I wrote my M.Litt. thesis at St. Andrews on the royal minorities and protectorates of England from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries. I am mainly concerned with the way in which such minorities affected theories of kingship and the interplay between ideology and the need for practical political decision-making. Aspects such as court culture, prosopography, and the impact of royal minorities on the extended royal family are also of interest, as well as the expression of minor kingship in other areas such as the visual arts. I am also concerned with comparing the functionality of kingship during a royal minority with other instances of royal incapacity such as illness or absence from the realm. I am in the process of researching and writing a full-length comparative monograph on this subject, and I have published two book chapters on aspects of royal minority administrations in England. I welcome any communication and correspondence on this topic or on any aspect of late medieval English political history. Address: 39221 Woodward Avenue, Unit 809 Bloomfield Hills, MI 48304, USA
The Royal Minorities of Medieval and Early Modern England, 2008
On 28 October 1216, nine days after the death of his father, nineyear-old Henry III was hastily c... more On 28 October 1216, nine days after the death of his father, nineyear-old Henry III was hastily crowned king of England in Gloucester Cathedral by the bishop of Winchester, assisted by a papal legate. As England had not experienced a royal minority since the tenth-century Aethelred “the Unready,” the nobles loyal to the Plantagenet succession had to create procedures and practices that were for the most part entirely new. Legal customs had established procedures regarding the minorities of noble heirs, in terms of wardship and guardianship of property. But the extent to which these guidelines could be applied to the minority of a king was unknown and probably extremely limited. Moreover, there was very little time or opportunity for the careful consideration of constitutional problems. There was not even any assurance in 1216 that Henry III would remain king of England, since his father, King John, had died at Newark on the night of 18–19 October while losing a civil war against some of his own magnates, who sought not merely to sweep away John but his dynasty with him.
The Royal Minorities of Medieval and Early Modern England, 2008
On 28 October 1216, nine days after the death of his father, nineyear-old Henry III was hastily c... more On 28 October 1216, nine days after the death of his father, nineyear-old Henry III was hastily crowned king of England in Gloucester Cathedral by the bishop of Winchester, assisted by a papal legate. As England had not experienced a royal minority since the tenth-century Aethelred “the Unready,” the nobles loyal to the Plantagenet succession had to create procedures and practices that were for the most part entirely new. Legal customs had established procedures regarding the minorities of noble heirs, in terms of wardship and guardianship of property. But the extent to which these guidelines could be applied to the minority of a king was unknown and probably extremely limited. Moreover, there was very little time or opportunity for the careful consideration of constitutional problems. There was not even any assurance in 1216 that Henry III would remain king of England, since his father, King John, had died at Newark on the night of 18–19 October while losing a civil war against some of his own magnates, who sought not merely to sweep away John but his dynasty with him.
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