Henry III |
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 | When John died in 1216, his eldest son, Henry was not yet ten years old. The south of England and London were under the control of a French army and baronial rebels. | ||
| Henry's cause was better than it looked at first glance, especially when Peter des Roches (Bishop of Winchester) and William the Marshal rallied to it. | ||
| William the Marshal (or Marshall, 1146-1219) was Earl of Pembroke and Lord of Leinster
in Ireland - he also held extensive lands near the Welsh borders.
William the Marshal had fought in the Crusades, served both Henry II
and Richard I, and although at odds with King John, had refused to
join the rebellious barons.
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Henry's cause was also supported by Hubert de Burgh (later Earl of Kent, 1165-1243) who had been holding out at Dover Castle against Prince Louis. |
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Ranulf de Blundeville, 6th Earl of Chester (1129-1253), was another powerful and able baron who controlled much of the northern border with Wales; he joined up with Henry III's followers late In October 1216. |
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Another advantage of Henry III's cause was that
he had the only viable claim to the English throne. Prince Louis had married Blanche of Castile - daughter of Eleanor, granddaughter of Henry II - but this slight claim was not sufficient to satisfy the English nobility's desire for proper hereditary succession. |
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Honorius III had succeeded Innocent III as Pope in August 1216. He sent Cardinal Guala (Gualo) to England as legate with orders to excommunicate any baron who resisted Henry III. |
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The personal animosity felt for John had ended with his death, and in November 1216 the leaders of Henry's party confirmed the substance of Magna Carta removing the principled reasons for opposition. (It was reconfirmed in 1225). |
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Prince Louis divided his forces sending some north whilst the rest laid siege to Dover Castle. His northern forces were defeated at the Battle of Lincoln (May 1217). |
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Louis retreated to London, and large numbers of English barons changed sides. Blanche of Castile tried to send reinforcements and supplies from France, but these were intercepted off Sandwich, and Louis accepted the Treaty of Kingston-on-Thames (12 September 1217). In exchange for a large payment (10,000 marks), Louis surrendered all claim to the English throne. |
William the Marshal's death effigy
Regency government
| William the Marshal was initially the most important member of the regency government, supervising the resumption of (low) tax collection and judicial processes. He died in May 1219, after commending the young Henry III to the care of the papal legate, Pandulph. |
| Pandulph played an important role until 1221. The most important administrator was the justiciar, Hubert de Burgh. Hubert created himself Earl of Kent (1227) and in 1221 he married Margaret Dunkeld (sister of Alexander II of Scotland, who himself married Henry III's sister, Joan/Joanna.) |
| Hubert de Burgh's self-aggrandizement caused some resentment, but for the most part the regency was a time of consolidation and reconciliation. The excessive powers seized by magnates in their own localities were gradually reduced, but taxation remained low and government operated in the magnates' interests. |
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The justices resumed their circuits, and judges and barons
reached a basic consensus on the importance of and interpretation of
law. It was during the 1220s or 1230s that the important
legal treatise De
legibus et consuetudinibus Angliae (On the laws and customs
of England) was written. This systematic summary of English law
(later wrongly attributed to Bracton) exercised enormous influence
on the development of common law.
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