Section 3: Late Medieval Political Crises (1300–1487)

Edward II became king of England in 1307, but his reign quickly became defined by his intensely close and controversial relationships with a small circle of favourites, most notably Piers Gaveston in the early years and Hugh Despenser the Younger in the 1320s. In a medieval monarchy, patronage -- land, titles, offices, marriages, and access to the king -- was the currency through which a king maintained the loyalty of his great nobles. Edward instead concentrated this patronage on individuals whom the established baronage regarded as unworthy outsiders, and this became one of the central causes of political crisis during his reign (1307–1327).

Piers Gaveston was a Gascon knight and close companion of Edward from before he became king. Once Edward took the throne, he showered Gaveston with land, the earldom of Cornwall (a title normally reserved for royal family members), and a prominent role at court and in government -- privileges the barons felt should have gone to men of established noble rank. Gaveston's arrogance towards senior nobles, including mocking nicknames for earls, deepened the insult. The barons forced Gaveston's exile more than once, and he was eventually captured and executed by a group of magnates in 1312, a direct assault on royal authority that Edward never forgave.

After Gaveston's death, Edward found a new favourite in Hugh Despenser the Younger, whose family used royal favour in the 1320s to accumulate land and influence, particularly in Wales and the Marches, at the expense of other noble families. The Despensers' greed and near-monopoly on royal favour provoked a similar backlash, uniting disaffected barons -- and eventually Edward's own queen, Isabella of France -- against the king.

In 1314, King Edward II of England led a large invading army into Scotland to relieve the besieged Stirling Castle and reassert English overlordship, which his father Edward I had spent decades trying to enforce. At Bannockburn, near Stirling, Edward's forces were decisively defeated by a smaller Scottish army led by Robert the Bruce. The defeat was not simply a military setback -- it became a defining symbol of Edward II's inadequacy as a war leader, at a time when success in battle was one of the primary ways a medieval king demonstrated his fitness to rule.

The consequences of Bannockburn extended well beyond the battlefield. English control in Scotland, which had been contested since Edward I's campaigns, collapsed almost entirely -- Scottish independence was effectively secured in practice even though it was not formally recognized by England until years later. Domestically, the defeat gravely damaged Edward's royal prestige. Medieval kingship rested on an unwritten but powerful expectation that a king would lead his nobles to victory and defend the realm's interests abroad; a humiliating defeat like Bannockburn signalled weakness and invited the barons to question Edward's judgment and right to rule unchecked.

This military failure should be understood as one strand within a broader pattern of crisis in Edward II's reign, alongside his controversial reliance on royal favourites such as Piers Gaveston and later the Despensers, and his escalating conflict with the baronage. Bannockburn did not by itself cause Edward's eventual deposition in 1327, but it removed one of the few remaining sources of legitimacy a struggling king could draw on -- military success -- and left him more exposed to noble opposition in the years that followed.

Edward II's reign (1307-1327) is a defining case study of how a medieval king could lose control of his kingdom not through a single dramatic event but through a sustained breakdown of trust between crown and baronage. Unlike a single rebellion, the conflict under Edward II unfolded as a series of escalating confrontations over roughly two decades, each one further eroding royal authority until the king was ultimately forced to abdicate — the first successful deposition of an anointed English king in the medieval period.

At the centre of the conflict was Edward's reliance on royal favourites. Piers Gaveston, and later Hugh Despenser the Younger, received grants of land, titles, and influence far beyond what the established nobility considered appropriate. Because royal patronage was a zero-sum resource in the feudal system — wealth and office given to a favourite was wealth and office denied to established baronial families — this pattern directly threatened the interests of the highest nobles, who expected a share of royal favour proportional to their rank and loyalty. The barons' resentment was not simply personal dislike of Gaveston or Despenser; it reflected a structural grievance about how royal authority was meant to be shared and distributed.

This grievance was compounded by military failure. Edward's defeat at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314 against the Scots was a severe blow to royal prestige. In medieval political culture, a king's legitimacy rested partly on his capacity to lead successful warfare and defend the realm; a humiliating defeat undermined the very basis on which barons owed military service and loyalty. Bannockburn therefore did more than damage Edward's reputation abroad — it emboldened domestic critics who could point to concrete evidence that the king's favourites and priorities were failing the kingdom.

The result was near-continuous civil conflict. Barons formed opposing factions, attempted to impose constitutional restraints on the king (such as the Ordinances of 1311, which sought to limit royal patronage and force the king to govern with baronial consent), and on occasion resorted to open warfare, most notably the Despenser War of 1321-22. What made Edward II's crisis distinctive was the eventual collapse of even his final line of support: his own wife. Isabella of France, alienated by the Despensers' dominance at court, allied with the exiled baron Roger Mortimer and invaded England in 1326. With baronial and even family support gone, Edward was forced to abdicate in January 1327 in favour of his son, Edward III — a clear demonstration that a king who lost the trust of both the political elite and his own household could not sustain his rule.

