England during The Hundred Years’ War and Wars of the Roses (1216–1485)

In this video, we’ll see how medieval England contended with many of its great enemies, including France, Scotland, the Black Death, and with itself. Power struggles, foreign conflicts, and civil wars would drag England to some of its greatest heights and bloodiest lows. As the medieval period came to a close, late medieval England, life for the average English person was simple, if a bit dull. The medieval masses toiled away on the fields with little hope of improving their lot in life. The monotony of agricultural toil was broken by religious holidays and feast days. The various guilds were now wellestablished and powered thriving industries in the towns and cities of England. Town residents traded the instability of agricultural life for the opportunities that urban living opened up through taking up a specialist trade, becoming a merchant or a servant to the urban elite. As for the nobility, when they weren’t out on the battlefield, they would be hunting, participating in tournaments, or enjoying the relaxing life that their high social status gave them. Baronss and lords similarly grew fat off the revenues of their manurial estates. At the royal level, the 13th century was dominated by two long lived kings in Henry III and Edward I whose long reigns had a formative impact on England and its neighbors. Parliament. Henry III was an only child when he came to power which made it easier for the baronss and lords to establish the limitations imposed upon the monarchy under Magna Carta. Henry’s 56-year reign provided plenty of time to test these limits and contribute to the development of England’s most significant political institution, Parliament. Parliament grew out of the king’s great council. The council consisted of the king, his baronss and earls, his top ministers along with the bishops and abbotts of the realm. The addition of Knights of the Shire and Town Burgesses reflected a changing England and the evolution into Parliament as we recognize it. This parliament had been slowly becoming more important since Magna Carta. But Henry III’s long minority and then Edward’s legal reforms both gave opportunities for it to grow. Edward passed extensive legislative measures that established the principle of statute law. This simplified and codified the existing common law system and Edward leaned upon parliament to approve it and guarantee its support. Edward used this statute law to rein in local privately controlled courts, simplified the feudal system by ending subimpudation, and passed several laws tackling local government corruption. Like many things in government, the biggest issue in Parliament’s rise was taxation. Feudal dues and land rents had once been the main source of the king’s income. But by the late 13th century, changes in the feudal economy and the growth of the tax system had reversed the relationship. Taxes now made up most of the king’s revenue, and that money was needed more than ever to fund the spiraling cost of the king’s main expense, war. Ongoing wars with Scotland and France in the 13th and 14th centuries forced kings to go begging to Parliament for permission to raise taxes more often than ever before. In 1297, Edward I’s expensive wars with Scotland and France caused him to raise taxes without Parliament’s permission. Furious, Parliament passed the confirmation of the charters which forbades the king raising taxes without its consent. By 1307, Parliament had developed two houses. The houses of lords composed mostly of hereditary peers and a house of commons drawn from a more representative sway of the population including knights of the Shire and town burgesses. Although they primarily represented property-owning and affluent classes throughout the 14th century, Parliament became more assertive, it insisted upon being summoned more often and put up more of a fight over taxation. Parliament used its tax powers as a way to push forward its own agenda, threatening to withhold taxation unless the king agreed to its usually modest legislative demands. It was still a long way from the parliament we know today, but it was on its way there. This video is brought to you by The 13th century was also crucial for England’s relations with its closest neighbors. Wales under Prince Llewellyn the last rebelled against England. First in 1277 and again in 1282. Edward I waged an effective campaign in North and South Wales simultaneously leading to the battle of Orwin Bridge in December 1283 where Prince Llewellyn was slain. As the name implies, Llewellyn the last was the last independent ruler of Wales which now became fully subjugated to England. Wales’s distinct language, culture, and people meant it was never fully English. English law was imposed from the larger urban centers, but most of Wales remained rural and Welsh speaking. As the Normans had done before, Edward secured his control of Wales with a number of impressive castles, including the famous castles at Harle