King Henry III of England Part I

 

Henry III (1 October 1207 – 16 November 1272), also known as Henry of Winchester, was King of England, Lord of Ireland, and Duke of Aquitaine from 1216 until his death in 1272. The son of King John and Isabella of Angoulême, Henry assumed the throne when he was only nine in the middle of the First Barons' War. Cardinal Guala Bicchieri declared the war against the rebel barons to be a religious crusade and Henry's forces, led by William Marshal, and defeated the rebels at the battles of Lincoln and Sandwich in 1217. Henry promised to abide by the Great Charter of 1225, a later version of the 1215 Magna Carta, which limited royal power and protected the rights of the major barons. His early rule was dominated first by Hubert de Burgh and then Peter des Roches, who re-established royal authority after the war. In 1230, the King attempted to reconquer the provinces of France that had once belonged to his father, but the invasion was a debacle. A revolt led by William Marshal's son Richard broke out in 1232, ending in a peace settlement negotiated by the Church.

Following the revolt, Henry ruled England personally, rather than governing through senior ministers. He traveled less than previous monarchs, investing heavily in a handful of his favorite palaces and castles. He married Eleanor of Provence, with whom he had five children. Henry was known for his piety, holding lavish religious ceremonies and giving generously to charities; the King was particularly devoted to the figure of Edward the Confessor, whom he adopted as his patron saint. He extracted huge sums of money from the Jews in England, ultimately crippling their ability to do business, and as attitudes towards the Jews hardened, he introduced the Statute of Jewry, attempting to segregate the community. In a fresh attempt to reclaim his family's lands in France, he invaded Poitou in 1242, leading to the disastrous Battle of Taillebourg. After this, Henry relied on diplomacy, cultivating an alliance with Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor. Henry supported his brother Richard of Cornwall in his successful bid to become King of the Romans in 1256, but was unable to place his own son Edmund Crouchback on the throne of Sicily, despite investing large amounts of money. He planned to go on crusade to the Levant, but was prevented from doing so by rebellions in Gascony.

By 1258, Henry's rule was increasingly unpopular, the result of the failure of his expensive foreign policies and the notoriety of his Poitevin half-brothers, the Lusignans, as well as the role of his local officials in collecting taxes and debts. A coalition of his barons, initially probably backed by Eleanor, seized power in a coup d'état and expelled the Poitevins from England, reforming the royal government through a process called the Provisions of Oxford. Henry and the baronial government enacted a peace with France in 1259, under which Henry gave up his rights to his other lands in France in return for King Louis IX recognizing him as the rightful ruler of Gascony. The baronial regime collapsed but Henry was unable to reform a stable government and instability across England continued.

In 1263, one of the more radical barons, Simon de Montfort, seized power, resulting in the Second Barons' War. Henry persuaded Louis to support his cause and mobilized an army. The Battle of Lewes was fought in 1264, when Henry was defeated and taken prisoner. Henry's eldest son, Edward, escaped from captivity to defeat de Montfort at the Battle of Evesham the following year and freed his father. Henry initially exacted a harsh revenge on the remaining rebels, but was persuaded by the Church to mollify his policies through the Dictum of Kenilworth. Reconstruction was slow, and Henry had to acquiesce to several measures, including further suppression of the Jews, to maintain baronial and popular support. Henry died in 1272, leaving Edward as his successor. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, which he had rebuilt in the second half of his reign, and was moved to his current tomb in 1290. Some miracles were declared after his death, but he was not canonised. Henry's reign of fifty-six years was the longest in medieval English history, and would not be surpassed by an English, or later British, monarch until that of George III in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Background and childhood

Henry was born in Winchester Castle on 1 October 1207. He was the eldest son of King John and Isabella of Angoulême. Little is known of Henry's early life. He was initially looked after by a wet nurse called Ellen in the south of England, away from John's itinerant court, and probably had close ties to his mother. Henry had four legitimate younger brothers and sisters – Richard, Joan, Isabella and Eleanor – and various older illegitimate siblings. In 1212 his education was entrusted to Peter des Roches, the bishop of Winchester; under his direction, Henry was given military training by Philip D'Aubigny and taught to ride, probably by Ralph of St Samson.

