everythingieverloved:Henry III died on November 16, 1272. He was sixty-five years old and had reigne
everythingieverloved:Henry III died on November 16, 1272. He was sixty-five years old and had reigned for fifty-six years. In that more than half-century he, in combination with his wife and her family, had tried to reinvent England as a great European power. In this attempt, he and Eleanor failed, and nearly lost everything. But there had also been achievements, most notably the establishment of a firm peace with France which would outlast his reign. For a man who possessed no real ability for leadership, whose talents lay principally in the realm of aesthetic, who loved to live lavishly but had not the funds to do so, who was by turns generous, petulant, romantic, vindictive, pious, and partisan, Henry had done his best. He was buried with “all honor,” according to an English chronicler. His body was laid in state and dressed in coronation robes; he wore his crown. His funeral was attended by all the great men of the kingdom. But for the absence of his two sons [away on crusade], it was all as Henry would have wished.The King was buried in Westminster Abbey, which had been recently and gloriously renovated, in the tomb formerly containing the relics of Edward the Confessor. Somewhere between the wars and the oaths, the intrigues and the disappointments, Henry had found the time to express his great love of architecture in this one church; the artistic vision was his and his alone; he devoted years to its magnificent redesign. It still stands today, the great gift of the reign of a troubled king.“Four Queens,” Nancy Goldstone -- source link
#history#henry iii#13th century#kings