The king’s College of our lady of Eton beside Windsor 2 page

After a several months, the populace of London had had enough of her arrogance and joined in an attempt orchestrated by Stephen's Queen, to oust Matilda from power while still at Winchester. She managed to escape but in doing so her half brother, Robert, who was protecting her rear, was captured.

In November of the same year, Matilda was obliged to trade Stephen for Robert thus returning the King to the throne of England. In 1148, after the death of her half-brother, Matilda returned to Normandy, leaving her son, who, in 1154, would become Henry II, to fight on in her absence. She died at Rouen, France on 10th September 1169 and was buried in Fontevrault Abbey.

King Henry II, 1154 to 1189 Henry, the eldest son of Matilda, the daughter of Henry I, and Geoffrey Plantagent, Count of Anjou, was born in Le Mans in 1133.

Although he married twice, Henry only had two legitimate children, William and Matilda. (He had at least another twenty outside marriage.) When his son William drowned in 1120, Henry decided to ask his barons to accept his daughter as the country's next ruler. The barons were not happy about this but after much discussion they accepted Henry's request. When Henry I died in 1135, some of the barons did not keep their promise to support Matilda. The Normans had never had a woman leader. Norman law stated that all property and rights should be handed over to men. To the Normans this meant that her husband Geoffrey of Anjou would become their next ruler.

The people of Anjou (Angevins) were considered to be barbarians by the Normans. Most Normans were unwilling to accept an Angevin ruler and instead decided to help Stephen, the son of one of William the Conqueror's daughters, to become king.

When Stephen died in 1154, Henry became king of England. Henry spent the early part of his reign establishing control over England's powerful barons. His first step was to destroy all the castles that had been built during Stephen's reign. Henry II also announced that in future castles could only be built with his permission.

From an early age Henry had been trained as the next king of England. Queen Matilda had employed the best scholars in Europe to educate her son. Henry was a willing student and never lost his love of learning. When he became king Henry arranged for the world's best scholars to visit his court so that he could discuss important issues with them. One of his close friends said that Henry had a tremendous memory and rarely forgot anything he was told.

Henry spent many hours studying Roman history. He was particularly interested in the way Emperor Augustus had successfully managed to gain control over the Roman Empire. Henry realised that, like Augustus, his first task must be to tackle those that had the power to remove him.

This meant that Henry had to control England's powerful barons. His first step was to destroy all the castles that had been built during Stephen's reign. Henry also announced that, in future, castles could only be built with his permission. The new king also deported all the barons' foreign mercenaries.

Henry then took action to unite the people of England. He allowed several of Stephen's officials to keep their government posts. Another strategy used by Henry was to arrange marriages between rival families.

A great deal of Henry's reign was spent at war with rivals who wanted to take over the territory he controlled in Europe. Not only did Henry manage to successfully protect this territory, but was able to add to his empire making him the most powerful monarch in Western Europe.

When Henry was in England he spent most of the time travelling. Henry believed that it was important that people saw their ruler as much as possible. He argued that this encouraged the people to remain loyal to their king.

Henry, unlike most kings, cared little for appearances. He preferred hardwearing hunting clothes to royal robes. Henry also disliked the pomp and ceremony that went with being king.

Henry believed people had to earn respect. He was often rude to members of the nobility. He was quick to lose his temper and often upset important people by shouting at them. Yet, when dealing with the poor or a defeated enemy, Henry had a reputation for being polite and kind. He also had a great sense of humour and even enjoyed a joke at his own expense. An extremely intelligent man with tremendous energy, Henry made several important legal reforms and is considered to be the founder of English common law. Henry's attempts to reform the courts controlled by the church led to conflict with Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

