The Wars of the Roses - Alison Weir [15]
Edward Ill’s reign saw many changes. Parliament, now divided into Lords and Commons, began to meet regularly and to assert its authority through financial controls. Parliament’s principal function at this date was to vote taxation, and in this respect it did not always co-operate with the King’s wishes. In 1345 the law courts became permanently established in London and no longer followed the King’s person on progress around the kingdom. In 1352 treason was defined by statute for the first time. In 1361 the office of Justice of the Peace was created – gentlemen of good standing in their locality were appointed magistrates – and the following year English replaced French as the official language of the law courts. Edward’s reign also witnessed the rise to prosperity of the merchant classes and the beginning of the spread of education among laymen.
The King was a great patron of artists, authors and architects. The origins of the English Perpendicular style in architecture may be traced to his reign. This was also the period of the first great names in English literature: the poets Richard Rolle, Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower and William Langland. The latter’s epic poem Piers Plowman is an indictment of the oppression suffered by the poor after the Black Death, and of Alice Perrers, the rapacious mistress whose sway over Edward in his declining years was notorious.
Edward died in 1377. The face of the wooden effigy carried at his funeral, which is still preserved in Westminster Abbey, is a death mask, and the effects of the stroke which killed the King may be seen in the drawn-down corner of the mouth.
Edward III had thirteen children, including five sons who grew to maturity. He provided for them by marrying them to English heiresses and then creating the first ever English dukedoms for them. Thus he brought into being a race of powerful magnates related by blood to the royal line, whose descendants would ultimately challenge each other for the throne itself.
It is tempting to criticise Edward for bestowing upon his sons so much landed power, but it was then expected of him to provide for his sons to the best of his ability and make sufficient provision to enable his children to maintain establishments and retinues befitting their royal rank. In Edward’s own lifetime the way in which he married his children into the upper echelons of the nobility and thereby secured for them substantial inheritances, while at the same time extending royal influence, was seen as a very successful undertaking. In 1377, the Chancellor spoke at Edward’s last Parliament of the love and trust within the royal family, saying that ‘no Christian king had such sons as the King has had. By him and his sons the realm has been reformed, honoured and enriched as never before.’
The eldest son, Edward of Woodstock, Prince of Wales, was known from the sixteenth century as the ‘Black Prince’. While only sixteen years old, the Prince won his knightly spurs at Crécy, and by his exploits during the next decade earned the reputation of being the finest knight in Christendom. The nickname given him may have been inspired by the colour of his armour or, more probably, the ferocity of his temper. In later years, dogged by ill-health, he tarnished his fame by ordering the notorious massacre of innocent citizens at Limoges. He predeceased his father in 1376, leaving one heir, nine-year-old Richard of Bordeaux, who succeeded his grandfather in 1377 as Richard II. It is one of the ironies of history that the successor of the fertile Edward III should produce no children at all, a circumstance which indirectly brought about the Wars of the Roses half a century later.
Edward Ill’s second son, Lionel of Antwerp, Duke of Clarence (1338–68), made a highly advantageous marriage to Elizabeth de Burgh, sole heiress of the Anglo-Irish Earl of Ulster and a descendant, through her mother, of King Henry III (1207–72). Elizabeth died in 1363,