Sources: 'The Lives of the Kings & Queens of England' Edited by Antonia Fraser (ISBN 029776911) published 1975 @ DY.
Plantagenet Genealogies of 'Kings, Queens, Bones and Bastards' by David Hilliam ISBN 075092347 (920.041HIL @ DY)
See Biography Edward III (1327-1377 AD) at http://www.britannia.com/history/monarchs/mon32.html
See "The PLANTAGENET II Family" at http://members.aol.com/dwidad/edwardii.html
Descendants of Edward II Plantagenet (From The Plantagenet's)
Also See Biographies at Royal Berkshire History http://www.berkshirehistory.com/bios/edward3.html
Genealogy of the Houses of York & Mortimer 'Margaret of York Duchess of Burgundy 1446-1503' by Christine Weightman

King Edward III (1312-1377) was born on 13th November 1312 at Windsor Castle in Berkshire and died on 21st June 1377 at Sheen Palace, Richmond, Surrey. Edward was married to Philippa of Hainault and their union produced many children; the 75% survival rate of their children - nine out of twelve lived through adulthood - was incredible considering conditions of the day. (Elsewhere it is said they had five surviving sons and two surviving daughters).

The fifty-year reign of Edward III saw governmental reforms affirm the power of the emerging middle class in Parliament while placing the power of the nobility into the hands a few. The export of raw wool (and later, the wool cloth industry) prospered and spread wealth across the nation but was offset by the devastation wrought by the Black Death. Early success in war ultimately failed to produce lasting results.

Edward spent his youth in his mother's court and he was crowned at age fourteen after his father was deposed. After three years of domination by his mother and her lover, Roger Mortimer, Edward instigated a palace revolt in 1330 and assumed control of the government. Mortimer was executed and Isabella was exiled from court.

War occupied the largest part of Edward's reign. He and Edward Baliol defeated David II of Scotland and drove David into exile in 1333. French cooperation with the Scots, French aggression in Gascony, and Edward's claim to the disputed throne of France (through his mother, Isabella) led to the first phase of the Hundred Years' war. The naval battle of Sluys (1340) gave England control of the Channel, and battles at Crecy (1346) and Calais (1347) established English supremacy on land. Hostilities ceased in the aftermath of the Black Death but war flared up again with an English invasion of France in 1355. Edward, the Black Prince and eldest son of Edward III, trounced the French cavalry at Poitiers (1356) and captured the French King John. In 1359, the Black Prince encircled Paris with his army and the defeated French negotiated for peace. The Treaty of Bretigny in 1360 ceded huge areas of northern and western France to English sovereignty. Hostilities arose again in 1369 as English armies under the king's third son, John of Gaunt, invaded France. English military strength, weakened considerably after the plague, gradually lost so much ground that by 1375, Edward agreed to the Treaty of Bruges, leaving only the coastal towns of Calais, Bordeaux, and Bayonne in English hands.

The nature of English society transformed greatly during Edward's reign. Edward learned from the mistakes of his father and affected more cordial relations with the nobility than any previous monarch. Feudalism dissipated as mercantilism emerged: the nobility changed from a large body with relatively small holdings to a small body that held great lands and wealth. Mercenary troops replaced feudal obligations as the means of gathering armies. Taxation of exports and commerce overtook land-based taxes as the primary form of financing government (and war). Wealth was accrued by merchants as they and other middle class subjects appeared regularly for parliamentary sessions. Parliament formally divided into two houses - the upper representing the nobility and high clergy with the lower representing the middle classes - and met regularly to finance Edward's wars and pass statutes. Treason was defined by statute for the first time (1352), the office of Justice of the Peace was created to aid sheriffs (1361), and English replaced French as the national language (1362).

Despite the king's early successes and England's general prosperity, much remained amiss in the realm. Edward and his nobles touted romantic chivalry as their credo while plundering a devastated France; chivalry emphasized the glory of war while reality stressed its costs. The influence of the Church decreased but John Wycliff spearheaded an ecclesiastical reform movement that challenged church exploitation by both the king and the pope. During 1348-1350, bubonic plague (the Black Death) ravaged the populations of Europe by as much as a fifty per cent. The flowering English economy was struck hard by the ensuing rise in prices and wages. The failed military excursions of John of Gaunt into France caused excessive taxation and eroded Edward's popular support.

The last years of Edward's reign mirrored the first, in that a woman again dominated him. when Philippa died in 1369 and Edward took the unscrupulous Alice Perrers as his mistress. With Edward in his dotage and the Black Prince ill, Perrers and William Latimer (the chamberlain of the household) dominated the court with the support of John of Gaunt. Edward, the Black Prince, died in 1376 and the old king spent the last year of his life grieving. Rafael Holinshed, in Chronicles of England, suggested that Edward believed the death of his son was a punishment for usurping his father's crown: "But finally the thing that most grieved him, was the loss of that most noble gentleman, his dear son Prince Edward . . . But this and other mishaps that chanced to him now in his old years might seem to come to pass for a revenge of his disobedience showed to his in usurping against him. . ."