King Richard I, Lionheart, 1189 to 1199 Richard was a king of England, later known as the 'Lion Heart', and famous for his exploits in the Third Crusade, although during his 10-year reign he spent only six months in England. Richard was born on 8 September 1157 in Oxford, son of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. He possessed considerable political and military ability. However, like his brothers, he fought with his family, joining them in the great rebellion against their father in 1173. In 1183 his brother Henry died, leaving Richard heir to the throne. Henry II wanted to give Aquitaine to his youngest son, John. Richard refused and, in 1189, joined forces with Philip II of France against his father, hounding him to a premature death in July 1189. As king, Richard's chief ambition was to join the Third Crusade, prompted by Saladin's capture of Jerusalem in 1187. To finance this, he sold sheriffdoms and other offices and in 1190 he departed for the Holy Land. In May, he reached Cyprus where he married Berengaria, daughter of the king of Navarre. Richard arrived in the Holy Land in June 1191 and Acre fell the following month. In September, his victory at Arsuf gave the crusaders possession of Joppa. Although he came close, Jerusalem, the crusade's main objective, eluded him. Moreover, fierce quarrels among the French, German and English contingents provided further troubles. After a year's stalemate, Richard made a truce with Saladin and started his journey home.

Bad weather drove him ashore near Venice and he was imprisoned by Duke Leopold of Austria before being handed over to the German emperor Henry VI, who ransomed him for the huge sum of 150,000 marks. The raising of the ransom was a remarkable achievement. In February 1194, Richard was released. He returned at once to England and was crowned for a second time, fearing that the ransom payment had compromised his independence. Yet a month later he went to Normandy, never to return. His last five years were spent in intermittent warfare against Philip II. While besieging the castle of Chalus in central France he was fatally wounded and died on 6 April 1199. He was succeeded by his younger brother John, who had spent the years of Richard's absence scheming against him.

King John, Lackland, 1199 to 1216 John was born on Christmas Eve 1167. His parents drifted apart after his birth; his youth was divided between his eldest brother Henry's house, where he learned the art of knighthood, and the house of his father's justiciar, Ranulf Glanvil, where he learned the business of government. As the fourth child, inherited lands were not available to him, giving rise to his nickname, Lackland. His first marriage lasted but ten years and was fruitless, but his second wife, Isabella of Angouleme, bore him two sons and three daughters. He also had an illegitimate daughter, Joan, who married Llywelyn the Great, Ruler of All Wales, from which the Tudor line of monarchs was descended. The survival of the English government during John's reign is a testament to the reforms of his father, as John taxed the system socially, economically, and judicially.

The Angevin family feuds profoundly marked John. He and Richard clashed in 1184 following Richard's refusal to honor his father's wishes surrender Aquitane to John. The following year Henry II sent John to rule Ireland, but John alienated both the native Irish and the transplanted Anglo-Normans who emigrated to carve out new lordships for themselves; the experiment was a total failure and John returned home within six months. After Richard gained the throne in 1189, he gave John vast estates in an unsuccessful attempt to appease his younger brother. John failed to overthrow Richard's administrators during the German captivity and conspired with Philip II in another failed coup attempt. Upon Richard's release from captivity in 1194, John was forced to sue for pardon and he spent the next five years in his brother's shadow.

John's reign was troubled in many respects. A quarrel with the Church resulted in England being placed under an interdict in 1207, with John actually excommunicated two years later. The dispute centered on John's stubborn refusal to install the papal candidate, Stephen Langdon, as Archbishop of Canterbury; the issue was not resolved until John surrendered to the wishes of Pope Innocent III and paid tribute for England as the Pope's vassal. John proved extremely unpopular with his subjects. In addition to the Irish debacle, he inflamed his French vassals by orchestrating the murder of his popular nephew, Arthur of Brittany. By spring 1205, he lost the last of his French possessions and returned to England. The final ten years of his reign were occupied with failed attempts to regain these territories. After levying a number of new taxes upon the barons to pay for his dismal campaigns, the discontented barons revolted, capturing London in May 1215. At Runnymeade in the following June, John succumbed to pressure from the barons, the Church, and the English people at-large, and signed the Magna Carta. The document, a declaration of feudal rights, stressed three points. First, the Church was free to make ecclesiastic appointments. Second, larger-than-normal amounts of money could only be collected with the consent of the king's feudal tenants. Third, no freeman was to be punished except within the context of common law. Magna Carta, although a testament to John's complete failure as monarch, was the forerunner of modern constitutions. John only signed the document as a means of buying time and his hesitance to implement its principles compelled the nobility to seek French assistance. The barons offered the throne to Philip II's son, Louis. John died in the midst of invasion from the French in the South and rebellion from his barons in the North. John was remembered in elegant fashion by Sir Richard Baker in A Chronicle of the Kings of England: "...his works of piety were very many ... as for his actions, he neither came to the crown by justice, nor held it with any honour, nor left it peace."

