Edouard de Woodstock

Edward Plantagenet , known as Edouard de Woodstock and called after its death the black Prince (1330, Woodstock - 1376, Westminster), Prince de Galles, Count de Chester, Duke of Cornouailles and prince d' Aquitaine, was the oldest son of Edouard III of England and Philippa de Hainaut.

Biography

Its nickname would be due to the color of its armor, but it was not used by its contemporaries. It appears only in 1568 in Chronicle off England of Richard Grafton. Of alive sound quite simply, one called it “the prince”, the prince of Wales, between the 1362 and 1372 prince of Aquitaine. One also named it according to his birthplace: Edouard de Woodstock.

Born in Woodstock (close to Oxford) on June 15th, 1330, oldest son of Edouard III and Philippa de Hainaut. In his childhood, Edouard de Woodstock likes the plays of ball and money, hunting for the falcon and the récitats of menestrels, common distractions of the aristocracy of the time. Its tutors were Walter Burley and the knight of Hainaut Walter Mauny. At eight years whereas his/her father leaves for the Flanders in order to contract alliances against France, it is named " guard of the royaume". He was cherished by Edouard III who neglected neither his education nor his instruction of prince. His/her father does it knight the July 12th 1345. Already accustomed to the tournaments, it unloads on July 11th, 1346 in La Hague, devastation the Normandy with dimensions of his father, and knew his first great battle with Crécy in 1346 where it assumes the command of the right wing of the English army using the Count de Warwick. A chronicle of the time wants that the young prince failed to lose the life there this day: désarçonné by a French knight, it is his door standard which would have had the presence of mind to dissimulate it under the banner with the red dragon of prince de Galles and who would have pushed back many attackers. The fallen night, it would have ordered the execution of all the wounded French soldiers and incompetents to pay ransom and, in the morning, a larger massacre still when the French urban militia came in reinforcement but too late. The spirit of the knighthood was not respected by the prince who had large shame of it in front of his father: it is after this battle that it would have taken the practice to carry a black armor. Following a revolt severely subdued in its county of Chester, it was named lieutenant de Gascogne. Elected by his father, it arrived at Bordeaux on September 20th 1355 into full One hundred Year old Guerre to protect the anglo-Gascon possessions against the French. Two weeks later, it conducted a campaign through South-west, maraudant through the counties of Juillac, Armagnac and Astarac, principal of great massacres around Toulouse, martyrisant women and children with Montgiscard, putting at bag Carcassonne and Narbonne. It did not seem to wish to subject to the English crown the conquered grounds but rather sought to plunder them and to withdraw richnesses from them. It destroyed Castelnaudary the October 31st 1355. The Christmas Day, it had regained Bordeaux from where it wrote with his father to inform it of his success.

The spring of 1356, its reputation of strategist and the fear which it inspires make it possible him to raise without evil a disparate army especially made up of English, Welshman, and Gascons. This countryside of 1356 will lead it this time through the Poitou while passing by Bourges which he does not manage to remove, fascinating Vierzon of which he makes pass the garrison to the wire of the sword. Slowed down by its considerable spoils and tired by the engagements, its troop is folded up towards Bordeaux and, in Maupertuis, close to Poitiers, it will inflict a severe defeat with the French who continued it. It is at the time of this battles of Poitiers, on September 19th, 1356, which it captures the king Jean II, which allows advantageous negociations for the English.

In 1360, the treated of Brétigny-Calais grants to the king Edouard III of England of the grounds in addition to its “traditional” duchy of Aquitaine which extended approximately between Bordeaux and Bayonne. They are the Quercy, the Périgord, the the Limousin, the Rouergue, the Bigorre, the county of Armagnac, the Agenais, the Saintonge, the Angoumois and the Poitou. These grounds - yielded by France in all sovereignty - constituted an autonomous principality (1362) which it on the spot controlled until the beginning of 1371. Edouard was named prince d' Aquitaine by his father on July 19th 1362, and it remained it until its abdication on October 5th 1372.

