HIS3406 Lecture Notes on Edward III and Richard II

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HIS3406 Lecture Notes on Edward III and Richard II

• (by Fred Cheung)

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• The Angevin (Plantagenet) Kings
• Henry II (Father of the English Common Law), r.
  1154-1189
• Richard I (the Lion-Hearted), r. 1189-1199
• John (the Lackland), r. 1199-1216
• Henry III, r. 1216-1272
• Edward I, r. 1272-1307
• Edward II, r. 1307-1327
• Edward III, r. 1327-1377
• Richard II, r. 1377-1399

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• Main References
• Hollister, The Making of England, pp. 321-336,
  and 352-360.
• Michael Prestwich, The Three Edwards War and
  State in England, 1272-1377, (London, 1980), pp.
  137-244.
• W.M. Ormrod, The Reign of Edward III Crown and
  Political Society in England, 1327-1377 (New
  Haven, 1990).
• Scott L. Waugh, England in the Reign of Edward
  III (Cambridge, 1991).
• Juliet Vale, Edward III and Chivalry Chivalric
  Society and Its Context, 1270-1350 (Woodbridge,
  1982).

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• Nigel Saul, Richard II (New Haven, 1997).
• Anthony Tuck, Richard II and the English Nobility
  (London, 1973).
• Gervase Matthew, The Court of Richard II
  (London, 1968).
• Goronwy Edwards, The Second Century of the
  English Parliament (Oxford, 1979)
• G.L. Harriss, King, Parliament and Public Finance
  in Medieval England to 1369 (Oxford, 1975).
• George Holmes, The Good Parliament (Oxford, 1975).

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• Edward III, r. 1327-1377, was a warrior-king. He
  was chivalrous and popular. He succeeded to a
  remarkable degree in maintaining the loyalty of
  his magnates and his sons, who respected and
  supported him. On his personality, Edward III
  was a happy, cheerful, and friendly person.

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• According to Prof. Hollister, Reversing the
  political equation of Edward IIs final years,
  Edward IIIs reign was characterized by peace at
  home and war abroad. Between 1333 and 1336, the
  king led a series of successful, though brutal
  and inconclusive, expeditions into Scotland.
  But Edward III directed his chief military
  efforts against France, and it was there that he
  won his greatest renown.

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• Edwards French campaigns mark the opening phase
  of a protracted military struggle known as the
  Hundred Years War 1338 to 1453.
• When Charles IV, the last of the Capetian kings,
  died childless in 1328, Edward III became a
  serious contender for the French royal succession
  through his mother Isabella, Charless sister.

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• The battle of Crecy, fought on August 26, 1346,
  ended in an overwhelming victory for Edward III.
  Edwards longbowmen decimated the mounted
  French nobles and thereby crippled their military
  capability for years to come. The successful
  campaign of 1346-1347 cemented Edwards
  popularity at home and brought him European-wide
  prestige.

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• A decade after Crecy the English, again depending
  heavily on their longbowmen, won another major
  victory over the French at Poitiers. Edward was
  not present at the battle his eldest son, Edward
  he Black Prince, led the English army.
  Although badly outnumbered, the English put the
  French to rout, captured their king, John the
  Good, and returned to England with the royal
  prisoner.

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• Yet all that the English had won in these French
  campaigns they would lose over the next two
  decades. This reversal in military fortunes
  resulted from a revival of French royal
  authority, ineffective political leadership in
  England, England prospered during most of the
  1360s But as the 1360s drew to a close, the
  balance of quality in French and English
  leadership tipped in Frances favor. Edward
  IIIs high living primarily drinking and
  chasing women especially, Alice Perrers.

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• His eldest son, the Black Prince, fell victim to
  a lingering illness. On the French side, the
  inept King John died in 1364, leaving the kingdom
  to his intelligent and energetic son, Charles V
  (1364-1380). King Charles was served by an
  astute military commander, Bertrand du Guesclin,
  reputed to be the ugliest man in France and the
  best general in Europe. (Hollister, The Making
  of England, pp. 321-336)

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• According to Prof. Prestwich, A study of Edward
  IIIs policies at home reveals him to have been a
  politician rather than a far-sighted statesman.
  He did not initiate any changes in the law or the
  administration. he displayed his intention
  to be an effective master of his kingdom, but he
  also showed a readiness to compromise when faced
  with the harsh realities of his position.

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• Concessions were lightly granted, and then
  casually revoked. The statutes of the period
  were not all that they seemed that dealing with
  treason was not an act of consummate
  statesmanship by a king determined to prevent
  future injustice, but was part of a long story of
  compromise and confusion over the question of law
  and order.

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• It was the kings need for money, which largely
  conditioned his policies. Concessions were
  granted to the commons in recognition of their
  power to grant subsidies.

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• The achievement of the government at home during
  the years of triumph abroad was considerable, if
  not spectacular. An expensive war was financed,
  an unruly countryside brought under a degree of
  control, Edward I had tried to impose his
  will on the country from above in contrast, many
  of the measures taken in Edward IIIs reign were
  not the result of royal initiative, but emerged
  in the course of the bargaining process over the
  kings financial demands. Edward III was far
  more than a mere military adventurer he was a
  skillful ruler as well as a chivalric hero.
  (Prestwich, The Three Edwards, pp. 243-244).