Little is known about Henry's appearance; he was probably around 1.68 metres (5 ft 6 in) tall, and accounts recorded after his death suggested that he had a strong build, with a drooping eyelid. Henry grew up to occasionally show flashes of a fierce temper, but mostly, as historian David Carpenter describes, he had an "amiable, easy-going, and sympathetic" personality. He was unaffected and honest, and showed his emotions readily, easily being moved to tears by religious sermons.

At the start of the 13th century, the Kingdom of England formed part of the Angevin Empire spreading across Western Europe. Henry was named after his grandfather, Henry II, who had built up this vast network of lands stretching from Scotland and Wales, through England, across the English Channel to the territories of Normandy, Brittany, Maine and Anjou in north-west France, and on to Poitou and Gascony in the south-west. For many years the French Crown was relatively weak, enabling first Henry II, and then his sons Richard I and John, to dominate France.

In 1204, John lost Normandy, Brittany, Maine and Anjou to Philip II of France, leaving English power on the continent limited to Gascony and Poitou. John raised taxes to pay for military campaigns to regain his lands, but unrest grew among many of the English barons; John sought new allies by declaring England a papal fiefdom, owing allegiance to the Pope. In 1215, John and the rebel barons negotiated a potential peace treaty, the Magna Carta. The treaty would have limited potential abuses of royal power, demobilized the rebel armies and set up a power-sharing arrangement, but in practice neither side complied with its conditions. John and the loyalist barons firmly repudiated the Magna Carta and the First Barons' War erupted, with the rebel barons aided by Philip's son, the future Louis VIII, who claimed the English throne for himself. The war soon settled into a stalemate, with neither side able to claim victory. The king became ill, and died on the night of 18 October, leaving the nine-year-old Henry as his heir.

Minority (1216–26)

Coronation

Henry was staying safely at Corfe Castle in Dorset with his mother when King John died. On his deathbed, John appointed a council of thirteen executors to help Henry reclaim the kingdom, and requested that his son be placed into the guardianship of William Marshal, one of the most famous knights in England. The loyalist leaders decided to crown Henry immediately to reinforce his claim to the throne. William knighted the boy, and Cardinal Guala Bicchieri, the papal legate to England, then oversaw his coronation at Gloucester Cathedral on 28 October 1216.

In the absence of Archbishops Stephen Langton of Canterbury and Walter de Gray of York, he was anointed by Sylvester, Bishop of Worcester, and Simon, Bishop of Exeter, and crowned by Peter des Roches. The royal crown had been either lost or sold during the civil war or possibly lost in The Wash, so instead the ceremony used a simple gold corolla belonging to Queen Isabella. Henry later underwent a second coronation at Westminster Abbey on 17 May 1220.

The young king inherited a difficult situation, with over half of England occupied by the rebels and most of his father's continental possessions still in French hands. He had substantial support from Cardinal Guala, who intended to win the civil war for Henry and punish the rebels. Guala set about strengthening the ties between England and the Papacy, starting with the coronation itself, where Henry gave homage to the Papacy, recognizing Pope Honorius III as his feudal lord. Honorius declared that Henry was his vassal and ward, and that the legate had complete authority to protect Henry and his kingdom. As an additional measure, Henry took the cross, declaring himself a crusader and so entitled to special protection from Rome.

Two senior nobles stood out as candidates to head Henry's regency government. The first was William, who, although elderly was renowned for his personal loyalty and could help support the war with his own men and material. The second was Ranulf de Blondeville, 6th Earl of Chester, one of the most powerful loyalist barons. William diplomatically waited until both Guala and Ranulf had requested him to take up the post before assuming power. William then appointed des Roches to be Henry's guardian, freeing himself up to lead the military effort.

