Bohun (1399–1413)
Roger, Earl = Eleanor HENRY V
(1) = Katherine, dau. John Beaufort,
of March Holland
(1413–1422) of CHARLES VI, Duke of Somerset
King of France
Richard, Earl = Anne
HENRY VI Margaret Beaufort =
Edmund Tudor,
of Cambridge Mortimer
(1422–1461,
Earl of Richmond
1470–1471)
Richard, Duke = Cecily
Elizabeth of York, = HENRY
VII
of York Neville
dau. of EDWARD IV
(1485–1509)
EDWARD IV = Elizabeth, dau.
RICHARD III
(1461–1470, of Sir Richard
(1483–1485)
1471–1483) Woodville
EDWARD V
Elizabeth = HENRY VII
(1483)
(1485–1509)
HENRY III (1216-1272)
Henry III, King John's son, was only nine when he became King. By 1227,
when he assumed power from his regent, order had been restored, based on
his acceptance of Magna Carta. However, the King's failed campaigns in
France (1230 and 1242), his choice of friends and advisers, together with
the cost of his scheme to make one of his younger sons King of Sicily and
help the Pope against the Holy Roman Emperor, led to further disputes with
the barons and united opposition in Church and State. Although Henry was
extravagant and his tax demands were resented, the King's accounts show a
list of many charitable donations and payments for building works
(including the rebuilding of Westminster Abbey which began in 1245). The
Provisions of Oxford (1258) and the Provisions of Westminster (1259) were
attempts by the nobles to define common law in the spirit of Magna Carta,
control appointments and set up an aristocratic council. Henry tried to
defeat them by obtaining papal absolution from his oaths, and enlisting
King Louis XI's help. Henry renounced the Provisions in 1262 and war broke
out. The barons, under their leader, Simon de Montfort, were initially
successful and even captured Henry. However, Henry escaped, joined forces
with the lords of the Marches (on the Welsh border), and Henry finally
defeated and killed de Montfort at the Battle of Evesham in 1265. Royal
authority was restored by the Statute of Marlborough (1267), in which the
King also promised to uphold Magna Carta and some of the Provisions of
Westminster.
EDWARD I (1272-1307)
Born in June 1239 at Westminster, Edward was named by his father Henry
III after the last Anglo Saxon king (and his father's favourite saint),
Edward the Confessor. Edward's parents were renowned for their patronage of
the arts (his mother, Eleanor of Provence, encouraged Henry III to spend
money on the arts, which included the rebuilding of Westminster Abbey and a
still-extant magnificent shrine to house the body of Edward the Confessor),
and Edward received a disciplined education - reading and writing in Latin
and French, with training in the arts, sciences and music. In 1254, Edward
travelled to Spain for an arranged marriage at the age of 15 to 9-year-old
Eleanor of Castile. Just before Edward's marriage, Henry III gave him the
duchy of Gascony, one of the few remnants of the once vast French
possessions of the English Angevin kings. Gascony was part of a package
which included parts of Ireland, the Channel Islands and the King's lands
in Wales to provide an income for Edward. Edward then spent a year in
Gascony, studying its administration. Edward spent his young adulthood
learning harsh lessons from Henry III's failures as a king, culminating in
a civil war in which he fought to defend his father. Henry's ill-judged and
expensive intervention in Sicilian affairs (lured by the Pope's offer of
the Sicilian crown to Henry's younger son) failed, and aroused the anger of
powerful barons including Henry's brother-in-law Simon de Montfort.
Bankrupt and threatened with excommunication, Henry was forced to agree to
the Provisions of Oxford in 1258, under which his debts were paid in
exchange for substantial reforms; a Great Council of 24, partly nominated
by the barons, assumed the functions of the King's Council. Henry
repudiated the Provisions in 1261 and sought the help of the French king
Louis IX (later known as St Louis for his piety and other qualities). This
was the only time Edward was tempted to side with his charismatic and
politically ruthless godfather Simon de Montfort - he supported holding a
Parliament in his father's absence. However, by the time Louis IX decided
to side with Henry in the dispute and civil war broke out in England in
1263, Edward had returned to his father's side and became de Montfort's
greatest enemy. After winning the battle of Lewes in 1264 (after which
Edward became a hostage to ensure his father abided by the terms of the
peace), de Montfort summoned the Great Parliament in 1265 - this was the
first time cities and burghs sent representatives to the parliament.