and Karvin, which are among the finest examples of medieval castle construction anywhere in Europe. England’s relationship with Scotland was even more turbulent. When the Scottish crown was left vacant with no clear air in 1290, Edward offered himself as a neutral arbitrator, much to the relief of the Scottish nobility. However, it was soon clear that Edward’s chosen candidate, John Baleiel, was nothing more than a puppet. In 1295, the Scots conducted a secret alliance with the French, which was all the justification Edward needed to march north and seize the throne for himself. It was a bloody and brutal conquest, which in 1297 led the Scottish rebel William Wallace to rise up against him. The first Scottish war of independence raged on for years. The Scots initially had the upper hand with a victory at the Battle of Sterling Bridge. But in time, their momentum failed. With a fresh army drawn from recently conquered Wales, the English defeated the Scottish at the Battle of Falerk in 1298. Wallace remained at large until 1305 when he was captured and handed over to Edward who charged him with treason and atrocities. Wallace was then hanged, drawn, quartered, and beheaded. However, the Scots already had a champion in waiting. In 1306, Robert the Bruce asserted himself as king of Scots, and Edward’s death on route to Scotland delayed the English response. The Scots finally got their setpiece battle at Banakburn in June 1314 where they crushed the English army and killed several leading English nobles. Banak burn functionally ended English control of Scotland for several centuries and Scottish independence was formally recognized with the treaty of Edinburgh Northampton in 1328. Banak burn helped spell the end of Edwards II’s reign too. The loss of Scotland, coupled with mounting crown debt and a power-hungry nobility, led Parliament to denounce Edward and demand his abdication. The powerful noble, Roger Mortimer, allied with Edward’s own wife, Isabella, to orchestrate his removal from power, and the abdicated king died in captivity in 1327, most likely murdered. He would not be the last medieval English monarch to suffer such a fate. Encounters with Scotland and Wales helped define English identity. But perhaps no country was more important to that identity than France. The H 100red Years War. After eliminating Roger Mortimer and forcibly retiring his mother Isabella, Edward III seized full power and set his sights on conquest across the channel. Since the disastrous reign of King John, the English monarchs had disputed with the king of France over control of French territory. In 1293, for example, the French seized control of Gaskinany for several years. And although Edward I recovered it, relations with the French remained tense, Edward III would not just seek to recover lands, but claim the throne of France itself. Thus began the 116y yearlong period of hostilities known as the 100red years war. These conflicts were long and complicated as their effects on England were more indirect since it occurred entirely in France. The conflict with France still became a landmark moment in English national identity and offered some of the most iconic moments in English history. In 1346, Edward’s outnumbered army met the French at the Battle of Cressy, where English and Welsh longbow bowmen annihilated the French knights. A similarly tremendous victory came to his son Edward the Black Prince at the Battle of Poier in 1356. By 1360, France was forced to sue for a truce with England now in control of much of northern France. But aided in part by the rise of Jon of Arc and increasing French unity, the tide turned against England. Black Death. A major reason for the break in the fighting was the arrival of a much worse enemy, plague. The Black Death first reached England in late 1348, probably arriving via refugees from the continent. carried by the fleas that lived on rats. The plague devastated the English population. The cities that had been marks of progress in recent centuries were the perfect environment for the disease to spread. England’s pre-plague population sat at around 6 million. By the time the first wave died down in late 1349, 40% of that population was dead. One monk described the desolation. Towns once packed with people were emptied of their inhabitants, and the plague spread so thickly that the living were hardly able to bury the dead. Entire villages were wiped out, and some towns lost most of their population. The first wave was the worst, but the plague returned numerous times throughout the rest of the medieval and early modern period. Another wave in 1361 killed a further 20% of the population. But later waves had generally decreasing mortality. The devastation caused by the plague triggered profound social shifts. Everyone in England would have lost someone and the cumulative psychological effect was obvious. Depictions and descriptions of death became more prominent and more graphic. such as in churches or art. As society wrestled with the