DESPITE the pessimistic eulogy of at least one fifteenth-century poet, and most historical opinion prior to the 1950s, Edward III's reign (1327–77) is now rated as one of the most successful of the English Middle Ages. Raised in the court of his father, Edward II, a generally unpopular king deposed in 1327, Edward III came to power in his own right in 1330 after the overthrow of his guardians, his mother, Queen Isabella, and her lover, Roger Mortimer. At first preoccupied with the Disinheriteds' campaign against the Bruce line, by 1337 he had entered into a war with France, a conflict which brought financial trouble and parliamentary crisis by 1340. However, once military campaigning began to go well on the Continent, first in Brittany, then at Crécy and Calais, domestic criticism, while never entirely silent, had less on which to focus. Rather, the next crisis to hit England came with the advent of the Plague in 1348, which would continue until 1350, and would revisit the realm in 1361, 1369 and 1375.