Divorced, Beheaded, Died: The History of Britain's Kings and Queens in Bite-Sized Chunks (7 page)

Edward was born in 1239 at Westminster. Known as ‘Longshanks’ (he was 6ft 2in) and ‘the Lawgiver’, he was the nearest thing to a proper English king since Harold II. He even spoke English, albeit with a lisp. By the time he came to the throne in 1272, he had already proved himself to be a formidable and determined military leader, having rescued his father Henry III and defeated the rebel Simon de Montfort at the Battle of Evesham in 1265. When Henry died, Edward was on a crusade with his wife, Eleanor of Castile, who accompanied him on most of his military campaigns, and so he was not crowned until two years later. The transition arrangements, with the new King absent overseas, were remarkably successful and proved a model for future stable successions.

Edward undertook a massive reform of the legal system, in an effort to stamp out corruption among royal officials, codifying many existing laws in the 1275 Statute of Westminster, and he further developed the parliamentary format set up by Simon de Montfort. However, the motive for most of his reforms was financial. He also began an attack on Jews who had settled in England after the Norman Conquest and the practice of usury (money-lending at high rates of interest). In 1275 he issued a decree restricting Jewish business activities and made Jews wear a yellow badge. In 1279 he arrested all heads of Jewish families and had 300 of them executed. Finally, following riots, he expelled all Jews and confiscated their property in 1290.

Edward’s main military policy during his reign was to assert his overlordship of the British Isles, turning his attention to Scotland and Wales, as he held only Gascony and the Channel Islands in France. His first target was Wales: Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, Prince of Wales, refused to pay homage to the new King, and after being defeated and pardoned, he revolted again in 1282. Edward responded with an overwhelming display of power. He ringed Snowdonia with a circle of tremendous fortresses, known as the Ring of Iron, and the native kingdoms were dismembered and integrated into the English system of counties. Edward’s son, the future Edward II, became the first English Prince of Wales, and for the first time in its history Wales was no longer independent of its English neighbour.

When Alexander III of Scotland died in 1286, Edward asserted his right as overlord to choose his successor, giving his support to John Balliol rather than the more powerful Robert the Bruce in an attempt to subjugate the Scots. Unhappy with this situation, the Scots allied themselves with Philip IV of France, who had by this time seized Gascony. In 1296 Edward led a large army northwards and forced the Scots to surrender, seizing the Stone of Scone, the symbol of the Scottish monarchy. But the Scottish problem was by no means settled, and Edward suffered reverses at the hands of William Wallace and others. Wallace was eventually captured and executed in 1305, but the troubles in Scotland and emerging problems in France darkened Edward’s later years. He died in 1307, en route to do battle with the new King of Scotland, Robert the Bruce.

E
DWARD
II

Reigned 1307–1327

Edward was born in 1284 at Caernarvon and was the first English Prince of Wales, a title his father bestowed on him in infancy, although the story of his presentation as a newborn to the people of Wales when they demanded a ‘Prince who spoke no English’ is a fabrication. Outwardly, he was the very vision of a king – tall, fair-haired and handsome – but he was not cut out for the responsibility. He was frivolous and flamboyant, shunning military campaigning in preference to the amusements of his court and hard physical labour alongside his peasants. His one foray north ended disastrously when he was beaten at Bannockburn in 1314 by a badly outnumbered Scottish army led by Robert the Bruce, which effectively ended English hopes of controlling Scotland.

Edward lavished money and power on his favourites at court, making some of the barons not only jealous but hot for revenge. They murdered Piers Gaveston, the King’s great favourite, and gained control of the government. Determined on revenge, Edward regained power with the help of a couple of his supporters, Hugh le Despenser and his son, and executed two dozen nobles and exiled others. Back in charge, Edward and the Despensers ruled with scant regard for law and diplomacy and soon became hated.

