The Prince Of Wales Goes Swimming And Buys A Collar For His Lion

A post about some interesting entries in Edward of Caernarfon's household accounts as prince of Wales in the early 1300s, before he succeeded as King Edward II.

- One of my absolute favourite Edward snippets ever is this one: on 25 February 1303, when Edward was eighteen years and ten months old, he had to pay four shillings compensation to his fool Robert Bussard. The reason? The two men went swimming together that day* at Windsor and Robert was injured in some way by "the trick the Prince played on him in the water." I love this for its demonstration of a) Edward's love of the water, b) his playfulness, and c) possibly, his underestimating his own great strength.

* In February! Makes me feel cold just thinking about it. Of course, this was Edward II, who went swimming and rowing for a month in the autumn of 1315 when it poured down every day, sat in a garden listening to people singing for him in York on 26 December 1322 and ate in the park of South Elmham on 14 January 1326, and who therefore seems to have been pretty immune to cold.

- Adam of Lichfield, "keeper of the Prince's lion," received two pence a day in wages, while the lion got four pence worth of food a day, in late 1302 and early 1303. During Edward's reign, Peter Fabre of Montpellier, "keeper of the king's lion and leopard" at the Tower of London, received one and a half pence a day for his wages while the lion and leopard were allowed six pence a day each for food. (Both animals got a quarter of mutton daily.) Adam of Lichfield spent two shillings and nine pence on a chain and collar for the lion in 1303. In 1312, one of Edward II's possessions seized at Tynemouth by Thomas of Lancaster was "a belt made of lion skin, decorated in gold with a cameo"; as Susan Higginbotham pointed out recently on Edward's Facebook page, let's hope it wasn't the same lion!

- Edward had a fowler with the unusual name of Papeiday (also spelt 'Papeiay' in another entry), who on 9 October 1303 paid four shillings and eight pence in London for a "net to catch partridges" on Edward's orders.

- William the bookbinder (le bokbyndere) of London made an illustrated Life of St Edward the Confessor in French for Edward in November 1302, which cost fifty-eight shillings.

- In early 1303, two leather coffers were purchased for two shillings each, to carry Edward's two urinals in Scotland. (In 1326, the possessions which Edward left behind at Caerphilly Castle included a "chest of hide" for two urinals.) Edward also spent thirty-two shillings, four and a half pence on "a pair of long coffers for his linen" and eight shillings on "a new pair of great trunks for his iron armour."

- On Sunday 6 November 1300, sixteen-year-old Edward dined at Carlisle with his stepmother Queen Marguerite, who had given birth to his half-brother Thomas of Brotherton five months before and must have fallen pregnant again at this time, as Edward's other half-brother Edmund of Woodstock was born on 5 August 1301. (No, I'm certainly not trying to suggest that Edmund was Edward's son, not his brother. That would be way too icky and weird. Talking of weirdness, a novel published recently claims that Simon de Montfort, married to Henry III's sister Eleanor, was the real father of Henry III's son Edward I. My first, instinctive reaction: WTF??!! My later, more considered reaction: WTF??!! Poor Eleanor of Provence, and poor Henry III. I have to say that I'm well and truly sick of the trend in historical fiction to sex up novels by claiming that real historical people were not the biological children of their fathers. Maybe you can't libel the dead, but it's so disrespectful.)

- Some nice details about fourteenth-century life: Edward of Caernarfon paid John le Haltrere of Doncaster thirty-six shillings on 16 May 1303 for, among other things, "new leather hoods for the cart and sumpter horses" and at the same time bought forty-two sickles "to cut forage for the horses"; Edward's clerk Hugh of Leominster bought a canvas tent for Edward's cart-horses; William Conrad, bowyer of the Tower of London, was paid for providing four pounds of "sinews of sea-dogs" to make bows and ballistas.

- On 18 April 1303 at York, Edward paid six shillings and three pence for three and a half ells of russet cloth and four ells of canvas "to make two housings for a ferrand charger given by the Prince to a Spanish archdeacon that day."

- On 12 June, the keeper of Edward's horses bought four and a half ells of bluet cloth at twenty-two pence an ell and eight and a half ells of russet at eighteen pence an ell to make housings for four of Edward's chargers. The keeper was Laurence of Chertsey; he and his page received six pence a day in wages (together, not each), and he spent more than eighty-five pounds looking after thirty-two of Edward's chargers and palfreys from November 1302 to May 1303.

- Edward purchased various pieces of armour from 'Manekin the armourer of London' and 'Bernard of Devon armourer of London' in 1302/03, including three bascinets, an iron headpiece with crest, a helmet with visor and a pair of plate gloves. 4300 pieces of gold thread at eight shillings and four pence per 1000 were bought for two of his gambesons (padded jackets), and twenty-six shillings were spent to make four "pennoncels of beaten gold with the Prince's arms for his trumpeters."

- Clothes bought for Edward in London in early 1303 included eighteen pairs of gloves at three shillings, three pairs of boots which cost three shillings and eight pence each, and six pairs of leather breeches and four of samite at nineteen shillings. Cloth was bought for him and his household in June at the 'fair of St Ivo'.

- Other material bought for Edward and his household in 1302/03 included: sixteen 'mixed cloths of Ghent' for Edward and the earls and bannerets attending him, which cost ten marks each; twenty-four striped cloths for his squires which cost five and a half marks each, and six for 'the Welshmen of the household' which cost four marks each; three and a half cloths of 'Persian bluet' for Edward and his earls and bannerets for Easter, total cost nearly twenty pounds; sixteen 'cloths of clear green' for the prince, earls and bannerets which cost seven marks each; three cloths of the same colour for some new knights of his household which cost five and a half marks each, for Pentecost; four 'russet cloths of Douai' for Michaelmas; a cloth of striped scarlet, cost fifteen marks, for Edward and his cousin John of Brittany for the feasts of the Assumption and All Saints.

