The Peasants’ Revolt 1381

Undoubtedly a major event in English history, this rebellion has been co-opted by various groups to make political capital. In particular many on the left have claimed it as an embryonic working class revolution, if from the Marxist line of history, a rather early one.

The truth, as ever, is rather less romantic, and as usual, several myths are involved. Far from revolutionaries, the insurgents converging on London in June 1381 supported the king. But they replaced the usual target of ‘evil counsellors’ by simply killing them, and murdered hundreds of innocent people along the way. Also the participants were not truly peasants (was England ever a peasant country?), but middle class and later, urban folk.

The background to what has more accurately been termed the Great Revolt is well enough known. With no adult king ruling, England had, since the death of Edward III been run by aristocrats and bureaucrats whose main aim had been to enrich themselves. This corruption was on both a local and national scale. It was compounded by price manipulation, three poll taxes to finance the long running war with France, and a series of land enclosures. On top of all this various parliamentary Acts, most notably the Statute of Labourers, 1351, sought, if not always successfully, to control the wages of ordinary working people.

Poll Tax

Under these burdens and with this provocation, especially the hated poll tax, the revolt began in May 1381 at Brentwood, Essex when tax commissioners were set on by villagers. This was the spark. Uprisings soon spread across the county and over to Kent. It was controlled and coherent ie. organised and well communicated, not the outpouring of ‘rustic underclass rage’ later chronicles suggested. Moves were co-ordinated between groups. It was angry, certainly, but focused. Tax and local commissioners were beheaded and their tax records publicly burnt. Jails were emptied and serfs freed. Thousands now marched on London taking their grievances to the capital. They demanded reduced taxation and to replace the king’s ‘evil counsellors’.

Tower of London 14th century

The rebels had no wish to kill or dethrone the teenage Richard II, nor to undermine the monarchy. They wanted to save it from itself. It was not the inevitable result of the class struggle beloved of Marxist historians, a political and social earthquake to transfer power and wealth - what we may term a ‘true revolution’. It was about fairer shares. The rebels’ early demands were to rid the country of corrupt officials, and the institutions and laws preventing people from living their lives free from undue state interference or illegitimate burdens.

Improving conditions

But despite the growing weight on peoples’ shoulders, the situation for many in this period was getting better. Statutes designed to cap wages after the Black Death of 1348-9 wiped out nearly half the English population, were increasingly ineffective as laws of labour demand and supply took over. Social mobility was developing as education improved general literacy rates. Personal wealth was growing, too, and against popular myth, water supplies improved so people were relatively clean. It all helped create a new ‘middle class’ - confident, ambitious, but with no say in how things were run.

It was these people, often with skills and even some land, who led the rebellion. A few were clerics and other professionals. Many of those protesting locally did not join the march on London. Thinking they had gained justice they went back home. But when in June thousands of others converged on the capital after failing to meet the king at Blackheath, the behaviour of some amounted to an orgy of violence and cruelty. Joined by many Londoners they murdered high ranking officials like Treasurer Robert Hales, and Archbishop of Canterbury Simon Sudbury. They also sacked several buildings, including the Savoy Palace, home of the king’s hated uncle, John of Gaunt, though he was away in Scotland. Most notoriously and horrifically, they killed some foreign residents, including about 80 Flemish weavers. Whatever the ends their means were particularly savage.

Killing of Wat Tyler at Smithfield 

At Mile End, the 14 year old king eventually met the rebels. But the crowd knelt down and their leaders welcomed him saying “Our Lord King Richard, we will have no other king but you”. Richard agreed to most of their demands which had grown into a fairly radical list - feudal serfdom abolished, no man to serve any other in England ‘except at his own will’, the right to buy and sell goods anywhere in the country, breaking the grip of the monopolies and guilds running the medieval economy; and the re-allocation of Church lands to the landless. Other demands were the execution of tax officials and other royal servants. Scribes were set to document letters on the agreement.

