The Perfect King (56 page)

Edward's huge rebuilding programme at Windsor was by no means his sole cultural contribution. However, the rest have not lasted so well. It is one of the great ironies of Edward's life that the structures and art works which he commissioned from
1350
to be a permanent commemoration of his achievements have not proved as lasting as the memory of those achievements themselves. As mentioned above, few people today associate Windsor
Castle
with him; but most people have heard of the Order of the Garter. Not a single stone remains from his great vision of military power, Queenborough
Castle
, on the Isle of Sheppey, but most of us remember the result of the
battle
of Crecy. Likewise, although most historians today first think of the establishment of parliamentary representation as one of Edward Ill's major achievements, the great paintings of St Stephen's Chapel, which stood near the current Houses of Parliament at Westminster, have long since vanished.

St Stephen's Chapel, the principal pl
ace of royal worship within the
Palace of Westminster, was ordere
d to be completely rebuilt by Ed
ward I in
1292.
Over the next sixty years, progress became a barometer of royal authority. When the king was strong, building rushed ahead; when his policies were challenged, building stopped. Thus it is not surprising that work had progressed very slowly through the last years of the reign of Edward I and through most of Edward IPs reign. It was only in the
1320s
that the old walls, which had been protected by thatching since
1309
were cleaned off and the slow, scrupulous work of constructing 'the most splendid chapel in England' began again.
Little
progress had been made by the time Mortimer and Isabella invaded, and brought the work once more to a halt. Building only resumed after Edward III took charge of the country, in
1331.
Over the next three years the east end was finished. A lull in construction followed in
1334,
while the king was away in Scotland, and facing his first financial crisis in the wage bill from that campaign, but it was not long before work began again, in
1337.
This time there was no stopping. William Hurley, the king's master carpenter, and William Ramsey, Surveyor of the King's Works, were put in charge. By
1348
the exquisite chapel - ninety feet long by thirty feet wide - was complete, with a gallery leading
directly
from the king's chamber into the upper part. At the same time, Edward established a college of canons to celebrate mass there. All that needed to be done now was to glaze, paint and furnish the chapel.

It is, of course, a sad loss for us that the chapel was pulled down after the fire of
1834,
which destroyed most of the Palace of Westminster. But what is especially sad is that the decoration was almost entirely lost in that fire. For at St Stephen's Edward commissioned what is generally recognised as the most magnificent English painting programme of the fourteenth century.
10
It is tempting to say that England had not seen painting like this before, for many of the techniques are exclusively connected with painting of the Italian Renaissance: the use of perspective, for example. But, surprisingly, the painters themselves seem to have been English. In March
1350
the master painter Hugh of St Albans was directed to search out the best men of his craft in Kent, Middlesex, Essex, Surrey and Sussex and to bring them to West
minster to work on the painting.
Other painters were ordered to do the same in the Midlands and East Anglia. Edward was doing at Westminster with painting what he was doing at Windsor with stonework: conscripting the very best artists his kingdom had to offer. No expense was spared. Paper (still a relatively rare commodity) was purchased for the designs, and peacocks' feathe
rs, swans' feathers, pigs' bristl
es and squirrels' tails for the brushes, as well as rich paints and gold leaf for the decoration. Every part of the chapel walls was painted. The spaces below the windows were adorned with religious subjects; the corners of the windows were painted or gilded, the walls themselves were covered with angels with extended wings, and doves, eagles, elephants and
castle
s. Beneath the great east window there were painted figures of St George, King Edward, Queen Philippa and ten of their sons and daughters. Only some incomplete sketches made of these images now survive: the originals were destroyed in the fire. A few small fragments of the paintings were rescued, and these are now in the British Museum. Otherwise everything was lost.

Edward did not stop at employing the best painters at St Stephen's: he also employed the best carpenters, glaziers and carvers of stone and wood. Heading up the list of carpenters was, unsurprisingly, William Hurley, the foremost carpenter of his day. They worked on the stalls and the reredos. In
1351-52,
twenty to thirty glaziers worked to the orders of the master glazier, John of Chester. The best woodcarver in the kingdom was initially thought to be Robert Burwell, whom Edward had employed at Windsor in
1350;
but after a few years it was found that in Nottinghamshire there was an even more skilled man, Master Edmund of St Andrew, a canon of Newstead Abbey. Master Edmund was accordingly brought all the way to Westminster in
1355.
He became just the latest of the scores of artists whom Edward drew together from all over the realm. As for stone sculpture, Edward was the first important patron of the fine school of English alabaster carving (his father's effigy at Gloucester being the earliest extant masterpiece), and alabaster sculptures were installed at Windsor and
probably also at St Stephen's.
The alabaster reredos he commissioned for the high altar of St George's was a particularly large piece: it required ten carts and eighty horses to transport
it from Nottingham to Windsor.

By
1355
Edward was the patron of most of the best artists in England. Had all medieval kings acted in a similar way, medieval provincial art may well have been poorer but English royal buildings would have rivalled many of the structural masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance. This may sound like a wild statement, in view of the destruction of the royal chapel and the unique cultural status accorded to the Renaissance, but consider how closely Edward was in touch with the Italians. His extended family links with southern European families (such as the counts of Savoy and Provence, the Fieschi and the Visconti) had, over the years, made him as familiar with Italian culture as his forefathers. For years, through royal gift-giving and gift-receiving, Edward had seen the best that Italian craftsmen had to offer, and had offered back in return priceless works from English goldsmiths' workshops. The banking families of the Peruzzi and the Bardi had practically dwelt at his palaces for several years, and in
1340
the head of the Peruzzi died in London, after spending a year with Edward. His constant embassies to Avignon meant that his high-status ambassadors and low-status messengers were regularly exposed to the culture of the Mediterranean. Some of his doctors were Italian, some of his clerks, and some of his armourers. He purchased paintings and armour from Italy. As a result it would be wrong
not
to regard Edward
III
as a Renaissance ruler.

