LANCASTER, HENRY, 3RD EARL OF, EARL OF LEICESTER, ...

born c. 1281 died Sept. 22, 1345 second son of Edmund (Crouchback), 1st Earl of Lancaster, and the brother of Thomas, 2nd Earl of Lancaster. After his brother's execution in 1322, Henry was so little suspected of opposing King Edward II that he was allowed possession of another of the family titles, the earldom of Leicester (1324). He held lands adjacent to the increasing possessions in South Wales of Edward II's favourites, Hugh Le Despenser and his son and namesake, and in September 1326 he joined Queen Isabella and Roger Mortimer after their return from France to depose the king. Henry captured Edward II at Neath Abbey and detained him at Kenilworth. He was a member of the deputation that informed the king of his deposition. In 1327 he was made chief of the Council of Regency, and after entering a petition in Parliament he was reinstated to much of the Lancastrian inheritance and allowed the title of Earl of Lancaster. He soon quarreled with Mortimer. Lancaster complained that the Council of Regency was ignored and refused to attend the Salisbury Parliament of October 1328. He gathered troops at Winchester but was compelled to make peace. In 1330 he was one author of the plot that, with King Edward III's approval, overthrew Mortimer. About this time his eyesight failed, and after Mortimer's fall he retired from public life.