End of the Barons' War

The war was not going well for the loyalists and the new regency government considered retreating to Ireland. Prince Louis and the rebel barons were also finding it difficult to make further progress. Despite Louis controlling Westminster Abbey, he could not be crowned king because the English Church and the Papacy backed Henry. John's death had defused some of the rebel concerns, and the royal castles were still holding out in the occupied parts of the country. In a bid to take advantage of this, Henry encouraged the rebel barons to come back to his cause in exchange for the return of their lands, and reissued a version of the Magna Carta, albeit having first removed some of the clauses, including those unfavorable to the Papacy. The move was not successful and opposition to Henry's new government hardened.

In February, Louis set sail for France to gather reinforcements. In his absence, arguments broke out between Louis's French and English followers, and Cardinal Guala declared that Henry's war against the rebels was a religious crusade. This resulted in a series of defections from the rebel movement, and the tide of the conflict swung in Henry's favor. Louis returned at the end of April and reinvigorated his campaign, splitting his forces into two groups, sending one north to besiege Lincoln Castle and keeping one in the south to capture Dover Castle. When he learnt that Louis had divided his army, William Marshal gambled on defeating the rebels in a single battle. William marched north and attacked Lincoln on 20 May; entering through a side gate, he took the city in a sequence of fierce street battles and sacked the buildings. Large numbers of senior rebels were captured, and historian David Carpenter considers the battle to be "one of the most decisive in English history".

In the aftermath of Lincoln, the loyalist campaign stalled and only recommenced in late June when the victors had arranged the ransoming of their prisoners. Meanwhile, support for Louis's campaign was diminishing in France and he concluded that the war in England was lost. Louis negotiated terms with Cardinal Guala, under which he would renounce his claim to the English throne; in return, his followers would be given back their lands, any sentences of excommunication would be lifted and Henry's government would promise to enforce the Magna Carta. The proposed agreement soon began to unravel amid claims from some loyalists that it was too generous towards the rebels, particularly the clergy who had joined the rebellion. In the absence of a settlement, Louis remained in London with his remaining forces.

On 24 August 1217, a French fleet arrived off the coast of Sandwich, bringing Louis soldiers, siege engines and fresh supplies. Hubert de Burgh, Henry's justiciar, set sail to intercept it, resulting in the Battle of Sandwich. De Burgh's fleet scattered the French and captured their flagship, commanded by Eustace the Monk, who was promptly executed. When the news reached Louis, he entered into fresh peace negotiations.

Henry, Isabella, Louis, Guala and William came to agreement on the final Treaty of Lambeth, also known as the Treaty of Kingston, on 12 and 13 September. The treaty was similar to the first peace offer, but excluded the rebel clergy, whose lands and appointments remained forfeit. Louis accepted a gift of £6,666 to speed his departure from England, and promised to try to persuade King Philip to return Henry's lands in France. Louis left England as agreed and joined the Albigensian Crusade in the south of France.

Restoring royal authority

With the end of the civil war, Henry's government faced the task of rebuilding royal authority across large parts of the country. By the end of 1217, many former rebels were routinely ignoring instructions from the centre, and even Henry's loyalist supporters jealously maintained their independent control over royal castles. Illegally constructed fortifications, called adulterine castles, had sprung up across much of the country. The network of county sheriffs had collapsed, and with it the ability to raise taxes and collect royal revenues. The powerful Welsh Prince Llywelyn posed a major threat in Wales and along the Welsh Marches.

Despite his success in winning the war, William had far less success in restoring royal power following the peace. In part, this was because he was unable to offer significant patronage, despite the expectations from the loyalist barons that they would be rewarded. William attempted to enforce the traditional rights of the Crown to approve marriages and wardships, but with little success. Nonetheless, he was able to reconstitute the royal bench of judges and reopen the royal exchequer. The government issued the Charter of the Forest, which attempted to reform the royal governance of the forests. The regency and Llywelyn came to agreement on the Treaty of Worcester in 1218, but its generous terms – Llywelyn became effectively Henry's justiciar across Wales – underlined the weakness of the English Crown.

