Being a medieval king was no easy feat. Despite being the wealthiest and most powerful man in the kingdom, it was not a given that a reigning king could hold on to his crown. A successful medieval king had to be able to juggle the multiple needs of his kingdom, and even then, success was not guaranteed. Kings had to be able to defend and protect their countries from foreign adversaries which often involved leading armies and waging wars. Kings had to demonstrate their ability to maintain law and order which was difficult to do with such vast territories. Kings also had to master the delicate balancing act of making sure their nobles were happy, but their ambitions kept in check. As history has shown many times, when a nobleman got too much power, the whole balance of government could be toppled.
The hardest thing of all about being a medieval king was holding onto the crown. England set itself up for hundreds of years of challenges to the throne by having no formal or legal statutes defining the line of succession. This opened the door to a whole string of challengers to the throne, including a number who ultimately succeeded and were thus labeled as usurpers.
The goal of this book has been to reevaluate the stories of six medieval kings who have been traditionally labeled as usurpers and then make a judgement as to whether or not they were deserving of that title. The definition of the word ‘usurp’ is very clear – to usurp is to gain power by force or by illegal means. It’s not enough to just look at the end product of a supposed usurpation. One must instead understand each king’s backstory and the circumstances which brought them the throne. Only then can we truly assess whether a king deserved his crown or if he usurped it.
The first king we examined was William the Conqueror who has the unique distinction of being the only foreign usurper among the group. William already held the dukedom of Normandy in France and when his cousin Edward the Confessor, King of England, died childless in 1066, William saw his opportunity to add England to his domain. Although the Witan selected Harold Godwin as Edward the Confessor’s successor, William demonstrated his military prowess by invading England and quickly overthrowing King Harold. William would go on to reign for twenty-one years from 1066 to 1087. No other king has left such an indelible mark on England as William did. He brought with him the Norman way of doing things, which revolutionised England’s culture and laid the foundation for its rise as a major foreign entity in the later Middle Ages. Despite all his successes, that does not remove the fact that William the Conqueror did usurp his throne, both illegally and by force.
King Stephen’s reign from 1135 to 1154 was far less successful than William the Conqueror. Stephen’s usurpation of his cousin Matilda’s crown ignited the English civil war known as ‘The Anarchy’ which raged throughout the entirety of his reign. Stephen was not a strong leader like William the Conqueror. His lackadaisical approach to law and order ignited the ire of his people and his inability to put down rebellions from Matilda and her adherents damaged any confidence his people had in his kingly abilities. Not only was he lacking the skills to lead a kingdom, but he also was not closest in line of succession to the previous king. Robert Curthose and William Clito were the closest living male relatives to King Henry I but Stephen bypassed them when he claimed the throne for himself. In the case of King Stephen, he was most definitely a usurper since he came to the throne illegally and then used force against Matilda and her supporters for nearly twenty years in order to keep the throne for himself.
The final four kings in this book all have something in common: the impetus for their seizures of the throne came from the feeling that they were being denied their rightful places in government. All four kings were princes of royal blood and therefore expected to hold lofty roles in government. However, rivals and favourites who had the ears of kings sought to push them entirely out of government and they felt they had no other choice than to fight back.
No other king is a greater example of this than Henry IV who reigned from 1399 to 1413. Henry and his father John of Gaunt were next in line to the throne after Richard II yet the king continually endeavored to push them out of government, instead preferring the counsel of his favourites. When John of Gaunt died, Richard maliciously exiled Henry for life in an effort to remove him from state affairs permanently. Richard did not expect Henry to fight back, in fact the king was away in Ireland at the time of Henry’s invasion. Although Henry raised an army, he never engaged his forces against Richard. Instead, he sought Parliament’s approval to remove the despised king and restore Edward III’s Act of Entail in which Henry was in fact the heir to Richard’s throne. For these reasons, Henry IV did not usurp Richard II’s throne.
Richard, Duke of York, came to challenge King Henry VI’s throne in the 1450’s because he was being continually excluded from the king’s court. As next in line to the throne, Richard wanted a bigger say in governmental matters but Henry’s favourites wouldn’t allow it. When Richard died in 1460, his eldest son Edward took over as the new leader of the House of York. Young Edward brought about a reinvigoration of the Yorkist party. Edward was handsome, charming, charismatic, a capable military leader, and a fierce warrior. He demonstrated his military prowess at the Battle of Mortimer’s Cross where he and the Yorkists massacred Jasper Tudor’s Welsh army and beheaded his father Owen Tudor. Although the Yorkists lost the next battle in the Wars of the Roses, the Second Battle of St. Albans, the citizens of London rejected Margaret of Anjou and instead implored Edward to take the throne. Edward spent the next ten years fighting off the Lancastrians until he won the decisive Battle of Tewkesbury in 1471. He spent the remaining twelve years of his reign in relative peace up until his unexpected death in 1483. Edward was indeed the lawful heir of Henry VI, however, Edward repeatedly used military force against Henry VI to win the throne, making him a usurper.
Richard III is one of the most notorious usurpers of all time. Immortalised in Shakespeare’s work as an evil hunchback, Richard made the decision to take possession of Edward IV’s heir because he feared the Woodvilles would completely shut him out of his rightful place in government. Therefore Richard made the fateful decision to depose his two young nephews in order to make himself king of England. Subjects were shocked at Richard’s actions and enraged over the treatment of the two boys popularly known as ‘the princes in the tower’. Although Richard used legal means to have the boys declared illegitimate, making himself next in line to the throne, he also used force when he took physical possession of the boys, not to mention the criminal act of murder.
Only two years after Richard III’s usurpation of the throne, a challenger came along by the name of Henry Tudor. The son of Margaret Beaufort and a close relation of Henry VI, Henry Tudor spent half his life in exile and only decided to mount an invasion after the people of London raised rebellions against Richard III in the fall of 1483. Henry’s mother would have been next in line to Henry VI had she not been born a woman. In her son she saw the opportunity to gain the power she felt was rightfully hers. Henry sailed to England in 1485 and won the crown by defeating King Richard at the Battle of Bosworth. Since Henry was taking over the crown from a usurper, was he himself a usurper? Like Henry IV, Henry Tudor felt he was ridding the kingdom of a horrible, dangerous, and murderous king. Nevertheless, he had no legal right to the throne and he took it by force. Henry’s reign, therefore, closed out the Middle Ages in England, much as they began: with a usurper on the throne.
Acknowledgements
This book would never have been written without the love and support of my friends and family, including my husband Mark, children Thomas and Julia, mother Kathy, sister Melissa, and brother-in-law Shawn. Thank you for making me believe this book was possible and for cheering me on throughout the writing process.
I would also like to give a sincere thanks to Eleri Pipien and Claire Hopkins from Pen and Sword Books for helping this first-time author become published, as well as Heidi Malagisi for being a beta reader and providing excellent feedback on the early manuscript.
Last but not least, I’d like to thank all my favourite historical authors to whom I am indebted, all of which you’ll find in the bibliography. My work is only possible because of all those who came before me and for that I am eternally grateful.