Smithfield confrontation

A day later, on June 15, with the rebels not departing and indeed entering the Tower, the king met them again at Smithfield. Richard was taking a risk, though perhaps not as much as the later narrative maintains - some sources speak of a reserve militia on standby. After an argument Wat Tyler was killed. He was stabbed by London’s Lord Mayor, William Walworth, with a dagger, and slashed by the king’s esquire, Ralph Standissh, with his sword. This might have been disastrous, but no. The king rode towards the rebels declaring himself their captain. Leave peacefully, and pardons would be honoured. Strangely, over the next few hours the throng gradually dispersed.

Richard II

The rebel leaders were supposedly Tyler and John Ball, the proto socialist priest. But Tyler was only a leader of the Kentish group and one of several who met the king. And there is little evidence Ball was even there - Lollards were not popular in London - and his line “When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman” seems not to have been current but attributed much later.  

Aftermath

There were smaller outbreaks of dissent and related riots in different areas of the country over the next year, from Bridgwater to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, though by October 1381 the most serious of them had been put down. Revenge was brutal. Over 2000 and maybe as many as 5000 rebels were killed in related fighting or executed before or after trial. The agreement to their demands was abrogated as having been secured under duress. Serfdom was restored, with more control of free tenants, and while it had been gradually dying out for economic reasons, it was another 100 years before it completely faded away. A general pardon was eventually made available to most rebels, but had to be bought by each person after admitting involvement.

Juliet Barker’s impressive work is a prime source on this episode. The Revolt had some obvious and even beneficial consequences. No new taxes were levied for years, and the costly war with France temporarily scaled back. There was in practice insufficient political or administrative infrastructure to maintain rebel demands even had they been granted. Even so, it was the first time a revolt against the state had been led not by the nobility, but by ordinary folk. And the first time in history English people demanded personal liberty from the king. Finally, it would be 600 years before the government levied another poll tax. Was this enough of a result?

The 100 Years War

Was this war really 100 years long? The interminable conflict was between England and France wasn’t it? How was the war paid for? Lots of men fought as soldiers at various points but who were they and how were they recruited? In any case what were the English doing in France where they surely had no business to be? And how did it all end - indeed who were the winners?

This series of conflicts actually lasted from 1337 to 1453, 116 years in total, and formally, if not actually, for another 20 until a final peace deal was signed. And no, it wasn’t just an English Plantagenet and French Valois struggle to rule the kingdom of France. While these were the key protagonists, at various stages the Papal States, Scotland, Flanders, Portugal, Castile, Aragon, Genoa and Bohemia were involved. For good measure, Brittany, Burgundy and Gascony/Guyenne, supporting one side or another, gave it the character of a civil war. It all flared up into an extensive European conflict, the first of its kind.

Dynastic legacy of the Conquest

The immediate causes were first, that in 1328, the last French king of the Capet line, Charles IV, had died with no male heir. The closest male relative was his nephew, the English king Edward III, son of his sister, Queen Isabella. But feelings ran strongly against him, so Charles’ cousin, Philip, Count of Valois, took the throne. Isabella had claimed it for her son but this was rejected, with the old fifth century Salic law blocking female succession dusted down and invoked to justify the move. England had not expected the claim to succeed.

But tensions continued. French attacks on English shipping in the Channel did not help, nor did French aid to the Scots raiding England’s northern region. France had also been steadily chipping away at Edward’s lands in its south west, in Guyenne (Gascony - the terms seem for most purposes to be largely interchangeable). This territory was a legacy of vast lands brought in the 12^th century to the Angevin monarchy by Eleanor of Aquitaine. Finally in 1337 Philip seized Guyenne, prompting Edward to formally claim the French throne.

Arguments about English possessions in France went back to 1066, another unforeseen result of the Conquest. Duke William of Normandy owed formal homage to the king of France so as English king he and later Norman/Angevin rulers were technically vassals for their vast French territories. As kings, could they truly do homage to another king with the power to revoke legal decisions made by England in Aquitaine? Inherently unstable.

