Henry III. Simon de Monfort`s opposition. The first parliament.

Henry III (October 1, 1207 – November 16, 1272) was the son and successor of John Lackland as King of England, reigning for fifty-six years, from 1216 to his death. His contemporaries knew him as Henry of Winchester. He was the first child king in England following the Norman Conquest. Despite his long reign, his personal accomplishments were few and he was considered a political and military failure. England, however, prospered during his century and his greatest monument is Westminster, which he made the seat of his government and where he expanded the abbey as a shrine to Edward the Confessor. 

Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester, was a French noble who came to England in the 1230s and received lands from King Henry III who was around the same age. Simon controversially married the king's sister at a time when marriages of the aristocracy were strictly controlled by the king. Henry III however, accepted the marriage and Simon became one of King Henry's main advisers. 

He assumed the crown under the regency of the popular William Marshal, but the England he inherited had undergone several drastic changes during the reign of his father. He spent much of his reign fighting the barons over the Magna Carta and the royal rights, and was eventually forced to call the first "parliament" in 1264. He was also unsuccessful on the Continent, where he endeavored to re-establish English control over Normandy, Anjou, and Aquitaine. 

Edward I and his wars in Wales and Scotland. Edward II. EdwardIii. The first stage of the Hundred Years` War.

Edward I Longshanks, (1272-1307) the son of Henry III was probably the greatest warrior on the English throne, who tried to live by the ideal of Christian Knighthood. Edward was loved by people.  

• Edward participated in a crusade in Palestine.  

• trying to unite England, Scotland and Wales and for some period he also had to fight against the French king.  

• At the same time, he is known for establishing some new feudal laws and gathering the Great Council, which is also known as Model Parliament (1295).  

• Edward`s Wales wars took place (1277-1282). At last, the Prince of Wales was defeated and brought to order. By the Statute of Wales (1284) the principality was annexed to the English crown. The king's son was proclaimed Prince of Wales and since that time heirs have had this title.  

• Scotland was another territory, which Edward aimed at joining to England. Edward managed to submit Scotland partially and appointed his own ruler. Sometime later this man (John Baliol by name) renounced his dependence on England and Edward had to continue the war. 

•  2 most famous Scottish national heroes lived in those times. They were William Wallace and Robert Bruce. Wallace was a noble man, famous for his hatred of Englishmen. He organized a kind of guerilla unit to fight against the English. Soon he became the leader of the resistance. In 1296 he destroyed the English army in a battle.  

• Soon after it Edward gathered a larger army and invaded Scotland again. He cruelly suppressed the resistance. Edward was firm in his plan to catch Wallace and some years after it he was betrayed by a friend of his, brought to London, sentenced to death and then cruelly executed.  

• The next year Robert Bruce, a Scottish aristocrat was proclaimed king and Edward continued his struggle. He attacked Bruce and defeated his army, but did not catch the leader. Bruce fled away and Edward was preparing for the next, as he hoped for the final battle. He was 69, he had been reigning for 35 years but he was full of intention to yield Scotland and join it to England. He led the army and died in a camp. Edward, I got the nickname The Hammer of Scots.      

Edward II, (1307-1327) the son of Edward I was quite a different ruler from his father. After Edward I`s death he refused to fight with the Scots, turned his army and came back to London. He spent his reign wasting his father`s treasury and the territories the latter had gained, and from this point of view, covered himself with disgrace. He married Isabelle of France, the daughter of the French king and had a son by her, but in reality, he hated his wife and preferred the society of his men- favorites. This fact as well as his military disability infuriated both the nobility and simple people. Edward ran into severe difficulties with the barons, who demanded the exile of his favorite Pierre Gaveston. But the king started the war which ended only in 1314 when Robert Bruce attacked England. Edward started the campaign but Bruce destroyed the English army in the famous battle of Bannockburn, June 24. After it The English stopped their attempts to submit Scotland and it assured Scottish independence for many centuries. Englishmen were humiliated and the king lost even the smallest part of the popularity he still had. In 1321 the power of the king`s new favorite Hugh De Spencer made the barons form another opposition, which was led by Edward`s wife Isabella and her lover Mortimer, who took the power and proclaimed Edward`s son the king. Edward II was captured, deposed and shut in a distant castle, where he was tormented and later cruelly murdered. Isabella ruled for the first years of her son`s reign but in 1330 the young king seized Mortimer and Isabella and got the power.  

Edward III (1327-1377) was a great soldier. At the beginning of his reign, he attacked Scotland trying to submit it to the English crown and win back the territories his father had lost. Edward won the battle at Hallidon Hills in 1333 he managed to bring the king dependent on England. In 1337 the French king died and Edward claimed the throne on the ground of his mother`s origin, who was the late king`s sister. The Hundred Years` war began. It was a success in the beginning. In 1340 Edward destroyed the French fleet, in 1346 he invaded France, trying to get back Normandy and won the famous battle of Crecy, which took place in 1346. The French king had a larger army, but the English king was a better strategist and may be a braver warrior. He himself led one of the divisions and won the battle on his flank.  He managed to dispose of his troops in a better position, crossed the river at night and attacked the French unexpectedly. This battle was also the first great battle of his 16-year-old son Edward, whose nickname was Black Prince. A week later the king moved to Calais which was under siege.  Calais became England's territory on the continent and belonged there for 200 years when it was lost by Mary I. In 1348 the plague Black Death seized both England and the continent. Thousands of people died and the countries were in a terrible condition. It also made England change its industrial policy and get to sheep-farming.  In 1355 the war was renewed. Now it was Black Prince who commanded the army. He captured the French king and brought him to London as a prisoner. In May 1360 England and France concluded the Treaty of Bretigny. In the late years of his reign Edward III did not fight much and lost some of the French land he had won. He died in 1377 a year after his favorite son Black Prince who died of some disease, lamented by the whole country. Edward III is also famous for establishing the Order of the Garter in 1348.