1360. Woodbridge: Boydell Press. ISBN 0-85115-804-8.

Chivalry
Bothwell, J. (1997). "Edward III and the "New Nobility": largesse and limitation in fourteenth-century England". English Historical Review 112.
Vale, J. (1982). Edward III and Chivalry: Chivalric Society and its Context, 1270?1350. Woodbridge: Boydell Press. ISBN 0-85115-170-1.

Parliament
Harriss, G.L. (1975). King, Parliament and Public Finance in Medieval England to 1369. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-822435-4.
Richardson, H.G. and G.O. Sayles (1981). The English Parliament in the Middle Ages. London: Hambledon Press. ISBN 0-9506882-1-5.

Law and administration
Brown, A.L. (1989). The Governance of Late Medieval England 1272?1461. London: Edward Arnold. ISBN 0-8047-1730-3.
Musson, A. and W.A. Omrod (1999). The Evolution of English Justice. Basingstoke: Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-67670-X.

External links
Edward III of England at Genealogics
FMG on Edward III
The Medieval Sourcebook has some good sources relating to the reign of Edward III:
The Ordinance of Labourers, 1349
The Statute of Labourers, 1351
Thomas Walsingham?s account of the Good Parliament of 1376
Man of War: Edward III, King of England (myArmoury.com article)
The Company Of Chivalry: Re-enactment from the time of Edward III


Reign 1 February 1327 ? 21 June 1377 (50 years)
Coronation 1 February 1327
Predecessor Edward II
Regent Roger Mortimer, Earl of March
& Queen Isabella (de facto)
Council inc. Henry, 3rd Earl of Lancaster (1327?1330; de jure)
Successor Richard II "of Bordeaux"
Spouse Philippa of Hainault
Issue
Edward, Prince of Wales "The Black Prince"
Isabella, Dame de Coucy
Lady Joan
Lionel of Antwerp, Duke of Clarence
John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster
Edmund of Langley, Duke of York
Mary, Duchess of Brittany
Margaret Plantagenet, Countess of Pembroke
Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester
DetailTitles and styles
The King
The Earl of Chester
The Duke of Aquitaine
Edward of Windsor
Father Edward II
Mother Isabella of France
Born 13 November 1312(1312-11-13)
Windsor Castle, Berkshire
Died 21 June 1377 (aged 64)
Sheen Palace, Richmond
Burial Westminster Abbey, London

Edward married Philippa of Hainault (Queen of England) 24 Jan 1328, York Minster, York, Yorkshire, England. Philippa was born 24 Jun 1311, Valenciennes, Nord, France; died 15 Aug 1369, Windsor Castle Windsor, Berkshire, England; was buried Westminster Abbey Cemetery, Westminster, London, England. [Group Sheet]

Notes:

Philippa of Hainault (June 24, 1311 ? August 15, 1369) was the Queen consort of Edward III of England.

Life
Philippa was born in Valenciennes (then in Flanders, now France) and was the daughter of William I, Count of Hainaut and Jeanne of Valois, the granddaughter of Philip III of France.

She married Edward at York Minster, on 24 January 1328, eleven months after his accession to the English throne and, unlike many of her predecessors, she did not alienate the English people by retaining her foreign retinue upon her marriage or bringing large numbers of foreigners to the English court.

Philippa accompanied Edward on his expeditions to the Kingdom of Scotland (1333) and Flanders (1338-40), where she won acclaim for her gentleness and compassion. She is best remembered as the tender-hearted woman who interceded with her husband and persuaded him to spare the lives of the Burghers of Calais (1347) whom he had planned to execute as an example to the townspeople following his successful siege. She acted as a regent on several occasions when he was on the continent.

Philippa had grown portly in her later years, and this added to the view most of her English subjects had of her as a friendly, homely, motherly woman whom the nation greatly loved. Philippa outlived 9 of her 14 children; two of whom were lost during the Black Death outbreak (1348).

On 15 August 1369 Philippa died of an illness akin to dropsy in Windsor Castle, and was buried at Westminster Abbey. By all accounts, her 40 year marriage to Edward had been happy, despite his taking a mistress, Alice Perrers, during the later part of it.


