Edward II Non-Fiction

 Today's post is about the five biographies of Edward II published in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and lists other non-fiction works about him.  The five biographies are:

Seymour Phillips, 2010.

- Seymour Phillips, Edward II (2010).  Part of the Yale English Monarchs series (W. Mark Ormrod's biography of Edward III, in the same series, was published recently), and a superb achievement likely to remain the standard work on Edward II's reign for many years.  Useful both for the reader who knows little about Edward's reign and for anyone with more knowledge of the era, and much more sympathetic to the king than accounts of him usually are, without whitewashing his many mistakes and character flaws.  There are great reviews here and here, and one by Professor Nigel Saul here.  (And a really dire, extremely ill-informed one here.)

- Roy Martin Haines, King Edward II: His Life, His Reign, and Its Aftermath, 1284-1330 (2003).  Also a scholarly, exhaustive look at Edward's life and reign, especially useful for its chapters on what was happening in Scotland, Ireland and Gascony at the time.  Perhaps not the best bet unless you already know a lot about the era, however, but a must-read for anyone seriously interested in Edward II.

Harold F. Hutchison, 1971.

- Mary Saaler, Edward II 1307-1327 (1997).  A small book of less than 150 pages to cover the period from 1284 to 1327, for a general audience.  There are a few interesting details in it I haven't seen elsewhere, such as Edward's owning falcons in the 1310s named Beaumont and Damory after his kinsman Henry Beaumont and friend Roger Damory, but there are also many inaccuracies, and overall I'd describe it as oddly disappointing and inadequate.

Caroline Bingham, 1973.

- Caroline Bingham, The Life and Times of Edward II (1973).  A gorgeously illustrated overview of Edward's life and reign, aimed at a general audience.  Although necessarily dated now, and states the red-hot poker death as fact, this is a really good place to start if you're interested in Edward II and his reign, and it treats him sympathetically and makes many insightful points.  Definitely recommended (as long as you take some of it with a pinch of salt!).

- Harold F. Hutchison, Edward II: The Pliant King (1971).  Another short overview of Edward's reign for general readers, also necessarily dated as it's over forty years old now, but a good little read to get you started.  The useful appendices cite some of the Ordinances of 1311 and several of Edward's extant letters of 1305, and the epilogue defends him against charges made against him in 1327 and ever since.

Other works of non-fiction about Edward II and his reign:

Mary Saaler, 1997

- Hilda Johnstone, Edward of Carnarvon 1284-1307 (1946).  Terrific examination of Edward II before his accession to the throne.  I love this one.

Roy Martin Haines, 2003.

- Natalie Fryde, The Tyranny and Fall of Edward II 1321-1326 (1979).  A much-used textbook, but not one I have much time for, I'm afraid; very useful in some aspects, especially Edward's finances, but full of errors, and ruined for me at least by Mrs Fryde's obvious dislike of Edward, which leads her into some unfair judgements on him.

- Gwilym Dodd and Anthony Musson, eds., The Reign of Edward II: New Perspectives (2006).  Superb collection of academic essays about aspects of Edward II's personality and reign, including his sexuality, his education and his foreign policy.

- James Conway Davies, The Baronial Opposition to Edward II: Its Character and Policy (1918).  Not for beginners.  :-)

- Roy Martin Haines, Death of a King: an account of the supposed escape and afterlife of Edward of Caernarvon, formerly Edward II, King of England, Lord of Ireland, Duke of Aquitaine (2002).  Aimed at a popular audience, in contrast to Professor Haines' other scholarly works, this slim volume provides a useful overview of the events and people involved in them after Edward's supposed death in 1327.  I strongly disagree with his opinions and evaluation of the earl of Kent's plot of 1330, however.

R. Perry, Edward the Second: Suddenly, at Berkeley (1988).  Very short - more of a pamphlet than a book, really - discussion of the plots to free Edward of Caernarfon in 1327, his supposed death, and its aftermath.

- Ian Mortimer, Medieval Intrigue: Decoding Royal Conspiracies (2010).  Includes Dr Mortimer's excellent article 'The Death of Edward II in Berkeley Castle', formerly published in the English Historical Review, as well as evaluations of the earl of Kent's plot and Edward III's relations with the Fieschi family in the 1330s, as they relate to Edward II's survival.

Works focusing on the personalities who shaped Edward II's reign and its aftermath:

- J.R.S. Phillips, Aymer de Valence, earl of Pembroke 1307-1324: Baronial Politics in the Reign of Edward II (1972)

- J.R. Maddicott, Thomas of Lancaster 1307-1322: A Study in the Reign of Edward II (1970)

- Ian Mortimer, The Greatest Traitor: The Life of Sir Roger Mortimer, Ruler of England 1327 to 1330 (2003)

- J.S. Hamilton, Piers Gaveston, Earl of Cornwall 1307-1312: Politics and Patronage in the Reign of Edward II (1988)

- Pierre Chaplais, Piers Gaveston: Edward II's Adoptive Brother (1994)

- Mark Buck, Politics, Finance and the Church in the Reign of Edward II: Walter Stapeldon, Treasurer of England (1983)

- Roy Martin Haines, Archbishop John Stratford: Political Revolutionary and Champion of the Liberties of the English Church, ca. 1275/80-1348 (1986)

- Roy Martin Haines, The Church and Politics in Fourteenth-Century England: the Career of Adam Orleton, c. 1275-1345 (1978)

Jeffrey H. Denton, Robert Winchelsey and the Crown 1294-1313 (2002)

There's also Alison Weir's hagiography of Isabella of France (2005) and Paul Doherty's odd and error-strewn book Isabella and the Strange Death of Edward II (2003), neither of which I can recommend.  I should also mention several other more general works which I've found helpful and interesting (by no means an exhaustive list!):

- Michael Prestwich, The Three Edwards: War and State in England 1272-1377 (1980) and Plantagenet England 1225-1360 (2005)

- The Fourteenth Century England series, published every two years.

- Chris Given-Wilson, The English Nobility in the Later Middle Ages (1996)

- Antonia Gransden, Historical Writing in England II: c. 1307 to the Early Sixteenth Century (1982)

- K.B. McFarlane, The Nobility of Later Medieval England (1973)

- G.A. Holmes, The Estates of the Higher Nobility in Fourteenth-Century England (1957)

- May McKisack, The Fourteenth Century 1307-1399 (1959)

- Michael Hicks, Who’s Who in Late Medieval England, 1272-1485 (1991)

- Marc Morris, A Great and Terrible King: Edward I and the Forging of Britain (2008)

- Ian Mortimer, The Perfect King: The Life of Edward III (2006) and The Time-Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England (2008)

- W.M. Ormrod, Political Life in Medieval England 1300-1450 (1995)

- John Carmi Parsons, Eleanor of Castile: Queen and Society in Thirteenth-Century England (1995)

(Apologies if the formatting in this post is messed up, as it always seems to be in photo posts.)

Two of Edward II's Letters

Just a quick post today about two letters sent by Edward II.

