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Portrait of Henry III of France in Polish hat.. Attributed to Étienne Dumonstier.

Top 10 Little Known Facts about Henry III of France

Henry III (1207-1272) was the eldest son of King John (c1166-1216). He came to the throne at the age of nine and he was king of England from 1216 until his death in 1272. He ruled for 56years, longer than any other English monarch. He is traditionally viewed as a weak ruler whose untrustworthiness led to the Second Barons’ War from 1264 to 1267. And yet, says historian Matthew Lewis, the English king is often underestimated.

1. Henry Came To Power At Age Nine And Underwent Two Coronations

Henry came to the throne with half the kingdom in the hands of rebel barons seeking to make Prince Louis of France the new king of England. With London largely in Louis’s hands, those loyal to the new king decided a coronation was urgently required. On 28 October, 10 days after his father’s death, Henry was crowned at Gloucester Cathedral after being knighted by elder statesman William Marshal, considered by many to have been the greatest knight of the medieval period.

On 17 May 1220, with the country secured by Marshal’s expulsion of the French and the peace he had made with the rebel barons, Henry underwent a second ceremony at Westminster Abbey which William of Coventry recorded was done “with such great peacefulness and splendor.

2. Henry III Designated Power To The Pope

In May 1213, Henry’s father had submitted the kingdom of England to the rule of the pope along with an annual tribute of 1,000 marks. When Henry was crowned in 1216, he acknowledged Pope Honorius III as his feudal lord. When the coronation ceremony was repeated in 1220, it was on the instruction of Honorius who felt that the first at Gloucester had not been entirely proper. The papacy effectively owned the kingdom of England, and the lordship of Ireland and Henry was the pope’s liege man, making the pope equivalent to a king and Henry to a nobleman who owed service to the pope. This meant that the papal legate, the pope’s representative in a country, was ultimately responsible for the running of the country.

3. Henry Tried To Move His Father’s Body

In 1216, King John had requested that his body be buried at Worcester Cathedral between the shrines of St Wulfstan and St Oswald. There is a possibility that he had intended to be buried at the monastery he had founded at Beaulieu, but the choice of Worcester was, in the end, forced upon him by circumstance, because when John died much of the north and the south-east was in rebel hands and Beaulieu could not be safely reached. Worcester was one of the few cathedrals still in royal hands and available for a royal funeral.

In 1228 Henry wrote to Pope Gregory IX to ask for permission to move his father’s remains from Worcester to Beaulieu Abbey. Henry, therefore, commissioned building work to repair Worcester Cathedral, which had been damaged by fire in 1202, incorporating his father’s tomb and giving King John the oldest-known effigy of a king in England, which is believed to be a true likeness. Above the tomb is a series of five carvings about kingship, with John at one end, Henry at the other and Edward the Confessor, King David and another king playing a harp in between.

4. Henry Loved His Family

Henry III married Eleanor of Provence in 1236, when he was 28 years old, while she was 12 at the time. Over the years that followed, the couple had five children and, in a sharp contrast to his father, there is no record of Henry keeping a mistress before or during his marriage. Furthermore, there is evidence that Henry doted on his wife and children. He and Eleanor travelled together whenever possible.

Particularly touching is Henry’s relationship with his eldest son, the future Edward I. Prince Edward, at the age of 15, is recorded as having wept when his father left on campaign to France in 1253. And Henry was heartbroken to hear his son later briefly sided with Simon de Montfort’s rebellion in 1260. When Henry died, Edward grieved more for his father than his son. Edward reportedly explained that he could have more sons, but a man only had one father. It was a powerful testament to the family unit Henry had constructed.

5. Henry Had A Rare Sense Of Humor

In 1242, Henry was returning from France where he had sealed a peace with his brother-in-law King Louis IX. The Fine Rolls, which were Chancery records of money owed to the crown for the purchase of a concession, record that on the voyage back from France, King Henry III played a practical joke on one of the men in his party.

Henry had the entries struck through as soon as Peter had seen them, ensuring that the debts weren’t later collected to Peter’s ruin, but the joke seems to have been kept up for some time, with concerned men asking Peter what he intended to do about the great debt he owed the king. It is a rare insight into the sense of humour of a medieval king.

6. Henry Was A Great Gothic Builder

Henry expressed a lifelong interest in building. Much of what constitutes the Tower of London today is a result of Henry’s work: he added several towers and a curtain wall to expand the White Tower, beginning in 1238. He also built the almost impregnable fortifications at Kenilworth that proved hugely problematic for Henry when seized by rebels during the Second Barons’ War in 1265.

7. Henry Kept An Interesting Menagerie A The Tower Of London

As part of his building work to extend and improve the Tower of London, Henry added buildings to house the royal menagerie. Kings of England had kept exotic animals there before but Henry created a specially built home for them and collected some spectacular additions.

8. Henry III Feared His His Brother-in-law

The chronicler Matthew Â鶹APP recorded an ominous exchange between Henry III and his most infamous brother-in-law Simon de Montfort in 1258 that was a portent of the trouble to come between them. Henry had made good marriages for his sisters and daughters so that he could count the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, the king of France Louis IX and the king of Scotland Alexander II as brothers-in-law and the next king of Scotland, Alexander III, and John II, Duke of Brittany, as sons-in-law.

9. Henry III Was Afraid Of Excommunication

One benefit that Henry enjoyed from his position as a feudal liegeman of the pope was that both he and his brother Richard, Earl of Cornwall, could not be excommunicated unless on the express orders of the pope. Excommunication was meant to be the ultimate sanction of the church, effectively excluding the recipient from the community of the church.

Nevertheless, to Henry, excommunication was a terrifying thought. He was deeply pious and therefore greatly feared excommunication, so the protection afforded to him [from his position as a feudal liegeman of the Pope] and his brother was invaluable.

10. His Reign Was The Longest In English Monarch

King Henry III ruled England from 1216 until his death in 1272. His 56-year reign is longer than that of any other English monarch, be it Anglo-Saxon, Norman, Angevin, Plantagenet, Tudor or Stuart, and would remain a record until George III reached 56 years on the throne in 1816. In spite of this, Henry III is often overlooked. Traditionally viewed as a weak king whose untrustworthiness led to the Second Barons’ War from 1264 to 1265, the achievement of ruling for 56 years should suggest that there is more to Henry than this.