Edward III., son of the preceding, was born at Windsor, 13th November 1312, and was crowned king 29th January 1327. During his minority the country was governed nominally by a council of regency, but really by Mortimer and his paramour Isabella. Early in 1328 the young king married Philippa of Hainault, and two years later seized Mortimer and put him to death, banishing his unworthy mother, Isabella, to her remaining twenty-seven years of privacy in Castle Rising. He next invaded Scotland to assist Edward Baliol, son of John Baliol, who, in the confusion that ensued on the death of the great Bruce, had made a descent on the country, and got himself crowned at Scone. In a bloody battle fought at Halidon Hill, near Berwick, 19th July 1333, the Scots were completely defeated, whereupon Baliol assumed the authority of a king, and did homage to Edward for his possessions, but a few months later had to flee from the kingdom. In the course of three years Edward thrice invaded Scotland, but though he frightfully wasted the country, and brought armies such as could not be met in the field, he could not break the invincible spirit of the people, who, after each invasion had rolled over them like a flood, rallied anew with a still more stubborn resolution to be free. But the scene of Edward's great exploits was France. Charles IV. having died without a son, Philip of Valois, the nearest heir by the male line, ascended the throne, under the title of Philip VI. Edward claimed the crown in right of his mother Isabella, sister of Charles; but as the law of France expressly excluded females from enjoying sovereign rights, it is needless to say that his claim was utterly groundless. The English king admitted that his mother, being a female, could not inherit the crown of France, but affirmed that he, as her son, might. But it is clear that he could not receive from his mother rights to which she herself had no claim. Yet never was a bad cause redeemed from baseness with more splendid triumphs. Edward declared war against Philip in 1337, raising money unsparingly by tallages, forced loans, and seizing wool for which it is true he promised to pay in the course of two years. Spite of the brilliant sea-victory at Sluys in 1340, the war was at first singularly unsuccessful, and Edward soon found himself at issue with his nobles, and especially the princes of the church, and was compelled to purchase the grants of money necessary for the war with concessions of privileges, which he occasionally endeavoured to evade by subterfuges that his grandfather would have scorned. At length in 1346, accompanied by his eldest son, known as the Black Prince, he again invaded France, conquered a great part of Normandy, marched to the very gates of Paris, and on the 26th August 1346, inflicted a terrible defeat on the French at the famous field of Crécy. Here the Black Prince, though but sixteen years old, exhibited the most heroic courage. After some further successes, and the fall of Calais after a twelvemonth's siege, a truce for a few months was concluded between the two nations, afterwards from time to time extended. Just before the surrender of the famished citizens of Calais, occurred the heroic incident of Eustace de St Pierre and his five companion burgesses of Calais, who offered themselves as victims to the king's fury to save their fellow-citizens, and were saved only at the impassioned entreaties of Queen Philippa. Meanwhile the Scots had sustained in 1346 a severe defeat at Neville's Cross, near Durham, their king, David II., being taken prisoner, while in 1349 the terrible Black Death had carried off a third of the total population of England, and permanently changed the whole relations between labourer and master.
The war began anew in 1355, and next year, on the 19th September, the Black Prince obtained a brilliant victory at Poitiers, where King John of France was taken prisoner. The Scotch monarch was released under promise of a ransom of 100,000 marks in 1357, and King John in 1360, when a peace was concluded between the French and the English, by which the latter were to retain their conquests. King John finding it impossible to raise his proposed ransom, honourably returned to captivity, and died in London in 1364. Shortly before this date, David, king of Scotland, whose residence in England had extinguished the little patriotism he ever had, entered into a secret agreement with Edward, in virtue of which his kingdom, if he died without male issue, was to be handed over to the English sovereign. Meanwhile, the Black Prince, who had married Joanna, daughter of the Earl of Kent, had received from his father Aquitaine and Gascony, and ruled there for some time very prosperously; but ultimately involving himself and his father in a war with France, which was disastrous in its issues, was obliged in 1374 to conclude a truce for three years. Edward waged war no more. In spite of his brilliant victories, in spite of the dazzling valour of his son, he was at the last unsuccessful. Under him, says Mr Freeman, 'England was successful in battles, but she was thoroughly beaten in war.' Neither in Scotland nor in France did he realise his desires. Affairs at home were no less unsatisfactory in the last years of his life, and public finance drifted hopelessly into ruin. He quarrelled with his parliaments, and saw public discontent sap the loyalty of his people, while he gave himself up to the influence of his rapacious mistress, Alice Perrers, and let the government slip into the hands of his third son, John of Gaunt. The Black Prince, who had headed a party opposed to his father's policy, died 8th June 1376, and the king himself expired almost alone on the 21st June 1377, after a reign of fifty-one years.
See Longman's Life and Times of Edward III. (1869), Warburton's Edward III. (1875), Mackinnon's History of Edward III. (1900).