Henry's mother was unable to establish a role for herself in the regency government and she returned to France in 1217, marrying Hugh X de Lusignan, a powerful Poitevin noble. William Marshal fell ill and died in April 1219. The replacement government was formed around a grouping of three senior ministers: Pandulf Verraccio, the replacement Papal legate; Peter des Roches; and Hubert de Burgh, a former justiciar. The three were appointed by a great council of the nobility at Oxford, and their government came to depend on these councils for authority. Hubert and des Roches were political rivals, with Hubert supported by a network of English barons, and des Roches backed by nobles from the royal territories in Poitou and Touraine. Hubert moved decisively against des Roches in 1221, accusing him of treason and removing him as the King's guardian; the Bishop left England for the crusades. Pandulf was recalled by Rome the same year, leaving Hubert as the dominant force in Henry's government.

Initially the new government had little success, but in 1220, the fortunes of Henry's government began to improve. The Pope allowed Henry to be crowned for a second time, using a new set of royal regalia. The fresh coronation was intended to affirm the authority of the King; Henry promised to restore the powers of the Crown, and the barons swore that they would give back the royal castles and pay their debts to the Crown, on the threat of excommunication. Hubert, accompanied by Henry, moved into Wales to suppress Llywelyn in 1223, and in England his forces steadily reclaimed Henry's castles. The effort against the remaining recalcitrant barons came to a head in 1224 with the siege of Bedford Castle, which Henry and Hubert besieged for eight weeks; when it finally fell, almost all of the garrison were executed and the castle was methodically slighted.

Meanwhile, Louis VIII of France allied himself with Hugh de Lusignan and invaded first Poitou and then Gascony. Henry's army in Poitou was under-resourced and lacked support from the Poitevin barons, many of whom had felt abandoned during the years of Henry's minority; as a result, the province quickly fell. It became clear that Gascony would also fall unless reinforcements were sent from England. In early 1225 a great council approved a tax of £40,000 to dispatch an army, which quickly retook Gascony. In exchange for agreeing to support Henry, the barons demanded that he reissue the Magna Carta and the Charter of the Forest. This time the King declared that the charters were issued of his own "spontaneous and free will" and confirmed them with the royal seal, giving the new Great Charter and the Charter of the Forest of 1225 much more authority than any previous versions. The barons anticipated that the King would act in accordance with these definitive charters, subject to the law and moderated by the advice of the nobility.

Early rule (1227–34)

Invasion of France

Henry assumed formal control of his government in January 1227, although some contemporaries argued that he was legally still a minor until his 21st birthday the following year. The King richly rewarded Hubert de Burgh for his service during his minority years, making him the Earl of Kent and giving him extensive lands across England and Wales. Despite coming of age, Henry remained heavily influenced by his advisers for the first few years of his rule and retained Hubert as his justiciar to run the government, granting him the position for life.

The fate of Henry's family lands in France still remained uncertain. Reclaiming these lands was extremely important to Henry, who used terms such as "reclaiming his inheritance", "restoring his rights" and "defending his legal claims" to the territories in diplomatic correspondence. The French kings had an increasing financial and thus military, advantage over Henry. Even under John, the French Crown had enjoyed a considerable, although not overwhelming, advantage in resources, but since then, the balance had shifted further, with the ordinary annual income of the French kings almost doubling between 1204 and 1221.

Louis VIII died in 1226, leaving his 12-year-old son, Louis IX, to inherit the throne, supported by a regency government. The young French king was in a much weaker position than his father, and faced opposition from many of the French nobility who still maintained their ties to England, leading to a sequence of revolts across the country. Against this background, in late 1228 a group of potential Norman and Angevin rebels called upon Henry to invade and reclaim his inheritance, and Peter I, Duke of Brittany, openly revolted against Louis and gave his homage to Henry.