The first dates perhaps to late 1311, shortly after Piers Gaveston was sent into his third exile, though it may also date to late 1321, when Hugh Despenser father and son were also perpetually exiled from England.  The letter was sent to the abbot of Glastonbury, and the king almost certainly sent it to numerous other high-ranking churchmen as well, though these letters have not survived.  Edward asked the abbot to search through his chronicles for information about people exiled from England during the reigns of his ancestors "and for what reasons and at what time, and by whom, and how, they had been recalled."  Evidently, he was searching for a precedent by which he could bring Piers Gaveston or the Despensers back from banishment.  The abbot of Glastonbury received Edward's letter at vespers on 2 January (presumably 1312, or 1322) and replied two days later, having obeyed his king's command with some haste.  He enclosed a few extracts from his chronicles, which dated from 1210 to 1289.  One of the precedents he found concerned William de Valence (died 1296), half-brother of Edward's grandfather Henry III and father of the earl of Pembroke of Edward's reign, exiled from England in 1258 and allowed to return in 1261.  Another dated back to 1210, when William de Braose was outlawed and exiled from England, though was allowed to return in the fourteenth regnal year of King John, May 1212 to May 1213.

Edward II's original letter no longer exists (the abbot's reply was fortunately copied into his register for posterity), and it's a shame that it cannot be dated more precisely.  Stones and Keil (see below for reference) state that the document is found in the same folio and in the same hand as letters of 1321/22, but the reference to William de Valence, who was a foreigner although half-brother of the king of England, would be more relevant to Piers Gaveston than the Despensers, who were Englishmen.  If the abbot was writing in 1322 about the Despensers, it perhaps seems odd that he doesn't mention the several returns from exile of Piers Gaveston himself, unless he was trying to be tactful - though neither does he mention the exile in 1305 and return in 1308 of Robert Winchelsey, archbishop of Canterbury.  Edward II had already revoked the Despensers' exile on 8 (Hugh the younger) and 25 (Hugh the elder) December 1321, though may later that month still have been searching for further justifications for doing so.  Without further information both dates remain plausible and possible.

[E.L.G. Stones and I.J.E. Keil, 'Edward II and the Abbot of Glastonbury: A New Case of Historical Evidence Solicited from Monasteries', Archives, 12 (1976), pp. 176-82.  See also Chris Given-Wilson, Chronicles: The Writing of History in Medieval England (2004), pp. 73-74, 229.]

The second letter was written on 20 November 1311 to Sir Robert Holland, adherent and - apparently - friend of Edward's first cousin and enemy Thomas, earl of Lancaster (and about whom I'm intending to write a blog post sometime).  The letter reads:

"Edward by the grace of God king of England, lord of Ireland and duke of Aquitaine, to our dear and faithful Sir Robert de Holand, greetings.  We make known to you that we are very joyous and pleased about the good news we have heard concerning the improvement in our dear cousin and faithful subject Thomas, earl of Lancaster, and that he will soon be able to ride in comfort.  And we send you word and dearly pray that, as soon as he is comfortable and able to ride without hurt to his body, you should ask him to be so good as to hasten to us at our parliament and that you yourself should kindly come in his company to our said parliament if you can, for love of us.  Given under our privy seal at Westminster on the twentieth day of November in the fifth year of our reign."

There's something about this letter that really appeals to me, perhaps because the sentiments of care and concern in it must surely have been so opposed to what Edward really felt about his cousin, one of the men who had just mandated Piers Gaveston's exile yet again.  It's also interesting for the insight into Thomas of Lancaster's physical condition at the time - was he ill, or had he had some kind of accident?  Somehow I can just imagine Edward gritting his teeth and clenching his fists over this letter.  :-)

[Cited in George Osborne Sayles, The functions of the medieval Parliament of England (revised edition, 1988), p. 302.]

Stay Away From The King, You Gascons

I was looking recently at the Ordinances, a list of forty-one reforms of the king's household and of the kingdom in general, which were imposed on Edward II in the autumn of 1311.  (If anyone's interested in the election of the twenty-one Lords Ordainer in 1310, their preparation of the Ordinances and the political background to it all, there are thorough accounts in Seymour Phillips' 2010 biography of Edward and in Roy Martin Haines' 2003 biography of him, as well as in James Conway Davies' Baronial Opposition to Edward II.)  The twentieth Ordinance, which caused Edward the most anguish, mandated the perpetual exile of Piers Gaveston from England, Ireland, Gascony and other lands ruled by the king; this is the only Ordinance cited in full by the Vita Edwardi Secundi, on the grounds that it was "more welcome to many than the rest." [1]

The Ordinances were published on 27 September 1311 in the churchyard of St Paul's, London, and on 11 October were sent out to the sheriffs to be published in every county.  Further Ordinances were issued sometime later, probably in late November [2], which, as the Vita says, "declared that Piers' friends and partisans should leave the court under penalty of imprisonment, lest they should stir up the king to recall Piers once more."  Edward II, fuming, snarled that the Ordainers were treating him like an idiot and that he could not believe that "the ordering of his whole house should depend upon the will of another," and declared somewhat hyperbolically that "he was not allowed to keep even one member of his household at his own wish."  [3]

In this post, I'm going to take a look at some of the men ordered to be sent away from Edward II in late November 1311.  There were twenty-seven named altogether, and Piers Gaveston's biographer Jeffrey Hamilton has worked out that eighteen of them had connections to Piers.  [4]  One Ordinance explicitly states that all of Piers' relatives should be removed from the king's presence (Item qe tout le linage Pieres Gavastone soit entiorement ouste du roi).  The men I want to focus on are Bourgeois de Tilh and his son Arnaud (Borgois de Tille et seon filz), who (Arnaud) had been appointed marshall of the king's exchequer around Michaelmas 1311 [5], and Bertrand Caillau "and his brother and those of Gascony who are in their company in the parts of Cornwall" (Bertran Kaillon et seon frere et ceux de Gascoigne qe sunt en lur compaignie en les parties de Cornewaille).  The pages from the London Annals which names the men can be seen here and here, in the original French.

Bertrand Caillau was, almost certainly, Piers Gaveston's first cousin: Piers' mother's sister Miramonde de Marsan married Pierre Caillau (died 1280), mayor of Bordeaux, and they had at least two sons, Pierre, also mayor of Bordeaux, and one named Bertrand, presumably the man named in the Ordinance.  [8]  Jeffrey Hamilton calls Bertrand Piers' 'nephew', which seems improbable; Bertrand was an adult and active on Piers' behalf in 1311/12, and can hardly have had an uncle (Piers) who was himself not yet thirty in 1311, unless perhaps Piers had a much older sister or half-sister who had also married into the Caillau family.  Whatever the exact relationship of the two men, Bertrand was devoted to Piers: he borrowed over 3000 gold florins to plead Piers' cause, and was imprisoned by Edward II's father-in-law Philip IV of France to prevent him travelling to the pope in Avignon on Piers' behalf.  [9]  The name and identity of Bertrand's brother (the Ordinance spoke of "Bertrand Caillau and his brother") is uncertain, though is unlikely to have been the Pierre mentioned above, who was mayor of Bordeaux from 1308 to 1310.  Perhaps it was Arnaud Caillau, of whom I have written before, a man who remained staunchly loyal to Edward II until the very end of his reign and who served him in both Gascony (he was, among other positions, keeper of the island of Oléron) and England.  He's a man who deserves his own blog post sometime, actually.  There are lots of references to Bertrand in various primary sources: he was accused of the death of a man named Reymon de Savynak in Gascony in 1311 and granted custody of the lands late of Thomas Audley by Piers Gaveston in 1308, for instance.