Edouard de Woodstock Marie in 1362 with her cousin Jeanne countess of Kent. They maintain in Bordeaux a court where luxury and extravagance reign; festivals and tournaments are frequent. The taxes which it imposes on its territory to finance them are enormous, the nobility and the people show their dissatisfaction.

Signatory of the Treated of Libourne, Prince Noir also helped king de Castille détrôné Pierre Cruel the in Spain and it will still beat the French carried out by Bertrand of Guesclin to Nájera in 1367. This forwarding was still a military success, but the refusal of Pierre Cruel the to pay the forwarding costs put the prince in terrible financial problems. On its return in Aquitanian, it convened the three States of its principality with Angouleme. Those accepted the lifting of a Fouage (a tax raised on each hearth) to restore finances of the prince (January 1368). But the count of Armagnac Johan Ier (in French Jean I {{er}}) refused this fouage. He sought the support of the King of France Charles V which accepted its call against the prince on June 30th, 1368, which caused to cancel the peace treaty of Brétigny-Calais. The count of Armagnac involved at his sides his relative, the lord of Albret Arnaut-Amanèu, and it supported the military offensives of Louis, duke of Anjou, brother of the king Charles V, lieutenant of the king (i.e. viceroy) in Languedoc. The grounds of the principality of Aquitaine yielded to the treaty of Brétigny-Calais were reconquered by the French directed by the duke of Anjou between 1369 and 1372, following the call of the count d' Armagnac. However the traditional vision of a unanimous rising of the populations in favor of the “French” is faulty: cities like Millau or Montauban remained faithful a long time in 1369, as for the Poitou, with the Saintonge and to the Angoumois, they were subjected only in 1372 and strongly supported the prince.

Traditional historiography often blames the prince for the Sac of Limoges (August 24th, 1370). According to Froissart, 3000 people were killed this day. One forgets quickly that a local source mentions only 300 dead, which can correspond to the “French” of the garrison installed in this city, like with certain partisans limougeauds of the French. After all the French acted in the same way at the time of the catch of Brive (July 22nd, 1374). And it is also forgotten that the town of Limoges was divided into two distinct entities: the “city” and the “Castle”. Prince Noir attacked only the “City” dominated by the bishop who had betrayed it (Johan of the Cross-country race) and not the “Castle” which remained to him faithful until 1372.

He seems to have caught the dysentery during his Spanish forwarding and this disease prevented it from being opposed effectively to the offensives carried out by the French and their partisans. It left in January 1371 for England, leaving in load of Aquitaine his brother Jean of Ghent, duke of Lancaster. It brought with him its very young person Richard sons, born in 1367 with the palate archiépiscopal of Bordeaux located more or less at the site of current the Town hall and joined with the cathedral. This wire will become, with dead of Edouard III, the king of England Richard II known as “of Bordeaux” (according to its birthplace), sometimes known as “the Gascon” (Bordeaux was then regarded as the capital of the Western Gascons). This last reigned of 1377 to 1399, date where it was détrôné by his Henri cousin of Lancaster, which became the king of England Henri IV (1399-1413).

Among his companions of fight and his high officers one can quote John Chandos († January 2nd, 1370 in Morthemer, Poitou), lieutenant d' Édouard III charged to take possession of the grounds yielded to the treaty of Brétigny-Calais (1361-1362), then constable of Aquitaine (1363-1370); Thomas Felton, seneshal of the principality of Aquitaine (1363-1377); the Gascon Johan de Greilly, Captal de Buch († September 7th, 1376, prisoner of king de France in Paris), constable of Aquitaine of 1370 with its capture by French in 1372; the poitevin Guichard d' Angle († 1380, London), one of the two marshals of Aquitaine (1363-1372), tutor of the future king Richard II, appointed count de Huntingdon (1377-1380) or the large lords poitevins Guillaume VII Larchevêque, lord of Parthenay and Louis of Harcourt, Viscount of Châtellerault, forced to submit in December 1372 to king de France after the seat of Thouars.

The prince died of disease in 1376, one year before his father Edouard III.

He is buried in the cathedral of Canterbury in England where one can still admire his splendid and celebrates lying.

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