Edward III 1327-1377 Edward was born in 1312. He was married to Philippa, daughter of William III, Count of Hainault in Flanders. Their children were: Edward (the Black Prince), Isabella, Joanna, William, Lionel, John (of Gaunt), Blanche, Edmund, Mary, Margaret, William and Thomas. The start of Edwards life was in the shadow of his mother and her lover Mortimer. They used Edward as their puppet, controlling the government and the royal revenue. They arranged humiliating treaties with France. Their reign was resisted by some of the king's uncles. Eventually at the age of 17 and already a father, Edward was ready to assert himself, and although for many years he lived in the shadow of his father's weak and costly reign, he soon gained the respect of England by following the solid foundations set by his grand father, Edward I. His first step in asserting his rule, was to judicially murder Mortimer, his mother's lover, by plucking him out of his mother's bed, and then have him hanged through the Act of Attainder, and confining Isabella for the rest of her life. Edward felt it necessary to prove himself through acts of valour and set out to Scotland to renew the war. He defeated them and was paid homage to by the Pretender Edward Balliol, but the King of France gave the Scottish King refuge and prepared for an invasion of England. Edward decided to claim the throne of France. This was the beginning of the Hundred Years War (it actually lasted 115 years until 1453). Along with his Queen, Edward fought for his honour, winning many battles and starving Calais into surrender. For a short while the war ceased whilst Europe came to terms with the devastating effects of the Black Death, bubonic plague, which killed a million and a half people in England alone. The fighting began again in 1355, when Edward's son, the Black Prince, captured the French King John II at the victory of Poitiers. After this Edward was less than glorious and for the next twenty years, things declined. Nevertheless, Edward had for his triumph, the King of Scotland in one prison and the King of France in another. In 1360 Edward gave up his claim for the french throne, in return for a great deal of French land, but 8 years later he changed his mind. Edward's sons were becoming tyrannical as they grew up and it is said that the total achievement of King Edward III and his five sons, whom he had for the first time in English history placed the title Duke onto, was the loss of a great deal of French lands. Edward himself had won some famous victories and had rebuilt Windsor Castle. After the Queen died, Edward had a succession of mistresses and affairs and when he at last died of a terminal stroke, it was his mistress, Alice Perrers, who stripped him of his rings and ran away.