Henry III of England
During the long reign of Henry III, writes J.J.N. McGurk, England was a turbulent country with an ambitious, bold and able baronage.
It is seven centuries since the death of King Henry III of England on November 16th, 1272. Over the centuries historians have been none too kind to the King’s character and reputation as an English monarch. Criticism began, perhaps, with Matthew Paris, the thirteenth-century St Albans’ chronicler. Henry was a frequent visitor to St Albans and was often in Matthew’s company so that it is difficult to disbelieve him when he tells us that Henry inherited the terrible Angevin temper.
In the next century, Dante placed Henry III in the limbo of unbaptized infants and simpletons and there, to a large extent, his reputation remained until our own age. To the great historian Stubbs, the King’s character was hardly worth the trouble of an analysis; to Tout Henry was a weak figure and, according to Professor Powicke, the King was an ‘amateur in the things of this life... an amateur statesman (and more surprisingly) an amateur Christian’.
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