Edward The Great?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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'.