Rating the Monarchs of Britain: Now Disc. George III

John's death helped pave the way for the treaty of Lambeth/Treaty of Kingston. The treaty also marked the transfer of the Channel Islands, the population of which had remained loyal to John, back to English control. But the Channel Islands would bounce back and forth between the French and English multiple times over several centuries to come.

 

Sidebar: William the Marshal.

We met him upthread, remember? The little hostage that Stephen I could not bring himself to hang. Lucky thing. William faithfully served Henry II, Richard I, and John:

"William supported King John when he became king in 1199, but they had a falling out when William paid homage to King Philip II of France for his Norman lands. William left for Leinster in 1207 and stayed in Ireland until 1212, during which time he had Carlow Castle erected[1]. In 1212 he was summoned to fight in the Welsh wars. Despite these differences, it was William on 15 June 1215 at Runnymede who dealt with the barons who made King John agree to the Magna Carta, and he was one of the few English noblemen to remain loyal to the royal side through the First Barons' War. It was William whom King John trusted on his deathbed to make sure John's nine-year-old son Henry would get the throne. [Even the ever-suspicious John trusted him.]

On 11 November 1216, upon the death of King John, William Marshal was named by the king's council (the chief barons who had remained loyal to King John in the First Barons' War) to serve as both regent of the 9 year old King Henry III, and regent of the kingdom. In spite of his advanced age (around 70) he prosecuted the war against Prince Louis and the rebel barons with remarkable energy."

[In fact, he said if he had bear the little king on his back throughout his kingdom, he would do so. It was that kind of loyalty that drew the barons back into the fold.]

"In the battle of Lincoln he charged and fought at the head of the young King's army, leading them to victory. He was preparing to besiege Louis in London when the war was terminated by the naval victory of Hubert de Burgh in the straits of Dover. He was criticized for the generosity of the terms he accorded to Louis and the rebels in September 1217; but his desire for an expeditious settlement was dictated by sound statesmanship. Self-restraint and compromise were the key-notes of Marshal's policy, hoping to secure peace and stability for his young liege. Both before and after the peace of 1217 he reissued Magna Carta, in which he is a signatory as one of the witnessing barons. Without his presence England might not have survived the disastrous reign of John; where the French and the rebels would not trust the English king's word, they would trust William."

Because John died when Henry III was only 9, and Henry was removed into the custody of William the Marshall and Hubert de Burgh from that of his mother, the personalities of his parents (Isabella was a thoroughly wicked woman) did not affect him very much. He was an unusual Angevin in one sense: he was very happily married and his children loved and were loyal to him. But of all previous kings of England, ironically he most resembled Stephen, as we shall see.

 

The reigns of Richard and John make an interesting contrast in terms of their historical treatment - Richard is 'the Lionheart' and popular whereas John often gets tagged with the 'Worst Briton EVER' title. Objectively neither really deserve the labels they've been given.

John was unfortunate to inherit the realm bankrupt, plus with Richard's near decade absence the barons who had been put in their place by Henry had re-established themselves as a force to be reckoned with. Unfortunately John was not his father - he seems to have deeply mistrusted pretty much everybody (even allies) and tried to exert authority by bullying and intimidation. As such he was faced with uprisings, plus war with France (again), plus problems with the Church (only resolved when he pretty much handed the kingdom to Rome as a fiefdom - it worked too seeing as how the Pope supported John in denouncing Magna Carta and was one of his few remaining allies by his death). The speed at which most of the barons fell back in with Henry III after John's death probably shows how much of the problems were due to the man himself (that, and the abilities of William the Marshal of course ).

Arguably however the loss of most of the French territories would be a blessing that would take some years to realise, as it enabled future kings to focus more on their 'island' and less on the politics of the European mainland. And Magna Carta, although probably not to a monarch's liking, was a major step in the development of law and order (even if, as Zaz pointed out, it was instigated by some barons who didn't like paying John taxes).

And there hasn't been a King 'John' ever since (though there have been a couple of princes who have had the name but never succeeded the throne) - the Royal family probably think the name's cursed.

