I'm concerned...

[smee]

it appears the history forum is near death....

i feel a pulse but it's very faint.........:crap:

is there a histriogradoctor in the house?

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[Hobbit]

Its not really dead. It comes and goes, waxes and wanes.....etc. After a few weeks, someone resurrects it....or I post something controversial. Just have to "stir it up" once in a while...!!!;):)

[John Bridge]

I hope it's not dead. I've got to lay off the Constitution for a while, though. I'll listen to you guys discussing pre-Norman England if you want. :D

[smee]

I'm reading a book called "War, Cruel and Sharp" by Clifford Rogers.
Military History.

I'm afraid it's quite post norman John.

It's about Edward III and his military exploits - centering on the fact that he has been touted as having ZEERO strategical genius - but somehow got half of France? on a whim, I guess.

Actually, it's a very well written and presented argument and some of his facts about the money these guys spent and what it entailed to get some 20,000 soldiers, archers, horses, enough boats, enough allies, food, beer, etc across the channel in sail boats and row boats ( hello) to go to a country which at the time possessed thEE most money and the biggest army in the known world - and being English at the time having the reputation of being generally militarily worthless - it boggles the mind.

Another thing that always interests me is how countless armies have marched over the same ground. When they trace some of the paths of the campaigns of the 1340's and you think of many of the battles of WWI and II.

Howard - nothing controversial. I'll leave that up to you.

[Steven Hauser]

Hi Linda,

Been busy lately. I am still put out over some eminent domain discussions taking place in my community.

:bang:

Beyond that I am always interested in what you write but not necessarily able to continue a discussion.

John, what :confused: lay off for a while? Why?

Steven

[John Bridge]

Steven,

I just thought that maybe it was starting to sound more like a lecture instead of a discussion. :) Last thing in the world I want to be is a bore. Don't mind sounding like an idiot, but don't want to bore people with it. :D

I also don't want to drive people away from the forums. Haven't seen Will lately.

Linda,

You know my European History has a lot of holes in it. You've just found another one. :) On the idea that wars are fought over the same ground time after time, though, how could it be otherwise? I'm sure the ancients figured out what had value and what was worthless. It's a small world. ;)

The Second World War was a killer insofar as historical sites are concerned. Many old castles, bridges and towns were completely or at least nearly destroyed. Patton, particularly, held no reverance for places of historical significance, despite how he was portrayed in the movie (which I dearly love, by the way). ;)

[jjwq8]

Ain't Brittannica wunnerful:

Edward III (1327-1377 AD)

Born: 13 November 1312 at Windsor Castle, Berkshire

Died: 21 June 1377 at Sheen Palace, Richmond, Surrey

Buried: Westminster Abbey, Middlesex

Parents: Edward II and Isabella of France

Siblings: John, Eleanor & Joan

Crowned: 1 February 1327 at Westminster Abbey, Middlesex

Married: 24 January 1328 at York Minster, Yorkshire

Spouse: Philippa daughter of William V, Count of Hainault & Holland

Offspring: Edward, the Black Prince; Isabella; Joan; William of Hatfield; Lionel of Antwerp, Duke of Clarence; John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster; Edmund of Langley, Duke of York; Blanche; Mary; Margaret; William of Windsor; and Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester; (Illegitimate) at least three by Alice Perrers

Contemporaries: Edward Balliol, David II (King of Scotland, 1339-1371); Roger Mortimer; Alice Perrers; John Wycliff
The fifty-year reign of Edward III was a dichotomy in English development. Governmental reforms affirmed the power of the emerging middle class in Parliament while placing the power of the nobility into the hands a few. Chivalric code reached an apex in English society but only masked the greed and ambition of Edward and his barons. Social conditions were equally ambiguous: the export of raw wool (and later, the wool cloth industry) prospered and spread wealth across the nation but was offset by the devastation wrought by the Black Death. Early success in war ultimately failed to produce lasting results. Edward proved a most capable king in a time of great evolution in England.

Edward's youth was spent in his mother's court and he was crowned at age fourteen after his father was deposed. After three years of domination by his mother and her lover, Roger Mortimer, Edward instigated a palace revolt in 1330 and assumed control of the government. Mortimer was executed and Isabella was exiled from court. Edward was married to Philippa of Hainault in 1328 and the union produced many children; the 75% survival rate of their children - nine out of twelve lived through adulthood - was incredible considering conditions of the day.

War occupied the largest part of Edward's reign. He and Edward Baliol defeated David II of Scotland and drove David into exile in 1333. French cooperation with the Scots, French aggression in Gascony, and Edward's claim to the disputed throne of France (through his mother, Isabella) led to the first phase of the Hundred Years' war. The naval battle of Sluys (1340) gave England control of the Channel, and battles at Crecy (1346) and Calais (1347) established English supremacy on land. Hostilities ceased in the aftermath of the Black Death but war flared up again with an English invasion of France in 1355. Edward, the Black Prince and eldest son of Edward III, trounced the French cavalry at Poitiers (1356) and captured the French King John. In 1359, the Black Prince encircled Paris with his army and the defeated French negotiated for peace. The Treaty of Bretigny in 1360 ceded huge areas of northern and western France to English sovereignty. Hostilities arose again in 1369 as English armies under the king's third son, John of Gaunt, invaded France. English military strength, weakened considerably after the plague, gradually lost so much ground that by 1375, Edward agreed to the Treaty of Bruges, leaving only the coastal towns of Calais, Bordeaux, and Bayonne in English hands.

