British Monarchs Who Ended Badly, Part 3: Edward III to Henry V

With the reign of Edward III, we reach the golden age of chivalry. Edward created one of the most famous of chivalric orders: The Order of the Garter, around 1348. His methods of warfare were hardly chivalric, however.  

[Image: Edward III with roll of the Order of the Garter, 15th century drawing, Bruges Garter Book]

The Knights of the Garter were the creme de la creme of the nobility and gentry. Naturally, they loved to plunder, kill, and rape peasants, who were not covered by chivalric rules. A lot like the rules of war today, really. 

Edward III provided his knights with a golden opportunity. He went to war with France. French wars had been a common feature of English life since the Norman Conquest, but Edward's war was different. Earlier kings since 1066 had fought in France to protect or sometimes extend their lands in that country. Edward III wanted more: the French throne. Or so he said. 

Now, if you are a diehard English monarchist, you might say he should have had it -- without a fight. To explain why, we must go back to the previous reign. Edward II married a French princess, Isabella, who gave birth to the future Edward III in 1312. * 

When her brother Charles IV died in 1328 without an heir, his closest male relative was Edward III. But the French bypassed Edward and selected Philip of Valois as King. Why? Because Isabella was not a man. 

French hereditary law held that the throne could not be passed to the descendant of a woman, in this case, Edward. He disputed the decision, to no avail. 

In 1337, he began what historians later called the Hundred Years War. It lasted from 1337 to 1453, which, as you will notice, is 116 years. But the Hundred- and Sixteen-Years War is clumsy and hard to remember.  

The Hundred Years War was actually several wars punctuated by years of peace. During the long reign of Edward III, the English won some great victories, like Crecy (1346) and Poitiers (1356), largely due to the skill of their longbowmen, who were hardly chivalric.

In the later years of Edward III's reign the war went badly for the English. Nature made things worse for everybody. Floods, cold weather, famine, disease added to war. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse rode again. 

The worst disaster was the plague, or Black Death, which struck Europe in 1347-49 and returned in 1361. About 30 percent of the population died in Western Europe, perhaps more. The plague came back periodically for another 300 years.

In 1376, Edward III's heir, Edward the Black Prince, died after years of chronic illness, possibly malaria or some other infection. He had been the victor at Poitiers and other battles, and was considered the greatest soldier of his time. He was only 45. [Image: Effigy and Tomb of Edward the Black Prince, Canterbury Cathedral]

Edward III, whose health and mind had been failing for some time, died the following year. He had been monarch for 50 years, the second longest reign of the medieval period. 

The throne passed to the ten-year-old son of the Black Prince, Richard II. For several years, Richard was guided by his uncles. Their guidance was not especially helpful. The war in France went badly. The royal finances were mismanaged. In 1381, England was engulfed by the largest Peasant Revolt in its history. 

Peasants, artisans, and laborers rebelled against a regressive poll tax designed to pay for the French war. They were already reeling from the effects of the war, plague, bad weather and government attempts to keep wages down.

The rebels captured London and terrorized the city for several days. They killed the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Treasurer. They burned the Savoy Palace, the magnificent London home of John of Gaunt, Richard's uncle. 

Young King Richard, now 14, met with their representatives and promised to grant their demands. Alas, it was a ploy. At another meeting, the Mayor of London treacherously killed the peasant leader, Wat Tyler. in the confusion that followed, Richard rode up to the rebels and urged them to follow him away from the scene. They did. The rebellion soon collapsed.

[Image: Richard II, Westminster Abbey]

When Richard came of age, he dismissed his uncles and began to rule as well as reign. In the later 1380s, he started to act arbitrarily, leading to charges of tyranny. In retrospect, his biggest mistake was to exile his cousin Henry of Bolingbroke in 1398.   

Bolingbroke was the eldest son of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. When Gaunt died in early 1399, Richard confiscated his vast estates for the Crown, disinheriting Bolingbroke. The estates remain a major part of the monarchy's portfolio. There is even a cabinet minister in charge of it, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. 

In June 1399, with French help, Bolingbroke returned with an army, to claim his inheritance. He defeated and captured Richard in Wales and called a parliament, which declared Richard deposed. Because Richard had no heir, the parliament declared Bolingbroke king as Henry IV. It was the first time the English Parliament chose a monarch, but not the last.

[Image: Henry IV, Bolingbroke, funeral effigy, with his wife Joan of Navarre, Canterbury Cathedral]

Henry IV was the first of three Lancastrian kings. He had promised the deposed Richard that he could live, but a plot to restore the former king changed that. Richard died in Pontefract Castle in 1400. He was likely murdered, possibly starved to death.

Henry IV's problems, and England's, were hardly over. He spent much of his reign fighting off rebellions, some challenging his claim to the throne, a challenge that was to cause problems for several decades. 