- During the thirty-first year of his father's reign, November 1302 to November 1303, Edward spent almost £570 on chargers, palfreys, hackneys and other horses for himself and his household. The most expensive horse, which cost 110 marks, was a "morel with white hind foot and white muzzle." In September 1303, Edward received a gift of a palfrey from "the wife of Sir Alexander Comyn," which I assume means Joan Latimer, wife of Alexander Comyn, sheriff of Aberdeen and brother of John Comyn, earl of Buchan. (Alexander and Joan's daughter Alice married Edward's kinsman Henry Beaumont.)

- Edward spent seven pounds, nineteen shillings and two pence on 'falcons gentil' in May 1303, bought for him in Flanders by his falconer, Gilet. That same month, Edward received a gift of two falcons from John, marquis of Namur, one of the sons of Guy de Dampierre, count of Flanders (the young Edward was betrothed to John's sister Philippa in the 1290s; another sister married his first cousin Alexander of Scotland, who died in 1284 and was the elder son of King Alexander III).

- In the summer of 1303 in Scotland, Edward had "a bodyguard of Spaniards, 7 crossbowmen and 2 with lances." His chamberlain in November 1301 was Roderick of Castile (Rotherik Despaigne), who had been a member of Edward's household since at least February 1290 (when the future king wasn't yet six), was knighted with him in May 1306 and was still serving him in October 1308. In April 1312, Edward asked his cousin King Fernando IV of Castile to show favour to Roderick's widow Mary and their children.

- Edward spent sixty pounds in March 1303 on a "choir cope embroidered with various work and white pearls" for Pedro, the Spanish cardinal-bishop of Santa Sabina. Pedro met Edward when he visited England in late 1306 (and supposedly offered Edward the throne of Castile if Fernando IV died without a son).

- Edward's personal physician was Master Robert de Cisterne, who was paid over nine pounds for taking along medicines, syrups, ointments, powders, herbs and apples to Scotland in 1303. Master Robert's last name in October 1301 was spelt 'Oydisterne', and Edward sent him to London that month for "certain matters required for his [Edward's] body."

- On 21 November 1301, Edward I ordered provisions for his son's household to last until the following Candlemas (2 February), which included 20,000 herrings, 4000 "great fish," 2000 quarters of wheat and 2000 quarters of oats.

Eighteen-year-old Edward spent Christmas 1302 at Odiham in Hampshire, and as was his wont all his life from early adolescence onwards, spent five pounds playing dice on Christmas Eve; the money was delivered to him by the hands of a certain squire of his called 'Perott de Gavastone'. Hmmm, wonder what became of this mysterious Perott? I don't recognise the name, so he can't have been very important to Edward. (Joke.) Edward spent another five pounds gambling on 10 January 1303, the money again delivered to him by Perott. After spending a few days at Windsor in February, where he injured Robert Bussard while swimming, Edward made his way north to join his father and arrived at Tickhill in Yorkshire on 28 March, where he gave two shillings and sixpence each to "John of Horpol and his fellow clerks, wrestling before the prince." He was in Kelso in May 1303, shortly after his nineteenth birthday, where an unfortunate accident occurred: his hounds killed a horse belonging to one Richard Grandyn of Roxburgh, and Edward had to pay Grandyn a mark in compensation. The prince spent a day with the Dominicans of Roxburgh, who received three shillings and four pence for the costs involved, and the following day gave four shillings and eight pence in oblations at the Mass celebrated in his chapel at Kelso. On Trinity Sunday, he gave a very generous gift of twelve shillings each to his minstrels Thomasin le Vilour, John Garsie, John of Cateloyne (Catalonia) and Janin le Nakarer, for their performance.

Edward spent Christmas 1303 at Perth in Scotland, and on Christmas Day dined with Thomas, earl of Lancaster and John of Brittany, earl of Richmond, two of his first cousins (and later, enemies); the earls of Warwick (Guy Beauchamp), Ulster (Richard de Burgh), Atholl (John de Strathbogie, hanged by Edward I three years later) and Strathearn (Malise); Hugh Despenser the Elder, Richard Siward, Alexander Abernethy and other English, Scottish and Irish magnates, not named. Among much else, they consumed forty lambs, twelve swans and two cranes. The future king's accounts reveal his enthusiasm for playing dice, on which he spent over thirty-two pounds in the regnal year November 1302 to November 1303. This included two pounds playing with "diverse knights" on the feast of John the Baptist, 24 June, six shillings on an unknown date playing with 'Lord Louis of France' (Philippe IV's half-brother Louis d'Evreux) and two pounds with his brother-in-law Ralph de Monthermer on the feast of St Laurence, 10 August. Edward lost a pound to another of his brothers-in-law (and yet another future enemy) the earl of Hereford on 16 November 1303. His chamber journal reveals that he was still enthusiastically playing dice (and cross and pile) in the summer of 1326.

Sources

Calendar of Documents Relating to Scotland 1272-1307; Calendar of Patent Rolls 1281-1292, 1307-1313; Calendar of Close Rolls 1307-1313, 1313-1318; Constance Bullock-Davies, Menestrellorum Multitudo: Minstrels at a Royal Feast.