the period of English history between 1307 and 1377 was one of striking and often violent contrasts. The great famines of 1315–22 and the Black Death of 1348–9 brought to an end the demographic and economic expansion of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and precipitated enormous changes in the structure of society. The advent of long-term warfare with Scotland and France created virtually unprecedented military, administrative and fiscal burdens which brought the English state and its subjects into more regular contact and more frequent political conflict. The increasing complexities of government were reflected in the development of a more refined judicial system and the emergence of parliament as a taxative and legislative assembly. Above all, these changes focused attention on the person of the king and required of him a greater sensitivity, subtlety and flexibility than ever before.

Much of the political agenda of the fourteenth century had been set during the reign of Edward I. In the 1290s Edward had been drawn into war on three fronts: in Wales, where his earlier conquests continued to arouse resentment and rebellion; in Scotland, where his attempts to resolve the succession dispute culminated in a full-scale war; and in France, where his refusal to accept Philip IV’s claims to feudal suzerainty over the duchy of Aquitaine produced an inconclusive round of hostilities between 1294 and 1298. The cost of these wars had been immense, and on two occasions the king had been forced to reissue Magna Carta and the Charter of the Forests as a means of placating political opposition to his fiscal and military policies.