No panel paintings belonging to Edward exist now, but documentary evidence shows us that he himself commissioned some and even appointed a royal painter. In
1353
this was 'John, a canon of St Catherine'
s, the king's picture painter'.
Five years later Queen Isabella possessed at least six and perhaps ten Italian paintings, the l
argest being of seven leaves.
This is not a small collection, and her owning such large constructions as six-leaf and seven-leaf paintings suggests that these were being brought to England as a result of a known demand for them, if only in royal circles. Edward similarly used Italian panel paintin
gs in his favourite residences.
Most striking of all, Edward was probably the first English king who sat for his portrait, for in
1380
the king of France owned a paint
ed likeness of Edward.
We cannot look at this development as being accidental; rather it appears to be another example of Edward's own artistic patronage and links with Italian Renaissance culture.

Much more could be said about St Stephen's chapel, and many books have been written on the subject of the medieval Palace of Westminster, but perhaps one last point is particularly suitable for inclusion in a biography of Edward III. It must be noted that he himself did not begin the chapel, his grandfather did. This may be taken simply as a sign of a continuation of his grandfather's ambitions, but is also indicative of his will to complete his predecessors' foundations. He had already endowed and founded the King's Hall at Cambridge in line with his father's promises. Similarly in
1346
he had founded a convent of nuns at Dartford dependent on the Dominican friars, a unique establishment which was the original idea of his father and grandmother.'
8
In these foundations, brought to splendid completion under Edward III, we may detect a sense of triumph, or, more particularly, of a determination to complete what his predecessors had been unable to finish. Edward was keen to tie up the loose ends of the last two generations and eliminate the evidence that the English royal family occasionally failed to live up to its promises. To return to the idea of Edward trying to be 'the perfect king', it is arguable that in
1350
his ambition had gone one stage further, to turn his whole family into a 'perfect dynasty'. If we are right in reading the evidence in this way, then it is surely a remarkable ambition. It was only twenty years since Edward had assented to the execution of his own uncle.

*

Almost nothing now remains of Edward's other great building enterprises. In
1350
he founded the Cistercian Abbey of St Mary Graces beside the Tower, in order to celebrate yet another saf
e delivery from a storm at sea.
This was swept away in the Reformation. So too was the nunnery at Dartford. His palaces at Eltham, Sheen, King's Langley, Queenborough and Moor End (Northamptonshire) and his extensions of Nottingham
Castle
have disappeared without trace. Of his house at Rotherhithe, only the foundations are visible. Hadleigh
Castle
is just rubble and jagged ruins.

His work rebuilding Eltham Palace, begun in
1350,
lasted for ten years and cost over
£2,237.
His work there included new lodgings for the royal family, and passages between the king's great chamber and the queen's. He rebuilt the encircling wall, repaired the halls (plural), king's chapel and gatehouses, added a new drawbridge, kitchen, roasting house, saucery, larder and oratory. He restocked and repaired the garden and improved the vineyard. This is an interesting reference to the cultivation of vines in fourteenth-century England which is mirrored in similar payments at the gardens and vineyard at Windsor
Castle
, from which wine continued to be produced good enough for royal consumption until the end of the reign.

After
1350,
Edward began building on a scale which, if not unprecedented, certainly equalled anything previously seen in Britain. In
1351
he acquired Henley from John Molyns and started rebuilding the royal residence there. Having paid
£550
for it, he then spent
£785
under the watchful eye of William of Wykeham on the principal dwellings. Two years later he commenced work at Rotherhithe, on the south bank of the River Thames. There he spent
£1,064
over the next three years on a fine house with a wharf, gardens and vineyards, this to be a convenient stopping-off point on his journeys into Kent. The foundations of this house are still extant, but that is all. The accounts for the garden have survived much better, including the list of seeds, plants and compost purchased. In
1354
he began to rebuild substantial parts of the manor of Woodstock, where his eldest son and daughter had been born. It was particularly with his wife and eldest daughter in mind that he rebuilt a new chamber for the queen and a balcony outside Isabella's suite of rooms so that she might have a view of the park. A few years later he spent more than
£500
reconstructing part of Rosamund's Bower, the legendary trysting place of Henry II and his favourite mistress at Woodstock.

The above building programme is remarkable for the fact that it took place alongside the expenditure of more than
£5,000
every year at Windsor, and about
£1,000
each year at Westminster. In addition there were repairs to all the other royal buildings. In his determination to create a clean, ordered image for his dynasty, Edward spent large amounts of money just mamtaining his predecessors'
castle
s and palaces. Quite apart from all the major works he undertook, in the course of his reign he carried out extensive repairs to the
castle
s of Cambridge, Carisbrooke, Carlisle, Corfe, Dover, Gloucester, Guildford, Leeds, the Tower of London (including the construction of the Cradle Tower and the wharf), Ludgershall, Odiham, Porchester, Rochester, Rockingham, Scarborough, Somerton, Wallingford and Winchester. Houses built by his grandfather Edward I, such as Clarendon Palace and Havering, were also extensively repaired. And the most significant and original constructions were yet to come.