 

[image=http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_0sxrMFj_Yl8/R9OEZwUY2WI/AAAAAAAAAGw/CmFlDdS3bv8/s320/prince_john.jpg]

 

No, they don't. There is absolutely no evidence whatever that his family thought John was someone to be ashamed of. Henry III was very pious, and greatly admired Edward the Confessor; thus he gave his two sons Anglo-Saxon names: Edward and Edmund. But Edward I called *his* eldest son John (the child died in infancy). Edward II called his second son John. Edward III called his third son John (that's John of Gaunt). Henry IV called his second son John. After that, the name died out a bit. There was a bit of a revival recently: Both Edward VII and George V had sons named John. But consider the name William: William II died in 1100, and William III acceded in 1688; William IV wasn't until 1830, and the fifth is warming up. John wasn't a name used in the family prior to King John, which suggests he was named after a French relative.

 

Hence my .

 

Hm. If John's reign was the WORST of the british throne as per the above, methinks the British should count themselves very fortunate.

Yeah, he lost holdings in France. But hey, at least he didn't end up guillotined and the monarchy overthrown. Or saw his country break apart and/or crumble and/or conquored.

Considering the experiences of Rome, Russia, France, Germany and Spain, and frankly -- almost everyone else, that's a pretty sweet deal for Britain.

 

Very good point, and I don't count him the worst by a long shot.

 

I wonder if it may have been influenced by legends of a certain outlaw in Sherwood Forest.

EDIT:
According to this BBC History Magazine page, he was listed in their 'Worst Historical Britons' list due to the murder of his nephew Arthur.

 

Ironically, they didn't care about that at the time. Arthur was a vassal of the French King, and nobody in England much liked him.

 

Next: Henry III (He has no nickname. Curious)

Description: According to Nicholas Trevet, Henry was a thickset man of medium height with a narrow forehead and a drooping left eyelid (inherited by his son, Edward I).

Born: 1207

Death: 1272

Ruled: 1216-1272

Father: King John

Mother: Isabella of Angouleme

Wife: Eleanor of Provence

Children: 2 sons, 3 daughters

Illegitimate children: none

Successor: His elder son, Edward I

The Situation: "Henry's reign came to be marked by civil strife as the English barons, led by Simon de Montfort, demanded more say in the running of the kingdom. French-born de Montfort had originally been one of the foreign upstarts so loathed by many as Henry's foreign counsellors. Henry, in an outburst of anger, accused Simon of seducing his sister and forcing him to give her to Simon to avoid a scandal. When confronted by the Barons about the secret marriage that Henry had allowed to happen, a feud developed between the two. Their relationship reached a crisis in the 1250s when de Montfort was brought up on spurious charges for actions he took as lieutenant of Gascony, the last remaining Plantagenet land across the English Channel. He was acquitted by the Peers of the realm, much to the King's displeasure.

Henry also became embroiled in funding a war in Sicily on behalf of the Pope in return for a title for his second son Edmund, a state of affairs that made many barons fearful that Henry was following in the footsteps of his father, King John, and needed to be kept in check, too. De Montfort became leader of those who wanted to reassert Magna Carta and force the king to surrender more power to the baronial council. In 1258, seven leading barons forced Henry to agree to the Provisions of Oxford, which effectively abolished the absolutist Anglo-Norman monarchy, giving power to a council of fifteen barons to deal with the business of government and providing for a thrice-yearly meeting of parliament to monitor their performance. Henry was forced to take part in the swearing of a collective oath to the Provisions of Oxford.

In the following years, those supporting de Montfort and those supporting the king grew more and more polarised. Henry obtained a papal bull in 1262 exempting him from his oath and both sides began to raise armies. The Royalists were led by Prince Edward, Henry's eldest son. Civil war, known as the Second Barons' War, followed.

