The British Monarchy Miscellany
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Scots rebelled against Balliol in 1295 he tried to impose direct control over the country by invading Scotland and installing English officials in power. In an attempt to humiliate the Scots he also took the Stone of Scone to England and set it in the English coronation chair.
Domestically, he reformed English laws and
strengthened the administration of justice. He also made the calling of Parliament more frequent and granted it 72
permanent rights, like the right to approve taxation. His worst domestic legacy was the expulsion of all Jews from England in 1290 after he had taxed them and exploited them to exhaustion. They would not be admitted back into England until 1656.
The last part of his reign was dominated by a
renewed attempt to make himself direct ruler of
Scotland, this time authorising destructive raids and acts of brutality against the Scots. The Scottish people however defied Edward, first by rebelling under William Wallace in 1297-1298, and then by uniting behind Robert the Bruce who made himself King of Scots in 1306.
Edward died while travelling to Scotland to fight Robert the Bruce, his dream of conquering the country
remaining unfulfilled. The legacy of enmity he established between Scotland and England persists to this day.
Peculiar Fact:
Tradition says that one of Edward’s last wishes before he died was that his bones be boiled, cleaned and carried in procession in any future military campaign against
Scotland. His wishes were not carried out.
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Edward II
Reign:
7 July 1307 – 25 January 1327
Birth:
25 April 1284, at Caernarfon Castle, Wales. Tenth-
surviving child and only surviving son of King Edward I and Queen Eleanor of Castile.
Queen:
Isabella of France (c.1295-1358), daughter of King Philip IV of France.
Death:
21 September 1327, in Berkeley Castle, Gloucestershire.
Key Facts:
A very different man from his father, Edward II had no liking for war preferring instead leisurely pursuits. He was profoundly stubborn yet also easily led by others, and at times highly vindictive. He is considered by many 74
to have been the worst monarch England ever had,
leaving no positive legacies to his name.
His over-reliance on self-seeking favourites,
including the low-born Piers Gaveston, caused great resentment among the English nobility who begrudged the many honours and favours Edward showered on
them. The nobility eventually ousted and executed
Gaveston in 1312, however Edward continued to alienate nobles by focusing his attention on a new favourite, the young English noble Hugh Despenser.
To great national consternation, he lost control of Scotland after he led an English army to disastrous defeat at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, allowing the Scots to proclaim complete independence from England. He
also caused discontent across the country by executing nobles opposed to his policies, including his own cousin Thomas, Earl of Lancaster. General discontent was
further fuelled by the Great Famine of 1315-1317 which affected England into the 1320s.
His continued relationship with Hugh Despenser
(possibly a romantic/sexual one) alienated Edward’s wife Isabella, who took refuge abroad in her native France and began openly opposing Edward. After planning an
invasion of the country together with her new lover, Roger Mortimer, Isabella landed in England in 1326 at the 75
head of a small army and deposed Edward, whose
support quickly melted away. She also executed Hugh Despenser.
The first English King to be officially deposed,
Edward was forced to relinquish the throne in January 1327 to his teenage son, Edward III, and his ousting set a legal precedent for future royal depositions. Initially allowed to live out his days in seclusion, he later died in mysterious circumstances whilst imprisoned at Berkeley Castle, some say murdered on the orders of Isabella’s lover, Roger Mortimer. Other contemporary rumours
claimed however that he was allowed to escape and live in obscurity abroad.
Peculiar Fact:
Unusually for his time, Edward enjoyed unroyal pasttimes like digging, hedging and rowing, activities that were usually associated with labourers. This prompted speculation that he was really not the great Edward I’s son but a changeling that had been switched with the real prince at birth. No real claimant however ever came forward proving that he was the real Edward II.
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Edward III
Reign:
25 January 1327 – 21 June 1377
Birth:
13 November 1312, at Windsor Castle. First son of King Edward II and Queen Isabella of France.
Queen:
Philippa of Hainault (c.1311/15-1369), daughter of Count William I of Hainault (Flanders).
Death:
21 June 1377, in Sheen Palace, near London.
Key Facts:
After inheriting the crown at age 14 at the forced
deposition of his father, Edward spent the first years of his reign under the control of his mother’s lover, Roger Mortimer, who acted as king in all but name. At the age 77
of 17, in 1330, he finally overthrew Mortimer, had him executed, and began to rule directly.
In 1337 he claimed the French throne as the
grandson of King Philip IV of France, through his mother Isabella, beginning to style himself King of France. When his claim was rejected by the French Parliement, he took up arms against France starting the Hundred Years War.