King Henry III, 1216 to 1272 Henry III, the first monarch to be crowned in his minority, inherited the throne at age nine. His reign began immersed in the rebellion created by his father, King John. London and most of the southeast were in the hands of the French Dauphin Louis and the northern regions were under the control of rebellious barons - only the midlands and southwest were loyal to the boy king. The barons, however, rallied under Henry's first regent, William the Marshall, and expelled the French Dauphin in 1217. William the Marshall governed until his death in 1219; Hugh de Burgh, the last of the justiciars to rule with the power of a king, governed until Henry came to the throne in earnest at age twenty-five.

A variety of factors coalesced in Henry's reign to plant the first seeds of English nationalism. Throughout his minority, the barons held firm to the ideal of written restrictions on royal authority and reissued Magna Carta several times. The nobility wished to bind the king to same feudal laws under which they were held. The emerging class of free men also demanded the same protection from the king's excessive control. Barons, nobility, and free men began viewing England as a community rather than a mere aggregation of independent manors, villages, and outlying principalities. In addition to the restrictions outlined in Magna Carta, the barons asked to be consulted in matters of state and called together as a Great Council. Viewing themselves as the natural counselors of the king, they sought control over the machinery of government, particularly in the appointment of chief government positions. The Exchequer and the Chancery were separated from the rest of the government to decrease the king's chances of ruling irresponsibly.

Nationalism, such as it was at this early stage, manifested in the form of opposition to Henry's actions. He infuriated the barons by granting favors and appointments to foreigners rather than the English nobility. Peter des Roches, the Bishop of Winchester and Henry's prime educator, introduced a number of Frenchmen from Poitou into the government; many Italians entered into English society through Henry's close ties to the papacy. His reign coincided with an expansion of papal power P the Church became, in effect, a massive European monarchy P and the Church became as creative as it was excessive in extorting money from England. England was expected to assume a large portion of financing the myriad officials employed throughout Christendom as well as providing employment and parishes for Italians living abroad. Henry's acquiescence to the demands of Rome initiated a backlash of protest from his subjects: laymen were denied opportunity to be nominated for vacant ecclesiastical offices and clergymen lost any chance of advancement. Matters came to a head in 1258. Henry levied extortionate taxes to pay for debts incurred through war with Wales, failed campaigns in France, and an extensive program of ecclesiastical building. Inept diplomacy and military defeat led Henry to sell his hereditary claims to all the Angevin possessions in France except Gascony. When he assumed the considerable debts of the papacy in its fruitless war with Sicily, his barons demanded sweeping reforms and the king was in no position to offer resistance. Henry was forced to agree to the Provisions of Oxford, a document placing the barons in virtual control of the realm. A council of fifteen men, comprised of both the king's supporters and detractors, effected a situation whereby Henry could do nothing without the council's knowledge and consent. The magnates handled every level of government with great unity initially but gradually succumbed to petty bickering; the Provisions of Oxford remained in force for only years. Henry reasserted his authority and denied the Provisions, resulting in the outbreak of civil war in 1264. Edward, Henry's eldest son, led the king's forces with the opposition commanded by Simon de Montfort, Henry's brother-in-law. At the Battle of Lewes, in Sussex, de Montfort defeated Edward and captured both king and son - and found himself in control of the government.