Henry's preparations for an invasion progressed slowly, and when he finally arrived in Brittany with an army in May 1230, the campaign did not go well. Possibly on the advice of Hubert, the King decided to avoid battle with the French by not invading Normandy and instead marching south into Poitou, where he campaigned ineffectually over the summer, before finally progressing safely onto Gascony. He made a truce with Louis until 1234 and returned to England having achieved nothing; historian Huw Ridgeway describes the expedition as a "costly fiasco".

Richard Marshal's revolt

Henry's chief minister, Hubert, fell from power in 1232. His old rival, Peter des Roches, returned to England from the crusades in August 1231 and allied himself with Hubert's growing number of political opponents. He put the case to Henry that the Justiciar had squandered royal money and lands, and was responsible for a series of riots against foreign clerics. Hubert took sanctuary in Merton Priory, but Henry had him arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London. Des Roches took over the King's government, backed by the Poitevin baronial faction in England, who saw this as a chance to take back the lands which they had lost to Hubert's followers in the previous decades.

Des Roches used his new authority to begin stripping his opponents of their estates, circumventing the courts and legal process. Complaints from powerful barons such as William Marshal's son Richard Marshal, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, grew, and they argued that Henry was failing to protect their legal rights as described in the 1225 charters. A fresh civil war broke out between des Roches and Richard's followers. Des Roches sent armies into Richard's lands in Ireland and South Wales. In response, Richard allied himself with Prince Llywelyn, and his own supporters rose up in rebellion in England. Henry was unable to gain a clear military advantage and became concerned that Louis of France might seize the opportunity to invade Brittany – where the truce was about to expire – while he was distracted at home.

Edmund of Abingdon, the Archbishop of Canterbury, intervened in 1234 and held several great councils, advising Henry to accept the dismissal of des Roches. Henry agreed to make peace, but, before the negotiations were completed, Richard died of wounds suffered in battle, leaving his younger brother Gilbert to inherit his lands. The final settlement was confirmed in May, and Henry was widely praised for his humility in submitting to the slightly embarrassing peace. Meanwhile, the truce with France in Brittany finally expired, and Henry's ally Duke Peter came under fresh military pressure. Henry could only send a small force of soldiers to assist, and Brittany fell to Louis in November. For the next 24 years, Henry ruled the kingdom personally, rather than through senior ministers.

Henry as king

Kingship, government and law

Royal government in England had traditionally centered on several great offices of state, filled by powerful, independent members of the baronage. Henry abandoned this policy, leaving the post of justiciar vacant and turning the position of chancellor into a more junior role. A small royal council was formed but its role was ill-defined; appointments, patronage, and policy were decided personally by Henry and his immediate advisers, rather than through the larger councils that had marked his early years. The changes made it much harder for those outside Henry's inner circle to influence policy or to pursue legitimate grievances, particularly against the King's friends.

Henry believed that kings should rule England in a dignified manner, surrounded by ceremony and ecclesiastical ritual. He thought that his predecessors had allowed the status of the Crown to decline, and sought to correct this during his reign. The events of the civil war in Henry's youth deeply affected him, and he adopted Anglo-Saxon king Edward the Confessor as his patron saint, hoping to emulate the way in which Edward had brought peace to England and reunited his people in order and harmony. Henry tried to use his royal authority leniently, hoping to appease the more hostile barons and maintain peace in England.

As a result, despite a symbolic emphasis on royal power, Henry's rule was relatively circumscribed and constitutional. He generally acted within the terms of the charters, which prevented the Crown from taking extrajudicial action against the barons, including the fines and expropriations that had been common under John. The charters did not address the sensitive issues of the appointment of royal advisers and the distribution of patronage, and they lacked any means of enforcement if the King chose to ignore them. Henry's rule became lax and careless, resulting in a reduction in royal authority in the provinces and, ultimately, the collapse of his authority at court. The inconsistency with which he applied the charters over the course of his rule alienated many barons, even those within his own faction.