At the start of what was to become the 100 Years War France was a third of today’s size. Provinces like Brittany, Burgundy and Aquitaine were ruled separately. It’s wrong to think of the modern notion of nation states, and better to see it as several dynastic quarrels and a succession of civil wars. After all, Edward III was himself by pedigree 62.5% French.

Three main phases 

The complex series of conflicts splits into three periods - 1337-1360 (plus the side issue of the Breton succession); 1369-1389 (Caroline phase); and after 25 years’ peace, 1415-1453 (Lancastrian phase). This latter stage was begun by England’s Henry V, but from the 1429 siege of Orleans, France and her allies had the upper hand. The war had started well for England. At the 1340 battle of Sluis she utterly destroyed the French fleet, and from then had continuous control of the channel. There followed success on land at Crécy 1346, and Poitiers 1356. Between the two was the small matter of the Black Death killing 30-50% of the population on both sides of the Channel, and Europe generally.

Crecy 1346

1n 1360 France signed the Treaty of Bretigny. The French king John had been held captive in England after Poitiers. His ransom was reduced by 1m crowns to 3m. Edward renounced Normandy, Touraine, Anjou and Maine in return for the doubtful prize of more territory in Aquitaine. A sort of peace prevailed, despite fighting ‘offline’ in Navarre and Castile.

But in 1369 the Black Prince raised taxes in his expanded Aquitaine, and the province was soon in full revolt. The French king Charles V declared all English lands in France forfeit, so the war resumed.

From then on under Charles, France pushed back. In 1372 its ally Castile won a naval victory off La Rochelle against England. The Black Prince died in 1376 followed by his father Edward the next year. Then in 1380 Charles died. England had been reduced to Calais and a few other ports. The Duke of Buckingham began a campaign of destruction, but plague and high taxes slowed the pace. The war was running out of steam, losing popularity in both countries. England had problems with Scotland, and a Welsh revolt, too. A truce was signed in 1389.

Battle of La Rochelle 1372

Over 25 years passed before it started again. Henry V sought to reclaim the lost Plantagenet territories, and for a spell looked to have succeeded. A spectacular win in 1415 at Agincourt was the start. Henry recovered Normandy and joined Burgundy to force the French King Charles VI to agree his (Henry's) heirs should inherit the throne of France. He married the Valois princess Catherine who produced a son. But Henry suddenly died (probably of dysentery) in 1422. From then on France steadily recovered ground with some major victories at Patay, Formigny and Castillon (1453), recognised as the last battle in this attenuated imbroglio.

Agincourt 1415

The century long series of wars was at last fought to a standstill. So did it end pretty well where it started, without a winner? No. England was clearly beaten. Many of us never heard of French battlefield successes. And if France lost half its population during the period much of this was due to the plague. A ruinously costly exercise leaving England with no French possessions except Calais. It encouraged a mood of nationalism in both countries, creating long term antipathy and bitterness.

Wars are expensive things, so how was it paid for? In the first phases, the English effort was financed by wool taxes on exports, then by booty and ransoms, before major property taxes on the landed classes and Church. It was fought mainly by mercenaries, not serfs or rural tenants for England. But the French side relied first on men at arms, mercenary archers and ordinary peasants, until a professional army was formed later on.

Castillon 1453

The outcome contributed to the so called Wars of the Roses, starting in 1455, two years after Castillon. Those English families who had long held lands in France lost them completely, leaving them more open to involvement in a factional conflict nearer home. Yet it’s worth pointing out that more men were perhaps killed in one day at Towton than on the English side in any of the 100 Years War battles.  

Chivalry

The Age of Chivalry seemed to expire, too. While a military figure like Sir Walter Manny used some of his spoils for good works at home (London’s Charterhouse for instance), this was not always true. Artillery was deployed in Europe for the first time at Crécy. Quick firing longbow archers showed the limitations of the chivalric armoured mounted knight. But perhaps the last gasp of this culture belongs to the captured King John of France. While he’d left London to help raise his ransom, his son escaped from captivity. On a point of honour John returned to London voluntarily as a hostage where he died in 1364.

