Opposition to Edward began to build as early as January 1308. At the coronation in February a new clause was added to the king’s oath that obligated him to promise that he would keep such laws “as the community of the realm shall have chosen.” In April the barons came armed to Parliament and warned the king that “homage and the oath of allegiance are stronger and bind more by reason of the crown than by reason of the person of the king.” The first phase of the reign culminated in the production of the Ordinances in 1311. They were in part directed against Gaveston—who was again to be exiled—and other royal favourites, but much of the document looked back to the grievances of Edward I’s later years, echoing concessions made by the king in 1300. Hostility was expressed to the practice of prise (compulsory purchase of foodstuffs for royal armies). Baronial consent was required for foreign war (possibly in remembrance of Edward I’s Flanders campaign of 1297). The privy seal was not to be used to interfere in justice. A long list of officials were to be chosen with the advice and consent of the barons in Parliament. All revenues were to be paid into the Exchequer. The king’s bankers, the Frescobaldi, who had also served Edward I, were to be expelled from the realm. Royal grants of land made since the appointment of the Ordainers in 1310 were annulled. It is noteworthy that the first clear statement that consent should be given in Parliament is to be found in the Ordinances. No explicit role, however, was given to the Commons, the representative element in Parliament.
The middle years of Edward’s reign were dominated by the enigmatic figure of Thomas, 2nd Earl of Lancaster, the king’s cousin and chief opponent, whose surly inactivity for long periods blocked effective political initiatives. His political program never amounted to much more than enforcement of the Ordinances. He supervised the capture and execution of Gaveston in 1312 and came to dominance after the disastrous defeat of a royal army at the hands of the Scottish pikemen and bowmen at Bannockburn in 1314. At the Lincoln Parliament of 1316 he was named chief councillor, but he soon withdrew from active government.
A conciliar regime was set up with the Treaty of Leake of 1318. This was once thought to have been the work of a “middle party,” but the political alliances of this period cannot be categorized in such a manner. New royal favourites emerged, and in 1321 the peace was broken when the Welsh marcher lords moved against two of them, a father and son, both called Hugh Despenser. When Parliament met, the two were exiled, but they soon returned. In this brief civil war, which ended in 1322, Edward was victorious. He had Lancaster executed for treason after his ignominious defeat at Boroughbridge in 1322. In death Lancaster attracted a popular sympathy he had rarely received in life, with many rumours of miracles at his tomb. Edward had many of Lancaster’s followers executed in a horrific bloodbath. In the same year the Ordinances were repealed in Parliament at York, and in the Statute of York the intention of returning to the constitutional practices of the past was announced. But in specifying that the “consent of the prelates, earls, and barons, and of the community of the realm” was required for legislation, the Statute of York provided much scope for historical argument; some historians have made claims for a narrow baronial interpretation of what is meant by “community of the realm,” while others have seen the terminology as giving the representative element in Parliament a new role. A tract written in this period, the Modus tenendi parliamentum, certainly placed a new emphasis on the representatives of shire, borough, and lower clergy. In terms of practical politics, however, the Statute of York permitted the fullest resumption of royal authority.
The final period of the reign saw the Despensers restored to power. They carried out various administrative reforms, ably assisted by the treasurer, Walter Stapledon. For the first time in many years, a substantial treasury of about £60,000 was built up. At the same time, crude blackmail and blatant corruption characterized this regime. A brief war against the French was unsuccessful. The reign ended with the invasion of Edward’s estranged queen, Isabella, assisted by Roger Mortimer, soon to be Earl of March. With the support above all of the Londoners, the government was overthrown, the Despensers executed, and the king imprisoned. Parliament was called in his name, and he was simultaneously deposed and persuaded to abdicate in favour of his son, Edward III. After two conspiracies to release him, he was almost certainly killed in Berkeley Castle. Edward III (1327–77) The Hundred Years’ War, to 1360
Edward III achieved personal power when he overthrew his mother’s and Mortimer’s dominance in 1330 at the age of 17. Their regime had been just as corrupt as that of the Despensers but less constructive. The young king had been sadly disappointed by an unsuccessful campaign against the Scots in 1327; in 1333 the tide turned when he achieved victory at Halidon Hill. Edward gave his support to Edward Balliol as claimant to the Scottish throne, rather than to Robert I’s son David II. But as long as the Scots had the support of the French king Philip VI, final success proved impossible, and this was one of the causes for the outbreak of the French war in 1337. Another was the long-standing friction over Gascony, chronic since 1294 and stemming ultimately from the Treaty of Paris of 1259. By establishing that the kings of England owed homage to the kings of France for Gascony the treaty had created an awkward relationship. The building of bastides (fortified towns) by each side contributed to friction, as did piracy by English and French sailors. The English resented any appeals to the French court by Gascons. English-French rivalry also extended into the Netherlands, which was dependent on English wool for industrial prosperity but some of whose states, including Flanders, were subject to French claims of suzerainty. Finally, there was the matter of the French throne itself. Edward, through his mother, was closer in blood to the last ruler of the Capetian dynasty than was the Valois Philip VI. The claim was of great propaganda value to Edward, for it meant that he did not appear as simply a rebellious vassal of the French king. His allies could fight for him without dishonour.
The initial phase of the war was inconclusive. Edward won a naval victory at Sluys in 1340, but he lacked the resources to follow it up. Although intervention in a succession dispute in Brittany saw the English register successes, stalemate came in 1343. The first great triumph came with the invasion of Normandy in 1346. As Edward was retreating northward, he defeated the French at Crécy and then settled to the siege of Calais, which fell in 1347. The French allies, the Scots, were also defeated in 1346 at Neville’s Cross, where their king, David II, was taken prisoner. The focus of the war moved south in 1355, when the king’s son, the Black Prince, was sent to Gascony. He launched a successful raid in 1355 and another in 1356, and at Poitiers he defeated and captured the French king John, for whom a heavy ransom was charged. As at Crécy, English archery proved decisive. A major campaign in 1359–60, planned as the decisive blow, proved unsatisfactory to the English. Rheims did not open its gates to Edward as he had hoped, and a storm caused severe damage to the army and its baggage in April 1360. Negotiations led to a truce at Brétigny, and in the subsequent negotiations Edward agreed to drop his claim to the French throne. In return, English possessions in France would be held in full sovereignty. The terms, particularly those involving the exchange of territory, were not carried out in full, but neither side wished to reopen the war immediately. War was costly, and Edward III’s armies were no longer recruited by feudal means. Most were formed by contract, and all who fought received wages as well as a share of the profits of campaigning. These could be substantial if wealthy nobles were captured and ransomed. Domestic achievements