The political fortunes of the Plantagenet dominions, Edward III's reputation, and, indeed, the balance of power in western Europe changed in the 1360s. It was, in many ways, the pivotal decade of the fourteenth century. In retrospect it proved to mark the beginning of an English decline that lasted fifty years, but, at the time, opportunities seemed limitless. Fortune, military success, and political machinations seemed to have brought England to the brink of imperial power; Edward appeared to be on the point of recreating the Angevin Empire.Footnote 1

First, the capture of Jean II at the battle of Poitiers (19 September 1356) changed the complexion of the Hundred Years' War. It resulted, eventually, in the signing of the treaty of Brétigny-Calais (8 May 1360), and with the kings of France and Scotland in captivity, Edward III's political horizons widened.Footnote 2 Briefly perhaps, the throne of France seemed within his grasp—that is, if one accepts the presence of a crown in Edward's baggage during the Reims campaign (1359–60) as indicative of his aspirations. In general, however, Edward seems to have had more anachronistic, although no less ambitious, aims. The alliances and policies forged by the English in the late 1350s and early 1360s, according to Robin Frame, “chime with evidence that Edward was conscious of the Angevin past [and] the British Isles seemed on the point of forming part of a restored and reshaped European imperium.”Footnote 3

The major constituents of that empire were to be divided into units akin to appanages for Edward's sons.Footnote 4 Indeed, just at this time the Valois kings were beginning the series of political devolutions and establishment of the great principalities that reshaped French political geography for more than a century. These Plantagenet appanages were to be created through various means—marriages, treaties, force—and took advantage of remarkable political circumstances.Footnote 5 The most important grants were made around the time of the king's fiftieth birthday (12 November 1362): Edward, prince of Wales, received the principality of Aquitaine, and just prior to this Lionel of Antwerp, soon to be duke of Clarence, was dispatched to serve as the king's lieutenant in Ireland.Footnote 6

Although shaped by political opportunism, Edward III's policy was also determined by Angevin precedent, and, no doubt, like Henry II he was conscious of the pressures of a large family for which he had to make provision.Footnote 7 But the scheme foundered for various reasons: the treaties were not concluded, the marriages were not contracted, and, in time, English power began to fade. As circumstances changed, the ambitions for a wider empire died: only in Ireland and Aquitaine were serious attempts made to extend English authority during the interval in the Hundred Years' War, and in both lordships the new administrations failed. This essay seeks to explain these failures and will evaluate and compare the regimes of Lionel of Clarence and Edward the Black Prince during this period of “imperial” expansion.

Some time ago both J. A. Watt and Robin Frame suggested such a study—evaluating Ireland and Gascony within the context of the Plantagenet lands as a whole. In doing so Frame commented on the differences and similarities between Irish and Gascon society: the former divided between settlers and natives, the latter relatively homogenous; yet the two shared a ruler, an analogous style of devolved government, and comparable structural tensions and political concerns. He pointed to the 1360s as a period worthy of particular consideration.Footnote 8 An analysis encompassing the entire Plantagenet demesne is beyond the scope of this essay, but an evaluation of and comparison between Ireland and Gascony has much to recommend it. More precisely, a comparison between the lordship of Ireland and the principality of Aquitaine (those territories amalgamated with Gascony after the treaty of Brétigny) may prove instructive.

Both were frontier regions bordered by an extensive coastline and surrounded by potential enemies on three sides. And although both Dublin and Bordeaux were governmental capitals, fragmentation of power meant Ireland and Aquitaine lacked political centers comparable to those in London or Paris.Footnote 9 However, despite such similarities, the attribution of the titles “lordship” and “principality” immediately suggests differences in the political character of these areas, and Ireland and Aquitaine undoubtedly were substantially different, irrespective of whether they are termed regions, colonies, lordships, dominions, principalities, or simply lands.Footnote 10 Certainly, for both Watt and Frame, Gascony was not a “colony” in the same sense as Ireland and Wales because it was not even partially settled by the English and maintained its own customs, church, and aristocracy. There was no attempt to expropriate land or build “a new society in the image of the one they had left.”Footnote 11

While this is undoubtedly the case, the failure of the Black Prince's regime in the principality of Aquitaine is usually seen as the consequence of imposing a colonial elite, primarily in terms of office holding; furthermore, as in Ireland, financially exploitative policies resulted in rebellion. Although evidence is limited, levels of English settlement may have been considerable in the period of the principality.Footnote 12 To be sure, in an important article on the political character of Anglo-Ireland Rees Davies noted that settlement and the displacement of natives did not necessarily lead to the establishment of a colony. However, he points out that governmental dependence on the mother country is a hallmark of colonial status, as well as legislative and judicial control and political and social patronage.Footnote 13 The principality of Aquitaine, in some fashion, met all these criteria, and there is no doubt it was “more colonial” than the duchy of Gascony.

The distinction between the principality of Aquitaine and the duchy of Gascony is not always emphasized sufficiently.Footnote 14 The principality was five times larger than the duchy and its political community composed mainly of vassals who had been loyal to the Valois monarchy. In this period, while much of France experienced the development of some sort of national consciousness and identity, “Gascony remained quite estranged from the kingdom” until 1453 and the end of the Hundred Years' War.Footnote 15 Because of this the majority of the problems the Black Prince faced after 1362 came from the area of the “greater Aquitaine”—those territories and lordships acquired through the treaty of Brétigny and appended to the old duchy of Gascony. This is not to say that the revolt against the prince, when it came in 1368/9, was composed only of those from the greater Aquitaine—the Albret family, who were at the forefront of the appeal to Charles V, had long been Gascon servants of the English crown. Nor is it to suggest that all in “French” Aquitaine were inherently antipathetic to the new regime. However, the problems of government that encouraged the appeal and subsequent revolt were shaped mainly in the greater Aquitaine. It is this region also that provides a closer comparison with the other Plantagenet dominions than the former duchy of Gascony.

