Henry III

Born 1207

Crowned 1216

Died 1272

Henry III

• Faithful• Paternal• Generous• Artistic temperament

• Poor leader and military commander

“If Henry III was not a great king, he was a good man.”

J.S. Hamilton

Themes• Conflicts with barons result in dialogs

(parliaments) leading towards a representative government – First: Barons (Lords)– Later: Representation by geography

• Failed attempts to regain Continental territory• Attempts to expand control of the island of

Great Britain

Added Topics

• Continuing importance of Magna Carta• Religious changes• Borrowing money and increasing anti-

Semitism• Art

Prince Louis and the Rebels

Neighbors

1218 Treaty of Worcester confirms status of Llywelyn the Great (1173-1240)

1221 Alexander II (1198-1249) of Scotland marries Henry III's sister, Joan, at York.

Video – Henry III

Dr. Jennifer Paxton

PS to Baron’s War, Round 1

• Royalists win naval battle off Sandwich• Louis and rebels stopped at Lincoln• Treaty of Kingston

Battle of Lincoln, Matthew ParisWilliam Marshall

Battle off Sandwich – Chemical WarfareHubert de Burgh

PS to Magna Carta – Henry III

• Nov 12, 1216 Reissued with revisions at Bristol – Separate versions for Cheshire, Ireland

• 1217 More revisions• 1225 Reissued again

– Witnesses – Hubert de Burgh, Peter des Roches.– 8 of the 25 rebel committee including Robert fitz

Walter, Stephen Langton, • Further reissues in 1237 and 1253

Magna Carta

• We will appoint as justices, constables, sheriffs, or bailiffs only such as know the law of the realm and mean to observe it well. (45)

• No arbitrary fines 20-22• Magna Carta cited as a principle that the

head of state does not lack immunity to suit (Sub deo et lege) (Jones v. Clinton, 1994)

Forest Charter 1217

• Men holding woods in the forest are to hold them as they were held at the first coronation of Henry II

• No man shall lose life or member for taking venison. He shall be fined unless he cannot pay, in which case he will be imprisoned for a year and a day. Then he may be released if he can find sureties. If not, he must abjure the realm.

Regency

Protectors• Papal Legates Cardinal Guala,

Cardinal Pandulf• William Marshall to 1219• Hubert de Burgh, justiciar to 1232• Stephen Langton, Archbishop to 1228

Lateran Council 1215

• Transubstantiation becomes official doctrine• Yearly confession• Free education for clerics and poor in every

cathedral church and other churches also that have sufficient means

• Suspension of drunk clerics. “We forbid hunting and fowling to all clerics”

• Clerics may neither pronounce nor execute a sentence of death.

Lateran Council 1215

• Jews should be compelled to make … the tithes and offerings to churches, which the Christians supplied before their properties fell [to] the Jews.

• Jews and Saracens of both sexes … must be distinguished from the Christian by a difference of dress

• Jews are not to be given public offices • Jews who have received baptism are to be restrained

… from returning to their former rite.

Enforcement in England

• Henry III (his regents) resume protection of Jews

• Jews exempted from episcopal courts• 1222 Langton tries to enforce Lateran

canons.• 1241 Taxes begin in increasing

amounts

Increasing Anti-Semitism

Cartoon, tax roll for Norwich, 1233

NorwichJurnet ‘Music House’

Cameron Self, Flckr