By the mid-1320s, Edward II's kingship had collapsed into crisis. His reliance on royal favourites -- first Piers Gaveston, then Hugh Despenser the Younger -- had alienated the nobility, who resented being excluded from patronage and influence. His military failures against Scotland, most notably the catastrophic defeat at Bannockburn in 1314, had further damaged his authority. Into this environment of resentment stepped Edward's own queen, Isabella of France, sister of the French king. Sent to France in 1325 to negotiate a settlement over English-held Gascony, Isabella instead formed a political and personal alliance with Roger Mortimer, a powerful Marcher lord who had earlier rebelled against the Despensers and fled into exile. Together they gathered a small mercenary force, largely drawn from Hainault, and in September 1326 landed in England.

The invasion succeeded not through military strength -- Isabella and Mortimer's force was small -- but because Edward II's support had already evaporated. Nobles, towns, and even members of Edward's own administration abandoned him rapidly, unwilling to defend a king so widely discredited by favouritism and failure. Hugh Despenser the Younger was captured and executed. Edward himself was captured, and in January 1327 Parliament formally deposed him in favour of his fourteen-year-old son, who became Edward III. Mortimer and Isabella then governed as de facto regents until Edward III asserted his own authority in 1330, having Mortimer executed for treason.

Richard II inherited the English throne in 1377 at only ten years old, following the death of his grandfather Edward III. Because of his age, government was initially exercised by a council of regents and powerful nobles, notably his uncle John of Gaunt. Only four years into this minority, in June 1381, the fourteen-year-old king faced the most serious popular uprising of the late medieval period: the Peasants' Revolt.

The revolt's roots lay well before Richard's accession, in structural pressures built up over decades. The Black Death (1347-1351) had killed a large share of the population, creating a labour shortage that pushed wages up and gave peasants unprecedented bargaining power. The crown responded with the Statute of Labourers (1351), which tried to freeze wages at pre-plague levels and restrict the free movement of labourers -- deeply unpopular measures that peasants experienced as an attempt to reimpose the obligations of serfdom just as economic circumstances should have loosened them. On top of this, the costs of continuing the Hundred Years' War led the government to levy a series of poll taxes (1377, 1379, and a much heavier one in 1381) that fell disproportionately on the poor. The third poll tax, and the harsh methods used to collect it, was the immediate trigger for the uprising.

Rebels from Kent and Essex, led by figures such as Wat Tyler and the radical preacher John Ball, marched on London in June 1381. They stormed the city, executed royal officials including the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Treasurer, and demanded an end to serfdom, fairer rents, and the removal of unpopular royal advisors. Richard, still a teenager, rode out to meet the rebels twice -- first at Mile End, where he made promises to abolish serfdom and grant pardons, and then at Smithfield, where Wat Tyler was killed during a confrontation with the king's men. Richard then personally addressed the remaining crowd, reportedly declaring himself their leader and persuading them to disperse. Once the immediate danger had passed, the government reneged on the concessions made at Mile End, and reprisals against the rebels followed.

Richard II became king in 1377 at only ten years old, and for the first years of his reign real power lay with regents and advisors rather than the young king himself. He first showed his capacity for command as a teenager during the Peasants' Revolt (1381), when he confronted the rebels directly. Yet as Richard matured and began to rule in his own right, his critics increasingly focused on a different failing: extravagance. Richard was accused of lavishing enormous sums on his royal household, court ceremony, fine clothing, and artistic patronage -- most famously commissioning luxury items such as the Wilton Diptych -- at a time when the crown's finances were already strained by decades of costly war with France.

This extravagance mattered politically because medieval kingship rested on a delicate balance: a king needed enough wealth and majesty to command respect, but excessive personal spending -- especially spending seen as self-indulgent rather than directed at defending the realm -- looked like a betrayal of royal duty. Richard's critics argued that money that should have gone toward governing effectively, rewarding loyal service, or funding the war effort was instead being poured into an inward-looking, glamorous court culture that enriched royal favourites and pleased the king's personal taste. This perception of financial irresponsibility combined with Richard's attempts to rule with minimal reference to Parliament, feeding directly into noble hostility.

By the mid-1380s, Richard II's reign had become defined by growing tension between the young king and England's most powerful nobles. Richard, who had inherited the throne at only ten years old, increasingly favoured a small circle of court advisors and personal allies over the established baronial elite. This favouritism, combined with lavish spending on his court and household, alarmed nobles who felt sidelined from the influence and patronage they believed they were owed by tradition.

In response, a faction of magnates known as the Lords Appellant emerged to confront the king directly. They accused Richard of mismanaging the kingdom, surrounding himself with corrupt or incompetent favourites, and exercising excessive personal rule without adequate consultation of Parliament or the traditional noble council. This was not simply a personal quarrel -- it reflected a deeper constitutional expectation in late medieval England: that a king, however anointed, was expected to govern in cooperation with his greatest subjects rather than through unilateral favouritism.

The Appellants used their combined military and political strength to pressure Richard into accepting checks on his authority, removing or punishing several of his closest advisors and asserting Parliament's right to oversee royal conduct. The episode temporarily curtailed Richard's independence, but it also left him with a lasting resentment toward the nobles who had humiliated him -- a grievance that would resurface later in his reign when he moved to take revenge on several of the Appellants once his power was restored.