History of England 1-6

He had personal courage, too, and identified himself with all the chivalric virtues. As a result he inspired loyalty among the magnates. He restored lands that had been rendered forfeit by his father, and actively helped to enlarge the membership of the nobility; four of the senior members of his household, for example, were granted earldoms. He had to rely at first upon the councillors and courtiers he had inherited, but over a few years he gathered together a group of knights and nobles who would remain with him for the rest of his reign.

Yet the token of a righteous sovereign was still success in war. The new king realized that his father’s military incapacity was the single most important reason for his failure, and he strove very hard to reverse the image of weakness. That is why his first enterprise was against Scotland. The tears he had shed, at his earlier humiliation by the Scots, had not been forgotten. An opportunity soon arose for action. The death of Robert Bruce in 1329 put his infant son upon the throne of Scotland, but Edward III espoused the cause of a rival claimant, Edward Balliol; he was eager to undo the damage of the previous campaign, and in 1333 he won a notable victory at Halidon Hill two miles outside Berwick. Balliol then became the client king; Berwick and the surrounding area were returned to English rule. This was only the beginning of further raids and campaigns in the area of the border, but Halidon Hill was in fact the only battle Edward himself fought on English soil. The field of his other military endeavours lay across the Channel.

The kings of France and of England were, at the time, the two most powerful sovereigns in Europe; much of the continent was divided into dukedoms and principalities that fought only against each other. So it was perhaps inevitable that France and England should vie for mastery. That is the law of life.

The particular source of conflict was, once again, the duchy of Gascony that represented the last piece of the Plantagenet Empire still in English hands. In the Treaty of Paris, signed more than eighty-three years before, Henry III had given up his old French empire in exchange for its possession. Yet Gascony was still considered to be part of France, and therefore the new king of England on his succession was obliged to do fealty (or ‘liege homage’ as it was known) as a vassal of the French king. But how could an English sovereign owe loyalty to a foreign sovereign? He would be obliged to supply the French king with arms and soldiers. He was not allowed to enter an alliance with the enemies of France. If he did so, Gascony might be confiscated.

It was unthinkable. It was also an anomaly, a structural imbalance, that could only end in discord. Edward III refused to accept that he was a feudal subject of Philip of Valois and instead declared himself to be the king of France as well as of England. He claimed that through his mother, Isabella, he was in the direct line of royal succession – despite the fact that the French crown could not by law be transmitted through the female line. His declaration was inspired in part by bravado and in part by pride. He declared that he was fighting ‘to recover his rights overseas and to save and defend his realm of England’. He was looking for an excuse to attack the enemy.

In the largest perspective it might be said that he was helping to break down the old European feudal order and to supplant it with the new recognition of the power of nation-states; in this period England and France became more centralized and bureaucratized. Edward III himself, however, is most unlikely to have seen it in those terms. He just wanted to preserve his honour and perhaps win some spoils. Of arms and the man, I sing. His fighting spirit had the unfortunate consequence, however, of beginning a conflict that became known as the Hundred Years War. The controversy lasted for a much longer period. Only in the nineteenth century did the English throne renounce its claim to the French crown.

The war, costing so many lives and so much money, had little permanent consequence. The English gained Calais, but that town became a burden rather than a glory. The real interests of England were not involved in the conflict, except perhaps for the consumption of wines from Gascony. But the appetite of the king for power and glory took precedence over the claims of the nation.

It is true to say that when war was first declared in 1337 some enthusiasm might be found, at least among the magnates, for a campaign against France. The indolence and indignity of the previous reign were supplanted by something approaching martial fervour. War might be said to animate the leaders of the nation, and bring together its disparate and sometimes feuding parts. There would be no need for the magnates to fight each other if they could reap the spoils of battle in an enemy country.