Special Guest Blogger: Edward III

I ruled England for fifty years and was celebrated as one of England’s greatest-ever kings, bringing authority back to the monarchy, strengthening the rule of law and the traditions of Parliament while winning stunning military victories against the French and the Scots and establishing the Order of the Garter.
It was a shame that nearly half of my subjects were wiped out by the Black Death but perhaps that’s just being picky.
My Mum stood in for me until i was old enough to take the crown but she seemed reluctant to stand down once i reached 16 so i dragged her to the jail and kept her under guard for thirty years while set about rectifying my father’s humiliating setbacks in Scotland.
I won a victory at the Battle of Halidon Hill and returned the key strategic town of Berwick-upon-Tweed which had continually passed back and forth from English to Scottish control and with Scotland no longer a threat,  turned my attentions to regaining the territory and the lucrative wool trade that had been lost and began a war with France which become known as the Hundred Year war so that shows how swift it was.
I was the grandson of the French King, and three of my uncles had been King of France however, when the last of these died, the French got out the royal family tree and found a distant cousin to do the job rather than have some Englishman turn up and start passing laws about being women shaving their armpits so i declared myself to be the rightful King of France.
The French blockaded the Channel but a rain of arrows from the new English longbows soon shifted that and at the Battle of Crécy where we were outnumbered 2 to 1, but the longbow did it again and soon there were a dozen royal princes, 1,200 knights and 15,000 French soldiers laying down dead with arrows in them.
Special mention must go to The old King of Bohemia, King John the Blind who insisted on taking part in the battle despite it being pointed out to him several times that that being blind might put him at a slight disadvantage, which it did because of course he was killed instantly.
On my return from France I created the Order of the Garter, made up of twenty-four knights named after the item of clothing that was dropped by the Countess of Salisbury at a ball in Windsor Castle. I picked it up and pulled the garter around my own leg and stopped any sniggering by saying ‘Honi soit qui mal y pense’ or ‘Shame to him who evil thinks’ which became my motto.
Things were going great guns until somebody complained that they didn’t feel too well and that they had these big lumps oozing pus under their armpits and a tiny flea in the fur of the black rat halved the English population and really took the shine off the appeal of rats and fleas.
My final years were marred by a descent into senility and as i lay dying, I was abandoned by courtiers and relations who rushed to stake their claim in the court of my successor, the ten-year-old King Richard II and even my mistress deserted me, not forgetting to pull the precious rings off my dying  fingers first.