He won initial resounding victories including the Battle of Crecy in 1346 where Edward’s archers famously decimate the French nobility. In 1347 he captured the town of Calais after an 11-month siege, following which the town remained in English hands for 200 years.
He won control of a third of the French kingdom
after his son, Edward the Black Prince, won the Battle of Poitiers in 1356. At the Treaty of Bretigny in 1360 Edward agreed to abandon his claims to the French throne in exchange for sovereignty over the territory England had gained up until that point. However by the end of his reign in 1377 the French had regrouped and had
conquered back almost all the lands Edward had won in the war.
An able commander in the field and an innovative
strategist, Edward turned the English army into one of the most formidable military machines in Europe,
adopting the longbow in battle as well as artillery. A 78
natural leader of men, in 1348 he founded the Order of the Garter, the oldest order of chivalry in England, as a group of knights bound together in honour and service to the king.
His rule was marked by almost 50 years of domestic
peace, due largely to his personal and political abilities as ruler. Among his achievements he fostered national
identity at home by beginning to use the English language in government, and he promoted English literature and architecture. In the following centuries his reign came to be seen as a golden age for England and the English monarchy.
Peculiar Fact:
In 1363 Edward issued a decree banning football,
handball, hockey and other ‘idle games’ so that people could spend their free time practicing archery instead.
The long bow arch was the key to English success on the battlefield during the Hundred Years War, so the ban was meant to promote archery training and pass down skills.
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Richard II
Reign:
21 June 1377 – 30 September 1399
Birth:
6 January 1367, in Bordeaux, France. Second son of
Edward the Black Prince and of Joan of Kent; grandson of King Edward III.
Queens:
1. (1382-1394) Anne of Bohemia (1366-1394), daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV.
<
br /> 2. (1396-1399) Isabella of Valois (1389-1409), daughter of King Charles VI of France.
Death:
Around 14 February 1400, at Pontefract Castle, Yorkshire.
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Key Facts:
Richard inherited the crown at age 10 because his
father, Edward the Black Prince, had predeceased Edward III. A regency council was in place during his minority but real power was wielded by Richard’s uncle John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. In 1381, at the age of 14, Richard showed great courage during the Peasants Revolt when he met with rebel crowds in London to listen to their demands and prevented a mob riot during a scuffle. After the danger passed however he approved severe
punishments for the rebel leaders.
After he begun to exercise direct power in his late teens he was accused of misgovernment and of giving too much power to favourites. In 1387 he was forced to
accept the supervision of a group of nobles called the Lords Appellant, who executed or exiled people from Richard’s circle and forced him to accept Parliament’s advice. Later in his reign Richard took revenge on the Lords Appellant and their supporters by executing or punishing many of them.
He tried to adopt an early form of absolute
monarchy by refusing to work with Parliament and the nobility, punishing people for what he perceived to be slights to his person, and creating a court culture centred on utter submission to the monarch. He is said to have 81
developed a narcissistic personality and was the first monarch to adopt the title ‘Your Majesty’.
His rule became increasingly unpopular after he
agreed a 28-year-truce with France in the Hundred Years War in 1396. He also began dispossessing nobles of their estates including his cousin Henry Bolingbroke, the richest noble in England, who was exiled on a pretext in 1398. Richard’s actions caused alarm among the nobility who began to complain of his tyranny.
Abandoned by most of his supporters, he was
deposed in 1399 by his cousin Henry Bolingbroke after he came back from exile to lead a rebellion against Richard.
Henry became King in his place, and Richard was
imprisoned in Pontefract Castle in Yorkshire where he later died in mysterious circumstances, most likely murdered on Henry’s orders.
Despite his failings Richard was a great patron of the arts, and under him the English court became one of the most refined in Europe. His contributions included the rebuilding of Westminster Hall, the commissioning of paintings and illuminated manuscripts, and the invention of the handkerchief. He was also a patron of writers Geoffrey Chaucer and John Gower.
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Peculiar Fact:
Although their marriage was childless, Richard was
deeply attached to his first wife Anne of Bohemia. After she died of plague at Sheen Manor, near London, in 1394
a distraught Richard had that palace, where they had shared many memories, razed to the ground.
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Henry IV
Reign:
30 September 1399 – 20 March 1413
Birth:
15 April 1367, at Bolingbroke Castle, Lincolnshire. First son of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster; grandson of King Edward III.