The term "parliament" first appeared in the 1230s and 1240s to describe large gatherings of the royal court, and parliamentary gatherings were held periodically throughout Henry's reign. They were used to agree upon the raising of taxes which, in the 13th century, were single, one-off levies, typically on movable property, intended to support the King's normal revenues for particular projects. During Henry's reign, the counties began to send regular delegations to these parliaments, and came to represent a broader cross-section of the community than simply the major barons.

Despite the various charters, the provision of royal justice was inconsistent and driven by the needs of immediate politics: sometimes action would be taken to address a legitimate baronial complaint, on other occasions, the problem would simply be ignored. The royal eyres, courts which toured the country to provide justice at the local level, typically for those lesser barons and the gentry claiming grievances against the major lords, had little power, allowing the major barons to dominate the local justice system.

The power of royal sheriffs also declined during Henry's reign. They were now often lesser men appointed by the exchequer, rather than coming from important local families, and they focused on generating revenue for the King. Their robust attempts to enforce fines and collect debts generated much unpopularity among the lower classes. Unlike his father, Henry did not exploit the large debts that the barons frequently owed to the Crown, and was slow to collect any sums of money due to him.

Court

The royal court was formed round Henry's trusted friends, such as Richard de Clare, 6th Earl of Gloucester; the brothers Hugh Bigod and Roger Bigod, 4th Earl of Norfolk; Humphrey de Bohun, 2nd Earl of Hereford; and Henry's brother, Richard. Henry wanted to use his court to unite his English and continental subjects, and it included the originally French knight Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, who had married Henry's sister Eleanor, in addition to the later influxes of Henry's Savoyard and Lusignan relatives. The court followed European styles and traditions, and was heavily influenced by Henry's Angevin family traditions: French was the spoken language, it had close links to the royal courts of France, Castile, the Holy Roman Empire and Sicily, and Henry sponsored the same writers as the other European rulers.

Henry traveled less than previous kings, seeking a tranquil, more sedate life and staying at each of his palaces for prolonged periods before moving on. Possibly as a result, he focused more attention on his palaces and houses; Henry was, according to architectural historian John Goodall, "the most obsessive patron of art and architecture ever to have occupied the throne of England". Henry extended the royal complex at Westminster in London, one of his favourite homes, rebuilding the palace and the abbey at a cost of almost £55,000. He spent more time in Westminster than any of his predecessors, shaping the formation of England's capital city.

He spent £58,000 on his royal castles, carrying out major works at the Tower of London, Lincoln and Dover. Both the military defenses and the internal accommodation of these castles were significantly improved. A huge overhaul of Windsor Castle produced a lavish palace complex, whose style and detail inspired many subsequent designs in England and Wales. The Tower of London was extended to form a concentric fortress with extensive living quarters, although Henry primarily used the castle as a secure retreat in the event of war or civil strife. He also kept a menagerie at the Tower, a tradition begun by his father, and his exotic specimens included an elephant, a leopard and a camel.

Henry reformed the system of silver coins in England in 1247, replacing the older Short Cross silver pennies with a new Long Cross design. Due to the initial costs of the transition, he required the financial help of his brother Richard to undertake this reform, but the recoinage occurred quickly and efficiently. Between 1243 and 1258, the King assembled two great hoards, or stockpiles, of gold. In 1257, Henry needed to spend the second of these hoards urgently and, rather than selling the gold quickly and depressing its value, he decided to introduce gold pennies into England, following the popular trend in Italy. The gold pennies resembled the gold coins issued by Edward the Confessor, but the overvalued currency attracted complaints from the City of London and was ultimately abandoned.