Motto of the Black Prince

In what is recognised as a fiendishly complicated and multi-faceted saga Jonathan Sumption’s monumental four volume study is the most detailed work on the whole conflict. An uncompromising tour de force including detailed maps to help illuminate this decidedly complex subject.

Edward II, Isabella and Mortimer

One story in English history has long been the subject of public fascination. That is the 1307 to 1330 period of Edward II, his wife Isabella, her presumed lover and co-conspirator, Roger Mortimer, plus a few other characters. Some of the tales in this saga are simply untrue. Others are at least exaggerated or of questionable merit. But the whole has the modern feel of an extended lurid Sunday tabloid story, with all the attendant titillation. And with its bucket load of myths, it seems to have firmly captured the public imagination.

The brief background to the story is that Edward became king on the death of his father, Edward I, in July 1307. He was born in April 1284 at Caernarfon and was allegedly presented to the Welsh as the prince guaranteed not to speak English. This myth dates from 200 years after the event. He was 23 when assuming the throne, but had not impressed either his father or the leading magnates as having the ‘right stuff’ to be king. This was partly as he liked the practical aspects of outdoor life - digging ditches, roofing, swimming and rowing - which at the time were deemed inappropriate for a king.

Edward II

Edward was keen on another man at court, Piers Gaveston, whom he had known since he was 16. The friendship was regarded as too close by his father and others. So was Edward a homosexual? Well he wasn’t averse to women. In 1308 he fathered an illegitimate son, Adam, who died in 1322. He also likely had an incestuous sexual relationship with his eldest niece, Eleanor de Clare. He had three children later with his wife Isabella, who had been barely 12 years old when they married in January 1308. Good looking, six feet tall and very strong. he was also courageous in battle. This is as far as you can get from the effete, mincing fop portrayed in popular culture.

Question of sexuality

In fact Edward was probably bisexual, hard in an age where such a trait would not have been recognised, let alone approved. The most significant relationship he had in his life was the one with Piers Gaveston. He showed all the symptoms of infatuation, showering him with lands, titles and honours. When departing for Boulogne to marry Isabella he scandalised the kingdom by appointing Gaveston as regent of England as opposed to one of his half-brothers, or perhaps his cousin, the earl of Lancaster, which would have been customary.

Gaveston himself was married, and a father. Isabella herself became pregnant four years after the royal wedding, in 1312, when she was 16. Rather than the seemingly unnatural relationship between the two men, it was the favouritism that infuriated the nobility at the time. Gaveston made it worse by insulting and ridiculing certain leading figures, which didn’t go down well. As he controlled state patronage his attitude and behaviour riled many of the barons. They forced his exile three times - in 1307, 1308 and 1311- but on each occasion he soon returned as Edward essentially refused to accept his banishment. It all got too much for the nobility and in June 1312 Gaveston was brutally killed by two Welshmen for a group of magnates led by the earls Lancaster and Warwick.

Seal of Edward II

Edward was inconsolable and nurtured a desire for vengeance on those responsible. But fast forward 10 years. After a decade of misgovernment, battles lost to the Scots and a terrible two year famine, England was coming under the effective control of the Despenser family. Power hungry and avaricious, Hugh Despenser and his son, also Hugh, used their influence over Edward to seize lands, notably in the Welsh marches and generally to enrich themselves at the expense of established noble families. This friction was leading to civil war with the barons against the king and the Despensers. Among the rebels was the previously loyal ex Lieutenant of Ireland, Roger Mortimer, imprisoned in the Tower in February 1322, and Thomas earl of Lancaster, executed in March.

Isabella estranged

18 months later Mortimer escaped to France, with which England was sliding into war. At King Charles IV’s court he attracted a group of exiles, amid growing opposition to the Despensers. He met up in 1325 with Queen Isabella, who had persuaded Edward to let her use her influence with Charles (her brother) to try and secure peace between the countries. Her son Edward, standing in for his father in doing homage to Charles, later joined her. This proved a key piece in the game. Isabella had become estranged from her husband, who was increasingly under the sway of the younger Hugh Despenser, rather as he had been with Gaveston. Isabella repeatedly refused to return to England while Despenser was around but the king adamantly declined to remove him.

