Henry III of England
Henry III, also known as Henry of Winchester, was King of England, Lord of Ireland and Duke of Aquitaine from 1216 until his death in 1272. The son of John, King of England, and Isabella of Angoulême, Henry acceded to the throne when he was only nine in the middle of the First Barons' War. Cardinal Guala Bicchieri declared the war against the rebel barons to be a religious crusade and Henry's forces, led by William Marshal, defeated the rebels at the battles of Lincoln and Sandwich in 1217. Henry promised to abide by the Great Charter of 1225, a later version of Magna Carta, which limited royal power and protected the rights of the major barons. Henry's early reign was dominated first by William Marshal, and after his death in 1219 by the magnate Hubert de Burgh, Earl of Kent. In 1230 the King attempted to reconquer the provinces of France that had once belonged to his father, but the invasion was a debacle. A revolt led by William Marshal's son Richard broke out in 1232, ending in a peace settlement negotiated by the Catholic Church.
Following the revolt, Henry ruled England personally, rather than governing through senior ministers. He travelled less than previous monarchs, investing heavily in a handful of his favourite palaces and castles. He married Eleanor of Provence, with whom he had five children. He was known for his piety, holding lavish religious ceremonies and giving generously to charities; he was particularly devoted to the figure of Edward the Confessor, whom he adopted as his patron saint. He extracted huge sums of money from the Jews in England, ultimately crippling their ability to do business. As attitudes towards the Jews hardened, he later introduced the Statute of Jewry, which attempted to segregate the Jewish community from the English populace. In a fresh attempt to reclaim his family's lands in France, he invaded Poitou in 1242, leading to the disastrous Battle of Taillebourg. After this, he relied on diplomacy, cultivating an alliance with Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor. He supported his brother Richard of Cornwall in his successful bid to become King of the Romans in 1256, but was unable to place his own son Edmund Crouchback on the throne of Sicily, despite investing large amounts of money. He planned to go on crusade to the Levant, but was prevented from doing so by rebellions in Gascony.
By 1258, Henry's rule had grown increasingly unpopular due to the failure of his expensive foreign policies, the notoriety of his Poitevin half-brothers, and the role of his local officials in collecting taxes and debts. In response to this state of affairs, a coalition of his barons seized power in a coup d'état and expelled the Poitevins from England, reforming the royal government through a process called the Provisions of Oxford. In 1259, Henry and the baronial government consented to the Treaty of Paris, under which Henry gave up his rights to his other lands in France in return for King Louis IX recognising him as the rightful ruler of Gascony. Despite the ultimate collapse of the baronial regime, Henry was unable to reform a stable government and instability continued across England.
In 1263 one of the more radical barons, Simon de Montfort, seized power, resulting in the Second Barons' War. Henry persuaded Louis to support his cause and mobilised an army. The Battle of Lewes was fought in 1264 when Henry was defeated and taken prisoner. Henry's eldest son, Edward, escaped from captivity to defeat Simon at the Battle of Evesham the following year and freed his father. Henry initially exacted a harsh revenge on the remaining rebels but was persuaded by the Church to mollify his policies through the Dictum of Kenilworth. Reconstruction was slow, and Henry had to acquiesce to several measures, including further suppression of the Jews, to maintain baronial and popular support. He died in 1272, leaving Edward as his successor. His body was buried in Westminster Abbey, which he had rebuilt in the second half of his reign, and was moved to his current tomb in 1290. Some miracles were declared after his death, but he was not canonised. His reign of 56 years was the longest in medieval English history and would not be surpassed by an English, or later British, monarch until that of George III in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Background and childhood
Henry was born in Winchester Castle on 1 October 1207. He was the eldest son of King John and Isabella of Angoulême. Little is known of Henry's early life. He was initially looked after by a wet nurse called Ellen in the south of England, away from John's itinerant court, and probably had close ties to his mother. He had four legitimate younger brothers and sisters – Richard, Joan, Isabella and Eleanor – and several older illegitimate siblings. In 1212 his education was entrusted to Peter des Roches, the bishop of Winchester, under whose direction he was given military training by the knight Philip d'Aubigny and taught to ride, probably by Ralph of St Samson.Little is known about Henry's appearance; he was probably around tall, and accounts recorded after his death suggested that he had a strong build, with a drooping eyelid. Henry grew up to show flashes of a fierce temper, but mostly, as the historian David Carpenter describes, he had an "amiable, easy-going, and sympathetic" personality. He was unaffected and honest, and showed his emotions readily, easily being moved to tears by religious sermons.
At the start of the 13th century, the Kingdom of England formed part of the Angevin Empire spreading across Western Europe. Henry was named after his grandfather Henry II, who had built up this vast network of lands stretching from Scotland and Wales, through England, across the English Channel to the territories of Normandy, Brittany, Maine and Anjou in north-west France, and on to Poitou and Gascony in the south-west. For many years the French Crown was relatively weak, enabling first Henry II, and then his sons Richard I and John, to dominate France.
In 1204 John lost Normandy, Brittany, Maine, and Anjou to Philip II of France, leaving English power on the continent limited to Gascony and Poitou. John raised taxes to pay for military campaigns to regain his lands, but unrest grew among many of the English barons; John sought new allies by declaring England a papal fiefdom, owing allegiance to the Pope. In 1215 John and the rebel barons negotiated Magna Carta as potential peace treaty. The treaty would have limited potential abuses of royal power, demobilised the rebel armies and set up a power-sharing arrangement, but in practice, neither side complied with its conditions. John and the loyalist barons firmly rejected Magna Carta and the First Barons' War erupted, with the rebel barons aided by Philip's son Louis, who claimed the English throne for himself. The war soon settled into a stalemate, with neither side able to claim victory. The king became ill and died on the night of 18 October, leaving the nine-year-old Henry as his heir.