Religion

Henry was known for his public demonstrations of piety, and appears to have been genuinely devout. He promoted rich, luxurious Church services, and, unusually for the period, attended mass at least once a day. He gave generously to religious causes, paid for the feeding of 500 paupers each day and helped orphans. He fasted before commemorating Edward the Confessor's feasts, and may have washed the feet of lepers. Henry regularly went on pilgrimages, particularly to the abbeys of Bromholm, St Albans and Walsingham Priory, although he appears to have sometimes used pilgrimages as an excuse to avoid dealing with pressing political problems.

Henry shared many of his religious views with Louis of France, and the two men appear to have been slightly competitive in their piety. Towards the end of his reign, Henry may have taken up the practice of curing sufferers of scrofula, often called "the King's evil", by touching them, possibly emulating Louis, who also took up the practice. Louis had a famous collection of Passion Relics which he kept in the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, and he paraded the Holy Cross through Paris in 1241; Henry took possession of the Relic of the Holy Blood in 1247, marching it through Westminster to be installed in Westminster Abbey, which he promoted as an alternative to the Sainte-Chapelle.

Henry was particularly supportive of the mendicant orders; his confessors were drawn from the Dominican friars, and he built mendicant houses in Canterbury, Norwich, Oxford, Reading and York, helping to find valuable space for new buildings in what was already crowded towns and cities. He supported the military crusading orders, and became a patron of the Teutonic Order in 1235. The emerging universities of Oxford and Cambridge also received royal attention: Henry reinforced and regulated their powers, and encouraged scholars to migrate from Paris to teach at them. A rival institution at Northampton was declared by the King to be a mere school and not a true university.

The support given to Henry by the Papacy during his early years had a lasting influence on his attitude towards Rome, and he defended the mother church diligently throughout his reign. Rome in the 13th century was at once both the centre of the Europe-wide Church, and a political power in central Italy, threatened militarily by the Holy Roman Empire. During Henry's reign, the Papacy developed a strong, central bureaucracy, supported by benefices granted to absent churchmen working in Rome. Tensions grew between this practice and the needs of local parishioners, exemplified by the dispute between Robert Grosseteste, the bishop of Lincoln, and the Papacy in 1250.

Although the Scottish Church became more independent of England during the period, the Papal Legates helped Henry continue to apply influence over its activities at a distance. Pope Innocent IV's attempts to raise funds began to face opposition from within the English Church during Henry's reign. In 1240, the Papal emissary's collection of taxes to pay for the Papacy's war with Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II resulted in protests, ultimately overcome with the help of Henry and the Pope, and in the 1250s Henry's crusading tithes faced similar resistance.

Jewish policies

The Jews in England were considered the property of the Crown, and they had traditionally been used as a source of cheap loans and easy taxation, in exchange for royal protection against antisemitism. The Jews had suffered considerable oppression during the First Barons' War, but during Henry's early years the community had flourished and became one of the most prosperous in Europe. This was primarily the result of the stance taken by the regency government, which took a range of measures to protect the Jews and encourage lending. This was driven by financial self-interest, as they stood to profit considerably from a strong Jewish community in England. Their policy ran counter to the instructions being sent from the Pope, who had laid out strong anti-Jewish measures at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215; William Marshal continued with his policy despite complaints from the Church.

In 1239 Henry introduced different policies, possibly trying to imitate those of Louis of France: Jewish leaders across England were imprisoned and forced to pay fines equivalent to a third of their goods, and any outstanding loans were to be released. Further huge demands for cash followed – £40,000 was demanded in 1244, for example, of which around two-thirds was collected within five years – destroying the ability of the Jewish community to lend money commercially. The financial pressure Henry placed on the Jews caused them to force repayment of loans, fueling anti-Jewish resentment. A particular grievance among smaller landowners such as knights was the sale of Jewish bonds, which were bought and used by richer barons and members of Henry's royal circle as a means to acquire lands of lesser landholders, through payment defaults.

