British History · Chronicle III of VI

Norman & Medieval England

Plantagenet

Normans and Magna Carta, Agincourt and the Wars of the Roses: England from 1066 to Bosworth.

Span: 1066 – 1485 AD
Entries: 19
Next: Early Modern Britain

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Entry 1 of 19

1066
Norman ConquestPolitical
William the Conqueror crowned at Westminster
On Christmas Day Duke William of Normandy is crowned king of England in Edward the Confessor's new abbey, while his guards outside, mistaking the cheers for a riot, set fire to nearby houses.
Meanwhile, elsewhere
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1086
Norman EnglandPolitical
Domesday Book
William commissions a comprehensive survey of his new kingdom — every manor, every plough, every mill, valued before the Conquest and now. The English called it 'Domesday' because, like the Last Judgement, there was no appeal from its verdict.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1100
Norman EnglandPolitical
Henry I and the Charter of Liberties
After his brother William Rufus is killed by an arrow in the New Forest, Henry seizes the throne and issues a Coronation Charter promising to abolish the abuses of his predecessor. The document is the distant ancestor of Magna Carta.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1135
The AnarchyPolitical
The Anarchy begins
Henry I's nephew Stephen of Blois seizes the throne against the claim of Henry's daughter Empress Matilda. Nineteen years of civil war follow — a time, said the chronicler, when 'Christ and his saints slept'.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1154
Angevin EmpirePolitical
Henry II and the Angevin Empire
Twenty-one-year-old Henry of Anjou inherits England. With Normandy from his mother, Anjou from his father, and Aquitaine through his marriage to Eleanor, he rules a vast Angevin Empire stretching from Northumberland to the Pyrenees.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1170
Angevin EmpireReligious
Murder of Thomas Becket
On 29 December four knights of the king's household ride to Canterbury and cut down Archbishop Thomas Becket at the altar of his own cathedral. The act of the king's rash words — 'Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?' — shocks Christendom.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1189
Third CrusadeMilitary
Richard the Lionheart and the Third Crusade
Henry II's son Richard I succeeds him and within months takes the cross, joining Philip Augustus of France and Frederick Barbarossa to recover Jerusalem from Saladin. He spends six months of his ten-year reign in England.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1215
Magna CartaPolitical
Magna Carta sealed at Runnymede
On 15 June, in a meadow beside the Thames, King John seals a charter forced upon him by rebellious barons. It limits royal authority by law and declares that no free man may be imprisoned or deprived of his rights except by lawful judgement of his peers.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1265
ParliamentPolitical
Simon de Montfort's Parliament
Having captured Henry III at the Battle of Lewes the previous year, the rebel earl Simon de Montfort summons a parliament that, for the first time, includes elected representatives of the towns alongside the barons and bishops.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1284
Edward IMilitary
Conquest of Wales
After the death of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, the last native Prince of Wales, Edward I issues the Statute of Rhuddlan, annexing Wales to the English crown. He builds a ring of mighty castles — Caernarfon, Conwy, Harlech, Beaumaris — to hold the conquest.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1314
Scottish WarsMilitary
Battle of Bannockburn
Outside Stirling, Robert Bruce destroys the army of Edward II — perhaps twenty thousand strong, two or three times his own — in a two-day battle that secures Scottish independence for the rest of the Middle Ages.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1337
Hundred Years WarMilitary
Hundred Years War begins
Citing his descent from Philip the Fair through his mother Isabella, Edward III lays claim to the throne of France. Philip VI confiscates Aquitaine; Edward responds by quartering the French lilies with the English lions on his arms. The longest war in Western history has begun.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1346
Hundred Years WarMilitary
Battle of Crécy
On 26 August Edward III and the Black Prince destroy a French army three times the size of their own. The English longbowmen — yeoman archers drilled in mass volley — annihilate the flower of French chivalry in a few hours of arrow storm.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1348
Black DeathEvent
The Black Death reaches England
In June the plague lands at Melcombe in Dorset, carried by sailors from Gascony. Within eighteen months it has killed perhaps two of every five people in England. Whole villages vanish; surviving labourers demand wages four times what they earned the year before.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1381
Peasants' RevoltPolitical
The Peasants' Revolt
Sparked by a poll tax to pay for the French war, the peasants of Kent and Essex march on London under Wat Tyler and the preacher John Ball. They sack the Savoy Palace, behead the archbishop of Canterbury, and meet the boy-king Richard II at Smithfield, where Tyler is killed.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1399
House of LancasterPolitical
Deposition of Richard II
Returning from Irish campaigns, Richard II is captured by his exiled cousin Henry Bolingbroke. Parliament accepts his abdication and Bolingbroke takes the throne as Henry IV — the first king of the House of Lancaster, and the first English king to be deposed for tyranny.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1415
Hundred Years WarMilitary
Battle of Agincourt
On St Crispin's Day, Henry V leads an exhausted and outnumbered English army to crushing victory over the French at Agincourt. The longbow once again wins the day; thousands of French nobles die in the mud or under English knives.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1455
Wars of the RosesMilitary
Wars of the Roses begin
At the first Battle of St Albans, Richard Duke of York defeats and kills the leading Lancastrian nobles serving the unstable Henry VI. The thirty-year dynastic struggle between the white rose of York and the red rose of Lancaster has begun.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1485
End of the PlantagenetsMilitary
Battle of Bosworth Field
On 22 August Henry Tudor lands in Wales, marches into England, and defeats Richard III at Bosworth Field in Leicestershire. The last Plantagenet king is killed in a desperate cavalry charge; the crown is found in a thornbush and placed on the head of Henry VII.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
11 more entries, to 1485

Norman & Medieval England

William the Conqueror crowned at Westminster

Domesday Book

Henry I and the Charter of Liberties

The Anarchy begins

Henry II and the Angevin Empire

Murder of Thomas Becket

Richard the Lionheart and the Third Crusade

Magna Carta sealed at Runnymede

Simon de Montfort's Parliament

Conquest of Wales

Battle of Bannockburn

Hundred Years War begins

Battle of Crécy

The Black Death reaches England

The Peasants' Revolt

Deposition of Richard II

Battle of Agincourt

Wars of the Roses begin

Battle of Bosworth Field