Simon de Montfort held absolute power after subduing Henry but was a champion of reform. The nobility supported him because of his royal ties and belief in the Provisions of Oxford. De Montfort, with two close associates, selected a council of nine (whose function was similar to the earlier council of fifteen) and ruled in the king's name. De Montfort recognized the need to gain the backing of smaller landowners and prosperous townsfolk: in 1264, he summoned knights from each shire in addition to the normal high churchmen and nobility to an early pre-Parliament, and in 1265 invited burgesses from selected towns. Although Parliament as an institution was yet to be formalized, the latter session was a precursor to both the elements of Parliament: the House of Lords and the House of Commons. Later in 1265, de Montfort lost the support of one of the most powerful barons, the Earl of Gloucester, and Edward also managed to escape. The two gathered an army and defeated de Montfort at the Battle of Evasham, Worcestershire, de Montfort was slain and Henry was released; Henry resumed control of the throne but, for the remainder of his reign, Edward exercised the real power of the throne in his father's stead. The old king, after a long reign of fifty-six years, died in 1272. Although a failure as a politician and soldier, his reign was significant for defining the English monarchical position until the end of the fifteenth century: kingship limited by law.

Edward I, The Hammer of the Scots, 1272 to 1307 Eldest son of Henry III. Born 1239. Crowned, with his Queen, Eleanor of Castile, at Westminster, August 19th, 1274, two years after his accession, at which time he was absent in the Holy Land, and being there wounded, did not land in England till the month before his Coronation.

With the reign of Edward I. begins "modern England, the constitutional England in which we live"; that wisest of the first Edwards who summoned the barons for the discussion of any matter which affected them, and in like manner the representatives of the boroughs and towns for the discussion of any matter which affected them, the outcome of which was our Parliament of Lords and Commons, born of the Great Council of former reigns, and which that patriotic baron Simon of Montfort, Earl of Leicester (^ftemp. Henry III.), had done so much to fashion and to found.

Wales first came under the dominion of the English kings in Edward I.'s reign. His second son, who, by the death of his eldest brother, became Edward II., born at Carnarvon, was created Prince of Wales, a title borne by the heir to the Crown of England ever since. "No man was more acute in council, more fervid in eloquence, more self-possessed in danger, more cautious in prosperity, more firm in adversity," than this, the "greatest of the Plantagenets." Those whom he once loved he scarcely ever forsook; but he rarely admitted into his favour any that had excited his dislike. "His liberalities were magnificent." Thus the chroniclers.

Among minor matters of interest these may be added: King Edward I. loved not rich apparel, nor the wearing of his crown, holding it "absurd to suppose that he could be more estimable in fine, than in simple apparel." The Coronation Chair in Westminster Abbey was brought by him to England from the Abbey of Scone, in Scotland.

Finally, the name Charing Cross is a perpetual memorial of himself and of Queen Eleanor his much-loved wife. Those interested may see a copy of the first Eleanor Cross of the village of Charing of Plantagenet times, in the railway station yard most familiar to Londoners. Edward I. lies buried in Westminster Abbey. His favourite device, Pactum serva ("Keep troth"), is no unworthy epitaph of this politic, vigilant, and enterprising king.

Edward II, 1307 to 1327 Edward II lacked the royal dignity of his father and failed miserably as king. He inherited his father's war with Scotland and displayed his ineptitude as a soldier. Disgruntled barons, already wary of Edward as Prince of Wales, sought to check his power from the beginning of his reign. He raised the ire of the nobility by lavishing money and other rewards upon his male favorites. Such extreme unpopularity would eventually cost Edward his life. Edward I's dream of a unified British nation quickly disintegrated under his weak son. Baronial rebellion opened the way for Robert Bruce to reconquer much of Scotland. In 1314, Bruce defeated English forces at the battle of Bannockburn and ensured Scottish independence until the union of England and Scotland in 1707. Bruce also incited rebellion in Ireland and reduced English influence to the confines of the Pale.

Edward's preference for surrounding himself with outsiders harkened back to the troubled reign of Henry III. The most notable was Piers Gaveston, a young Gascon exiled by Edward I for his undue influence on the Prince of Wales and, most likely, the king's homosexual lover. The arrogant and licentious Gaveston wielded considerable power after being recalled by Edward. The magnates, alienated by the relationship, rallied in opposition behind the king's cousin, Thomas, Earl of Lancaster; the Parliaments of 1310 and 1311 imposed restrictions on Edward's power and exiled Gaveston. The barons revolted in 1312 and Gaveston was murdered - full rebellion was avoided only by Edward's acceptance of further restrictions. Although Lancaster shared the responsibilities of governing with Edward, the king came under the influence of yet another despicable favorite, Hugh Dispenser. In 1322, Edward showed a rare display of resolve and gathered an army to meet Lancaster at the Battle of Boroughbridge in Yorkshire. Edward prevailed and executed Lancaster. He and Dispenser ruled the government but again acquired many enemies - 28 knights and barons were executed for rebelling and many exiled.

