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| Edward III |
The medieval era produced some
of the most charismatic kings and courtiers, that make our modern-day
politicians look bland and boring in comparison. But few could compare with Edward III, the
victor of the sea battles of Sluys and Winchelsea and the great battle of
Crécy, the only king since Alfred who came close to earning the epithet 'the
Great'.
Edward was born to two other
great characters, King Edward II and his wife Queen Isabella of France, sister
to Charles IV King of France. He found
himself caught between them when they fell out, with catastrophic consequences
for Edward II. He was powerless to do
anything to prevent his mother allying herself with the exiled Roger Mortimer
and invading England together and deposing his father. He was used as a pawn in their plans, his
mother selling his hand in marriage to Hainault in exchange for soldiers to aid
in her fight against her husband.
Edward refused the crown when it
was first offered to him. His father was
imprisoned at Kenilworth Castle having been deposed by parliament on January
13th 1327, and when the same parliament called for the king to be removed and
replaced by young Edward with the cry of "Let it be done!", he refused their plea
to replace him. Even at the tender age
of fourteen and a handful of weeks, Edward was showing he was astute and
intelligent. It was not until after his
father had abdicated the throne on 21st January that Edward acceded to the will
of parliament, but primarily to the will of his father, and allowed himself to
be proclaimed king.
This little scene shows what
potential Edward had even in his early teens.
He was under the rule of Mortimer but he did not meekly submit to the
older man. He used his intelligence to
out-flank him where he could, most notably in the use of a secret code to alert
the pope that letters carrying his seal were his words and not Mortimer's - he
wrote Pater Sancte at the end. I think
it likely that he used the same ruse to others but these simply do not survive
as papal archives do.
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| A survey of the tunnels under Nottingham Castle Trent and Peak Archaeology / University of Nottingham |
In 1330 Edward deposed Mortimer
in a manner that was so very Edward in nature and summed up everything that he
was and would be. At Nottingham castle
in November 1330 Roger Mortimer had threatened Edward's household and spurred
the young king into action. He had
already had to stand back and watch as Mortimer had destroyed his father and
his uncle, Edmund, the Earl of Kent, but now he was older and with a wife and
baby son to protect, the time had come to fight back. His closest companions, led by William Montagu
his dearest friend, crept into the castle by night using secret passages under
the castle walls and surprised Mortimer, taking him captive while Edward's
mother pleaded for his life. Mortimer
was taken from the castle that night and then to the Tower of London where he
was walled into a room until his trial and execution.
Edward adored such secret plans,
made good use of them through the heyday of his reign, as well as using such
wiles to thoroughly enjoy himself. In April
1331 Edward made an incognito and rather hasty, trip to France dressed as a
pilgrim with only around fifteen others, a small retinue for a medieval king. He
fought at the tournament at Dunstable in 1334 disguised at 'Sir Lionel', not
after the Arthurian knight of dubious reputation, but because his mother and
Mortimer nick-named him Leonell, Little Lion, at a tournament in 1329. In December 1349 Edward and his son, Edward
of Woodstock, Prince of Wales, (later to become known as The Black Prince) both
travelled to Calais dressed as merchants to investigate a report of treachery. They set up an ambush and once the trap was
sprung Edward joined the fight under the banner of Sir Walter Manny and not as
himself. And on May 5th 1357 Edward
executed a mock ambush for the Prince of Wales as he made his way from Plymouth
as he returned after his victory at the Battle of Poitiers. Edward, with 500 men dressed as outlaws waylaid
the prince, leaving King John of France rather bemused. Edward, it seems, was taken with the legends
of Robin Hood.
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| The Battle of Sluys, by Froissart |
So he had a playful side, which
is at odds with the very bellicose reputation he gained, unfairly, among
Victorian historians. I suspect his
subjects were perfectly at ease with this side of him, he had already proved
himself in battle at a tender age and had begun his personal, direct rule whilst still several years short of his majority. In between escapades he was a serious ruler who
had educated himself in the ways of battle, having a thorough knowledge of
Vegetius and his De Re Militaria. He was also a charismatic leader, one who men
followed without question and who put themselves in the path of danger and
performed feats of great valour in his name.
Part of this must have come from his conspicuous personal bravery, his
willingness to be at the forefront of action, and never shirk his
responsibility as a king and leader. At Sluys
he fought alongside his men, even being injured and laid up for two weeks
afterwards, going into battle because he must, but knowing he was outnumbered
by larger, better equipped ships and was more likely facing death than victory,
having been warned by three trusted advisers that Philip of France was out to
capture or kill him.
