In which I speculate, maybe wildly and hilariously wrongly, about the identity of the mother of a canon of Lincoln whose father was a really rather important royally born nobleman of the early fourteenth century.
Illegitimate children. Edward II had one (Adam). So did Piers Gaveston (Amie). So, perhaps, did Hugh Despenser the Younger, or perhaps his father the elder Despenser was Nicholas's father? John de Warenne, earl of Surrey, had lots of them. I've long wondered whether the Roger Damory mentioned in the 1330s and the Sir Nicholas Damory who had a long distinguished career in the fourteenth century were illegitimate sons of Roger Damory. And Thomas, earl of Lancaster, Leicester and Derby (c. 1278 - 22 March 1322) also joined the club. He had no children from his disastrous marriage to Alice de Lacy, and his heir was thus his younger brother Henry, but did however have an illegitimate son named John whose existence is recorded several decades after Thomas's execution, for instance in these letters from Pope Clement VI:
"To John de Lancastria, son of Thomas, earl of Lancaster, M.A. scholar of theology. The like [provision of a canonry], at the request of his kinsman, king Edward [III], in Lincoln, notwithstanding that he has the church of Vyotoxather [Uttoxeter, Staffordshire]". (Calendar of Papal Letters 1342-1362, p. 346, dated 4 Nones February 1350.)
And this is the really interesting one, bold mine: "To John de Lancastria, son of the late Thomas, earl of Lancaster, scholar of theology. Extension of dispensation, at the request of king Edward, whose kinsman he is, on account of illegitimacy, he being the son of a married man and a spinster related in the third degree of kindred, so as to enable him to resign the church of Uxtoxather and accept any other benefice in its place, and hold the same together with any other benefices." (Ibid., p. 357, same date.)
John of Lancaster is mentioned a few times in the 1350s and 1360s in papal letters and the chancery rolls as a canon of Salisbury and rector of Charing, and was still alive at Michaelmas 1375 [Calendar of Patent Rolls 1374-1377, p. 181]. An entry on the Patent Roll of December 1375 [Ibid., p. 216] mentions that one Alexander Nabelson killed John de Lancastre in self-defence. I don't know for certain that it's the same John of Lancaster, Earl Thomas's son, however, as there were other men with the same name around at the time. John, as the son of Earl Thomas, was a first cousin once removed of Edward III, as Edward's mother Isabella of France was Thomas's niece, and was also a second cousin of the king via the Edward II connection (Edward II and Thomas were first cousins). The existence of Thomas of Lancaster's illegitimate son John and his parentage has been noted before, by Rosie Bevan and Douglas Richardson; it's not my discovery, I hasten to add! Richardson has found plenty of references to John of Lancaster and mentions him in his book Plantagenet Ancestry, as well as another illegitimate son of Thomas, earl of Lancaster, also named Thomas - whether the younger Thomas was born of the same mother as John is unclear.
Given that John was still alive in the mid-1370s, it seems likely to me that he was born after about 1310, and, given that he was still doing his MA in 1350, perhaps born not long before Earl Thomas's execution in March 1322, when Thomas was in his early or mid-forties. The most interesting point is the identity of John's mother. The 'third degree of kindred' in canon law would mean Earl Thomas's second cousins, or second cousins once (or twice) removed. The immediate problem with this is that Thomas's second cousins seem too highly born to have been his mistress and to have borne him a child, at least without a scandalised chronicler telling us about it. For example, here are some of the women who were Thomas's second cousins:
- Marguerite, queen of England; Marguerite, queen of Navarre; Jeanne, queen of France; Catherine, titular empress of Constantinople; Margaret, Holy Roman Empress; Eleanor, queen of Sicily; Blanche, queen of Aragon; Marie, queen of Mallorca; Agnes, duchess of Brunswick; Blanche, duchess of Austria; Marguerite, countess of Namur; Blanche, countess of Auvergne; Blanche, countess of Savoy; Marie, countess of Savoy; Elisabeth, countess of Jülich; Elisabeth, burgrave of Nuremberg; Gwenllian, a nun; Anastasia, countess of Nola.
I think it's pretty safe to say that none of these women (or their sisters) is remotely likely to have borne Thomas of Lancaster a child out of wedlock, and given that Thomas spent his entire adult life in England, I think it's reasonable to assume that the mother of his son also lived in England. Thomas's grandparents were Henry III, king of England; Eleanor of Provence, queen of England; Robert, count of Artois; Matilda of Brabant, countess of Artois. Most of Thomas's second cousins, that is, the grandchildren of his grandparents' siblings (who, the siblings I mean, included Marguerite, queen of France, Isabella, Holy Roman Empress, Charles, king of Sicily, Marie, duchess of Bavaria and Louis IX, king of France), lived outside England, and it's highly unlikely that Thomas ever met them. Given that the vast majority of Thomas's female second cousins were very highly born women on the continent whom he almost certainly never met, I think his mistress and John's mother must either herself have been illegitimate, or descended from an illegitimate line. When looking for people who fit the bill - people who were second cousins of Earl Thomas, lived in England and were descended from an illegitimate child - the ones who immediately sprang to my mind were the descendants of Thomas's great-uncle Richard, earl of Cornwall and king of Germany (5 January 1209 - 2 April 1272), younger son of King John and Isabella of Angoulême, brother of Henry III, and uncle of Thomas's father Edmund, earl of Lancaster.
Richard of Cornwall had two legitimate sons who lived into adulthood (as well as a few other children who died young): Henry of Almain, son of Richard's first wife Isabella Marshal and born in 1235, who was murdered in Sicily by two of his de Montfort cousins in 1271; and Edmund, born in 1249 and the son of Richard's second wife Sanchia of Provence, who succeeded his father as earl of Cornwall in 1272 and died childless in 1300, leaving as his heir his first cousin Edward I, his nearest male relative. Neither Henry of Almain nor Earl Edmund had any (legitimate) children, so Richard of Cornwall had no grandchildren to carry on his line, and in 1307 Edward II granted his earldom to Piers Gaveston. Richard of Cornwall also had a number of illegitimate children; the list and most of the information given here come from Douglas Richardson's aforementioned and extremely helpful book Plantagenet Ancestry:
- Philip, a cleric, first mentioned in 1248.
- Richard, a knight killed at the siege of Berwick in 1296, who before 1281 married a woman named Joan, said to be a daughter of John Fitzalan, lord of Clun and Oswestry; Richard and Joan had three sons, Sir Edmund, Sir Geoffrey and a clerk named Richard, and a daughter Joan. He is sometimes said to have been Richard of Cornwall's legitimate son by Sanchia of Provence, but wasn't.
- Sir Walter of Cornwall, of Brannel, Cornwall, who married a woman whose identity is uncertain and had a son William and a daughter Margaret, and died in 1313. William had a son John; Margaret married James Peverell in about 1307 and had a son Hugh and a daughter Joan.
- Edmund of Cornwall, a valet in the household of Edward I and acknowledged by him as a kinsman (e.g. Calendar of Patent Rolls 1301-1307, p. 308).
- Geoffrey, granted land by Earl Edmund of Cornwall in the late 1290s.
- Richard, called 'our clerk and cousin' by Edward II (Calendar of Chancery Warrants 1244-1326, pp. 379, 386).
- Joan, who married Sir John Howard of Wigginhall, East Winch, Norfolk.
- Another Joan, who married 1) Richard Champernoune of Inswork, Cornwall, and had one son, Sir Richard, and 2) Sir Peter Fishacre, with no issue. Joan was still alive in 1316.
The children of Richard of Cornwall's children would have been second cousins of Thomas of Lancaster (and their grandchildren would have been his second cousins once removed, which would also fit), and although they were still of reasonably high rank, it's far easier to imagine that one of them might have been his mistress than it is for one of his legitimately-born and descended relatives. It also occurred to me that, although Richard's legitimate sons Henry of Almain and Edmund of Cornwall had no legitimate issue, it's not impossible that one of them had a child out of wedlock. Henry was killed in 1271, six or seven years before Thomas of Lancaster was even born, so it's basically impossible that any daughter of his would have borne Thomas a child in the 1310s or early 1320s, however. Other possible candidates for John of Lancaster's mother are the descendants of King John's illegitimate children, and John had a lot of illegitimate children - see here for an excellent list. One of them, for instance, Richard, who married Rohese of Dover, had several children, and descendants alive in Edward II's time. (This Richard, incidentally, not to be confused with his half-brother Richard, earl of Cornwall, was the great-grandfather of John de Strathbogie, earl of Atholl, executed by Edward I in 1306, and was also the ancestor of the lords of Berkeley.) King John was Thomas of Lancaster's great-grandfather, and the grandchildren or great-grandchildren of John's illegitimate children would be related to Thomas within the third degree.
John de Warenne (1286-1347), the aforementioned earl of Surrey who had lots of illegitimate children - nine that I know of, including three daughters - was a second cousin of Thomas of Lancaster (they were both great-grandsons of Isabella of Angoulême), so his children would be in the required degree of kindred to Thomas. I'm not sure if any illegitimate daughter of John's would have been old enough to have borne Thomas a child in or before 1322, though. Other descendants of Isabella of Angoulême's Lusignan children were still alive in England in Edward II's reign. One of Isabella's grandsons was Aymer de Valence, earl of Pembroke (c. 1270/75-1324), son of William de Valence, a Lusignan half-brother of Henry III, and thus a first cousin once removed of both Edward II and Thomas of Lancaster. Aymer had no children by either of his two wives, Beatrice of Clermont-Nesle or Marie de St Pol, but is known to have had an illegitimate son named Henry, Thomas of Lancaster's second cousin. Is it possible that Aymer had an illegitimate daughter as well? Anyway, these are the possibilities that occurred to me, and probably there are other candidates for John of Lancaster's mother. I wouldn't be at all surprised if there were other illegitimate second cousins of Earl Thomas of Lancaster whose existence has not been discovered. Illegitimate children of this era are generally very obscure; even Edward II's son Adam doesn't appear on record until 1322 when he must have been at least twelve or thirteen, and Amie Gaveston first appears in 1332, when she must have been at least twenty. The three illegitimate daughters of the earl of Surrey only appear in his 1346 will, to my knowledge, one of them already married and another already a nun. And we see the same thing with John of Lancaster himself, whom we only hear about decades after his father's execution.
As I said, this is pure speculation and I could be completely wrong. If you spot any flaws in my logic or arguments, please do feel free to point them out (I won't mind at all, honestly), and if you have anything to add about the possible identity of this mysterious woman, I'd love to hear it. :-) One thing I would dearly love to know is the identity of the mother of Edward II's illegitimate son Adam, but sadly I haven't the faintest idea, and it seems well nigh impossible that I could ever find out. Ah, what a discovery that would be though...!
24 October, 2012
19 October, 2012
19 October 1330: Edward III's Arrest Of Roger Mortimer
Today marks the 682nd anniversary of Edward III's arrest of Roger Mortimer, earl of March and the real ruler of England for the previous four years, at Nottingham Castle. Roger was subsequently executed at Tyburn on 29 November, and Edward - not quite eighteen at the time of the arrest - took over the governance of his own kingdom. His mother Queen Isabella was placed under house arrest for a while, though spent Christmas with her son and daughter-in-law Queen Philippa (and presumably her six-month-old grandson Edward of Woodstock, future prince of Wales). Henry, earl of Lancaster, Isabella's uncle and Edward II's cousin, supposedly threw his cap in the air with joy on hearing the news of Roger's arrest, and surely the rest of the kingdom was equally thrilled to hear the news. Edward III and around two dozen young knights took advantage of a secret tunnel into Nottingham Castle to enter Isabella's apartments and capture Roger.
The story of Roger Mortimer's arrest, and Isabella's screaming to her son to have pity on her favourite, has been well recorded elsewhere,so I won't repeat it here; see Ian Mortimer's The Greatest Traitor and The Perfect King for dramatic accounts of the event. (And my friend Sarah's blog post of today.) Incidentally, I've sometimes seen people online presuming that Roger was arrested while in bed with Isabella, or otherwise alone and intimate with her, which is certainly not the case. They were in fact in conference with the vanishingly small number of allies remaining to them, including Henry Burghersh, bishop of Lincoln, who humiliatingly and unsuccessfully tried to escape down a privy shaft, and Sir Hugh Turplington, who was killed trying to protect Roger.
Some of the young knights who supported and aided Edward III during his coup were later rewarded with earldoms: William Montacute, Salisbury; Robert Ufford, Suffolk; William Clinton, Huntingdon; Ralph Stafford, who was to abduct Hugh Audley and Margaret de Clare's daughter Margaret and marry her in 1336, who received the earldom of Stafford. Among the other young men present were Edward III's first cousin Edward de Bohun, the earl of Hereford's brother; Thomas, Lord Berkeley's younger brother Sir Maurice Berkeley and his (Thomas's) household retainer Thomas de Bradeston, which begs the question if Lord Berkeley knew of the impending downfall of Roger Mortimer, his father-in-law; John Molyns, formerly a retainer of Hugh Despenser the Younger; Robert Walkfare, imprisoned as a Contrariant by Edward II in 1322, who escaped from Corfe Castle by killing a porter.
Edward III took advantage of certain favourable conditions, i.e. the secret tunnel, at Nottingham Castle in order to effect the arrest of Roger Mortimer, so the attack was planned pretty spontaneously, but he had clearly been planning some kind of move against Roger and his mother for some time - it was extremely difficult for him, however, to do so, as Roger and Isabella had spies in his household and he could hardly go and raise an army against them without them noticing. In 1329, he had sent his friend William Montacute to Pope John XXII with a letter bearing the code words Pater Sancte (Holy Father) in his own hand, so that the pope would recognise in future which letters came from him personally rather than ones sent in his name by his mother and Roger, and it is hardly a coincidence that the king had a couple of dozen or so young knights close to him and loyal to him who he knew he could count on to support him in a coup.
Roger Mortimer's son Geoffrey, who earlier that year had mocked his father as the 'king of folly', was also arrested on 19 October 1330, but was mainperned on 22 January 1331, and granted a safe-conduct to leave England on 16 March*. Also arrested with Roger were Sir Oliver Ingham, formerly Edward II's steward of Gascony, who was also soon released and pardoned, on 8 December 1330**, and Sir Simon Bereford, an oddly obscure figure who was nevertheless convicted of aiding Roger Mortimer in "all his treasons, felonies and wicked deeds" and executed shortly before Christmas 1330. (See here for more information on him.) Roger Mortimer was dragged to his execution on 29 November wearing the black tunic he'd had made new for Edward II's funeral in Gloucester in December 1327; someone, presumably Edward III himself, remembered the tunic three years later and forced Roger to wear it.
* Calendar of Close Rolls 1330-1333, pp. 178, 297; Calendar of Patent Rolls 1330-1334, p. 87. Nine men stood as mainpernors for Geoffrey. Presumably he left for France, where he owned lands.
** Calendar of Patent Rolls 1330-1334, p. 22: "Pardon to Oliver de Ingham, in consideration of service to the late king and the king in the duchy of Aquitaine, for his adherence to Roger de Mortuo Mari, earl of March, the king's enemy; and restitution of his lands and goods..."
The day after the arrest, 20 October, Edward III issued the following proclamation:
"Whereas the king's affairs and the affairs of his realm have been directed until now to the damage and dishonour of him and his realm and to the impoverishment of his people, as he has well perceived and as the facts prove*, wherefore he has, of his own knowledge and will, caused certain persons to be arrested, to wit the earl of La Marche [i.e. Roger Mortimer], Sir Oliver de Ingham, and Sir Simon de Bereford, who have been principal movers of the said affairs, and he wills that all men shall know that he will henceforth govern his people according to right and reason, as befits his royal dignity**, and that the affairs that concern him and the estate of his realm shall be directed by the common counsel of the magnates of the realm and in no other wise...". [Calendar of Close Rolls 1330-1333, pp. 158-9]
* Edward II had left around £60,000 in his treasury in November 1326, swelled by the forfeitures of the Despensers and the earl of Arundel to almost £80,000. After four years of Roger Mortimer and Isabella of France's rule, a mere twelve pounds was left.
** The fourteen charges against Roger Mortimer at the November 1330 parliament clearly demonstrate the young king's fury that someone of non-royal birth had used, and abused, his own royal power to enrich himself.
After more than twenty years of Edward II's disastrous, divisive rule and the equally disastrous regime of his wife and her favourite, I can only imagine that Edward III's subjects were delighted to hear this proclamation, and hoped for better times in the future. Today, incidentally, also marks the anniversary of the death of Roger's seventy-year-old widow Joan Geneville, Lady Mortimer and dowager countess of March, in 1356. I like and admire Joan a great deal, and it's such a shame that she's been so hard done by in many modern works of fiction and non-fiction, painted - if she's even mentioned at all - as a sexless, boring, fat, nagging nonentity understandably thrown over by her husband in favour of the gorgeous, glamorous, sexy queen.
