Person Page - 1274

     Edward FitzRandolph immigrated to USA.

     1st Earl of Derby.

     1st and last Duke of Gloucester.

     Edward III (13 November 1312 – 21 June 1377) was one of the most successful English monarchs of the Middle Ages. Restoring royal authority after the disastrous reign of his father, Edward II, Edward III went on to transform the Kingdom of England into the most efficient military power in Europe. His reign saw vital developments in legislature and government—in particular the evolution of the English parliament—as well as the ravages of the Black Death. He remained on the throne for 50 years; no English monarch had reigned for as long since Henry III, and none would again until George III, as King of the United Kingdom.

Edward was crowned at the age of fourteen, following the deposition of his father. When he was only seventeen years old, he led a coup against his regent, Roger Mortimer, and began his personal reign. After defeating, but not subjugating, the Kingdom of Scotland, he declared himself rightful heir to the French throne in 1338, starting what would be known as the Hundred Years' War. Following some initial setbacks, the war went exceptionally well for England; the victories of Crécy and Poitiers led up to the highly favourable Treaty of Brétigny. Edward’s later years, however, were marked by international failure and domestic strife, largely as a result of his inertia and eventual bad health.

Edward III was a temperamental man, but also capable of great clemency. He was, in most ways, a conventional king, mainly interested in warfare. Highly revered in his own time and for centuries after, Edward was denounced as an irresponsible adventurer by later Whig historians. This view has turned, and modern historiography credits him with many achievements[1].

Edward was born at Windsor on 13 November 1312, and was called "Edward of Windsor" in his early years. The reign of his father, Edward II, was fraught with military defeat, rebellious barons and corrupt courtiers, but the birth of a male heir in 1312 temporarily strengthened Edward II's position on the throne.[2] To further this end, in what was probably an attempt by his father to shore up royal supremacy after years of discontent, Edward was created Earl of Chester at the age of only twelve days, and less than two months later, his father gave him a full household of servants for his court, so he could live independently as if he were a full adult Nobleman.[3]

On 20 January 1327, when the young Edward was fourteen years old his mother the queen Isabella and her lover Roger Mortimer deposed the king. Edward, now Edward III, was crowned on 1 February, with Isabella and Mortimer as regents. Mortimer, the de facto ruler of England, subjected the young king to constant disrespect and humiliation. On 24 January 1328 the fifteen year old king married sixteen year old Philippa of Hainault at York Minster.[4]

Mortimer knew his position was precarious, especially after Philippa had a son on 15 June 1330.[5] Mortimer used his power to acquire noble estates and titles, many of them belonging to Edmund FitzAlan, 9th Earl of Arundel. FitzAlan, who had remained loyal to Edward II in his struggle with Isabella and Mortimer, had been executed on 17 November 1326. However Mortimer's greed and arrogance caused many of the other nobles to hate him; all this was not lost on the young king.

The young, headstrong King had never forgotten the fate of his father, or how he himself had been treated as a child. At almost 18 years old, Edward was ready to take his revenge. On 19 October 1330, Mortimer and Isabella were sleeping at Nottingham Castle. Under the cover of night, a group loyal to Edward entered the fortress through a secret passageway and burst into Mortimer's quarters. Those conducting the coup arrested Mortimer in the name of the King and he was taken to the Tower of London. Stripped of his land and titles, he was hauled before the 17 year-old King and accused of assuming royal authority over England. Edward's mother—presumably pregnant with Mortimer's child—begged her son for mercy to no avail. Without trial, Edward sentenced Mortimer to death one month after the coup. As Mortimer was executed, Edward's mother was exiled in Castle Rising where she reportedly miscarried. By his 18th birthday, Edward's vengeance was complete and he became de facto ruler of England.¹

     Queen Consort of England. Philippa of Hainault (24 June 1314 – 15 August 1369) was the Queen consort of Edward III of England.

Philippa was born in Valenciennes (then in Flanders, now France) and was the daughter of William I, Count of Hainaut and Joan of Valois, the granddaughter of Philip III of France.

She married Edward at York Minster, on 24 January 1328, eleven months after his accession to the English throne and, unlike many of her predecessors, she did not alienate the English people by retaining her foreign retinue upon her marriage or bringing large numbers of foreigners to the English court. She gave birth to her first son, Edward, nine days before her sixteenth birthday.

Philippa accompanied Edward on his expeditions to the Kingdom of Scotland (1333) and Flanders (1338-40), where she won acclaim for her gentleness and compassion. She is best remembered as the tender-hearted woman who, in 1347, interceded with her husband and persuaded him to spare the lives of the Burghers of Calais, whom he had planned to execute as an example to the townspeople following his successful siege. She acted as regent in England on several occasions when her husband was on the Continent.

Philippa grew portly in her later years, and this supported the affectionate English view of her as a sympathetic, homely, and motherly woman. She gave birth to 14 children and outlived 9 of them. Two died during the Black Death of 1348.

On 15 August, 1369, Philippa died of an illness akin to dropsy in Windsor Castle, and was buried at Westminster Abbey. By all accounts, her 40-year marriage to Edward had been happy, despite his involvement with a controversial mistress, Alice Perrers, during the latter part of it.¹

     Eleanor of Castile (1241 – 28 November 1290) was the first queen consort of Edward I of England. She was also Countess of Ponthieu in her own right from 1279 until her death in 1290, succeeding her mother and ruling together with her husband.

Eleanor was born in Castile, Spain, daughter of Saint Ferdinand, King of Castile and Leon and his second wife, Joan, Countess of Ponthieu. Her Castilian name, Leonor, became Alienor or Alianor in England, and Eleanor in modern English. She was the second of five children born to Fernando and Jeanne. Her elder brother Fernando was born in 1239/40, her younger brother Louis in 1242/43; two sons born after Louis died young. For the ceremonies in 1291 marking the first anniversary of Eleanor's death, 49 candlebearers were paid to walk in the public procession to commemorate each year of her life. This would date her birth to the year 1241. Since her parents were apart from each other for thirteen months while King Ferdinand conducted a military campaign in Andalusia from which he returned to the north of Spain only in February 1241, Eleanor was probably born toward the end of that year.

Eleanor's marriage in 1254 to the future Edward I of England was not the first marriage her family planned for her. The kings of Castile had long made the flimsy claim to be paramount lords of the Kingdom of Navarre in the Pyrenees, and from 1250 Ferdinand III and his heir, Eleanor's half-brother Alfonso X of Castile, hoped she would marry Theobald II of Navarre. To avoid Castilian control, Margaret of Bourbon (mother to Theobald II) in 1252 allied with James I of Aragon instead, and as part of that treaty solemnly promised that Theobald would never marry Eleanor.

Then, in 1252, Alfonso X resurrected another flimsy ancestral claim, this time to the duchy of Gascony, in the south of Aquitaine, last possession of the Kings of England in France. Henry III of England swiftly countered Alfonso's claims with both diplomatic and military moves. Early in 1254 the two kings began to negotiate; after haggling over the financial provision for Eleanor, Henry and Alfonso agreed she would marry Henry's son Edward, and Alfonso would transfer his Gascon claims to Edward. Henry was so anxious for the marriage to take place that he willingly abandoned elaborate preparations already made for Edward's knighting in England, and agreed that Alfonso would knight Edward before the wedding took place.¹

     Duke of Buckingham.

     Duchess of Buckingham.