Edward sent his wife, Isabella, known as ‘the she-wolf of France’, on a diplomatic mission back to France, where opponents of the King and the Despensers had gathered. Isabella – perhaps in revenge for Edward’s humiliating preference for male companions – began an affair with Roger Mortimer, one of the exiled nobles and a sworn enemy of the Despensers. The couple plotted to overthrow the King and put his son, Prince Edward, on the throne. Having raised an army, they invaded in 1326 and England fell under their control.

Edward was imprisoned by Mortimer in 1327 and was forced to abdicate in favour of his son. Having been humiliated and tortured, he was then horribly murdered, on the orders of Mortimer, by the insertion of a red-hot poker through a horn tube into his rectum, a method designed to leave no external marks of violence.

E
DWARD
III

Reigned 1327–1377

For the most part, the reign of Edward III was a triumph of warfare. At one time, he held the Kings of Scotland and France captive and had restored the English position in both countries. But he suffered reverses as he aged – and ultimately, what he won by the sword, he lost by the sword. Essentially, he outlived his own victories.

Edward was crowned aged fourteen in 1327, after the murder of his father. Three years later he avenged his father by arresting and executing his mother’s lover, Roger Mortimer, who was acting as regent. His mother, Isabella of France, was exiled to Castle Rising in Norfolk.

Now free to rule as he saw fit, Edward sought to revoke Scottish independence by overthrowing the Scottish King David II and giving his support to rival claimant Edward Balliol. He met with some considerable initial success, culminating in the defeat of the Scots at Halidon Hill in 1333, but Balliol’s position was weak and he was deposed in 1336. In 1346 David II invaded England but was defeated by the Archbishop of York, William la Zouche, at Neville’s Cross and imprisoned.

Edward gained the support of his nobles by offering them the opportunity to enrich themselves with loot from his series of campaigns in France. With the death of Charles IV of France in 1324, the direct line of the Capetian dynasty had come to an end. Edward had enough of a claim to the throne, through his mother, to justify war and in 1337 he felt ready to declare his intentions, thus beginning the long-drawn-out conflict that would be known as the Hundred Years War. The sea battle of Sluys in 1340 destroyed the French navy, and the English had a decisive victory at the Battle of Crécy in 1346, in which the flower of the French knighthood was seen off by the English longbowmen, marking the end of the so-called ‘Age of Chivalry’. The arrival of the Black Death of 1348, which killed at least one third of Europeans, led to a short truce, but war soon resumed. In 1356 Edward’s son, the Black Prince, defeated the French at Poitiers and the French King, Jean II, was captured. However, the Black Prince fell ill, Edward’s wife Queen Philippa died, and Edward descended into senility comforted by an unpopular mistress, Alice Perrers. He had thirteen children by Philippa and three illegitimate children by Alice. The King’s third son, John of Gaunt, took over and a new French king reversed Edward’s victories. The years of glory faded from memory, and by 1375 all that was left of the French empire was Calais, Bordeaux and Bayonne.

R
ICHARD
II

Reigned 1377–1399

Richard was born in 1367 at Bordeaux, the son of the Black Prince, the eldest son of Edward III. He was crowned at the age of ten, and the country was controlled by his uncle, John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster.

Richard’s finest hour came in June 1381, when at the age of fourteen he ended the Peasants’ Revolt. Serfs from Essex and Kent, led by Wat Tyler and John Ball, took control of London to protest against the poll tax. With the army divided between Scotland and France, the peasants besieged the Tower of London and seized and executed the Chancellor and Treasurer of England, amongst others. Negotiations with the King were indecisive until the final meeting took place at Smithfield. Wat Tyler, supported by 30,000 peasants, rode towards the King’s small party to demand the end of serfdom, the abolition of the Lords, the reform of the Commons and changes to the Church. A dispute arose and Tyler was stabbed by the Lord Mayor of London, at which point the peasants were poised to attack. The young King defused a very dangerous situation by riding forward and promising to be the peasants’ leader. The peasants dispersed. Back in control, King Richard reneged on his promise and is reported to have said, ‘Serfs, you are, and serfs you will remain, only incomparably viler than hitherto.’

