A Plantagenet, King Henry was King of England from 1216 untilhis death in 1272.Reigned 1216-1272. A minor when he took the throne he did nottake the reigns of Government himself until 1234. Baroniandiscontent simmered, boiling over in 1258 when Henry facingfinancial disaster attempted to raise large sums from hismagnates. Reforms were agreed upon but then renouced by Henry.Simon de Montford lead a rebellion against the King (the BaronsWars) which was defeated after initial success, thereafter Henryceeded much of his power to his son. Burke say he was born 10Oct 1206 and married 14 Jan, crowned 1216.HENRY III(1216-72 AD) r175<Picture>Henry III was the first son of John and Isabella ofAngouleme, born in 1207. Age nine when he was crowned, Henry'searly reign featured two regents: William the Marshall governeduntil his death in 1219, and Hugh de Burgh until Henry came tothe throne in 1232. His education was provided by Peter desRoche, Bishop of Winchester. He married Eleanor of Provence in1236, who bore him four sons and two daughters.Henry inherited a troubled kingdom: London and most of thesoutheast was in the hands of the French Dauphin Louis and thenorthern regions were under control of rebellious barons - onlythe midland and southwest were loyal to the boy king. Thebarons, however, soon sided with Henry (their quarrel was withhis father, not him), and the old Marshall expelled the FrenchDauphin from English soil by 1217.Henry was a cultivated man, but a lousy politician. His courtwas inundated by Frenchmen and Italians who came at the behestof Eleanor, whose relations were handed important Church andstate positions. His father and uncle left him an impoverishedkingdom; Henry financed costly, fruitless wars with extortionatetaxation. Inept diplomacy and failed war led Henry to sell hishereditary claims to all the Angevin possessions in France, saveGascony (which was held as a fief of the French crown) andCalais. Henry's failures incited hostilities among a group ofbarons led by his brother-in-law, Simon de Montfort. Henry wasforced to agree to a wide ranging plan of reforms, theProvisions of Oxford. His later papal absolution from adheringto the Provisions prompted a baronial revolt in 1263, and Henrywas summoned to the first Parliament, a gathering of two knightsfrom every shire and county and a forerunner to the modern Houseof Commons. Parliament insisted that a council be imposed on theking to advise on policy decisions. He was prone to the infamousPlantagenet temper, but could also be sensitive and quite pious- ecclesiastical architecture reached its apex in Henry's reign.The old king, after an extremely long reign of fifty-six years,died in 1272. He found no success in war, but opened up Englishculture to the cosmopolitanism of the continent. Although viewedas a failure as a politician, his reign defined the Englishmonarchical position until the end of the fifteenth century:kingship limited by law - the repercussions of which influencedthe English Civil War in the reign of Charles I , and extendedinto the nineteenth century queenship of Victoria.