Edward of Woodstock: The Black Prince


 The Black Prince of the Order of the Garter, wearing a blue Garter mantle over plate armour and surcoat displaying his arms. A framed tablet displays painted arms of successors in his Garter stall at St. George's Chapel, Windsor.

Background:

Edward of Woodstock, known to history as The Black Prince (15 June 1330 – 8 June 1376), was the eldest son and heir apparent of King Edward III of England. He died before his father and so his son, Richard II, succeeded to the throne instead. Edward nevertheless earned distinction as one of the most successful English commanders during the Hundred Years' War, being regarded by his English contemporaries as a model of chivalry and one of the greatest knights of his age.

Edward, the eldest son of Edward III of England, Lord of Ireland and ruler of Gascony, and Queen Philippa, was born at Woodstock in the County of Oxfordshire, on 15 June 1330. His father, Edward III, had been at loggerheads with the French over English lands in France and also the kingship of France; Edward III's mother and the Prince's grandmother, Queen Isabella of France was a daughter of the French king Philip IV of France, thus placing her son in line for the throne of France. England and France's relations quickly deteriorated when the French king threatened to confiscate his lands in France, beginning the Hundred Years War. His mother was Queen Philippa of Hainault, daughter of the Count of Hainault, who married Edward III when his mother, Queen Isabella, arranged the marriage between them. His father on 10 September 1330 allowed five hundred marks a year from the profits of the county of Chester for his maintenance; on 25 February 1331, the whole of these profits were assigned to the queen for maintaining him and the king's sister Eleanor. In July of that year, the king proposed to marry him to a daughter of Philip VI of France. His father was Edward III of England, who became king at the young age of fourteen years in 1327, when his father (and the Black Prince's grandfather) Edward II of England was deposed by his wife Isabella of France, daughter of Philip IV of France, and by the English nobility due to his ineffectiveness and weakness to assert his control over the government and his failed wars against Scotland. His mother, Philippa of Hainault, was the daughter of William II, Count of Hainault. The marriage between his mother and father was arranged by his grandmother, Isabella of France, to get financial and military aid from the Count of Hainault for her own benefit to depose her husband, Edward II. The marriage of Edward III and Phillippa of Hainault produced thirteen children; Edward was the eldest child and eldest son.

His father had begun a war with Scotland to regain lost territories which were captured by the Scots during the reign of Edward II and began the military operations undertaken by Edward III's grandfather, Edward I of England, recapturing English lands such as Berwick-Upon-Tweed. Edward III took his grandfather's military strategies and tactics against the Scots to avenge the humiliating defeat of the English under Edward II at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, and this time, Edward III defeated the Scots at the decisive Battle of Halidon Hill in 1333, killing many Scottish nobles and routing the entire Scottish army. Edward III was able to recover the country politically and militarily, and was welcomed as a "great champion of the English nation". On 18 March 1333, Edward was invested with the earldom and county of Chester, and in the parliament of 9 February 1337, he was created Duke of Cornwall and received the duchy by charter dated 17 March. This is the earliest instance of the creation of a duke in England. By the terms of the charter the duchy was to be held by him and the eldest sons of kings of England. His tutor was Dr. Walter Burley of Merton College, Oxford. His revenues were placed at the disposal of his mother in March 1334 for the expenses she incurred in bringing up him and his two sisters, Isabella and Joan. Rumours of an impending French invasion led the king in August 1335 to order that he and his household should remove to Nottingham Castle as a place of safety.

When two cardinals came to England at the end of 1337 to make peace between Edward III and Philip VI of France, the Duke of Cornwall is said to have met the cardinals outside the City of London and, in company with many nobles, to have conducted them to King Edward.[8] On 11 July 1338 his father, who was on the point of leaving England for Flanders, appointed him guardian of the kingdom during his absence, and he was appointed to the same office on 27 May 1340 and 6 October 1342; he was, of course, too young to take any save a nominal part in the administration, which was carried on by the council. To attach Duke John III of Brabant to his cause, the king in 1339 proposed a marriage between the young Duke of Cornwall and John's daughter Margaret, and in the spring of 1345 wrote urgently to Pope Clement VI for a dispensation for the marriage. On 12 May 1343, Edward III created the duke Prince of Wales in a parliament held at Westminster, investing him with a circlet, gold ring, and silver rod. The prince accompanied his father to Sluys on 3 July 1345, and the king tried to persuade the burgomasters of Ghent, Bruges and Ypres to accept his son as their lord, but the murder of Jacob van Artevelde put an end to this project. Both in September and in the following April the prince was called on to furnish troops from his principality and earldom for the impending campaign in France, and as he incurred heavy debts in the king's service, his father authorised him to make his will and provided that, in case he fell in the war, his executors should have all his revenue for a year.

