Talk:Edward III of England

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Contents

[edit] older entries

It should be noted in some way that the real reason for the Hundred Years War was Aquitaine and Edward's claim on France was just a bargain counter. Fornadan 17:11, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)


I made the change but it needs to be improved FubarDac 21:10, 27 June 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Descendants of Edward III

For future reference:

http://www.compapp.dcu.ie/~humphrys/FamTree/Royal/famous.descents.html
Edward III is "often described as the ancestor of the British upper-middle class"
Number of estimated descendants of Edward III - I have seen 80 percent of the population of England quoted, which would conflict with the estimate for William the Conqueror above (it would imply that perhaps 75 percent of the population of Britain descend from William the Conqueror). Roderick W. Stuart claims millions of descendants of Edward III in America alone: "Edward III is the latest king from whom a large number of Americans and Europeans can claim descent. His American posterity numbers in the millions." [Stuart, 1998].

I just deleted a reference in the Audrey Hepburn article to her descent from Edward III. Descent from Edward is so common as to be irrelevant for most biographies of people since the 16th Century. I don't know if there's any reason to put this in the article itself. -Willmcw 21:45, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It might be "irrelevant" with regard to who Audrey Hepburn was as a person (also "irrelevant" might be a mention of her favorite food), and genealogical ties to royalty (or Mayflower ancestors, or famous people, or rich people) provides us only bragging rights, but it IS interesting to know that a descent has been proved. I descend from both William the Conqueror and Edward III, a number of times each, and sometimes when I see that a person I respect has traced back to a common ancestor, I like to have a look at the genealogy. (If Audrey and I both descend from Edward III, I might want to see who are actual closest relation was...) So, what one considers "irrelevant", some of us might find at least "interesting".

--ScottyFLL 04:03, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

It says that Edward used his mother as a "sexual plaything" - are there sources to back that up, because the article on Isabella itself does not mention it, but refers to her "doting on her grandchildren" and frequently visiting. Wee Jimmy 22:37, 25 January 2006 (UTC) Frodowilson 02:18, 18 June 2006 (UTC) I made a slight addition to this page that from books I've read seemed rather significant of Edward III's life. It was simply a little side not under domestic issues where I included that he was responsible for serious changes to Windsor Castle and he was principle in its transformation to be an incredibly important,and thus famous, castle. If the editors desire to delete I understand because I am a bit new to the system and I can admit that that information may not seem very interesting. I'll be watching this page. If an editor does delete it please give me a reason on the discussion page. For my own sake if nothing else so I can improve my skills. User:Frodowilson 21:17, 17 July 2006

I have to agree. It is very interesting to read about people's ancestry. Especially, if that person has the same relatives as you do. I myself, as the person above said, not to brag, but I am a direct descendent several times of Edward III and not just him but mostly all the Plantagenets through one line or another from both sides of my family. However, it took me seven years to find this information, and I only found most of it because I had the time and several of my ancestors were notable people in history so ther records were easy to find, which leads to my next point. I would also stress to be very careful when reading websites that deal with people's ancestry because the sites do not always do extensive research and many times can have incorrect information. The reason for this is because to do it the right way, it takes a long time, it is very expensive, and it depends on one's ancestors. Even when you get that information to find the connection you want, you will run into a lot of dead ends from relatives who were not so notable. As I would disagree with any sort of numbers calculating the percent of how many in a population are descended from a certain person, especially someone who only lived seven hundred years ago, just because you are born in the country they lived that does automatically mean you are descended from them. Also, the number of people who can prove it is extremely small compared to the number of people who can not. The only number I kinda agree with is that only 1% of the world's population is descended from any kind o European Royalty. RosePlantagenet 17:05, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

It's not a calculation. It's an estimate. And your "only" seven hundred years ago is thirty generations. Given someone like Edward who had a lot of children, many of them bastards, it's not remarkable in the least for many, many people to claim descent from him.
I also find this emphasis on "proven" genealogy to be odd, since it smacks of elitism and also sort of misses the point.--71.36.43.16 00:55, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] King of France

The title 'King of France' was finally abandoned by the English crown under the terms of the Treaty of Amiens in 1802, not the Act of Union in 1801. Rcpaterson 08:11, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Black Death

I removed the one reference I saw but not sure if i missed any. For future reference though bubonic plague is not the proper name for the epidemic, this is conjecture, the name is Black Death if you are writing about it. FubarDac 16:45, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Conjecture? I have never heard the Black Death described as being anything other than bubonic plague. john k 22:17, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Its been a long standing theory, very popular to teach kids it, hence why you heard it described as such. it makes a nice story to tell kids, rats brought by traders had flees which caused the plague. Recent studies have revealed that its questionable being a massive bubonic plague outbreak. The science just doesn't match. The rate of transmission, areas of transmition, means of transmition all don't really match bubonic plague. Look at the article on the Black Death they do a fairly good job of explaining it. The point really is there is no proof that it was bubonic pleague and the proper name to give the epedemic is Black Death. FubarDac 21:10, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Corrections, amendments and crowns.

