My Forthcoming Books

I've updated my publications page, and here are all my forthcoming books:

My next, and fifth, book is Blood Roses: The Houses of Lancaster and York Before the Wars of the Roses. This is due to be published in early October 2018 and is available for pre-order on Amazon. It opens in 1245 with the birth of Henry III and Eleanor of Provence's second son Edmund, first earl of Lancaster, and tells the story of the houses of Lancaster and York until 1415.

Edward II and Hugh Despenser the Younger: Downfall of a King's Favourite. This is due out on 30 October 2018. It's the first-ever biography of Hugh; oddly enough, there's never even been an academic thesis devoted to him, let alone an entire book, even though he was the most powerful man in Wales and England for much of the 1320s. I enjoyed researching and writing this one so much, I can't even tell you! Hugh was a bad boy. Not nearly as bad as he's painted - he wasn't a torturer or a rapist - but bad enough.

Following in the Footsteps of Edward II, a travel guide to locations in Britain associated with Edward, to be published c. spring/summer 2019. Very different from my other books, and intended to encourage people to visit historical sites in Wales, England and Scotland.

The Lives of the Clare Sisters, Nieces of Edward II, c. summer/autumn 2019. This is a joint bio of Edward II's nieces Eleanor, Margaret and Elizabeth de Clare from the 1290s to 1360; the final title is yet to be determined. The drama of the three sisters' lives can hardly be overstated. All married at age thirteen, all imprisoned during the reign of their uncle and its aftermath, all deprived of their lands and income at some point, all married to men who might have been their uncle's lovers.

Philippa of Hainault, Mother of the English Nation, c. late 2019/early 2020. A bio of Edward III's beloved queen and companion, who was born in c. 1314 and died in 1369; the title is not yet fixed.

1326: A Year in the Life of England, c. spring 2020. I'm really excited about this one. It's a chronological narrative of the year 1326, very much focused on the ordinary, common people. It was the year when Queen Isabella invaded her husband's kingdom with an army, but it was also the year of the great drought, the year when Henry of Cambridge was appointed chief blacksmith at the Tower of London, the year Robert Clavering of Newcastle-upon-Tyne was born, the year Edward the parker of Kennington rebuilt his house, the year John Toly fell out of the window of his London house and died, the year Johane Mereworth of Henley-on-Thames gave birth to a child...

John of Gaunt: Time-Honour'd Lancaster, c. late 2020. A bio of Edward III and Queen Philippa's third son, Richard II's uncle and Henry IV's father. John was born in 1340 and died in 1399.

The Despensers: The Rise and Fall of a Medieval Family 1261-1439, c. late 2020/early 2021. An account of the fascinating family whose fortunes rose and fell, from Hugh the justiciar (d. 1439) to Isabelle, countess of Worcester and Warwick (d. 1439).

The Daughters of Edward I, c. summer 2021. Title not yet fixed; a joint bio of Edward II's five sisters Eleanor, Joan of Acre, Margaret, Mary and Elizabeth.

An Attack on Tickhill Castle in Early 1326

On 23 March 1322, two 'Contrariants' were hanged in York: John, Lord Mowbray (b. 1286) and Roger, Lord Clifford (b. 1299/1300). The heirs of both men, understandably furious at Edward II, launched an attack on the royal castle of Tickhill a little under four years later. Here's a post about it.

John Mowbray's heir was his son John, born in Hovingham, Yorkshire on 29 November 1310 [CIPM 1327-36, no. 250] and hence only eleven years old when his father was executed in March 1322. Despite his youth, John was imprisoned in the Tower of London with his mother Alina née Braose and was still there in August 1323. I don't know when Edward II released him, but it was sometime before early March 1326. Roger Clifford was only in his early twenties when he was executed and had not married, so his heir was his younger brother Robert, born on 7 November 1305 and aged twenty in early 1326. [CIPM 1327-26, nos. 52, 77] The younger John Mowbray was still only fifteen then.