Campaigns:

Edward, Prince of Wales, sailed with King Edward III on 11 July 1346, and as soon as he landed at La Hougue received knighthood from his father in the local church of Quettehou.[12] Then he "made a right good beginning", for he rode through the Cotentin, burning and ravaging as he went, and distinguished himself at the taking of Caen and in the engagement with the force under Sir Godemar I du Fay, which endeavoured to prevent the English army from crossing the Somme by the ford of Blanchetaque. Early on Saturday, 26 August 1346, before the start of the battle of Crécy, Edward, Prince of Wales, received the sacrament with his father at Crécy, and took the command of the right, or van, of the army with the earls of Warwick and Oxford, Sir Geoffroy d'Harcourt, Sir John Chandos, and other leaders, and at the head of eight hundred men-at-arms, two thousand archers, and a thousand Welsh foot, though the numbers are by no means trustworthy. 

When the Genoese bowmen were discomfited and the front line of the French was in some disorder, the prince appears to have left his position to attack their second line. At this moment, however, the Count of Alençon charged his division with such fury that he was in great danger, and the leaders who commanded with him sent a messenger to tell his father that he was in great straits and to beg for assistance. When Edward learned that his son was not wounded, he responded that he would send no help, for he wished to give the prince the opportunity to "win his spurs" (he was in fact already a knight), and to allow him and those who had charge of him the honour of the victory. The prince was thrown to the ground and was rescued by Sir Richard FitzSimon, his standard bearer, who threw down the banner, stood over his body, and beat back his assailants while he regained his feet. Harcourt now sent to Earl of Arundel for help, and he forced back the French, who had probably by this time advanced to the rising ground of the English position.

A flank attack on the side of Wadicourt was next made by the Counts of Alençon and Ponthieu, but the English were strongly entrenched there, and the French were unable to penetrate the defences and lost the Duke of Lorraine and the Counts of Alençon and Blois.The two front lines of their army were utterly broken before King Philip's division engaged. Then Edward appears to have advanced at the head of the reserve, and the rout soon became complete. When Edward met his son after the battle was over, he embraced him and declared that he had acquitted himself loyally, and the prince bowed low and did reverence to his father. The next day he joined the king in paying funeral honours to King John of Bohemia. The prince was present at the siege of Calais (1346–1347), and after the surrender of the town harried and burned the country for 30 miles (48 km) around, and brought much booty back with him. He returned to England with his father on 12 October 1347, took part in the jousts and other festivities of the court, and was invested by the king with the new Order of the Garter (1348).

When Edward III determined to renew the war with France in 1355, he ordered the Black Prince to lead an army into Aquitaine while he, as his plan was, acted with the king of Navarre in Normandy, and the Duke of Lancaster upheld the cause of John of Montfort in Brittany. The prince's expedition was made in accordance with the request of some of the Gascon lords who were anxious for plunder. On 10 July the king appointed him his lieutenant in Gascony, and gave him powers to act in his stead, and, on 4 August, to receive homages. It was decided to make a short campaign before the winter, and on 10 October he set out with fifteen hundred lances, two thousand archers, and three thousand light foot. Whatever scheme of operations the King may have formed during the summer, this expedition of the Prince was purely a piece of marauding. After grievously harrying the counties of Juliac, Armagnac, Astarac, and part of Comminges, he crossed the Garonne at Sainte-Marie a little above Toulouse, which was occupied by John I, Count of Armagnac, and a considerable force. The count refused to allow the garrison to make a sally, and the prince passed on into the Lauragais. His troops stormed and burnt Montgiscard, where many men, women, and children were ill-treated and slain, and took and pillaged Avignonet and Castelnaudary. The country was "very rich and fertile" according to the Black Prince, and the people "good, simple, and ignorant of war", so the prince took great spoil, especially of carpets, draperies, and jewels, for "the robbers" spared nothing, and the Gascons who marched with him were especially greedy. The only castle to resist the English forces was Montgey. Its châtelaine defended its walls by pouring beehives onto the attackers, who fled in panic.

