Great News

The second part of my William Montacute post is coming soon, as soon as I get round to writing it!  I'm feeling lethargic and unmotivated at the moment and can't get myself into gear to do any research and writing.  Typical January feeling...

But anyway - I'd like to share some great news!  My article 'The Adherents of Edmund of Woodstock, Earl of Kent, in March 1330' has been accepted for publication in the English Historical Review, and will appear probably late this year or in early 2012.  Kent was beheaded for treason against his nephew Edward III on 19 March 1330, aged twenty-eight, after he admitted plotting to free his half-brother the former Edward II from captivity, two and a half years after Edward's supposed death at Berkeley Castle on 21 September 1327.  It is often assumed that Kent had been tricked into trying to rescue a dead man to provide an excuse for Isabella of France and Roger Mortimer to execute him - which explanation either ignores altogether the men who supported Kent in his plot, or dismisses them as a few friars and a handful of others with grievances against Isabella and Mortimer's rule who did not truly believe in Edward II's survival.  (Although the archbishop of York, William Melton, certainly did, and told the mayor of London in January 1330 that "my liege lord Edward of Caernarfon is alive and in good health of body.")  In fact, around seventy men can be demonstrated to have supported Kent, and in my article, I've provided backgrounds and allegiances for almost all of them, showing that the majority had been close to Edward II and had shown great loyalty to him before, during and after the revolution of 1326/27.  Kent's adherents in 1330 included two Scottish earls (Mar, Robert Bruce's nephew, and Buchan, Henry Beaumont), Welsh knights, a former chamberlain of North Wales and a former keeper of the peace in Berkshire, the earl of Warwick's stepfather, a glover, a cellarer and a mercer, Edward II's tailor, the Dunheved brothers, and the notorious gang leader Malcolm Musard. I hope the article goes some way to destroying the often-repeated myth that Kent only believed Edward was still alive in 1330 because he was 'stupid'.  He wasn't.

I'm very grateful to Ian Mortimer for giving me advice on the article, and talking of Ian, he's had some wonderful news too: his Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England was the best-selling non-fiction history book of 2010.  Many congratulations to Ian!  If you haven't read his Medieval Intrigue: Decoding Royal Conspiracies yet, you should: it contains a great article on the earl of Kent's plot of 1330, as well as Ian's important article 'The Death of Edward II in Berkeley Castle' originally published in the English Historical Review.  More info on Ian's website.  Finally for today, I'll just point out that I'm named in the acknowledgements of both books.  :-)