[edit] Issue
Main article: Issue of Edward III of England
Philippa and Edward had fourteen children, including five sons who lived into adulthood and whose rivalry would eventually bring about the long-running civil wars known as the Wars of the Roses. Their sons are listed below:

Edward, the Black Prince (1330-76)
Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence (1338-68)
John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster (1340-99)
Edmund of Langley, 1st Duke of York (1341-1402)
Thomas of Woodstock, 1st Duke of Gloucester (1355-97)
Another three sons and two daughters died in infancy. There were four surviving daughters, listed below:

Isabella of England (1332-1379)
Joan of England (1334-1348)
Mary Plantagenet (1344-1362)
Margaret Plantagenet (1346-1361)

Legacy
Through her children, Philippa reintroduced the bloodline of an earlier English King, Stephen, into the royal family. She was descended from Stephen through Matilda of Brabant, the wife of Floris IV, Count of Holland. Their daughter Adelaide of Holland married John I of Avesnes, Count of Hainaut, Philippa's paternal great-grandfather. Matilda of Brabant in turn was the great-granddaughter of Stephen through her mother Matilda of Boulogne, the wife of Henry I, Duke of Brabant.

Philippa was also a descendant of Harold II of England through his daughter Gytha of Wessex, married to Vladimir II Monomakh of Kiev. His bloodline, however, had been reintroduced to the English royal family by Philippa's mother-in-law, Isabella of France, a granddaughter of Isabella of Aragon, the wife of Philip III of France. Isabella of Aragon's mother, Violant of Hungary, was a daughter of Andrew II of Hungary, a grandson of Géza II by Euphrosyne of Kiev, herself a granddaughter of Gytha. Through her maternal great-grandmother, Maria of Hungary, she was descended from Elisabeth of Bosnia (born before 1241), a daughter of Kuthen, Khan of the Cumens and his Slavic wife, Galicie of Halicz, thus bringing Western Asian blood into the English royal line.[1]

The Queen's College, Oxford is named after Philippa. It was founded by one of her chaplains, Robert de Eglesfield, in her honour.

Sources
Salmonson, Jessica Amanda.(1991) The Encyclopedia of Amazons. Paragon House. page 212. ISBN 1-55778-420-5
Weir, Alison (1999). Britain's Royal Family: A Complete Genealogy. The Bodley Head London, U.K.. page 92
Ashley, Mike (2002). British Kings & Queens. Carroll & Graf. ISBN 0-7867-1104-3. pages 185 & 186
WorldRoots.com by Leo Van de Pas

See also
Counts of Hainaut family tree
Counts of Holland family tree


Reign as consort January 24, 1328 - August 15, 1369
Spouse Edward III
Issue
Edward, the Black Prince
Isabella, Lady of Coucy
Joan of England
Lionel, 1st Duke of Clarence
John, 1st Duke of Lancaster
Edmund, 1st Duke of York
Mary, Duchess of Brittany
Margaret, Countess of Pembroke
Thomas, 1st Duke of Gloucester
DetailTitles and styles
Her Grace The Queen
Lady Philippa of Hainault
Father William I, Count of Hainaut
Mother Joan of Valois
Born 24 June 1311(1311-06-24)
Valenciennes
Died 15 August 1369 (aged 58)
Windsor Castle
Burial Westminster Abbey

Notes:

Edward II, (25 April 1284 ? 21 September 1327?) of Caernarfon, was King of England from 1307 until he was deposed in January 1327. His tendency to ignore his nobility in favour of low-born favourites led to constant political unrest and his eventual deposition. Edward is perhaps best remembered for his death by supposed murder and his showering of male favourites with gifts as well as being the first monarch to establish colleges in the universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

Prince of Wales
The fourth son of Edward I by his first wife Eleanor of Castile, Edward II was born at Caernarfon Castle. He was the first English prince to hold the title Prince of Wales, which was formalized by the Lincoln Parliament of 7 February 1301.

The story that his father presented Edward II as a newborn to the Welsh as their future native prince is unfounded. The Welsh purportedly asked the King to give them a prince who spoke Welsh, and, the story goes, he answered he would give them a prince that spoke no English at all.[1] This story first appeared in the work of 16th century Welsh "antiquary" David Powel.[citation needed]

Edward became heir at just a few months of age, following the death of his elder brother Alphonso. His father, a notable military leader, trained his heir in warfare and statecraft starting in his childhood, yet the young Edward preferred boating and craftwork, activities considered beneath kings at the time.

It has been hypothesized[who?] that Edward's love for "lowbrow" activities developed because of his overbearing, ruthless father. The prince took part in several Scots campaigns, but despite these martial engagements, "all his father's efforts could not prevent his acquiring the habits of extravagance and frivolity which he retained all through his life".[2] The king attributed his son?s preferences to his strong attachment to Piers Gaveston, a Gascon knight, and Edward I exiled Gaveston from court after Prince Edward attempted to bestow on his friend a title reserved for royalty. Ironically, it was the king who had originally chosen Gaveston to be a suitable friend for his son, in 1298 due to his wit, courtesy and abilities. Edward I died on 7 July 1307 en route to another campaign against the Scots, a war that became the hallmark of his reign. Edward had requested that his son "boil his body, extract the bones and carry them with the army until the Scots had been subdued." But his son ignored the request and had his father buried in Westminster Abbey with the epitaph "Here lies Edward I, the Hammer of the Scots".[3] Edward II immediately recalled Gaveston and withdrew from the Scottish campaign that year.