Carcassonne was taken and sacked, but he did not take the citadel, which was strongly situated and fortified. Ourmes (or Homps, near Narbonne) and Trèbes bought off his army. He plundered Narbonne and thought of attacking the citadel, for he heard that there was much booty there, but gave up the idea on finding that it was well defended. While he was there a messenger came to him from the papal court, urging him to allow negotiations for peace. He replied that he could do nothing without knowing his father's will. From Narbonne he turned to march back to Bordeaux. The Count of Armagnac tried to intercept him, but a small body of French having been defeated in a skirmish near Toulouse the rest of the army retreated into the city, and the prince returned in peace to Bordeaux, bringing back with him enormous spoils. The expedition lasted eight weeks, during which the prince only rested eleven days in all the places he visited, and without performing any feat of arms did the French king much mischief. During the next month, before 21 January 1356, the leaders under his command reduced five towns and seventeen castles.

Some time after he had returned to Aquitaine the free companies, some six thousand strong, also reached Aquitaine, having passed through Kingdom of Aragon. As they had not received the whole of the money the prince had agreed to pay them, they took up their quarters in his country and began to do much mischief. He persuaded the captains to leave Aquitaine, and the companies under their command crossed the Loire and did much damage to France. This greatly angered Charles V, who about this time did the prince serious mischief by encouraging disaffection among the Gascon lords.

When the prince had been gathering his army for his Spanish expedition, the lord of Albret had agreed to serve with a thousand lances. Considering, however, that he had at least as many men as he could find provisions for, the prince on 8 December 1366 had written to him requesting that he would bring only two hundred lances. The lord of Albret was much incensed at this, and, though peace was made by his uncle the Count of Armagnac, did not forget the offence, and Froissart speaks of it as the "first cause of hatred between him and the prince".[74] A more powerful cause of this lord's discontent was the non-payment of an annual pension which had been granted him by Edward. About this time he agreed to marry Margaret of Bourbon, sister of the queen of France. The Black Prince was annoyed at this betrothal, and, his temper probably being soured by sickness and disappointment, behaved with rudeness to both D'Albret and his intended bride. On the other hand, Charles offered the lord the pension which he had lost, and thus drew him and his uncle, the Count of Armagnac, altogether over to the French side.[81]

On 1 January 1370, Prince Edward sustained a heavy loss in the death of his friend Chandos. Several efforts were made by Edward to conciliate the Gascon lords, but they were fruitless and can only have served to weaken the prince's authority. It is probable that John of Gaunt was working against him at the English court, and when he was sent out in the summer to help his elder brother, he came with such extensive powers that he almost seemed as though he had come to supersede him. In the spring, Charles raised two large armies for the invasion of Aquitaine; one, under Louis I, Duke of Anjou, was to enter Guyenne by La Reole and Bergerac, the other, under John, Duke of Berry, was to march towards Limousin and Quercy, and both were to unite and besiege the prince in Angoulême. Ill as he was, the prince left his bed of sickness,[87] and gathered an army at Cognac, where he was joined by the Barons of Poitou and Saintonge, and the Earls of Cambridge, Lancaster, and Pembroke. The two French armies gained many cities, united and laid siege to Limoges, which was treacherously surrendered to them by the bishop, Jean de Murat de Cros, who had been one of the prince's trusted friends.

When Prince Edward heard of the surrender of Limoges to the French, he swore "by the soul of his father" that he would have the place again and would make the inhabitants pay dearly for their treachery. He set out from Cognac with an army of about 4,000 men. Due to his sickness he was unable to mount his horse, and was carried in a litter. During the siege of Limoges, the prince was determined to take the town and ordered the undermining of its walls. On 19 September, his miners succeeded in demolishing a large piece of wall which filled the ditches with its ruins. The town was then stormed, with the inevitable destruction and loss of life. The prince returned to Cognac; his sickness increased and he was forced to give up all hope of being able to direct any further operations and to proceed first to Angoulème and then to Bordeaux.