The reference to the men of Gascony who were in the company of the Caillau brothers in Cornwall presumably means something which happened in the spring of 1312, not long after Piers Gaveston's return to England for a third time.  Piers, perhaps believing that he might be sent yet again into exile if his enemies caught him, ordered his steward in Cornwall to deliver £853 to his retainers Bertrand Assailit and Berduk or Bernard de Marsan, presumably to take abroad with him if necessary.  Marsan and Assailit were captured near Plymouth in a ship called La Grace Deu de Fauwy and imprisoned by William Martin, one of the men who had been sent to search for Piers in the west country the previous autumn - not everyone believed that Piers had in fact left the country - carrying 1000 marks (£666) and 129 pieces of tin.  Edward II, claiming that the money was his and that Marsan and Assailit were going to Gascony on his affairs, ineffectually ordered William Martin to release them (Martin responded to the first order by committing Bertrand "to harder imprisonment").  [10]  Berduk or Bernard de Marsan must have been another relative of Piers, Marsan being the name of Piers' mother Claramonde and his elder brother Arnaud-Guilhem.  In June 1319, Edward II compensated Bertrand Assailit and his brother Ramon for their expenses incurred "in the defence of the king's rights" in France.  [11]

Bourgeois de Tilh was another close ally of Piers Gaveston, and, as Pierre Chaplais has pointed out, came from Tilh in the Landes in Gascony, close to Piers' family seat of Gabaston.  His son Arnaud was appointed marshal of the exchequer around Michaelmas 1311 at the expense of the earl of Lancaster's retainer Nicholas Segrave, most likely at Piers' request - yet another reason for the powerful earl to dislike Piers.  [12]  Bourgeois, whose name appears in contemporary documents as Burgeys or Burgesius de Till or similiar, was a valet of the king's household for many years, until at least July 1322.  In December 1308, he rather bizarrely accused Robert Winchelsey, archbishop of Canterbury, and John Salmon, bishop of Norwich, of stealing "corn, animals and other goods" which had belonged to the late Master Arnald Lupi de Tillio, presumably a relative, in Norfolk.  [13]  The Tallifer de Tillio or Talhefer de Tilh who appears in a few entries on the calendared rolls in Edward II's reign as a king's valet may have been another relative, as was maybe the 'Fortener Burgeys de Tille' also named as a king's valet in August 1318.  [14]  Piers Gaveston had a brother named Fortaner, which may perhaps point to a family connection between the Gavestons and Tilhs (though this is pure speculation).  Bertruc de Tilh, sergeant-at-arms, was granted lands in Bédorède in the Landes in the third year of Edward III's reign (January 1329 to January 1330), for his "good service" to Edward II; in his petition asking for lands, Bertruc stated that he had been in Edward's service for eighteen years.  [15]  

Also named in the additional Ordinances to be sent away from Edward II in late 1311 were the thuggish Robert Lewer; Edward's chamberlain John Charlton, who was to join the Contrariants against Edward in 1321/22; Robert Darcy, to whom Piers wrote a letter in April 1308; and 'all the Basques' (touz les Bascles).  Rather intriguingly, Darcy, Sir Edmund Bacon - to whose keeping some of Piers' lands were given in December 1311 after his third exile [6] - and unnamed others were said to have set out from court with the intent to attack, of all people, Hugh Despenser the Younger (sir Huwe le Despencer le fiiz) [7] who at this time appears to have been opposed to his father, a staunch royalist, and to Edward II, his uncle by marriage.  It's unlikely that many if any of the men ordered to be 'ousted' from court in fact did stay away from Edward for very long, as is shown by an examination of their later careers.

Oooops, I moved some of this post around and now two of the footnote numbers are in the wrong place.  :-)  The notes are correct, they're just in rather the wrong order in the text.  :-)

Sources

1) Vita Edwardi Secundi, ed. N. Denholm-Young, pp. 19-20.
2) J.R. Maddicott, Thomas of Lancaster 1307-1322: A Study in the Reign of Edward II, p. 117; T.F. Tout, Chapters in the Administrative History of Mediaeval England, vol. 2, pp 195-198.  These Ordinances are cited (in French) in Annales Londonienses 1195-1330, in W. Stubbs, ed., Chronicles of the Reigns of Edward I and Edward II, vol. 1, pp. 198-202.  The original forty-one Ordinances are cited in full, in English and the French original, in Statutes of the Realm, vol. 1, pp. 157-168.
3) Vita, p. 21.
4) J.S. Hamilton, Piers Gaveston, Earl of Cornwall 1307-1312: Politics and Patronage in the Reign of Edward II, pp. 94, 163 note 10.
5) Pierre Chaplais, Piers Gaveston, Edward II's Adoptive Brother, p. 70.
6) Calendar of Fine Rolls 1307-1319, p. 117; Calendar of Patent Rolls 1307-1313, p. 429.
7) Annales Londonienses, p. 200.
8) Malcolm Vale, The Origins of the Hundred Years War: The Angevin Legacy 1250-1340, p. 280.
9) Hamilton, Piers Gaveston, p. 88.
10) Calendar of Close Rolls 1307-1313, pp. 417, 461, 582; Cal Pat Rolls 1307-1313, pp. 417, 465, 484; The National Archives SC 8/286/14296; Hamilton, Piers Gaveston, p. 94.
11) Gascon Rolls, online.
12) Chaplais, Piers Gaveston, p. 70; Hamilton, Piers Gaveston, pp. 88-89; Maddicott, Thomas of Lancaster, p. 118.
13) Cal Pat Rolls 1307-1313, pp. 126-128, 170; Cal Pat Rolls 1321-1324, p. 181.
14) Cal Close Rolls 1318-1323, p. 10.
15) Gascon Rolls, online.

Law And Order Again

 A few interesting entries I found in the Calendar of Inquisitions Miscellaneous from when Edward of Caernarfon was a boy.  I wrote a similar post here.

Inq. taken in Shropshire on 30 June 1289:

"John de Quertubus of Scottes Acton killed Hugh de Weston, chaplain, in self-defence. On Christmas Day 16 Edward I [1287] after sunset there were some men singing outside a tavern kept by Richard son of William of Skottesacton in the town.  And Hugh came by the door immensely drunk, and quarrelled with the singers.  Now John was standing by, singing, and Hugh hated him a little because he sang well, and desired the love of certain women who were standing by in a field and whom Hugh much affected.  So Hugh took a naked sword in his hand and ran at John, striking him once, twice, thrice, on the head, and nearly cutting off two fingers of his left hand.  And John went on his knees, and raised his hands asking God's peace and the king's, and then ran into a corner near the street under a stone wall.  And Hugh ran after him and tried to kill him, so he drew his knife and wounded Hugh in the chest, killing him instantly."

