Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
1282 and were significantly more
imposing than the castles at
Aberys-
twyth
(p. 714), Flint, and Rhuddlan,
which followed the first rebellion a
decade before.
In 1307 Edward II came to the
throne, but, an ineffectual king, he was
deposed by his wife Eleanor of Castille
in 1327. She put their 14-year-old son,
Edward, on the throne so she could in
effect rule the country. When he turned
18, though, Edward III took control and tried to claim the French throne. When he was
rebuffed, he started what turned out to be the Hundred Years' War in 1337. This kept
him, his son the Black Prince, and successive monarchs occupied abroad until 1453.
At home, the ordinary people were having a hard time. The Black Death, or plague,
which had ravaged Europe reached England in 1348. It killed one-third of the European
population and half of the people of England and Wales, and returned in 1361, 1374,
and regularly thereafter until about 1670. Richard II, aged 10, succeeded his grandfa-
ther, Edward III, and became one of the most unpopular kings. His poll tax of 1381
sparked the Peasants' Revolt. Richard met leaders Wat Tyler and Jack Straw in London
and agreed to the abolition of serfdom, but then joined in the suppression of the revolts.
One of Richard's courtiers was Geoffrey Chaucer, who wrote
The Canterbury
Tales
—stories told by a group of pilgrims as they journeyed from London to Canterbury
where Thomas Becket, Henry II's Archbishop, had been murdered by Henry's knights.
The
Tales
were written in English, unusual at the time because Latin and French
dominated the written word. At about the same time John Wycliffe translated the Bible
into English. Both were signs of social unrest, and in 1399 Richard II was deposed by
his cousin Henry of Bolingbroke. Richard died in captivity at Pontefract Castle,
Yorkshire, in 1400 while Bolingbroke was crowned Henry IV and made a coronation
speech in English. For a fun, erudite, and engaging guide to how daily life must have
been in the Middle Ages check out Ian Mortimer's
The Time Traveller's Guide to
Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century
(Vintage).
Henry IV was the first of a new dynasty called the House of Lancaster and spent
much of his reign fighting off rebellious nobles, such as Owain Glyndwr, the last
native Prince of Wales. The Welsh nobles were still sympathetic to Richard II, and
Glyndwr led a rebellion against Henry IV helped by his cousins the Tudors. Henry IV,
having failed to defeat the rebellion, decreed that the Welsh could not hold public
office or marry anybody English. Not surprisingly, this didn't garner him any support
in Wales, which by 1404 was mostly controlled by Glyndwr, who held a Parliament
at Machynlleth and made alliances with France and Scotland.
England gradually regained control of Wales. Henry V, crowned in 1417, restored
land and titles to the nobility who had fought his father, ensuring relative domestic
peace. He was successful in the continuing One Hundred Years' War, notably at the
battle of Agincourt, and ended up owning much of France. He died in 1422, when
his heir was 9 months old. Although his son succeeded him, he wasn't crowned
Henry VI until 1429. Two years later, he also became the King of France. Henry VI's
poor choice of advisers left him vulnerable to power struggles. He lost all of France
(except Calais), much of it to Joan of Arc, and in 1453 he had a breakdown.
By 1455 there was civil war—the War of the Roses—between Henry VI's House
of Lancaster and the House of York. It was messy: In 1461 the dead Duke of York's
What They Say
“When a man is tired of London, he is
tired of life; for there is in London all
that life can afford.”
—Samuel Johnson
“There'll always be an England … even if
it's in Hollywood.”
2
—Bob Hope
