Erik Visits a (Non)-American Grave, Part 2,152
By This is the grave of King Henry III of England.
Born in 1207 in Winchester Castle, Hampshire, England, Henry was the son of King John, who has become infamous, perhaps unreasonably. Thanks Robin Hood! John died in 1216 and the nine year old Henry became king. This was in the First Barons’ War and of course Henry was too young to have much to do with it even when he became king. It was put down though. But in the late 1220s, Henry took over from the nobles who tried to rule in his name.
Like a lot of these kings, Henry was obsessed with the family lands in France. Those had been lost in 1224 and a 1230 invasion was basically a disaster. The short version of it is that the English forces just could not compete with the French. There wasn’t even a major battle before the English surrendered, or technically came to a truce and went home. In 1242, Henry tried another invasion of France. But at the Battle of Taillebourg, French forces absolutely hammered the English and really ended Henry’s belief that he could restore his father’s lost Angevin Empire, which included most of what is today western France along the Atlantic.
After that, he tended to just spend a lot of money on his foreign desires. He worked to create alliances with the Holy Roman Empire. He managed to get brother Richard of Cornwall named King of the Romans in 1257, which lasted for fifteen years and made him effectively king of Germany, despite the name. That was a big expression of Henry’s foreign policy right there. He then wanted to put his son Edmund on the Sicilian throne. Basically, Henry wanted to buy the office for his boy, then 9 years old, from the pope. And the pope was quite willing to sell the job. But then Henry couldn’t come up with the cash. Instead, he sold it to the French.
Henry was much more interested in administering England that kings that came before and most of those who came after him in the next couple of centuries. That was good and bad I suppose. He avoided too much military adventurism. He was deeply religious, particularly obsessed with Edward the Confessor, for whom he named his oldest son and heir. He also had a lot of help from his French half-brothers, the Poitevins, who would hold a lot of power over the court. This made the xenophobic English concerned about continental influence.
Henry was also deeply anti-Semitic. There was a large Jewish community in England and, as was common through Europe, they handled a lot of financial matters. The Christians were theoretically anti-usury, but they also required the financial services they could not provide themselves. So the Jews were useful but hated for the same reason they were useful. The Jews were also a potential source of taxation to the crown and that’s how Henry saw them. He taxed them and taxed them and taxed them and more or less forced them to shut down many of their operations. Then he issues the Statute of Jewry in 1253. This was basically segregation. It also, that’s right, forced Jews to wear a yellow badge to tell all the Christians who the bad people were. In case you thought that Nazis made that one up. Jews had special status in England–they were barred from some things but also were allowed to use highways toll free, gain physical protection upon entering castles, and hold land from the king. This could not quite get rid of that stuff, but it included not building new synagogues, being quiet in synagogues so that Christians couldn’t hear Jews, banning sex between Christians and Jews, and forcing Jews to abide by Christian Lent laws about eating meat, among other things. Just horrible stuff.
By 1258, the English barons had enough of the taxes for foreign adventurism. Plus, who do you think had the loans with the Jews that the king could now collect on? Why of course it was the rich. The Welsh were revolting by this time too. Henry was just an overbearing person, which is what you got when you had a king who tried to manage things, no one really wanted that. When the barons revolted, Henry backed down pretty fast, as he feared being overthrown and killed. But the barons couldn’t agree on anything either. The country was a mess for years. By 1263, England was basically in a civil war between the king and the barons. The barons started killing a lot of Jews to erase anyone saying they owned anything at all. In 1264, Henry’s forces were defeated by Simon de Montfort at the Battle of Lewes and for awhile, Simon was effectively king over a lot of the country. Henry and Crown Prince Edward both surrendered. But the barons continued to be divided, Edward escaped and then Henry, then Gilbert de Clare switched sides to them. They killed Simon in battle and Henry was again the king. But it was a rough several years there.
Henry wanted his revenge. He took a lot of land from rebels and there was a lot of looting. Rome intervened here to create stability and the Pope’s message got through to Henry. Much land was returned to rebel leaders in exchange for a lot of money. In his final years, Henry mostly worked on bringing the country back to some level of stability. One way to make himself more popular with the barons was repress the Jews some more. One thing that was real popular was claiming that Jews liked to sacrifice Christian children. Ah, England.
Later, there were beliefs that Henry was some kind of kind, gentle king. To say the least, that’s not the case. But when you have been dead for 800 years, there’s a lot of different swings in how people are going to view you.
Anyway, Henry died in 1272. He was 65 years old. That’s pretty old for medieval England for sure, but what’s truly remarkable is that he was on the throne for 56 years, which would remain the longest in English history until George III.
Henry III is buried in Westminster Abbey, London, England.
If you would like this series to visit some American Henrys, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. Henry Kissinger is in Arlington and Hank Greenberg is in Culver City, California. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.
Now, as you know, LGM is in its annual fundraiser. Yeah, I don’t love it either, but we have bills to pay. Anyway, in the silent auction, there is a competition to send me to a grave of your choice. There’s a lot of terrible people out there I haven’t visited–Kissinger! Reagan! McCarthy! Goldwater! Etc. Or maybe you want to see a family member in the series, heck I’d do it if you want. Anyway, take advantage of it.