This is significant because it has been argued that there was a complete contrast between England's attitudes to her Celtic colonies and French dominions—the distinction being areas where rule was based on conquest rather than inheritance.Footnote 16 However, the principality of Aquitaine was, essentially, the product of conquest, and the revolt against the Black Prince's administration has been explained in terms of exploitative, divisive, and distinctly colonial policies. English rule in Aquitaine therefore provides an important comparison to “colonial” government in Celtic countries. In Ireland, Wales, and Scotland, English policy is often explained in racial terms; however, in Gascony/Aquitaine many of the same characteristics of government applied in the absence of a Celtic population.Footnote 17

In truth, evidence for the character of the regime in the principality, though suggestive, is inconclusive. In one camp is the prince's biographer, Chandos Herald, who tells us that Edward, “reigned seven years in Gascony, in joy, in peace, and in pleasantness, for all the princes and barons of all the country round about came to him to do homage; for a good lord, loyal and sage, they held him with one accord, and rightly … all his subjects and all his men loved him right dearly, for he dealt liberally with them.”Footnote 18 The Anonimalle chronicler, by contrast, described a brutal financial administration—the prince “ransomed [exploited] the land grievously” (raunsoner grevousement la terre) in order to sustain “outrage dispenses.”Footnote 19 Similarly, Jean Froissart emphasized the economic impositions of the regime, noting in particular the requisition of items without payment. More significantly, he also commented that only those who were “pure English” (purs Englés ) were appointed as seneschals, bailiis, mayors, treasurers, sergeants, vigiers, “and all other officers” (et tous autres officyers).Footnote 20 Furthermore, we have a letter written by Louis, duke of Anjou, on 22 December 1368, to the nobility of Aquitaine. Seeking to inflame revolt against the prince, he too commented on high levels of taxation, various impositions, and novelties enforced by the prince and his officials. Phrases such as “right, reason and justice” (droit, raison [et] justice) were interspersed with economic arguments and emotional and nationalistic appeals regarding the great love all should have for the king of France and his family.Footnote 21 It proved very effective. Although some features, primarily chivalric and centered on the prince's household, galvanized support for the new regime, the imposition of new (English) authority, especially in the form of new taxes and officials, caused intense disapproval.

The failure of both administrations, in Aquitaine and Ireland, cannot, however, only be attributed to unsympathetic or exploitative policies. The socioeconomic conditions that Lionel and Edward faced were deeply problematic. The Anglo-Irish lordship had been under strain for some time. Drained by Edward I's demands for men and money; buffeted by the horrors of the Bruce Invasion (1315–18), the Great Famine (1315–22), and the Black Death (1348–50); and pressured by a newly invigorated Gaelic population, the lordship faced a stream of complaints in Dublin and London. In 1341 the first major formulation of grievances on a general scale emerged (see below). In response the justiciars Ralph Ufford (1344–46) and Thomas Rokeby (1349–55, 1357) made strenuous, but ultimately unsuccessful, efforts to restore the fortunes of the colony. Finally, in 1361, Lionel was dispatched after the Irish Great Council begged for English support and sent representatives to Edward III to emphasize the deteriorating situation of his lordship.Footnote 22

Lionel served as lieutenant for five years (September 1361–April 1364 and December 1365–November 1366), at that time the longest period spent in Ireland by a member of the English royal family. This provided a degree of continuity and a consistent English military presence, but it was at best a short-term success. During this period he conducted a series of campaigns to secure his own estates (with the notable exception of Connacht) and bring Irish lords (both Anglo-Irish and Gaelic) under control. But his army was small, at least by continental standards—at most 2,000 troops—and it could only police the lordship, not defeat the Gaelic Irish, although the capture (and subsequent death) of Art Mac Murchadha, king of Leinster, removed a major military threat.Footnote 23

Lionel's expedition achieved little of lasting value despite the expenditure lavished on it and its comparatively long duration.Footnote 24 He managed to secure the submissions of a number of Gaelic lords but, in most cases, they were short-lived. While there was a large government army in their neighborhood the Irish were at peace; however, when the army left, the peace evaporated. Neither did his administrative reforms last long. Lionel's most revolutionary move was to relocate some of the departments of government from Dublin to Carlow.Footnote 25 Seeking to reestablish the frontiers of the lordship and counter the threat from the Mic Mhurchadha, Lionel refortified the town and made it the seat of the exchequer and the common bench. But this did not achieve its intended aim, and by the end of the century the offices were back in the safer confines of Dublin castle. In short, Lionel's military successes were temporary, and the limited financial recovery he ensured only brought him into conflict with the Anglo-Irish because of demands for taxation and administrative corruption, perceived or real. It was not long after Lionel's departure that Edward III conceded his son's mission had failed, and his lordship of Ireland was now “sunk in the greatest wretchedness.”Footnote 26

Similarly, Edward III's entire devolutionary policy failed, but it was by no means foolish: government in the Plantagenet lordships could only be effective if undertaken by an individual with sufficient authority and a vested interest in its success. Despite Lionel's and Edward's failures, a devolutionary approach remained a significant tenet of English policy toward Ireland and Aquitaine during Richard II's reign. A duchy was created for Robert de Vere, one of Walsingham's “knights of Venus” of the king's chamber, perhaps with the intention of it becoming something greater.Footnote 27 Richard may also have planned a kingdom for his nephew, Thomas Holand, duke of Surrey, in 1398/9.Footnote 28 And similarly, a proposition was made for Gaunt to hold a devolved duchy of Gascony of the French crown. Perhaps significantly, one of the reasons the scheme foundered was the reaction of the Gascons who claimed they would be ruled, as they were accustomed, by no one other than the king of England or his heir apparent.Footnote 29

By contrast, neither Lionel nor Edward were foisted on Ireland and Gascony but invited to take command. Lionel, however, was only twenty-three years of age when appointed lieutenant, with little military or administrative experience. He had never visited Ireland, yet he was expected to reform the administration and begin a process of reconquest. Similarly, in 1355, due to the growing military threat posed by Jean d’Armagnac, King Jean II's lieutenant in Languedoc, a Gascon delegation had requested the Black Prince's presence.Footnote 30 He had great military success in the grande chevauchée (1355) and triumphed at Poitiers, so when the duchy was augmented with the territories conceded at Brétigny, it made sense to maintain him there. It is interesting that Armagnac would lead the appeal against the prince's regime and the subsequent rebellion. The problems in Aquitaine were, however, more deep-rooted than this suggests. Both appointments, in Ireland and Gascony/Aquitaine, proved difficult, and what has been said of the Anglo-Irish is equally true of the Gascons: “[Although] English help had been urgently requested … the presence of the king's son, his entourage and troops meant the intrusion into the lordship of an unusually large body of outsiders. … The[y] … wanted English help and delighted in the social prestige that King Edward's son could bestow. But these advantages had their price.”Footnote 31

In the case of the Black Prince that price was high—nothing less than the resumption of the Hundred Years' War and the loss by circa 1372 of nearly everything gained by the English since 1337. In 1368, after his return from the Castilian campaign, the prince was forced to impose a hearth tax (fouage): in reaction, a number of the nobility complained about his regime to Charles V and the Parlement of Paris. Charles summoned Edward to answer these allegations, and when the prince refused to attend—save with an army at his back—in time-honored fashion the king of France declared the Gascon lands confiscated, and the war resumed.

