Book description
He ordered his uncle to be beheaded; he usurped his father's throne;
he started a war which lasted for more than a hundred years, and taxed
his people more than any other previous king. Yet for centuries Edward
III was celebrated as the most brilliant king England had ever had,
and three hundred years after his death it was said that his kingship
was perhaps the greatest that the world had ever known.
In this first full study of the man's character and life, Ian
Mortimer shows how Edward personally provided the impetus for much of
the drama of his fifty-year reign. Edward overcame the tyranny of his
guardians at the age of seventeen and then set about developing a new
form of awe-inspiring chivalric kingship. Under him the feudal kingdom
of England became a highly organised, sophisticated nation, capable of
raising large revenues and deploying a new type of projectile-based
warfare, and without question the most important military nation in
Europe. Yet under his rule England also experienced its longest period
of domestic peace in the middle ages, giving rise to a massive
increase of the nation's wealth through the wool trade, with huge
consequences for society, art and architecture. It is to Edward that
we owe our system of parliamentary representation, our local justice
system, our national flag and the English language as the 'tongue of
the nation'.
Nineteenth century historians saw in Edward the opportunity to decry
a warmonger, and painted him as a self-seeking, rapacious,
tax-gathering conqueror. Yet as this book shows, beneath the strong
warrior king was a compassionate, conscientious and often merciful man
- resolute yet devoted to his wife, friends and family. He emerges as
a strikingly modern figure, to whom many will be able to relate - the
father of both the English nation and the English people.
Ian Mortimer was educated at Eastbourne College, Exeter University
and University College London. He has worked for several archival and
historical research organisations, including Devon Record Office,
Reading University, the Historical Manuscripts Commission and Exeter
University. He is married with three children and lives on the edge of
Dartmoor. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in
1998 and his most recent book is
The Greatest Traitor
(published by Cape in 2003).