King of England
Edward was as physically impressive as his father, yet he lacked the drive and ambition of his forebear. It was written that Edward II was "the first king after the Conquest who was not a man of business".[2] His main interest was in entertainment, though he also took pleasure in athletics and mechanical crafts. He had been so dominated by his father that he had little confidence in himself, and was often in the hands of a court favourite with a stronger will than his own.

On 25 January 1308, Edward married Isabella of France, the daughter of King Philip IV of France, "Philip the Fair," and sister to three French kings. The marriage was doomed to failure almost from the beginning. Isabella was frequently neglected by her husband, who spent much of his time conspiring with his favourites regarding how to limit the powers of the Peerage in order to consolidate his father's legacy for himself. Nevertheless, their marriage produced two sons, Edward (1312?1377), who would succeed his father on the throne as Edward III, and John of Eltham, Earl of Cornwall (1316?1336), and two daughters, Eleanor (1318?1355) and Joanna (1321?1362), wife of David II of Scotland. Edward had also fathered at least one illegitimate son, Adam FitzRoy, who accompanied his father in the Scottish campaigns of 1322 and died shortly afterwards.


War with the Barons
When Edward travelled to the northern French city of Boulogne to marry Isabella, he left his friend and counsellor Piers Gaveston to act as regent. Gaveston also received the earldom of Cornwall and the hand of the king's niece, Margaret of Gloucester; these proved to be costly honours.

Various barons grew resentful of Gaveston, and insisted on his banishment through the Ordinances of 1311. Edward recalled his friend, but in 1312, Gaveston was executed by the Earl of Lancaster and his allies, who claimed that Gaveston led the king to folly. Lancaster handed Gaveston over to two Welshmen, who took him to Blacklow Hill and executed him; one ran him through the heart with his sword and the other beheaded him. A monument called Gaveston's Cross still stands today on Blacklow Hill, which is just outside the small village of Leek Wootton. Edward's grief over the death of Gaveston was profound. He kept the remains of his body close to him for a number of weeks before the Church forcibly arranged a burial.

Immediately following this, Edward focused on the destruction of those who had betrayed him, while the barons themselves lost impetus (with Gaveston dead, they saw little need to continue). By mid-July, Aymer de Valence, 2nd Earl of Pembroke was advising the king to make war on the barons who, unwilling to risk their lives, entered negotiations in September 1312. In October, the Earls of Lancaster, Warwick, Arundel and Hereford begged Edward's pardon.


Conflict with Scotland
During this period, Robert the Bruce was steadily reconquering Scotland. Each campaign begun by Edward, from 1307 to 1314, ended in Robert's clawing back more of the land that Edward I had taken during his long reign. Robert's military successes against Edward II were due to a number of factors, not the least of which was the Scottish King's strategy. He used small forces to trap an invading English army, took castles by stealth to preserve his troops and he used the land as a weapon against Edward by attacking quickly and then disappearing into the hills instead of facing the superior numbers of the English. Bruce united Scotland against its common enemy and is quoted as saying that he feared more the dead Edward I than the living Edward II.[citation needed] By June 1314, only Stirling Castle and Berwick remained under English control.

On 23 June 1314, Edward and his army of 20 000 foot soldiers and 3 000 cavalry faced Robert and his army of foot soldiers and farmers wielding 14-foot-long pikes. Edward knew he had to keep the critical stronghold of Stirling Castle if there was to be any chance for English military success. The castle, however, was under a constant state of siege, and the English commander, Sir Phillip de Mowbray, had advised Edward that he would surrender the castle to the Scots unless Edward arrived by 24 June 1314, to relieve the siege. Edward could not afford to lose his last forward castle in Scotland. He decided therefore to gamble his entire army to break the siege and force the Scots to a final battle by putting its army into the field.

However, Edward had made a serious mistake in thinking his vastly superior numbers alone would provide enough of a strategic advantage to defeat the Scots. Robert not only had the advantage of prior warning, as he knew the actual day that Edward would come north and fight, he also had the time to choose the field of battle most advantageous to the Scots and their style of combat. As Edward moved forward on the main road to Stirling, Robert placed his army on either side of the road north, one in the dense woods and the other placed on a bend on the river, a spot hard for the invading army to see. Robert also ordered his men to dig potholes and cover them with bracken in order to help break any cavalry charge.