I love the description of the women 'standing by in a field', after dark, on Christmas Day.  What on earth were they doing?

Inq. taken in Herefordshire on 9 July 1289:

"John le Blount of Letton killed Walter de Bredwardyn in self-defence.  Walter assaulted John with a long knife in the cellar of Miles Pichard at Staundon and struck him cutting all his robe against his belly, wounding him and preventing him from getting out of the cellar."

Inq. taken in Middlesex, undated:

"On Friday St Gregory's Day 16 Edward I [12 March 1290] after nine o'clock, a sow, which belonged to Nicholas le Keu of Westminster, entered the house of Geoffrey de la Paneterye while Lucy the wife of Geoffrey was looking for milk for her son Simon, dragged the child forth from its cradle and killed him.  Death by misadventure."

That's interesting, as in 1318 John of Powderham claimed to be the real son of Edward I, who had been attacked by a sow in his cradle and replaced with a peasant boy, i.e. Edward II.

Inq. taken in Derbyshire on 16 March 1290:

"John de Longgeley came to the house of William de Loggeforde in Yiveleye about midnight and almost drew away the bolt of the door.  He was seen by a small boy, who shut the door and summoned Henry son of William de Loggeforde, who rose from bed and took his sword in his hand.  He heard someone breaking a window in the closet like a robber.  He went to the window and found half the body of a man through it.  He asked who it was and on receiving no answer to his question he severed John's jugular vein with his sword.  No-one procured the slaying.  Henry killed John in self-defence."

Inq. taken in Cumberland on 19 May 1293:

"William son of Patrick and his wife came from Penreth very drunk on Tuesday after Whitsunday 5 Edward I [18 May 1277] by the high road to Laysonby; and Alexander son of John de la Chapele, who was breaking stones in a quarry near the road to build his father's house, heard the woman cry out and ran up, and supposing it to be a case of rape, struck William over the reins with a shovel so that he died the same night.  He did not intend to kill William, but only to prevent him ravishing the woman, whom he did not suppose to be his wife."

Inq. taken in Westmorland on 29 June 1293:

"Richard le Fraunceys, clerk, is of good fame and conversation."

That's it.  :-)

Ing. taken in Kent on 13 October 1300:

"Nicholas le Bret on St Lambert's Day 27 Edward I [17 September 1299] was upon a piece of his own land which he had sown with beans...when there appeared Hamon le Bret his brother suddenly, carrying an iron-shod fork in his hand.  He attacked Nicholas on his own land, saying "Flee, robber, or you will die," and with the fork pursued Nicholas for a furlong as far as a ditch filled with water of the breadth of twenty-five feet, which Nicholas could not cross.  As he would have been killed or drowned he unsheathed a misericorde and while defending himself he struck Hamon on the breast and the latter died the same day."

Inq. taken in Bedfordshire on 8 November 1300:

"Henry Bateman and William de Gamelingey were playing in the house of John le Mareschal in Eton at a game called penyperche on Thursday in Whitsun week 28 Edward I [2 June 1300].  A strife arose between them outside John's door.  When withdrawing from the tavern William caught Henry by the hair and afterwards took him firmly by the throat so that Henry could free himself only by drawing his knife.  Reynold Elys, Henry's kinsman in the third degree, heard of the strife between the two men as he sat at tavern in John's house and ran to them to aid Henry, who did not perceive him as he came in haste.  Reynold by misadventure dashed violently upon the unsheathed knife and received a wound in the right shoulder, from which he died.  His death was due to misadventure and not to malice."

Inq. taken in Lancashire on 6 February 1301:

"Adam son of Henry the clerk and William son of Alan de Bradefeld sat in William's house in the town of Lathum on Sunday before the Annunciation 27 Edward I [22 March 1299].  A strife arose between them regarding the allocation of a cow.  Adam feared William, arose and went out.  William followed him with an iron fork and pursued him between a hedge and a marle-pit.  Adam turned around and wished to go another way and William struck him upon the back with the fork.  Adam to escape death hit William with a stick of alder-wood upon the head and he fell to the ground.  Adam, seeing him prostate, took to flight.  Before and after the deed Adam was of good fame."

William Melton's Letter

14 January marks the anniversary of an extremely important letter written by William Melton, archbishop of York, almost certainly in 1330 (though 1329 is also possible).  Addressing his kinsman Simon Swanland, a draper and then mayor of London, he emphasises the need for secrecy before informing Swanland that he has "certain news of our liege lord Edward of Caernarfon, that he is alive and in good health of body in a safe place, by his own wish" (in the French original, nous avoms certeins noueles de nostre seignur lige Edward de Karnarvan qil est en vie et en bone sancte de corps en enseur leu a sa volonte demeign).  Melton goes on to ask Swanland to purchase some items for Edward, mostly clothing, boots and cushions, and asks the mayor how he can procure "a great sum of money for the said lord" (grant somme dargent pur le dir seignur) because he wishes to help him.  This is hardly a surprise; William Melton had long been a friend and supporter of Edward II, whose household he had joined in or before 1297 when the future king was thirteen.  Melton bravely spoke out against Edward's deposition in the parliament of January 1327 - the bishop of Rochester, who joined him, was beaten up for doing so - and refused to attend Edward III's coronation shortly afterwards.  He was far more, however, than a mere royal sycophant, and was known in his lifetime as a pious yet very able man of integrity and compassion.  The Lanercost chronicler says "although he was one of the king’s courtiers, he led a religious and honourable life," and the Vita Edwardi Secundi says he was "a courtier faithful in everything committed to him" who remained honourable despite the venality of the royal court where he lived so long.  [1]  Edward III restored Melton to his position as treasurer of England within days of Roger Mortimer's execution on 29 November 1330; the young king recognised his worth and appreciated his abilities.

This extremely important statement that Edward II was in fact still alive more than two years after his funeral in Gloucester has not received the attention and serious scholarly analysis it deserves, except in Ian Mortimer's Medieval Intrigue, where it is cited in full (in English), properly analysed in the context of other events of 1330 (the earl of Kent's plot to free Edward II from Corfe Castle), and given due weight as a significant historical document.  Seymour Phillips' otherwise superb 2010 biography of Edward II doesn't even mention it, and Roy Martin Haines' 2009 article about the letter in the English Historical Review [2] states with certainty that Melton was "misled" and "easily convinced, or should one say deceived?" into believing that Edward II was alive and fails even to consider the possibility that Melton's statement was true.  Frankly, I find this bizarre.  As Ian Mortimer points out, if a man of Melton's calibre believed that Edward II was still alive in 1330, and went as far as buying clothes and other items for him, and was willing to commit all this to writing despite the enormous risks, it is entirely plausible that Edward II was still alive.  As I say in my article on the earl of Kent's adherents, numerous other men appear to have also believed that Edward was alive in 1330.  One of them was the earl of Mar, who told Melton that he would bring an army of 40,000 men to England when instructed by the archbishop in order to aid Edward II's release [3] - a lot of soldiers to free a dead man, one might think.