Edward III had many sons whose descendants rivalries led to 'The Wars of the Roses' and were overthrown by the Tudors.

Edward III Plantagenet [King of England] and Philippa of HAINAULT had children which included :
i. Edward the Black Prince, d. 1376, m. Joan PLANTAGENET, b. 29 Sep 1328
ii. Isabel, b. 16 Jun 1332, d. by 3 May 1379, m. 27 Jul 1365, Enguerrand VII [Sire de Coucy]
iii. Lionel of ANTWERP, b. 29 Nov 1338, d. 17 Oct 1368, m. 9 Sep 1342, Elizabeth de BURGH, and had a daughter,
a. Philippe, b. 16 Aug 1355, d. aft 7 Jan 1378, m. 1368 Edmund de MORTIMER
iv. John of GAUNT, K.G., [House of Lancaster] our direct ancestor.
v. Edmund of YORK or Langley married Isabel [Princessss of Castile] and their son Richard PLANTAGENET [Earl of Cambridge] married Lady Anne MORTIMER and they had a son Richard PLANTAGENET, K.G. [Earl of Cambridge; 3rd Duke of York] who married Cecily NEVILLE [Ancestors of Winston CHURCHILL] and had a son Edward IV YORK [King of England] who married Elizabeth WYDEVILLE (and their daughter Elizabeth married Henry VII TUDOR)

vi. Thomas [Earl of Gloucester] married Eleanor de BOHUN [Ancestor of the Boughier and The Stafford Dukes of Buckingham lines] whose daughter Anne who married (1) Edmund de STAFFORD and (2) Sir William BOURCHIER.

Return to Taylor & Ashdown Family Genealogy

• Married: 24 JAN 1327/8 in Yorkminster, Yorkshire, England

1. Edward 'the Black Prince' Prince of WALES b: 15 JUN 1330 in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, England
2. Isabel 'Princess of England' PLANTAGENET b: 16 JUN 1332 in of England
3. Lionel of Antwerp, Duke of CLARENCE b: 1333 - 1338 in of England
4. King JOHN OF GAUNT b: 24 JUN 1340 in Ghent, Flanders, Belgium
5. Edmund '1st Duke of York' LANGLEY b: 5 JUN 1341 in of Northamptonshire, England
6. Thomas EARL OF GLOUCESTER b: 7 JAN 1355 in of England

• Married: in Not Married. Mistress of Edward III

1. Author: MEDIEVAL FAMILIES * of LDS and others as listed in comments
   Note:
   Primary Source LDS at www.familysearch.org
   Additional data www.literaryheritage.org.uk
   BRITISH HISTORY ONLINE
   http://www.british-history.ac.uk
   UNIVERSITY OF HULL :
   http://www3.dcs.hull.ac.uk/cgi-bin/gedlkup/n=royal?royal01268
   The PLANTAGENET II Family" at http://members.aol.com/dwidad/edwardii.html
   http://members.aol.com/dwidad/normandy.html#8
   http://members.aol.com/rfield/scots4.html#15
   http://members.aol.com/dwidad/tudor.html#4
   ROYAL CONNECTIONS :
   http://members.aol.com/rfield/chap28a.html
   http://members.aol.com/rfield/chap28.html
   http://members.aol.com/rfield/franceds.html#dfs
   http://members.aol.com/rfield/franceds.html#c6
   thePeerage.com at http://www.thepeerage.com/p10148.htm
   http://www.britannia.com/history/monarchs/mon26.html
   http://www.britannia.com/bios/azlist.html
   Royal Genealogies at
   ftp://ftp.cac.psu.edu/genealogy/public_html/royal/index.html
   http://www.britishorigins.com/
   www.berkshirehistory.com and www.earlybritishkingdoms.com ALSO:
   1. J. Hall Pleasants. The Lovelace family and Its Connections, Virginia Magazine of History and Biography Vol XXVII,.
   2. Americana Magazine Illustrated, v. 37, 1st quarter, No. 1, "Musser and Allied Families", 1943.
   3. Robert Barnes. :Ancestor Chart of Charles Gorsuch, an Early Settler of Baltimore Co., MD, Maryland Genealogical Society Bulletin, Vol 38 No. 1,Winter 1977.
   4. The Americana Magazine Illustrated, Vol 37, 1st Quarter, No 1 "Musser & Allied Families" 1943.
   5. J. Hall Pleasants. Gorsuch and Lovelace Famlies. Virginia HIstorical Magazine, Vols XXVI-XXVII-XVIII.
   6. J. Hall Pleasants. The Lovelace Family and Its Connections, Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol XXVII
   7. Loveless & Lovelace Family at :
   http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~lovelace/index.htm
   8. 'Stray Leaves A JAMES FAMILY IN AMERICA SINCE 1650' at http://www.ericjames.org/html/fam/fam50771.htm
   9. West Kingsdown, the story of 3 villages in Kent by Zena Bamping
   10. Monarchs of Wessex Data by Brian Tompsett
   11. Directory of Royal Genealogical Data