By contrast, Edward did not issue his writs of service, calling upon 21,540 men, until 27 May 1314. Worse, his army was ill-disciplined and had seen little success in eight years of campaigns. On the eve of battle, he decided to move his entire army at night and placed it in a marshy area, with its cavalry laid out in nine squadrons in front of the foot soldiers. The following battle, the Battle of Bannockburn, is considered by contemporary scholars to be the worst defeat sustained by the English since the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

Tactics similar to Robert's were employed by victorious English armies against the French in later centuries, partly as a direct result of the enduring decisiveness of the Scots' victory. A young Henry V of England would use exactly this tactic against French cavalry in a key battle on the fields of Agincourt in 1415, winning the day against France.


Edward and Piers Gaveston
Several contemporary sources criticised his infatuation with Piers Gaveston, to the extent that Edward ignored and humiliated his wife. Chroniclers called the relationship excessive, immoderate, beyond measure and reason and criticised his desire for wicked and forbidden sex[4]. The Westminster chronicler says that Gaveston led Edward to reject the sweet embraces of his wife. He turned over to Gaveston all of the wedding gifts Isabella brought to the marriage - including the marriage bed. The Meaux Chronicle (written decades later) complained that, Edward took too much delight in sodomy. This does not, however, prove that Edward and Gaveston were lovers; only that some contemporaries and later writers thought this might be the case.

Gaveston was considered to be athletic and handsome; was a few years older than Edward and had seen military service in Flanders before becoming Edward's close companion. Upon meeting Gaveston, he was immediately dazzled and later exclaimed that he loved Gaveston "more than life itself". Gaveston was known to have a quick, biting wit, and his fortunes continued to ascend as Edward obtained more and more honours for him, including the Earldom of Cornwall. Earlier, Edward I had attempted to control the situation by exiling Gaveston from England. However, upon the king's death in 1307, Edward II immediately recalled him.

Isabella's marriage to Edward took place in January, 1308. Almost immediately, she wrote to her father, Philip the Fair of France, complaining of Edward's behavior with Gaveston. Although the relationship that developed between the two young men was certainly very close, its exact nature is impossible to determine. Some modern assumptions are that their relationship was definitely sexual. The evidence for this, however, is far from clear. While some of the chroniclers' remarks can be interpreted simply as homosexuality or bisexuality, too many of them are either much later in date or the product of hostility. Both Edward and Gaveston married early in the reign. There were children from both marriages - Edward also had an illegitimate son, Adam, aside from those with Isabella. It has also been plausibly, though not conclusively, argued that the two men entered into a bond of adoptive brotherhood[5].

The relationship was later explored in a play by the dramatist Christopher Marlowe. This is unusual in making explicit reference to a sexual relationship between king and favourite. More frequently the nature of the relationship between the two is only hinted at, or is cited as a dreadful example of the fate that may befall kings who allow themselves to be influenced by favourites, and so become estranged from their subjects[6].


'Rule' of the Despensers
Following Gaveston's death, the king increased favour to his nephew-by-marriage (who was also Gaveston's brother-in-law), Hugh Despenser the Younger. But, as with Gaveston, the barons were indignant at the privileges Edward lavished upon the Despenser father and son, especially when the younger Despenser began in 1318 to strive to procure for himself the earldom of Gloucester and the lands associated with it.

By 1320, the situation in England was again becoming dangerously unstable. Edward ignored the law in favour of Despenser: when Lord de Braose of Gower sold his title to his son-in-law, an action entirely lawful in the Welsh Marches, Despenser demanded the king grant Gower to him instead. The king, against all laws, then confiscated Gower from the purchaser and offered it to Despenser; in so doing, he provoked the fury of most of the barons. In 1321, the Earl of Hereford, along with the Earl of Lancaster and others, took up arms against the Despenser family, and the King was forced into an agreement with the barons. On 14 August at Westminster Hall, accompanied by the Earls of Pembroke and Richmond, the king declared the Despenser father and son both banished.

The victory of the barons proved their undoing. With the removal of the Despensers, many nobles, regardless of previous affiliation, now attempted to move into the vacuum left by the two. Hoping to win Edward's favour, these nobles were willing to aid the king in his revenge against the barons and thus increase their own wealth and power. In following campaigns, many of the king's opponents were murdered, the Earl of Lancaster being beheaded in the presence of Edward himself.

With all opposition crushed, the king and the Despensers were left the unquestioned masters of England. At the York Parliament of 1322, Edward issued a statute which revoked all previous ordinances designed to limit his power and to prevent any further encroachment upon it. The king would no longer be subject to the will of Parliament, and the Lords, Prelates, and Commons were to suffer his will in silence.