Rather than just blithely assuming that Melton must have been wrong or ignoring his letter altogether, it would be great if historians of the era actually engaged with it and presented proper arguments against it.  We have a clear statement, by a man who knew Edward II, Queen Isabella, Roger Mortimer and the earl of Kent well and who cannot lightly be dismissed as a gullible fool in the way that Kent so often unfairly has been, that Edward II was still alive after his funeral.  Let's at least debate the possibility that he was correct.  In the meantime, I'm going to raise a glass to William Melton today, to a brave and loyal man doing everything he could to help a friend.

Sources

1) ; H. Maxwell. ed., The Chronicle of Lanercost 1272-1346 (1913), p. 217; N. Denholm-Young, ed., Vita Edwardi Secundi Monachi Cuiusdam Malmesberiensis, (1957), p. 139.
2) R.M. Haines, ‘Sumptuous Apparel for a Royal Prisoner: Archbishop Melton’s Letter, 14 January 1330’, English Historical Review, cxxiv (2009), pp. 885-894.
3) Phillips, Edward II, p. 567; Mortimer, Medieval Intrigue, p. 161.

The Curious Case Of Lady Baret

Some years ago, I wrote a post translating the charges against Hugh Despenser the Younger at his trial in Hereford in November 1326.  One of the many charges, and certainly the most horrific one, is this:

"And after the deaths of their barons, you pursued widowed ladies such as my lady Baret, and as a tyrant you had her beaten by your mercenaries [or rascals, or menials: ribaldes]** and shamefully had her arms and legs broken against the order of chivalry and contrary to law and reason, by which the good lady is forever more driven mad and lost [la bone dame est touz iours afole et perdue]."

[** that part is often mistranslated as 'making her the butt of his ribaldry']

This horrible accusation is frequently repeated as certain fact in secondary sources, and often used as evidence that Hugh Despenser was some kind of violent abusive misogynist and sadist who therefore thoroughly deserved his drawn-out and excruciatingly painful death.  (The notion that Hugh raped Queen Isabella, which is purely an invention of her modern biographers, is also sometimes repeated in this context, as is Hugh's reprehensible imprisonment of the earl of Pembroke's niece Elizabeth Comyn, which did indeed happen - though there is nothing to suggest that Elizabeth was physically ill-treated, and Hugh's aim was to coerce her into signing over part of her large inheritance to him and marrying his eldest son.)

Did Hugh indeed order this inhuman and astonishingly brutal treatment of Lady Baret?  Who was Lady Baret anyway?  Natalie Fryde's The Tyranny and Fall of Edward II 1321-1326 - which states as certain fact (p. 117) that the lady was tortured and driven out of her mind by Hugh - identifies her as "probably the widow of Stephen Baret of Swansea."  This is most likely correct.  Fryde says "We do not know to what end these injuries were perpetrated," though a desire to take over her or her late husband's lands seems by far the likeliest reason, given what we know of the Despensers.  This page states "The Lady Baret, widow of a Knight who fought against the crown at the battle of Boroughbridge was tortured and all her limbs broken before she gave up her lands to him [Hugh Despenser the Younger]."

Sir Stephen Baret was, almost certainly, executed with other Contrariants in the spring of 1322, most probably in Swansea.  Only three chronicles mention his execution, and he was not, for some reason, named in the November 1326 judgement on the younger Despenser, as the other men executed in 1322 were.  An entry on the Patent Roll of 28 April 1322, however, is a commission to four men (one of them Sir John Inge, a close associate of Hugh Despenser) to "render judgment upon Stephen Baret, a traitor, at Swaneseye [Swansea]."  [1]  Other men named in these commissions to receive judgement were all executed.

The Lady Baret supposedly tortured on Despenser's orders was most probably Stephen's widow (though might, perhaps, have been his mother).  The couple had no children: Stephen's heir was his brother David, who in February 1327 petitioned the young Edward III for the restoration of his inheritance.  A clerk named Stephen Baret, perhaps David's son, who was one of the guardians of the "temporalities of the bishopric of Worcester" and the attorney of the bishop of St David's, is mentioned in February 1327 and March 1334.  [2]  Stephen (the Contrariant of 1322) held lands on the Gower peninsula in South Wales, which Edward II granted to the younger Despenser in October 1320, to the huge annoyance of the Marcher lords (it led to the Despenser War the following May).  According to the inquisition post mortem of Sir Guy Brian in August 1307, Stephen had "1 carucate land called Cralond" in Carmarthenshire, for which he paid a pound of wax and twelve pence annually.  [3]  A man named Richard Wroth was sent to arrest Stephen Baret in Gower on 16 February 1322, though in fact he was taken prisoner in Yorkshire sometime after the battle of Boroughbridge on 16 March by the constable of Knaresborough Castle (and must have been among those who threw away all his possessions in an attempt to flee, as he was "taken bare)".  [4]  According to a c. 1322 petition by the people of the Yorkshire village of Laughton-en-le-Morthen, Stephen had gone to the village in late 1321 or thereabouts with John, Lord Mowbray and Sir Jocelyn Deyville (both also executed in 1322) with eighty men at arms and four hundred foot soldiers.  The men robbed the village and its church of livestock and goods, and took them all to the Isle of Axholme, which belonged to Mowbray.  [5]

I have been unable to discover anything very much about Stephen Baret's wife, except that her name was Joan de Gynes and she inherited three manors in Leicestershire, Suffolk and Staffordshire from her mother Isabel de Mandeville.  [6]  According to an inquisition of July 1324, these three manors - named as Moteshale, Dadelyngton and Herliston - were then in Edward II's hands, not Hugh Despenser's.  [7]  It is unclear from the entry whether Joan was still alive at the time of the inquisition; it begins "Stephen Baret, sometime knight, and Joan late his wife, on the day of his forfeiture, jointly held the manor of Moteshale...".  If Hugh did indeed have Joan tortured for her lands, he didn't hold them for long.  It doesn't seem likely that he had her tortured to gain Stephen's minor holdings on the Gower peninsula, either.

What is significant is that the record of the charges against Hugh Despenser the Younger in November 1326 is the only source for the claim that he had Lady Baret tortured - and the charges against him are, as Professor May McKisack once so eloquently put it, "an ingenious tissue of facts and fiction," with a strong emphasis on 'fiction'.  No fourteenth-century chronicler mentions the alleged torture.  There are no petitions or commissions or inquisitions or anything else to confirm that it ever happened.  The charge perhaps sounds too specific to have been completely invented, yet it is extremely odd that neither Joan - if she was still alive - nor any of her family or friends later petitioned Edward III for restitution, and even stranger that no contemporary or later chronicler noticed such a horrific act.  They might have ignored the torture of a lowborn woman, but never, surely, a highborn one.  I'd expect to see indignant and horrified condemnations of such brutality against a defenceless noble widow somewhere, but there's nothing.  Whatever happened between Despenser and Joan Baret, the story of her broken limbs and insanity is likely to be, at best, a gross exaggeration at a time when all the ills of the 1320s were being heaped on one man's head.  Whatever wrongs Hugh committed, and it's undeniable that he committed many, it seems rather unfair to assume that the story of his torturing a woman into insanity is certain gospel truth when it only appears in one document containing dubious, and some laughably inaccurate, accusations against a detested royal favourite.