Edward sent his queen, Isabella, to negotiate with her brother, French king Charles IV, regarding affairs in Gascony. She fell into an open romance with Roger Mortimer, one of Edward's disaffected barons, and persuaded Edward to send their young son to France. The rebellious couple invaded England in 1326 and imprisoned Edward. The king was deposed in 1327, replaced by his son, Edward III, and murdered in September at Berkeley castle. Sir Richard Baker, in reference to Edward I in A Chronicle of the Kings of England, makes a strong indictment against Edward II: "His great unfortunateness was in his greatest blessing; for of four sons which he had by his Queen Eleanor, three of them died in his own lifetime, who were worthy to have outlived him; and the fourth outlived him, who was worthy never to have been born."

Edward III, 1327 to 1377 The fifty-year reign of Edward III was a dichotomy in English development. Governmental reforms affirmed the power of the emerging middle class in Parliament while placing the power of the nobility into the hands a few. Chivalric code reached an apex in English society but only masked the greed and ambition of Edward and his barons. Social conditions were equally ambiguous: the export of raw wool (and later, the wool cloth industry) prospered and spread wealth across the nation but was offset by the devastation wrought by the Black Death. Early success in war ultimately failed to produce lasting results. Edward proved a most capable king in a time of great evolution in England.

Edward's youth was spent in his mother's court and he was crowned at age fourteen after his father was deposed. After three years of domination by his mother and her lover, Roger Mortimer, Edward instigated a palace revolt in 1330 and assumed control of the government. Mortimer was executed and Isabella was exiled from court. Edward was married to Philippa of Hainault in 1328 and the union produced many children; the 75% survival rate of their children - nine out of twelve lived through adulthood - was incredible considering conditions of the day.

War occupied the largest part of Edward's reign. He and Edward Baliol defeated David II of Scotland and drove David into exile in 1333. French cooperation with the Scots, French aggression in Gascony, and Edward's claim to the disputed throne of France (through his mother, Isabella) led to the first phase of the Hundred Years¹ war. The naval battle of Sluys (1340) gave England control of the Channel, and battles at Crecy (1346) and Calais (1347) established English supremacy on land. Hostilities ceased in the aftermath of the Black Death but war flared up again with an English invasion of France in 1355. Edward, the Black Prince and eldest son of Edward III, trounced the French cavalry at Poitiers (1356) and captured the French King John. In 1359, the Black Prince encircled Paris with his army and the defeated French negotiated for peace. The Treaty of Bretigny in 1360 ceded huge areas of northern and western France to English sovereignty. Hostilities arose again in 1369 as English armies under the king's third son, John of Gaunt, invaded France. English military strength, weakened considerably after the plague, gradually lost so much ground that by 1375, Edward agreed to the Treaty of Bruges, leaving only the coastal towns of Calais, Bordeaux, and Bayonne in English hands.

The nature of English society transformed greatly during Edward's reign. Edward learned from the mistakes of his father and affected more cordial relations with the nobility than any previous monarch. Feudalism dissipated as mercantilism emerged: the nobility changed from a large body with relatively small holdings to a small body that held great lands and wealth. Mercenary troops replaced feudal obligations as the means of gathering armies. Taxation of exports and commerce overtook land-based taxes as the primary form of financing government (and war). Wealth was accrued by merchants as they and other middle class subjects appeared regularly for parliamentary sessions. Parliament formally divided into two houses - the upper representing the nobility and high clergy with the lower representing the middle classes - and met regularly to finance Edward's wars and pass statutes. Treason was defined by statute for the first time (1352), the office of Justice of the Peace was created to aid sheriffs (1361), and English replaced French as the national language (1362). Despite the king's early successes and England's general prosperity, much remained amiss in the realm. Edward and his nobles touted romantic chivalry as their credo while plundering a devastated France; chivalry emphasized the glory of war while reality stressed its costs. The influence of the Church decreased but John Wycliff spearheaded an ecclesiastical reform movement that challenged church exploitation by both the king and the pope. During 1348- 1350, bubonic plague (the Black Death) ravaged the populations of Europe by as much as a fifty per cent. The flowering English economy was struck hard by the ensuing rise in prices and wages. The failed military excursions of John of Gaunt into France caused excessive taxation and eroded Edward's popular support.

