I recently read Dan Jones’ The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England, in order to fill some serious gaps in my knowledge of British history.
Jones’ book is the story of British rulers from Henry I (who ruled from 1154-1189) through Richard II (who ruled from 1377-1399).
I learned quite a bit in this book.*
First of all, I learned why Henry V (1386-1422)—a king not covered in the book (because he was a Lancaster)—fought so hard to reclaim French land in the Shakespeare plays.
I had never understood why Henry V was invading France in 1415.
I also learned more about the Magna Carta than I ever knew from my Indiana high school history classes.
During the 1960’s, Midwest high schools emphasized American history.
The Plantagenets fought to gain back land in France because they were from a royal house that originated in France.
The Plantagenet Kings and Queens only spoke the French language, not the English language, until the very late 1300’s.
For generations, most English Barons possessed land in both England and France, and traveled back and forth between the two.
As the Plantagenets conquered and reconquered Wales and Scotland, they wiped out the hereditary rulers in those places.
The Magna Carta was a 1215 peace treaty between King John I (1166-1216) and his ruling class.
Its’ purpose was to protect the freedoms of Englishmen.
This document had a big influence on the thirteen colonies, and the American belief that rulers shouldn’t be autocrats.
Its’ main principal was that an English ruler was not above the law.
It also guaranteed due process of law, freedom from arbitrary imprisonment, and trial by a jury of ones’ peers.
Of course, the Magna Carta was designed mainly for the upper crust, and it wasn’t honored by British rulers for many generations.
However, it was a start.
Dan Jones’ The Plantagenets covers the Black Death, the bubonic plague pandemic that killed the rich and the poor, and threw England’s economy into a tailspin.
Hundreds of thousands of workers died, and wages overall threatened to rise.
Therefore, King Edward III instituted the 1351 Statute of Laborers.
This law kept wages artificially low, and protected the political class, and the King (England’s biggest landowner), from suffering financial losses due to the plague.
One sentence from the law reads:
“If any man take more [than the prescribed wage], he shall be committed to the nearest jail.” (page 413 in The Plantagenets.)
This 1351 Statute which set wages for “saddlers, skinners, white-tawers, cordwainers, tailors, smiths, carpenters, masons, tilers, shipwrights, carters, and all other artisans and laborers” reminds me of how COVID-19 was actually used to widen the inequality gap, making fortunes for the wealthy, and driving middle-class (and lower class) workers into poverty.
In any rational world, the COVID-19 pandemic should have made wages go up, especially for workers engaged in health care and education.
However, while wages increased slightly in many industries after the pandemic, they increased at a much lower rate in health care and education, and haven’t kept up with inflation!
Most salary increases went to people in executive positions, and not to the average worker.
Getting back to the Plantagenets, the next ruler after Edward III (Richard II), faced the Peasants’ Revolt.
At the young age of 14, Richard actually held a face-to-face negotiation with the rebel leader Wat Tyler (1341-1381).
Tyler demanded that all hierarchy be abolished (except for the king’s own lordship), that the goods of the Catholic Church not remain in the hands of the clergy, and that serfdom be abolished.
Richard appeared to concede to his subjects, but soon after the conversation occurred, Wat Tyler was beheaded, and the rest of his rebel band was hunted down and killed.
“Help, help, I’m being repressed.”
A British film about a peasant during the 1381 Peasants’ Revolt, is currently in preproduction.
The proposed title is The Hood, and it’s to be directed by Paul Greengrass (the director of the Jason Bourne movies).
Benedict Cumberbatch has been mentioned as the possible lead.
By the time Richard II was 20 years old, he resolved to not be as conciliatory to rebels.
He reversed Edward III’s 1351 Treason Act, which had mainly limited treason to attacks on the King, the Queen, their children, and senior officials.
Richard broadened the law, in order to expand his executive power.
He decreed that all those who constrained the King, ignored a royal command, or basically annoyed him in any way, were now traitors to the crown!
This, and other actions, led to a civil war.
As Dan Jones put it:
“He had built himself up as an antagonistic private lord, rather than fulfill his higher duty to be a source of public authority. He had believed that kingship was about prestige and magnificence instead of leadership. And he had ended up with nothing.” (Page 494, The Plantagenets.)
I began to realize, after reading The Plantagenets, that the English have been attempting to limit their rulers to just leading their subjects—and not terrorizing them—since the early 1100’s.
In doing so, Englishmen were way ahead of the Germans, the Spanish, the Italians, and the French.
No wonder, the men of the thirteen colonies rose up against George III in 1776!
It’s interesting that a person like Trump still believes that a U.S. President should expect absolute loyalty, and that leadership is mainly about prestige and magnificence.
He’s obviously never heard about the Magna Carta.
It’s also interesting that the U.S. Supreme Court would rule, in 2024, that Presidents are immune from criminal liability for committing fraudulent acts.
To many, that sounds like being above the law.
*In The Plantagenets, Dan Jones notes that, in 1269, Henry III forced the Jews of England to wear a felt yellow badge of shame (page 271). I also learned that Frederick II (Holy Roman Empire) made Sicilian Jews wear a blue T-shaped badge, and Philip II ordered French Jews to wear a wheel-shaped badge (page 272). Note: all page references in this memorandum are from the American 2014 paperback edition.
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