Sources

1) Calendar of Patent Rolls 1321-1324, p. 149.

2) Calendar of Close Rolls 1327-1330, pp. 25, 61; Cal Pat Rolls 1327-1330, p. 14; Calendar of Fine Rolls 1327-1337, p. 319.

3) Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem 1307-1327, p. 32.

4) Cal Pat Rolls 1321-1324, p. 77; Calendar of Inquisitions Miscellaneous 1308-1348, p. 131.

5) The National Archives SC 8/7/301.

6) Cal Inq Misc, pp. 200-201.

7) Ibid.

Merry Christmas, For The Seventh Time On The Edward II Blog

Apologies for not updating the blog more regularly! What with visits, work, illness and preparing for Christmas, I just haven't had time, unfortunately. This will also be the last post for a while, as I'm off home tomorrow to the Lake District for my Christmas holidays. Amazingly, this is the seventh Christmas since I started writing the blog in early December 2005.

Six years later, there are still a few misunderstandings about Edward II online - though, I hope, rather fewer than there used to be before I got started! Here are some recent ones I've found on forums, blogs and websites:

"In 1327, Welsh conspirators needed to murder King Edward II without clear evidence of their involvement. One of them sent this note to the perpetrators: “Kill Edward not to fear is good”. Purposely ambiguous, punctuation was left out in case the plot backfired. So poor little Edward did die at the mercy of a scalding iron shimmied up his anus where, quite frankly, the one thing that could’ve saved his colon was a colon."

This story about deliberately ambiguous punctuation, which appears in Christopher Marlowe's c. 1592 play about Edward, is an old, thoroughly discredited myth. And I can't help but laugh at the notion that it was 'Welsh conspirators' who murdered him. It was Welsh conspirators who were trying to save him.

"Wasn't Edward II the one who died so ignominiously at Pontrefact Castle?   I'm really having to scrape the sides of the memory bowl for this! But I believe some of his ministers grabbed him and stuck a hot fire poker up his ass cuz his latest lover had too much power."

It's amazing how many people confuse Edward with his great-grandson Richard II in many ways.

"We have a family tradition that Edward II asked my ancestor Thomas the Swine Worrier for a maid to tend his needs ( so it is said). As that "maid " was my N th degree great grandmama--it gives credence to our family motto " Regis Futare" or, loosely translated "Bad Luck". In which case, your loyal fealty is most welcome."

Although obviously someone was the mother of Edward II's illegitimate son Adam, it's hard to imagine that story being true or Edward being the kind of man who would demand a woman like that. :)

"I am aware there are parentage questions of at least two kings: Edward III: was his father Edward II or William Wallace? (source: movie Braveheart)"

"[Roger] Mortimer and Queen Isabella are the biological parents of Edward III because Edward II wasn't up to the job (he preferred Piers Gaveston). This is conjecture (but not without some evidence) but what is true is that Mortimer was the ancestor of Edward IV, Edward V, Richard III, and all monarchs from Henry VIII onwards.  Somebody should make a movie about Mortimer and Isabella although it might upset the current Royal family to have it made public that they are all descended from the bastard Edward III. Big skeleton in a very big cupboard."

Yes, that's the Roger Mortimer who was in a different country to Isabella at the time that Edward III, and her and Edward II's younger children, were conceived. (So I would love to see the 'evidence' mentioned.)  To add insult to injury, the person who wrote this idiocy linked to a blog post of mine as 'proof' that Edward II was murdered by red-hot poker.  Huh!

"Edward II was purportedly homosexual, and he spent most of his time with Piers Gaveston and then the Despensers, so Queen Isabella grew resentful. She did bear her husband a son, the future Edward III, but one has to wonder if Edward II's nobles and subjects believed that the child was his."

Why would they not?

"The French princess was about 12 years old when she was brought over to marry the Prince Of Wales (Edward II). She and Wallace never met. She was it appears indeed impregnated by someone other than Eddie II, but it was not Wm. Wallace."

This is still a common misconception, despite my best efforts. Still, a Google.com search for "Edward II children" brings up three of my blog posts in the top five results, so the message will spread, I hope!

Some links to previous Christmas posts of mine, with info about the festive season in Edward II's time, are here, here and here. Looking further afield, Ian Mortimer's essay about Edward's daughter-in-law Philippa of Hainault is well worth a read, as is his What's New page, with lots of great links to interesting articles and talks of his.  And finally, a reminder that if you haven't read my article in the English Historical Review yet, please do so soon. :-) Have a very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and see you in 2012 for lots more Edward II information and myth-busting!

Poems Of Edward II's Era

Edited to add: I've just remembered that this is the sixth anniversary of my blog!  Yippee!  Six years of Edward II - and here's to many more.  :-)

A post about some of the poems written in or around the time of Edward II's reign.

The Sayings of the Four Philosophers

Written partly in English and partly in French - to me, a fascinating sight - this poem seems originally to have been written as a complaint about Edward I breaking the terms of the Provisions of Oxford of 1258, and to have been re-written as a condemnation of Edward II breaking the Ordinances of 1311 and his dependence on Piers Gaveston.  It begins:


L’en peut fere et defere,
Ceo fait-il trop sovent;
It nis nouther wel ne faire
Therfor Engelond is shent.

Nostre prince de Engletere,
Par le consail de sa gent,
At Westminster after the feire
Made a gret parlement.
La chartre fet de cyre,
Jeo l’enteink et bien le crey,
It was holde to neih the fire,
And is molten al awey.
Ore ne say mes que dire,
Tout i va a Tripolay,
Hundred, chapitle, court, and shire,
Al hit goth a devel way.
Des plusages de le tere
Ore escoutez un sarmoun,
Of iiij wise-men that ther were,
Whi Engelond is brouht adoun.

Translation:

A person can make and unmake,
This he does too often;
It is neither well nor fair,
Therefore England is ruined.

Our prince of England,
On the advice of his people,
At Westminster after the fair
Made a great parliament.
The charter made of wax,
So I have heard, and well believe it,
Was held too near the fire,
And is melted all away.
Now I don't know what more to say,
Everything goes to Tripoli,
Hundred, chapter, court and shire,
It all goes the devil's way.
The wisest men of the land
Are now listening to a sermon
Of four wise men that there were
Why England is brought down.

The four wise men go on to explain why England is lawless, without strength, mercy, love, kindness, alms and much else, and full of wrong, sin and revenge.  The solution is for us all to love God, and to remember that he loves us, to live 'in love and good manner', and to see him that bought us dearly, in joy everlasting (Sen him that bouhte us dere, In joye withoute ende).