The story of Roger Mortimer's arrest, and Isabella's screaming to her son to have pity on her favourite, has been well recorded elsewhere,so I won't repeat it here; see Ian Mortimer's The Greatest Traitor and The Perfect King for dramatic accounts of the event. (And my friend Sarah's blog post of today.) Incidentally, I've sometimes seen people online presuming that Roger was arrested while in bed with Isabella, or otherwise alone and intimate with her, which is certainly not the case. They were in fact in conference with the vanishingly small number of allies remaining to them, including Henry Burghersh, bishop of Lincoln, who humiliatingly and unsuccessfully tried to escape down a privy shaft, and Sir Hugh Turplington, who was killed trying to protect Roger.
Some of the young knights who supported and aided Edward III during his coup were later rewarded with earldoms: William Montacute, Salisbury; Robert Ufford, Suffolk; William Clinton, Huntingdon; Ralph Stafford, who was to abduct Hugh Audley and Margaret de Clare's daughter Margaret and marry her in 1336, who received the earldom of Stafford. Among the other young men present were Edward III's first cousin Edward de Bohun, the earl of Hereford's brother; Thomas, Lord Berkeley's younger brother Sir Maurice Berkeley and his (Thomas's) household retainer Thomas de Bradeston, which begs the question if Lord Berkeley knew of the impending downfall of Roger Mortimer, his father-in-law; John Molyns, formerly a retainer of Hugh Despenser the Younger; Robert Walkfare, imprisoned as a Contrariant by Edward II in 1322, who escaped from Corfe Castle by killing a porter.
Edward III took advantage of certain favourable conditions, i.e. the secret tunnel, at Nottingham Castle in order to effect the arrest of Roger Mortimer, so the attack was planned pretty spontaneously, but he had clearly been planning some kind of move against Roger and his mother for some time - it was extremely difficult for him, however, to do so, as Roger and Isabella had spies in his household and he could hardly go and raise an army against them without them noticing. In 1329, he had sent his friend William Montacute to Pope John XXII with a letter bearing the code words Pater Sancte (Holy Father) in his own hand, so that the pope would recognise in future which letters came from him personally rather than ones sent in his name by his mother and Roger, and it is hardly a coincidence that the king had a couple of dozen or so young knights close to him and loyal to him who he knew he could count on to support him in a coup.
Roger Mortimer's son Geoffrey, who earlier that year had mocked his father as the 'king of folly', was also arrested on 19 October 1330, but was mainperned on 22 January 1331, and granted a safe-conduct to leave England on 16 March*. Also arrested with Roger were Sir Oliver Ingham, formerly Edward II's steward of Gascony, who was also soon released and pardoned, on 8 December 1330**, and Sir Simon Bereford, an oddly obscure figure who was nevertheless convicted of aiding Roger Mortimer in "all his treasons, felonies and wicked deeds" and executed shortly before Christmas 1330. (See here for more information on him.) Roger Mortimer was dragged to his execution on 29 November wearing the black tunic he'd had made new for Edward II's funeral in Gloucester in December 1327; someone, presumably Edward III himself, remembered the tunic three years later and forced Roger to wear it.
* Calendar of Close Rolls 1330-1333, pp. 178, 297; Calendar of Patent Rolls 1330-1334, p. 87. Nine men stood as mainpernors for Geoffrey. Presumably he left for France, where he owned lands.
** Calendar of Patent Rolls 1330-1334, p. 22: "Pardon to Oliver de Ingham, in consideration of service to the late king and the king in the duchy of Aquitaine, for his adherence to Roger de Mortuo Mari, earl of March, the king's enemy; and restitution of his lands and goods..."
The day after the arrest, 20 October, Edward III issued the following proclamation:
"Whereas the king's affairs and the affairs of his realm have been directed until now to the damage and dishonour of him and his realm and to the impoverishment of his people, as he has well perceived and as the facts prove*, wherefore he has, of his own knowledge and will, caused certain persons to be arrested, to wit the earl of La Marche [i.e. Roger Mortimer], Sir Oliver de Ingham, and Sir Simon de Bereford, who have been principal movers of the said affairs, and he wills that all men shall know that he will henceforth govern his people according to right and reason, as befits his royal dignity**, and that the affairs that concern him and the estate of his realm shall be directed by the common counsel of the magnates of the realm and in no other wise...". [Calendar of Close Rolls 1330-1333, pp. 158-9]
* Edward II had left around £60,000 in his treasury in November 1326, swelled by the forfeitures of the Despensers and the earl of Arundel to almost £80,000. After four years of Roger Mortimer and Isabella of France's rule, a mere twelve pounds was left.
** The fourteen charges against Roger Mortimer at the November 1330 parliament clearly demonstrate the young king's fury that someone of non-royal birth had used, and abused, his own royal power to enrich himself.
After more than twenty years of Edward II's disastrous, divisive rule and the equally disastrous regime of his wife and her favourite, I can only imagine that Edward III's subjects were delighted to hear this proclamation, and hoped for better times in the future. Today, incidentally, also marks the anniversary of the death of Roger's seventy-year-old widow Joan Geneville, Lady Mortimer and dowager countess of March, in 1356. I like and admire Joan a great deal, and it's such a shame that she's been so hard done by in many modern works of fiction and non-fiction, painted - if she's even mentioned at all - as a sexless, boring, fat, nagging nonentity understandably thrown over by her husband in favour of the gorgeous, glamorous, sexy queen.
14 October, 2012
Stuff
Only a quick post today, I'm afraid, as I've just come back from holiday and haven't had time to write a proper one yet.
My friend Colin now has a website about Eleanor Fitzalan, Lady Percy (c. 1284-1328), daughter of Richard Fitzalan, earl of Arundel (d. 1302), sister of the earl executed in 1326, and wife and mother of two of the long line of Henry, Lord Percies. Best of luck to Colin with his excellent and extremely well-researched site and his novel about Eleanor, and thanks to him for the lovely mention and links to my blog!
Inaccuracies and weirdnesses spotted online lately:
"Piers even sat closer to Edward than his own bride (the then thirteen year old Isabella of France) at their wedding!" Nope; Edward and Isabella married in Boulogne on 25 January 1308, and Piers, who remained in England as regent, was 80 miles away in Kent at the time.
"The marriage was purely political, both Edward II and Philip IV had hoped it would create a friendship between England and France; Isabella and Edward were not in love." Whereas every other royal couple of the Middle Ages married purely for love and it had nothing at all to do with political alliances, obviously. *rolls eyes*
"It takes Edward 4 years to consummate the marriage and Isabeau quickly becomes pregnant. It is clear the King is doing his duty, nothing more." Because obviously it would have been vastly preferable for Edward II to have had regular intercourse with a girl of twelve or thirteen and forced her to go through pregnancy and childbirth at that age. Do these moaners even think a tiny little bit about the implications of what they're saying? Do they ever even bother to try to see things from Edward's perspective, that having to marry a very young girl he'd never met before and trying to build a relationship with her possibly wasn't a walk in the park for him either? Has there ever been any other man in history so often criticised for not having sex with a twelve-year-old, even one who was, according to her modern-day fans, officially The Most Beautiful And Intelligent Pre-Pubescent In All Europe? How do they know Edward only 'did his duty, nothing more'? Do they have a webcam set up in his bedchamber?
"....Isabeau, daughter of Philip IV of France, marrying Edward II of England, who is quite obviously bored by the whole affair and disinterested in his 13 year-old bride...". Isabella was almost certainly twelve at marriage, actually. And yeah, let's all continue to point the finger at those men in their twenties who are uninterested (not 'disinterested'; that means something different) in pre-pubescent girls, those sick weird bastards.
"...like other girls of her station in that age, [Isabella] was little more than a pawn on a political chessboard." I am so completely beyond bored with all this yawn, I mean pawn, nonsense. Why is it only ever applied to women? It's not like Edward II had the slightest choice in who he married either. He was only five years old when his father arranged his betrothal to the young Margaret of Norway, queen of Scotland, and over the years was betrothed to various other girls in alliances that suited Edward I's political needs at the time; I have yet to see anyone whine about 'poor Edward, little more than a pawn on his father's political chessboard'. Not that I'd want them to, of course, as it would be ridiculous, but this whole 'royal and noble women (but not men) of the Middle Ages were nothing but tragic helpless pawns whose heartless fathers arranged marriages for them even though they weren't in luuuurrrve, oh woes' notion is becoming a really tedious cliché.
"Edward's murder was by ordered of his wife, Isabella of France, to ensure the succession of his son Edward III." I'd love to see the evidence for the statement that Isabella did any such thing, except - of course! - there isn't any. Edward II's death supposedly took place in September 1327, a full nine months after his son's succession, which was already 'ensured'.
Some of the comments left on the post directly above, which also stated the red-hot poker myth as fact:
gay film robin hood
did edward ii and robin hood have sex
did isabella love edward the second?
did king edward ii have gout
edward iii not edward ii
was edward of france gay
was the son of edward 2 a bastard
My friend Colin now has a website about Eleanor Fitzalan, Lady Percy (c. 1284-1328), daughter of Richard Fitzalan, earl of Arundel (d. 1302), sister of the earl executed in 1326, and wife and mother of two of the long line of Henry, Lord Percies. Best of luck to Colin with his excellent and extremely well-researched site and his novel about Eleanor, and thanks to him for the lovely mention and links to my blog!
Inaccuracies and weirdnesses spotted online lately:
"Piers even sat closer to Edward than his own bride (the then thirteen year old Isabella of France) at their wedding!" Nope; Edward and Isabella married in Boulogne on 25 January 1308, and Piers, who remained in England as regent, was 80 miles away in Kent at the time.
"The marriage was purely political, both Edward II and Philip IV had hoped it would create a friendship between England and France; Isabella and Edward were not in love." Whereas every other royal couple of the Middle Ages married purely for love and it had nothing at all to do with political alliances, obviously. *rolls eyes*
"It takes Edward 4 years to consummate the marriage and Isabeau quickly becomes pregnant. It is clear the King is doing his duty, nothing more." Because obviously it would have been vastly preferable for Edward II to have had regular intercourse with a girl of twelve or thirteen and forced her to go through pregnancy and childbirth at that age. Do these moaners even think a tiny little bit about the implications of what they're saying? Do they ever even bother to try to see things from Edward's perspective, that having to marry a very young girl he'd never met before and trying to build a relationship with her possibly wasn't a walk in the park for him either? Has there ever been any other man in history so often criticised for not having sex with a twelve-year-old, even one who was, according to her modern-day fans, officially The Most Beautiful And Intelligent Pre-Pubescent In All Europe? How do they know Edward only 'did his duty, nothing more'? Do they have a webcam set up in his bedchamber?
"....Isabeau, daughter of Philip IV of France, marrying Edward II of England, who is quite obviously bored by the whole affair and disinterested in his 13 year-old bride...". Isabella was almost certainly twelve at marriage, actually. And yeah, let's all continue to point the finger at those men in their twenties who are uninterested (not 'disinterested'; that means something different) in pre-pubescent girls, those sick weird bastards.
"...like other girls of her station in that age, [Isabella] was little more than a pawn on a political chessboard." I am so completely beyond bored with all this yawn, I mean pawn, nonsense. Why is it only ever applied to women? It's not like Edward II had the slightest choice in who he married either. He was only five years old when his father arranged his betrothal to the young Margaret of Norway, queen of Scotland, and over the years was betrothed to various other girls in alliances that suited Edward I's political needs at the time; I have yet to see anyone whine about 'poor Edward, little more than a pawn on his father's political chessboard'. Not that I'd want them to, of course, as it would be ridiculous, but this whole 'royal and noble women (but not men) of the Middle Ages were nothing but tragic helpless pawns whose heartless fathers arranged marriages for them even though they weren't in luuuurrrve, oh woes' notion is becoming a really tedious cliché.
"Edward's murder was by ordered of his wife, Isabella of France, to ensure the succession of his son Edward III." I'd love to see the evidence for the statement that Isabella did any such thing, except - of course! - there isn't any. Edward II's death supposedly took place in September 1327, a full nine months after his son's succession, which was already 'ensured'.
Some of the comments left on the post directly above, which also stated the red-hot poker myth as fact:
"There is also rumor that at the Death bed of his father, (Edward the first) Isabella of France, his wife, announces that son, Edward the third belongs to William Wallace." Words. Fail. Me. I have fantasies about burying every last copy of That Film in a deep hole on Jupiter and wiping all awareness of it from the memories of humankind for the rest of eternity.
"Lord, no wonder we rebelled in the colonies." Hmmmm, yes, I'm sure events of the 1770s were directly related to the deposition and supposed murder of a king of England 450 years previously. ("Never mind all this taxation without representation stuff, friends, have you heard what those savages allegedly did back in 1327? We've got to get rid of them right now!")
"The poker story is Not a myth." Stated with such certainty that this person (who also wrote the 'death bed' comment above) must surely have been present in the room at Berkeley Castle on 21 September 1327, or at least has that webcam up and running. And what's With the Random capitalisation?
Somewhat bizarrely, someone posted a link to my site on an article called 'The term obstinate child is a racist dog whistle' - near the bottom of the comments section, dated 10 October, with the statement 'This site will debunk all the myths about “gay Edward and William Wallace’s time-traveling sperm”.' Well, I certainly try. A few weeks ago someone linked to my site in the comments section of an article in The Telegraph. It does get around. ;-) It was also linked on a Russian forum recently - actually, I get quite a few hits from Russian sites, and Russia is always in the top seven countries where my blog visitors come from (*waves hello at Russian readers*) - and when I ran what was written there through Google Translate, I got "Some Brits still can not move vilify the memory of the Monarch. Befitted a migrant-occupier, edyaschemu English bread and butter, distribute new homeland defamatory rumors." Ummm, OK then. ;-)
queen isabella naked pics
who was the edward who killed his father that was edward?
"Lord, no wonder we rebelled in the colonies." Hmmmm, yes, I'm sure events of the 1770s were directly related to the deposition and supposed murder of a king of England 450 years previously. ("Never mind all this taxation without representation stuff, friends, have you heard what those savages allegedly did back in 1327? We've got to get rid of them right now!")
"The poker story is Not a myth." Stated with such certainty that this person (who also wrote the 'death bed' comment above) must surely have been present in the room at Berkeley Castle on 21 September 1327, or at least has that webcam up and running. And what's With the Random capitalisation?
Somewhat bizarrely, someone posted a link to my site on an article called 'The term obstinate child is a racist dog whistle' - near the bottom of the comments section, dated 10 October, with the statement 'This site will debunk all the myths about “gay Edward and William Wallace’s time-traveling sperm”.' Well, I certainly try. A few weeks ago someone linked to my site in the comments section of an article in The Telegraph. It does get around. ;-) It was also linked on a Russian forum recently - actually, I get quite a few hits from Russian sites, and Russia is always in the top seven countries where my blog visitors come from (*waves hello at Russian readers*) - and when I ran what was written there through Google Translate, I got "Some Brits still can not move vilify the memory of the Monarch. Befitted a migrant-occupier, edyaschemu English bread and butter, distribute new homeland defamatory rumors." Ummm, OK then. ;-)
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| Visitors to my blog. No Edward II fans in Madagascar, Greenland, Tierra del Fuego, the Horn of Africa or most of Siberia then. How disappointing. |
Some recent blog searches (not many as I've hardly been online lately to check them):
every time you cus a kitten kills a man
gay film robin hood
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did isabella love edward the second?
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edward iii not edward ii
was edward of france gay
was the son of edward 2 a bastard
03 October, 2012
October Anniversaries
This will be the last post until mid-October or thereabouts, as I'm on holiday. ;-)
1 October 1310: Edward II bestowed two more appointments on Piers Gaveston: he made him constable of Nottingham Castle and justice of the forest north of the Trent. According to the preliminary Ordinances (reforms of the king's household) issued in March that year, Edward was meant to get the assent of the Ordainers when making appointments and gifts, but hadn't for these two. The king's grants to Piers and his removal of the Exchequer and King's Bench from London to York "much disturbed and outraged" the Ordainers, and "many fear evil," according to an anonymous letter-writer.
1 October 1313: Pope Clement V appointed Walter Reynolds as archbishop of Canterbury, thanks in large part (according to several chroniclers) to Edward II's bribes; Flores Historiarum and Vita Edwardi Secundi both say that "a large amount of gold and silver" passed between king and pope, and the Bridlington chronicler puts the amount at 32,000 marks. The author of the Flores was emphatically not a fan of Reynolds, and says that he was practically illiterate and indulged in "immoderate filthiness of lust." Given that Pope John XXII thanked Reynolds in 1317 for translating one of his letters from Latin into French for Edward II, the charge of illiteracy was not accurate, at least. (Flores, also definitely not a fan of Edward II, condemned the king's "infamy and illicit bed, full of sin," whatever that is a reference to.)