His later years were marked by a series of severe illnesses. He suffered from a disfiguring skin disease, possibly leprosy. Henry IV died unhappily in 1413, perhaps of heart disease, aged 46. He left behind a badly divided England.  

His son and heir Henry V (Shakespeare's Prince Hal) sought to unite the English by restarting the Hundred Years War. In 1415 he invaded France. A meticulous planner and a skilled general, Henry inflicted a decisive defeat on a large French army at Agincourt, and  captured key towns and fortresses. Along the way, he made a few great speeches, if we are to believe Shakespeare, play Henry V. 

The French agreed to a compromise peace in 1421. Henry was named heir to the throne and regent. He married a daughter of the French king to seal the deal. Alas, he died the following year. The stated cause of death, "camp fever," could mean several things. He was only 36, but his body was probably worn out by seven years of ceaseless campaigning. 

[Image: Henry V, painted in late 16th or early 17th century. Gotta love the hairdo!]

Henry V left a nine-month-old son as king of England and presumptive heir to the French throne. As the youngest king of England ever, Henry VI could hardly defend his French claim. English nobles who ruled in his name tried, but they lacked Henry V's charisma and skills. 

Slowly, the English began to lose territory to French soldiers inspired by Joan of Arc. By 1453, the only English territory left in France was the port of Calais, which it held until the 1550s. 

With the war in France over, the English reverted to fighting among themselves. During the previous century, powerful noblemen had created private armies of retainers, mercenaries. Instead of fighting for land, they fought for money. Their employers were fighting for the Crown. 

The Game of Thrones was about to heat up.   

*Mel Gibson Fake History Alert. In Braveheart, we are led to believe that Isabella had a one-night stand with William Wallace and that the future Edward III was the son of Braveheart. Edward III was born seven years after Wallace's execution. It must have been a long pregnancy.   

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British Monarchs Who Ended Badly, Part 2: Henry II to Edward II

Henry II, the first Plantagenet monarch, was not only King of England, but lord of much of France as well. He inherited some regions and gained others through his marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine. 

Historians generally rank Henry II highly for his legal and administrative reforms, but his reign was hardly trouble free. He conducted a long battle with the Church over the legal status of the clergy. The dispute led to the murder of his defiant Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, in 1172, possibly at Henry's instigation. 

Henry did penance for that and survived the uproar. His biggest long-term problem was his family. His sons and wife mounted several rebellions against him, and he died of a stomach ulcer while still at war with them in 1189. More trouble awaited the two sons who succeeded him. 

First came Richard I, the Lion-Hearted. He is notable as the only king to have a statue erected outside Parliament. [Image: Richard I by Carlo Marichetti, 1856] 

Today, one has to wonder why. Romantic Victorians idolized him as a gallant knight. But he did a poor job as monarch. He spent only six months of his ten-year reign in England and treated it as a cash cow. 

The rest of the time he was crusading in the Holy Land or fighting for his lands in France. And he could be cruel. After the capture of Acre in modern day Israel, he ordered the massacre of 2700 Muslim prisoners. 

Returning from the Crusade, Richard was imprisoned in Germany for about a year, and held for a huge ransom that the English people paid. During a campaign in France a crossbow bolt struck his shoulder. Gangrene set in, and that was his end. He treated his wife badly and had no children. His brother John succeeded him.  

John was the only King John of England, because he was the Evil King John. Before that, he was the Evil Prince John of the Robin Hood stories. That was mostly, if not entirely, myth. But John did plot against his brother Richard to gain power and wealth. [Image: King John out Hunting]

Once John was king, he continued to behave badly. He alienated his barons by taxing them without their consent and seducing their wives. I'm not sure which angered them more. It all ended in 1215 at Runneymede Meadow in Surrey. Rebellious barons cornered John and forced him to sign Magna Carta, The Great Charter. 

The Great Charter demanded that the king respect the liberties of his subjects. That mainly meant the nobles. But the Charter did throw in some clauses designed to protect the Church and the "freemen" of the realm. 

Magna Carta effectively declared the principle that the king is not above the law. It also laid the basis for the later development of Parliament by demanding the king consult "the community of the realm" before levying new taxes. 

John soon repudiated the Charter and resumed war with the barons. He died on campaign in 1216. Rumors circulated that he had been poisoned or had died of a "surfeit of peaches." Dysentery, or the Bloody Flux, is another possibility.

John's successor was his nine-year old son. Henry III had the longest reign of any medieval monarch. He irritated the barons a lot and they mounted several revolts against him. At the Battle of Lewes in 1264, his enemies captured and imprisoned him for some months. His son Edward was captured as well, but he escaped, defeated the baronial army, and released his father. 

[Image: Henry III, funeral effigy, Westminster Abbey]

Edward I, who succeeded Henry III in 1272, was a tall fellow. One of his nicknames was Longshanks. Edward initiated important legal and administrative reforms. English historians of the Victorian era viewed him as a great monarch. The Welsh and Scots had a different opinion. 

