IENRY III., surnamed of Winchester, from the place of his birth, was the eldest son of King John by his queen, Isabella of Angoulilme, and was born on the 1st of October 1206. Ills father having died on the 18th of October 1210, the boy was, chiefly through the influence of the Earl of Pembroke, lord marshal, acknowledged heir to the throne by those of the barons who were opposed to the French party ; and on the 28th he was solemnly crowned in the abboy.church of St. Peter, at Gloucester, by the papal legato Gualo. His reign is reckoned from that day.
On the 11th of November following, at a great council held at Bristol, Pembroke was appointed protector or governor of the king and king dom (Lector Regis et Regni); and this able and excellent nobleman continued at the head of affairs till his death in May 1219; long before width evtiit the dauphin Louie and the French had been compelled to quit the country, their evacuation having been finally arranged in a conference held at Kingston on the 11th of September 1217. After the death of Pembroke the administration of the government fell into the hands of Jfubert de Burgh, who had greatly distinguished himself in the expulsion of the foreigners, and Peter des Roches, bishop of Winchester. De Burgh however and the bishop, who was not an Englishman, but a native of Nikon, from coadjutors soon became rivals, and their attempts to throw each other down at length led in 1221 to the resignation of Des Roches and his retirement from the kingdom. Meanwhile, on the 17tb of May 1220, Henry, in consequence of some doubts being entertained about the efficacy of the former ceremony, had been crowned a second time at Westminster by Langton, archbishop of Canterbury. In 1221 the relations of peace and alliance with Scotland, which had subsisted ever since the departure of the French, were made closer and firmer by the marriages of Alexander II., the king of that country, with Jane, henry's eldest sister, and of De Burgh with the Princess Margaret, the eldest sister of Alexander. About the same time Paudulf, who had succeeded Gusto as papal legate, left the country, which was thus practically freed from the domination of Rome, although that power still persisted in asserting theoretically the vassalage of the crown which had been originally conceded by John, and which had also been acknowledged at his accession by the present king.
In 1222 Henry had been declared of age to exercise nt least certain of the functions of government ; but his feeble character was already become sufficiently apparent, and this formality gave him no real power. It only served to enable De Burgh the more easily to get rid of his colleague. That minister, now left alone at the head of affairs, conducted the government with ability and success on the whole, though in a spirit of severity, which, whether necessary or not, could not fail to wake him many enemies. A war broke out with France iu 1225, which however was carried on with little spirit on either side, and produced no events of note, although Henry in May 1230 conducted in person an expedition to the Continent, from which great things were expected by himself and his subjects; but he returned home In the following October, without having done anything. At this time France
was suffering under the usual weakness and distraction of a regal minority, Louis IX., afterwards designated St. Louis, having while yet only in his twelfth year succeeded his father in 1226. A growing opposition to Do Burgh was at length headed by Richard, earl of Cornwall, the king's brother, who possessed very great influence, not only from his nearness to the throne, but from his immense wealth ; and the consequence was the sudden expulsion of that minister from all his offices, and he consignment to prison, with the loss of all his honours and estates, in the latter part of the year 1132. Des Roches, the bishop of Winchester, who had returned to the country some time before this crisis, was now placed at the head of affairs; but his administration, a course of insulting preference for his countrymen and other foreigners, and of open hostility to the great charter said the whole body of the national liberties, speedily proved unbearably dis tasteful to both barons and commons; and a confederacy of the laity and the clergy, with Edmund, archbishop of Canterbury, at its head, compelled his dismissal within little more than a year after his restoration to power. The archbishop now became chief minister. In 1236 Henry, being now in his thirtieth year, married Eleanor, the daughter of Raymond, count of Provence ; and this connection soon gave new and great umbrage to the nation, in conscqueuce of the numbers of her relations and countrymen who came over with or followed the queen, and with whom she surrounded her weak husband, besides inducing him to gratify their rapacity with pensions, estates, honours, and the most lucrative offices in the kingdom. In the midst of the contests thus occasioned between the crown and the nobility, whose meetings for deliberation ou national affairs were now com monly called parliaments, a renewal of active hostilities with Franco was brought about through a private resentment of Henry's mother Isabella, who after the death of John had returned and been remarried to Hugh, count of La Marche, to whom she bad been espoused before she gave her hand to John : she had instigated La Marche to iusult and defy Alphonse, count of Poitou, the brother of the French king, after doing homage to him, and had then prevailed upon her son, the King of England, to take her part in the war with Franco that ensued. Henry again sailed for the Continent, but this expedition was still more unfortunate and disgraceful than the former : after being beaten by Louis in a succession of actions, he was glad to get home again, with the loss of army, money, baggage, and everything. A new truce for five years pats then agreed to between the two countries.