Isabella landing in England 1326

Isabella and Mortimer, with the heir, young Prince Edward, under their control, joined forces to plan an invasion of England. They were helped by William of Hainaut, who in return secured for his daughter Philippa a marriage to young Edward. With a few exiles, notably Henry the new earl of Lancaster, but fewer than 1500 men, they landed on the River Orwell in September 1326. Within a few weeks they had seized London. King Edward and the Despensers had fled. The king was forced to abdicate, with the Despensers hanged and mutilated.    

What happened to Edward?

Edward allegedly died after confinement in Berkeley castle on 21 September 1327, though it was not clear how, or if he was killed, by whom. The matter was left vague for some time. If he was murdered the later tale of a red hot poker is clearly a myth. The people named as killers were never really punished. But in fact he may not have been murdered at all as historians have increasingly used archival and other evidence (or lack of it) to question the accepted narrative. His body was not properly verified, the message of his death was not confirmed by other sources, and Thomas earl of Berkeley, in whose care he was placed, later denied in parliament that he had ever heard of any murder. Strangely Edward’s half-brother, the earl of Kent, plus Melton, Archbishop of York, with a large group, believed two years later that he was still alive. They laid elaborate and well-resourced plans to rescue him from his purported confinement in Corfe Castle. Kent was caught and executed by Mortimer very quickly for this attempt to spring an apparently dead man.

Passage at Berkeley Castle where Edward was supposedly held 

Finally a document called the Fieschi letter suggested Edward had been smuggled out to Italy and that he was being used to blackmail his son, the new King Edward. The Fieschi family was wealthy, strong in ecclesiastical circles and well connected politically. An individual named as William le Galeys in the letter (possibly the exiled king) may even have met his son, the current king, in Flanders, though this is clothed in more secrecy. The work of historian Ian Mortimer on this whole episode is both extensive and forensic and has not been effectively challenged.

Were Isabella and Roger sexual partners? Quite probably. They were believed latterly in medieval times to have been, but hard evidence has been pretty scant. Mortimer, himself married to the very wealthy Joan Geneville, clearly worked together with Isabella politically. When they ran the country as regents for the teenage Edward III for three years or so from 1327 to 1330 their behaviour was greedy and arrogant. Mortimer, circumspect at the start, later amassed lands and titles while Isabella had 30% of crown revenues paid personally to her - the highest in history. It was what we might now term a kleptocracy. Old backers deserted the pair, regarding them as no better than the Despensers they had replaced. In October 1330 what amounted to an internal coup by the 18 year old Edward and his friends removed Mortimer from power. The following month he was tried as a traitor in London and hanged at Tyburn.

Isabella in popular history  

As for Isabella she was painted for centuries as a scarlet woman, nicknamed the ‘French she-wolf’. She was said to have been party to murdering her husband, though she sent him letters and gifts while he was in captivity. Confined briefly in 1330, she then lived out her life post Mortimer in honourable retirement and relative freedom. But sentiment see-sawed more recently as she was depicted as the wronged woman, the mistreated and humiliated wife who acted with her lover to take control of her destiny. This narrative from the Mills and Boon school of history, unfortunately so beloved of popular TV programmes today, is just as much nonsense as the she-wolf routine.

Isabella in truth was just a woman of her time, driven by the culture and beliefs of 700 years ago. She guarded her royalty jealously and would have been happy to marry Edward, king of England, as royal as she was herself. She proved politically clever but should not be judged, or rather romanticised, by modern standards and cast simplistically as a stereotype, says Kathryn Warner, rightly. She had a very cruel streak and was greedy and self-serving when in power. But who wasn’t? Spurning all the myths we might be better assessing all these characters simply as 14th century Europeans.