Isabella leaves England
A dispute between France and England broke out over Edward's refusal to pay homage to the French king for the territory of Gascony. After several bungled attempts to regain the territory, Edward sent his wife, Isabella, to negotiate peace terms. Overjoyed, Isabella arrived in France in March 1325. She was now able to visit her family and native land as well as escape the Despensers and the king, all of whom she now detested.

On 31 May 1325, Isabella agreed to a peace treaty, favouring France and requiring Edward to pay homage in France to Charles; but Edward decided instead to send his son to pay homage. This proved a gross tactical error, and helped to bring about the ruin of both Edward and the Despensers as Isabella, now that she had her son with her, declared that she would not return to England until Despenser was removed.


Invasion by Isabella and Mortimer
When Isabella's retinue - loyal to Edward, and ordered back to England by Isabella - returned to the English Court on 23 December, they brought further shocking news for the king: Isabella had formed a liaison with Roger Mortimer in Paris and they were now plotting an invasion of England.

Edward prepared for the invasion but was betrayed by those close to him: his son refused to leave his mother - claiming he wanted to remain with her during her unease and unhappiness. Edward's brother, the Earl of Kent, married Mortimer's cousin, Margaret Wake; other nobles, such as John de Cromwell and the Earl of Richmond, also chose to remain with Mortimer.

In September 1326, Mortimer and Isabella invaded England. Edward was amazed by their small numbers of soldiers, and immediately attempted to levy an immense army to crush them. However, a large number of men refused to fight Mortimer and the Queen; Henry of Lancaster, for example, was not even summoned by the king, and he showed his loyalties by raising an army, seizing a cache of Despenser treasure from Leicester Abbey, and marching south to join Mortimer.

The invasion swiftly had too much force and support to be stemmed. As a result, the army the king had ordered failed to emerge and both Edward and Despenser were left isolated. They abandoned London on 1 October, leaving the city to fall into disorder. The king first took refuge in Gloucester and then fled to South Wales in order to make a defence in Despenser's lands. However, Edward was unable to rally an army, and on 31 October, he was abandoned by his servants, leaving him with only Despenser and a few retainers.

On 27 October, the elder Despenser was accused of encouraging the illegal government of his son, enriching himself at the expense of others, despoiling the Church, and taking part in the illegal execution of the Earl of Lancaster. He was hanged and beheaded at the Bristol Gallows. Henry of Lancaster was then sent to Wales in order to fetch the King and the younger Despenser; on 16 November he caught Edward, Despenser and their soldiers in the open country near Tonyrefail, where a plaque now commemorates the event. The soldiers were released and Despenser was sent to Isabella at Hereford whilst the king was taken by Lancaster himself to Kenilworth.


End of the Despensers
Reprisals against Edward's allies began immediately thereafter. The Earl of Arundel, Sir Edmund Fitz Alan, an old enemy of Roger Mortimer, was beheaded; this was followed by the trial and execution of Despenser.[7]

Despenser was brutally executed and a huge crowd gathered in anticipation at seeing him die. They dragged him from his horse, stripped him, and scrawled Biblical verses against corruption and arrogance on his skin. They then led him into the city, presenting him in the market square to Roger, Isabella, and the Lancastrians. He was then condemned to hang as a thief, be castrated, and then be drawn and quartered as a traitor, his quarters to be dispersed throughout England.


Abdication
With the King imprisoned, Mortimer and the Queen faced the problem of what to do with him. The simplest solution would be execution: his titles would then pass to Edward of Windsor, whom Isabella could control, while it would also prevent the possibility of his being restored. Execution would require the King to be tried and convicted of treason: and while most Lords agreed that Edward had failed to show due attention to his country, several Prelates argued that, appointed by God, the King could not be legally deposed or executed; if this happened, they said, God would punish the country. Thus, at first, it was decided to have Edward imprisoned for life instead.

However, the fact remained that the legality of power still lay with the King. Isabella had been given the Great Seal, and was using it to rule in the names of the King, herself, and their son as appropriate; nonetheless, these actions were illegal, and could at any moment be challenged.

In these circumstances, Parliament chose to act as an authority above the King. Representatives of the House of Commons were summoned, and debates began. The Archbishop of York and others declared themselves fearful of the London mob, loyal to Roger Mortimer. Others wanted the King to speak in Parliament and openly abdicate, rather than be deposed by the Queen and her General. Mortimer responded by commanding the Mayor of London, Richard de Bethune, to write to Parliament, asking them to go to the Guildhall to swear an oath to protect the Queen and Prince Edward, and to depose the King. Mortimer then called the great lords to a secret meeting that night, at which they gave their unanimous support to the deposition of the King.

Eventually Parliament agreed to remove the King. However, for all that Parliament had agreed that the King should no longer rule, they had not deposed him. Rather, their decision made, Edward was asked to accept it.