The fouage, then, signaled the beginning of the end of the principality. In addition to its “colonial” character, the failure of the prince's administration is often attributed to his limited economic resources, coupled disastrously with personal extravagance. Certainly his financial situation became desperate after he signed the treaty of Libourne (1366) and agreed to help Pedro “the Cruel” regain his throne.Footnote 32 But even without the economically disastrous Castilian campaign the principality was not a viable financial unit, and, as in Ireland, any attempt to create an effective fiscal regime could lead to disorder and resentment as traditional franchises were threatened.Footnote 33 Nor was it a viable judicial or administrative unit, depending as it did on the creaking ducal machinery. Nor should the financial inducements and rewards of office offered by Charles V be underestimated as a reason for the later rebellion.Footnote 34 Patriotic sentiment also played a part as the Valois continued to develop an increasingly effective propaganda campaign that equated the English “occupation” with servitude or slavery. Consequently, along the Gascon border many religious houses began to witness anti-English miracles. For example, Saint Martialis, who began his divine career as a simple protector of Limoges, was transformed by 1388 into an anti-English savior.Footnote 35 Various disputes with the prince or his officials also took place against this backdrop, including questions of failed litigation over land following the transfer of territory after 1360. In many cases the fouage was only an excuse, although one symbolic of other grievances.

Underlying these issues lay a basic reality—the principality was not a viable political unit. This was not merely because of the inherent problems of governing an area more than five times as large as the duchy Edward III inherited in 1327, comprising nearly a third of the kingdom of France; one of the chief problems lay in the differing conceptions of the nature of authority between the prince, his administration, and the nobility of Aquitaine.Footnote 36 Such divergences in terms of political culture and of the mutual responsibilities of ruler and vassal also contributed to the difficulties of maintaining the English lordship of Ireland.

Authority in England was imposed by representatives of a unitary kingship and underpinned by a hierarchical social and philosophical theory that, in the fourteenth century, was coming to be expressed in a clear legal manner.Footnote 37 Such concepts proved a problematic export to the fragmented territories of Ireland with its mosaics of regional authority, and they also caused difficulties in Gascony. By contrast, many of the nobility of the wider principality of Aquitaine were adjusted to the presence of a strong, if distant, unitary kingship, even though they retained strong regional loyalties, but it was a king resident in Paris and their allegiance to him was not easily forsaken.Footnote 38

The imposition of vigorous government founded on such (English) principles and distinguished by a sophisticated bureaucratic and documentary administration conflicted with indigenous attitudes to authority. Just as the nobles of greater Aquitaine reacted violently against the change of sovereignty brought about by the treaty of Brétigny, so Gaelic chiefs considered that an inherent nobility gave them a right to hold land: it was their charter, and they had what has been described as a “cavalier attitude to the written word.” Among the native Irish aristocracy legitimate ownership and authority were not traced to a recorded contract but founded on physical force and tradition: “Thou shalt seek no other charter except thy own reliance on thy gallantry; to charge against the sharp spears that pierce thee is thy true charter to thy land.”Footnote 39 The Statute of Kilkenny (1366), in part, aimed to restrict the extension of such “cavalier attitudes” from the Gaelic-Irish to the English of Ireland. They sought to eradicate the social, cultural, and political “degeneracy” (or gaelicization) of the Anglo-Irish community, especially those living on the frontiers of effective English rule. This “degenerate” social and political climate had shaped a culture conditioned to oppose attempts to enforce central control and closely resembles the situation confronting the Black Prince in the 1360s.

These conflicting conceptions of authority went to the heart of English difficulties in governing overseas at this time. Royal power in unitary kingships was dependent on the use or threat of coercive force and founded on oaths of allegiance. Such oaths were becoming all the more necessary because of the developing claims being made for the (imperial) authority of princes and the power appropriate for a sovereign ruler—rex in regno suo est imperator.Footnote 40 The giving and receiving of oaths of fealty and homage in England and France had great potential for causing friction since they required a public acknowledgment of social and political inferiority. This was seen most clearly in Capetian demands that the kings of England pay liege homage for the duchy of Gascony. This long-standing problem became of particular concern after the treaty of Paris (1258). The development of theories of kingship bolstered by Roman law, and the real growth of Capetian royal power, made even the idea of paying liege homage repugnant to the Plantagenets.Footnote 41 Such attitudes were also evident at a lower social level. John Russell Major observed that in the course of the later medieval period the homage ceremony became very unpopular: the “kiss” was a particular problem, and kneeling before a noble became considered ridiculous—one only knelt before a king.Footnote 42

Problems for the new administration emerged in the immediate aftermath of the treaty of Brétigny, by which Aquitaine was “abandoned” by the king of France and “amputated” from his kingdom.Footnote 43 Many of the Aquitainian nobles protested vigorously against being handed over to a new sovereign and to the governance of a man who had subjected them to one of the most wide-ranging raids of devastation in the entire Hundred Years' War and defeated a number of them in person at the battle of Poitiers. The counts of Périgord (Pierre Bernard), Armagnac (Jean), Comminges (Pierre Raymond), and the vicomte of Castelbon (Armand d’Eauze) all denied the right of the king of France to give them over to Edward III. Similarly Gaston Fébus, always looking to play Plantagenet and Valois off against one another, refused to do homage for Béarn, which he considered a sovereign alod, and tried to assert his claim to Bigorre, although he later offered homage for Marsan and Gavardan.Footnote 44

