Kinlight · The British Royal Line

King Henry III

1207 – 1272 · Generation XIII · King of England (r. 1216–1272) · House of Plantagenet

Portrait of King Henry III

Henry III (1207–1272) was king of England for fifty-six years, the longest reign of the English Middle Ages and one not exceeded until George III. He was born at Winchester Castle on 1 October 1207, the eldest son of King John and Isabella of Angoulême, and was nine when his father died in October 1216 in the middle of a civil war. Rebel barons and their ally Prince Louis of France held more than half the kingdom. The boy was crowned in haste at Gloucester on 28 October, with a plain gold circlet belonging to his mother because the royal crown was not to be had. He was saved by the men around him. The elderly William Marshal, acting as regent, routed the rebels at Lincoln in May 1217, and that August a French relief fleet was destroyed off Sandwich. Louis gave up his claim, and in 1220 Henry was crowned again with full ceremony at Westminster. After Marshal’s death in 1219 the government was dominated by Hubert de Burgh. Henry confirmed a revised Great Charter in 1225 and took power into his own hands in 1227.

The adult king was devout, open-handed and easily moved, with a drooping eyelid and, by most accounts, more good nature than judgement. He revered Edward the Confessor, named his eldest son after him, and from 1245 pulled down the Confessor’s church at Westminster to rebuild it in the new Gothic manner. Westminster Abbey puts the cost, shrine included, at £45,000. On 13 October 1269 he helped carry the saint’s body to its new shrine. In January 1236 he married Eleanor of Provence at Canterbury. He kept a menagerie at the Tower of London, where an elephant sent by Louis IX in 1255 was sketched by the chronicler Matthew Paris.

In politics he was less fortunate. Expeditions to win back his family’s French lands in 1230 and 1242 both failed, and by the Treaty of Paris in 1259 he gave up his claims in return for recognition as lord of Gascony. A costly scheme to make his younger son Edmund king of Sicily left him deep in debt to the pope. The favour he showed his Poitevin half-brothers was bitterly resented, as were the exactions of his local officials. In 1258 the barons forced on him the Provisions of Oxford, which placed government under a council of fifteen and required regular parliaments. Henry obtained papal release from his oath, Louis IX ruled in his favour at Amiens in January 1264, and war followed. On 14 May 1264 he was beaten and captured at Lewes by his brother-in-law Simon de Montfort, who governed in his name for more than a year. Henry’s son Edward then escaped from custody, raised an army and destroyed Montfort’s at Evesham on 4 August 1265. The earl was killed, and the king, a captive in the rebel ranks in borrowed armour, was nearly cut down before his son’s men recognised him. The Dictum of Kenilworth in 1266 and the Statute of Marlborough in 1267 slowly restored peace, keeping some of the reformers’ limits on royal officials.

His treatment of England’s Jews is the darkest part of the record. He taxed them so heavily that their capacity to do business was ruined. The Statute of Jewry of 1253 tried to segregate them, forbidding new synagogues and requiring a badge. In 1255 he gave royal backing to a ritual-murder accusation at Lincoln, the first time the Crown had endorsed such a charge, and ordered executions.

Henry died at Westminster on 16 November 1272, while Edward was away on crusade. He was laid at first in the Confessor’s old grave. About two decades later Edward I moved him to the tomb that still stands beside the shrine, inlaid with Cosmati mosaic and topped by a gilt-bronze effigy cast by the London goldsmith William Torel. His heart, as he had asked, went to the abbey of Fontevraud in Anjou, where his Angevin ancestors lay.

Place in the family

  • King Henry III was a 7× great-grandfather of King Henry VIII.
  • The archive records 140 of his descendants, across 27 generations.

Images

One of 26 people of House of Plantagenet (1126–1485) in this archive. The longest-reigning English house, counting its Angevin beginning and the rival Lancaster and York branches that fought the Wars of the Roses.

Line of descent: King William I The Conqueror → King Henry I → Matilda the Empress → King Henry II → King John → King Henry III.

Read more on Wikipedia

Parents

Partners

Children

Life

  • 1207 — Born
  • 1216 — Henry III is crowned King at the age of nine. England is ruled temporarily by two regents, Hubert de Burgh and William the Marshal
  • 1227 — Henry takes full control of the government of England, but retains de Burgh as his main adviser
  • 1236 — Married Eleanor of Provence
  • 1236 — Henry marries Eleanor of Provence
  • 1238 — Simon de Montfort marries Henry’s sister, Eleanor
  • 1240 — Henry's Great Council is called 'Parliament' for the first time
  • 1245 — Henry lays the foundation stone for the rebuilding of Westminster Abbey
  • 1258 — The English barons, led by de Montfort, rebel against Henry’s misgovernment. They present a list of grievances to Henry, who signs the Provisions of Oxford, which limit royal power
  • 1261 — Henry repudiates the Provisions of Oxford
  • 1264 — The Baron’s War breaks out. De Montfort defeats Henry at Lewes. Henry is captured.
  • 1266 — The Dictum of Kenilworth restores Henry's authority and annuls the Provisions of Oxford
  • 1267 — In the Treaty of Montgomery, Henry recognizes Llewellyn ap Gruffydd as ruler of Wales
  • 1272 — Died
  • 1272 — Henry III dies in the Palace of Westminster

Sources

  1. Henry III of England · Wikipedia
  2. Henry III · Westminster Abbey
  3. Henry III (r. 1216–1272) · The Royal Family (royal.uk)
  4. Henry III of England · World History Encyclopedia

Open King Henry III in the interactive tree