On 20 January 1327, Edward II was informed at Kenilworth Castle of the charges brought against him. The King was guilty of incompetence; allowing others to govern him to the detriment of the people and Church; not listening to good advice and pursuing occupations unbecoming to a monarch; having lost Scotland and lands in Gascony and Ireland through failure of effective governance; damaging the Church, and imprisoning its representatives; allowing nobles to be killed, disinherited, imprisoned and exiled; failing to ensure fair justice, instead governing for profit and allowing others to do likewise; and of fleeing in the company of a notorious enemy of the realm, leaving it without government, and thereby losing the faith and trust of his people. Edward, profoundly shocked by this judgment, wept while listening. He was then offered a choice: he might abdicate in favour of his son; or he might resist, and relinquish the throne to one not of royal blood, but experienced in government?this, presumably, being Roger Mortimer. The King, lamenting that his people had so hated his rule, agreed that if the people would accept his son, he would abdicate in his favour. The lords, through the person of Sir William Trussel, then renounced their homage to him, and the reign of Edward II ended.

The abdication was announced and recorded in London on 24 January, and the following day was proclaimed the first of the reign of Edward III?who, at 14, was still controlled by Isabella and Mortimer. The former King Edward remained imprisoned.

Death

The government of Isabella and Mortimer was so precarious that they dared not leave the deposed king in the hands of their political enemies. On 3 April, Edward II was removed from Kenilworth and entrusted to the custody of two subordinates of Mortimer, then later imprisoned at Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire where, it is generally believed, he was murdered by an agent of Isabella and Mortimer.

On the night of 11 October while lying in on a bed [the king] was suddenly seized and, while a great mattress... weighed him down and suffocated him, a plumber's iron, heated intensely hot, was introduced through a tube into his secret private parts so that it burned the inner portions beyond the intestines.?Thomas de la Moore

It was rumoured that Edward had been killed by the insertion of a piece of copper into his rectum (later a red-hot iron rod, as in the supposed murder of Edmund Ironside). Murder in this manner would have appeared a natural death, as a metal tube would have been inserted into the anus first, thus allowing the iron rod to penetrate the entrails without leaving a burn on the buttocks.

This gruesome account is uncorroborated by any contemporary source and no-one writing in the 14th century knew exactly what had happened to Edward II. The closest chronicler to the scene in time and distance, Adam Murimuth, stated that it was 'popularly rumoured' that he had been suffocated. The Lichfield chronicle, equally reflecting local opinion, stated that he had been strangled. Most chronicles did not offer a cause of death other than natural causes. Not until the relevant sections of the longer Brut chronicle were composed by a Lancastrian (anti-Mortimer) polemicist in the mid-1330s was the story of a copper rod in the anus widely circulated. In her biography of the king's wife Isabella, Alison Weir puts forward the theory based on the Fieschi Letter that Edward actually escaped imprisonment and lived the rest of his life in exile. Ian Mortimer, in his biography of Edward III, and in his biography of Roger Mortimer, also asserts that Edward II survived for at least another 14 years after his supposed death in 1327, and in fact died in Italy. Ian Mortimer argues Edward II's survival is a matter of certainty.[8]

Following the public announcement of the king's death, the rule of Isabella and Mortimer did not last long. They made peace with the Scots in the Treaty of Northampton, but this move was highly unpopular. Consequently, when Edward III came of age in 1330, he executed Roger Mortimer on fourteen charges of treason, most significantly the murder of Edward II (thereby removing any public doubt about his father's survival). Edward III spared his mother and gave her a generous allowance, but ensured that she retired from public life for several years. She died at Hertford on 23 August 1358.

References
^ Crofton, Ian (2007). "Edward I". The Kings and Queens of England. 21 Bloomsbury Square, London: Quercus. pp. 84. ISBN 1847240658. http://books.google.com/books?id=GdMzXfsKioAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=The+Kings+and+Queens+of+England&sig=w8EE1-yEaj12vl785WPCeDpLj6Y#PPA84,M1. Retrieved on 2008-06-23.
^ a b "King Edward II". NNDB. http://www.nndb.com/people/710/000093431/. Retrieved on 2008-06-23.
^ Hudson, M.E.; Mary Clark (1978). Crown of a Thousand Years. Crown Publishers, Inc.. pp. 48. ISBN 0-517-534525.
^ Flores Historiarum
^ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University, 2004
^ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University, 2004
^ The Magna Charta Sureties, 1215; Adams and Weis; pg 111
^ 'Note on the deaths of Edward II'
^ "Marks of Cadency in the British Royal Family". http://www.heraldica.org/topics/britain/cadency.htm.