Not invaded since the Norman Conquest

One prevailing myth is that England has not been invaded since 1066. There have been endless incursions by Scottish and French backed forces at various times, plus attacks by everyone from Welsh neighbours to Spaniards and even Barbary pirates. But leave out the hundreds of such limited forays, stealing cattle, crops and seizing slaves. If we just focus on where, directly or indirectly, ‘regime change’ was involved, there were still five major invasions involving foreign troops. Some are unknown to many people, and school history lessons were not always energetic at covering them.

1) 1216 Louis

Arrival of Prince Louis from France

The French Prince Louis invaded with up to 700 ships. King John, quite the worst monarch in English history, had junked Magna Carta within a fortnight of it being sealed in June 1215, his move strongly supported by the Pope. Having shown he couldn’t be trusted, John resumed his old ways. The Council of 25 leading magnates which Magna Carta set up to advise the monarch decided enough was enough and encouraged Prince Louis, son of the French king Phillipe Augustus, to come to England as a replacement. Louis duly did so, with a large army. He was welcomed as a saviour, and despite Dover castle holding out against him, was proclaimed king in London.

Over half the country, including London, was soon under French rule. John fled but died at Newark, probably of dysentery, losing his baggage and treasury in the Wash. But his death rather obviated the need for Louis - John’s young son Henry could succeed without the tiresome need to redefine bloodline inheritance rules. Henry, protected by strongman William Marshall, was swiftly crowned king in October. With the main problem solved, Louis' English support rather evaporated. After a defeat at Lincoln and a naval disaster in 1217, he returned peacefully to France, a move sweetened by a £10,000 bribe.

2) 1326 Mortimer and Isabella

Mortimer and Isabella at the execution of Hugh Despenser

Another successful invasion of England, after years of chronic misrule by Edward II and his favourite clan, the Despensers. Many landed families had been robbed of property and title by the arbitrary power of Hugh Despenser and his son, to whom Edward seemed in thrall. Many of them went into exile in France, coalescing around Roger Mortimer, formerly a powerful magnate with extensive Welsh Marches lands, and a bitter enemy of the Despensers. Mortimer had escaped from the Tower in August 1323.

Edward's queen, Isabella of France, had visited her brother, the French King Charles IV, in 1325. She was later joined by her son Edward. But despite endless pleas from her husband she refused to return to England unless the Despensers - who'd contrived to confiscate her lands - were removed from power. King Edward, mesmerised by Hugh the younger, refused to do this.

Mortimer and Isabella worked together. They may have developed a sexual relationship too, though this is not certain, and in any case it is likely to have started as a pragmatic political alliance. But soon Charles was under pressure from Edward not to give succour to this obviously conspiratorial pair, so they left Paris - Isabella to her county of Ponthieu and Mortimer to Hainault. Roger Mortimer had seen his chance to use the leverage offered by Isabella and her son to put together a small mainly French force to invade England. He was backed by the Count of Hainault in return for his daughter Philippa’s betrothal to Edward’s son. Accompanied by Henry Earl of Lancaster, but counting on the support of disaffected people locally, the force of only 1500 or so landed in September 1326 at the Orwell estuary.

Within a few weeks most of the English nobility had rallied to Mortimer and Isabella, chasing the Despensers, Edward and their few supporters from London and into Wales. By the end of the year the Despensers had been caught, and after sham trials were ritually hanged, drawn and quartered, while Edward was imprisoned for nearly a year. Regime change in primary colours.

Roger Mortimer and Isabella ruled for over three years, as guardians of the young Edward III. But they steadily lost support as their behaviour in power mirrored that of the clique they had usurped. In fact their selfishness and greed soon lost them the backing of the enthusiasts who had helped oust Edward II and the Despensers. In 1330 the 18 year old son, Edward, mounted an internal 'coup' deposing (and later killing) Mortimer, cutting his mother Isabella's vast income, and initially placing her under restraint. There is still doubt about the fate of his father Edward II, but none about the son, who as Edward III reigned for 50 years in what was widely regarded as a triumph of kingship.