When Sir John Chandos (then the king's lieutenant for the transfer of lands after Brétigny) took the homages of the inhabitants of the new principality, he was astonished at Cahors by demands that any liability for war service was to be limited to their own province and that they would never be required to fight against the king of France. It was an ominous sign for the future. When the prince arrived in Aquitaine, he received the homage of his “subjects” in a great ceremony at the cathedral of St. Andrew in Bordeaux and on an extensive peregrination of the principality.Footnote 45

It would, of course, be absurd to suggest this meant the kings of England and France enjoyed complete loyalty from all their indigenous subjects, but there was a greater expectation of the binding power of oaths of allegiance than pertained in Ireland or Gascony.Footnote 46 The situation had changed in the duchy since the late twelfth century when, as Ralph Turner put it, “Regional lords … proclaimed allegiance to their Plantagenet lord when he presented himself at the head of an army but they promptly rebelled on his departure,” but the same tendencies remained, and, after Brétigny, they increased throughout the greater Aquitaine.Footnote 47 The fragility of oaths of submission in Ireland is clear from the experience of Richard II with regard to the Gaelic lords and also in the rebellious nature of many of the Anglo-Irish.Footnote 48

The traditional geographical distance between lord and vassal in Ireland and Aquitaine also served to inhibit the cultivation of a sense of dynastic loyalty. Royal authority in the 1360s as expressed by lieutenants seemed all the more abrupt and abrasive because it was imposed after long periods of absentee lordship. Edward was the first resident prince in Gascony for over 150 years and Lionel the first senior member of the English royal family to visit Ireland since King John. Indeed, the weakness of the Anglo-Irish lordship in this period is often ascribed to the problems arising from absentee lordship.Footnote 49

This was not restricted to the absence of the king. Lionel was among many English nobles who had neglected their Irish estates. Indeed, he was the most significant of them, having married Elizabeth de Burgh, heiress to the earldom of Ulster, which came into his possession in 1360 and further explains his appointment as lieutenant.Footnote 50 It was reported in 1360 that absentees held five-sixths of the lordship of Ireland. Consequently, in the following year, English lords were ordered to see to the defense of their Irish property: these included thirty-four noblemen, nine women (perhaps coheiresses), the heads of eight religious houses, and a number of other clergymen. In the event only nine of the magnates accompanied Lionel, and five sent proxies to be funded by their Irish estates. A few quietly disposed of their lands.Footnote 51

Similar problems pertained in southern France: absentee lordship at the center and a profusion of competing regional authorities elsewhere. For Capetians, Valois, and Plantagenets, establishing control over the southern French nobility was complicated by the many variations in customs regarding law, inheritance, and the holding of alodial tenure.Footnote 52 There were five principal lay courts in Gascony, various seigneurial jurisdictions, several ecclesiastical courts, as well as the middling and lesser judicial competences, and the numbers increased considerably throughout the wider principality with its thirteen sénéschausées, twenty-four bishoprics, and two archbishoprics. The order of precedence between many of these was unclear. This not only encouraged political friction but ensured that the process of government and justice was sluggish and made appeals convoluted and time consuming.Footnote 53 In addition, the families of Foix, Armagnac, Comminges, Albret, and the viscounts of Béarn descended from Carolingian counts and jealously exercised ancient rights of jurisdiction in their lordships. Similarly, in the Anglo-Irish lordship by 1329 there were four, often competing, earldoms—Ulster, Kildare, Ormond, and Desmond—in addition to various palatine lordships, each enjoying jurisdictional privileges.Footnote 54

The fragmentation of local authority and a central political vacuum meant alternative, more distant powers might prove attractive to disgruntled elements of society. Allegedly, in 1344, Maurice fitzThomas, first earl of Desmond (ca. 1293–1356), wrote to the kings of Scotland and France (as well as the whole of Gaelic Ireland) requesting aid in the conquest of Ireland. In Gascony, the Capetians and, after 1328, the Valois monarchs offered (willingly) a divinely ordained alternative monarchy to the Plantagenets with a legal right to intervene in the business of the duchy.

The fractured and fractious political environment in Languedoc—with its wide variations in law, inheritance, and the holding of alodial tenure, the private possession of public authority, the number of seigneurial castles, and the right to make private war—led to a great deal of volatility and unease. Conditions in Ireland were no more stable. There was great tension between the English of England and the English of Ireland throughout the middle decades of the fourteenth century. This was particularly evident in 1341 following an act of resumption that included grants, goods, lands, and liberties.Footnote 55 In 1364 friction resurfaced during Lionel's lieutenancy, and these tensions, exacerbated by demands for taxation and the imposition of new administrative practices, again caused conflict during the chief governorship of William Windsor (1369–72, 1374–76).

Problems caused by geography and fragmented authority were compounded by social, political, and cultural differences between lord and vassal. Many of the problems Lionel and Edward faced were the consequence of unfamiliar Gaelic/Anglo-Irish and Aquitainian/Gascon idiosyncrasies. This had created difficulties in Languedoc for both Capetian and Plantagenet authorities, and there was a wider and long-standing Frankish and Aquitainian cultural antagonism.Footnote 56 In both “lordships” the nobility and numerous urban communities expected a high degree of political independence, while the strenuous defense of regional customs and private rights encouraged violent factionalism.Footnote 57 During Simon de Montfort's lieutenancy (1248–52) such conditions were “violently inimical to good order,” and the situation had not improved with time.Footnote 58 An Avignon clerk in 1322–23 explained that Aquitaine was a disturbed region because laws and customs were not written down, and they were inconsistent with justice or reason. He noted also that the nobility maintained large households and retinues, which led to unruliness, pillaging, and warfare.Footnote 59

Discontent with a “colonial” regime was heightened therefore by a fierce independence, a separate culture, and, certainly in the case of Ireland, differences in both language and dialect. Wider cultural values also contributed to friction. An emphasis on personal appearance, largesse, nobility of ancestry, liberality to poets, piety, and justice were seen as important qualities in both Aquitaine and Ireland. And, as elsewhere, military prowess, particularly that demonstrated by extreme bravery, was considered highly laudable.Footnote 60 Many of these characteristics were part of a common European aristocratic (chivalric) culture, but fragmented geopolitical conditions could make some of them problematic. In particular, the manner in which they were demonstrated could serve to emphasize a conflicting conception of authority and of the mutual responsibilities of lord and vassal. Such differences, intrinsic by the middle years of the fourteenth century, were, in part, the consequence of extensive social and cultural assimilation—the degeneracy that the Dublin Parliament of 1297 and the Statute of Kilkenny aimed to limit in Ireland.Footnote 61