1 October 1323: Exactly two months after Roger Mortimer escaped from the Tower of London, Edward learned that he had sought refuge with his kinsmen the Fiennes brothers in Ponthieu, Edward's own county.
2 October 1326: A few days after hearing of the arrival of Roger Mortimer and Isabella's invasion force, Edward left London, realising that he could not hold a city which was hostile to him. He left the Tower under the command of his beloved niece Eleanor Despenser.
3 October 1315: The chancellor of England (John Sandall) informed Edward of the plight of the port of Berwick-on-Tweed a few months after the start of the Great Famine: "The town is in great straits, and many dying from hunger. If the mayor and himself had not promised them food and clothing for the winter, the garrison would have gone." Two days later the warden (Maurice, future Lord Berkeley) also sent an anguished letter to Edward saying that the town and inhabitants "never were in such distress" and that it would get worse in winter "if God and the king do not think more of them." Berkeley continued for the next few months to inform Edward of the dreadful hunger and suffering in Berwick, ending one letter with "Pity to see Christians leading such a life." A few of the garrison, men-at-arms and footmen, set out into Scotland to try to find food and were attacked on their way back and eighty killed or captured, including Raymond Caillau, probably a cousin of Piers Gaveston.
5 October 1317: Thomas, earl of Lancaster's retainer John Lilburn seized Knaresborough Castle in Yorkshire, which had once belonged to Piers Gaveston and was now in the hands of Edward's court favourite Roger Damory. A month later Lancaster also forcibly gained possession of Alton Castle in Staffordshire, also in Damory's custody; aggrieved by Damory's influence over the king and the favourite's hostility towards himself, Lancaster had determined to attack him. John Lilburn finally surrendered Knaresborough to Edward II on 29 January 1318.
6 October 1310: Edward sent a very aggrieved letter to the abbey of Burton-on-Trent, who had refused his request to take in his former knight Thomas de Banbury for the rest of his life and informed him that they did not have the means to do so as "theirs is the poorest and smallest abbey of their order in England." Edward sent someone to investigate their accounts, and wrote that their response "deviates in many ways from the truth, and he learns that they have means to fulfil his request, wherefore he regards their excuse as wholly insufficient." I love that phrase "Your excuse deviates in many ways from the truth." :-)
6 October 1314: A little under four months after his defeat at Bannockburn, Edward sent envoys to negotiate a truce between England and Scotland, declaring that he had had a letter from Robert Bruce saying that "the one thing in the world he [Robert] desires most is to have complete accord and friendship with us."
6 October 1315: In the middle of a month's holiday swimming and rowing in the Fens with "a great concourse of common people," during which he fell into a river and had to be hauled out by his companions, Edward II visited the famous shrine of Our Lady at Walsingham.
6 October 1320: Opening of parliament in Westminster, during which the bishop of Worcester informed the pope and Cardinal Vitale Dufour that Edward II "in the parliament summoned to London bore himself splendidly, with prudence and discretion, contrary to his former habit rising early and presenting a nobler and pleasant countenance to prelates and lords. Present almost every day in person, he arranged what business was to be dealt with, discussed and determined."
6 October 1325: Edward's half-brother Edmund of Woodstock, earl of Kent, received permission from Pope John XXII to marry Margaret Wake. This marriage resulted in four children and their grandson Richard II.
8 October 1311: Edward issued a safe-conduct for Piers Gaveston, then still in Scotland as far as I know, to come to London, where parliament had just ordered his exile for the third time. It had taken Edward six weeks to agree to it, and only after the Ordainers informed him that if he didn't agree, "the kingdom would be in turmoil and peace driven out of the land…considering also how ruthless and perilous would be the struggle between the king and his barons, that the desolation of the whole land would ensue, that amid the varying fortunes of war the capture of the king could hardly be avoided…he might through imprudence be deprived of his throne and his kingdom."
9 October 1325: Edward gave ten shillings to Jack the Trumpeter of Dover, who had bought forty-seven caged goldfinches for Edward to give to his niece Eleanor Despenser, and also paid his clerk Will of Dunstable to look after the birds until Eleanor took possession of them.
12 October 1312: A Welsh minstrel of the earl of Pembroke, whose name is recorded as 'Coghin', performed at Windsor Castle for Edward II and presumably, though she isn't mentioned, the eight-months-pregnant Isabella.
12 October 1313: Edward wrote to several influential people including the Byzantine Emperor Andronikus Palaiologos and his (Edward's) first cousin once removed "the most serene lady, and his dearest lady in Christ" the Empress Eirene, born Yolande of Montferrat, asking them to help secure the release of Sir Giles Argentein, an English knight captured and imprisoned in Thessalonika.
13 October 1307: Edward II opened his first parliament as king, at Northampton. The parliament sat only until the 16th, its aims to make arrangements for Edward I's funeral, Edward II's coronation, and his wedding to Isabella.
14 October 1318: Battle of Faughart in County Louth, during which the Anglo-Irish nobleman John de Bermingham defeated Robert Bruce's sole surviving brother Edward, who had had himself crowned High King of Ireland in 1315, and killed him. Bermingham sent the head of Edward Bruce - who had been named in honour of Edward I and had lived for a while in the household of Edward of Caernarfon before he became king - to Edward II, who made him earl of Louth in gratitude. (I really hope Edward II's friend Donald of Mar, Edward Bruce's nephew, didn't have to see his head.) Bermingham was a son-in-law of Richard de Burgh, earl of Ulster, as were Edward II's nephew the earl of Gloucester and Robert Bruce.
14 October 1322: Battle of Byland in Yorkshire; Edward II's forces defeated by the army of Robert Bruce and its commander, Edward's first cousin the earl of Richmond, captured. Edward, staying at nearby Rievaulx Abbey, was humiliatingly forced to flee to the coast to avoid being captured himself, and left most of his possessions behind.
15 October 1311: Edward granted a safe-conduct to Louis, count of Nevers and Rethel, visiting England (this is the only record I know of concerning this visit). Louis, who was about a dozen years older than Edward and then in his late thirties, had attended the king's wedding to Isabella in January 1308 with his father Robert de Béthune, count of Flanders.
15 October 1311: An odd entry on the Patent Roll concerning Robert Bruce's nephew Donald of Mar: "Writ of aid, until Martinmas, for Thomas de Langehulle, king's yeoman, from whose custody Ralph de Thedmershe and Oliver son of Peter de Parva Hasele have removed Douenald de Mar, son and heir of the late earl of Mar in Scotland. He is to arrest them and to conduct them and Douenald to Westminster before the Council." Donald had already been freed from Bristol Castle and joined Edward II's household by then, and remained faithful to the king until the end of his reign and long afterwards.
15 October 1325: Edward was forced to apologise to Don Pedro Lopez de Luna, archbishop of Zaragoza and primate of Spain, for the failure of the king's envoys to Aragon (they were there to negotiate a marriage between one of his children and one of Jaime II's) to "present themselves to the archbishop or communicate their business to him." Edward declared himself "annoyed" at their tactless error.
15 October 1326: Murder of Edward's ally Walter Stapeldon, bishop of Exeter and former treasurer of England, beheaded at Cheapside with a butcher's knife by a mob who sent his head to Queen Isabella at Gloucester and threw his body to dogs. At least two of the bishop's attendants were killed with him. Not that anything could be a consolation for such a terrible fate, of course, but at least Stapeldon's 1314 foundation at Oxford, Exeter College, still exists, and his name is remembered 700 years later.
16 October 1307: Edward sent a letter to "the most excellent prince, Dolgietus, illustrious king of the Tartars," otherwise known as Oljeitu or Mohammed Khodabandeh, great-great-great-grandson of Genghis Khan and ruler of the Il-Khanate, the part of the Mongol Empire which consisted of modern-day Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Georgia, Armenia and parts of Turkey, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The letter made reference to the ambassadors Oljeitu had sent to England (and to France and the pope) seeking an alliance against the Mamluks, and informed him of the death of Edward I.
16 October 1325: Edward asked the pope to grant dispensations for his children Eleanor of Woodstock (aged seven) and Edward of Windsor (aged nearly thirteen) to marry Alfonso XI of Castile (aged fourteen) and his sister Leonor, they being second cousins once removed.
19 October 1330: Edward III, not quite eighteen years old, arrested Roger Mortimer at Nottingham Castle, and thereafter took over the rule of his kingdom.
19 October 1356: On the twenty-sixth anniversary of her husband's arrest, Roger's seventy-year-old widow Joan Geneville, dowager countess of March, died. She outlived all but four (Katherine, Agnes, Geoffrey and Beatrice) of her twelve children.
20 October 1312: Edward granted Isabella permission to make her will; as a married woman she needed her husband's consent to do this, and as her pregnancy was nearing full-term and she was facing childbirth for the first time (Edward III was born on 13 November) she must have thought, as did many other pregnant women, that making her will just in case was a good idea.
20 October 1318: Appointment of Bartholomew, Lord Badlesmere as steward of Edward II's household, replacing William Montacute, who became steward of Gascony. Badlesmere joined the Marcher rebellion against Edward in 1321/22 and suffered the traitor's death in April 1322, poor man.
20 October 1324: Opening of parliament in London. Edward II's opening address, delivered in French, is the only one of his parliamentary speeches to survive. He began "Lords, I have shown you certain things which concern the crown which have come under debate, as one who is your chief and who has the sovereign keeping of it, and as one who is ready to maintain the crown in all its rights...".
1 October 1310: Edward II bestowed two more appointments on Piers Gaveston: he made him constable of Nottingham Castle and justice of the forest north of the Trent. According to the preliminary Ordinances (reforms of the king's household) issued in March that year, Edward was meant to get the assent of the Ordainers when making appointments and gifts, but hadn't for these two. The king's grants to Piers and his removal of the Exchequer and King's Bench from London to York "much disturbed and outraged" the Ordainers, and "many fear evil," according to an anonymous letter-writer.
1 October 1313: Pope Clement V appointed Walter Reynolds as archbishop of Canterbury, thanks in large part (according to several chroniclers) to Edward II's bribes; Flores Historiarum and Vita Edwardi Secundi both say that "a large amount of gold and silver" passed between king and pope, and the Bridlington chronicler puts the amount at 32,000 marks. The author of the Flores was emphatically not a fan of Reynolds, and says that he was practically illiterate and indulged in "immoderate filthiness of lust." Given that Pope John XXII thanked Reynolds in 1317 for translating one of his letters from Latin into French for Edward II, the charge of illiteracy was not accurate, at least. (Flores, also definitely not a fan of Edward II, condemned the king's "infamy and illicit bed, full of sin," whatever that is a reference to.)
1 October 1323: Exactly two months after Roger Mortimer escaped from the Tower of London, Edward learned that he had sought refuge with his kinsmen the Fiennes brothers in Ponthieu, Edward's own county.
2 October 1326: A few days after hearing of the arrival of Roger Mortimer and Isabella's invasion force, Edward left London, realising that he could not hold a city which was hostile to him. He left the Tower under the command of his beloved niece Eleanor Despenser.
3 October 1315: The chancellor of England (John Sandall) informed Edward of the plight of the port of Berwick-on-Tweed a few months after the start of the Great Famine: "The town is in great straits, and many dying from hunger. If the mayor and himself had not promised them food and clothing for the winter, the garrison would have gone." Two days later the warden (Maurice, future Lord Berkeley) also sent an anguished letter to Edward saying that the town and inhabitants "never were in such distress" and that it would get worse in winter "if God and the king do not think more of them." Berkeley continued for the next few months to inform Edward of the dreadful hunger and suffering in Berwick, ending one letter with "Pity to see Christians leading such a life." A few of the garrison, men-at-arms and footmen, set out into Scotland to try to find food and were attacked on their way back and eighty killed or captured, including Raymond Caillau, probably a cousin of Piers Gaveston.
5 October 1317: Thomas, earl of Lancaster's retainer John Lilburn seized Knaresborough Castle in Yorkshire, which had once belonged to Piers Gaveston and was now in the hands of Edward's court favourite Roger Damory. A month later Lancaster also forcibly gained possession of Alton Castle in Staffordshire, also in Damory's custody; aggrieved by Damory's influence over the king and the favourite's hostility towards himself, Lancaster had determined to attack him. John Lilburn finally surrendered Knaresborough to Edward II on 29 January 1318.
6 October 1310: Edward sent a very aggrieved letter to the abbey of Burton-on-Trent, who had refused his request to take in his former knight Thomas de Banbury for the rest of his life and informed him that they did not have the means to do so as "theirs is the poorest and smallest abbey of their order in England." Edward sent someone to investigate their accounts, and wrote that their response "deviates in many ways from the truth, and he learns that they have means to fulfil his request, wherefore he regards their excuse as wholly insufficient." I love that phrase "Your excuse deviates in many ways from the truth." :-)
6 October 1314: A little under four months after his defeat at Bannockburn, Edward sent envoys to negotiate a truce between England and Scotland, declaring that he had had a letter from Robert Bruce saying that "the one thing in the world he [Robert] desires most is to have complete accord and friendship with us."
6 October 1315: In the middle of a month's holiday swimming and rowing in the Fens with "a great concourse of common people," during which he fell into a river and had to be hauled out by his companions, Edward II visited the famous shrine of Our Lady at Walsingham.
6 October 1320: Opening of parliament in Westminster, during which the bishop of Worcester informed the pope and Cardinal Vitale Dufour that Edward II "in the parliament summoned to London bore himself splendidly, with prudence and discretion, contrary to his former habit rising early and presenting a nobler and pleasant countenance to prelates and lords. Present almost every day in person, he arranged what business was to be dealt with, discussed and determined."
6 October 1325: Edward's half-brother Edmund of Woodstock, earl of Kent, received permission from Pope John XXII to marry Margaret Wake. This marriage resulted in four children and their grandson Richard II.
8 October 1311: Edward issued a safe-conduct for Piers Gaveston, then still in Scotland as far as I know, to come to London, where parliament had just ordered his exile for the third time. It had taken Edward six weeks to agree to it, and only after the Ordainers informed him that if he didn't agree, "the kingdom would be in turmoil and peace driven out of the land…considering also how ruthless and perilous would be the struggle between the king and his barons, that the desolation of the whole land would ensue, that amid the varying fortunes of war the capture of the king could hardly be avoided…he might through imprudence be deprived of his throne and his kingdom."
9 October 1325: Edward gave ten shillings to Jack the Trumpeter of Dover, who had bought forty-seven caged goldfinches for Edward to give to his niece Eleanor Despenser, and also paid his clerk Will of Dunstable to look after the birds until Eleanor took possession of them.
12 October 1312: A Welsh minstrel of the earl of Pembroke, whose name is recorded as 'Coghin', performed at Windsor Castle for Edward II and presumably, though she isn't mentioned, the eight-months-pregnant Isabella.
12 October 1313: Edward wrote to several influential people including the Byzantine Emperor Andronikus Palaiologos and his (Edward's) first cousin once removed "the most serene lady, and his dearest lady in Christ" the Empress Eirene, born Yolande of Montferrat, asking them to help secure the release of Sir Giles Argentein, an English knight captured and imprisoned in Thessalonika.
13 October 1307: Edward II opened his first parliament as king, at Northampton. The parliament sat only until the 16th, its aims to make arrangements for Edward I's funeral, Edward II's coronation, and his wedding to Isabella.
14 October 1318: Battle of Faughart in County Louth, during which the Anglo-Irish nobleman John de Bermingham defeated Robert Bruce's sole surviving brother Edward, who had had himself crowned High King of Ireland in 1315, and killed him. Bermingham sent the head of Edward Bruce - who had been named in honour of Edward I and had lived for a while in the household of Edward of Caernarfon before he became king - to Edward II, who made him earl of Louth in gratitude. (I really hope Edward II's friend Donald of Mar, Edward Bruce's nephew, didn't have to see his head.) Bermingham was a son-in-law of Richard de Burgh, earl of Ulster, as were Edward II's nephew the earl of Gloucester and Robert Bruce.
14 October 1322: Battle of Byland in Yorkshire; Edward II's forces defeated by the army of Robert Bruce and its commander, Edward's first cousin the earl of Richmond, captured. Edward, staying at nearby Rievaulx Abbey, was humiliatingly forced to flee to the coast to avoid being captured himself, and left most of his possessions behind.
15 October 1311: Edward granted a safe-conduct to Louis, count of Nevers and Rethel, visiting England (this is the only record I know of concerning this visit). Louis, who was about a dozen years older than Edward and then in his late thirties, had attended the king's wedding to Isabella in January 1308 with his father Robert de Béthune, count of Flanders.