Later Life & Death:

On 19 July 1362 his father, Edward III granted Prince Edward all his dominions in Aquitaine and Gascony, to be held as a principality by liege homage on payment of an ounce of gold each year, together with the title of Prince of Aquitaine and Gascony. During the rest of the year he was occupied in preparing for his departure to his new principality, and after Christmas he received the king and his court at Berkhamsted, took leave of his father and mother, and in the following February sailed with his wife, Joan, and all his household for Gascony, landing at La Rochelle.[59]

The death of Prince Edward's eldest son, Edward of Angoulême, in 1371, caused Edward a great deal of grief. His health continued to deteriorate and the prince's personal doctor advised him to return to England. Edward left Aquitaine with the Duke of Lancaster, and landed at Southampton early in January 1371. Edward met his father at Windsor. At this meeting, Prince Edward interceded to stop a treaty Edward III had made the previous month with Charles of Navarre because he did not agree to the ceding of lands King Charles demanded in it. After this, the Black Prince returned to his manor in Berkhamsted. On his return to England, the prince was probably at once recognised as the natural opponent of the influence exercised by the anti-clerical and Lancastrian party, and it is evident that the clergy trusted him; for on 2 May he met the convocation of Canterbury at the Savoy, and persuaded them to make an exceptionally large grant. His health now began to improve, and in August 1372 he sailed with his father to the relief of Thouars; but contrary winds meant that the fleet never reached the French coast. 

On 6 October he resigned the principality of Aquitaine and Gascony, giving as his reason that its revenues were no longer sufficient to cover expenses, and acknowledging his resignation in Parliament of the next month. At the conclusion of this parliament, after the knights had been dismissed, he met the citizens and burgesses "in a room near the white chamber", and prevailed on them to extend the customs granted the year before for the protection of merchant shipping for another year. It is said that after 20 May 1374, the prince presided at a council of prelates and nobles held at Westminster to answer a demand from Pope Gregory XI for a subsidy to help him against the Florentines. The bishops, after hearing the pope's letter, which asserted his right as lord spiritual, and, by the grant of John, lord in chief, of the kingdom, declared that "he was lord of all". The cause of the crown, however, was vigorously maintained, and the prince, provoked at the hesitation of Archbishop Wittlesey, spoke sharply to him, and at last told him that he was an ass. The bishops gave way, and it was declared that John had no power to bring the realm into subjection.

The prince's illness soon returned in force, though when the "Good Parliament" met on 28 April 1376 he was looked upon as the chief support of the commons in their attack on the abuses of the administration, and evidently acted in concert with William of Wykeham in opposing the influence of Lancaster and the disreputable clique of courtiers who upheld it, and he had good cause to fear that his brother's power would prove dangerous to the prospects of his son Richard. Richard Lyons, the king's financial agent, who was impeached for gigantic frauds, sent him a bribe of £1,000. and other gifts, but he refused to receive it, though he afterwards said that it was a pity he had not kept it, and sent it to pay the soldiers who were fighting for the kingdom.



From the period of the Good Parliament, Edward knew that he was dying. His dysentery had become so violent on occasion, causing him to faint from weakness, that his household believed he had died. He left gifts for his servants in his will and said goodbye to his father, Edward III, whom he asked to confirm his gifts, pay his debts quickly out of his estate, and protect his son Richard.His death was announced at the Palace of Westminster on 8 June 1376. In his last moments, he was attended by the Bishop of Bangor, who urged him to ask forgiveness of God and of all those he had injured. He "made a very noble end, remembering God his Creator in his heart", and asked people to pray for him. Edward was buried with great state in Canterbury Cathedral on 29 September. His funeral and the design of his tomb were conducted in accordance to the directions contained in his will. It has a bronze effigy beneath a tester depicting the Holy Trinity with his heraldic achievements – his surcoat, helmet, shield and gauntlets – hung over the tester; they have been replaced with replicas, and the originals now reside in a glass-fronted cabinet within the Cathedral. 

Marriage and Children:

Edward married his cousin, Joan, Countess of Kent (1328–1385), on 10 October 1361. She was the daughter and heiress of Edmund, Earl of Kent, the younger son of King Edward I by his second wife Margaret of France.

They had two sons, both born in Aquitaine:

  • Edward, born at Angoulême on 27 July 1364, died immediately before his father's return to England in January 1371, and was buried in the church of the Austin Friars, London.
  • Richard, who succeeded his grandfather as king

From his marriage to Joan, he also became stepfather to her children by Thomas Holland:

Edward had several natural sons before his marriage:

With Edith de Willesford (died after 1385):

  • Sir Roger Clarendon (c. 1352 – executed 1402); he married Margaret (d. 1382), a daughter of John Fleming, Baron de la Roche.

With unknown mother:

  • Sir John Sounders

The Coat of Arms of Edward the Black Prince at Canterbury Cathedral



Source: Wikipedia

Comments

Post a Comment