Despite the two men's youth, they managed to raise an armed force sometime around late February or early March 1326, and went to the town of Tickhill in Yorkshire. On the way they passed through Burton-on-Trent in Staffordshire "with banners unfurled," a declaration of war on the king. Once at Tickhill, they besieged the royal castle there, and managed to capture it. They may have chosen this particular castle because its constable was Sir William Aune, a friend and ally of Edward II (and somewhat later a close associate of the criminal Coterel gang, and thus hardly an angel himself), or perhaps because it was convenient for them, or because it was lightly defended and reasonably easy to capture. Several men, how many is unclear, were killed during the assault on Tickhill.

News of young Mowbray and Clifford's capture of his castle at Tickhill came to Edward II's ears on 12 March 1326 at Merevale in North Warwickshire. He issued a "[c]ommission of oyer and terminer to Thomas le Blount, Philip de Somervill and Roger Hillary touching the persons who with John de Moubray and Roger [sic] de Clyfford, rebels and traitors, and others, came with banners unfurled to Burton on Trent, co. Stafford, and prevented the king's men and servants from passing through that town, killed some of them and committed other crimes in that town." The same commission was issued to "Henry le Scrop, Simon Ward, Roger de Somervill and Adam de Hoperton touching the persons who with the said John and Roger [sic] besieged the castle of Tykehill, co. York, killed the king's servants there, plundered the men of the town and committed other crimes." On 30 April, Edward II was still demanding that the commissioners found the "malefactors and other disturbers of the peace," but ordered them "not to molest or aggrieve" one Roger Curzon, who had been indicted before the commissioners but whom Edward pardoned on acknowledgement of a fine. Another of the men in Mowbray and Clifford's company was Thomas de Saundeby.

Having made their point - basically "yah boo sucks to you, we can take your sucky castles whenever we want, serve you right for executing our father and brother" - John Mowbray and Robert Clifford fled and were never captured. They either hid themselves somewhere in England, or went to the continent to join Roger Mortimer and the other enemies of Edward II and the Despensers and returned to England with them in September 1326. The two men were restored to royal favour and to their rightful inheritances in the new reign of Edward III early in 1327. John Mowbray's marriage was granted to Henry of Lancaster, earl of Lancaster and Leicester, on 28 February 1327, and probably the following year John married the earl's fourth daughter Joan. Their son John was born in 1340; their grandson Thomas Mowbray, born in 1367, was the first duke of Norfolk and the man whose duel with his second cousin Henry of Lancaster, duke of Hereford, was stopped at the last moment by Richard II in 1398. Robert Clifford married Isabel(la), sister of Thomas, Lord Berkeley, in 1328, and their second son Roger, born 1333, continued the Clifford line.

Sources: CPR 1324-7, p. 287; CCR 1323-7, p. 569; CCR 1330-3, p. 99 (attack on Burton and Tickhill); CPR 1327-30, p. 26 (Mowbray's marriage).

The Great Drought of 1326

Most of northern Europe has been going through an unusually long dry warm spell for the last few weeks and months, and everywhere I go at the moment I see brown, scorched grass and withering or dead vegetation. I've never seen the local stream run so low; sometimes it's a torrent, currently it's a trickle. The same weather conditions occurred in 1326, the last summer of Edward II's reign. Here's a post about it.

The earliest reference I know of to the heat of 1326 is in Edward II's chamber account: on 12 June, while he was at the archbishop of Canterbury's manor of Sturry in Kent, he gave a gift of linen cloth to the eight archers who formed his bodyguard because they had "run fast and well" alongside him in the hot weather. This implies that the hot dry weather had begun well before 12 June. The French Chronicle of London confirms this, saying that shortly before the Nativity of St John the Baptist, that is, 24 June, the weather was so hot and dry that fires burst out spontaneously in various places (as has happened this year, on Saddleworth Moor near Manchester). It talks of the "great dryness" throughout all the country. There was a severe shortage of water in many or most areas, and the River Thames ran so low that it was flooded by seawater and the ale made from the water tasted vile. In late July 1326, Edward II ordered a man near Walton-on-Thames to bring him fresh water from a well, surely another indication of the heat and dryness.