3) 1399 Henry IV

Henry Bolingbroke, later King Henry IV, invaded from France to oust his cousin, Richard II. The roots of their quarrel went back several years. Richard had become king on the death of his grandfather Edward III, who had reigned for 50 years. Bolingbroke was also a grandson of Edward, his father being John of Gaunt, Richard’s uncle.

Richard assumed the throne in 1377, when he was young (10) and immature. He steadily became more difficult to deal with, and pompous in his attitudes and behaviour. His cousin Henry, with whom he had partly grown up as a boy, was generally loyal and patient with him, as indeed was John of Gaunt, who had carried influence in the kingdom when Richard was younger. But Richard, convinced he’d been put in place by God, was flushed with an overwhelming sense of entitlement. His steadily worsening behaviour, rather like that of his great grandfather Edward II, lost him a lot of friends.

Matters came to a climax in 1397, when Richard moved against a powerful group of aristocrats. While such moves may have been common in medieval times, what was less so was his vengeful treatment of opponents, killing or forcing a clutch of them into exile. These next two years were later called the ‘tyranny’. Those banished included Henry. When Gaunt died in 1399 Richard disinherited Henry of the vast Lancastrian patrimony. This was to attack head on England’s richest and most powerful landed political interest. Henry was left with no alternative but to seek to recover his lands and title.

Henry, based in France but without the support of that country, set sail from Boulogne with a small force (perhaps only 500 men, mostly from Picardie) fully resolved to rid England of its unstable misfit king or die in the attempt. He landed at the mouth of the Humber on 4^th July 1399. Richard, in Ireland, returned immediately. But Henry quickly picked up support from the Northern lords and from his Lancastrian heartlands, where righteous indignation at Richard’s behaviour was especially strong. Important families like the Percys rallied to him. Within 10 days he knew he had most of the country on his side.

With Thomas Arundel, former Archbishop of Canterbury advising him, Henry had himself declared King Henry IV. At his coronation on 13 October 1399, he gave an address in English, the first monarch to do so since 1066. Richard was deposed and imprisoned, but what to do with him? Not wanting a focus for opposition to the new regime, it seems he was just starved to death in February 1400 while in confinement at Pontefract Castle.

4) 1485 Henry Tudor

Henry Tudor (who became Henry VII), invaded England to oust Richard III. The background to this is well known. On the death of his brother Edward IV in 1483, Richard, whose main title was Duke of Gloucester, moved with breathtaking opportunism. He had several powerful figures, including some from his sister in law’s Woodville family, killed. He also took Edward’s sons (his nephews), one of whom was the new King Edward V. These boys, later called the ‘Princes in the Tower’, were never seen alive again.

Henry, Earl of Richmond, had a weak claim to the English throne. He was descended from Henry V’s wife Catherine of Valois, and her second husband, Owen Tudor. The last Lancastrian claimant after the civil war, he was promptly labelled a usurper. But Richard was hardly the soul of legitimacy, either, as the brother of a king who had just grabbed the throne, and who himself had almost certainly had his nephews murdered. It’s surprising that historians with a royalist bias on succession seem to forget the numerous English monarchs who either seized the crown by conquest, were themselves usurpers, or were closely descended from usurpers. Also several British monarchs were ‘unsuitable’ and simply had to be removed. The only way to do this was through death or exile, hoping there might be a son to inherit. Not always the case, of course. A major weakness, perhaps, in this approach to finding a head of state.

Even many loyal Yorkists were sickened by Richard’s behaviour. Henry, based in Brittany since 1471, gained financial and political support from a growing number of people who simply wanted to get rid of the king. Henry’s mother, Margaret Beaufort, was an influential operator, too. Descended from Edward III, she offered a route for a stronger royal claim for Henry. And importantly, she was married (her fourth husband) to one of the powerful Stanley family.