Adam Davy's Dreams of Edward II

Five prophetic poems in English dated most probably to 1307/08, the years of Edward II’s accession to the throne (7 July 1307) and his coronation (25 February 1308) and written by one Adam Davy, who identifies himself as the marshal of Stratford-at-Bow in London.  (A name I can never see without thinking of Geoffrey Chaucer’s commentary on the Prioress in the Canterbury Tales: "And Frensch she spak ful faire and fetysly, After the scole of Stratford atte Bowe, For Frensch of Parys was to hire unknowe").  Davy's five dreams about Edward II, the new king and prince of Wales, as Davy calls him ("His name is ihote sir Edward the kyng, Prince of Wales, Engelonde the faire thing") liken Edward to Christ, under the special protection of God and invulnerable to attackers (if only!), the head of his realm and sacrosanct thanks to his birth and status, a mediator between God and his people, and a pilgrim to Rome, where he is crowned emperor of Christendom.  The dream poems are so flattering to Edward II it seems highly likely that they date to the start of his reign, before it all started going so wrong.


Elegy on the Death of Edward I

A song written shortly after and lamenting - you'll never guess - the death of Edward I in July 1307, apparently written originally in French, with an English version preserved in another manuscript.  Here's part of the English song, relating to Edward II:

Nou is Edward of Carnarvan
King of Engelond al aplyht,
God lete him ner be worse man
Then is fader, ne lasse of myht
To holden his pore-men to to ryht,
Ant understonde good consail,
Al Engelonde for to wisse ant diht;
Of gode knyhtes darh him nout fail.

Now is Edward of Caernarfon entirely king of England,
God never let him be a worse man
Than his father, nor less of might,
To hold his commons to right,
And understand good counsel,
All England to direct and manage,
Of good knights there need not fail him.

And in the French version:

Le jeofne Edward d'Engletere
Rey est enointe e couroné
Dieu le doint teil conseil trere, 
Ki le pais seit governé;
E la coroune si garder
Qe la tere seit entere,
E lui crestre en bounté
Car prodhome i fust son pere.

The young Edward of England
Is anointed and crowned king
May God grant that he follow such counsel
That the country may be governed
And so to keep the crown
That the land may be entire,
And himself to increase in goodness
Because his father was a worthy man.


On The Evil Times of Edward II

Also known as the Simonie or Symonie and Couetise, written in English sometime in the 1320s, this work of almost 500 lines is a poem of social protest, with many references to the Great Famine and the corruption and vices of the nobility and clergy.  The poem begins:

Whii werre and wrake in londe and manslauht is i-come, 
Whii hungger and derthe on eorthe the pore hath undernome...
(Why war and vengeance and manslaughter have come to the land,
Why famine and dearth on earth have seized the poor...)

These themes also appear in a much better-known social protest poem of the later fourteenth century,
Piers Plowman, whose author William Langland was the grandson of Peter de la Rokele, one of the men who joined the Dunheved brothers in their attempt to free the former Edward II from captivity at Berkeley Castle.

Finally, the poem known as the Lament of Edward II, once thought to have been written by Edward himself, deserves a blog post entirely to itself sometime.  :-)

Anniversaries

27 November 1358: Isabella of France, dowager queen of England, was buried at the Greyfriars Church in London, with all due ceremony and in the presence of her son Edward III and daughter-in-law Queen Philippa (and I presume of her other surviving child Joan, queen of Scotland).  With Isabella was buried the cloak she had worn at her wedding to Edward II half a century previously, and a silver casket with her husband's heart inside.  (NOTA BENE: being buried with your spouse or child's heart was perfectly normal in royal burials of the era; Isabella was not buried next to Roger Mortimer or even in the same city; she was buried with Edward II's heart, not Mortimer's, a point I make especially because this is often erroneously stated online.)

28 November 1290: Edward II's mother Eleanor of Castile, queen of England, lady of Ireland, duchess of Aquitaine and countess of Ponthieu in her own right, died at the house of one Richard de Weston in Harby, Nottinghamshire.  She was probably forty-nine.  Her tomb and effigy in Westminster Abbey still survive, as do three of the Eleanor Crosses her widower erected in her memory.  Only six of the fourteen or sixteen children she bore outlived her, one of them - Joan of Acre - then pregnant with the king and queen's eldest grandchild, Gilbert de Clare, earl of Gloucester.

Edward of Caernarfon, then aged six and Eleanor's youngest child and sole surviving son, can barely have known his mother: she and Edward I left England for Gascony in May 1286, shortly after his second birthday, and only returned in August 1289.  On the twenty-fifth anniversary of Queen Eleanor's death, 28 November 1315, her son paid thirty-five shillings to seventy Dominicans (the favourite order of both Edward and Eleanor) for "performing divine service at the anniversary of the lady the queen, mother of the present lord the king."

29 November 1314: Philip IV, king of France, Edward II's father-in-law and second cousin (their paternal grandmothers Marguerite and Eleanor of Provence were sisters) was killed in a hunting accident near Fontainebleau, aged forty-six.  Philip survived his accident long enough to make a codicil to his will the day before he died, in which he left two rings to his daughter Ysabella Regina Anglie, one of them set with a large ruby, which she had once given him.

29 November 1330: Roger Mortimer, earl of March and lord of Wigmore, was hanged naked at Tyburn - an execution site for common criminals but not, previously, a nobleman.  He had been dragged to Tyburn wearing the black tunic he had worn at Edward II's funeral in December 1330.

Brief Biographies: Simon of Reading

Today, a post about Simon of Reading, or Symond or Syme de Reding or Redyngg or Redynges as the name was spelt at the time, who was executed with Hugh Despenser the Younger in Hereford on 24 November 1326.  When the two men were brought into Hereford before Hugh's trial, Simon was forced to parade in front of Hugh bearing the Despenser arms reversed, and some time later was hanged next to him but on a much lower gallows (Hugh's was a massive fifty feet high).  Unlike Hugh, it appears that Simon was hanged until dead, rather than cut down and disembowelled and all the rest of the horrors inflicted on the royal favourite.  I wonder whether many, or indeed any, people watching the execution had any idea of Simon's identity.

Before I look at who Simon was, let's look at who he wasn't.  Natalie Fryde says in her 1979 work The Tyranny and Fall of Edward II 1321-1326 that he was "one of Despenser's closest friends" - well, possibly, but she doesn't cite a source for this and I've never seen one that confirms her statement - and also calls him "the loyal knight of Despenser."  Simon wasn't a knight.  Neither was he the marshall of Edward II's household, the younger Despenser's standard-bearer or marshall, or pretty well anything else claimed about him in modern times.  He was in fact a sergeant-at-arms of Edward II's household (see below for the evidence for this).

What I find most puzzling about Simon is why Isabella and Roger Mortimer wanted to execute someone so obscure; as far as I can tell he was just one of Edward's sergeants-at-arms, among many others, so why did they deem it necessary to execute him so publicly with Hugh Despenser?  Simon was not even given a trial, though according to the Brut chronicle he was drawn and hanged "for encheson [reason] that he despisede the Quene Isabel," and the Anonimalle, a French version of the chronicle, talks of "une Symond de Redyngges, qavoit despise la roigne..." (a Simon of Reading, who had despised the queen...).  'Despise' in this context means insult, humiliate, scorn, disregard.  A 1327 entry on the Fine Roll relating to Simon says that he was "hanged for a felony."  Hmmmmm.  Was insulting the queen a felony, and when did it become a capital offence and such a serious one that no trial to prove the truth of the allegation was required?  Natalie Fryde in Tyranny and Fall says that Simon was "included in the punishment meted out to his master [i.e. Despenser] because he had in some way insulted Isabella," as though these were reasonable grounds to execute someone without trial, and assuming that what the Brut says is certainly true (she doesn't say he was 'alleged to have insulted Isabella' or similar).

