When parliament met in March 1337, a hum of excitement and agitation settled over Westminster. There were reasons to be excited. Radical legislation was to be introduced to the country. A reform of the wool trade was planned. War loomed on two fronts. But more exciting than any of this, at least to observers of the parliament and lovers of the pageantry and show of Plantagenet kingship, was the impending creation of six new peers of the realm.
Edward III had been king for a decade. For seven of those years he had ruled in his own right. And in his early years, the young man had shown himself to be a willing friend to the aristocracy. At great tournaments he held, he had grown familiar with the wealthy fighting elite of the country – and it was to these sorts of men that he felt naturally closest.
There had been a general decline in the state of the aristocracy during the previous two generations. Edward I had been distrustful of nobility in general and correspondingly stingy with earldoms. His suspicions of the rights of nobles were never more obvious than in the Quo Warranto inquiries, by which his justices quizzed the barons of the realm about their right to wield powers and jurisdictions that might be deemed to belong to the Crown itself. Edward II had been more inventive and liberal with the great landed titles, but he tended to save his key awards as gifts for his immediate favourites, rather than creating families of great men, who he feared would rival his authority. Edward II had made Gaveston earl of Cornwall, Andrew Harclay earl of Carlisle, Hugh Despenser earl of Winchester and his half-brothers earls of Norfolk and Kent; but of all these only the earl of Norfolk lived past 1330. Furthermore, Edward III’s younger brother, John of Eltham, who had been created earl of Cornwall in 1328, had died of an illness while on campaign in Perth in 1336, and now lay at rest in Westminster Abbey.
Unlike his grandfather or father, Edward III saw a greater truth to English kingship, which had all too often been obscured by the eruption of civil wars between the king and his leading magnates. That truth was that there was naturally a community, not a conflict, of interest between a king and his great subjects. At the March 1337 parliament Edward laid out this philosophy in clear terms. He told his assembled lords that ‘among the marks of royalty we consider it to be the chief that, through a due distribution of positions, dignities and offices, it is buttressed by wise counsels and fortified by mighty powers’. Since England had seen a lessening in her pool of noble families headed by formidable earls and barons, he argued, ‘the realm has long suffered a serious decline in names, honours and ranks of dignity’.
Edward announced to the realm that he was taking decisive action to establish a new generation of English nobles, with whom he could share both the prestige and the burdens of kingship. They were all men who had proved their service to him over the ten years of his reign, and in several cases had been at his side since that daring raid on Nottingham castle, when Mortimer was removed. Here were the natural boon companions of an ambitious young king – and they would soon be pressed into action alongside him.
Six earls were created in parliament. First among them was William Montagu, leader of the 1330 coup. Since that famous October day, Montagu had been demonstrating to the king that he was both a valuable diplomat and a brave soldier in the wars against Scotland, during which he had lost an eye. He had already been rewarded with much booty, patronage and land grants, but now Montagu was raised to the rank of earl of Salisbury.
Salisbury’s leading co-conspirators from 1330 were similarly rewarded. Robert Ufford became earl of Suffolk and William Clinton was made earl of Huntingdon – a title that had once been held by the Scottish kings. Meanwhile the scions of England’s greatest families were given titles to reflect their status. Henry Grosmont became earl of Derby. William Bohun, another veteran of 1330 and the Scottish wars, became earl of Northampton. Hugh Audley, long-serving soldier and early opponent of Roger Mortimer, was awarded the earldom of Gloucester.
Alongside the new earls, Edward also innovated with his nobility. Edward and Philippa’s eldest son, Edward of Woodstock, was a healthy six years old in March 1337. From Tudor times he would be known by the title of the Black Prince, for his (supposedly) black armour and diabolical soldierly reputation. In 1337, however, he was given a new title to reflect his importance as the heir to the throne of England. Edward III created him duke of Cornwall – the first time that the French title duc had been translated to England, and a recognition that the status of the greatest royal earldom now had special, familial status. This was both a rapid regranting of the late John of Eltham’s title, and an implicit statement that never again would a lowly nobody like Gaveston hold so great a royal title.
A magnificent feast was given to celebrate the new creations, at which hundreds of pounds were spent on food and entertainment. Twenty knights were also created, and everyone rejoiced in style, with separate courts held by Edward and Philippa to honour the moment England had enriched her noble heritage.
But this unprecedented creation of landed magnates was no fit of idle generosity on Edward’s part. Rather, the situation in 1337 demanded it. The king needed military supporters with resources, mighty households and an obligation to the Crown to fight. Not only was Scotland perpetually turbulent: war with France was once again looming. This time, however, the terms and the stakes of war had escalated, and the personalities arrayed on either side were the most intractable, aggressive and well matched since Richard I had faced off against Philip Augustus at the end of the twelfth century. The Plantagenet world was on the brink of a war that would last not merely for months or years, but for generations.