The charismatic de Montfort and his forces had captured most of southeastern England by 1263, and at the Battle of Lewes on 14 May 1264, Henry was defeated and taken prisoner by de Montfort's army. While Henry was reduced to being a figurehead king, de Montfort broadened representation to include each county of England and many important towns?that is, to groups beyond the nobility. Henry and Edward continued under house arrest. The short period that followed was the closest England was to come to complete abolition of the monarchy until the Commonwealth period of 1649?1660 and many of the barons who had initially supported de Montfort began to suspect that he had gone too far with his reforming zeal.

But only fifteen months later Prince Edward had escaped captivity (having been freed by his cousin Roger Mortimer) to lead the royalists into battle again and he turned the tables on de Montfort at the Battle of Evesham in 1265. Following this victory savage retribution was exacted on the rebels."

Achievements: Henry's achievements are neither political nor military. His piety meant good things: he refounded and renovated Westminster Abbey; and bad things: he persecuted the Jews.

Character: As noted above, some notable Angevin characteristics were missing in Henry, notably anti-clericism and lechery. He was devoted to his wife and his children, and in general had a happy family life, marred only by a host of greedy relatives, which he tried to please. He was pious and interested in history.

Reputation: A vacillating weakling...which is about right.

Depictions in fiction: Very few.

Irony: Though he was a much better man than his father in

 

Interesting that Henry III's long reign coincided so closely with the life of France's Louis IX --St. Louis, yes thatSt. Louis--who by contrast was not only pious but well-liked and died on his second crusade in 1270. Whereas Henry struggled to control England, St. Louis's rule was relatively peaceful internally and represented the peak of France's power in medieval Europe. St. Louis built Sainte-Chapelle, arguably the crowning achievement of gothic architecture.

The armies of Henry and St. Louis faced each other in a short series of clashes at Taillebourg and Saintes in the early summer of 1242, constituting the entirety of the Saintonge War. The campaign was a decisive defeat for Henry.

 

Poor Henry...it always was a decisive defeat for him.

[image=http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1267/1168102980_63d996b662.jpg]

The glorious Saint-Chapelle. Henry's was Westminster Abbey, not bad, either.

 

Next: Edward I aka 'Longshanks', 'Lawgiver', 'the English Justinian', 'the Hammer of the Scots'. Curiously, given that he was named for a previous king of England, Edward the Confessor, he was called Edward I, not Edward IV, which he is in fact. Edward has been the name of eleven Kings of England, more than any other.

Description: He was at least 6'2", a great height in those days, and inherited the drooping left eyelid that characterized John and Henry III.

House: Plantagenent (Angevin)

Born: 1239

Death: 1307 (aged 68)

Ruled: 1272-1307

Father: Henry III

Mother: Eleanor of Provence

Wife: (1) Eleanor of Castile (1241-1290) m. 1254

Children: 5 sons, 11 daughters

Wife: (2) Margaret of France (1281/2-1317/18) m. 1299

Children: 2 sons, 1 daughter

Illegitimate children: none

Successor: His eldest son, Edward II

The Situation: "35 years old when he succeeded, Edward redeemed a bad start. He had been arrogant, lawless, violent, treacherous, revengeful, and cruel; his Angevin rages matched those of Henry II. Loving his own way and intolerant of opposition, he had still proved susceptible to influence by strong-minded associates. He had shown intense family affection, loyalty to friends, courage, brilliant military capacity, and a gift for leadership; handsome, tall, powerful, and tough, he had the qualities men admired. He loved efficient, strong government, enjoyed power, and had learned to admire justice, though in his own affairs it was often the letter, not the spirit of the law that he observed. Having mastered his anger, he had shown himself capable of patient negotiation, generosity, and even idealism; and he preferred the society and advice of strong counselors with good minds. As long as Burnell and Queen Eleanor lived, the better side of Edward triumphed, and the years until about 1294 were years of great achievement. Thereafter, his character deteriorated for lack of domestic comfort and independent advice. He allowed his autocratic temper full rein and devoted his failing energies to prosecution of the wars in France and against Scotland."