The last years of Edward's reign mirrored the first, in that a woman again dominated him. Philippa died in 1369 and Edward took the unscrupulous Alice Perrers as his mistress. With Edward in his dotage and the Black Prince ill, Perrers and William Latimer (the chamberlain of the household) dominated the court with the support of John of Gaunt. Edward, the Black Prince, died in 1376 and the old king spent the last year of his life grieving. Rafael Holinshed, in Chronicles of England, suggested that Edward believed the death of his son was a punishment for usurping his father's crown: "But finally the thing that most grieved him, was the loss of that most noble gentleman, his dear son Prince Edward . . . But this and other mishaps that chanced to him now in his old years might seem to come to pass for a revenge of his disobedience showed to his in usurping against him. . .^fl

Richard II, 1377 to 1399 Richard II, born in 1367, was the son of Edward, the Black Prince and Joan, the Fair Maid of Kent. Richard was but ten years old when he succeeded his grandfather, Edward III; England was ruled by a council under the leadership of John of Gaunt, and Richard was tutored by Sir Simon Burley. He married the much-beloved Anne of Bohemia in 1382, who died childless in 1394. Edward remarried in 1396, wedding the seven year old Isabella of Valois, daughter of Charles VI of France, to end a further struggle with France.

Richard asserted royal authority during an era of royal restrictions. Economic hardship followed the Black Death, as wages and prices rapidly increased. Parliament exacerbated the problem by passing legislation limiting wages but failing to also regulate prices. In 1381, Wat Tyler led the Peasants' Revolt against the oppressive government policies of John of Gaunt. Richard's unwise generosity to his favorites - Michael de la Pole, Robert de Vere and others - led Thomas, Duke of Gloucester and four other magnates to form the Lords Appellant. The five Lords Appellant tried and convicted five of Richard's closest advisors for treason. In 1397, Richard arrested three of the five Lords, coerced Parliament to sentence them to death and banished the other two. One of the exiles was Henry Bolingbroke, the future Henry IV. Richard travelled to Ireland in 1399 to quell warring chieftains, allowing Bolingboke to return to England and be elected king by Parliament. Richard lacked support and was quickly captured by Henry IV.

Deposed in 1399, Richard was murdered while in prison, the first casualty of the Wars of the Roses between the Houses of Lancaster and York. Henry IV (1399-1413 AD) Henry IV was bom at Bolingbroke in 1367 to John of Gaunt and Blanche of Lancaster. He married Mary Bohun in 1380, who bore him seven children before her death in 1394. In 1402, Henry remarried, taking as his bride Joan of Navarre.

Henry had an on-again, off-again relationship with his cousin, Richard II. He was one of the Lords Appellant who, in 1388, persecuted many of Richard's advisor-favorites, but his excellence as a soldier gained the king's favor - Henry was created Duke of Hereford in 1397. In 1398, however, the increasingly suspicious Richard banished him for ten years. John of Gaunt's death in 1399 prompted Richard to confiscate the vast Lancastrian estates; Henry invaded England while Richard was on campaign in Ireland, usurping the throne from the king.

The very nature of Henry's usurpation dictated the circumstances of his reign - incessant rebellion became the order of the day. Richard's supporters immediately revolted upon his deposition in 1400. In Wales , Owen Glendower led a national uprising that lasted until 1408; the Scots waged continual warfare throughout the reign; the powerful families of Percy and Mortimer (the latter possessing a stronger claim to the throne than Henry) revolted from 1403 to 1408; and Richard Scrope, Archbishop of York, proclaimed his opposition to the Lancastrian claim in 1405.

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 963