Edward completed the English conquest of Wales and built some amazing castles there. He also tried to conquer Scotland. His Scottish campaigns earned Edward another nickname, the Hammer of Scots. It also led to the Scottish Wars of Independence and the meteoric rise of William Wallace, AKA, Braveheart. 

Wallace's army won a stunning victory over an English army at the Battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297.* Things went badly for Wallace after that, however. 

Scottish enemies betrayed him to the English. Edward had him executed for "treason" in 1305. Contrary to the film Braveheart, Edward I did not die while Wallace was being disembowelled, but two years later. [Image: The Wallace Memorial at Smithfield in London, scene of his execution, and that of many other people and cattle]

[Image: Believed to be of Edward I, Westminster Abbey] 

Some historians have called his son Edward II the worst king in English history. Perhaps, but there was lots of competition for that title. He may have been gay, and that did not help his reputation. Unlike his vigorous father, he was denounced as lazy and incompetent. He lost a decisive battle to the Scots and Robert the Bruce at Bannockburn in 1314, which led to Scottish independence. 

[Image: Edward II, from a 20th century ad for Player's Cigarettes. Not likely to be remotely accurate. It could be Jesus.]

His wife Isabella, a French princess, turned against him and took a noble lover. Along with barons disgruntled by Edward's behavior, they mounted a rebellion against him in 1327. They captured him and imprisoned him in Berkeley Castle. Not long after, they announced that he had died. 

Was Edward II murdered? Probably, but we will never know for sure. One highly unlikely tale claims he escaped, fled to the Continent, and became a hermit. A grislier story, more likely but hardly proved, is that his captors killed him by ramming a red-hot poker into his anus. In any case, he was no longer king.

The throne passed to his teenage son Edward III. He is best known for initiating a long series of wars with France, which historians labelled The Hundred Years War. More of that anon in Part 3.

Mel Gibson Fake History Alert: Stirling Bridge was pivotal to the strategy and outcome of the Battle of Stirling Bridge. This seems pretty obvious from the name of the battle. In fact, no bridge, very likely, no Scots victory. In Braveheart, the bridge is missing in action, along with Mel's brain. 

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British Monarchs Who Ended Badly, Part I: Harold to Stephen and Matilda

Whether you are a fan of royalty or not, we can agree that the late Queen Elizabeth lived a very long life, had a very long reign, and died peacefully in her bed. That's about as true and bland a statement as I can make. The rest of this post will prove more interesting, I hope. 

I want to look at British (English and Scottish) monarchs whose lives and reigns were much shorter and less placid than that of Elizabeth II. There were quite a few as it turns out, in this Game of Thrones. 

Let's begin with Harold, the last Anglo-Saxon king of England. His predecessor, Edward the Confessor, died without heir in January 1066. An assembly of great men chose Harold Godwinson, Earl of Wessex, as King. He lacked royal blood, but he had been Edward's right-hand man. He was the most powerful man in the land and claimed that Edward had appointed him as his heir. [Image: Edward the Confessor, Bayeaux Tapestry]

Unfortunately for Harold, several others also claimed the throne. Two claimants mounted invasions to fight for the job. One was the King of Norway, Harald Hardrada, who was supported by Harold's brother Tostig. The other was William, Duke of Normandy.

Harald and Tostig landed their army first, in Yorkshire, in northeast England. King Harold's army was then in the south, waiting for the expected Norman invasion. But Duke William's ships were held up across the Channel by adverse winds. 

Harold led his army 220 miles north and defeated the invaders at Stamford Bridge on September 25. Tostig and Harald were both killed. 

Three days later favorable winds allowed Duke William to cross the Channel. He landed his army on the south coast, at Pevensey, in Sussex. Harold turned his victorious but surely tired army around and marched back south to meet the second threat. He stopped in London for a week before moving on to Sussex. 

The two armies met 11 miles north of Hastings on October 14. After a long day of battle, victory went to Duke William. Harold was killed after only a few months as king. The traditional story of his death is that an arrow pierced his eye. Dramatic, yes, but true? It's impossible to be sure. 

[Image from Bayeaux Tapestry. This scene shows a man thought to be Harold, holding an arrow that has struck him in the eye. But the other guy being skewered by the Norman on horseback may be Harold.]

William the Conqueror became King William I. He went on to subdue continuing Anglo-Saxon resistance with ferocity and destruction. He died of an illness in France in 1087, but his interment was undignified to say the least. His body was too large for the prepared tomb. When the attendants tried to force him into it his body burst open, spreading a foul odor all over the church. 