horror they’d lived through, this art became harder to make, though, as the mass of loss and population took with it countless skilled masons, painters, architects, smiths, and other talented craftsmen. The survivors found themselves with more land and more demand for their labor than ever before. The plague proved to be the deathnell for the feudal manorial system as desperate landlords struggled to find laborers willing to work for measly rewards. Over the course of the 14th century, manners declined as peasants bought up or leased land under fairer terms, marking one of the largest redistributions of land ownership in English history. By 1400, the income for a typical peasant household was around double where it had been in 1300. This manorial collapse didn’t go unopposed. The statute of laborers passed in 1370 attempted to cap wages across the country to stifle the power of the peasants. And tax reforms in the 1370s to support the resumption of the H 100red Years War also fell heavily upon the peasantry. It wasn’t that the peasants were worse off than they were in the past, but that they felt that they were entitled to more. So, in May 1377, a wave of peasant uprisings broke out across southeast England before spreading elsewhere. The great peasants revolt descended upon London where the cobbled together crowds besieged King Richard II at the Tower of London. They demanded an abolition of feudal lordship, surfdom, and villainage to create a more equal English society beneath the king. Although he initially agreed to some demands, he later reversed course, ordering the execution of Watt Tyler, the London rebels dispersed, although minor local rebellions simmered away for months elsewhere in England. The ongoing wars with France contributed to these social and economic changes. The common soldier during the hundred years war drew a steady wage which increased the circulation and use of money back in England. Artisans and craftsmen faced huge demands to out these armies which stimulated economic development at home. Then of course there were taxes. The Hundred Years War helped to confirm Parliament’s power over the purse as cashstrapped kings constantly sought its permission to raise more funds for the war efforts. The balance of power between king and parliament had shifted decisively. A more subtle social change was also occurring across England at this time. As a symbol of the nation, the English language gained additional status and protections. In 1362, it was made the official language of law, replacing the Norman introduced French and became the language of court and politics. In 1382, John Wlcliffe finished the first complete English translation of the Bible, further cementing English’s legitimacy and popularity. This English translation also inspired the Lard movement which challenged church authority and called for religious reform. Then in the 1390s, Jeffrey Choser’s Canterbury Tales did for English what Dante’s Divine Comedy had done for Italian, creating a landmark work that legitimized the use of English for literature and became a cultural touchstone for generations to come. Gathering storms. Richard II’s rejection of the peasants revolt was just one of the many things that made him deeply unpopular. He spent most of his reign locked in battle with Parliament and his nobility over his exercise of royal power. Eventually, one of those nobles, Henry Ballingroke, Duke of Lancaster, rose up against him. The nobility quickly flocks to his banner and in 1399 he deposed Richard II who died in prison a few months later. Henry IVth’s assession was welcomed at the time but it would cause long-term problems. It established the precedent of deposing the monarch and taking the throne by the sword. Although Henry IV had royal blood via descent from Edward III, the competing claims of multiple distant royal heirs from the cadet branches of the Planet Jane line, those being Henry’s House of Lancaster and later the House of York would plunge England into chaos. Hints of that chaos already manifested in Henry’s reign. He spent much of it suppressing rebellions in his realm that indicated his tenuous legitimacy. A Wayne Glendor’s rebellion in Wales marks the last great Welsh uprising which lingered into Henry V’s reign. Meanwhile, a rebellion by the powerful House of Percy led by the popular Sir Henry Hotspur Percy was a bitter blow to his support and those problems faded into the reign of his son Henry V. Much like Richard I, his reputation as a fearless warrior overshadows the fact that he spent much of his reign outside England and did not have a domestic impact to match his battlefield one. Still, Henry V’s military accomplishments cannot be denied. On October 25th, 1415, Henry’s outnumbered forces met the French at Ajinort. Instead of a crushing defeat, Agent Court became one of the greatest victories in English history. Trapped by the mud and showered with arrows from the English longbows, a massive chunk of the French nobility, including three dukes, six