15 October 1311: An odd entry on the Patent Roll concerning Robert Bruce's nephew Donald of Mar: "Writ of aid, until Martinmas, for Thomas de Langehulle, king's yeoman, from whose custody Ralph de Thedmershe and Oliver son of Peter de Parva Hasele have removed Douenald de Mar, son and heir of the late earl of Mar in Scotland. He is to arrest them and to conduct them and Douenald to Westminster before the Council." Donald had already been freed from Bristol Castle and joined Edward II's household by then, and remained faithful to the king until the end of his reign and long afterwards.
15 October 1325: Edward was forced to apologise to Don Pedro Lopez de Luna, archbishop of Zaragoza and primate of Spain, for the failure of the king's envoys to Aragon (they were there to negotiate a marriage between one of his children and one of Jaime II's) to "present themselves to the archbishop or communicate their business to him." Edward declared himself "annoyed" at their tactless error.
15 October 1326: Murder of Edward's ally Walter Stapeldon, bishop of Exeter and former treasurer of England, beheaded at Cheapside with a butcher's knife by a mob who sent his head to Queen Isabella at Gloucester and threw his body to dogs. At least two of the bishop's attendants were killed with him. Not that anything could be a consolation for such a terrible fate, of course, but at least Stapeldon's 1314 foundation at Oxford, Exeter College, still exists, and his name is remembered 700 years later.
16 October 1307: Edward sent a letter to "the most excellent prince, Dolgietus, illustrious king of the Tartars," otherwise known as Oljeitu or Mohammed Khodabandeh, great-great-great-grandson of Genghis Khan and ruler of the Il-Khanate, the part of the Mongol Empire which consisted of modern-day Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Georgia, Armenia and parts of Turkey, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The letter made reference to the ambassadors Oljeitu had sent to England (and to France and the pope) seeking an alliance against the Mamluks, and informed him of the death of Edward I.
16 October 1325: Edward asked the pope to grant dispensations for his children Eleanor of Woodstock (aged seven) and Edward of Windsor (aged nearly thirteen) to marry Alfonso XI of Castile (aged fourteen) and his sister Leonor, they being second cousins once removed.
19 October 1330: Edward III, not quite eighteen years old, arrested Roger Mortimer at Nottingham Castle, and thereafter took over the rule of his kingdom.
19 October 1356: On the twenty-sixth anniversary of her husband's arrest, Roger's seventy-year-old widow Joan Geneville, dowager countess of March, died. She outlived all but four (Katherine, Agnes, Geoffrey and Beatrice) of her twelve children.
20 October 1312: Edward granted Isabella permission to make her will; as a married woman she needed her husband's consent to do this, and as her pregnancy was nearing full-term and she was facing childbirth for the first time (Edward III was born on 13 November) she must have thought, as did many other pregnant women, that making her will just in case was a good idea.
20 October 1318: Appointment of Bartholomew, Lord Badlesmere as steward of Edward II's household, replacing William Montacute, who became steward of Gascony. Badlesmere joined the Marcher rebellion against Edward in 1321/22 and suffered the traitor's death in April 1322, poor man.
20 October 1324: Opening of parliament in London. Edward II's opening address, delivered in French, is the only one of his parliamentary speeches to survive. He began "Lords, I have shown you certain things which concern the crown which have come under debate, as one who is your chief and who has the sovereign keeping of it, and as one who is ready to maintain the crown in all its rights...".
22 October 1311: Piers Gaveston, ordered to leave England by 1 November, was given letters of protection for five years, and appointed four attorneys (William Vallibus, Roger Wellesworthe, Robert Kendale, future warden of the Cinque Ports, and John Hothum, future bishop of Ely and treasurer and chancellor of England) for the same length of time.
23 October 1321: Edward granted custody of his great seal to Queen Isabella, demonstrating his enormous trust in her.
23 October 1323: Edward visited Liverpool, which had been founded by his great-grandfather King John (youngest brother of my lovely friend Kasia's beloved Henry the Young King :) in 1207, for the only time in his reign, staying for four days. He paid a ferryman two shillings to take himself and part of his household across the Mersey from the Wirral peninsula.
24 October 1311: In the middle of his anguish over losing Piers Gaveston yet again, Edward found time to remember the Dominican priory at Langley he had founded three years earlier, and granted the house fifty pounds a year on top of the hundred pounds annually he had already given them.
26 October 1320: Edward took the South Wales Marcher lordship of Gower into his own hands, almost certainly intending to grant it to Hugh Despenser the Younger, his chamberlain who had by now achieved a position of supreme influence over the malleable king.
26 October 1321: Edward arrived at Bartholomew Badlesmere's castle of Leeds in Kent to besiege it as punishment for Badlesmere's wife Margaret de Clare refusing to allow Queen Isabella to enter it a couple of weeks before - the first stage of the king's and Hugh Despenser the Younger's cunning plan to get the Despensers back to England and get revenge on the men who had banished them. The castle garrison surrendered on 31 October; thirteen of them were hanged shortly afterwards.
27 October 1307: The funeral of Edward I took place at Westminster Abbey, three months and twenty days after his death. Edward II spent £100 on horses for knights to ride in the procession, and gave 100 marks to be distributed to the poor and two pounds to William Attefenne, sumpter-man, "for the great labour he sustained in providing torches and leather for the body of the deceased king." Edward I was buried with his first wife Eleanor of Castile and his father Henry III in the chapel of St Edward the Confessor, after whom he was named.
27 October 1312: Death in Brussels of Edward II's brother-in-law Duke John II of Brabant, at the age of only thirty-seven. John was succeeded by his only child with Edward's sister Margaret, twelve-year-old John III, who would grow up to father six legitimate children and eighteen or twenty illegitimate ones.
27 October 1326: Execution of the sixty-five-year-old Hugh Despenser the Elder, earl of Winchester, in Bristol on the orders of Roger Mortimer and Isabella of France. (No, I don't believe the chronicle written 200 miles away in Bury St Edmunds which claims that Isabella pleaded for Despenser's life but was publicly overruled by Mortimer, Henry of Lancaster and so on.) Despenser was hanged in his armour, his body fed to dogs and his head carried to Winchester on a spear for public display.
31 October 1322: The Brut chronicle and the Sempringham annals record that "the sky was of a colour like blood" or that "the sun turned to blood" from Terce to Vespers (nine a.m. to sunset) or even until eleven p.m.
23 October 1321: Edward granted custody of his great seal to Queen Isabella, demonstrating his enormous trust in her.
23 October 1323: Edward visited Liverpool, which had been founded by his great-grandfather King John (youngest brother of my lovely friend Kasia's beloved Henry the Young King :) in 1207, for the only time in his reign, staying for four days. He paid a ferryman two shillings to take himself and part of his household across the Mersey from the Wirral peninsula.
24 October 1311: In the middle of his anguish over losing Piers Gaveston yet again, Edward found time to remember the Dominican priory at Langley he had founded three years earlier, and granted the house fifty pounds a year on top of the hundred pounds annually he had already given them.
26 October 1320: Edward took the South Wales Marcher lordship of Gower into his own hands, almost certainly intending to grant it to Hugh Despenser the Younger, his chamberlain who had by now achieved a position of supreme influence over the malleable king.
26 October 1321: Edward arrived at Bartholomew Badlesmere's castle of Leeds in Kent to besiege it as punishment for Badlesmere's wife Margaret de Clare refusing to allow Queen Isabella to enter it a couple of weeks before - the first stage of the king's and Hugh Despenser the Younger's cunning plan to get the Despensers back to England and get revenge on the men who had banished them. The castle garrison surrendered on 31 October; thirteen of them were hanged shortly afterwards.
27 October 1307: The funeral of Edward I took place at Westminster Abbey, three months and twenty days after his death. Edward II spent £100 on horses for knights to ride in the procession, and gave 100 marks to be distributed to the poor and two pounds to William Attefenne, sumpter-man, "for the great labour he sustained in providing torches and leather for the body of the deceased king." Edward I was buried with his first wife Eleanor of Castile and his father Henry III in the chapel of St Edward the Confessor, after whom he was named.
27 October 1312: Death in Brussels of Edward II's brother-in-law Duke John II of Brabant, at the age of only thirty-seven. John was succeeded by his only child with Edward's sister Margaret, twelve-year-old John III, who would grow up to father six legitimate children and eighteen or twenty illegitimate ones.
27 October 1326: Execution of the sixty-five-year-old Hugh Despenser the Elder, earl of Winchester, in Bristol on the orders of Roger Mortimer and Isabella of France. (No, I don't believe the chronicle written 200 miles away in Bury St Edmunds which claims that Isabella pleaded for Despenser's life but was publicly overruled by Mortimer, Henry of Lancaster and so on.) Despenser was hanged in his armour, his body fed to dogs and his head carried to Winchester on a spear for public display.
31 October 1322: The Brut chronicle and the Sempringham annals record that "the sky was of a colour like blood" or that "the sun turned to blood" from Terce to Vespers (nine a.m. to sunset) or even until eleven p.m.
25 September, 2012
The Siege Of Caerphilly Castle, 1326/27
Shortly before Edward II and Hugh Despenser the Younger were captured in South Wales on 16 November 1326 following Roger Mortimer and Isabella's invasion, they had spent time at Hugh's great stronghold of Caerphilly, which he and his wife Eleanor had inherited from her father Gilbert 'the Red' de Clare, earl of Gloucester (died 1295). Why Edward and Hugh decided to leave a castle where they could have held out practically forever, I can't imagine, but they left it in the hands of an experienced knight named Sir John Felton and Hugh the Younger's eldest son, yet another Hugh - Edward II's chamber journals call the lad 'Huchon' and the Anonimalle chronicle names him as 'Hughelyn' - who was then seventeen or eighteen. According to an entry on the Fine Roll of 30 December 1326, when Edward II was still king but in captivity at Kenilworth Castle, he had ordered John Felton on pain of forfeiture and on an oath sworn on the Gospels not to surrender Caerphilly "to the king's wife or Edward [of Windsor] his son..." while he was at the castle in early November. Evidently the loyal Felton, who was named in Edward's chamber journal in August 1326 as one of Hugh Despenser the Younger's knights and was ordered with Donald of Mar on 14 October 1326 to hold the Marches of Wales against the rebels, took his oath seriously. [1]
Edward and Hugh had left the massive sum of £14,000 and a great deal of their treasure inside Caerphilly; see my post for some of it, and a full inventory in William Rees' book Caerphilly Castle and its place in the Annals of Glamorgan. The siege of the castle probably began very soon after Edward II's capture in mid-November, or perhaps even before. On 1 December 1326, a week after the execution of Hugh Despenser the Younger, Roger Mortimer and Isabella appointed Sir Roger Chandos as sheriff of Glamorgan and declared that "it is the king's will that the same Roger cause the siege of the castle of Kerfily, which still holds out against him, to be diligently kept up." [2] This entry on the Patent Roll was issued in the name of "the queen and the king's firstborn son," and needless to say represents Isabella's wishes, not those of her husband, who was now being held captive at Kenilworth Castle. The garrison of Caerphilly Castle under John Felton, however, refused to surrender and give up the teenaged Huchon Despenser to be executed like his father and grandfather, even when they were all promised free pardons for holding the castle against the queen. And execute the teenaged Huchon Despenser was exactly what Mortimer and Isabella wanted to do, as is made clear by several entries in the chancery rolls which offer a pardon "of the forfeiture of his life and limbs" to all members of the garrison except Huchon - presumably for no other reason than he was the son of the hated Despenser the Younger.
On 15 February 1327, Roger Mortimer and Isabella, evidently frustrated at the failure of Sir Roger Chandos to capture the castle and at the garrison's refusal to give up Huchon Despenser to his death - not to mention at the thought of all that lovely treasure and money inside that they couldn't access - appointed Sir William la Zouche, lord of Ashby in Leicestershire, to lead the siege in Chandos's place. On the same day was issued a "[p]ardon to all who were [sic] in Kaerfilly Castle when it was [sic] held against queen Isabella, except Hugh son of Hugh le Despenser the younger." [3] William la Zouche was a distant cousin of Roger Mortimer (his father was named Robert Mortimer, and he took his mother Joyce la Zouche's name), and the stepfather of Juliana Leyburne and of Thomas Beauchamp (born 1314), future earl of Warwick, by marriage to Alice de Toeni, who had died in 1324. In early 1329 la Zouche married Edward II's niece and Huchon Despenser's mother Eleanor (de Clare) Despenser and the next year joined the earl of Kent's plot to free the former Edward II from Corfe Castle, but in 1326/27 was firmly on Isabella and Mortimer's side. Roger Northburgh, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, was appointed as joint leader of the siege, rather oddly. With them were twenty bannerets, five knights, twenty-one squires, 400 footmen, men-at-arms and others. [4]
Edward and Hugh had left the massive sum of £14,000 and a great deal of their treasure inside Caerphilly; see my post for some of it, and a full inventory in William Rees' book Caerphilly Castle and its place in the Annals of Glamorgan. The siege of the castle probably began very soon after Edward II's capture in mid-November, or perhaps even before. On 1 December 1326, a week after the execution of Hugh Despenser the Younger, Roger Mortimer and Isabella appointed Sir Roger Chandos as sheriff of Glamorgan and declared that "it is the king's will that the same Roger cause the siege of the castle of Kerfily, which still holds out against him, to be diligently kept up." [2] This entry on the Patent Roll was issued in the name of "the queen and the king's firstborn son," and needless to say represents Isabella's wishes, not those of her husband, who was now being held captive at Kenilworth Castle. The garrison of Caerphilly Castle under John Felton, however, refused to surrender and give up the teenaged Huchon Despenser to be executed like his father and grandfather, even when they were all promised free pardons for holding the castle against the queen. And execute the teenaged Huchon Despenser was exactly what Mortimer and Isabella wanted to do, as is made clear by several entries in the chancery rolls which offer a pardon "of the forfeiture of his life and limbs" to all members of the garrison except Huchon - presumably for no other reason than he was the son of the hated Despenser the Younger.
On 15 February 1327, Roger Mortimer and Isabella, evidently frustrated at the failure of Sir Roger Chandos to capture the castle and at the garrison's refusal to give up Huchon Despenser to his death - not to mention at the thought of all that lovely treasure and money inside that they couldn't access - appointed Sir William la Zouche, lord of Ashby in Leicestershire, to lead the siege in Chandos's place. On the same day was issued a "[p]ardon to all who were [sic] in Kaerfilly Castle when it was [sic] held against queen Isabella, except Hugh son of Hugh le Despenser the younger." [3] William la Zouche was a distant cousin of Roger Mortimer (his father was named Robert Mortimer, and he took his mother Joyce la Zouche's name), and the stepfather of Juliana Leyburne and of Thomas Beauchamp (born 1314), future earl of Warwick, by marriage to Alice de Toeni, who had died in 1324. In early 1329 la Zouche married Edward II's niece and Huchon Despenser's mother Eleanor (de Clare) Despenser and the next year joined the earl of Kent's plot to free the former Edward II from Corfe Castle, but in 1326/27 was firmly on Isabella and Mortimer's side. Roger Northburgh, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, was appointed as joint leader of the siege, rather oddly. With them were twenty bannerets, five knights, twenty-one squires, 400 footmen, men-at-arms and others. [4]
By 20 February 1327, la Zouche or Northburgh had evidently learned the identity of some of the men holding out inside Caerphilly, and just under forty were named in yet another pardon on that date which excluded Huchon Despenser. [5] A siege of the castle might end up lasting a very long time: Gilbert 'the Red' had designed Caerphilly to be basically impregnable, and the only real option was to starve the garrison out. And therefore on 20 March 1327, the siege was abandoned and all the men inside pardoned, including Huchon Despenser, who was spared execution: "Pardon to Hugh son of Hugh le Despenser the younger of the forfeiture of his life, without restitution of his lands." [6] With Huchon's life now safe, the garrison - around 150 of them - left the castle. Huchon Despenser was imprisoned in Roger Mortimer's custody until December 1328, then transferred to Bristol Castle in the custody of Sir Thomas Gurney, named as one of Edward II's murderers in November 1330. [7] The chronicle of the royal clerk Adam Murimuth says that he, like his stepfather William la Zouche and uncle Edward de Monthermer, was involved in the 1330 plot of the earl of Kent (who like Edward II himself was Huchon's great-uncle, though there was only about seven years' age difference between the two men), though as he was in prison presumably his role could only be one of passive support. Huchon was released by Edward III after the downfall of Roger Mortimer and Isabella, and later made an excellent marriage to the earl of Salisbury's daughter Elizabeth Montacute; their tombs and effigies still exist in Tewkesbury Abbey. Huchon inherited his mother Eleanor's vast lands on her death in 1337, and died childless in February 1349, perhaps of the plague.
