Young Kings – Henry III

Henry III was born in 1207 and became King in 1216, at the age of nine. His father was King John, brother of King Richard the Lionheart and famous for having unintentionally triggered the introduction of the Magna Carta in 1215. It is again improbable that Henry had any power during his youth and he had several regents including the popular William Marshal, who ruled the country.

The main problem for Henry was that his regents and the nobles naturally upheld the statutes of the Magna Carta during his minority and this gave the charter ten years to sink in to the normal workings of government. This probably was what made life more difficult for the King throughout the rest of his reign, even if it benefited English law in the long term.

It seems that Henry spent a lot of his reign trying to fight against and undo the dramatic changes that had been forced on the monarchy during the reign of John. He hated and distrusted the barons, wouldn’t take advice from them and surrounded himself with foreigners, who, due to their being more autocratic systems of government in Europe, may have been there to remind Henry of his royal supremacy.

The impact of the Magna Carta is debatable and some argue that Henry’s view of his power had not changed because of it:

None of this suggests that Henry was weak, or that Angevin kinship was breaking down. On the contrary, Henry was acting like his father and grandfather and exercising full authority over all who governed in his name. Henry’s weakness was in his incapacity to direct this centralised system of government along the right lines.

Contrary to common belief the baronial opposition to Henry III was not directed against a weak king who was unable to rule, but against a king who was determined to rule without consulting the men who regarded themselves as his natural counsellors.

From The Community of the Realm in Thirteenth Century England by Roger Wickson

It is possible to argue that, had Henry come to the throne in his majority, the barons would not have had enough time to fully instigate and rule the country by the laws of the Magna Carta. Surely Henry would have taken action to prevent them from gaining too much power? Perhaps then, Henry’s coming to the throne during childhood didn’t do him much good in the long term; it didn’t give him much of a chance to fight back during the crucial first years of his reign?
Its an interesting question – probably demanding a lot more research ( =

Young Kings

I’ve been doing a lot of research into the reign of Edward VI recently and it’s made me think a bit about other Kings who came to the throne as children. The three main Kings I can think of were Edward VI, Richard II and Henry III, but now I think of it, Mary Queen of Scots came to the throne when she was only six days old, so I ought to look at her too.

Edward VI reigned from age nine (1547) to age sixteen (1553) when he died and it’s been pretty interesting to see how much power a child ruler was able to have and how far the reign was taken over by the ambitions of powerful men. Because Edward died before he reached his majority, his reign has been seen as a failure as he was never able to assert himself as King, but there have been several other monarchs who reigned as children and as adults and their childhoods have often been forgotten. Also, Edward’s reign was marred by many other religious, social, economic and succession problems, which probably added to his reputation as a weak sickly young King. So is coming to the throne as a child really dangerous and likely to make the reign unsuccessful?

Woe to thee, O land, where the king is a child

(Ecclesiastes, 10.16) – quoted by Bishop Latimer at the coronation of Edward VI

Richard II

Richard was born on the 6th January 1367, the son of Edward, the Black Prince, and Joan “The Fair Maid of Kent”. He wasn’t originally heir to the throne, but his elder brother Edward of Angoulême died in 1372 and his father died in 1376, leaving him as heir to his grandfather, Edward III. Richard then ascended to the throne at the age of 10, after the death of the King in 1377,

During his youth, the country was governed by a series of councils often dominated by his uncle, John of Gaunt. It is likely that the King had little power himself and it is interesting to consider whether or not this had an effect on the rest of his reign.

His reign is most famous for the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, when at the age of fourteen, he is said to have diffused a tense dispute with a rebel army, by expressing his supremacy with the ambiguous announcement, ‘You shall have no captain but me!’ He did show immense bravery for his age and it was probably his surprising popularity with the rebels, (who strangely identified him with their cause even though their leaders were severely punished after the revolt), that made him suitable to confront them and win them over.

It has been argued that his success and popularity in his youth adversely affected the rest of his reign as it gave him an overconfidence in his own power and royal supremacy that made his reign in later years almost tyrannous. This led to a mounting unpopularity that ultimately resulted in his being unable to protect himself when John of Gaunt’s son, Henry of Bolingbroke, returned from exile to depose the King and become Henry VI.