In addition to its racially divisive clauses, the Statute of Kilkenny was concerned with the political integrity and military defense of the lordship. Threatened by external Gaelic-Irish raiding and internal Anglo-Irish feuding, Lionel's administration tried, with limited success, to prevent such friction escalating into war by providing legal means of redress.Footnote 62 The situation was similar in Aquitaine, where casual brigandage has been described as the “dominant characteristic of living nobly.”Footnote 63 The situation deteriorated further in Ireland with the rise of coyne and livery, a native practice adapted by the Anglo-Irish to billet, lodge, and sometimes pay for soldiers and horses. This allowed the earls to acquire what amounted to small standing armies with which they fought the native population and each other.Footnote 64

The feuds in Ireland, such as those between the Geraldines and Butlers (and, in a different fashion, the murder of the earl of Ulster in 1333), closely resemble the seigneurial traditions of private war in Aquitaine, in particular the Foix-Armagnac feud. Neither the Black Prince nor the Capetian and Valois kings had much success in curbing this dispute. The political and territorial influence of the main protagonists was such that a network of alliances had developed, subsuming many other issues.Footnote 65 In 1362, at the battle of Launac, Gaston Fébus, count of Foix, defeated the Armagnac faction, which included the Albret family. The payment of the enormous ransoms demanded provided an economic and political backdrop to relations within the principality.Footnote 66 Seeking allies, political stability, and showing some rare diplomatic instincts, the prince had assisted with Armagnac's ransom payments—a contribution of 40,000 nobles. However, when Pedro failed to repay his debts from the Nájera expedition in which Armagnac fought, this left the prince indebted to him for war wages. By the end of September 1367 the full ransom loan was repaid; Armagnac had freed himself from his obligation and could return to his natural (Valois) allegiance.Footnote 67

One may ask just how different such political friction was from circumstances in England and France in this period of high criminality, peasant revolts, royal depositions, and civil war. Legal records from both countries show regular allegations of extreme, almost cartoon violence, and in England conditions had necessitated the introduction of commissions of oyer and terminer (1275) and trailbaston (1305), which aimed “to suppress the disorders, tumults, and outrages of the past, which were like the start of war and which flouted the lordship of the king.”Footnote 68 The Statute of Northampton (1328) stated “no man should go or ride armed by day or night to bring force in affray of the peace”; in 1361 legislation was introduced against “riot,” and after 1381 riot became associated with treason.Footnote 69

It may be the case, however, that the development of various legal means of complaint and redress in England served, to some extent, to placate the aristocracy, protect royal rights and property, and ensure that it was “no longer possible, at any rate most of the time, to settle a dispute out of court by open violence.”Footnote 70 Justices of the peace and “general commissions of oyer and terminer provided convenient and powerful weapons in the settlement of local disputes and feuds.”Footnote 71 In addition, treason legislation included clauses regarding the waging of war, and although this focused on war against the king or in support of his enemies, it might be adapted to other purposes.Footnote 72

In France, particularly in the south, conditions were even more problematic because of the aristocracy's claim to the right to wage private war. Royal attempts to restrict this would not prove successful for some time. In theory, such an act was an infraction of the peace, an indirect affront to the king, and in certain circumstances treasonable. In the later fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the counts of Périgord and Armagnac were convicted of treason for this offense, but it was not until the reign of Charles VII that royal attempts began to take real effect and the “state” acquired a Weberian monopoly on violence.Footnote 73 Certainly in the 1360s in “south-west France, the right to declare and wage private war was claimed by the nobility as an inalienable birthright.”Footnote 74

Such were the problems Ireland and Aquitaine presented English administrations with and that Lionel and Edward attempted to resolve, given the opportunities afforded by the treaty of Brétigny. These problems stood in the way of success in the three main tasks that faced the new lieutenants: to pacify unruly territory within the lordship and along its borders, establish areas of support, and exploit financial and other resources.

In order to achieve these objectives both the Black Prince and Lionel were granted unprecedented authority, perhaps with the intention to extend these powers at a later stage. It has been suggested that Aquitaine and Ireland might have been devolved further from the crown to form independent principalities.Footnote 75 But even in 1363 the prince held a number of royal prerogatives in Aquitaine: he was to receive all “homages, ligeance, honours, obeissances, vassalx, feez [et] recognois sances,” in return for which he paid a token sum to his father.Footnote 76 As a result, his precise status may have been uncertain in the eyes of his “subjects.” Did he have sovereign or only vice-regal authority, and, if the latter, was the true sovereign the king of England or France given the uncertainty of the treaty of Brétigny that stipulated no appeals were to be made to Edward III or Jean II until the renunciation clauses were signed?

Edward III retained “sovraintie et le resorte,” and, when the Black Prince arrived, the Aquitainian nobility paid homage to the king accordingly, but this was then canceled on condition that homage was paid to the prince in his own right.Footnote 77 While the prince's legal status in Aquitaine was somewhat vague, he certainly demanded forms of court etiquette appropriate to a sovereign ruler. The Anonimalle Chronicle records that he sometimes forced his nobles to wait days for an audience with him, and, when he deigned to admit them, they were required to kneel before him, perhaps for hours.Footnote 78 This did little to clarify matters in real terms, and the situation remained uncertain: in 1365, Edward III granted the prince the power to hear appeals from the courts of all his seneschals, but it was not until 1370 that a sovereign court was created to hear appeals from the prince's court—the judges and location to be specified by him.Footnote 79 The king had planned to establish a sovereign court for some time before the events of 1368–69 made its creation essential. It is significant that in 1368 Armagnac did appeal to Edward III, if only for the sake of form—he certainly soon turned to Charles V as “souverain seigneur.” Similarly, Albret sent messengers to Edward although at the same time as making a secret alliance with the king of France.Footnote 80