Richard’s arrogance, bad temper and intolerance of criticism led to a fraught relationship with his barons, and he found it hard to break free of their control as he approached the age of majority. In 1388 a group of magnates that included Richard’s cousin Henry Bolingbroke, John of Gaunt’s son, formed a council called the Lords Appellant and had many of Richard’s supporters executed.

The King came of age in 1389, and there followed a period of peace during which Richard gradually rebuilt his power base. As a lover of fashion, ostentatious display and architecture, he set up a magnificent household and completed Henry III’s Westminster Abbey. But revenge was burning in his heart, and he built up a private army recruited from Wales, Ireland and Chester. In 1397 he struck, executing or banishing his leading opponents, including Henry Bolingbroke, who was exiled for ten years.

On the death of John of Gaunt in 1399, Richard seized all of Bolingbroke’s land and increased his exile to life. But Bolingbroke took advantage of Richard’s absence on a campaign in Ireland and invaded the country with a small force, claiming, at first, that he had only come to reclaim his rightful inheritance. Richard’s support drained away, and he was arrested, imprisoned in the Tower and forced to abdicate. He was then sent to Pontefract Castle, where he was almost certainly murdered in early 1400.

Lancaster and York

The murder of Richard II ended the direct Plantagenet line.  The throne was taken by Henry IV who was the son of Edward III’s third surviving son, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster.  So those descended from this line are called Lancastrians. However, the incapacity of Henry VI brought civil war in which the descendants of Edward III’s fourth son, Edmund, Duke of York, also claimed the throne (hence their name, the Yorkists).  Being descended from the fourth son is inferior to being descended from the third, so the Yorkists made their claim on the basis of also being descended from Edward III’s second son, Lionel, Duke of Clarence, through his great-granddaughter Anne Mortimer. It was Anne’s son, Richard, Duke of York, who eventually started the bloody Wars of the Roses between the two branches of the Plantagenet family.  The red rose symbolized Lancaster and the white rose York, although these were not used on the rival badges at the time.

H
ENRY
IV

Reigned 1399–1413

Henry was born at Bolingbroke Castle, Lincolnshire in 1367, the grandson of Edward III. Although he participated in the 1388 Lords Appellant’s rebellion against his cousin King Richard II, he was initially forgiven. He was a great warrior and completed his military training fighting with the Teutonic Knights in Lithuania and on the long journey to Jerusalem. On returning to England, he was forced into exile by Richard in 1398, and, on the death of his father, John of Gaunt, in 1399 he was disinherited. But he returned to England with a small armed force and power fell into his lap. The tyrannical Richard was imprisoned and persuaded to abdicate, and Henry was declared king. He immediately faced rebellions from Richard’s supporters, so Henry probably had him murdered, an act which was to be a terrible burden on his conscience for the rest of his life.

In 1400 Henry was faced with a rebellion in Wales, when Owain Glyn Dwr declared himself Prince of Wales, supported by Edmund Mortimer and the charismatic Henry ‘Hotspur’ Percy, the Earl of Northumberland’s son. Mortimer had previously supported Henry IV despite having a better claim to the throne himself, but Henry was slow to ransom him when he was captured by Owain. So Mortimer decided to make his own claim to the throne in conjunction with Owain. In addition, the powerful Northumberland Percy family, who had done sterling work for Richard and Henry against the Scots, Welsh and French, felt unrewarded by Henry and switched their support to Mortimer and the rebel Welsh leader. The plan was for Owain to take Wales, Mortimer England and to leave Northumberland for the Percy family.

This was a desperate threat to Henry, so in 1403 he hastened to Shrewsbury to confront Henry Hotspur. It was a terrible battle, with a great number of casualties falling in particular to the archers. Both Henry’s son, the future Henry V, and Hotspur were struck in the face by arrows, but Hotspur was pierced through the brain and he died, giving the victory to Henry.