The nature of English society transformed greatly during Edward's reign. Edward learned from the mistakes of his father and affected more cordial relations with the nobility than any previous monarch. Feudalism dissipated as mercantilism emerged: the nobility changed from a large body with relatively small holdings to a small body that held great lands and wealth. Mercenary troops replaced feudal obligations as the means of gathering armies. Taxation of exports and commerce overtook land-based taxes as the primary form of financing government (and war). Wealth was accrued by merchants as they and other middle class subjects appeared regularly for parliamentary sessions. Parliament formally divided into two houses - the upper representing the nobility and high clergy with the lower representing the middle classes - and met regularly to finance Edward's wars and pass statutes. Treason was defined by statute for the first time (1352), the office of Justice of the Peace was created to aid sheriffs (1361), and English replaced French as the national language (1362).

Despite the king's early successes and England's general prosperity, much remained amiss in the realm. Edward and his nobles touted romantic chivalry as their credo while plundering a devastated France; chivalry emphasized the glory of war while reality stressed its costs. The influence of the Church decreased but John Wycliff spearheaded an ecclesiastical reform movement that challenged church exploitation by both the king and the pope. During 1348-1350, bubonic plague (the Black Death) ravaged the populations of Europe by as much as a fifty per cent. The flowering English economy was struck hard by the ensuing rise in prices and wages. The failed military excursions of John of Gaunt into France caused excessive taxation and eroded Edward's popular support.

The last years of Edward's reign mirrored the first, in that a woman again dominated him. Philippa died in 1369 and Edward took the unscrupulous Alice Perrers as his mistress. With Edward in his dotage and the Black Prince ill, Perrers and William Latimer (the chamberlain of the household) dominated the court with the support of John of Gaunt. Edward, the Black Prince, died in 1376 and the old king spent the last year of his life grieving. Rafael Holinshed, in Chronicles of England, suggested that Edward believed the death of his son was a punishment for usurping his father's crown: "But finally the thing that most grieved him, was the loss of that most noble gentleman, his dear son Prince Edward . . . But this and other mishaps that chanced to him now in his old years might seem to come to pass for a revenge of his disobedience showed to his in usurping against him. . ."

Edward III's Genealogy
A guide to the monarch's ancestors and offspring. These trails can lead you through the history of Europe's royal houses and to some unexpected places.



A number of things have always struck me about E3.

Primarily that he must have been a precocious young man and subsequetly seriously busy as a monarch and lecher.

Second that the development of the chivalric code had a good deal to do with the hundred years war as did the need to control large areas of real estate to generate revenue to sustain more military adventures to control larger areas of real estate to generate greater revenue to sustain more military adventures etc ad nauseum.

Thirdly that thanks to E3, one Willie Shakespeare had such a rich field to till when it came to subjects for his masterworks as under:

Quote:

So, if a son that is by his father sent about
merchandise do sinfully miscarry upon the sea, the imputation of his wickedness, by your rule, should be imposed upon his father that sent him; or if a servant, under his master's command
transporting a sum of money, be assailed by robbers and die in
many irreconcil'd iniquities, you may call the business of the
master the author of the servant's damnation. But this is not so:
the King is not bound to answer the particular endings of his
soldiers, the father of his son, nor the master of his servant;
for they purpose not their death when they purpose their
services. Besides, there is no king, be his cause never so
spotless, if it come to the arbitrement of swords, can try it out
with all unspotted soldiers: some peradventure have on them the
guilt of premeditated and contrived murder; some, of beguiling
virgins with the broken seals of perjury; some, making the wars
their bulwark, that have before gored the gentle bosom of peace
with pillage and robbery. Now, if these men have defeated the law
and outrun native punishment, though they can outstrip men they
have no wings to fly from God: war is His beadle, war is His
vengeance; so that here men are punish'd for before-breach of the
King's laws in now the King's quarrel. Where they feared the
death they have borne life away; and where they would be safe
they perish. Then if they die unprovided, no more is the King
guilty of their damnation than he was before guilty of those
impieties for the which they are now visited. Every subject's
duty is the King's; but every subject's soul is his own.
Therefore should every soldier in the wars do as every sick man
in his bed- wash every mote out of his conscience; and dying so,
death is to him advantage; or not dying, the time was blessedly
lost wherein such preparation was gained; and in him that escapes
it were not sin to think that, making God so free an offer, He
let him outlive that day to see His greatness, and to teach
others how they should prepare.

[jjwq8]

and
quote:




If we are mark'd to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires.
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.
God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more methinks would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.'
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words-
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

End Quote

:bow::bow::bow::bow::bow::bow:

It may not be historical fact, but how much better would this world be if all history was thus presented.

:D :D :D

[Steven Hauser]

Naw Jeremy,

That tweren't a lecture wuz it?
:D :D :D

Steven

[jjwq8]

Dunno, i didn't read it !! :D

[John Bridge]

"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers . . ." -- King Henry V

One of my favorite passages. I've used it here and there.

Keep it up, folks. It's an education for me. ;)