As for the garrison who refused to surrender him, most of them are very obscure and I doubt I could find out much about them, though there are a few I'd like to look at here:
Giles of Spain
I once wrote part of a blog post about the Castilian-born Giles, who is especially interesting: a long-term member of Edward II's household, he was another adherent of the earl of Kent in 1330, and was later sent by Edward III to pursue Thomas Gurney in Spain.
'Gills. Beaucair'
Almost certainly this means William Beaukaire, a royal sergeant-at-arms who guarded Edward of Caernarfon's body alone from 21 September to 20 October 1327. Presumably 'Gills' was a nickname for Guillaume, and presumably also William was French, as Beaucaire is a town in the south of France, near Avignon (not in the English-ruled part of the country). Most, most interesting and peculiar to see that a man who held out against Mortimer and Isabella for months with Despenser adherents was the sole guardian of Edward II's body a few months later, for an entire month.
Roger atte Watre
One of Edward II's sergeants-at-arms from at least 1311 onwards, Roger joined the Dunheved brothers in the summer of 1327 in temporarily freeing Edward of Caernarfon from Berkeley Castle.
Stephen Dun
I wonder if this means Stephen Dunheved?
Benedict (or Benet) Braham
Apparently from Suffolk, Benet was one of the men named on 31 March 1330 as aiding the earl of Kent in his plot to free Edward of Caernarfon, and ordered to be arrested.
Rodrigo (or Roderico) de Medyne
A sergeant-at-arms of Edward II who later served Edward III for many years as well. He was still alive in November 1348.
Simon Symeon
Simon later joined the household of Edward II's cousin Henry, earl of Lancaster. Known as 'Simkyn', he served the Lancasters faithfully for many years.
William Hurley
I've saved the best till last. :) William's name appears in the pardon as 'William de Hurle, carpenter', which is something of an understatement: he was Edward II and Edward III's master carpenter from the late 1310s/early 1320s to c. 1354, and worked on many projects including the palace of Westminster, the Tower of London and Windsor Castle. He is most famous for his work on the fabulous timber lantern of the octagonal crossing tower at Ely Cathedral (the original tower collapsed in 1322). More info about William here.
Sources
1) Calendar of Fine Rolls 1319-1327, p. 430; Calendar of Patent Rolls 1324-1327, p. 332.
2) Patent Rolls 1324-1327, p. 341.
3) Patent Rolls 1327-1330, pp. 12, 18; Fine Rolls 1327-1337, pp. 12-13.
4) William Rees, Caerphilly Castle and its place in the Annals of Glamorgan, p. 83.
5) Patent Rolls 1327-1330, p. 14.
6) Patent Rolls 1327-1330, pp. 37-39.
7) Calendar of Close Rolls 1327-1330, p. 352.
As for the garrison who refused to surrender him, most of them are very obscure and I doubt I could find out much about them, though there are a few I'd like to look at here:
Giles of Spain
I once wrote part of a blog post about the Castilian-born Giles, who is especially interesting: a long-term member of Edward II's household, he was another adherent of the earl of Kent in 1330, and was later sent by Edward III to pursue Thomas Gurney in Spain.
'Gills. Beaucair'
Almost certainly this means William Beaukaire, a royal sergeant-at-arms who guarded Edward of Caernarfon's body alone from 21 September to 20 October 1327. Presumably 'Gills' was a nickname for Guillaume, and presumably also William was French, as Beaucaire is a town in the south of France, near Avignon (not in the English-ruled part of the country). Most, most interesting and peculiar to see that a man who held out against Mortimer and Isabella for months with Despenser adherents was the sole guardian of Edward II's body a few months later, for an entire month.
Roger atte Watre
One of Edward II's sergeants-at-arms from at least 1311 onwards, Roger joined the Dunheved brothers in the summer of 1327 in temporarily freeing Edward of Caernarfon from Berkeley Castle.
Stephen Dun
I wonder if this means Stephen Dunheved?
Benedict (or Benet) Braham
Apparently from Suffolk, Benet was one of the men named on 31 March 1330 as aiding the earl of Kent in his plot to free Edward of Caernarfon, and ordered to be arrested.
Rodrigo (or Roderico) de Medyne
A sergeant-at-arms of Edward II who later served Edward III for many years as well. He was still alive in November 1348.
Simon Symeon
Simon later joined the household of Edward II's cousin Henry, earl of Lancaster. Known as 'Simkyn', he served the Lancasters faithfully for many years.
William Hurley
I've saved the best till last. :) William's name appears in the pardon as 'William de Hurle, carpenter', which is something of an understatement: he was Edward II and Edward III's master carpenter from the late 1310s/early 1320s to c. 1354, and worked on many projects including the palace of Westminster, the Tower of London and Windsor Castle. He is most famous for his work on the fabulous timber lantern of the octagonal crossing tower at Ely Cathedral (the original tower collapsed in 1322). More info about William here.
Sources
1) Calendar of Fine Rolls 1319-1327, p. 430; Calendar of Patent Rolls 1324-1327, p. 332.
2) Patent Rolls 1324-1327, p. 341.
3) Patent Rolls 1327-1330, pp. 12, 18; Fine Rolls 1327-1337, pp. 12-13.
4) William Rees, Caerphilly Castle and its place in the Annals of Glamorgan, p. 83.
5) Patent Rolls 1327-1330, p. 14.
6) Patent Rolls 1327-1330, pp. 37-39.
7) Calendar of Close Rolls 1327-1330, p. 352.
21 September, 2012
21 September 1327
Today is the anniversary of Edward II's supposed murder at Berkeley Castle. Edward's biographer Seymour Phillips, and indeed most other historians of the fourteenth century, still believe that Edward did indeed die at Berkeley in September 1327, though you'd have to go a long way nowadays to find a specialist on the era who accepts the red-hot poker story. Historians who specialise in other eras but choose to write or talk on television about the fourteenth century occasionally still repeat this silly story as though it's factual, because they don't know any better and they haven't kept up with modern scholarship on the issue. Wish they wouldn't, because they give the notion a spurious plausibility. You don't see me pontificating at length on the French Revolution or the Wars of the Roses or the Tudors and repeating discredited myths about them as fact, do you?
Anyway, here are some links for further reading on the controversial issue of Edward II's death and his possible survival past 1327. Properly-researched and sourced further reading, of course - unfortunately there's a heck of a lot of rubbish about Edward out there, both online, in published books and on television, and most especially on the subject of his presumed murder. Also a lot of deeply unpleasant and childish sniggering about the red-hot poker, as though such vile excruciating torture supposedly inflicted on a human being is actually funny - "They put a poker up his bottom! And he screamed really loudly! Hur hur hur hur!". Someone (who evidently doesn't realise that his computer has a shift key) left this barely literate comment yesterday on my Edward II Facebook page: "red hot poker lol hahaha roger u legend x". I deleted it. The same person also left this equally classy comment on my friend Sarah's Facebook post about Hugh Despenser the Younger's execution: "lol go on roger x", and also spammed her blog with countless stupid comments. Sod off, nasty sadistic little boy. (Incidentally, Sarah has written some great posts about Edward II lately: his sons John of Eltham and Adam; his daughter Joan of the Tower, queen of Scotland; his queen, Isabella; and also posts about his father Edward I and grandmother Eleanor of Provence.)
- Ian Mortimer's great article about Edward's survival past 1327. There's lots more information in his books The Greatest Traitor, The Perfect King and Medieval Intrigue.
- My post about the often-repeated story that Edward of Caernarfon was tormented and abused while in captivity at Berkeley Castle, an invention of the later chronicler Geoffrey le Baker and disproved by the Berkeley accounts of 1327, which show that he had servants and good food.
- My post about the writer John Trevisa's account of the red-hot poker story, which is often cited as definitive proof that the story is true on the grounds that Trevisa had inside knowledge, which he emphatically didn't; he only arrived at Berkeley Castle sixty-one years later in 1388 and, contrary to popular belief, never met Edward's custodian Thomas Berkeley, who died in 1361. Amazing, the number of commentators who can't distinguish between a grandfather and grandson and can't be bothered to check incredibly basic facts such as Trevisa's approximate date and place of birth (1342, Cornwall), and parrot the line that he was a child in Berkeley in 1327.
- An account of some of the oddities and peculiarities in the traditional narrative of Edward's death and its aftermath. If Edward really was dead in September 1327 and buried in Gloucester that December, why did so many influential people believe he was still alive years later? Why did the archbishop of York send a letter to the mayor of London in January 1330 asking him to purchase numerous provisions for the former king and declaring that "Edward of Caernarfon is alive and in good health of body"? See also here for more about the archbishop's letter, which is cited in full (in English translation) in Ian Mortimer's Medieval Intrigue.
- Further to the above, a detailed account of the plot of Edward II's half-brother the earl of Kent to free Edward from Corfe Castle in 1330, and his execution for treason. (Parts two, three, four, which look at some of his many supporters.) Also, if you can access it, my article about the plot published in the English Historical Review in 2011.
- An account of the events of September to December 1327.
- A post I wrote exactly six years ago about Edward's presumed death.
- The third part of a post, which links to the first two parts, about the men involved in the events surrounding Edward's death, or survival.
Happy reading! ;-)
Anyway, here are some links for further reading on the controversial issue of Edward II's death and his possible survival past 1327. Properly-researched and sourced further reading, of course - unfortunately there's a heck of a lot of rubbish about Edward out there, both online, in published books and on television, and most especially on the subject of his presumed murder. Also a lot of deeply unpleasant and childish sniggering about the red-hot poker, as though such vile excruciating torture supposedly inflicted on a human being is actually funny - "They put a poker up his bottom! And he screamed really loudly! Hur hur hur hur!". Someone (who evidently doesn't realise that his computer has a shift key) left this barely literate comment yesterday on my Edward II Facebook page: "red hot poker lol hahaha roger u legend x". I deleted it. The same person also left this equally classy comment on my friend Sarah's Facebook post about Hugh Despenser the Younger's execution: "lol go on roger x", and also spammed her blog with countless stupid comments. Sod off, nasty sadistic little boy. (Incidentally, Sarah has written some great posts about Edward II lately: his sons John of Eltham and Adam; his daughter Joan of the Tower, queen of Scotland; his queen, Isabella; and also posts about his father Edward I and grandmother Eleanor of Provence.)
- Ian Mortimer's great article about Edward's survival past 1327. There's lots more information in his books The Greatest Traitor, The Perfect King and Medieval Intrigue.
- My post about the often-repeated story that Edward of Caernarfon was tormented and abused while in captivity at Berkeley Castle, an invention of the later chronicler Geoffrey le Baker and disproved by the Berkeley accounts of 1327, which show that he had servants and good food.
- My post about the writer John Trevisa's account of the red-hot poker story, which is often cited as definitive proof that the story is true on the grounds that Trevisa had inside knowledge, which he emphatically didn't; he only arrived at Berkeley Castle sixty-one years later in 1388 and, contrary to popular belief, never met Edward's custodian Thomas Berkeley, who died in 1361. Amazing, the number of commentators who can't distinguish between a grandfather and grandson and can't be bothered to check incredibly basic facts such as Trevisa's approximate date and place of birth (1342, Cornwall), and parrot the line that he was a child in Berkeley in 1327.
- An account of some of the oddities and peculiarities in the traditional narrative of Edward's death and its aftermath. If Edward really was dead in September 1327 and buried in Gloucester that December, why did so many influential people believe he was still alive years later? Why did the archbishop of York send a letter to the mayor of London in January 1330 asking him to purchase numerous provisions for the former king and declaring that "Edward of Caernarfon is alive and in good health of body"? See also here for more about the archbishop's letter, which is cited in full (in English translation) in Ian Mortimer's Medieval Intrigue.
- Further to the above, a detailed account of the plot of Edward II's half-brother the earl of Kent to free Edward from Corfe Castle in 1330, and his execution for treason. (Parts two, three, four, which look at some of his many supporters.) Also, if you can access it, my article about the plot published in the English Historical Review in 2011.
- An account of the events of September to December 1327.
- A post I wrote exactly six years ago about Edward's presumed death.
- The third part of a post, which links to the first two parts, about the men involved in the events surrounding Edward's death, or survival.
Happy reading! ;-)
14 September, 2012
The Murder Of Sir Roger Belers
On 19 January 1326 a man was stabbed to death at Rearsby in Leicestershire, and a very important man he was too: Sir Roger Belers, chief baron of the Exchequer, formerly an adherent of Thomas, earl of Lancaster who had (like many other men) switched his allegiance to Edward II and the Despensers in 1321. Actually, seemingly a bit earlier than that; Belers was, with many dozens of others, pardoned for adherence to Thomas in November 1318 after the king and his turbulent cousin had finally made peace, and began to act for Edward, as justice, in December of that year. Evidently he remained on good terms with the earl of Lancaster, however, as the latter granted him "the bailiwick and stewardship" (la baillie et la seneschaucie) of the Leicestershire town of Stapleford in May 1319. [1] Hugh Despenser the Younger appointed Roger Belers as his attorney in July 1322, the day after he had been appointed a baron of the exchequer and four months after Lancaster's execution. From 1322 until his murder, Belers was a prominent figure in Edward II's regime, and was particularly influential in Leicestershire. [2]
Given Belers' political adherence of the 1320s, it has often been assumed that his murder was intended as an indirect attack on the powerful and wildly unpopular Despensers. Although this is certainly not impossible, the Sempringham annalist and the rather later Lancastrian chronicler Henry Knighton both say that Belers was on his way to dine with Thomas of Lancaster's brother Henry, earl of Leicester at the time of his death. Henry of Lancaster was certainly no friend of the Despensers, to put it mildly, even though his late wife Maud Chaworth, who died in about 1321, was the younger Despenser's older half-sister. Henry's appointment as one of the men ordered to bring the perpetrators to justice (see below) would tend to confirm that the chroniclers are correct, and that he had remained on good terms with Belers, despite the latter's change of allegiance.
Edward II, 120 miles away in Norwich at the time, heard the news of Roger Belers' murder five days later on 24 January, and appointed three men, his household steward Thomas le Blount, Henry Ferrers and John Hamelyn, "to make inquisition in the county of Leicester touching all persons concerned in the killing of Roger Beler, when he was going from Kirkeby to Leicester, and to arrest all those found guilty herein." [3] These three men were former (and future) Lancastrian adherents. The next record I can find is on 19 February, when Richard Perers, sheriff of Essex and Hertfordshire, was ordered to arrest "William son of Thomas la Zouche, knight, the brothers Folevylle and others guilty of the death of Richard Beleer." [4] On 28 February, Henry of Lancaster, earl of Leicester, Thomas le Blount (Edward II's formerly Lancastrian household steward), John Stonore and John Denum were given a commission of oyer et terminer ('to hear and determine') "touching the persons indicted of the death of Roger Beler, killed in going from Kirkeby to Leycestre, by an inquisition lately made by John Hamelyn and Henry de Ferers...". [5]
The next day, 1 March, Edward II's good friend and supporter Donald of Mar and another ten men including Edward's former household steward Richard Damory (elder brother of his late favourite Roger Damory) were appointed to "follow and arrest" the killers and bring them before Henry of Lancaster and his associates. [6] The men were now more fully named as: Ralph son of Roger la Zouche of Lubbesthorpe, Leicestershire; Roger la Zouche, son of Roger la Zouche, lord of Lubbesthorpe, knight; the brothers Eustace, Robert, Walter and Richard Folville, the latter parson of the church of Teigh in Leicestershire; Robert de Helewell, knight; Ivo son of William la Zouche of Haringworth, knight; Adam de Barley; William de Barkeston of Bitham; Robert son of Simon Hauberk of Scalford. On 14 March the justices of Wales and Ireland, the earl of Arundel and John Darcy, were appointed to pursue and arrest the men, some of whom were believed to have fled into Wales, and the sheriff of Leicestershire Edmund Ashby was ordered to arrest Thomas Folville, another brother, charged with aiding his brother Eustace, Ralph la Zouche and unnamed others of their gang to flee abroad and thus escape justice. [7] Finally, on 18 March John Denum and two other men were appointed to arrest the eleven men already named, and two others were added: John and William Stafford. [8]
Roger Belers' murderers were mostly or all local, from Leicestershire, the county where he was murdered and also where he held the majority of his lands. The seat of the Folvilles, Ashby Folville, is only five miles from Belers' (see below). Given this, and given the way Belers was still close enough to Henry of Lancaster to be invited to dine with him at Leicester and that many of the men charged with finding his killers were Lancastrians, I find some kind of local feud or disagreement between Belers and the thirteen men named as his killers a more convincing explanation for his death than vague notions that the murder was in some way intended as an attack on the two Hugh Despensers. Belers' seat was at Kirby Bellars near Melton Mowbray, where he founded an Augustinian priory in 1316; Rearsby, where he was murdered, lies five miles along the road from Kirby to Leicester, so there seems to be no reason to doubt that he was indeed riding there to meet Henry of Lancaster, earl of Leicester when he met his killers, as stated in several entries in the chancery rolls and in two chronicles. Belers left a widow named Alice and sons named Roger and Thomas (the latter perhaps named after the late earl of Lancaster, though of course I'm only speculating there); his elder son was still under age, i.e. under twenty-one, in June 1327. [9]
Edward II's biographer Seymour Phillips calls Belers "one of the most hated supporters of the Despensers," [10] which he probably was, though evidently not by Henry of Lancaster and some former Lancastrian adherents willing to pursue the men who killed him. I'm not really convinced that Belers' murder came about as a result of his alliance with the Despensers. With someone like Sir Robert Holland, Thomas of Lancaster's close ally who also abandoned him in 1321/22 and was murdered by some of Thomas's former adherents in 1328, you can see that Henry must still have been angry with Holland for his betrayal, as he took his killers under his protection. He certainly didn't do that with Belers' killers. I don't know what kind of feud or disagreement might have been arisen between Belers and the men who killed him, though I wonder if I researched the men and their backgrounds long enough, something might turn up.
