Edward III (Penguin Monarchs) by Jonathan Sumption

Author:Jonathan Sumption [Sumption, Jonathan]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780241184219
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2016-05-25T16:00:00+00:00

4

Prince of Chivalry

(1347–1360)

It was customary in the courts of Europe to exchange gifts of jewellery at New Year. In 1333, Philippa of Hainault gave her husband a magnificent silver and enamel set of drinking vessels decorated with the arms of England and scenes of war, with castles, warships and armies. In the middle stood Edward himself, surrounded by the great military heroes of legend: Julius Caesar, Judas Maccabeus, Charlemagne, King Arthur, Roland and Oliver, Gawain and Lancelot of the Lake. The gift was well chosen. Edward loved ceremony and show, and relished the symbolism of war. After his assumption of power, he had thrown himself into a succession of spectacular tournaments, in which the participants fought each other in extravagant liveries with exotic badges and devices, such as swans, peacocks and dragons; or disguised as, for example, Tartars, or the pope and his cardinals, or the Seven Deadly Sins. During the king’s campaigns in the Low Countries, there were more tournaments in Antwerp, Brussels and Ghent. Pleasure and play-acting were an important part of these occasions, but not the whole. They cemented the bonds between Edward and the English nobility. They provided valuable practical training in horsemanship and weapons-handling when it came to real war. They drew knights-errant to the king’s court from continental Europe, many of whom would serve in his armies during the war with France. Above all, they were inspired propaganda.

After the king’s victorious return from the siege of Calais, the ceremonial of his court took on a triumphalist tone. At the midsummer tournament at Windsor in June 1348, the participants included the Constable of France, the Chamberlain of Normandy and the King of Scotland, David II, all of them Edward’s prisoners, as well as Charles of Blois, the pretender to Brittany who had recently been defeated and captured in the Battle of La Roche-Derrien. That summer, Edward founded the Order of the Garter to commemorate the victory at Crécy. Orders of chivalry were were relatively new in the 1340s. A celebration of nobility and military prowess, dedicated to an idealized notion of knighthood, the Order of the Garter comprised twenty-six members divided into two jousting teams, one of them led by the king and the other by the Prince of Wales. Of the original members, all but two can be shown to have been present at Crécy or in the parallel campaign of Henry of Grosmont in south-western France. The order was dedicated to St George, the archetypal military saint, whom Edward adopted as the patron saint of England. It was on the feast of St George (23 April) that the annual chapters of the order would be held. The order’s symbols provoke many questions. Why the garter? Probably because it had been one of the emblems used by the king on the Crécy campaign. What is the meaning of the order’s famous motto, Honi soit qui mal y pense (‘Shame on him who thinks evil of it’)? We do not know, but it probably referred

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