(Historians differ as to whether de Montfort was an enlightened liberal
reformer or an unscrupulous opportunist using any means to advance
himself.) In May 1265, Edward escaped from tight supervision whilst
hunting. On 4 August, Edward and his allies outmanoeuvred de Montfort in a
savage battle at Evesham; de Montfort predicted his own defeat and death
'let us commend our souls to God, because our bodies are theirs ... they
are approaching wisely, they learned this from me.' With the ending of the
civil war, Edward worked hard at social and political reconciliation
between his father and the rebels, and by 1267 the realm had been pacified.
In April 1270 Parliament agreed an unprecedented levy of one-twentieth of
every citizen's goods and possessions to finance Edward's Crusade to the
Holy Lands. Edward left England in August 1270 to join the highly respected
French king Louis IX on Crusade. At a time when popes were using the
crusading ideal to further their own political ends in Italy and elsewhere,
Edward and King Louis were the last crusaders in the medieval tradition of
aiming to recover the Holy Lands. Louis died of the plague in Tunis before
Edward's arrival, and the French forces were bought off from pursuing their
campaign. Edward decided to continue regardless: 'by the blood of God,
though all my fellow soldiers and countrymen desert me, I will enter Acre
... and I will keep my word and my oath to the death'. Edward arrived in
Acre in May 1271 with 1,000 knights; his crusade was to prove an
anticlimax. Edward's small force limited him to the relief of Acre and a
handful of raids, and divisions amongst the international force of
Christian Crusaders led to Edward's compromise truce with the Baibars. In
June 1272, Edward survived a murder attempt by an Assassin (an order of
Shi'ite Muslims) and left for Sicily later in the year. He was never to
return on crusade. Meanwhile, Henry III died on 16 November 1272. Edward
succeeded to the throne without opposition - given his track record in
military ability and his proven determination to give peace to the country,
enhanced by his magnified exploits on crusade. In Edward's absence, a
proclamation in his name delcared that he had succeeded by hereditary right
and the barons swore allegeiance to him. Edward finally arrived in London
in August 1274 and was crowned at Westminster Abbey. Aged 35, he was a
veteran warrior ('the best lance in all the world', according to
contemporaries), a leader with energy and vision, and with a formidable
temper. Edward was determined to enforce English kings' claims to primacy
in the British Isles. The first part of his reign was dominated by Wales.
At that time, Wales consisted of a number of disunited small Welsh
princedoms; the South Welsh princes were in uneasy alliance with the
Marcher lords (feudal earldoms and baronies set up by the Norman kings to
protect the English border against Welsh raids) against the Northern Welsh
based in the rocky wilds of Gwynedd, under the strong leadership of
Llywelyn ap Gruffyd, Prince of Gwynedd. In 1247, under the Treaty of
Woodstock, Llywelyn had agreed that he held North Wales in fee to the
English king. By 1272, Llywelyn had taken advantage of the English civil
wars to consolidate his position, and the Peace of Montgomery (1267) had
confirmed his title as Prince of Wales and recognised his conquests.
However, Llywelyn maintained that the rights of his principality were
'entirely separate from the rights' of England; he did not attend Edward's
coronation and refused to do homage. Finally, in 1277 Edward decided to
fight Llywelyn 'as a rebel and disturber of the peace', and quickly
defeated him. War broke out again in 1282 when Llywelyn joined his brother
David in rebellion. Edward's determination, military experience and skilful
use of ships brought from England for deployment along the North Welsh
coast, drove Llywelyn back into the mountains of North Wales. The death of
Llywelyn in a chance battle in 1282 and the subsequent execution of his
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