The threat from the north remained until Henry defeated the Earl of Northumberland and executed the Archbishop of York, who had sided with the Percys. With the end of the Welsh rebellion in 1409, Henry’s regime was secure and the financial difficulties that had plagued his early years diminished, but the execution of the Archbishop was another burden on his conscience. His final years were affected by a variety of unknown illnesses, which may have been at least partially psychosomatic, although some said he had been poisoned by his second wife, Joan of Navarre, who was accused of being a witch, and others claimed he was a leper. In 1413 he fell ill in Westminster Abbey and died in the Jerusalem Chamber, fulfilling a prophesy that he would die in Jerusalem.

H
ENRY
V

Reigned 1413–1422

Henry was one of our greatest warrior kings. It is a tragedy that he died so young and that his remarkable achievements came to nothing because of the ineffective reign of his only son, Henry VI. He was born at Monmouth Castle in 1386 or 1387, the son of Henry IV and his first wife, Mary de Bohun. When his father came to the throne, young Henry was made Prince of Wales. There is no real evidence that he spent his youth in dissipation, as depicted by Shakespeare. In fact, quite the contrary, he spent his early years fighting to keep hold of his principality. As a teenager, he was trusted with leading the right wing of his father’s army against the heroic Harry Hotspur at the Battle of Shrewsbury in 1403, where he received a terrible facial wound which disfigured him for life.

As his father’s health deteriorated, Henry took an increasing role in government. On succeeding to the throne in 1413, Henry survived an early coup attempt and began a policy of reconciliation, restoring titles and land to the heirs of those who had rebelled against his father. He founded new religious communities and helped bring to an end the schism in the Catholic Church (at one point there were three competing popes). He also promoted the English language, the first king since 1066 to use it in correspondence and government records.

Henry’s main aim, however, was to win back the lost territories in France. In 1415 he nearly met with disaster at Agincourt, where the small English force was forced into battle against a vastly superior French army. But because of superb generalship, the skill of the English archers and the over-confidence of the French, Henry turned a potential disaster into a triumph. He followed up this success with methodical planning, and had soon reconquered Normandy, occasionally resorting to barbaric tactics, and gained the ascendancy in France. The French King, Charles VI, was forced to sign the Treaty of Troyes in 1420, which stated that Henry would inherit the throne upon his death, and Henry married Charles’s daughter Catherine that same year. But Henry was not to fulfil his ambition to sit on the French throne, for he died on campaign in 1422, leaving the infant Henry VI to inherit the fruits of his success.

H
ENRY
VI

Reigned 1422–1461; 1470–1471

King Henry VI was the polar opposite of his heroic father, Henry V. The Pope described him as ‘a man more timorous than a woman, utterly devoid of wit and spirit’. He was very religious and generous of spirit, but he was not cut out for government.

He was born in 1421 at Windsor Castle and became king when his father died nine months later. He inherited the French throne less than eight weeks later, on the death of Charles VI, but this was hotly disputed by his uncle the Dauphin and his supporters. Henry’s government was controlled by his uncles, the Dukes of Gloucester and Bedford, who did a fairly good job until the King came of age in 1437 and took control.

Unfortunately, Henry did not have the personality or consistency to rule wisely. The fortunes of the French had revived through the success of Joan of Arc in Orleans in 1429, and the Dauphin had been crowned Charles VII of France. Under Henry, loss of territory in France accelerated. He made matters worse by marrying Margaret of Anjou in 1445, for which he had to hand over Anjou and Maine to the French. By 1453 Normandy and Aquitaine had been lost, leaving only Calais in English hands – the entire life’s work of Henry V was undone.

In 1453, Henry had his first mental breakdown and his cousin Richard, Duke of York, was made regent. Richard put the Earl of Somerset in the Tower, blaming him for the loss of lands in France. When the King recovered, Somerset was freed and Richard relieved of his regency. But fighting soon broke out between Richard, Duke of York, supported by the Earl of Warwick (the Yorkists), and the royal party, led by the Earl of Somerset and Queen Margaret and supported by the Percys of Northumberland (the Lancastrians). This was the start of the thirty-year Wars of the Roses.