Lionel did not act with quite such presumption. He too received very extensive powers with the title of king's lieutenant. This apparently was intended to convey higher status than that of justiciar, the more common title given to the chief governor, although the powers of the men who held these offices differed very little during the bulk of the fourteenth century. Lionel received authority to admit English and Irish rebels into the king's peace and fealty, make pardons, receive fines and ransoms, grant leases of lands that were derelict or recovered from the king's enemies, supervise the king's ministers and remove them if necessary, appoint all officers, and do justice to all. In essence he was to order all things for the good rule of the land and the recovery of the king's rights. This differed from previous appointments in two ways: his authority to give general pardons to rebel Anglo-Irishmen and his unrestricted power to replace officials. Significantly, when reappointed in 1364, he did not retain authority to remove the chancellor and treasurer.Footnote 81

Charged with similar missions and faced with similar problems, Lionel and Edward adopted comparable policies in seeking to fulfill their responsibilities. A main purpose of both administrations was to extract revenue. The duchy of Gascony had become a considerable drain on the English exchequer by this time: between 1348 and 1361, £86,227 was paid to the constable of Bordeaux.Footnote 82 Hence, one of the main reasons for the creation of the principality of Aquitaine and its partial devolution from the English crown was that it should become self-sufficient. In a similar fashion the Anglo-Irish lordship had come to depend on payments from England as its own revenues fell from a yearly average of £6,300 in the period 1278–99 to £2,512, between 1368 and 1384. Lionel managed to reverse this trend briefly, although at some political cost.Footnote 83 He continued the policy of developing parliamentary taxation in Ireland. This took the form of subsidies to which knights of the shires, clergy, and burgesses of the chief towns assented. From the 1340s these were used to fund the war effort within Ireland. The distinction with English taxation methods lies in the frequency of collection and the means of assent. In England the majority of the country was dealt with in a uniform manner, and there were few opportunities for individual counties to negotiate their own grants. In Ireland the frequency and local nature of war led to regional defense obligations: local people might be asked to pay for the troops raised to defend them.

Lionel was also charged with reclaiming what had been lost of the Anglo-Irish lordship. Consequently, and in recognition of the parlous state of Irish finances, his expedition continued to receive financial aid from England. In the period 1361–67 intervention in Ireland cost the English exchequer £43,359 15s. 5d., and the Irish exchequer contributed a further £8,789 14s. 11d.Footnote 84 By comparison the Black Prince was to be self-sufficient in Aquitaine once his initial expenditure had been covered (£15,004 19s. 4d. plus 5,000 marks advance on wages of war).Footnote 85 Perhaps this was thought viable because of the continuing payments accruing from Jean II's ransom and the extensive resources of his other estates (Wales, Cornwall, and Chester).Footnote 86 However, even before his departure the prince was forced to take out loans from Richard FitzAlan, earl of Arundel, and Aquitainian finances soon proved no more secure than those in Ireland and incapable of sustaining the government of the principality.Footnote 87

The insufficiency of outside investment led to the imposition of new and heavier financial burdens. The catalyst for revolt in Aquitaine (supported by substantial French royal forces) was a fouage granted by the estates of Aquitaine after the militarily successful but financially crippling Castilian campaign. Peacetime taxation was loathed, perhaps especially in France where a close association existed between the concept of national freedom and freedom from taxation. But Plantagenet and Valois alike had imposed the fouage throughout Languedoc for several years before 1368 when the estates granted it in return for substantial concessions and at a lower rate than in the past—10 sous per hearth for five years.Footnote 88 Tax levies in Ireland also resulted in attacks on Lionel in 1364 and William Windsor in the 1370s. Of course it was not only colonial subjects who rebelled in the face of high levels of taxation and restrictive governing practices as events in England in 1381 demonstrate. One may question how far the taxpayers of the Plantagenet dominions were aware of events in other jurisdictions and if resistance to taxation in one lordship was prompted by protests elsewhere.

A considerable proportion of the cost of the two expeditions came from the military forces that accompanied Lionel and Edward. In Lionel's case a major recruitment drive was instigated to bring together a force “sufficient for the salvation of Ireland.”Footnote 89 The army that left England, however, numbered only 197 men-at-arms and 670 mounted archers, although it was to be augmented with additional archers as well as recruits from Ireland.Footnote 90 Despite the scarcity of his forces Lionel hoped to enforce English rule through military might. Soon after his arrival, in order to protect Dublin, he undertook campaigns in Wicklow and Meath, and after his reappointment, in December 1364, he sought to emphasize English authority on a progress from Cork to Drogheda. However, in reality such a force was capable of little more than police and garrison duties, and a major military reconquest was most unlikely.

The army was composed of various retinues, the largest of which was led by Ralph, earl of Stafford, absentee lord of part of the liberty of Kilkenny, a veteran captain with Irish experience. It numbered only nineteen knights, seventy-eight men-at-arms, 100 mounted archers, and an unspecified number of archers on foot. It is noteworthy that Richard and Hugh Stafford (Ralph's younger brother and son, respectively) led two of the most significant contingents that accompanied the Black Prince to Bordeaux in 1363. The other companies in the Irish expeditionary force under the command of William Windsor, John Carew, and Ralph Ferrers were smaller still, and Lionel's own retinue (in the period 14 August–12 November 1361) consisted of only five knights, sixty-four men-at-arms, and seventy mounted archers.Footnote 91 Plague, desertion, and other causes soon lessened the army's strength despite the addition of soldiers from the earl of Ormond and various other contingents.Footnote 92 Consequently, on 8 February 1362, orders were despatched for the recruitment of another 800 Welsh troops.Footnote 93

Welsh soldiers had also been numerous in the Black Prince's contingent during the Crécy-Calais campaign (1346–47), although comparatively few were employed in his later expeditions launched from Gascony. Certainly they did not number highly in the household and retinue that accompanied the prince to Bordeaux in 1363. This numbered over 260: 128 named individuals, some with their own retinues—feed was requisitioned for 1,000 horses.Footnote 94 Conquest was not part of the prince's brief, hence his smaller fighting force. Indeed, military action was very limited in the early years of the principality. Measures were taken to protect against the potential ravages of the Free Companies, but there seems to have been little hostile activity until the Nájera campaign for which substantial numbers of mercenaries were recruited, and John of Gaunt brought a contingent from England. Further English reinforcements were sent soon after the return from Castile, when it became clear that relations were strained to a breaking point between the prince and many of his nobles.