The annalist of St Paul's Cathedral also comments on the "great drought" throughout all England in 1326, and confirms the French Chronicle of London's statement that the Thames was flooded by seawater. People who owned animals had to lead them three or four leagues (i.e. three or four hours' walk) to find water for them. Fountains, rivers, streams, ponds and wells completely dried up, including Newport Pond in Essex, which was a league in circumference, and all the fish in the pond died. Edward II would have been lucky, therefore, if anyone had been able to find fresh water for him out of a well in late July. The dryness, the annalist says, continued well into the autumn of 1326.

I don't know when the weather broke, but the queen's invasion force arrived in England on 24 September 1326, and given that the St Paul's annalist states that the dry weather continued well into autumn, it seems highly likely that the country was still suffering from a severe lack of water at the time. Two chroniclers (the St Paul's annalist and the Anonimalle) say that when Edward II and Hugh Despenser the Younger were captured in South Wales on Sunday 16 November 1326, there was a great thunderstorm that lasted nearly all day. This seems like the pathetic fallacy or dramatic licence, except that two very different writers give the same tale. At least by mid-November 1326, then, the long period of dry weather had finally broken.

Sources
Society of Antiquaries of London Manuscript 122, pp. 66, 78

Annales Paulini 1307-1340, in W. Stubbs, ed., Chronicles of the Reigns of Edward I and Edward II, vol. 1 (1882), pp. 312-13

Croniques de London, ed. G. J. Aungier (1844), p. 50

The Ordeals of Elizabeth Hertrigg in 1312 and 1318

I seem to have written a lot about abductions of noblewomen on the blog: Elizabeth de Burgh in 1316, her sister Eleanor Despenser in 1329, their niece Margaret Audley in 1336, and Margaret Multon in c. 1316. Another famous one was Alice de Lacy, countess of Lincoln, by Hugh Frene in late 1335 or early 1336; I'll write about this one sometime too. Sadly the abduction of heiresses was all too common in the fourteenth century, and here's yet another that I don't believe I've seen mentioned anywhere before: the abduction of Elizabeth Hertrigg by Hugh Despenser the Elder in 1312, though this one did not result in forced marriage. The unfortunate Elizabeth was put through another horrible experience as well in 1318.

Elizabeth was the daughter and heir of John Hertrigg (the modern spelling is Hartridge), a tenant in chief who held lands in Berkshire, Sussex and Dorset, and her mother was called Nichola. Elizabeth Hertrigg was born either on 2 February 1303 or 1304: her father's Inquisition Post Mortem stated that she had either turned five or six years old "on the feast of the Purification last" in November 1309. John Hertrigg died before 24 October 1309 when the writ for his IPM was issued, and on 19 December, Edward II granted the rights to Elizabeth's marriage to one George Percy, called "king's yeoman." Elizabeth's mother Nichola was given a "mandate for the delivery of the body of the heiress" to Percy (this rather dehumanising language is typical of the era), but in fact it seems as though little Elizabeth remained with her mother rather than going to live in the Percy household. In February 1312, Elizabeth was living in Wambrook, Dorset, a manor which had belonged to her late father. [CIPM 1307-17, no. 212; CFR 1307-19, p. 50; CPR 1307-13, p. 203] Her mother Nichola was still in possession of Wambrook in 1330. [See here] Sometime before 29 January 1310, Edward II granted custody of the late John Hertrigg's lands, until Elizabeth came of age, to Hugh Despenser the Elder. [CCR 1307-13, pp. 190, 323]