Unfortunately I don't know who Simon's parents were, or if he was married, or almost anything else about him.  The Fine Roll entry of February 1327 which refers to his hanging is an "order to the bailiffs of the manor of Bray to take into the king's hand the lands, goods and chattels, which Simon de Redyng, who was hanged for a felony, held in chief of Edward II in their bailiwick."  [1]  The Berkshire village of Bray is fifteen miles from Reading, itself about forty miles west of London.  Judging by his name and this entry, Simon must have grown up and lived in or close to Reading.  The earliest mention I can find of him is in November 1318, when a commission of oyer et terminer was ordered "on complaint by Simon de Redynge touching the persons who assaulted him at Gedenoye [Gedney], co. Lincoln."  [2]  On 20 September 1324, Simon was one of six men granted a 'general pardon' by Edward II, and on 16 April the year before had been granted the Worcestershire manors of Kyre Wyard and Woodhall forfeited by John Wyard, an adherent of Roger Mortimer, in which manors and two others in Worcestershire, 'Salynes' and 'Smytheslond', Simon was granted rights of free warren.  [3]  His being granted the manors of one of Roger Mortimer's followers was presumably a reason why Mortimer hated him.  Simon must have become pretty well-off: in July 1325, William Nicol of Selsey acknowledged that he owed twenty pounds to him, a large amount of money for a man of his rank and position (Edward II's sergeants-at-arms earned twelve pence a day).  [4]

Simon appears three times in Edward II's chamber account of 1325/26 that I've found.  In August 1325, Edward sent him to pay money to someone (not sure who; that entry is hard to read).  In May 1326, there are two references to 'Syme de Redyng', whose horse needed shoeing while the king and his household were travelling along the Thames, near Henley.  As far as I can make out, Simon lost his mace (I assume that's what 'mase' is) in the river shortly afterwards, and it was later returned to him by John Feryman of Sonning, who received three shillings from Edward II for his efforts.

Simon is next mentioned on 28 September 1326, the day after Edward II, in the Tower of London, learned that his queen and Mortimer's invasion force had landed in East Anglia on the 24th.  An entry on the Patent Roll says "The like* of Simon de Redyng, king's serjeant, to select 100 footmen out of the men arrayed in the counties of Oxford and Berks and lead them to the king to repel the invaders."  [5]  (* The previous entry says: "Appointment of Daniel de Burgham in the county of Kent to select and lead all the horse and foot who will go with him against Roger de Mortuo Mari" (Mortimer).)  Two c. 1327 petitions by a William de Whithurst say that Edward II gave Whithurst a hundred pounds at Gloucester to pay the wages of the men-at-arms coming to his aid, and that Whithurst gave some of this to Simon at Edward's command and that the rest was taken by Isabella when she arrived in Gloucester shortly afterwards.  [6]  Simon is named in the Annales Paulini and Adam Murimuth's chronicle as one of the men still with Edward II and Hugh Despenser the Younger when they were captured in South Wales on 16 November.  He was to pay the ultimate price for this loyalty eight days later.  The manors granted to him in Worcestershire, as well as "two messuages and land in Boclington, co. Worcester, and the messuage in Wyndesore, co. Berks, which belonged to Simon de Redyng", were granted back to John Wyard in 1327 and 1328.  [7]

Martyn Lawrence in his D. Phil. thesis on the Despensers points out that there are no specific references to Simon of Reading as a Despenser adherent.  Nigel Saul says "The chroniclers are surely doing no more than reflecting popular opinion when they associate his name with that of the younger Despenser...Yet the actual position he held was that of a serviens ad arma [sergeant-at-arms] in the royal household.  Whatever his nominal position, his familiarity with the Despensers meant that he was denied any chance of making his peace with the regime that succeeded theirs."  Earlier in his article, Saul says "We know also that they [the Despensers] had some very unpopular officials like Simon de Reading, who was to share a traitor's death with his lord...".  [8]  There is no evidence I know of to suggest that Simon was a Despenser official, or particularly close to them, or involved in any way in their tyranny, land-grabbing and other crimes.  It is Simon's execution alongside Hugh Despenser that leads writers to draw the obvious conclusion that he must have been a henchman of theirs and grossly unpopular throughout England for aiding and abetting their schemes, even though no known contemporary source suggests this.  The Brut, Annales Paulini and the chronicle of Adam Murimuth do not say that Simon was executed for complicity in any of the Despensers' crimes; indeed, the Brut claims that he died because he insulted the queen.  You'd think that if a man was so notorious and guilty of such horrendous crimes that it was necessary to execute him publicly alongside Hugh Despenser without a trial, there would be more mentions of him somewhere and more obvious associations with the Despensers.  Even if Simon were famous in his time as a Despenser adherent and yet no evidence of this has survived, it's peculiar that other far more influential and better-known supporters of theirs, such as Sir Ingelram Berenger (a former sheriff of Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire), and Sir John Haudlo, were pardoned for their adherence within weeks of the new regime taking control.  Perhaps Simon just had the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, as John Daniel and Robert de Micheldever appear to have been a week earlier when they were executed with the earl of Arundel, to have irritated Roger Mortimer by being given two manors which formerly belonged to his adherent John Wyard, and to have irritated Isabella by saying something about her which perhaps hit a little too close to home.  Whatever Simon's misdeeds, public humiliation and execution without trial hardly seem a fair and just punishment, and don't lend much credence to the notion that the revolution of 1326/27 was intended to improve, and in fact did improve, the situation in England; Isabella and Mortimer's decision to execute Simon appears just as petty, capricious and vindictive as the decisions of Edward II himself often were.

Sources

1) Calendar of Fine Rolls 1327-1337, pp. 19, 21.
2)  Calendar of Patent Rolls 1317-1321, p 289.
3) Cal Pat Rolls 1321-1324, p. 275; Cal Pat Rolls 1324-1327, p. 23; Calendar of Charter Rolls 1300-1326, p. 462.
4) Calendar of Close Rolls 1323-1327, p. 494.
5) Cal Pat Rolls 1324-1327, p. 325.
6) The National Archives SC 8/239/11922, SC 8/169/8413.
7) Cal Pat Rolls 1327-1330, pp. 338, 343, 419.
8) Martyn Lawrence, 'Power, Ambition and Political Rehabilitation: the Despensers, c.1281-1400' (Univ. of York D. Phil. thesis, 2005), p. 102 note 49; Nigel Saul, 'The Despensers and the Downfall of Edward II', English Historical Review, 99 (1984), pp. 4, 11-12.