This occurred in spite of deliberate policy. In order to bolster the new administrations both regimes made efforts to garner support from urban centers and among the nobility. In 1362 Lionel gave charters, grants, or privileges to nineteen towns in Ireland, and similarly in Aquitaine the privileges of many towns were confirmed, and there was a program of establishing concentrations of politically supportive families in various urban centers. A number of former French officials retained their offices in the new administration or were appointed to similar posts. It is clear that although Englishmen were often appointed to positions in the new administration, conditions were not quite as restrictive as Froissart suggested.Footnote 95 In Poitou, various liberties were confirmed or increased, and even though administrative offices usually went to Englishmen, roles in justice and finance were offered to Poitevins.Footnote 96

In an attempt to win over the port of La Rochelle, which was not well disposed to the English, having suffered numerous naval raids in the past, several of the chief officials of Saintonge were appointed from the native elite. Guillaume Séris became president of the sovereign court at La Rochelle to hear appeals from Saintonge. Modeled on the Parlement of Paris, this served as a regional court of appeal until a court for all Aquitaine was established, which did not happen until 1370. However, no case of resort was ever brought before Séris, and he returned his official seals in 1367. He also became governor of Benon. Despite these grants Séris returned to the French fold in 1369, and Charles V rewarded him with the office of president of the Parlement of Paris. In a similar fashion Pierre de Vergny, the former receiver of Saintonge, became receiver of the prévôtés of Andilly, the baillie of Chagnolet, the customs on wine passing through the port of Périgny, and revenues of the royal seal of La Rochelle and of the fief of Aunis.Footnote 97

The English administration in Ireland also sought to use members of the indigenous hierarchy for its own ends and adopted a policy of formally recognizing Gaelic lords and promoting them to the (rather uncertain) position of “chief of [his] nation.” The aim seems to have been to favor particular dynastic heads on whom responsibilities could be fixed and with whom orderly relations could be established. Such arrangements, of course, did not guarantee lasting cooperation, and indeed they might serve as a stepping-stone to power greater than the crown wished or envisaged. In addition, on his arrival in 1361, Lionel knighted some of the “Anglo-Irish” in an attempt to use the chivalric ethic to unite the “English of England and English of Ireland.”Footnote 98 He also made grants to various families, not all of which secured long-term support. For example, within eleven years of the substantial territorial grants made to Philip Ballagh Barret, his family was in open rebellion against the English administration.Footnote 99 In Aquitaine, Lionel's brother also failed to engender a great deal of loyalty and affection, although there were some striking exceptions to this, such as Guichard d’Angle, who had fought against Edward at Poitiers but gave his allegiance to him in 1363. He became a trusted member of the court, tutor to Richard II, and earl of Huntingdon (1377).Footnote 100

Such diplomatic approaches were best conducted from a position of strength, and hence there was an ongoing policy of refortifying castles in Ireland and Aquitaine. This was important for both defensive and governmental reasons since many of those castles under Anglo-Irish and Anglo-Gascon control formed the “nervous system of the administration.”Footnote 101 Lionel's retinue in 1361 included carpenters and masons “to attend to the repair of the king's castles.”Footnote 102 The emphasis on castles, while mainly a political and military necessity, may also have served to emphasize cultural/national differences. Despite mutual processes of acculturation it might be argued that castles, especially in Ireland, remained associated with a process of English conquest.Footnote 103 It was certainly the case that in the later Middle Ages language became an important cultural and political identifier.

Throughout Europe there is evidence of “a growing intolerance of language diversity” in the fourteenth century.Footnote 104 In Ireland the deteriorating political situation encouraged those governing the English lordship to emphasize difference with the Gaelic population rather than “degenerate” linguistic assimilation. This aimed to establish a cultural and hence a political border behind which there was harmony since “those who speak the same language are entwined in tighter bonds of love.”Footnote 105

In Ireland, the English used legislation such as the Statute of Kilkenny to prohibit the use of the Irish language by the inhabitants of the lordship. As an attempt to maintain the political integrity of the Anglo-Irish lordship, various means were introduced to emphasize clear distinctions with the Gaelic population.Footnote 106 The Statute of Kilkenny aimed to restrict or prevent the process of gaelicization, especially among influential families living on the marches. That process had encouraged the development of a culture that conflicted with attempts to enforce central control and compares closely with the “home-grown” situation confronting the Black Prince in the 1360s. One of the central determinants of ethnic identities, language had long been used to reinforce divisions between immigrant and indigenous populations.Footnote 107 This remained the case as linguistic issues became increasingly politicized in England in this period. Mark Ormrod has shown this by reference to the Statute of Pleading (1362), and the English parliament heard regular accusations that the French were seeking to destroy the nation and the language.Footnote 108 Edward I originally made the claim in 1295, and it was reiterated in 1344, 1346, 1376, and 1388.Footnote 109 As the parliament rolls of June 1344 put it, the king of France “firmly intends, as our lord the king and his council fully comprehend, to destroy the English language and to occupy the land of England.”Footnote 110 The discovery of French invasion plans in 1346 suggested an intention “to destroy and ruin the whole English nation and language.”Footnote 111

Issues of assimilation/acculturation were, however, not as evident in Aquitaine as in Ireland, in part because there were fewer colonists. There was no need to prohibit the use of a language nor certainly to emulate the provisions of the Irish legislation that forbade modes of riding (without saddles), hairstyles, dress, or from giving patronage to local poets or musicians. Nor were particular marriages prohibited, and there was no concern, as in Ireland, with concubinage or fosterage.Footnote 112 In some respects, however, the statute does reflect policy and concerns in the principality of Aquitaine with its restrictions on certain appointments to official positions, the problems caused by a “diversity of government,” and the absence of “one peace and one war.”Footnote 113 There were also concerns with economic matters, the reform of the administration, and the relationship between church and state.Footnote 114

