Hello and welcome to the History of England, episode 98, The Disinherited.

Last week then we heard about how 17 year old King Edward took power back from his mother

and her lover Roger Mortimer. I think you will agree that he did this in the words

of Monty Python, very much according to his own idiom. He snuck through the tunnels

of Nottingham Castle late at night, with a bunch of mates and took the throne back for

himself. Love him or lay them, Edward III is neither was nor pussy.

So there he is, our new King. He's got through the initial shock of getting rid of Mortimer

and blamed him for all the woes for the first three years of his reign.

What he really going to be interested in, how is he going to rule what manner of King

is he going to be? The 13 thirties to an extent are a bit of a forgotten

decade history book wise. The big thing will be about the struggle with the Scots, and

we'll get a smidgen of the setup for the 100 years war of this episode, but generally

that's what makes it into all but the most specialist of history books.

But the decade actually tells us a lot about Edward and the things that were most important

to him. Number one for Edward, now and forever,

is the image of the King, which is unsurprising after all he is one, and the monarchy has just

been through something of a rocky period. Also, Edward is a young lad, he's a warlike,

energetic tall, out for a good time, one of the lads kind of guy. Basically, the world

could potentially be his lobster. So really, the world of administration and good government

are not uppermost in his mind, which is kind of reflected in much of the following decade.

It doesn't get a lot of royal attention, which is not necessarily a good thing.

Note once out from behind his mother-skirts, out from underneath the tyrannical fist of

...