Blackley, F.D. Adam, the Bastard Son of Edward II, 1964.
Doherty, Paul. Isabella and the Strange Death of Edward II. Constable and Robinson, 2003. ISBN 1841193011
Fryde, Natalie. The Tyranny and Fall of Edward II: 1321-1326
Mortimer, Ian. The Greatest Traitor. Thomas Dunne Books ISBN 0-312-34941-6
Mortimer, Ian. The Perfect King: The Life of Edward III Father of the English Nation. Jonathan Cape, 2006. ISBN 9780224073011 Appendix 2: The fake death of Edward II; Appendix 3: A note on the later life of Edward II
Weir, Alison, 'Isabella, She-Wolf of France', Jonathan Cape, 2005, ISBN 0224063200
Vita Edwardi Secundi. The Life of Edward the Second. Edited by N. Denholm-Young, re-edited with a new intro., apparatus and revised text and trans. by Wendy R. Childs. Oxford: Clarendon, 2005 (Oxford Medieval Texts).

External links
Edward II of England at Genealogics
King Edward II: a website examining the issues, events and personalities of Edward II's reign
Edward II: a blog related to the website
Edward II: an Edward II discussion forum
Flickr images tagged Berkeley Castle
Flickr images tagged Edward II


Reign 7 July 1307 ? 20 January 1327
Coronation 25 February 1308
Predecessor Edward I
Successor Edward III
Spouse Isabella of France
Issue
Edward III
John of Eltham, Earl of Cornwall
Eleanor, Countess of Guelders
Joan, Queen of Scots
DetailTitles and styles
King Edward II
The King
The Prince of Wales
Edward of Caernarfon
Father Edward I
Mother Eleanor of Castile
Born 25 April 1284(1284-04-25)
Caernarfon Castle, Gwynedd
Died 21 September 1327 (aged 43)?
Berkeley Castle, Gloucestershire
Burial Gloucester Cathedral, Gloucestershire

Edward married Isabella of (She-Wolf of France) France (Queen of England) 25 Jan 1308, Boulogne-sur-Mer, Pas-de-Calais, France. Isabella was born 1295, Paris, France; died 22 Aug 1358, Hertford Castle Hertford, Hertfordshire, England; was buried Greyfriars Church (Christ Church) Cemetery Newgate Street, London, England. [Group Sheet]

Notes:

Isabella of France (c. 1295 ? 22 August 1358), known as the She-Wolf of France,[1] was the Queen consort of Edward II of England and mother of Edward III. She was the youngest surviving child and only surviving daughter of Philip IV of France and Joan I of Navarre.

Biography
Isabella was born in Paris on an uncertain date, probably between May and November 1295 [2], to King Philip IV of France and Queen Jeanne of Navarre; she was also (in time) the sister of three French kings. Isabella was not titled a 'princess', as daughters of European monarchs were not given that style until later in history. Royal women were usually titled 'Lady' or an equivalent in other languages.

While still an infant, Isabella was promised in marriage by her father to Edward II; the intention was to resolve the conflicts between France and England over the latter's continental possession of Gascony and claims to Anjou, Normandy and Aquitaine. Pope Boniface VIII had urged the marriage as early as 1298 but was delayed by wrangling over the terms of the marriage contract. The English king, Edward I had also attempted to break the engagement several times. Only after he died, in 1307, did the wedding proceed.

Isabella's groom, the new King Edward II, looked the part of a Plantagenet king to perfection. He was tall, athletic, and wildly popular at the beginning of his reign. Isabella and Edward were married at Boulogne-sur-Mer on 25 January 1308. Since he had ascended the throne the previous year, Isabella never held the title Princess of Wales.

At the time of her marriage, Isabella was probably about twelve and was described by Geoffrey of Paris as "the beauty of beauties...in the kingdom if not in all Europe." These words may not merely have represented the standard politeness and flattery of a royal by a chronicler, since Isabella's father and brother are described as very handsome men in the historical literature. Isabella was said to resemble her father, and not her mother Jeanne of Navarre, a plump woman of high complexion.[3]This would indicate that Isabella was slender and pale-skinned.

Edward and Isabella did manage to produce four children, and she suffered at least one miscarriage. Their itineraries demonstrate that they were together 9 months prior to the births of all four surviving offspring. Their children were:

Edward of Windsor, born 1312
John of Eltham, born 1316
Eleanor of Woodstock, born 1318, married Reinoud II of Guelders
Joan of the Tower, born 1321, married David II of Scotland
Although Isabella produced four children, the apparently bisexual king was notorious for lavishing sexual attention on a succession of male favourites, including Piers Gaveston and Hugh le Despenser the younger. Isabella despised the royal favorite, Hugh le Despenser, and in 1321, while pregnant with her youngest child, she dramatically begged Edward to banish Despenser from the kingdom. Despenser was exiled, but Edward recalled him later that year. This act seems finally to have turned Isabella against her husband altogether. While the nature of her relationship with Roger Mortimer is unknown for this time period, she may have helped him escape from the Tower of London in 1323. Later, she openly took Mortimer as her lover. He was married to the wealthy heiress Joan de Geneville, and the father of twelve children.