Henry had built the Domus Conversorum in London in 1232 to help convert Jews to Christianity, and efforts intensified after 1239. As many as 10 per cent of the Jews in England had been converted by the late 1250s in large part due to their deteriorating economic conditions. Many anti-Jewish stories involving tales of child sacrifice circulated in the 1230s–50s, including the account of "Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln" in 1255. The event is considered particularly significant, as the first such accusation endorsed by the Crown. Henry intervened to order the execution of Copin, who had confessed to the murder in return for his life, and removed 91 Jews to the Tower of London. 18 were executed, and their property expropriated by the Crown. At the time, the Jews were mortgaged to Richard of Cornwall, who intervened to release the Jews that were not executed, probably also with the backing of Dominican or Franciscan friars.

Henry passed the Statute of Jewry in 1253, which attempted to stop the construction of synagogues and enforce the wearing of Jewish badges, in line with existing Church pronouncements; it remains unclear to what extent the King actually implemented the statute. By 1258, Henry's Jewish policies were regarded as confused and were increasingly unpopular amongst the barons. Taken together, Henry's policies up to 1258 of excessive Jewish taxation, anti-Jewish legislation and propaganda caused a very important and negative change.

Personal rule (1234–58)

Marriage

Henry investigated a range of potential marriage partners in his youth, but they all proved unsuitable for reasons of European and domestic politics. In 1236 he finally married Eleanor of Provence, the daughter of Ramon Berenguer IV, Count of Provence, and Beatrice of Savoy. Eleanor was well-mannered, cultured and articulate, but the primary reason for the marriage was political, as Henry stood to create a valuable set of alliances with the rulers of the south and south-east of France. Over the coming years, Eleanor emerged as a hard-headed, firm politician. Historians Margaret Howell and David Carpenter describe her as being "more combative" and "far tougher and more determined" than her husband.

The marriage contract was confirmed in 1235 and Eleanor traveled to England to meet Henry for the first time. The pair were married at Canterbury Cathedral in January 1236, and Eleanor was crowned queen at Westminster shortly afterwards in a lavish ceremony planned by Henry. There was a substantial age gap between the couple – Henry was 28, Eleanor only 12 – but historian Margaret Howell observes that the King "was generous and warm-hearted and prepared to lavish care and affection on his wife". Henry gave Eleanor extensive gifts and paid personal attention to establishing and equipping her household. He also brought her fully into his religious life, including involving her in his devotion to Edward the Confessor.

Despite initial concerns that the Queen might be barren, Henry and Eleanor had five children together. In 1239 Eleanor gave birth to their first child, Edward, named after the Confessor. Henry was overjoyed and held huge celebrations, giving lavishly to the Church and to the poor to encourage God to protect his young son. Their first daughter, Margaret, named after Eleanor's sister, followed in 1240, her birth also accompanied by celebrations and donations to the poor. The third child, Beatrice, was named after Eleanor's mother, and born in 1242 during a campaign in Poitou.

Their fourth child, Edmund, arrived in 1245 and was named after the 9th-century saint. Concerned about Eleanor's health, Henry donated large amounts of money to the Church throughout the pregnancy.  A third daughter, Katherine, was born in 1253 but soon fell ill, possibly the result of a degenerative disorder such as Rett syndrome, and was unable to speak. She died in 1257 and Henry was distraught. His children spent most of their childhood at Windsor Castle and he appears to have been extremely attached to them, rarely spending extended periods of time apart from his family.

After Eleanor's marriage, many of her Savoyard relatives joined her in England. At least 170 Savoyards arrived in England after 1236, coming from Savoy, Burgundy and Flanders, including Eleanor's uncles, the later Archbishop Boniface of Canterbury and William of Savoy, Henry's chief adviser for a short period. Henry arranged marriages for many of them into the English nobility, a practice that initially caused friction with the English barons, who resisted landed estates passing into the hands of foreigners. The Savoyards were careful not to exacerbate the situation and became increasingly integrated into English baronial society, forming an important power base for Eleanor in England.