On 22 February 1312 Elizabeth Hertrigg had recently turned either eight or nine years old, and was living at her late father's manor of Wambrook, Dorset (the village of Wambrook is now in Somerset) presumably with her mother Nichola. Officially she was in the custody of George Percy, who planned to marry her to his son John when she was old enough. Percy stated that Elizabeth was at Wambrook "under guard" (almost certainly for her own safety rather than because she wasn't allowed to leave!), but this made no difference to what was about to happen to her. Hugh Despenser the Elder sent 100 or more men "with force and arms" to abduct Elizabeth Hertrigg from Wambrook, and succeeded. The reasons for the abduction are not clear, but presumably had something to do with Despenser's custody of the lands of Elizabeth's inheritance. The 100 or more men who abducted Elizabeth on 22 February 1312 on Despenser's orders included Thomas le Artellet, Reginald Seint Cler, Thomas Wynslade, John Jorge, Robert Pyron, Adam Fraunceis, and John Pecche and his brother Nicholas. [George Percy's petition is TNA SC 8/259/12929] What's interesting about all this is that Edward II was at this time skulking in the north of England with Piers Gaveston, returned from his third exile, and Despenser the Elder was usually his close adherent and ally and was at court more often than not - yet was busily abducting a young girl at the other end of the country. As far as I can tell from the evidence of charter witness lists, Despenser did not return to court until July 1312, several weeks after Piers Gaveston's murder, when he met the king in London.  Given Despenser's loyal and devoted support of Edward II for the whole of his reign, it's hardly surprising to note that he does not seem to have suffered as much as a slap on the wrist for his illegal behaviour. That's the fourteenth century for you.

I don't know what happened to Elizabeth Hertrigg after her abduction by Hugh Despenser the Elder, but she married her guardian George Percy's son John sometime before July 1318, so evidently Despenser restored her to her guardian or to her mother at some point. That month or a little before, John Percy issued a complaint "touching the persons who had seized (rapuerunt) Elizabeth his wife at Shaldefeld Parva [nowadays Great Chalfield], co. Wilts, abducted her, and carried away her goods." [CPR 1317-21, p. 278] The translators of the Patent Roll used the word 'seized' for rapuerunt, and indeed it can mean that, or 'ravished.' The real meaning in this case, however, is made clear in an entry on the Close Roll in July 1319. Edward II ordered the sheriff of Wiltshire to "supersede until further orders the putting in exigent to be outlawed of John son of Ingelram Berenger, who was put in exigent because he was lately indicted in the sheriff's county court of the rape and abduction of Elizabeth wife of John Percy...John has surrendered himself to the king's peace and prison to stand to right concerning the above, and the king has meanwhile committed him to a certain keeper for safe-keeping." [CCR 1318-23, pp. 150-51; bold mine]

Sir Ingelram Berenger was said to be seven years old when his father John died in 1272, hence born c. 1265. His mother Christina, daughter and heir of Sir Matthew Wake, was born c. 1232. [CIPM 1216-72, nos. 128, 177, 794] Ingelram was a long-term adherent of Hugh Despenser the Elder (b. 1 March 1261) and served in his retinue for decades. And now his son had raped Elizabeth Percy née Hertrigg, six years after Despenser the Elder had sent 100 men to abduct her. Apparently the unfortunate Elizabeth was abducted from her home both in 1312 and in 1318, firstly in Dorset and secondly in Wiltshire. George Percy, Elizabeth's father-in-law and former guardian, complained also in July 1318 that ten men had stolen his goods at Great Chalfield, and evidently Elizabeth and her husband were living with his father in 1318. [CPR 1317-21, p. 278] I don't recognise most of the names of the ten men he accused of theft, but one was John son of Ingelram Berenger, and another was our old friend Malcolm Musard, certainly a Despenser adherent. It would seem that the feud, or quarrel, or whatever it was, that Hugh Despenser the Elder had begun against George Percy and his son and daughter-in-law in 1312 was continuing six years later, on the part of Despenser's adherents at least. It would also seem that some of the ten men who stole George Percy's goods in his Wiltshire home had decided to abduct and rape his daughter-in-law while they were at it. How unspeakably vile. Elizabeth was born in 1303 or 1304, so was still only fourteen or fifteen in 1318. She had been a young child when Despenser the Elder's men took her from her home, and was still only a teenager when this second hideous ordeal happened to her. John Berenger the perpetrator might have been the same age: at his father Ingelram's IPM in June 1336, John was said to be either 24 (clearly impossible as this would make him six years old in 1318) or 32 years old. [CIPM 1336-46, no. 27] If this is correct, he was also born about 1304 and was about fourteen in 1318. Edward II's statement that he had committed John to a keeper in 1319 probably also indicates that John was then underage.