Edward II and plenty of other men made strenuous efforts to capture those responsible for Roger Belers' murder, though to no avail: they all, as far as I can tell, fled either to Wales or to Roger Mortimer in France, where they returned with his invasion force in the autumn of 1326. It seems that Edward knew that some of them had joined Mortimer, as several days after the invasion, on 28 September 1326, Belers' killers were specifically excluded from a proclamation pardoning felons who would join the king against Mortimer. [11] Mortimer repaid some of them with pardons for the murder as soon as he was in a position to do so: on 11 February 1327, the Folville brothers Robert, Eustace, Richard and Walter, Adam de Barley and William de Barkeston were pardoned for the murder, along with three men whose names I haven't otherwise seen connected with the death, John Lovet, Thomas Alberd and William de Larketon. Maybe Mortimer had information that Edward II and his commissioners hadn't found. Sir Roger la Zouche of Lubbesthorpe was pardoned on 20 February 1327 for Belers' death and also for "breaking prison at Leicester," which implies that he had been temporarily captured after the murder and perhaps that one or several of his associates, maybe Thomas Folville who was accused of aiding some of the gang to flee abroad, had been instrumental in this. At around the same time Mortimer appointed three men, including John Denum, "to hear and determine the inquisition and indictments, returned by Thomas le Blount, John Hamelyn and Henry de Ferers, touching the death of Roger Beler while going from Kirkeby to Leicester." [12] What he was hoping to find or to achieve, having pardoned most of the men guilty of the murder, I don't know. The three men named in 1327 increases the number of those involved in Belers' death to sixteen; although he apparently had a retinue of fifty men with him, they were unable to save him. The chronicler Henry Knighton lays most of the blame for Belers' stabbing on Eustace Folville, the second-eldest of the seven Folville brothers (the eldest, John, did not participate, and neither did Laurence, as far as I can tell).
A monument known as the Folville Cross is said to mark the spot of Roger Belers' murder. For the Folville brothers, it was their first major crime, but certainly not their last: until the early 1340s they terrorised the English Midlands as one of the most notorious criminal gangs of the era.
Sources
1) Calendar of Patent Rolls 1317-1321, pp. 228, 335; the entry on Belers by Jens Röhrkasten in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
2) Patent Rolls 1321-1324, p. 189; Röhrkasten, ODNB.
3) Patent Rolls 1324-1327, p. 238.
4) Calendar of Chancery Warrants 1244-1326, p. 575.
5) Patent Rolls 1324-1327, pp. 283-284.
6) Patent Rolls 1324-1327, p. 284.
7) Calendar of Close Rolls 1323-1327, pp. 550-551; Patent Rolls 1324-1327, p. 250.
8) Patent Rolls 1324-1327, p. 286.
9) Calendar of Fine Rolls 1319-1327, pp. 375, 379, 386; Close Rolls 1323-1327, pp. 452-453; ibid. 1327-1330, p. 132, etc.
10) Seymour Phillips, Edward II (2010), p. 492.
11) Patent Rolls 1324-1327, p. 328.
12) Patent Rolls 1327-1330, pp. 10, 20, 70, 73.
Given Belers' political adherence of the 1320s, it has often been assumed that his murder was intended as an indirect attack on the powerful and wildly unpopular Despensers. Although this is certainly not impossible, the Sempringham annalist and the rather later Lancastrian chronicler Henry Knighton both say that Belers was on his way to dine with Thomas of Lancaster's brother Henry, earl of Leicester at the time of his death. Henry of Lancaster was certainly no friend of the Despensers, to put it mildly, even though his late wife Maud Chaworth, who died in about 1321, was the younger Despenser's older half-sister. Henry's appointment as one of the men ordered to bring the perpetrators to justice (see below) would tend to confirm that the chroniclers are correct, and that he had remained on good terms with Belers, despite the latter's change of allegiance.
Edward II, 120 miles away in Norwich at the time, heard the news of Roger Belers' murder five days later on 24 January, and appointed three men, his household steward Thomas le Blount, Henry Ferrers and John Hamelyn, "to make inquisition in the county of Leicester touching all persons concerned in the killing of Roger Beler, when he was going from Kirkeby to Leicester, and to arrest all those found guilty herein." [3] These three men were former (and future) Lancastrian adherents. The next record I can find is on 19 February, when Richard Perers, sheriff of Essex and Hertfordshire, was ordered to arrest "William son of Thomas la Zouche, knight, the brothers Folevylle and others guilty of the death of Richard Beleer." [4] On 28 February, Henry of Lancaster, earl of Leicester, Thomas le Blount (Edward II's formerly Lancastrian household steward), John Stonore and John Denum were given a commission of oyer et terminer ('to hear and determine') "touching the persons indicted of the death of Roger Beler, killed in going from Kirkeby to Leycestre, by an inquisition lately made by John Hamelyn and Henry de Ferers...". [5]
The next day, 1 March, Edward II's good friend and supporter Donald of Mar and another ten men including Edward's former household steward Richard Damory (elder brother of his late favourite Roger Damory) were appointed to "follow and arrest" the killers and bring them before Henry of Lancaster and his associates. [6] The men were now more fully named as: Ralph son of Roger la Zouche of Lubbesthorpe, Leicestershire; Roger la Zouche, son of Roger la Zouche, lord of Lubbesthorpe, knight; the brothers Eustace, Robert, Walter and Richard Folville, the latter parson of the church of Teigh in Leicestershire; Robert de Helewell, knight; Ivo son of William la Zouche of Haringworth, knight; Adam de Barley; William de Barkeston of Bitham; Robert son of Simon Hauberk of Scalford. On 14 March the justices of Wales and Ireland, the earl of Arundel and John Darcy, were appointed to pursue and arrest the men, some of whom were believed to have fled into Wales, and the sheriff of Leicestershire Edmund Ashby was ordered to arrest Thomas Folville, another brother, charged with aiding his brother Eustace, Ralph la Zouche and unnamed others of their gang to flee abroad and thus escape justice. [7] Finally, on 18 March John Denum and two other men were appointed to arrest the eleven men already named, and two others were added: John and William Stafford. [8]
Roger Belers' murderers were mostly or all local, from Leicestershire, the county where he was murdered and also where he held the majority of his lands. The seat of the Folvilles, Ashby Folville, is only five miles from Belers' (see below). Given this, and given the way Belers was still close enough to Henry of Lancaster to be invited to dine with him at Leicester and that many of the men charged with finding his killers were Lancastrians, I find some kind of local feud or disagreement between Belers and the thirteen men named as his killers a more convincing explanation for his death than vague notions that the murder was in some way intended as an attack on the two Hugh Despensers. Belers' seat was at Kirby Bellars near Melton Mowbray, where he founded an Augustinian priory in 1316; Rearsby, where he was murdered, lies five miles along the road from Kirby to Leicester, so there seems to be no reason to doubt that he was indeed riding there to meet Henry of Lancaster, earl of Leicester when he met his killers, as stated in several entries in the chancery rolls and in two chronicles. Belers left a widow named Alice and sons named Roger and Thomas (the latter perhaps named after the late earl of Lancaster, though of course I'm only speculating there); his elder son was still under age, i.e. under twenty-one, in June 1327. [9]
 |
| The area of Leicestershire in question, from Google Maps. Leicester is to the south-west. |
Edward II and plenty of other men made strenuous efforts to capture those responsible for Roger Belers' murder, though to no avail: they all, as far as I can tell, fled either to Wales or to Roger Mortimer in France, where they returned with his invasion force in the autumn of 1326. It seems that Edward knew that some of them had joined Mortimer, as several days after the invasion, on 28 September 1326, Belers' killers were specifically excluded from a proclamation pardoning felons who would join the king against Mortimer. [11] Mortimer repaid some of them with pardons for the murder as soon as he was in a position to do so: on 11 February 1327, the Folville brothers Robert, Eustace, Richard and Walter, Adam de Barley and William de Barkeston were pardoned for the murder, along with three men whose names I haven't otherwise seen connected with the death, John Lovet, Thomas Alberd and William de Larketon. Maybe Mortimer had information that Edward II and his commissioners hadn't found. Sir Roger la Zouche of Lubbesthorpe was pardoned on 20 February 1327 for Belers' death and also for "breaking prison at Leicester," which implies that he had been temporarily captured after the murder and perhaps that one or several of his associates, maybe Thomas Folville who was accused of aiding some of the gang to flee abroad, had been instrumental in this. At around the same time Mortimer appointed three men, including John Denum, "to hear and determine the inquisition and indictments, returned by Thomas le Blount, John Hamelyn and Henry de Ferers, touching the death of Roger Beler while going from Kirkeby to Leicester." [12] What he was hoping to find or to achieve, having pardoned most of the men guilty of the murder, I don't know. The three men named in 1327 increases the number of those involved in Belers' death to sixteen; although he apparently had a retinue of fifty men with him, they were unable to save him. The chronicler Henry Knighton lays most of the blame for Belers' stabbing on Eustace Folville, the second-eldest of the seven Folville brothers (the eldest, John, did not participate, and neither did Laurence, as far as I can tell).
A monument known as the Folville Cross is said to mark the spot of Roger Belers' murder. For the Folville brothers, it was their first major crime, but certainly not their last: until the early 1340s they terrorised the English Midlands as one of the most notorious criminal gangs of the era.
Sources
1) Calendar of Patent Rolls 1317-1321, pp. 228, 335; the entry on Belers by Jens Röhrkasten in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
2) Patent Rolls 1321-1324, p. 189; Röhrkasten, ODNB.
3) Patent Rolls 1324-1327, p. 238.
4) Calendar of Chancery Warrants 1244-1326, p. 575.
5) Patent Rolls 1324-1327, pp. 283-284.
6) Patent Rolls 1324-1327, p. 284.
7) Calendar of Close Rolls 1323-1327, pp. 550-551; Patent Rolls 1324-1327, p. 250.
8) Patent Rolls 1324-1327, p. 286.
9) Calendar of Fine Rolls 1319-1327, pp. 375, 379, 386; Close Rolls 1323-1327, pp. 452-453; ibid. 1327-1330, p. 132, etc.
10) Seymour Phillips, Edward II (2010), p. 492.
11) Patent Rolls 1324-1327, p. 328.
12) Patent Rolls 1327-1330, pp. 10, 20, 70, 73.
09 September, 2012
September Anniversaries
1 September 1317: Attack by Sir Gilbert Middleton on two cardinals visiting England, Gaucelin D'Eauze and Luca Fieschi, the latter a kinsman of Edward II, while they were on their way to the inauguration of the new bishop of Durham, Louis Beaumont (also a kinsman of Edward II). Middleton was hanged, drawn and quartered a few months later.
2 September 1325: Edward II made his twelve-year-old son Edward of Windsor count of Ponthieu, which county the king had inherited from his mother Eleanor of Castile on her death in 1290, prior to sending the boy to France to pay homage to Isabella's brother Charles IV for Edward's French possessions.
5 September 1316: Inauguration of the Gascon-born Jacques Duèse, cardinal-bishop of Porto, as Pope John XXII in Avignon. Edward II sent gifts worth a staggering £1604 to "the Lord John, by the grace of God, pope," including a cope "embroidered and studded with large white pearls," several golden ewers, thirteen golden salt-cellars, numerous golden dishes and bowls, a golden basin and a golden chalice. He also paid £300 for an incense boat, a ewer and a "gold buckle set with diverse pearls and other precious stones" to be sent in Queen Isabella's name, and 100 marks for another cope embroidered by Roesia, wife of London merchant John de Bureford, also sent in the queen's name.
7 September 1314: With parliament due to start in York on the 9th, the first one since his humiliating defeat at Bannockburn the previous June, Edward II suddenly left the city and took himself off to the village of Oulston seventeen miles away, empowering the earl of Pembroke, Henry Beaumont and the bishop of Exeter to open parliament in his absence. He claimed that he was "unable to be present on account of some important and special business" concerning himself, though what required his urgent attention in a small Yorkshire village, I can't imagine. He returned to York on 10 September.
7 September 1319: Edward finally arrived in Berwick-upon-Tweed to begin besieging it in order to recapture it from Robert Bruce. The campaign should have started on 10 June. Edward kept himself amused during the siege, and paid his minstrel Rob Withstaff and two musicians sent to him by his brother-in-law Philip V of France for playing before him, ordered hunting dogs sent from Wales, and had two of his falcons brought from London. The siege, needless to say, failed, and Berwick remained in Scottish hands. At some point during it, Edward is meant to have said "I have not forgotten the wrong that was done to my brother Piers," ominous words aimed at his cousin the earl of Lancaster, who had left Berwick in a temper at the failure of the siege.
7 September 1362: Death of Edward II's youngest child Joan of the Tower, queen of Scotland, at the age of forty-one. She was buried near her mother Isabella at the Greyfriars Church in London. See Sarah's great post about Joan from a couple of days ago.
9 September 1312: Queen Isabella, seven months pregnant with the future Edward III, was reunited with Edward II at Windsor Castle, the first time they had seen each other since late June. Edward had kept her safely out of the way in York as the kingdom teetered on the brink of civil war in the aftermath of Piers Gaveston's death.
10 September 1325: Edward's son Edward of Windsor became duke of Aquitaine on this day, before sailing to France two days later to pay homage to his uncle Charles IV. This appointment changed Edward II's royal style, as he always called himself 'king of England, lord of Ireland and duke of Aquitaine'.
12 September 1319: Battle of Myton following the siege of Berwick.
18 September 1324: Edward took all of Isabella's lands into his own hands and granted her a smaller income in their place, treating his own wife as an enemy alien during his war with her brother Charles IV.
20 September 1312: Edward increased the annual grants of his 1308 foundation of Langley Priory to 500 marks a year.
22 September 1324: Edward's half-brother the earl of Kent signed a six-month truce with his (Kent's) uncle Charles, count of Valois, in Gascony during the war of Saint-Sardos.
24 September 1326: Arrival of Queen Isabella and Roger Mortimer's invasion force in Norfolk.
25 September 1317: Inauguration of Edward's friend William Melton as archbishop of York. Melton, who held the position until his death in 1340, protested against Edward's abdication in January 1327, and joined the plot of the earl of Kent to free him in 1330 (he wrote the famous Melton Letter which states that 'Edward of Caernarfon is alive', more than two years after the former king's supposed death.
27 September 1316: Edward gave a pound to Isabella's messenger William Galayn, who brought him news of her imminent arrival in York. Isabella had given birth to their second son John of Eltham only twelve days previously in Kent, but Edward, worried about his cousin the earl of Lancaster's hostility, summoned the queen to him with as speed as possible.
27 September 1316: Edward gave five pounds to the messenger of Cardinal Arnaud de Pellegrue - nephew of Pope Clement V, who died in 1314 - who brought him news of John XXII's inauguration.
27 September 1326: Date on which Edward II, staying at the Tower of London, heard news of the arrival of the invasion force.
28 September 1324: Edward ordered the arrest of any French people living in England during the war of Saint-Sardos.
29/30 September 1308: Edward attended a double wedding at Waltham Abbey in Essex: his seventeen-year-old nephew Gilbert de Clare, earl of Gloucester, married Maud, daughter of Richard de Burgh, earl of Ulster, and at the same time, Gilbert's sister Elizabeth, just two weeks past her thirteenth birthday, married Ulster's eldest son and heir, John. The latter was destined to die in 1313 before his father, leaving Elizabeth with a baby son, William, future earl of Ulster. Maud, countess of Gloucester, is most famous for pretending to be pregnant by her husband years after Gloucester's death at Bannockburn.