Nonetheless, in general, while political friction, financial exploitation, and governing policy impinged heavily on the people of Aquitaine, personal, cultural, and commercial relations were not prohibited. As in Anglo-Ireland, there were close mercantile links with England, to the extent that many among the Gascon merchant community were known as “bourgeois de Londres et de Bordeaux.” Similarly, there were ecclesiastical associations with many English clerics holding benefices in Ireland and Aquitaine. Also, as the Anglo-Irish nobility married into English families, so Englishmen in Aquitaine married French aristocrats from the principality and beyond. For example, John Stretton, esquire, married Isabelle de Saint-Symphorien, lady of Landiras, and William Felton married Jeanne de Laval.Footnote 115

Felton and his family provide important examples of individuals who enforced later Plantagenet frontier and colonial policy in this period. William Felton, the elder (d. ca. 1358), served in Brittany, played a distinguished part in Edward III's Scottish wars at the battle of Halidon Hill (1333), and commanded the castles of Bamburgh and Roxburgh from 1334 to 1340. In addition, he was sheriff of Northumberland and governor of Newcastle in 1342–43. William, the younger (d. 1367 on the Nájera campaign), fought at Crécy and Poitiers, saw service in Brittany, supervised the transfer of territories after the treaty of Brétigny, and became seneschal of Poitou and Limousin.Footnote 116 In Aquitaine he was involved in securing castles and suppressing the activities of the Free Companies.Footnote 117 Further research on “colonial staff” in this period—men such as Philip Courtenay, Nicholas Dagworth, Thomas Wetenhale, and Robert Wickford—may reveal much about English approaches to government and the transmission of policy throughout the Plantagenet dominions at this time.Footnote 118

The problems Lionel and Edward faced were similar, and they were similarly unprepared for them. Both attempted to govern large and fragmented territories, broken by a multitude of unstable internal and external frontiers that were as much cultural as political. There was no clear border behind which lay a supportive aristocracy or coherent and regular governmental structures. Both territories lacked strong central control and were wracked by disputes.Footnote 119 In Ireland the legislation in the Statute of Kilkenny was, in part, an attempt to rationalize those internal divisions and create an identifiable enemy. In doing so it also sought to “recalibrate” Anglo-Irish society along English lines. It failed—alliances continued to crisscross the supposed ethnic divide, and, as in Aquitaine, there remained bewildering discrepancies between land occupation, jurisdiction, and ownership. The later creation of the Pale may be seen as a further attempt to establish a firm geographical, political, and social frontier. Such a process was not possible along the long borders of Aquitaine since there were no real differences to be emphasized between most of the inhabitants of the principality and those outside; hence, the enforced return to the older and more defined frontier of the duchy of Gascony.

“Alien” political cultures, especially among the aristocracy, contributed a great deal to the problems of both princes—they ran contrary to English ideas concerning the proper organization of society and the ways by which authority was to be demonstrated and imposed. The presence of the king's sons wielding extraordinary authority in areas that had not experienced such direct rule for many years served to exaggerate these cultural differences. They brought with them a style of government and, certainly in the case of the Black Prince, a court culture and etiquette that emphasized disparities in custom, character, and perhaps also dialect and language.Footnote 120

The competing aristocracies of both Ireland and Aquitaine demanded independence and freedom of action, while the political geography of the regions was fragmented and fractious because of the systems of partible inheritance adopted by some families. As a consequence, both lordships were formed of multiple and conflicting seigneurial power blocs that nurtured feuds, private wars, and were at best “inhospitable to the routine operation of English law and government.”Footnote 121 Such feuds colored the English regimes in Ireland and Aquitaine; indeed, the Foix-Armagnac struggle in no small fashion determined the fate of the principality. As long as the leaders of the rebellion were beholden to the prince as a consequence of the ransoms after the battle of Launac, Edward's regime was relatively secure. Once that debt was paid, Aquitaine crumbled.

There is, though, a wider perspective. First, if the failure of both regimes can be attributed to economic pressures, they should be placed within a broader European context in which a general climate of unrest often escalated into revolt following demands for taxation in the fourteenth century. Second, certain characteristics of lordship and governance in Ireland and Aquitaine reflect attempts to regulate social order and standardize customary behavior in England. It is tempting to see this as an attempt to extend the control of the center over the periphery and perhaps to see the growth of the “state.”Footnote 122

If so, in Ireland and Aquitaine in the 1360s, it was the attempted imposition of an English “state,” and its failure can be attributed to its character and limited resources. Although recognized to some extent, both regimes needed to work with or adapt native traditions: the “degeneracy” of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy took place because it was necessary, because one had to use the means, methods, and customs of the local people to survive and exploit the environment. Successful lordship in Ireland and Aquitaine depended on the “ability to accept the existing social structure and to take over the existing pattern of authority.”Footnote 123 In many ways the survival of the English lordship of Ireland is attributable to its assimilation into the Gaelic community: acculturation was a survival strategy common to many frontier regions.Footnote 124 The Statute of Kilkenny attempted to break that survival mechanism and, accordingly, failed. The Black Prince's regime also failed, perhaps because it was not, in an Aquitainian sense, “degenerate” enough.

An inability or unwillingness to adapt to the native environment resulted in tension and revolt. If the failure of the regimes can be attributed to a general failure of lordship, as other rebellions have been characterized, then this occurred because of conflicting notions of what good lordship entailed.Footnote 125 In Ireland, broadly speaking, it became clear that some degree of adaptation was necessary and that at least the chief governorship should be in the hands of an individual familiar with the lordship and the island. In the context of the Statute of Kilkenny it is somewhat ironic that Gerald, earl of Desmond, Lionel's successor to the chief governorship, was renowned as a Gaelic poet and obtained a royal license to have his son fostered among the Uí Bhriain.Footnote 126 By contrast, for most of the population of Aquitaine, good lordship could only come from the “most Christian” king of France. The Black Prince took control at a time when the political theology of the French royal bloodline was rising to its apogee, when various myths and symbols concerning national sentiment and identity coalesced, further strengthening loyalty to the Valois dynasty and identifying the king with all of his kingdom.Footnote 127

Matters might have been very different if Edward III's imperial vision had been realized and if Clarence and the Black Prince had fulfilled their objectives. A recent survey of later medieval England suggests the “general impression of the 1360s remains one of suspended animation, almost of a political vacuum, in which events were on a minor rather than a major scale.”Footnote 128 So it proved, but the aims, intentions, and aspirations of Edward III in the 1360s were anything but minor.