In the power struggle that followed, the Duke of York was close to seizing the throne on several occasions. He defeated and killed Somerset at the Battle of St Albans, and defeated the Queen’s forces at Northampton in 1460, capturing the King. Henry was forced to make York his heir, despite the fact that he already had a son, Edward. But later that same year, York was killed when the two sides clashed at Wakefield and the Yorkist mantle passed to his charismatic son, Edward, Earl of March, who seized the throne in 1461, keeping Henry VI in the Tower of London. Edward ruled well for nine years, until he fell out with the Earl of Warwick, who made an alliance with King Louis of France and Margaret. Together they forced the unprepared Edward into exile and put Henry VI back on the throne as their puppet in 1470.

But Edward returned in 1471, killing Warwick at the Battle of Barnet and Henry’s heir Edward at the Battle of Tewkesbury. Edward came to the conclusion that Henry’s continued existence was dangerous and Henry was probably murdered in the Tower of London later that year, although it was announced that he died of grief.

E
DWARD
IV

Reigned 1461–1470; 1471–1483

Edward was born in Rouen in 1442, the son of Richard, Duke of York. He seized the throne from Henry VI in 1461, shortly after his father was killed in battle, and imprisoned Henry in the Tower of London.

He was a popular king. He was charming and handsome, and he had the common touch, remembering names and putting people at their ease. His reign might have been triumphant but for two major mistakes. The first was his marriage to Elizabeth Woodville. She was a widow whom Edward married in secret, seemingly because she would not submit to him despite ‘gifts and menaces’. The marriage destroyed Edward’s crucial relationship with the Earl of Warwick, who had been instrumental in putting Edward on the throne, as it ruined Warwick’s plans for a French marriage. The proud Warwick switched his allegiance to the Lancastrians, made an alliance with the French King and restored Henry VI to the throne in 1470. Edward was forced into exile, although he recovered his throne in 1471 and had Henry murdered.

Edward’s second mistake was his failure to support the Duke of Burgundy against the French. The Burgundian alliance was the mainstay of English foreign policy throughout the Hundred Years War and helped protect vital English trading interests in the Low Countries. In return Edward received a pension from Louis XI of France, but strategically the subsequent defeat of Burgundy was deeply unpopular and dangerous to England’s long-term interests.

Apart from these mistakes, Edward’s management provided good solutions to problems in Wales, Scotland and France. He also governed the country firmly, so that the economy flourished and law and order improved, and his regime remained popular.

However, the Queen’s numerous relatives, the Woodvilles, became very unpopular, particularly with the old nobility, and it is possible to blame the Woodville marriage for the collapse of the Yorkist dynasty. It caused the revolt of Warwick and arguably led to the execution of one of Edward’s brothers, the Duke of Clarence, who was drowned, it is said, in a barrel of wine.

Edward suffered a notable decline in his later years, becoming corpulent and lacking the energy and enthusiasm that marked the early years of his reign. His brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, blamed his decline and subsequent death in 1483 on the Woodvilles, who had made the court a riotous place of feasting, drunkenness and intrigue.

King Edward had ten children by Elizabeth Woodville and at least four illegitimate children by three different mothers. His favourite mistress was Jane Shore, wife of a City merchant.

E
DWARD
V

Reigned 1483

Edward was born in 1470 at Westminster, the son of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville. He was declared king on the death of his father in 1483, with his uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester, as regent. The young King Edward V had been brought up by his mother’s relatives, and the opening days of the new reign saw the Woodvilles attempt to exclude Richard from his position as Lord Protector. They set up their own ruling council and ordered an immediate coronation of the twelve-year-old king, who was still to arrive from Ludlow, his seat as Prince of Wales.