30 September 1321: Attack on Southampton by men of Winchelsea. A petition by the people of Southampton claims that Robert Batail, baron of the Cinque Ports, and his men burnt and stole their ships, chattels, merchandise and goods to a loss of £8000 "in conspiracy with Hugh le Despenser the son," who had recently been sent into exile by his Contrariant enemies and who accused the townspeople of supporting the earl of Lancaster against the king. The petition also claims that Edward "sent the community of Southampton to Portchester Castle, and imprisoned them there, and made them swear not to bring any suit against the people of the Cinque Ports, promising to make good their losses; which he did not do." Given that Edward placed Despenser under the care of the men of the Cinque Ports, and that he arrived at Portchester four days after the attack on Southampton, the two men's involvement in this latest piece of lawlessness seems quite possible.
2 September 1325: Edward II made his twelve-year-old son Edward of Windsor count of Ponthieu, which county the king had inherited from his mother Eleanor of Castile on her death in 1290, prior to sending the boy to France to pay homage to Isabella's brother Charles IV for Edward's French possessions.
5 September 1316: Inauguration of the Gascon-born Jacques Duèse, cardinal-bishop of Porto, as Pope John XXII in Avignon. Edward II sent gifts worth a staggering £1604 to "the Lord John, by the grace of God, pope," including a cope "embroidered and studded with large white pearls," several golden ewers, thirteen golden salt-cellars, numerous golden dishes and bowls, a golden basin and a golden chalice. He also paid £300 for an incense boat, a ewer and a "gold buckle set with diverse pearls and other precious stones" to be sent in Queen Isabella's name, and 100 marks for another cope embroidered by Roesia, wife of London merchant John de Bureford, also sent in the queen's name.
7 September 1314: With parliament due to start in York on the 9th, the first one since his humiliating defeat at Bannockburn the previous June, Edward II suddenly left the city and took himself off to the village of Oulston seventeen miles away, empowering the earl of Pembroke, Henry Beaumont and the bishop of Exeter to open parliament in his absence. He claimed that he was "unable to be present on account of some important and special business" concerning himself, though what required his urgent attention in a small Yorkshire village, I can't imagine. He returned to York on 10 September.
7 September 1319: Edward finally arrived in Berwick-upon-Tweed to begin besieging it in order to recapture it from Robert Bruce. The campaign should have started on 10 June. Edward kept himself amused during the siege, and paid his minstrel Rob Withstaff and two musicians sent to him by his brother-in-law Philip V of France for playing before him, ordered hunting dogs sent from Wales, and had two of his falcons brought from London. The siege, needless to say, failed, and Berwick remained in Scottish hands. At some point during it, Edward is meant to have said "I have not forgotten the wrong that was done to my brother Piers," ominous words aimed at his cousin the earl of Lancaster, who had left Berwick in a temper at the failure of the siege.
7 September 1362: Death of Edward II's youngest child Joan of the Tower, queen of Scotland, at the age of forty-one. She was buried near her mother Isabella at the Greyfriars Church in London. See Sarah's great post about Joan from a couple of days ago.
9 September 1312: Queen Isabella, seven months pregnant with the future Edward III, was reunited with Edward II at Windsor Castle, the first time they had seen each other since late June. Edward had kept her safely out of the way in York as the kingdom teetered on the brink of civil war in the aftermath of Piers Gaveston's death.
10 September 1325: Edward's son Edward of Windsor became duke of Aquitaine on this day, before sailing to France two days later to pay homage to his uncle Charles IV. This appointment changed Edward II's royal style, as he always called himself 'king of England, lord of Ireland and duke of Aquitaine'.
12 September 1319: Battle of Myton following the siege of Berwick.
18 September 1324: Edward took all of Isabella's lands into his own hands and granted her a smaller income in their place, treating his own wife as an enemy alien during his war with her brother Charles IV.
20 September 1312: Edward increased the annual grants of his 1308 foundation of Langley Priory to 500 marks a year.
22 September 1324: Edward's half-brother the earl of Kent signed a six-month truce with his (Kent's) uncle Charles, count of Valois, in Gascony during the war of Saint-Sardos.
24 September 1326: Arrival of Queen Isabella and Roger Mortimer's invasion force in Norfolk.
25 September 1317: Inauguration of Edward's friend William Melton as archbishop of York. Melton, who held the position until his death in 1340, protested against Edward's abdication in January 1327, and joined the plot of the earl of Kent to free him in 1330 (he wrote the famous Melton Letter which states that 'Edward of Caernarfon is alive', more than two years after the former king's supposed death.
27 September 1316: Edward gave a pound to Isabella's messenger William Galayn, who brought him news of her imminent arrival in York. Isabella had given birth to their second son John of Eltham only twelve days previously in Kent, but Edward, worried about his cousin the earl of Lancaster's hostility, summoned the queen to him with as speed as possible.
27 September 1316: Edward gave five pounds to the messenger of Cardinal Arnaud de Pellegrue - nephew of Pope Clement V, who died in 1314 - who brought him news of John XXII's inauguration.
27 September 1326: Date on which Edward II, staying at the Tower of London, heard news of the arrival of the invasion force.
28 September 1324: Edward ordered the arrest of any French people living in England during the war of Saint-Sardos.
29/30 September 1308: Edward attended a double wedding at Waltham Abbey in Essex: his seventeen-year-old nephew Gilbert de Clare, earl of Gloucester, married Maud, daughter of Richard de Burgh, earl of Ulster, and at the same time, Gilbert's sister Elizabeth, just two weeks past her thirteenth birthday, married Ulster's eldest son and heir, John. The latter was destined to die in 1313 before his father, leaving Elizabeth with a baby son, William, future earl of Ulster. Maud, countess of Gloucester, is most famous for pretending to be pregnant by her husband years after Gloucester's death at Bannockburn.
30 September 1321: Attack on Southampton by men of Winchelsea. A petition by the people of Southampton claims that Robert Batail, baron of the Cinque Ports, and his men burnt and stole their ships, chattels, merchandise and goods to a loss of £8000 "in conspiracy with Hugh le Despenser the son," who had recently been sent into exile by his Contrariant enemies and who accused the townspeople of supporting the earl of Lancaster against the king. The petition also claims that Edward "sent the community of Southampton to Portchester Castle, and imprisoned them there, and made them swear not to bring any suit against the people of the Cinque Ports, promising to make good their losses; which he did not do." Given that Edward placed Despenser under the care of the men of the Cinque Ports, and that he arrived at Portchester four days after the attack on Southampton, the two men's involvement in this latest piece of lawlessness seems quite possible.
30 September 1322: Burial of Edward II's illegitimate son Adam, then probably in his mid-teens or thereabouts, at Tynemouth Priory.
01 September, 2012
Roger Mortimer's Grandchildren
I did a genealogical post recently about Henry of Lancaster's grandchildren which seemed to go down rather well, and here's one about some of the grandchildren of Roger Mortimer, lord of Wigmore and first earl of March (25 April 1287 - 29 November 1330) and Joan Geneville (2 February 1286 - 19 October 1356). The couple married in 1301 and had four sons and eight daughters (see Ian Mortimer's The Greatest Traitor for more info): Edmund (the eldest son and Roger's heir), Roger, Geoffrey, John, Margaret (the eldest daughter), Isabella, Joan, Maud, Agnes, Katherine, Beatrice and Blanche. Talking of the latter, here and here are pics of Blanche's stunning effigy in Much Marcle, Herefordshire. Please take a moment to have a look. Isn't she beautiful? Look at the way her gown is made to spill over the edge of the tomb, her hands clutching a rosary, her tight-fitting gown and head-dress in the style of the mid-fourteenth century. Stunning. And here is the effigy of Blanche's sister Katherine and her husband the earl of Warwick, in Warwick.
Eight of Roger and Joan's twelve children had children of their own, though Geoffrey married and had a family in France and I haven't included any of his children here. The other seven were Edmund, Margaret, Maud, Katherine, Joan, Agnes and Beatrice. As far as I can work out, Roger Mortimer and Joan Geneville had close to forty grandchildren. In no particular order, here are some of them:
- Roger Mortimer, second earl of March (11 November 1328 - 26 February 1360)
Son and heir of Roger and Joan's eldest son Edmund, who didn't outlive his father long, dying only a year or so after Roger's execution in November 1330. Roger the younger's mother was Elizabeth, one of the four daughters and co-heirs, following the death of their brother Giles, of Bartholomew, Lord Badlesmere and his wife Margaret de Clare, sister of Maud, Lady Clifford. Elizabeth Mortimer née Badlesmere married as her second husband Edward II's nephew William de Bohun, earl of Northampton, which means that Roger Mortimer, second earl of March and Humphrey de Bohun, earl of Hereford, Essex and Northampton, 1342-1372, were half-brothers. Roger married Philippa Montacute, one of the daughters of Edward III's close friend William, earl of Salisbury (d. 1344), himself the son of Edward II's close friend William Montacute (d. 1319). Philippa's brother, yet another William (1328-1297), was the man whose marriage to Joan 'the Fair Maid' of Kent was famously annulled as she had previously and secretly married his steward Thomas Holland; her sisters included Elizabeth, who married firstly Giles Badlesmere above and secondly Hugh Despenser the Younger's son and heir Hugh (d. 1349; their effigies still exist in Tewkesbury Abbey), and Sybil, who married Sir Edmund Arundel, grandson of Hugh Despenser the Younger and of the earl of Arundel executed in 1326. Edward III restored Roger to his grandfather's controversial earldom of March and arranged the marriage of Roger's heir Edmund to his (Edward III's) granddaughter Philippa, heir of Lionel, duke of Clarence, in the 1350s.
- Maurice, Lord Berkeley (c. late 1330 - 8 June 1368)
Eldest son of Roger and Joan's eldest daughter Margaret (c. 1307/08 - 5 May 1337) and her husband Thomas, Lord Berkeley (1293/97 - 27 October 1361), Edward of Caernarfon's custodian in 1327. According to John Smyth, early seventeenth-century historian of the Berkeley family, Maurice was born sometime late in Edward III's fourth regnal year, which would place his birth around the end of 1330, or about the time that his Mortimer grandfather was executed. When he was still a child in August 1338, Maurice married Hugh Despenser the Younger's youngest child Elizabeth, who was some years his senior, born perhaps in December 1325 when her mother Eleanor de Clare is known to have given birth, or who may have been Hugh's posthumous child and born in late 1326 or 1327. Maurice and Elizabeth had three daughters and four sons; their eldest son and Maurice's heir was Thomas, Lord Berkeley (5 January 1353 - 13 July 1417), father-in-law of Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick (see below). Maurice was badly wounded at the battle of Poitiers in September 1356, captured, and held hostage in France until 1360 when his ransom was paid off. He succeeded his father as Lord Berkeley the following year and died on 8 June 1368 supposedly of his old wounds from Poitiers, and had evidently been infirm for some time before that, as he was unable to attend his son Thomas's wedding to Margaret Lisle in November 1367. For more info about Maurice and his wife Elizabeth, see my post.
- John Hastings, earl of Pembroke (29 August 1347 - 16 April 1375)
Only child of Roger and Joan's daughter Agnes and her husband Laurence Hastings, earl of Pembroke (1320-1348, only child of Juliana Leyburne, one of my favourite people of the era, and John, Lord Hastings, nephew and co-heir of Aymer de Valence, earl of Pembroke). John's father Laurence died when John was one year and one day old, on 30 August 1348 at the age of twenty-eight; his mother Agnes Mortimer married again, to a knight named John Hakelut, and died in July 1368. John married firstly, in Reading in May 1359 when he was eleven, Edward III and Philippa of Hainault's daughter Margaret - her brother John of Gaunt married Blanche of Lancaster the next day, also at Reading and in the king's presence - who was a year his senior and died suddenly in October 1361, leaving John a fourteen-year-old widower. He married secondly Edward III's cousin Anne Manny, granddaughter and co-heir with her elder half-sister Elizabeth Segrave of Edward II's half-brother Thomas of Brotherton, earl of Norfolk. John died in France in 1375, not yet twenty-eight. By Anne Manny he left a son John, born October/November 1372, who married firstly John of Gaunt's daughter Elizabeth of Lancaster, who was a few years his senior, and secondly Philippa Mortimer, granddaughter of Roger Mortimer, second earl of March and great-granddaughter of Edward III. The younger John was killed jousting at the age of seventeen at Christmas 1389 before the couple had children, and so, sadly, the line of my beloved Juliana Leyburne ended.
- Thomas Beauchamp, earl of Warwick (before 16 March 1339 - 8 April 1401)
Second son of Roger and Joan's daughter Katherine and her husband Thomas Beauchamp, earl of Warwick (born in 1314, son of Guy, who abducted Piers Gaveston in 1312), Thomas succeeded his father as earl in 1369 as his elder brother Guy had died in 1360, leaving only daughters. With his allies Thomas of Woodstock, duke of Gloucester, and Richard Fitzalan, earl of Arundel, Thomas was one of the Lords Appellant of Richard II's reign, and was imprisoned by Richard in the Tower of London in 1397, in the tower which still bears his name. Unlike the murdered Gloucester and executed Aundel, however, Thomas Beauchamp did survive Richard's reign. He married Margaret Ferrers, granddaughter of Elizabeth de Clare's daughter Isabella Verdon, and his son and heir Richard was born in January 1381 when Thomas was over fifty; Earl Richard married Elizabeth Berkeley, granddaughter of Maurice Berkeley and Elizabeth Despenser, and secondly Isabel Despenser, great-great-granddaughter and heir of Hugh Despenser the Younger. Thomas Beauchamp was the great-grandfather of Richard III's queen Anne Nevill.
- Reinbrun Beauchamp
One of the many children of Roger and Joan's daughter Katherine and her husband the earl of Warwick, and brother of Earl Thomas, above. I have to admit I know nothing at all about Reinbrun, not even the approximate date of his death, but a name like that deserves to be remembered. :-)
- Philippa Stafford, née Beauchamp, countess of Stafford (early/mid-1340s - before 6 April 1386)
Another of the many, fifteen or so, children of Katherine Mortimer and Thomas Beauchamp, earl of Warwick. Philippa married Hugh Stafford, second earl of Stafford, born in the early 1340s as the second son of Ralph Stafford and his abducted wife Margaret Audley, only child and heir of Hugh Audley, earl of Gloucester and Margaret de Clare, countess of Cornwall and Gloucester. Hugh Stafford had an elder brother Ralph, who was betrothed to Henry of Grosmont's daughter Maud but died as a child in 1347, so Hugh became heir to his father and to his grandmother Margaret de Clare's third of the vast inheritance of her late brother. Hugh Stafford and Philippa Beauchamp had eight or nine children, including three earls of Stafford, Edmund, Thomas and William. Their eldest son Ralph, who should have succeeded as earl of Stafford, was murdered in 1385 by Richard II's half-brother John Holland, earl of Huntingdon and later duke of Exeter, and their daughter Margaret married Ralph Nevill, first earl of Westmorland, and was the mother of his first nine children (Henry IV's half-sister Joan Beaufort was the mother of his next fourteen, including Katherine, duchess of Norfolk and Cecily, duchess of York). Philippa and Hugh's daughter Katherine (died 1419) married Michael de la Pole, earl of Suffolk; Katherine's granddaughter Margaret Kerdeston married Jean de Foix, count of Benauges, and it is via this line that Philippa Beauchamp and Hugh Stafford have some remarkably illustrious descendants: Anna Jagiellonka, princess of Hungary and Holy Roman Empress, was their great-great-great-great-granddaughter, and other descendants included all the kings of France from Louis XIII onwards, kings of Spain, kings and queens of Poland, and Holy Roman Emperors.
- Sir John Braose or Brewose (c. 1339 - 1366/67)
John was the elder of the two sons of Roger Mortimer and Joan Geneville's daughter Beatrice, who may have been their youngest child (the birth order of the Mortimer children is pretty well impossible to work out), as she was the last to die, in 1383. Beatrice was first married in 1329 when her father was at the height of his power to Edward, son and heir of Edward II's half-brother Thomas of Brotherton, earl of Norfolk, when they were both still children; Edward died in the early 1330s. Beatrice married secondly in about 1334 Sir Thomas Braose or Brewose, a man of considerably lower rank than her first husband (but then, the Mortimers had been punching above their weight with a marriage to a king's son and brother). John Braose was married fairly briefly to Elizabeth Montacute, one of the four daughters of the earl of Salisbury's (d. 1344) brother Edward and Thomas of Brotherton's younger daughter Alice - who was tragically beaten up by her husband so badly in the early 1350s she died of her injuries - so there was still clearly a connection between the families. Elizabeth died as a teenager in 1361, and as far as I know John did not remarry and died childless. I don't know how, if at all, this Braose/Brewose family is related to the more famous one of the same name, including the William de Braose hanged by Llywelyn in 1230.