Minority (1216–1226)
Coronation
Henry was staying safely at Corfe Castle in Dorset with his mother when King John died. On his deathbed, John appointed a council of thirteen executors to help Henry reclaim the kingdom and requested that his son be placed into the guardianship of William Marshal, one of the most famous knights in England. The loyalist leaders decided to crown Henry immediately to reinforce his claim to the throne. William knighted the boy, and Cardinal Guala Bicchieri, the papal legate to England, then oversaw his coronation at Gloucester Cathedral on 28 October 1216.In the absence of Archbishops Stephen Langton of Canterbury and Walter de Gray of York, Henry was anointed by Bishops Sylvester of Worcester and Simon of Exeter, and crowned by Peter des Roches. The royal crown had been either lost or sold during the civil war or possibly lost in The Wash, so instead the ceremony used a simple gold corolla belonging to Queen Isabella. Henry underwent a second coronation at Westminster Abbey on 17 May 1220.
The young king inherited a difficult situation, with more than half of England occupied by the rebels and most of his father's continental possessions still in French hands. He had substantial support from Cardinal Guala, who intended to win the civil war for him and punish the rebels. Guala set about strengthening the ties between England and the papacy, starting with the coronation itself, where Henry gave homage to the papacy, recognising Pope Honorius III as his feudal lord. Honorius declared that Henry was his vassal and ward, and that the legate had complete authority to protect Henry and his kingdom. As an additional measure, Henry took the cross, declaring himself a crusader and so entitled to special protection from Rome.
Two senior nobles stood out as candidates to head Henry's regency government. The first was William Marshal, who, although elderly, was renowned for his personal loyalty and could help support the war with his own men and material. The second was Ranulf de Blondeville, 6th Earl of Chester, one of the most powerful loyalist barons. William diplomatically waited until both Guala and Ranulf had requested him to take up the post before assuming power. William then appointed des Roches to be Henry's guardian, freeing himself up to lead the military effort.
End of the Barons' War
The war was not going well for the loyalists, and the new regency government considered retreating to Ireland. Prince Louis and the rebel barons were also finding it difficult to make further progress. Despite Louis controlling Westminster Abbey, he could not be crowned king because the English Church and the papacy backed Henry. John's death had defused some of the rebel concerns, and the royal castles were still holding out in the occupied parts of the country. In a bid to take advantage of this, Henry encouraged the rebel barons to come back to his cause in exchange for the return of their lands, and reissued a version of Magna Carta, albeit having first removed some of the clauses, including those unfavourable to the papacy. The move was not successful and opposition to Henry's new government hardened.In February 1217 Louis set sail for France to gather reinforcements. In his absence arguments broke out between Louis's French and English followers, and Cardinal Guala declared that Henry's war against the rebels was a religious crusade. This resulted in a series of defections from the rebel movement, and the tide of the conflict swung in Henry's favour. Louis returned at the end of April and reinvigorated his campaign, splitting his forces into two groups, sending one north to besiege Lincoln Castle and keeping one in the south to capture Dover Castle. When he learnt that Louis had divided his army, William Marshal gambled on defeating the rebels in a single battle. William marched north and attacked Lincoln on 20 May 1217; entering through a side gate, he took the city in a sequence of fierce street battles and sacked the buildings. Large numbers of senior rebels were captured, and historian David Carpenter considers the battle to be "one of the most decisive in English history".
Image:EustaceTheMonk.jpg|thumb|upright=1.8|The Battle of Sandwich in 1217, showing the capture of the French flagship and the execution of Eustace the Monk and the support of the English bishops, by Matthew Paris
In the aftermath of Lincoln, the loyalist campaign stalled and only recommenced in late June when the victors had arranged the ransoming of their prisoners. Meanwhile, support for Louis's campaign was diminishing in France, and he concluded that the war in England was lost. Louis negotiated terms with Cardinal Guala, under which he would renounce his claim to the English throne; in return, his followers would be given back their lands, any sentences of excommunication would be lifted and Henry's government would promise to enforce Magna Carta. The proposed agreement soon began to unravel amid claims from some loyalists that it was too generous towards the rebels, particularly the clergy who had joined the rebellion. In the absence of a settlement, Louis remained in London with his remaining forces.
On 24 August 1217 a French fleet arrived off the coast of Sandwich, bringing soldiers, siege engines and fresh supplies to Louis. Hubert de Burgh, Henry's justiciar, set sail to intercept it, resulting in the Battle of Sandwich. De Burgh's fleet scattered the French and captured their flagship, commanded by Eustace the Monk, who was promptly executed. When the news reached Louis, he entered into renewed peace negotiations.
Henry and Louis, together with Henry's mother, Cardinal Guala and William Marshal, came to an agreement on the final Treaty of Lambeth on 12 and 13 September 1217. The treaty was similar to the first peace offer but excluded the rebel clergy, whose lands and appointments remained forfeit. Louis accepted a gift of ~£6,700 to speed his departure from England, and promised to try to persuade King Philip to return Henry's lands in France. Louis left England as agreed and joined the Albigensian Crusade in the south of France.