J.P.Sommerville

 

 

 

The personal rule of Henry III
 

bullet In 1227, the nineteen-year-old Henry III declared himself of age and began to assert personal control of government. For five years, Hubert de Burgh held onto some power, but lost Henry's confidence by his failure to assert English power in Wales and Brittany as Henry wished.
bullet 1232 saw Hubert's displacement in a palace coup. King John's old Poitevin advisor, Peter des Roches and his son or nephew, Peter des Rivaulx (Rivaux) became Henry's chief ministers.
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Peter des Rivaulx and his successor, Alexander de Swereford, were typical of a new class of educated clerks  - curiales. These graduates of the universities and law schools of Europe were increasingly employed by monarchs all over Europe in place of barons skilled in warfare - not administration.
 


Charter of Henry III to Swansea

 Just as English Common law was being systematized in De legibus et consuetudinibus Angliae so European states were developing and applying Civil Law (based on the laws of ancient Rome.) The Church too, during the 1230s collected and codified its canon law in the Corpus Iuris Canonici. Written laws and records were increasingly used by a class of professional bureaucrats to strengthen governmental control.

bullet Peter des Rivaulx first tried to reform the Exchequer, introducing more professionals into its ranks and exerting close supervision over the local sheriffs. Many aspects of royal revenue - such as control of escheats and wardships , and the management of the royal demesne - were taken away from the sheriffs.
bullet Henry also re-appointed many of John's old servants and made Peter sheriff of 21 counties.
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Uneasy at this apparent return to the bad old days, some of the barons revolted in 1233 under the leadership of William the Marshal's son, Richard. The bishops patched up a compromise before serious warfare broke out, and Henry III (temporarily) conceded on a number of issues - in particular, the dismissal of Peter.

 


Eleanor of Provence
(ob. 1291)

 In January 1236, Henry III married Eleanor of Provence. She was the daughter of Raymond Berengar of Provence and Beatrice of Savoy. Not only was she an able and energetic assistant to her husband, but a number of her Savoyard servants and  relatives - especially Peter, Count of Savoy, and Boniface (Archbishop of Canterbury 1243-70) - exercised considerable influence in England.


Aymer's memorial in Winchester Cathedral

 After 1246, Henry III welcomed more foreign relatives to England. His mother, Isabelle of Angloulême had remarried after John's death to Hugh Lusignan of La Marche (the son of her former fiancé.) Henry's half-brothers - William de Valence and Aymer were generously treated:  the former was given the heiress of William the Marshal as his wife and so became Earl of Pembroke. Aymer (although illiterate) was made Bishop of Winchester.
           

bullet Peter des Rivaulx soon returned to power (1236) and Henry resumed his attempts to expand royal power.
 

Henry III and the Church


Edward the Confessor's shrine

 

bullet Henry III - unlike his father - was a very pious Christian, sometimes hearing mass celebrated three times a day. He took Edward the Confessor as his personal patron saint and lavished vast sums on rebuilding Westminster Abbey and transferring the Confessor's remains to an ornate shrine there.
bullet All England experienced a religious revival in the early thirteenth century.  In August 1221, the first Dominican friars arrived in England, and in September 1224, the first Franciscans. These friars observed a strict and austere rule, but unlike monks they traveled widely, preaching to and teaching the laity.
bullet Henry III appointed Ralph Neville, Bishop of Chester to be Lord Chancellor, but he did not get on so well with all the bishops. In particular, he clashed with Robert Grosseteste (c. 1170-1253) - one of Europe's most notable theologians. Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln from 1235, insisted on ecclesiastical privileges and tried to end all secular interference in ecclesiastical courts. Henry, in turn, insisted on ultimate royal control of his barons and subjects (including abbots and criminous clerks.)
bullet Henry's appointment of his relatives to senior offices in the church also caused problems. Boniface of Canterbury was overbearing and once provoked a riot by in London by physically assaulting a local prior who objected to his demands. Aymer of Winchester lived like a layman, and became widely unpopular.
 

 

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