Cambridge. By 1220 this universities became the intellectual leaders of the century. "(13)
Part II. The last Plantagenets
HENRY III (1216-1272 AD)
"Henry III was the first son of John and Isabella of Angouleme. Was born in 1207. At the age of nine when he was crowned, Henry's early reign featured two regents: William the Marshall governed until his death in 1219, and Hugh de Burgh until Henry came to the throne in 1232. His education was provided by Peter des Roche, Bishop of Winchester. Henry III married Eleanor of Province in 1236, who bore him four sons and two daughters. " (14)
"Henry inherited a troubled kingdom: London and most of the southeast was in the hands of the French Dauphin Louis and the northern regions were under control of rebellious barons - only the midland and southwest were loyal to the boy king. The barons, however, soon sided with Henry (their quarrel was with his father, not him), and the old Marshall expelled the French Dauphin from English soil by 1217. "(15)
"Henry was a cultivated man, but a lousy politician. His court was inundated by Frenchmen and Italians who came at the behest of Eleanor, whose relations were handed important Church and state position. His father and uncle left him an impoverished kingdom. Henry financed costly fruitless wars with extortionate taxation. Inept diplomacy and failed war led Henry to sell his hereditary claims to all the Angevin possessions in France, but to save Gascony (which was held as a fief of the French crown) and Calais. "(16)" Henry's failures incited hostilities among a group of barons led by his brother in law, Simon de Montfort. Henry was forced to agree to a wide ranging plan of reforms, the so called "Provisions of Oxford". His later papal absolution from adhering to the Provisions prompted a baronial revolt in 1263, and Henry was summoned to the first Parliament, in 1265 - Parliament (from the French word "parleman" - meeting for discussion) was summoned with "Commons" represented in it - two knights from a shire and two merchants of a town and it turned out to have been a real beginning of the English parlamentarism. "(17) Here we should note, the main peculiarity of English Parliament, distinguishing it from most others: it was created as a means of opposition. Not to help the king, but to limit his power and control him. p> Parliament insisted that a council be imposed on the king to advise on policy decisions. He was prone to the infamous Plantagenet temper, but could also be sensitive and quite pious - ecclesiastical architecture reached its apex in Henry's reign.
The old king, after an extremely long reign of fifty-six years, died in 1272. He found no success in war, but opened up English culture to the cosmopolitanism of the continent. Although viewed as a failure as a politician, his reign defined the English monarchical position until the end of the fifteenth century: kingship limited by law - the repercussions of which influenced the English Civil War in the reign of Charles I, and extended into the nineteenth century queenship of Victoria. br/>
Edward I, Longshanks (1272-1307)
Edward I, the oldest surviving son of Henry II and Eleanor of Provence, was born in 1239. He was nicknamed Longshanks due to his great height and stature. Edward married Eleanor of Castille in 1254, who bore him sixteen children (seven of whom survived into adulthood) before her death in 1290. Edward reached a peace settlement with Philip IV of France that resulted in his marriage to the French king's daughter Margaret, who bore him three more children.
"Edward I was a capable statesman, adding much to the institution initiated by Henry II. It 1295, his "Model Parliament" brought together representatives from the nobility, clergy, knights of the shires, and burgesses of the cities - the first gathering of Lords and Commons. Feudal revenues proved inadequate in financing the burgeoning royal courts and administrative institutions. Summoning national Parliament became the accepted forum of gaining revenue and conducting public business. Judicial reform included the expansion of such courts as the King's Bench, Common Pleas, Exchequer and the Chancery Court was established to give redress in circumstances where other courts provided on solution. Edward was pious, but resisted any increase of papal authority in England. Conservators of the Peace, the forerunners of Justices of the Peace, were also established as an institution. "(18)
Foreign policy, namely the unification of the island's other nations, occupied much of Edward's time. A major campaign to control Llywelyn ap Gruffydd of Wales began in 1277, and lasted until Liywelyn's death in 1282. In 1301, the king's eldest son was created Prince of Wales, a title still held by all mail heirs to the...
