Edward III and His Family

1987 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 398-422 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. M. Ormrod
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Large Family ◽  
Richard Ii ◽  
Edward Ii ◽  
Edward Iii ◽  
Wars Of The Roses ◽  
Overseas Territories ◽  
God's Grace ◽  
Exhausted Resources ◽  
Favorable Light

The chroniclers and poets of the later Middle Ages credited Edward III with many successes, among which the production of a large family rated highly. The king had a total of twelve children, of whom no fewer than nine—five sons and four daughters—survived to maturity (fig. 1). Historians have not always been enthusiastic about the generous provisions made for this large family. Edward's very fecundity, viewed by fourteenth-century writers as a sure sign of God's grace, has been seen as a political liability because it exhausted resources, created a political imbalance between the crown and the younger branches of the royal family, and led ultimately to the deposition of Richard II and the Wars of the Roses.It is possible, however, to view Edward III's family arrangements in a different and rather more favorable light. Since the loss of many of their overseas territories in the thirteenth century, the Plantagenet kings had come to regard their remaining possessions as an inalienable patrimony to be handed on intact from father to eldest son. Unless younger children were able to create titles for themselves in foreign lands, kings had no option but to reward their sons with English earldoms. This was not a policy guaranteed to benefit the crown: the bitter quarrels between Edward II and his cousin Thomas of Lancaster showed very clearly the dangers that might arise when cadet branches of the Plantagenet dynasty became bound up with the English aristocracy.

Parliament and ‘Bastard Feudalism’

1944 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 53-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. B. McFarlane
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
The Political ◽  
Richard Ii ◽  
The Third ◽  
Opposite Pole ◽  
Edward Ii ◽  
Political Struggles ◽  
Edward Iii ◽  
The Commons

‘Edward I’, said Stubbs, ‘had made his parliament the concentration of the three estates of his people; under Edward II, Edward III, and Richard II, the third estate claimed and won its place as the foremost of the three.’ While the resounding emphasis is Stubbs's own—his common sense was of the kind called robust—the sentiment expressed was then and for long afterwards the traditional one. It is only of late years that opinion has swung to the opposite pole and maintained with an equal want of compromise the absolute insignificance of the commons in the political struggles of the later middle ages. The first open challenge to tradition came, I think, from Professor J. E. Neale in 1924. Mainly concerned to trace the growth of free speech in parliament under the Tudors, he found himself confronted with a medieval background to his subject which seemed to him at variance with the course of its later development. The prologue, as it were, anticipated too much of his play. In a bold attempt to refashion it, he outlined a theory which did not at first attract much attention from medievalists, but which has recently, thanks to Mr. H. G. Richardson, begun to enjoy a considerable vogue among them.

Loans from English provincial towns to the crown during the reigns of Edward II and Edward III*

2018 ◽  
Vol 91 (254) ◽  
pp. 605-627 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin McCallum
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
The Political ◽  
Edward Ii ◽  
Edward Iii ◽  
Political Relationship ◽  
Military Campaigns

Abstract This article examines the origins and evolution of the English crown's policy of requesting loans from towns to finance military campaigns between 1307 and 1377. By analysing the exchequer receipt rolls, it illustrates how Edward II experimented with urban loans from 1311 to circumvent the restrictions imposed by the ordinances. It subsequently examines when and why urban loans became a regular policy; how they were negotiated, collected and reimbursed; and why towns and their inhabitants contributed credit. Although they were of marginal financial value, these loans transformed the political relationship between the crown and towns in the later middle ages.

Genesis of Lancaster or the Three Reigns of Edward II., Edward III., Richard II., 1307-1399

1914 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 871
Author(s):  
James Westfall Thompson ◽  
James H. Ramsay
Keyword(s):  
Richard Ii ◽  
Edward Ii ◽  
Edward Iii

scholarly journals Edward II and Ireland (in fact and in fiction)

2002 ◽  
Vol 33 (129) ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.R.S. Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Historical Record ◽  
Richard Ii ◽  
Edward Ii ◽  
Edward Iii ◽  
History Of ◽  
English Law ◽  
John Xxii ◽  
King John

One of the most familiar facts in the history of the medieval lordship of Ireland is that, despite plans by Henry III in 1243 and by Edward III in 1331–2, no king of England came to Ireland between the expedition of King John in 1210 and those of Richard II in 1394–5 and 1399. I am not about to subvert the historical record by revealing a previously unknown royal visit to Ireland, but there is, as I shall try to demonstrate, enough evidence, some of it very strange indeed, to justify the title of this article. The unknown author of the prophecy entitled theVerses of Gildas,who wasapparentlywriting in the middle of the reign of Edward II, forecast that in 1320 the king of England would come to Ireland after the passing of a certain grave crisis. Once in Ireland, he would bring about peace between the English and the Irish, who would live together in harmony under one English law. The English would demolish the walls of their fortifications, while the Irish would cut down the woodlands which served as their defences. On a charitable interpretation, one might find a parallel between these predictions and the letter written to Edward II by Pope John XXII in May 1318, in which the pope asked the king to give his attention to the grievances of the Irish: these grievances had been expressed at length in the famous Irish Remonstrance, which had probably been composed towards the end of 1317 and had recently been received in Avignon.