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• Chronology of Historical Events in the reign of
  Edward III, r. 1327-1377
• 1327 Accession of Edward III
• 1327-30 Rule of Isabella and Mortimer
• 1330 Mortimer tried and hanged
• 1329 Death of Robert Bruce
• 1330 Edward IIIs personal rule established
• 1337 Hundred Years War begins

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• 1346 Battle of Crecy
• 1348 Onset of Black Death
• 1351 Statute of Provisors Statute of Laborers
• 1352 Statute of Treason
• 1353 Statute of Praemunire
• 1376 Good Parliament death of the Black Prince
• 1377 Death of Edward III

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• (Source Michael Prestwich, The Three Edwards
  War and State in England, 1272-1377.)

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• Richard II, r. 1377-1390
• Edward III died in 1377, but his eldest son
  Edward the Black Prince died in 1376, so Richard
  II succeeded to the English throne at the age of
  ten. According to Prof. Hollister, The ongoing
  expenses of war had long ago forced the crown to
  turn to Parliament for help, and in the course of
  Edward IIIs reign the Commons had come to demand
  an ever-greater voice in royal policy in return
  for subsidies. Parliaments efforts to
  control the royal council had culminated, during
  the Good Parliament of 1376, in the development
  of a process by which the Commons could remove
  unpopular royal ministers by impeachment. And
  Edward IIs fall in 1327 had demonstrated that,
  as a last resort, Parliament might formally
  depose the king.

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• Throughout his reign, Richard II strove to
  reverse the decline of royal power and to restore
  the monarchy to what he believed was its rightful
  position of authority over the realm. But by
  pursuing this goal with such blatant disregard
  for the political and constitutional changes that
  had taken place in England during the preceding
  half-century, Richard so alienated the magnates
  and gentry of his kingdom that he ultimately
  provoked his own deposition in 1399.

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• Richard himself possessed courage and
  determination, as his behavior during the
  Peasants Revolt makes clear. He was small in
  stature and perhaps slightly hunchbacked his
  portraits disclose a sensitive, anxious face.

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• The barons were in no sense a monolithic force.
  If anything, they were even more faction-ridden
  than in earlier times. They were at odds not
  only with one another but also with the gentry
  and townspeople, who now exercised considerable
  power in the Commons.

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• Thus far, relations between crown and community
  had been tempered by the moderating influence of
  Richards uncle, John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster
  and patron of John Wycliff. he nevertheless
  commanded respect. As Englands wealthiest
  magnate master of the immense Lancastrian
  inheritance through marriage he was a political
  figure of formidable influence.

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• The so-called Merciless Parliament met in 1388
  to hear the appeals of five of its leading
  members, who numbered among the wealthiest
  magnates in England. Dominated by them and
  their supporters, the Merciless Parliament
  convicted the accused councilors and executed
  several others as well. Richards court
  circle disintegrated, and for the king there now
  remained no choice but to cooperate with his
  magnates and his parliaments.

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• The Merciless Parliament was the central
  political event of Richard IIs reign. It marks
  the zenith of parliamentary power The lords
  appellant themselves justified their actions on
  legal and constitutional grounds, Like so
  many victorious magnates before them, they went
  too far. The magnitude of their triumph evoked a
  reaction of venomous factionalism and widespread
  dissent.

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• In autumn 1398, he Richard II banished the two
  remaining lords appellant, one of whom was Henry
  Bolingbroke, son and heir of the wealthy and aged
  John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster. When Gaunt
  died early in 1399, the king refused to consider
  the claims of the banished heir, despite his
  previous promise to allow Bolingbroke to inherit
  his fathers lands should Gaunt die while his son
  was in exile. Instead, Richard now extended
  Henry Bolingbrokes sentence of exile from ten
  years to life and seized the vast Lancastrian
  lands for himself.

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• Henry Bolingbroke had been a very considerable
  landholder in his own right. The addition of the
  Lancastrian patrimony would have made him a
  magnate of almost kingly wealth, While he
  Richard was away, Henry Bolingbroke returned to
  England to claim his Lancastrian inheritance by
  force.

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• As the eldest surviving son of John of Gaunt and
  a grandson of Edward III, Henry Bolingbroke
  possessed the necessary royal blood, and when he
  landed in Yorkshire and moved southward, one
  magnate after another rallied to him. Some of
  Bolingbrokes supporters sought only to install
  him in his fathers Lancastrian estates, but
  others were determined to make him king of
  England in Richards stead. In August 1399 he
  Richard negotiated with Henrys supporters and
  agreed to restore the Lancastrian patrimony. On
  his departure from the meeting, Richard was
  ambushed, forced to abdicate, and hauled off to a
  prison room in the Tower of London. Parliament
  received his abdication in September and
  recognized Henry Bolingbroke as King Henry IV r.
  1399-1413 of England.

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• Richard died in captivity early in 1400 he was
  probably murdered and the new Lancastrian
  dynasty stood virtually unchallenged.
• Whereas Edward II had been deposed because of his
  weaknesses, Richard fell because of his strength.

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• The fall of Richard II marks an appropriate end
  to a century of violence and turmoil, a
  fundamental turning point in English politics. A
  king had been deposed in 1327 but was succeeded
  by his eldest son and unquestioned heir. With
  Richard IIs forced resignation in 1399, however,
  the very concept of hereditary succession was
  thrown into doubt. For Richard was the last of
  the Plantagenet kings. He had no son. The
  succession was irregular for the first time in
  two hundred years. Legitimate succession was
  basic to the politics and aristocratic social
  order of the Later Middle Ages, and the
  compromising of that principle in 1399 rocked
  English society. For the next century, rival
  families contended for the throne, afflicting
  England with misrule and civil war. (Hollister,
  The Making of England, pp. 352-358)