Henry was coming under pressure in Brittany, as Richard pressed Duke Francis to hand over to him this exiled figure who represented such a threat. So he moved to France, and gained some support - about 2000 mercenary French soldiers, plus some Scots. He then picked up Welsh and English supporters after landing at Milford Haven, near his birthplace, in August 1485. A few weeks later his force, though far inferior to Richard’s, defeated and killed the king at Bosworth Field. The Stanley contingent stood aside until coming late into the fray on the side of Henry. It was the start of the new Tudor dynasty, an obvious case of regime change.  

5) 1688 William of Orange 

A Dutch force successfully invaded England. Stuart King James II (and VII of Scotland), was ousted, and a new regime and government took power. The episode, often called the ‘Glorious Revolution’. had a profound effect not only on the history of England, but on the British Isles as a whole. It was also to have a big impact on wider European history.

James had succeeded his brother Charles II in 1685. He was a Catholic with close ties to Louis X1V’s France, Europe’s dominant power. Over three years he steadily became more involved in the religion-based British political struggles between Catholics and Protestants. Attempts to increase Catholic representation in the government, army and universities alienated him from both parties in England and from the Scottish Protestants. He dismissed judges opposing his demand to dispense with Acts of Parliament and also quarrelled with the Anglican hierarchy over the Declaration of Indulgence. At the same time he built up the standing army to a huge strength of 34,000, with Catholics in powerful positions. Indeed in Ireland the army was purged of Protestants.

All this was worrying, yet as James had no son the succession would be via his daughter Mary, a Protestant, married to his nephew, Dutch Stadtholder William of Orange. But things reached a crisis when in June 1688 James’ wife gave birth to a son, changing the dynamics. A new Catholic dynasty in the British Isles seemed certain. To compound the problem, Louis XIV’s aggressive moves against French Huguenots had caused up to 900,000 refugees to flee France, outraging Europe’s Protestants. The fear was of a Catholic England allied with an aggressively absolutist Catholic France.

William was an accomplished political strategist, with a wide international perspective. He convinced the main Dutch States that an invasion of England was needed and was helped in this by an invitation from seven leading English figures to free their country from James’ rule. Having expected to succeed to this throne with his wife Mary, the birth of a son to James simply accelerated William’s plan. He landed in November 1688 at Torbay, with 450 ships and 20,000 well trained and equipped troops. After a few skirmishes and the desertion of several of James’ army units and commanders, including John Churchill, William’s forces advanced to occupy London. On 23 December James was allowed to escape to France.

The 1689 Bill of Rights is the foundation of Britain’s constitutional monarchy. Catholicism would not be re-established nor would absolute power ever be held by the monarch. Various ‘Jacobite’ attempts were made by James, supported by Louis, to recover his crown. One clash was on the Boyne, 30 miles north of Dublin in July 1690. A multinational force beat James’ Irish and French troops. While the Boyne is commemorated, the more decisive battle was Aughrim in July 1691.

Some historians have had a limited, too locally British, view of this episode. William had no real interest in being king of England. But he was determined to stop French Catholic domination of Europe, so to this end having England’s resources, plus English military and trading power, were vital. The Grand Alliance he put together, including Dutch, Danish, German, Huguenot and English forces, did successfully halt French ambitions. This wider European struggle is the context in which the Glorious Revolution should be understood.

British foreign policy 

A postscript. William’s policy of alliance building to stop an autocratic power dominating Europe has been a foundation of British foreign policy before and since. Until now, as the country has abandoned it on the Brexit altar. The resulting image is of the hapless UKIP supporter, shaking his stick at the modern world and crying defiance from the White Cliffs of Dover.

Richard Weight, in his 2002 study of the modern British search for identity, says wartime politicians, historians, poets and media drew explicit parallels with the Elizabethan and Napoleonic eras. “They portrayed Hitler as the latest in a long line of jumped-up, power-crazed Continental dictators, and emphasised the unshakeable continuity of ‘the island story’”. Says the head scratching conservative writer Max Hastings, “What is remarkable is not that this thesis exercised such power over British imaginations in 1940, but that it continues to do so 80 years later”.