John Berenger was released from prison at some point, I don't know when, and succeeded to his father's lands in 1336. His first wife Alice Stonor, daughter of Sir John Stonor (chief justice of the court of common pleas), died childless sometime after May 1332, and John married secondly a woman called Emma before January 1334. With her he had a son named Ingelram after his father, who was born around 19 June 1341 ("aged two years on Thursday next before the Nativity of St John the Baptist, 17 Edward III"). John died on 26 September 1343. Little Ingelram Berenger died soon after his father, and his IPM was held on 8 October 1344. This left the boy's sister Christina Berenger, John and Emma's daughter, as the Berenger heir, but she also died underage on 12 September 1349. [Hampshire Feet of Fines, CP/25/1/205/22, nos. 14, 50; CIPM 1336-46, nos. 467, 468; CIPM 1347-52, no. 297. Christina's heir was her cousin Nicholas Berenger, son of Nicholas, younger son of Ingelram the elder and brother of John.] John Berenger's widow Emma married secondly Sir Edmund Hakelut, had a son Leonard Hakelut around 1352, and lived until January 1380. [CIPM 1377-84, no. 241]

As for John Berenger's victim Elizabeth Percy née Hertrigg, she had a son from her marriage to John Percy called William Percy, who was probably born in 1337 (he was said to be two years old in late 1339). That's quite a late birth for a couple who married in or before 1318; perhaps they had fertility issues. John Percy died before 6 May 1339 when the writ for his IPM was issued, and in early March 1340 Elizabeth née Hertrigg was given permission to marry a second husband of the king's allegiance. By August 1343, she was married to William Burton. [CIPM 1336-46, no. 225; CPR 1338-40, p. 434; CCR 1343-6, p. 170; CFR 1337-47, p. 128] I haven't been able to find the date of her death, though she was still alive in October 1351. [CPR 1350-4, p. 173] According to this, Elizabeth and John Percy had two other children called John and Margaret, and an entry on the Patent Roll confirms that she had a daughter Margaret. Her second husband William Burton had a son called Thomas, and by June 1346 Thomas had married Elizabeth's daughter Margaret, i.e. his stepsister. [CPR 1345-8, p. 128]

Both George and John Percy had joined the household of Edward II's half-brother Edmund of Woodstock, future earl of Kent, by February 1320. [CPR 1317-21, pp. 419, 435] One very interesting postscript to this whole situation is that George and John Percy, and Ingelram Berenger, were all deeply involved in the earl of Kent's plot to free the supposedly dead Edward II from captivity in 1329/30. Another man involved was Sir John Pecche, presumably the same man who had helped the elder Despenser abduct Elizabeth Hertrigg from Wambrook in February 1312. George Percy, Ingelram Berenger, John Pecche and a fourth man, Fulk FitzWarin, lord of Whittington in Shropshire, were linked together in the chancery rolls as some of the earl of Kent's most important adherents. [CPR 1327-30, pp. 557, 565, CCR 1330-3, p. 95, and see my English Historical Review article from 2011 on Kent's adherents] Rebellion sometimes made strange bedfellows. I wonder what Elizabeth made of it all.