counts, 90 baronss, and almost 2,000 knights were slain. Ainort and Henry V’s name were forever enshrined in the annals of English history. Ajin court marked the peak of England’s success in the h 100red years war. Henry V died of dissentry in 1422 and his successor Henry V 6th lacked the grit or ambition to be an effective king. The war in France became the affair of lesser nobles while domestic affairs were increasingly dominated by parliament and the nobility. Meanwhile, the French rallied against the English and undid virtually all of their gains on the continent over the following years. By 1453, the English retained only cal. 1453 traditionally marks the end of the 100red years war, but England was not about to enjoy peace. [Music] Henry V 6th’s weak reign proved to be England’s undoing. Powerful nobles without royal oversight and outof work troops home from France found enemies in each other. There were several sizable battles between nobles in England and in the late 1440s and early 1450s and a serious uprising known as Cad’s rebellion in 1450 against corrupt and ineffective government. There was also an increase in banditry and local governmental abuses. Meanwhile, there was a sharp economic downturn caused by the chaos in the countryside and interruptions to foreign trade. To make things worse, Henry V 6th suffered a serious mental breakdown. Power uphors a vacuum and the two great noble families of York and Lancaster aimed to fill it. Richard, Duke of York, petitioned to be named the king’s heir. However, the House of Lancaster, led by Edmunds, Duke of Somerset, and Queen Margaret, who wanted to secure her infant son Edward’s inheritance, fiercely opposed it. In 1455, after Henry experienced a recovery of his faculties, Richard raised a Yorkist army to capture the king and kill Edmund, which he did at the Battle of St. Albins, marking the start of the Wars of the Roses. Richard installed himself as royal protector, effectively keeping Henry as a puppet, but his power was short-lived. Richard and the Yorkists soon fell from favor and in 1459 were denounced as traitors by Parliament. Fighting reignited with Henry being captured again at the Battle of Northampton in 1459. Yorkcist fortunes were reversed with Richard’s death at the Battle of Wakefields the following year, leaving the Yorkist claim in the hands of his son Edward. Edward marched on London, which threw open the gates to him and accepted him as Edward IVth. Edward then went north where he crushed the Lancastrians at the Battle of Talon. With almost 30,000 men killed in a single day, it was the bloodiest battle ever fought on English soil. With the victory at Toutton and with Henry V 6th fleeing to Scotland, it seems that the Yorkist grip on the throne was secure. However, after Edward’s marriage to the minor noble Elizabeth Woodville, one of his allies, the Earl of Warick, betrayed him and restored Henry V 6th to the throne in 1470. Edward fled to France only to return the next year to reclaim his crown. He killed the Earl of Warick at the battle of Barnett in April and then slew Henry V 6th’s son and heir at the battle of Tuksbury in May. Edward ordered most of the Lancastrian leadership to be executed and Henry V 6th’s convenient death a few days later was probably ordered by him too. Edward IVth was a competent king who restored stability over a decade and began repairing the crown’s dismal finances. England was exhausted by this point and welcomed his peaceful rule. It seemed the wars of the roses were over. However, Edward died suddenly in spring 1483, leaving the crown to his 12-year-old son, Edward V. Whether due to ambition or fear of a weak ruler, Edward V was never formally crowned and was declared illegitimate by his own uncle Richard, Duke of Glouster, who installed himself as Richard III. The young Edward along with his brother were imprisoned in the Tower of London where they disappeared a few months later. It is widely believed that Richard III had them killed. The murder of the princes in the tower permanently stained Richard’s reputation. Even fellow Yorkists turned against him. It was the perfect time for the Lancastrian claims to be resurrected. Henry Chuder, a distant scion of the House of Lancaster, who had fled to France after the Lancastrian defeat at Tukesbury in 1471, seized his chance. Backed by the king of France, he landed in Wales in 1485. The remaining Lancastrians flocked to his banner, as did the Welsh, for he had been born in Wales, and so did many others across England, who despised the child murdering Richard. Henry and Richard met at the Battle of Bosworth Field on August 22nd, 1485, where Richard III became the last English king to fall in battle. Henry seized power as Henry VIIIth and married Elizabeth of York to unite the two houses, bringing a final end to the Wars of the Roses through the creation of the House of Tudtor. England was about to embark on one of its most exciting and dangerous chapters that would open its path to global domination.