He ruled through mutual respect,
not fear and evil tempers as his great grandfather had done. He was harsh when he chose to be, stringing
up the French admiral Nicolas Béhuchet from the mast of his own ship after the
battle of Sluys in 1340, and yet previously, in 1332, when another pirate fell
into his hands, one John Crabb who was fighting against the English for the
Scots, Edward spared him and brought him into his own employ because he could
be useful.
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| The author messing around at Crécy! |
He was an innovative king,
re-establishing the power and dignity of the crown after the haphazard rule of
his father, careful where he distributed rewards, mostly careful where he
showed his wrath though in this regard his Plantagenet temper was known to get
the better of him. He had favourites but
they were men who had done him conspicuous service and well deserved their
gains. He surrounded himself with talented
individuals, people who had been well versed in the art of warfare from a young
age and yet young enough to wish to innovate and change the accepted order of
things. The use of archers was a
long-term plan. It took ten years to
take a boy and turn him into a fully-fledged archer with the strength to draw
an English warbow and the skill to aim it almost without thinking. And in creating an army of archers, Edward created
a new industry - the mass manufacture of bows and arrows, giving the common man
a direct investment into the defence of the country, either in making bows or
in using them. Ordinary people were
going to fight alongside the nobility for the first time, not merely as
infantry, but as a front-line fighting force. Everyone on the English side fought on foot
at Crécy, including the Prince of Wales (the defences employed to damage the French cavalry would also have negated their own).
It was Edward who adopted St
George as a patron saint, who gave the
monarchy a coat of arms, elements of which survived from 1340 to 1800. Edward gave us the Order of the Garter, an
order of chivalry still in use today and much imitated. He owned one of the earliest known mechanical
clocks. He supported the arts in England
and English artisans. He maintained
peace within England for his entire reign.
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| The Six Burghers of Calais by Rodin |
Edward had his faults, of course
he did, one of which was his famed Plantagenet temper. He once ordered that
those responsible for building a stand that collapsed at one of his entertainments
to be hanged and it took his wife, Philippa, to talk him out of it and spare
them. Similarly at the end of the
siege of Calais he ordered the execution of the famous six burghers, immortalised
in the sculpture by Rodin outside the Calais town hall. Again it was Philippa who begged for mercy
and spared their lives. This may well have
been a performance for the benefit of those watching, a play put on to prove
his graciousness and merciful nature, but as a king he could not advertise
decisions that he was not able to live with and defend, in case Philippa was
not on hand to save the day.
And that brings us to his
relationship with Philippa. As I said
earlier, Edward had little choice in bride, as did few of the nobility in
reality. He was told he was to marry one
of the Hainault girls. He had been lined
up to marry the eldest, Margaret, some years before, but she married Ludwig of
Bavaria, Holy Roman Emperor. So Edward,
probably diplomatically, selected the next eldest, Philippa. Despite such inauspicious beginnings, the
pair were fond of each other from the start and this continued for their entire
marriage. Edward's reign is filled with
speculation over mistresses and licentious behaviour, and yet there is only
ever one name put forward for such a mistress, the well-known Alice Perrers,
acknowledged mistress of his later life, to whom he was also famously
faithful. In the entirety of a long
reign, no other name comes up for a king who was supposedly well-known for his loose morals. This is highly unusual
considering much earlier kings, about whom so much less is generally known,
still have a bevy of named mistresses and named and accepted off-spring from
them. There is the story of the Countess
of Salisbury but that is so riddled with errors that it requires far more space
to discuss than I have here. The main
point is that there is only one proven mistress and she appears in his later
years. Otherwise Edward's relationship
with Philippa was exceptionally good. One
of the causes of the Battle of Sluys was to secure the safety of Philippa who
was stranded in Ghent, surrounded by enemies.
It was not only Helen of Troy whose face launched a thousand ships.
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| Edward's tomb in Westminster Abbey |
It is the tragedy that this
charismatic, innovative, popular king would probably have been given the moniker
'Great' had he died sooner. He had the
misfortune to die old and infirm, all greatness gone out of him, after everyone
he had ever held dear had died before him - his great friend William, his wife,
his beloved son Edward. Only Alice was
left to him who actually cared, and she deserted him having stolen his rings. Only a priest was there at his ending and he
passed almost unregarded, but for the vultures who would go on to squabble over
the power behind the throne once Edward's ten year old grandson Richard was
crowned king. Had Shakespeare chosen to
write about Crécy instead of Agincourt we would all know a great deal more
about this great king and remarkable man who laid the foundations for England
as we know it.
For more information, I highly recommend
the wonderful biography of Edward by Dr Ian Mortimer 'The Perfect King' and for
those interested in conspiracy theories and the struggle for the truth, follow
it up with 'Medieval Intrigue'.
