Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 17.djvu/75

Edward III Eltham. A hundred and forty petitions presented, and among them the commons prayed that parliaments might be held annually and that knights of the shire might be chosen by election and not nominated by the sheriffs. The 'Good parliament' was dismissed on 9 July. Lancaster at once regained his former power, and carried out a retrograde policy which appears to have met with the king's approval. The lords elected to reinforce the council were dismissed, and the late parliament was declared to be no parliament, Peter de la Mare was imprisoned, the temporalities of the see of Winchester were seized, and by Edward's wish Alice Perrers and the rest of those who had been banished from court returned to it. On 7 Oct. Edward, whose strength was now failing rapidly, more, it was said, from self-indulgence than from old age, made his will and appointed Lancaster and Latimer two of his executors (Fœdera, iii. 1080). He was then at Havering-at-Bower, Eaaex, where he remained until after Christmas. Lancaster so managed the elections that in the parliament that met on 27 Jan. 1377 the commons were almost wholly of his party [for details of the events of the remainder of the reign see under Gaunt, John of (DNB00), and Courtenay, William (DNB00)]. He strengthened himself by an alliance with Wycliffe. The clergy struck at him by attacking his new ally. A riot was caused in London hy his insolent behaviour to Bishop Courtenay.' Sir Robert Ashton, the kings chamberlain, one of his party, presented the conduct of the Londoners in the worst light to the king. After some diffculty a deputation from the city obtained an audience of the king at Sheen. Edward received them graciously and his tact and courtesy allayed the tumult, but he was unable to make peace between them and the duke. Parliament restored Alice Perrers, Latimer, and Lyons, and granted a poll-tax of 4d. a head, which was disliked by the people generally (Fœdera, p. 130;, i. 323). In commemoration of the completion of the jubilee year of his reign, and at the request of parliament, Edward granted a pardon, from which, however, the Bishop of Winchester was excepted. On 15 Feb. he also published articles to which be said the pope had agreed verbally, and which contained some advance on the letters of 1 Sept. 1375; the pope gave up reservations, would not take action with respect to bishoprics until a free election had been made, would give some relief to the clergy in the matter of first-fruits, and would act moderately as to provisions and the appointment of foreigners; while the king promised to abstain from interfering with presentations to benefices (Fœdera, iii. 1072; Const. Hist. ii. 427 n. 2). The clergy, led by Bishop Courtenay, upheld the cause of the Bishop of Winchester, who at last obtained the restoration of his temporalities by bribing the king's mistress. Although the king, who remained at Sheen, was growing weaker, Alice Perrers encouraged him to believe that he was not dying, and he talked of nothing but hunting and hawking. On 21 June, however, his voice failed, and she then took the rings off his fingers and left him (Chron. Angliæ, p. 143). All his courtiers deserted him, and only a single priest attended his deathbed out of compassion. He regained his voice sufficiently to utter the words 'Jesu miserere,' kissed the cross that the priest placed in his hands, and shortly afterwards died in the sixty-fifth year of his age and the fifty-first of his reign. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, near the body of his queen Philippa.

Besides his works at Windsor he founded the Cistercian abbey of St. Mary Graces or Eastminster, near East Smithfield (Monasticon, v. 717), a nunnery at Dartford in Kent (ib. vi. 537), King's Hall at Cambridge, and a church and hospital at Calais (, p. 910). He had twelve children, whose effigies appear on his tomb: Edward, prince of Wales; Lionel, duke of Clarence; John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster; Edmund of Langley, earl of Cambridge, and afterwards duke of York; Thomas of Woodstock, afterwards earl of Buckingham and duke of Gloucester; and two sons, both named William, who died in infancy; and five daughters: Isabella, married to Ingelram de Couci; Joan, betrothed to Pedro of Aragon, but died in 1348; Mary, married to John of Montfort, duke of Britanny; Margaret, betrothed to John Hastings, earl of Pembroke, but died unmarried; and Blanche, died in infancy. Edward is also said to have had a bastard son, Nicholas Litlington, abbot of Westminster from 1362 to 1386 (, p. 910;, Monasticon, i. 275). [Joshua Barnes's Life of Edward III, a learned work, contains some information from an unprinted C. C. C. MS. 1688; Longman's Life and Times of Edward III, interesting, though weak in constitutional history; Warburton's Edward III, Epochs of Modern History. For constitutional history the modern authorities are Hallam's Middle Ages, ed. 1860; and Stubbs's Const. Hist. vol. ii. For early years consult Ann. Paulini, and Bridlington, in Chronicles of Edw. I and Edw. II (Rolls Ser.), and W. Dene, Anglia Sacra, vol. i. For general history, Murimuth with continuation, and Hemingburgh (Engl. Hist. Soc.); Knighton, ed. Twysden; Chron. Gal. le Baker, ed. Giles; Stow's Annales; Walsingham (Rolls Ser.); Eulogium (Rolls Ser.); Political Songs