Achievements: "Upon returning home [he was on a crusade when his father died], Edward immediately embarked on the administrative business of the nation, and his major concern was restoring order and re-establishing royal authority after the disastrous reign of his father.[62] In order to accomplish this he immediately ordered an extensive change of administrative personnel. The most important of these was the appointment of Robert Burnell as chancellor; a man who would remain in the post until 1292, as one of the king's closest associates.[63] Edward then proceeded to replace most local officials, such as the escheators and sheriffs.[64] This last measure was done in preparation for an extensive inquest covering all of England, that would hear complaints about abuse of power by royal officers. The inquest produced the so-called Hundred Rolls, from the administrative sub-division of the hundred.[65]

The second purpose of the inquest was to establish what land and rights the crown had lost during the reign of Henry III.[66] The Hundred Rolls formed the basis for the later legal inquiries called the Quo warranto proceedings. The purpose of these inquiries was to establish by what warrant (Latin: Quo warranto) various liberties were held.[67] If the defendant could not produce a royal licence to prove the grant of the liberty, then it was the crown's opinion ? based on the writings of Bracton ? that the liberty should revert to the king. This caused great consternation among the aristocracy, who insisted that long use in itself constituted license.[68] A compromise was eventually reached in 1290, whereby a liberty was considered legitimate as long as it could be shown to have been exercised since the coronation of King Richard I, in 1189.[69] Royal gains from the Quo warranto proceedings were insignificant; few liberties were returned to the king.[70] Edward had nevertheless won a significant victory, in clearly establishing the principle that all liberties essent

 

Eleanor of Castile had a daughter, stillborn, in 1255, when she was 15, but did not give birth again until 1265. Ten of the children died either at birth, infancy or childhood. She gave birth 15 times in 19 years - between 1265 and 1284, when Edward was born (Eleanor was 44!). Although her children were not very hardy, her ability to survive childbirth must have been extraordinary for the age.

 

But that was not at all unusual. They started early and ended late, and you could only expect less than half of the children to survive. Eleanor did not die in childbirth, either, which as you say is remarkable, as a lot of women did.

Edward's second wife, Margaret, had a higher ratio: both her sons lived to adulthood and had children of their own. The daughter, however, died in infancy.

 

Simon Schama in his History of Britain series calls Edward I the first true 'English' king - he actually spoke English (well at least the 13th century version of it) as as opposed to French and ran his reign more England-centric (as opposed to the earlier France focus of his predecessors) - including his conquests in Scotland and Wales plus his castle building campaign. Furthermore his English links were increased by being named in honour of Edward the Confessor who had become the patron saint of England following Henry II (he would be replaced by St George in the 14th century, although St Edward still remains the patron saint of the royal family).

 

Next: Edward II aka Edward of Carnarvon

Description: Tall, fair-haired and handsome.

House: Plantagenent (Angevin)

Born: 1284, in Carnarvon, Wales

Death: 1327 (aged 43)

Ruled: 1307-1327

Father: Edward I

Mother: Eleanor of Castile

Wife: Isabella of France, aka 'the She-Wolf of France' (1292/5-1358) m. 1308, daughter of the King of France, her mother was a Queen (of Navarre) in her own right. A fateful marriage for the dynasty, as we shall see in her son's reign.

Children: 2 sons, 2 daughters

Illegitimate children: one son

Successor: His elder son, Edward III

The Situation: Edward I left his son 200,000 pounds in debt and with a war with Scotland, which Edward II proceeded to lose, badly, to Robert the Bruce, who became King of Scotland thereafter. Things went downhill from there.

"Edward II?s reign was an almost unmitigated disaster. He inherited some of his problems from his father, the most significant being a treasury deficit of some £200,000, and the Scottish war. He inherited none of his father?s strengths. He was a good horseman but did not enjoy swordplay or tournaments, preferring swimming, ditch digging, thatching, and theatricals. Although surrounded by a ruling class strongly tied to his family by blood and service, Edward rejected the company of his peers, preferring that of Piers Gaveston, son of a Gascon knight, with whom he probably had a homosexual relationship. Edward?s father had exiled Gaveston in an attempt to quash the friendship. Edward the son recalled him and conferred on him the highest honours he had to bestow: the earldom of Cornwall and marriage to his niece Margaret de Clare, sister of the Earl of Gloucester. Edward also recalled Archbishop Winchelsey and Bishop Bek of Durham, both of whom had gone into exile under Edward I. He dismissed and put on trial one of his father?s most trusted servants, the treasurer, Walter Langton.