- Maud, Lady Clifford, née Beauchamp (1330s/40s - 1402/03)
Maud was yet another of the children of Katherine Mortimer and Thomas Beauchamp, earl of Warwick. She married Roger, Lord Clifford, who was born on 10 July 1333 as the son of Isabel Berkeley (d. 1362), sister of Thomas, Lord Berkeley, and of Robert, Lord Clifford (1305-1344), whose brother Roger, Lord Clifford was executed by Edward II in 1322. Roger, the one Maud Beauchamp married, was the grandson of Robert, Lord Clifford killed at Bannockburn. Roger and Maud's eldest son, who died in August 1391, was called Thomas - another name finally, hallelujah - their grandson John was killed at the siege of Meaux in 1422, and their great-great-grandson John Clifford is infamous for killing Edmund, earl of Rutland, brother of the future Edward IV, after the battle of Wakefield in December 1460.
- John, Lord Charlton or Cherleton (c. 1334 - 13 July 1374)
John was the son of John, Lord Charlton (d. 1360) and Maud Mortimer. His paternal grandfather, also John Charlton, was Edward II's chamberlain before Hugh Despenser the Younger; his paternal grandmother Hawise Gadarn was heir to the lordship of Powys. John married Joan Stafford, one of the daughters of Ralph Stafford, earl of Stafford and Margaret Audley, and they had two sons: the elder, John, was born on 25 April 1362 and married Alice, daughter of Richard Fitzalan, earl of Arundel, but died childless in October 1401; the second, Edward, was born in about 1371 and married Eleanor Holland, daughter of Richard II's half-brother Thomas Holland and another Alice Fitzalan, the aunt of the one who married Edward's elder brother. Eleanor Holland was the widow of Roger Mortimer, fourth earl of March, died 1398, namesake grandson of the second earl of March.
- Joan, Lady Cobham, née Berkeley (late 1320s/mid-1330s - 2 October 1369)
Joan was the only daughter of Margaret Mortimer and Thomas, Lord Berkeley, and the sister of Maurice, Lord Berkeley above. Before 26 July 1337, when they were both children, she married Thomas, son of the well-known Despenser adherent Sir John Haudlo and his second wife Maud Burnell; her brother Maurice married Elizabeth Despenser the following year, their father Thomas evidently keen to heal the divisions of Edward II's reign. Sadly Thomas was dead within two years of the wedding, leaving Joan a widow when she can't have been more than about ten and maybe have been considerably less. In 1343 when she was at most fourteen, she married Sir Reginald Cobham, who was born in 1295 and was thus the same age as her father. Joan and Reginald had a son and a daughter, their son, inevitably named Reginald, marrying Eleanor Maltravers, granddaughter and heir of John Maltravers and the widow of Sir John Arundel, marshal of England. Reginald and Eleanor had a son Reginald, the father of Eleanor Cobham, who married Henry V's brother Humphrey, duke of Gloucester.
- Joan, Lady Tuchet, née Audley (c. 1332 - 1392/93)
Joan's mother was Roger Mortimer and Joan Geneville's daughter Joan, and her father was James, Lord Audley, who was born on 8 January 1313 as the son of Nicholas Audley and Joan Martin, dowager countess of Lincoln (the stepmother, though she was probably a decade or so Alice's junior, of Alice de Lacy). Joan married John Tuchet of Markeaton in Derbyshire, who was born on 25 July 1327 as the son of Thomas and Joan Tuchet, of whom I know nothing. John Tuchet and Joan Audley's son John Tuchet, born in about 1347 or 1350, may have been the eldest great-grandchild of Roger Mortimer and Joan Geneville (the only others I can think of who may have been older were the daughters of Maurice Berkeley and Elizabeth Despenser), and was killed in a naval battle off La Rochelle in 1372.
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| EDIT: Thank you to Ian Mortimer for sending me a photo of the effigy of Roger and Joan's eldest daughter Margaret, Lady Berkeley, in Bristol Cathedral! |
- Roger Mortimer, second earl of March (11 November 1328 - 26 February 1360)
Son and heir of Roger and Joan's eldest son Edmund, who didn't outlive his father long, dying only a year or so after Roger's execution in November 1330. Roger the younger's mother was Elizabeth, one of the four daughters and co-heirs, following the death of their brother Giles, of Bartholomew, Lord Badlesmere and his wife Margaret de Clare, sister of Maud, Lady Clifford. Elizabeth Mortimer née Badlesmere married as her second husband Edward II's nephew William de Bohun, earl of Northampton, which means that Roger Mortimer, second earl of March and Humphrey de Bohun, earl of Hereford, Essex and Northampton, 1342-1372, were half-brothers. Roger married Philippa Montacute, one of the daughters of Edward III's close friend William, earl of Salisbury (d. 1344), himself the son of Edward II's close friend William Montacute (d. 1319). Philippa's brother, yet another William (1328-1297), was the man whose marriage to Joan 'the Fair Maid' of Kent was famously annulled as she had previously and secretly married his steward Thomas Holland; her sisters included Elizabeth, who married firstly Giles Badlesmere above and secondly Hugh Despenser the Younger's son and heir Hugh (d. 1349; their effigies still exist in Tewkesbury Abbey), and Sybil, who married Sir Edmund Arundel, grandson of Hugh Despenser the Younger and of the earl of Arundel executed in 1326. Edward III restored Roger to his grandfather's controversial earldom of March and arranged the marriage of Roger's heir Edmund to his (Edward III's) granddaughter Philippa, heir of Lionel, duke of Clarence, in the 1350s.
- Maurice, Lord Berkeley (c. late 1330 - 8 June 1368)
Eldest son of Roger and Joan's eldest daughter Margaret (c. 1307/08 - 5 May 1337) and her husband Thomas, Lord Berkeley (1293/97 - 27 October 1361), Edward of Caernarfon's custodian in 1327. According to John Smyth, early seventeenth-century historian of the Berkeley family, Maurice was born sometime late in Edward III's fourth regnal year, which would place his birth around the end of 1330, or about the time that his Mortimer grandfather was executed. When he was still a child in August 1338, Maurice married Hugh Despenser the Younger's youngest child Elizabeth, who was some years his senior, born perhaps in December 1325 when her mother Eleanor de Clare is known to have given birth, or who may have been Hugh's posthumous child and born in late 1326 or 1327. Maurice and Elizabeth had three daughters and four sons; their eldest son and Maurice's heir was Thomas, Lord Berkeley (5 January 1353 - 13 July 1417), father-in-law of Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick (see below). Maurice was badly wounded at the battle of Poitiers in September 1356, captured, and held hostage in France until 1360 when his ransom was paid off. He succeeded his father as Lord Berkeley the following year and died on 8 June 1368 supposedly of his old wounds from Poitiers, and had evidently been infirm for some time before that, as he was unable to attend his son Thomas's wedding to Margaret Lisle in November 1367. For more info about Maurice and his wife Elizabeth, see my post.
- John Hastings, earl of Pembroke (29 August 1347 - 16 April 1375)
Only child of Roger and Joan's daughter Agnes and her husband Laurence Hastings, earl of Pembroke (1320-1348, only child of Juliana Leyburne, one of my favourite people of the era, and John, Lord Hastings, nephew and co-heir of Aymer de Valence, earl of Pembroke). John's father Laurence died when John was one year and one day old, on 30 August 1348 at the age of twenty-eight; his mother Agnes Mortimer married again, to a knight named John Hakelut, and died in July 1368. John married firstly, in Reading in May 1359 when he was eleven, Edward III and Philippa of Hainault's daughter Margaret - her brother John of Gaunt married Blanche of Lancaster the next day, also at Reading and in the king's presence - who was a year his senior and died suddenly in October 1361, leaving John a fourteen-year-old widower. He married secondly Edward III's cousin Anne Manny, granddaughter and co-heir with her elder half-sister Elizabeth Segrave of Edward II's half-brother Thomas of Brotherton, earl of Norfolk. John died in France in 1375, not yet twenty-eight. By Anne Manny he left a son John, born October/November 1372, who married firstly John of Gaunt's daughter Elizabeth of Lancaster, who was a few years his senior, and secondly Philippa Mortimer, granddaughter of Roger Mortimer, second earl of March and great-granddaughter of Edward III. The younger John was killed jousting at the age of seventeen at Christmas 1389 before the couple had children, and so, sadly, the line of my beloved Juliana Leyburne ended.
- Thomas Beauchamp, earl of Warwick (before 16 March 1339 - 8 April 1401)
Second son of Roger and Joan's daughter Katherine and her husband Thomas Beauchamp, earl of Warwick (born in 1314, son of Guy, who abducted Piers Gaveston in 1312), Thomas succeeded his father as earl in 1369 as his elder brother Guy had died in 1360, leaving only daughters. With his allies Thomas of Woodstock, duke of Gloucester, and Richard Fitzalan, earl of Arundel, Thomas was one of the Lords Appellant of Richard II's reign, and was imprisoned by Richard in the Tower of London in 1397, in the tower which still bears his name. Unlike the murdered Gloucester and executed Aundel, however, Thomas Beauchamp did survive Richard's reign. He married Margaret Ferrers, granddaughter of Elizabeth de Clare's daughter Isabella Verdon, and his son and heir Richard was born in January 1381 when Thomas was over fifty; Earl Richard married Elizabeth Berkeley, granddaughter of Maurice Berkeley and Elizabeth Despenser, and secondly Isabel Despenser, great-great-granddaughter and heir of Hugh Despenser the Younger. Thomas Beauchamp was the great-grandfather of Richard III's queen Anne Nevill.
- Reinbrun Beauchamp
One of the many children of Roger and Joan's daughter Katherine and her husband the earl of Warwick, and brother of Earl Thomas, above. I have to admit I know nothing at all about Reinbrun, not even the approximate date of his death, but a name like that deserves to be remembered. :-)
- Philippa Stafford, née Beauchamp, countess of Stafford (early/mid-1340s - before 6 April 1386)
Another of the many, fifteen or so, children of Katherine Mortimer and Thomas Beauchamp, earl of Warwick. Philippa married Hugh Stafford, second earl of Stafford, born in the early 1340s as the second son of Ralph Stafford and his abducted wife Margaret Audley, only child and heir of Hugh Audley, earl of Gloucester and Margaret de Clare, countess of Cornwall and Gloucester. Hugh Stafford had an elder brother Ralph, who was betrothed to Henry of Grosmont's daughter Maud but died as a child in 1347, so Hugh became heir to his father and to his grandmother Margaret de Clare's third of the vast inheritance of her late brother. Hugh Stafford and Philippa Beauchamp had eight or nine children, including three earls of Stafford, Edmund, Thomas and William. Their eldest son Ralph, who should have succeeded as earl of Stafford, was murdered in 1385 by Richard II's half-brother John Holland, earl of Huntingdon and later duke of Exeter, and their daughter Margaret married Ralph Nevill, first earl of Westmorland, and was the mother of his first nine children (Henry IV's half-sister Joan Beaufort was the mother of his next fourteen, including Katherine, duchess of Norfolk and Cecily, duchess of York). Philippa and Hugh's daughter Katherine (died 1419) married Michael de la Pole, earl of Suffolk; Katherine's granddaughter Margaret Kerdeston married Jean de Foix, count of Benauges, and it is via this line that Philippa Beauchamp and Hugh Stafford have some remarkably illustrious descendants: Anna Jagiellonka, princess of Hungary and Holy Roman Empress, was their great-great-great-great-granddaughter, and other descendants included all the kings of France from Louis XIII onwards, kings of Spain, kings and queens of Poland, and Holy Roman Emperors.
- Sir John Braose or Brewose (c. 1339 - 1366/67)
John was the elder of the two sons of Roger Mortimer and Joan Geneville's daughter Beatrice, who may have been their youngest child (the birth order of the Mortimer children is pretty well impossible to work out), as she was the last to die, in 1383. Beatrice was first married in 1329 when her father was at the height of his power to Edward, son and heir of Edward II's half-brother Thomas of Brotherton, earl of Norfolk, when they were both still children; Edward died in the early 1330s. Beatrice married secondly in about 1334 Sir Thomas Braose or Brewose, a man of considerably lower rank than her first husband (but then, the Mortimers had been punching above their weight with a marriage to a king's son and brother). John Braose was married fairly briefly to Elizabeth Montacute, one of the four daughters of the earl of Salisbury's (d. 1344) brother Edward and Thomas of Brotherton's younger daughter Alice - who was tragically beaten up by her husband so badly in the early 1350s she died of her injuries - so there was still clearly a connection between the families. Elizabeth died as a teenager in 1361, and as far as I know John did not remarry and died childless. I don't know how, if at all, this Braose/Brewose family is related to the more famous one of the same name, including the William de Braose hanged by Llywelyn in 1230.
- Maud, Lady Clifford, née Beauchamp (1330s/40s - 1402/03)
Maud was yet another of the children of Katherine Mortimer and Thomas Beauchamp, earl of Warwick. She married Roger, Lord Clifford, who was born on 10 July 1333 as the son of Isabel Berkeley (d. 1362), sister of Thomas, Lord Berkeley, and of Robert, Lord Clifford (1305-1344), whose brother Roger, Lord Clifford was executed by Edward II in 1322. Roger, the one Maud Beauchamp married, was the grandson of Robert, Lord Clifford killed at Bannockburn. Roger and Maud's eldest son, who died in August 1391, was called Thomas - another name finally, hallelujah - their grandson John was killed at the siege of Meaux in 1422, and their great-great-grandson John Clifford is infamous for killing Edmund, earl of Rutland, brother of the future Edward IV, after the battle of Wakefield in December 1460.
- John, Lord Charlton or Cherleton (c. 1334 - 13 July 1374)
John was the son of John, Lord Charlton (d. 1360) and Maud Mortimer. His paternal grandfather, also John Charlton, was Edward II's chamberlain before Hugh Despenser the Younger; his paternal grandmother Hawise Gadarn was heir to the lordship of Powys. John married Joan Stafford, one of the daughters of Ralph Stafford, earl of Stafford and Margaret Audley, and they had two sons: the elder, John, was born on 25 April 1362 and married Alice, daughter of Richard Fitzalan, earl of Arundel, but died childless in October 1401; the second, Edward, was born in about 1371 and married Eleanor Holland, daughter of Richard II's half-brother Thomas Holland and another Alice Fitzalan, the aunt of the one who married Edward's elder brother. Eleanor Holland was the widow of Roger Mortimer, fourth earl of March, died 1398, namesake grandson of the second earl of March.
- Joan, Lady Cobham, née Berkeley (late 1320s/mid-1330s - 2 October 1369)
Joan was the only daughter of Margaret Mortimer and Thomas, Lord Berkeley, and the sister of Maurice, Lord Berkeley above. Before 26 July 1337, when they were both children, she married Thomas, son of the well-known Despenser adherent Sir John Haudlo and his second wife Maud Burnell; her brother Maurice married Elizabeth Despenser the following year, their father Thomas evidently keen to heal the divisions of Edward II's reign. Sadly Thomas was dead within two years of the wedding, leaving Joan a widow when she can't have been more than about ten and maybe have been considerably less. In 1343 when she was at most fourteen, she married Sir Reginald Cobham, who was born in 1295 and was thus the same age as her father. Joan and Reginald had a son and a daughter, their son, inevitably named Reginald, marrying Eleanor Maltravers, granddaughter and heir of John Maltravers and the widow of Sir John Arundel, marshal of England. Reginald and Eleanor had a son Reginald, the father of Eleanor Cobham, who married Henry V's brother Humphrey, duke of Gloucester.
- Joan, Lady Tuchet, née Audley (c. 1332 - 1392/93)
Joan's mother was Roger Mortimer and Joan Geneville's daughter Joan, and her father was James, Lord Audley, who was born on 8 January 1313 as the son of Nicholas Audley and Joan Martin, dowager countess of Lincoln (the stepmother, though she was probably a decade or so Alice's junior, of Alice de Lacy). Joan married John Tuchet of Markeaton in Derbyshire, who was born on 25 July 1327 as the son of Thomas and Joan Tuchet, of whom I know nothing. John Tuchet and Joan Audley's son John Tuchet, born in about 1347 or 1350, may have been the eldest great-grandchild of Roger Mortimer and Joan Geneville (the only others I can think of who may have been older were the daughters of Maurice Berkeley and Elizabeth Despenser), and was killed in a naval battle off La Rochelle in 1372.
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