When Isabella's brother, King Charles IV of France, seized Edward's French possessions in 1325, she returned to France, initially as a delegate of the King charged with negotiating a peace treaty between the two countries. However, her presence in France became a focal point for the many nobles opposed to Edward's reign. Isabella gathered an army to oppose Edward, in alliance with Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March. Enraged by this treachery, Edward demanded that Isabella return to England. Her brother, King Charles, replied, "The queen has come of her own will and may freely return if she wishes. But if she prefers to remain here, she is my sister and I refuse to expel her."

Despite this public show of support by the King of France, Isabella and Mortimer left the French court in summer 1326 and went to William I, Count of Hainaut in Holland, whose wife was Isabella's cousin. William provided them with eight men of war ships in return for a marriage contract between his daughter Philippa and Isabella's son, Edward. On 21 September 1326 Isabella and Mortimer landed in Suffolk with an army, most of whom were mercenaries. King Edward II offered a reward for their deaths and is rumoured to have carried a knife in his hose with which to kill his wife. Isabella responded by offering twice as much money for the head of Hugh the younger Despenser. This reward was issued from Wallingford Castle.

The invasion by Isabella and Mortimer was successful: King Edward's few allies deserted him without a battle; the Despensers were killed, and Edward himself was captured and forced to abdicate in favour of his eldest son, Edward III of England. Since the young king was only fourteen when he was crowned on 1 February 1327, Isabella and Mortimer ruled as regents in his place.

According to legend, Isabella and Mortimer famously plotted to murder the deposed king in such a way as not to draw blame on themselves, sending the famous order (in Latin): "Eduardum occidere nolite timere bonum est" which, depending on where the comma was inserted, could mean either "Do not be afraid to kill Edward; it is good" or "Do not kill Edward; it is good to fear". In actuality, there is little evidence of just who decided to have Edward assassinated, and none whatsoever of the note ever having been written. Alison Weir's biography of Isabella puts forward the theory that Edward II in fact escaped death and fled to Europe, where he lived as a hermit for twenty years.

When Edward III turned 18, he and a few trusted companions staged a coup on 19 October 1330 and had both Isabella and Mortimer taken prisoner. Despite Isabella's cries of "Fair son, have pity on gentle Mortimer", Mortimer was executed for treason one month later in November of 1330.

Her son spared Isabella's life and she was allowed to retire to Castle Rising in Norfolk. She did not, as legend would have it, go insane; she enjoyed a comfortable retirement and made many visits to her son's court, doting on her grandchildren. Isabella took the habit of the Poor Clares before she died on 22 August 1358, and her body was returned to London for burial at the Franciscan church at Newgate. She was buried in her wedding dress. Edward's heart was interred with her.


Titles and styles
Lady Isabella of France
Isabella, by the grace of God, Queen of England, Lady of Ireland and Duchess of Aquitaine

Notes
^ A sobriquet appropriated from Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 3, where it is used to refer to Henry's Queen, Margaret of Anjou
^ She is described as born in 1292 in the Annals of Wigmore, and Piers Langtoft agrees, claiming that she was 7 years old in 1299. The French chronicler Guillaume de Nangis and Thomas Walsingham describe her as 12 years old at the time of her marriage in January 1308, placing her birth between the January of 1295 and of 1296. A Papal dispensation by Clement V in November 1305 permitted her immediate marriage by proxy, despite the fact that she was probably only 10 years old. Since she had to reach the canonical age of 7 before her betrothal in May 1303, and that of 12 before her marriage in January 1308, the evidence suggests that she was born between May and November 1295. See Weir, Alison, Isabella
^ Thomas B. Costain "The Three Edwards", P.82

[edit] Sources
Blackley, F.D. Isabella of France, Queen of England 1308-1358, and the Late Medieval Cult of the Dead. (Canadian Journal of History)
Doherty, P.C. Isabella and the Strange Death of Edward II, 2003
McKisack, May. The Fourteenth Century 1307-1399, 1959.
Woods, Charles T. Queens, Queans and Kingship, appears in Joan of Arc and Richard III: Sex, Saints and Government in the Middle Ages, 1988.
Weir, Alison. Queen Isabella:Treachery, Adultery, and Murder in Medieval England, Balantine Books, 2005.