Henry III of England

Henry became King of England in 1216 at age nine, midway through the First Barons' War, which his regent William Marshal won by declaring it a crusade. After Marshal's death in 1219, Hubert de Burgh ran the government until Henry took personal control following a 1232 revolt. He ruled from a handful of favored palaces, married Eleanor of Provence, and spent lavishly on religious ceremonies and his devotion to Edward the Confessor, while extracting ruinous sums from England's Jews and later segregating them by statute. His attempts to reclaim lost French territories failed spectacularly - a 1230 debacle, the disastrous Battle of Taillebourg in 1242 - and his expensive foreign schemes, including a failed bid to win Sicily for his son, drained the treasury. By 1258 his barons had had enough: they seized power, expelled his Poitevin half-brothers, and imposed the Provisions of Oxford to reform the government. The reforms collapsed, and in 1263 Simon de Montfort launched the Second Barons' War, defeating and capturing Henry at Lewes in 1264. His son Edward freed him by winning at Evesham the next year, but Henry's revenge was softened by the Church, and he spent his