Rise of a Dynasty: Unveiling the Plantagenets (Part 10) - Edward III: A Boy Crowned in Chaos
Edward III’s early reign was forged in fire — rebellion, betrayal, and the burden of legacy.
He had grown up in a court bruised by betrayal, where the marriage of his parents had unravelled and loyalties lay in ruins. His father had been deposed and died, , all in the midst of scandal and subterfuge. His mother now ruled alongside her lover, Roger Mortimer, a man some whispered was king in all but name.
For any child, such beginnings would leave a mark. But Edward was not just any child. He was a true Plantagenet, born with both the blood and fire of his lineage. And in time, he would shake off the shadows around him with surprising force, and out of the ashes, build an enduring legacy: a kingdom not only more stable, but more visionary and more unified.
The Silent Witness
Prince Edward was barely fourteen when he sailed to France, sent to do a king’s duty: which was to pay homage for Gascony and Ponthieu. It should have been a political formality. Instead, he became the symbolic figurehead of a rebellion that would bring down his father. But it wasn’t his rebellion. It wasn’t his plan. He was a boy caught between power and powerlessness, paraded, positioned, and ultimately placed at the centre of a cause he had never chosen.
We can’t even begin to understand what might have been going through his head?
He had grown up watching his parents’ marriage unravel. He had seen the distance between them widen, watched his mother retreat into silence as his father leaned ever more heavily on his favourites, first Gaveston, and then Despenser. I am sure also that he would have witnessed how she was treated, her lands seized, her possessions taken, and her dignity stripped away in front of the very court that once honoured her. That kind of humiliation doesn’t go unnoticed by a child. It lodges itself into the corners of memory, confusing, painful, and unforgettable. He might not have understood the full politics of it all, but there can be no doubt he would have felt it, and somewhere, deep within, perhaps even then, a sense of justice had begun to take root.
When news came of Edward II’s death, shrouded in secrecy and suspicion as it was, it would have hit the young king with force. The brutality of it. The finality. The whispered rumours. Did he believe his father had been murdered, he must surely have had suspicions of Mortimer’s hand in it, but did he also hold his mother responsible? Historians still argue this fact, however, the reality is that Edward never publicly blamed his mother. Not once. That silence may have been political, but could it have also been the reality of a boy who knew how little power he truly had.
And whether or not he blamed his mother directly, the shadow of Roger Mortimer still loomed large as life. It seemed he had taken everything: control of the crown, command of the realm, even, in whispers, the place beside Isabella’s throne. Young Edward may have worn the crown, but he certainly didn’t rule. From the crucial moment of his father’s death, Edward began to change. He smiled for the court, spoke words others wrote for him, and played the dutiful son, while inwardly waiting, watching, and most of all planning.
And then came the moment that changed everything. Edward’s uncle, the Earl of Kent, his father’s loyal brother was executed for treason. His crime? Claiming that Edward II was still alive. Perhaps it was desperation. Perhaps it was truth wrapped in rumour. Either way, Edward watched as a key family member was eliminated, another echo of his father erased by the very man who ruled in his name. The line had been crossed. This quiet, searing final straw, would see the boy who had been used as a pawn for more than three years, become a king who learnt to play the game.
And that game would begin in Nottingham!
The Turning Point
It was October, 1330. Edward III was seventeen years old, and he’d waited long enough.
For three years, Roger Mortimer had ruled England in all but name. He signed laws, brokered alliances, built himself a massive fortune, and made enemies — many enemies. And still, he clung to power, arrogant and unchallenged, even as Edward came of age.
But something had shifted. The execution of Edward’s uncle had rattled the court and stained the crown with fear. The reasons didn’t matter, Mortimer’s latest act of cruelty had simply cut too deep.
A question was left lingering in the air - if even a royal bloodline offered no protection, who could be next? After all, Kent had been silenced, swiftly and publicly, with a clear warning to all who might challenge Mortimer’s grip. But Edward heard more than a warning. He heard the scream of injustice and the clink of chains still rattling around his own throne. So he did the only thing he could… he acted.
And the fortified, seemingly secure Nottingham Castle became the stage. With a small band of loyal supporters, Edward orchestrated an entry through a secret passage known only to a handful. It was daring, risky, and one mistake could see his neck on the block. But it worked. In the dead of night, Edward burst into Mortimer’s chambers. The man who was his mother’s lover, his father’s usurper, and the ever present shadow behind his crown, was seized, stripped of power, and led away. Isabella, his mother, was there pleading for her son to show mercy. But he didn’t, not this time. Mortimer was tried for treason and executed, a recipient of the same mercy that was shown to the Earl of Kent. And with that one act, sudden, calculated, irreversible, Edward III declared himself king in truth, not just in name. There was no triumphal parade. No sweeping proclamation. Just a quiet, resolute shift in the air.