[Image: William I, the Conqueror, from the Bayeaux Tapestry, lifting his helmet to show he is still alive]

William's son, William II (Rufus), ended up somewhat like Harold. He died in a hunting accident in the New Forest in 1100. An errant arrow from a member of his party hit him in the chest, piercing his lung and killing him.*  But was it an accident? [Image: William II Rufus, by Matthew Paris, c. 1253]

Some historians do think Rufus was assassinated. The man who fired the arrow, Walter Tirel, fled the scene right away. The king's younger brother, Henry, was in the party, and immediately left for Winchester. He seized the treasury and had himself proclaimed King Henry I. [Image: Henry I by Matthew Paris, c. 1253]

The circumstances of Rufus' death were suspicious. Henry was the main beneficiary, and his brother had made many enemies. Accident or murder? We will probably never know for certain.

Historians generally regard Henry I as a successful monarch, and he and lived until 1135. Legend holds that he died from eating "a surfeit of lampreys." A unique way to go, but he was already ill, and something else may have caused his death. 

Henry's death created a major crisis. His only male heir had drowned in a sea accident in 1120. He declared his daughter Matilda his heir, but many barons opposed a woman monarch. A powerful noble, Stephen of Blois, got himself chosen as king. 

Matilda refused to give up her claim to the throne without a fight. Civil war followed. The Anarchy, as it is aptly known, lasted from 1135 until 1153. It ended in a compromise treaty. Stephen would remain king until his death, but Matilda's son Henry of Anjou, would succeed him. 

It worked. Stephen died in 1154 and Henry became king, the first of the Plantagenet kings, who would rule England, much of France, eventually Wales, and Scotland for a while, until the 15th century.  

Herein ends Part the First. 

*NB: A thorough investigation has determined that Dick Cheney was not among the hunting party on that day. 

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God Save the King! (Or Queen)

Since the accession of Charles III, we have often heard the phrase "God Save the King!" It seems strange after 70 years of hearing "God Save the Queen!" uttered for Elizabeth II. 

"God Save the King" is the original, of course. It is not known how old the phrase "God Save the King" is. It appears in 16th century translations of the Bible. "God Save the King" is used in reference to King Saul, the first king of Israel. 

As early as 1444, navy seamen were instructed to say "God Save King Henry" as a watchword aboard ship. That was Henry VI, a pious monarch who needed all the saving he could get. He was king when the Wars of the Roses started. The sailors used the phrase as a watchword on board ship. 

"God Save the King" had become a popular rallying cry by the mid-18th century. How much it was used before then is obscure. The Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, which threatened to topple the Hanoverian King George II, gave the cry a boost, and a song of the same name as well.  

The Gentleman's Magazine published a version of the song in 1745. It specifically names King George as the object God should be saving. [Image: George II by Thomas Hudson, 1740s]

It opens: "God save great George our king, long live our noble king." God apparently responded: the Jacobites led by "Bonnie Prince Charlie" met their final defeat at Culloden in 1746. The Catholic Stuarts ceased to be a royal threat. [Image: Charles Edward Stuart, aka Bonnie Prince Charlie, by Alan Ramsay, 1745]

Somewhere around that time, the song "God Save the King" had appeared. Historians disagree about who composed it and when. They have suggested dates between the 1680s and 1740s and Henry Purcell, Thomas Arne, Charles Burney as the composer. They all had a hand in it, it seems.

The phrase "God save the King" is used purely by custom and tradition. It has no basis in law. Similarly, the song of that name is not the official national anthem, although it is often treated as if it were.  

It is unlikely that the UK will ever have an official national anthem, even if it doesn't break up. Few of the English like "God Save the King/Queen," and even fewer Scots or Welsh. Most people sing it with all the enthusiasm of the dead. In Northern Ireland, Loyalists or Unionists like the song. Republicans detest it. 

Many in England have suggested for an anthem "Jerusalem," William Blake's evocative poem, rendered to music by Sir Hubert Parry in 1916. "Jerusalem" is often played as an anthem at English rugby and cricket matches. But it is about England, not the UK, so has little following in the so-called "Celtic Fringe." It is often sung as a hymn in churches. 

The same is true of another tune some people have proposed as a national anthem: "Land of Hope and Glory" from the tune by Edward Elgar, with lyrics by A.C. Benson (1901-02). It has imperialistic overtones that offend many people nowadays.

The Scots usually play "Flower of Scotland" as their anthem at sporting events. That isn't going to catch on in England or Wales. 

One rousing song that was highly popular during the imperialist age is "Rule Britannia," music by Thomas Arne, lyrics by James Thomson (1740). It celebrates Britain, not just England. Alas, it is too warlike and racially insensitive to be considered as a national anthem. 

The lines "Rule Britannia! Rule the Waves, Britons never will be slaves" make the song's unfitness for the current world obvious. When it was written Britain was the greatest slave trading nation in the world. And Britannia certainly doesn't rule the waves anymore. Waives the rules, maybe. 

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