I've removed some very clumsy, garbled and repetitive amendments. Also some minor corrections of fact. The main points are;

1. Edward was not born in France but at Windsor Castle: hence Edward of Windsor.

2. His father was murdered at Berkeley Castle sometime in 1327; that much we know, and very little besides. I'm sorry to disappoint lovers of the ghoulish and the gruesome but the 'hot poker theory' is a much later invention, not taking its final form until the sixteenth century. The suggestion that Isabella and Mortimer ordered this method of execution is laughably absurd. It is also absurd to propose that screams, no matter how loud, could be heard through the thick walls of Berkeley.

I also take issue with the suggestion that Edward had a 'good claim' to the throne of France. Even if the Salic Law was set aside by the time the claim was made Charles the Bad of Navarre, grandson of Louis X, had a superior right in terms of the law of primogeniture. Rcpaterson 07:58, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Arguably Edward had a good claim in 1328, by 1337, I agree, Charles the Bad had a superior claim, and Edward no longer has much of one. As far as I can tell, the English claim to the French throne was as much pretext as anything else. The main English goal was to gain sovereignty over Guyenne, and perhaps regain some of the other Angevin territories, if possible. john k 19:12, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, of course; and Edward was happy to drop the claim in 1360 for a much bigger slice of the French cake. I do, however, also believe that issues of title and succession should never be viewed in the abstract, divorced, that is, from considerations of national politics. Even without the Salic law I cannot conceive of any circumstances in which the French would have accepted the rule of an English king. Rcpaterson 22:29, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, the Salic Law in its final form was more or less made up in 1328 to justify the exclusion of Edward. Louis X's daughter's exclusion in 1316 was arguably as much because it was thought that she was probably illegitimate (her mother had been executed for adultery, iirc) as because of any Salic Law. And certainly there was no hint of Salic Law before 1316. john k 23:00, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

~

[edit] Revision

I have undertaken an extensive revision of this page. I found that the best way to do it was by a complete rewrite, and little of the old text has been preserved. Apologies to other editors, but I felt that this was the only way I could do it. These are the things I have deleted with extreme prejudice:

  • Connections between Edward III and the Wars of the Roses. As I have outlined in the article, stressing this connection implicitly misrepresents both the history of the Wars of the Roses and Edward’s policies. The long section on Edward’s sons and their relation to the civil wars of the next century has no place here, and I’ve delegated it to a separate article.
  • Information about how everybody in the Anglo-Saxon world descends from Edward III. With his many children it would have been peculiar if, after 700 years, they didn’t. This is useless trivia.
  • Anecdotal/false pieces of trivia. From the patently untrue story about Alice Perrers stealing Edward’s rings at his deathbed, to the lengthy speculations about the true owner of the original garter: Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information.

I would be happy to receive further suggestions for improvement. I do, however, believe this represents a significant improvement, and I will now set the article on the track to Features Article status. Eixo 00:46, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Aristocracy nationalised

Not a big issue, so I'll bring this up here instead of continuing on the FAC page. "the fear of a French invasion helped strengthen a sense of national unity, and nationalise the aristocracy that had been largely Anglo-French since the Norman conquest." What does it mean to "nationalise the aristocracy"? Did the aristocracy suddenly become English? Were they given documents saying they were English citizens? Was it just a mental shift? Was it a demographic change? I'm unsure how any of these (with the possible exception of the third) could be the direct result of "the fear of a French invasion". Am I missing something here? --Spangineeres (háblame) 15:52, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

It's a matter of a mental shift. We're talking about the process whereby an external enemy generates national unity, and the clearest expression of this is the adoption of English as a spoken and written language by the aristocracy. As I've pointed out, however, this was a gradual process, and was by no means complete by the end of Edward III's reign. An equally important event was the loss of all French possessions (except Calais) in the 1450s, which made the English nobility territorially confined to the British Isles. Hope that helps! Eixo 12:53, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image:Hundred Years War family tree.png

I've replaced this image with templated familytree. It seems to be better for providing links etc. If anyone thinks it does not fit the page, he can revert. --Ugur Basak 23:24, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Changes suggested by Tony

Thanks for your suggestions, I think they were highly useful. This is what I've done:

  • 50 year reign: I've changed the prose to try to make it both economical and correct.
  • Restoration of royal authority: I've changed this, but I'm trying to avoid to many sentences starting with "He..." Some might object to the passive.
  • I've changed "force" to "power". I believe this can be used for a country, as in calling the United States a superpower. I wish to retain the word "England", rather than changing it to something like "the English army", as one of the points I've tried to get across in the article is that success in war was due not only to military factors, but to the harvesting of all national resources.
  • "credited with the birth of the English nation": It can seem sweeping, so I've supported it with a reference. I will try to provide a page number as soon as possible. I think it deserves inclusion though, as it is in fact the central thesis of the latest authoritative, academic work on Edward.
  • Change "the king's" to "his": Done.
  • I've changed "oversaw" to "saw", which I think implies less of an active involvement.
  • As for the last paragraph, I agree that this might seem vague, POV and unreferenced by itself. But I've tried to follow WP:LEAD in providing "an overview of the main points", and the last paragraph of the introduction is a summery of the "Assessment and character" part, which is well referenced, neutral and elaborate. I'm not quite sure how I could have done this differently.

Eixo 12:24, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Scots

I have removed a contradiction in the article. In the summary it used to say "after subjugating the Scots" but in the more detailed section on "Early Reign" it is made clear that he failed in this enterprise, so I have changed the initial summary accordingly.

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