Issue of Edward III of England

Edward III of England is "often described as the ancestor of the British upper-middle class" ["Burke's Presidential Families of the USA", 1981] through his sons John of Gaunt, Lionel of Antwerp, Edmund of Langley and Thomas of Woodstock. All of Edward's legitimate children were by his wife, Philippa of Hainault.

It was previously conventional wisdom that the Wars of the Roses could be blamed on Edward III due to his lavish endowment of his many sons. It has since been established that this was the accepted and most efficient method of government.

Nevertheless, it is indisputable that the Wars of the Roses were fought between the different factions of Edward III's descendants. The following list outlines the genealogical background of that conflict.

The sons

The Wars of the Roses were a civil war over the throne of the Kingdom of England fought among the descendants of King Edward III through his five surviving adult sons. Each branch of the family had competing claims through seniority, legitimacy, and/or the gender of their ancestors.

(1) Edward, the Black Prince (1330–1376), Duke of Cornwall, Prince of Wales

The eldest son of Edward III predeceased his father and never became king. Edward's only surviving child was Richard II who ascended to the throne but produced no heirs. Richard II designated as his heir presumptive his cousin Roger Mortimer, 4th Earl of March, senior heir of the female line, the grandson of Lionel of Antwerp, but this succession never took place as Richard II was eventually deposed and succeeded by another of Richard's cousins, Henry Bolingbroke (who ascended as Henry IV), who was senior heir of the male line.

(2) William of Hatfield (16 February 1337 – 8 July 1337), buried at York Minster.

(3) Lionel of Antwerp (1338–1368), Duke of Clarence

Lionel also predeceased his father. Lionel's only child, Philippa, married into the powerful Mortimer family, which as noted above had exerted enormous influence during the reigns of Edward II and Edward III. Philippa's son Roger Mortimer, 4th Earl of March was the designated heir of Richard II (but predeceased him, leaving his young son Edmund as heir presumptive). Anne Mortimer, Edmund's eldest sister, Lionel of Antwerp's great-granddaughter, married Richard, Earl of Cambridge of the House of York, merging the Lionel/Mortimer line into the York line.

(4) John of Gaunt (1340–1399), Duke of Lancaster.

From John of Gaunt descended legitimate male heirs, the Lancasters (Henry IV, who deposed Richard II, and then Henry V and Henry VI). This line ended when Henry VI was successfully deposed by Edward IV of the York faction and Henry's son Edward of Westminster was killed.

The Lancaster kings derived their ancestry also (through Blanche of Lancaster, wife of John Gaunt) from Edmund Crouchback, 1st Earl of Lancaster, who was the second son of Henry III of England and Eleanor of Provence. A legend without foundation was developed claiming that Edmund was older than his brother Edward I of England but passed over in the succession because of physical infirmity. [John of Gaunt also had legitimate descendants through his daughters Philippa of Lancaster, Queen of Portugal, the mother of King Edward of Portugal; Elizabeth Plantagenet, Duchess of Exeter, the mother of John Holland, 2nd Duke of Exeter; and Catherine of Lancaster, Queen of Castile, a granddaughter of Pedro of Castile and the mother of King Juan II, but these Castilians engaged in their own wars over the Spanish succession and did not assert any claims to the English throne in the Wars of the Roses — and they all were of the female line, something the Lancaster Claim avoided because they were originally secondary to certain senior female descents such as the Mortimers.]

John of Gaunt's illegitimate heirs were the Beauforts, his descendants through his mistress (later, his wife) Katherine Swynford. A daughter of the house, Gaunt's great-granddaughter Margaret Beaufort, married into the House of Tudor, producing a single child who would become Henry VII. While the Beaufort offspring had been legitimized after Gaunt's eventual marriage to Swynford, this was on the condition that they be barred from ascending the throne. Undeterred by this, upon the failure of the primary Lancastrian line, the Tudors claimed precedence to the Yorks and eventually succeeded them.

(5) Edmund of Langley (1341–1402), Duke of York.

His descendants were the Yorks. He had two sons: Edward of Norwich, 2nd Duke of York, killed fighting alongside Henry V at the Battle of Agincourt, and Richard of Conisburgh, 3rd Earl of Cambridge, executed by Henry V for treason (involving a plot to place heir presumptive Edmund Mortimer, 5th Earl of March, Cambridge's brother-in-law and cousin, on the throne). As noted above, Richard had married Anne de Mortimer, this giving their son (and the House of York), through Lionel of Antwerp, a more senior claim than that of both the House of Lancaster, which descended from a younger son than Lionel, and the House of Tudor, whose legitimized Beaufort ancestors had been debarred from the throne.

(6) Thomas of Windsor (1347)

(7) William of Windsor (24 June 1348 – 5 September 1348). Died of plague.

(8) Thomas of Woodstock (1355–1397), Duke of Gloucester.

Thomas, who was one of the Lords Appellant influential under Richard II, was murdered or executed for treason, likely by the order of Richard II; his eventual heir was his daughter Anne, who married into the Stafford family, whose heirs became the Dukes of Buckingham. Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, descended on his father's side from Thomas of Woodstock, and on his mother's side from John Beaufort. He rebelled against Richard III in 1483 but failed to depose him. This failed rebellion left Henry Tudor as the Lancastrians' primary candidate for the throne.

Thus, the senior Plantagenet line was ended with the death of Richard II, but not before the execution of Thomas of Woodstock for treason. The heirs presumptive through Lionel of Antwerp were passed over in favour of the powerful Henry IV, descendant of Edward III through John of Gaunt. These Lancaster kings initially survived the treason of their Edmund of Langley (York) cousins but eventually were deposed by the merged Lionel/Edmund line in the person of Edward IV. Internecine killing among the Yorks left Richard III as king, supported and then betrayed by his cousin Buckingham, the descendant of Thomas of Woodstock. Finally, the Yorks were dislodged by the remaining Lancastrian candidate, Henry VII of the House of Tudor, another descendant of John of Gaunt, who married the eldest daughter of Yorkist King Edward IV.

The daughters

*Isabella of England (1332–1382), married Enguerrand VII de Coucy, 1st Earl of Bedford. Had issue. Their oldest daughter, Maria de Coucy, is the ancestress of many European Royal Houses.Fact|date=April 2008
*Joan of England (1334-1348) died of the plague in Bayonne, on her way to marry Pedro of Castile. No issue.
*Blanche Plantagenet (1342) Died Young.
*Mary Plantagenet (1344–1362), married John V, Duke of Brittany. No issue.
*Margaret Plantagenet (1346–1361), married John Hastings, 2nd Earl of Pembroke. No issue.
*Joan Plantagenet (1351)

References