Status Updates From Edward III: The Perfect King

"For he had been the king who had met the challenge of the French and begun the war, he had inspired England to pull together to become a fighting nation, and he had ordered and equipped this campaign and all those which went before against the combined might of France and Scotland. And now he had overcome them both. The kings of both France and Scotland were his prisoners."

"The reason for going into the details of these parliaments of 1351-1353 at some length is to illustrate the deep engagement which existed between king and parliament at this time. Edward was a man who listened to his representatives, and held dialogue with them, even if he did not or could not agree to their demands."

The Order of the Garter

'At the age of 35 he had achieved everything his kingdom had expected of him. The English collectively had a new pride, a new identity, and it was one unparalleled in Europe. Edward's war had begun to galvanize England into a nation, with common interests and, increasingly, culture.

'..medieval society had understood that it was composed of 3 'estates' of people: those who fought (the nobility and knightly class), those who prayed (monks and the secular clergy), and those who worked (the peasantry)......at Crecy, all that changed. From now on, 'those who worked' were 'those who fought'

'It is easy to point to the effects of the approaching plague as a reason for the socioeconomic changes by which the peasant was freed from his feudal bonds in the period between 1350-1450. Fewer peasants to work the land meant more could sell their labour and move away from their original manor and its obligations.'

'From now on, group of well-disciplined commoners with longbows could destroy much larger groups of the richest, most-heavily armoured, bravest, and well-trained noblemen in Christendom, even when they were backed up with crossbowmen and huge numbers of infantrymen. The banner of aristocratic military splendour which characterizes the middle ages had been shredded ...'

'Since his victory at Halidon Hill in 1333 Edward had pioneered the systematic deployment of archers to win a battle. In the mid 1330s he was experimenting with mounted archers. By 1339 he he had a projectile-based means of fighting which was exportable, and in 1346 he demonstrated against the best-equipped and proudest military kingdom in Europe that archery could and would defeat the greatest array of chivalry..'

'The importance of the battle of Crecy cannot be exaggerated ... it was the first major battle between two well-resourced martial kingdoms in which victory was obtained by projectile weaponry rather than hand-to-hand fighting. In that sense it was the advent of modern warfare.'

'This was where Edward saw the return on the years and money spent on encouraging chivalric pursuits. By promoting the cult of the knight, Edward had fostered men who saw opportunities for greatness and glory in fighting odds of six to one.'

'The English had lost many men. But Edward had his bridge.'

'It certainly seems strange to the modern reader that David II did not agree to the peace. But we are too detached from the hatreds, pride, jealousies, animosities and envies of the period, and the sources barely convey how much hatred there must have been on somebody's part to come to this decision David II's behalf. For it was not David's decision-the boy was too young'