The Generation Gap of 1173-74: the War between the Two Henrys

1973 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas M. Jones
Keyword(s):  
Generation Gap ◽  
Constitutional Change ◽  
Richard Ii ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Edward Ii ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
Wars Of The Roses ◽  
Complex Events ◽  
Modern Era

Revolts against English monarchs, varying in scope and intensity, marked every reign from 1100 to 1272. After that, if we consider what happened to Edward II and Richard II, and the Wars of the Roses and the troubles of the first Tudor, we see pattern emerging in the shape of constitutional change induced through revolt. Even in the context of that centuries-long pattern, there was something special in the revolt of 1173-4, when three sons of Henry II united with an array of anti Plantagenet barons and continental neighbors to try to unseat the powerful king of England, who also held Normandy, Maine, Anjou, and the feudal conglomeration that comprised Aquitaine.For reasons that I shall attempt to develop, the complex events of those two years constituted a watershed for mediaeval England, separating an age of feudal institutions from an age of royal bureaucracy that bore hints and suggestions of the modern era. The generational gap between sons and father added drama to the conflict, and psychological forces were inextricably bound to political forces as the revolt developed.

The Social Origins and Provenance of the English Bishops during the Reign of Edward II

1959 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 51-79
Author(s):  
K. Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Social Background ◽  
Early Career ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Origins ◽  
Political Activities ◽  
Edward Ii ◽  
The Social ◽  
Complete Study ◽  
History Of

During the last twenty or twenty-five years medieval historians have been much interested in the composition of the English episcopate. A number of studies of it have been published on periods ranging from the eleventh to the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. A further paper might well seem superfluous. My reason for offering one is that most previous writers have concentrated on analysing the professional circles from which the bishops were drawn, and suggesting the influences which their early careers as royal clerks, university masters and students, secular or regular clergy, may have had on their later work as bishops. They have shown comparatively little interest in their social background and provenance, except for those bishops who belonged to magnate families. Some years ago, when working on the political activities of Edward II's bishops, it seemed to me that social origins, family connexions and provenance might in a number of cases have had at least as much influence on a bishop's attitude to politics as his early career. I there fore collected information about the origins and provenance of these bishops. I now think that a rather more careful and complete study of this subject might throw further light not only on the political history of the reign, but on other problems connected with the character and work of the English episcopate. There is a general impression that in England in the later middle ages the bishops' ties with their dioceses were becoming less close, and that they were normally spending less time in diocesan work than their predecessors in the thirteenth century.

The Royal Policy of Richard II: Absolutism in the Later Middle Ages

1969 ◽  
Vol 74 (3) ◽  
pp. 969
Author(s):  
Margaret Hastings ◽  
Richard H. Jones
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Richard Ii

Archbishop Melton, his Neighbours, and his Kinsmen, 1317–1340

1951 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-68
Author(s):  
L. H. Butler
Keyword(s):  
Edward Ii ◽  
Comprehensive Knowledge ◽  
Edward Iii ◽  
The Needy

It was probably during the thirteen-eighties that the Dominican Thomas Stubbs wrote his short lives of the Archbishops of York. A Yorkshireman, from the forest of Knaresborough, Stubbs had been a close acquaintance of Bishop Bury and Bishop Hatfield of Durham, both of whom, in earlier years, were members of the York chapter. He is therefore likely to have been well informed about his subject. His life of William Melton, archbishop from 1317 to 1340—under whom Bury had been chancellor of York—though laconic, is no merely formal piece. Its phrases suggest a comprehensive knowledge. Stubbs apparently wished to leave a distinctive impression of Melton. He tells his reader that the archbishop was severe in correcting rebels; that he kept a great household, and clothed it in his livery twice a year; that he would often cancel the amercements imposed on his tenants by his bailiffs, and would remit to the needy the farms and debts they owed him. Above all, Stubbs goes on, he frequently assisted the two kings, Edward II and Edward III, and the noble men of the land in their business, both with loans and with gifts—‘tarn ex mutuo quam ex dono’. Finally, Melton was an ardent promoter of his servants and of all his kinsmen.

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