But in that same moment, we also catch a glimpse of the man Edward was becoming. Isabella was not publicly shamed. No charges were brought against her. Though her power was gone and her reputation stained, she was treated with respect and allowed to retire quietly to Castle Rising, where she lived out her days in comfort. Edward could have made her a scapegoat. Instead, he offered her dignity. Was it forgiveness, or love battling duty? Perhaps it was a bit of both. Regardless, it spoke of something much deeper than vengeance.
The boy was gone, and the king had arrived. And that, as much as any future military victory or royal decree, was the beginning of a very new kind of Plantagenet rule.
The Restoration of Royal Authority
In the wake of Mortimer’s fall, England held its breath. For years, power had been wielded by shadowy hands, barons and regents, favourites and lovers. Now, the boy king who had waited in silence stepped into the light. And surprisingly… the kingdom did not fall apart.
Edward III, not yet twenty, moved quickly to assert his rule. But rather than reign through fear or vengeance, he chose a path of restoration — of order, dignity, and royal presence. One of his first priorities was to re-establish the monarchy as a force of unity, not just dominance. And to do that, he had to win trust. He summoned councils, but this time, they were not window dressing. He listened. He negotiated. He understood that authority had to be earned, not seized. Slowly, the barons who had once resented Mortimer’s tyranny began to respect the young king’s steadiness. Even the Church, wary after years of scandal and political unrest, found in Edward a monarch willing to honour tradition and maintain peace.
But it wasn’t just about diplomacy. Edward also tightened royal finances, curbed corruption in local administration, and reasserted his legal rights over rebellious or autonomous regions. He began a slow, deliberate rebalancing of the Crown’s power, not by dramatic decree, but through consistency and resolve. His reign would become one of strong, centralised leadership. But its foundations were laid quietly, brick by brick, in the years after 1330. And perhaps most importantly, he led by example. Unlike many of his predecessors, Edward took his royal duties seriously. He presided over courts. He rode with his armies. He showed up, not just in the halls of Westminster, but in the hearts and minds of his people. This was not a distant, aloof king. This was a monarch determined to be present, involved, and, above all, legitimate.
The Plantagenet dynasty, so long riddled with internal strife and competing power grabs, was beginning to find its footing once more.
Trouble in the North
Even as Edward III was rebuilding the foundations of royal authority at home, the northern border simmered with unrest. The long struggle with Scotland, so deeply entwined with his grandfather Edward I’s legacy, was far from over.
In 1328, during the chaotic final year of Mortimer’s influence, England had signed the Treaty of Edinburgh–Northampton. It recognised Scotland’s independence under Robert the Bruce and promised peace. But many in England saw it as a humiliation, a betrayal after years of bloody effort. And Edward, still just a teenager when it was signed, had not agreed to it willingly.
When Robert the Bruce died soon after, his young son David II, a boy not yet five years old, became king. The Scots crowned him, but the kingdom was vulnerable, and English eyes once more turned north.
For Edward, it was a chance to shake off the ghosts of his father’s failures, the perfect opportunity to show strength where Edward II had shown weakness. In 1332, just two years after seizing power from Mortimer, Edward gave quiet support to Edward Balliol, the son of the former Scottish king, John Balliol. With a band of English nobles, Balliol invaded Scotland and won a swift, if shaky, victory. He was crowned king… briefly.
But Scotland was not so easily conquered. The Scots fought back, fiercely and without pause. Balliol was driven out, reinstated, and driven out again in a long, tangled chess game that saw English troops frequently drawn into the conflict. Edward himself led multiple campaigns north, burning towns, laying siege, trying to force submission. It was brutal, and often futile. The Scottish terrain and tenacity proved difficult to conquer, not to mention, costly to maintain.
In 1333, the Battle of Halidon Hill brought a crushing defeat for the Scots. With their young king David II just nine years old, and the English holding much of southern Scotland, exile became the only option. David and his child-bride, who was none other than Joan of the Tower, daughter of Edward II, fled to France. There, they were granted sanctuary by Philip VI and given residence at Château Gaillard.
And so, in a twist of fate, a Scottish king and an English princess, the children of old enemies, now found shelter within the crumbling walls of a fortress built as a defiant symbol of English strength on French soil, bynone other than the great warrior king Richard the Lionheart, over one hundred years earlier,.
It was, in many ways, history echoing through history.
Yet these years in the north were not wasted. For Edward, they were a proving ground. He was not just reclaiming territory, he was learning the art of war, the power of alliances, and the bitter cost of unfinished business. The Plantagenet kings had long dreamed of dominion over the whole island. Edward, ever ambitious, carried that dream too, however he was already beginning to set his gaze further still, he was looking across the Channel.
The Spark of a Hundred Years
Not all of Edward’s battles would be fought with swords.
Some would begin with a birthright, or rather, a perceived denial of one.
In 1328, the Capetian dynasty in France came to a sudden halt. King Charles IV, Edward’s uncle and the last surviving son of Philip IV, died without a male heir. With no clear successor, the crown was vulnerable. And waiting in the wings was Edward, grandson of Philip IV through his mother, Queen Isabella.
But there was a problem.