Historians used to emphasize the constitutional struggle that took place in this reign, seeing a conflict between a baronial ideal of government conducted with the advice of the magnates and based on the great offices of state, the Chancery and the Exchequer, on the one hand, and a royal policy of reliance upon the departments of the royal household, notably the wardrobe and chamber, on the other. More recent interpretations have shifted the emphasis to personal rivalries and ambitions.

Opposition to Edward began to build as early as January 1308. At the coronation in February a new clause was added to the king?s oath that obligated him to promise that he would keep such laws ?as the community of the realm shall have chosen.? In April the barons came armed to Parliament and warned the king that ?homage and the oath of allegiance are stronger and bind more by reason of the crown than by reason of the person of the king.? The first phase of the reign culminated in the production of the Ordinances in 1311. They were in part directed against Gaveston?who was again to be exiled?and other royal favourites, but much of the document looked back to the grievances of Edward I?s later years, echoing concessions made by the king in 1300. Hostility was expressed to the practice of prise (compulsory purchase of foodstuffs for royal armies). Baronial consent was required for foreign war (possibly in remembrance of Edward I?s Flanders campaign of 1297). The privy seal was not to be used to interfere in justice. A long list of officials were to be chosen with the advice and consent of the barons in Parliament. All revenues were to be paid into the Exchequer. The king?s bankers, the Frescobaldi, who had also served Edward I, were to be expelled from the realm. Royal grants of land made since the appointment of the Ordainers in 1310 were annulled. It is noteworthy that the first clear statement that consent should be given in Parliament is to be found in the Ordinances. No explicit role, however, was given to the Commons, the representative element in Parliament.

The middle years of Edward?s reign were dominated by the enigmatic figure of Thomas, 2nd Earl of Lancaster,

 

Amazing the extent to which "domestic politics" for an English king comprised largely the effort to beat down enemies among the local nobility. They were not the types to pass by an opportunity to exploit a monarch's weakness.

I'm thinking that since modern western constitutional democracy is largely rooted in these power plays among warring domestic factions, modern party politics in the U.S. and Great Britain is in some senses just an effort to ritualize high-level civil war as a means of keeping the bloodshed in check.

 

It wasn't just England, either. France suffered the same problem, as did Scotland.

 

Sidebar: Roger Mortimer (1287-1330)

Roger Mortimer was the 1st Earl of March

"Roger de Mortimer, 1st Earl of March (25 April 1287 ? 29 November 1330), an English nobleman, was for three years de facto ruler of England, after leading a successful rebellion against Edward II. He was himself overthrown by Edward's son, Edward III. Mortimer was also the lover of Edward II's wife, Isabella of France, who assisted him in the deposition of her husband."

Early life and family history

"Mortimer, grandson of Roger Mortimer, 1st Baron Mortimer, was born at Wigmore Castle, Herefordshire, England, the firstborn of Edmund Mortimer, 2nd Baron Mortimer and his wife, Margaret de Fiennes. Edmund Mortimer had been a second son, intended for minor orders and a clerical career, but on the sudden death of his elder brother Ralph, Edmund was recalled from Oxford University and installed as heir. As a boy, Roger was probably sent to be fostered in the household of his formidable uncle, Roger Mortimer of Chirk. It was this uncle who had carried the head of Llywelyn the Last to King Edward I in 1282.

Like many noble children of his time, Roger was betrothed young, to Joan de Geneville, the daughter of a neighbouring lord. They were married in 1301, and immediately began a family--they had a number of children.

Roger Mortimer's childhood came to an abrupt end when Lord Wigmore was mortally wounded in a skirmish near Builth in July 1304. Since Roger was underage at the death of his father, he was placed by King Edward I under the guardianship of Piers Gaveston, and was knighted by Edward in 1306. In that year also Roger was endowed as Baron Wigmore, and came into his full inheritance. His adult life began in earnest."

