Edward III

Edward III, King of England, was born on November 13, 1312 at Windsor Castle, Berkshire. His parents were King Edward II and his queen, Isabella of France.

In 1328, Edward married Phillipa of Hainult, a union which eventually produced twelve children, nine of which lived to adulthood. When Edward was 14, Queen Isabella and her lover, Roger Mortimer, deposed his father, Edward II, and on February 1, 1327, young Edward was crowned at Westminster Abbey as the new King of England.

In 1330, after reigning for three years under his mother's and Mortimer's domination, Edward III instigated a palace revolt and gained control of the government, executing Mortimer and exiling Isabella from court. In 1333, Edward III defeated King David II of Scotland, driving the Scots king into exile. The Hundred Years' war was sparked by French assistance to the Scots, their agrression in Gascony, and Edward's own claim to the throne of France (through his mother, Isabella). The battles of Crecy (1346) and Calais (1347) established English supremacy in French territories, but the Black Death halted additional fighting until 1355, when the English invaded France. During the Battle of Poitiers, Edward, the Black Prince, eldest son of Edward III, defeated the French and captured her king, John. In 1359, the French finally surrendered and negotiated for peace as the Black Prince surrounded Paris with his army.

In 1348, Edward III founded what is now the most senior and the oldest British Order of Chivalry, the Order of the Garter. The order consists of the King and twenty five knights, and was intended by Edward III to be reserved as the highest reward for loyalty and military merit. The original founder knights, including Edward III's son, the Prince of Wales (the Black Prince), all served in the French campaigns.

Unfortunately for the English, by the time hostilities with France were rekindled in 1369, their army (now led by the King's third son, John of Gaunt) was considerably weaker after another bout of the plague, and by 1375, Edward was forced to agree to the Treaty of Bruges, which left only the towns of Calais, Bordeaux, and Bayonne in English control.

In 1377, one year following the death of his eldest son, Edward III succumbed to death himself on June 21 at Sheen Palace, Richmond, Surrey. Edward III is buried in Westminster Abbey near his successor, his grandson and the Black Prince's son, Richard II.