Edward III’s Last Years

It was against this background that the political history of the final years of Edward III was played out: the reopening of Anglo-French hostilities after 1369, the King’s decline into ill health and senility, his virtual retirement from all state affairs save for his attendance, at Windsor each year, at the great junketings associated with the Order of the Garter and the feast of St George. In 1375, after a series of military humiliations and following vast expenditure on diplomatic display, a year-long truce was agreed by which, in farcical circumstances and without any thought for the consequences, the English negotiators forced the abandonment of recent gains in Brittany. The death of the Black Prince in June 1376, after a prolonged period of infirmity, not only deprived government of its most dashing military leader but opened up the question of the succession to the throne. The King’s younger son, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster as a result of his marriage to the heiress to Thomas of Lancaster’s once vast estate, now emerged as a potential rival to his nephew Richard of Bordeaux, born in 1367, son of the Black Prince, grandson of Edward III. Unflattering comparisons were drawn between the position of John of Gaunt in the 1370s and that of a previous King John of England, younger son of King Henry II, who in 1199 had seized the throne and accomplished the murder of his nephew, Arthur of Brittany. In 1376, John of Gaunt as effective vice-regent was forced to stand by as the so-called ‘Good Parliament’ took action against the more corrupt ministers of the King, including Edward III’s own mistress, Alice Perrers.