Queen:
Joanne of Navarre (c.1368/70-1437), daughter of King Charles II of Navarre, Dowager Duchess of Brittany.
Death:
20 March 1413, in the lodgings of Westminster Abbey, London.
Key Facts:
Heir to the Lancastrian inheritance, one of largest fortunes in England, Henry had a distinguished career before he became king. He was one of most famous
European jousters of his generation, he fought crusades with Teutonic knights in Lithuania, and travelled to the 84
Holy Land in pilgrimage where in 1393 he became the first English king to enter the city of Jerusalem.
One of the Lords Appellant who forced Richard II to reform his government in 1387, he was initially spared from Richard’s vengeful reprisals in 1397. A year later however Richard exiled him to France and confiscated his vast Lancastrian inheritance, leaving him as a penniless exile in France.
In 1399, after it became clear that an increasingly tyrannical Richard II had lost the support of the country, Henry came back to England, deposed Richard with much popular support, and was crowned king in his place. He was not next in the line of succession to the throne however, and his usurpation of the crown from Richard II and his legitimate heirs set off a ticking time bomb that would later explode in the Wars of the Roses.
He spent most of his reign putting down rebellions
by disaffected nobles and former supporters of Richard II.
The largest rebellion, by the Percy family of Northern England, was put down in 1403 when Henry defeated
their army at the Battle of Shrewsbury. Two more Percy rebellions followed later, during one of which Henry was forced to execute the Archbishop of York who had risen against him. Henry also fought repeatedly against Owain 85
Glyn Dwr, the Welsh leader who had proclaimed himself Prince of Wales.
In 1401 he became the first English king to pass
harsh laws against Christian heresy, including death penalties for preaching heretical ideas. The act was aimed mostly at the followers of John Wycliffe, called ‘Lollards’, some of whom became in Henry’s reign the first English people to be burned at the stake for heresy.
He became afflicted from the middle of his reign
with a mysterious disease that affected his skin and nervous system, and died in the Jerusalem Chamber of Westminster Abbey in 1413, fulfilling a previous prophecy that he would ‘die in Jerusalem’. Many people, including Henry himself, considered the painful manner of his death to be God’s punishment for his usurpation of the crown from Richard II.
Peculiar Fact:
Obsessed with health for most of his life, Henry’s
accounts show that as king he constantly sent urine samples to his doctors for examination into his current health. His faith in this method of diagnosis was so strong that he even commissioned a treatise on this practice, which is called uroscopy.
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Henry V
Reign:
20 March 1413 – 31 August 1422
Birth:
9 August 1387, in Monmouth Castle, Wales. First son of King Henry IV and his first wife, Mary de Bohun.
Queen:
Catherine of Valois (1401-1437), daughter of King Charles VI of France.
Death:
31 August 1422, in the Chateau de Vincennes, near Paris, France.
Key Facts:
A valiant soldier since his teens, Henry was
permanently disfigured at the age of 16 whilst fighting with his father at the Battle of Shrewsbury when an arrow struck the right side of his face. He later became a 87
strong military commander capable of inspiring troops through his bravery, as well as a model of medieval chivalry and honour.
As king he mended the divisions that had damaged
his father’s reign, pardoning former rebels and including everyone in his government. He adopted English as the official language of government records, and was the first king to leave written correspondence in English since before the Norman Conquest.
In 1415 he re-started the Hundred Years War with
France by claiming the French throne like his great-grandfather Edward III had done. He led a great army across the Channel to France that same year winning a famous victory against the odds at Agincourt in October.
He then went on to re-conquer Normandy in 1419.
Taking advantage of internal struggles at the French court, he overpowered his opponents and occupied most of Northern France by 1420. After forcing the Treaty of Troyes in 1420 he became Regent of France as well as heir to the French throne. The treaty was sealed by his marriage to the French king’s daughter, Catherine. Henry however died of dysentery soon afterwards at the height of his triumphs before he could con
solidate English power in France.
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Peculiar Fact:
In 1419 Henry accused his stepmother, Queen Dowager Joan of Navarre, of using witchcraft to poison him and imprisoned her for three years. It is thought the
accusations were spurious, caused by a family argument and Henry’s wish to confiscate her large wealth. He finally dropped the charges and released her from prison on his deathbed.
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Henry VI
Reign:
31 August 1422 – 4 March 1461;
3 October 1470 – 11 April 1471
Birth:
6 December 1421, at Windsor Castle. Only child of King Henry V and Queen Catherine of Valois.