Edward III: A Medieval Fable

In medieval England, the King had far more power than did the feudal kings ruling over other lands. He had direct authority over all parts of his realm. His officials dealt directly with all his subjects. His rule was not limited to simply commanding fealty from his feudal barons.

The English king's power also was enhanced by the substantial sources of income at his disposal.

But his supply of money was not unlimited, and war -- even in those days -- was expensive.

And by 1376, England was exhausted after nearly forty years of fighting the French monarch -- the so-called Hundred Years War. The technical rationale for the war was Edward III's claim to be King of France, as well as King of England, Duke of Aquitaine, Count of Anjou, etc., etc., etc., but the war developed many confusing subplots. The King of England already controlled a large portion of present day France before the war began, and most of his battles were fought over possession of territory, cities and castles. His knights often waged war simply for the sake of war, leading to indiscriminate slaughter, not only of soldiers but also "collateral damage" to common citizens and destruction of their homes and farms.

The real objectives of the war were not always clear, and the military campaigns undertaken were not always clearly directed to accomplishment of any specific objective.

By 1376, Edward III had ruled for two and a half years without calling Parliament into session. He preferred not to face Parliament, because he recognized the great dissatisfaction throughout England over his conduct of the war, the corruption among his officials, and other issues. His earlier dispatch of the Black Prince to France to manage the war effort had led to the capture of the city of Limoges and the slaughter of all of its inhabitants. This English "surge" had only increased anti-English sentiment among the French, and now English coastal cities themselves were being threatened by French "terrorists."

Finally, with the war clearly not going well and having exhausted all of his royal sources of income in paying for it, the King was forced to call Parliament into session to vote him additional taxes. As Professor J. P. Sommerville writes on his University of Wisconsin website:

Parliament's self-assertion peaked in the "Good Parliament" (1376.) The combination of high taxation and military failure in France produced a parliament determined to reform government. It attacked many of Edward III's ministers for corruption.

A newly elected Speaker of the House of Commons took the initiative in standing up to the king. According to a Wikipedia article,

Peter de la Mare, a knight representing Hereford, had been elected as Speaker by the House of Commons, and on the first day he delivered an address criticizing England's recent military failures, condemning the corruption at court, and calling for close scrutiny of the royal accounts.

The King was forced to give the royal assent to various reforms voted by Parliament in order to obtain the necessary funds to continue fighting the war.

The Good Parliament, as it became known, was not only popular at the time, but has remained enshrined in English history as one of the landmarks in the development of the modern British concept that the King acts only through Parliament or, in effect, that Parliament governs the nation in the name of the King.

Curiously enough, no one in these history books criticizes the Good Parliament, or its Speaker, for not supporting the English troops on the ground in France. Not even King Edward III himself, so far as we know, ever exclaimed: "If we're not going to stand up to them in France, we're not going to take them on in France and defeat them there, where and when will we do it?"

I guess those were primitive times. Six centuries later, our wiser leaders can only look back and shake their heads.