Military adventures in Ireland and Wales

"In 1308 he went to Ireland in person, to enforce his authority. This brought him into conflict with the de Lacys, who turned for support to Edward Bruce, brother of Robert Bruce, king of Scotland. Mortimer was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland by Edward II. In 1316, at the head of a large army, he drove Bruce to Carrickfergus and the de Lacys into Connaught, wreaking vengeance on their adherents whenever they were to be found.

He was then occupied for some years with baronial disputes on the Welsh border until about 1318."

Opposition to Edward II

"In 1318, Mortimer joined the growing opposition to Edward II and the Despensers, and he supported Humphrey de Bohun, 4th earl of Hereford, in refusing to obey the king?s summons to appear before him in 1321.

Forced to surrender to the king at Shrewsbury in January 1322, Mortimer was consigned to the Tower of London, but by drugging the constable, escaped to France, pursued by warrants for his capture dead or alive, in August 1323.[2] In the following year Queen Isabella, wife of Edward II, anxious to escape from her husband, obtained his consent to her going to France to use her influence with her brother, King Charles IV, in favour of peace. At the French court the queen found Roger Mortimer, who became her lover soon afterwards. At his instigation, she refused to return to England so long as the Despensers retained power as the king?s favourites."


Isabella coaxed Edward II to send their elder son, Edward, to the French court to do homage for his French lands. Edward was reluctant, but agreed. Once Isabella had the boy, she used him to raise a rebellion against her husband. Mortimer was a good soldier, and he carried the day, especially as the nobles and the populace were fed up with Edward II and the Despensers.

Edward II was forced to abdicate in favour of his 15 year old son, and for the next three years, Mortimer ruled the country, despite the boy being technically old enough to do so. Ironically, the difference between him and Hugh le Despenser was that he was heterosexual and a good soldier. Otherwise, he was as grasping, as corrupt, as lacking in judgment and as ambitious. And like Hugh, he owed his place to sexual favours from a royal person, in this case the Queen. Needless to say, after a little of Mortimer's ru

 

Well, he was barely a teenager for one thing. He would have needed time to develop a power base at court independent from his mother and Mortimer. Also, youthful rebelliousness would not have been enough to take control of the kingdom without backing of the nobility.

 

Next: Edward III aka Edward of Windsor

Description: Tall and good-looking

House: Plantagenet (Angevin)

Born: 1312, at Windsor, England

Death: 1377 (aged 64)

Ruled: 1327-1377

Father: Edward II

Mother: Isabella of France

Wife: Philippa of Hainault (she was a direct descendant of both Harald Godwineson and Stephen I)

Children: 8 sons, 5 daughters

Illegitimate children: 4

Successor: His grandson, Richard II

The Situation: Edward III had tough times as a child; his parents were both irresponsible fools and sexually excessive; his father an incompetent; his mother an adulteress. This dire beginning must have had some effect, but he managed to suppress it until late in his reign, when things began to go wrong. But at first, he seemed much more like his grandfather than his father. He married a 13 year old girl at age 15 (as had his grandfather), and the marriage was very happy, and produced a large number of children. Only after the queen became mortally ill did he stray. He had a large family, but they were remarkably united and loyal to him. (Alas, this did not persist into the second generation). He did not remarry, which he probably should have done.

Achievements: "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 Years' 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 a

 

The plague arrived in the Channel Islands by mid summer 1348 and had killed maybe 40% of England's population-maybe as many as 2 million-within two years. I think it's fair to call this the defining moment of Edward's, and any European monarch of the time's, reign.

The most immediate concern after the burial of all those corpses was the labor shortage, leading to Edward III's Ordinance of Labourers in 1349 to try to stem the inevitable wave of wage and food inflation through price ceilings. Although the effort was in some respects a failure, the black death could well have caused an immediate collapse of feudalism in England, but did not. In any case, the Ordinance did help foment the discontent that led to the peasant uprising of 1381.

 

As soon as Edward died, the discontent surfaced.