The French nobles, in particular Phillip of Valois, invoked an old Frankish tradition known as Salic Law. This was a rule that excluded women from inheriting the throne, and in this case, more importantly, from passing claims to their sons. It was not a law always upheld in practice, but this time, it was enforced with strategic precision. Isabella, despite being the daughter of a king, was dismissed. And so, the crown passed instead to Philip of Valois, a cousin through the male line who was crowned Philip VI. Edward, still just a teenager at the time, didn’t contest the decision. Not openly. In 1329, he crossed the Channel and paid homage to Philip VI for the Duchy of Aquitaine, the sprawling French lands still held by the English crown. And for a time, that uneasy truce held.
But the slight wasn’t forgotten.
As Edward grew into his kingship, the relationship between the two monarchs began to fray. Then, in 1334, a man arrived at Edward’s court who would shift the balance entirely: Robert of Artois. A disgraced French noble with a flair for drama, Robert had once been a favourite of Philip VI, but fell spectacularly from grace after accusations of forgery and fraud. Pursued by royal anger and personal vendettas, he fled France and found sanctuary with Edward, where he became more than just a guest. He became a catalyst. Robert brought with him not only scandal but stories, tales of Philip’s hypocrisy, corruption, and supposed illegitimacy. Whether all of it was true didn’t matter. Edward listened. And perhaps, in Robert, he saw a reflection of his own resentment: a man disinherited, overlooked, and ready to stir the pot.
Philip VI retaliated by backing Edward’s enemies, especially in Scotland. Then, in 1337, he took a step too far. In a deliberate act of provocation, he formally confiscated Aquitaine, striking at England’s oldest and most valuable French possession. With that, the last thread of loyalty snapped.
And Edward made his move.
The following years saw a flurry of military manoeuvres, shifting alliances, and diplomatic feints. In 1340, after the English victory at the naval Battle of Sluys, Edward took the final step and publicly declared himself the rightful King of France. And to make that claim impossible to ignore, he did something bold: he quartered the French fleur-de-lis with the English lions on his coat of arms. Like Phillip's deliberate act confiscating Aquitaine a few years before, this would have also been seen as provocative, a powerful, symbolic act that asserted his claim not just in words but in every banner that flew above his armies.
And so the stage was set.
The war that would come would span generations. It would begin with Edward, but ripple outward through his sons and grandsons, through victories, betrayals, and battles that would completely reshape medieval Europe. A war not of a hundred years in intent, but one that would last just that long.
And it all began with a crown, and a question of who had the right to wear it.
The Order of the Garter
Even as war clouds gathered across the Channel, Edward III had begun shaping something else, a vision of kingship that reached beyond conquest. He didn’t just want to fight for his realm. He wanted to define it.
In 1348, amid rising tensions abroad and plague creeping across Europe, Edward founded what would become the most prestigious chivalric order in England: the Order of the Garter. This brotherhood of honour and pageantry endures to this very day, with rituals and robes still gracing the halls of Windsor Castle. Rooted in legend, clothed in ceremony, it was more than a fellowship of knights. It was a statement. A revival of Arthurian ideals for a fractured age.
Loyalty. Honour. Brotherhood. A kingdom bound not just by power, but by purpose. The order’s motto Honi soit qui mal y pense “Shame on him who thinks evil of it” whispered of scandal, pride, and defiance. Some say it was inspired by a dropped garter at court, hastily retrieved by the king to save a lady’s dignity. Others see it as a deeper political message, cloaked in chivalry. Either way, it spoke to Edward’s instinct for theatre, and his gift for legacy. Knights of the Garter were chosen not for blood, but for merit. Loyalty to the crown, valour in battle, and unwavering service were the marks of inclusion, and in doing so, Edward built a circle of allegiance that was personal, elite, and enduring.
It was a fitting close to the early chapter of his reign.
Because Edward was no longer just the boy who seized power in the shadows. He was a king of vision, of ambition, and increasingly of legend. The war for France had begun. His son was growing into a warrior prince. And soon, banners would fly at Crécy under the sign of the Garter.
In our next instalment, the spotlight will shift — not away from Edward, but toward the son who would carry his legacy into legend. Known to history as the Black Prince, Edward of Woodstock was more than just a warrior. He was a symbol of glory, loyalty, and tragedy all at once. Through his eyes, we’ll step onto foreign fields, into the clang of battle, and into a father’s hopes for a dynasty made mighty through arms and honour.
But beneath the banners and bloodshed, we’ll still search for the human story because that’s where the heartbeat of history lies. Behind every charge and challenge were people: parents and children, kings and commoners, lovers and enemies. And in telling their stories, we don’t just understand what happened.
We understand why it mattered.
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St George’s Chapel, Order of Garter Banners - By Josep Renalias - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3530668, Nottingham Castle Image - Canva Pro Images, Chateau Gaillard Ruins Image © Plantagenet Discoveries, Queen Isabella & Roger Mortimer Rebellion, Battle of Sluys Images - Public Domain
