Rebellion in the Middle Ages by Matthew Lewis;

Author:Matthew Lewis;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History / Europe / Medieval
Publisher: Casemate Publishers & Book Distributors, LLC
Published: 2022-01-30T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

The Second Barons’ War

Rebellion is just when it is required to maintain obedience to oneself.

Henry III would be the longest-reigning monarch in English or British history until George III overtook him in the nineteenth century. Despite fifty-six years as king, he is largely forgotten amongst the ranks of his predecessors and successors. His regency government had managed to bring about an end to the First Barons’ War and ensure his security. As he emerged into adulthood, Henry had many qualities to recommend him to his subjects. Although he tried to regain the lands in France his father had lost, he managed to face up to the political reality that they were beyond his reach and find peace with the son of the man who had invaded his kingdom. Philip was succeeded by Louis VIII in 1423, but only for three years. On his death, Louis was followed by his son as Louis IX, who would go to be canonised as Saint Louis. He and Henry shared many traits in common, and Henry would have been incredibly jealous that his contemporary made it into the panoply of saints. Henry III favoured peace and made it where it could. He was pious, developing a devotion to Saint Edward the Confessor that drove him to have Westminster Abbey rebuilt and Saint Edward’s remains translated to the centre of his new gothic masterpiece.

Alongside his positive points, Henry was considered to have displayed troubling weaknesses. Some contemporaries describe him as simplex – a Latin word with a frustrating array of meanings. Although it can mean stupid or suggest an issue with his mental health, it was also a word frequently applied to saints who were considered unworldly, lacking in guile or cunning. Henry might have thought it a compliment, in his simplex way. As well as learning to live within the bounds set by Magna Carta, Henry had to deal with the reality of his father’s desperate decision to submit the English crown to Rome as a vassal. England was, for reasons that remain unclear, viewed as rich beyond measure, and the papacy saw it as a deep well of funds for the crusading effort in the Holy Land. Representatives of the pope arrived with startling frequency to try to wring cash from a population that resented the attempts to squeeze them for money they insisted they simply did not have.

More than half a century on the throne left Henry well within the swing of the pendulum of time towards another period of rebellion. This time, an enigmatic figure who in many ways represented the antithesis of Henry in personality, yet who shared many of his values, would lead the opposition to the king’s rule. Henry, to the concern of his influential subjects, was always keen to promote those from outside England who could claim some relationship to him. His wife, Eleanor of Provence, had brought many of her Savoyard relatives to England and Henry had striven to find them incomes and jobs in his government.

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