Photos of the Marches (1)

I'm back from a really great holiday! The Marches (Shropshire/Herefordshire) are a wonderful part of England, and I recommend the area very highly, if you ever get a chance to go there. It's very rural, with lots of quaint little villages, more buildings of historical interest than you could possibly imagine, and gorgeous countryside. Everywhere you go, you get long, wide views of lush, green, rolling countryside.

I have loads of photos of the following places, which I'll be posting here over the next few days:

- Ludlow Castle and town, Shropshire

- Wigmore Castle, Herefordshire

- Stokesay Castle, Shropshire

- Clun Castle and village, Shropshire

- Lower Brockhampton, Herefordshire (late 14th century moated manor house) and estate

- Hereford

- Leominster, Herefordshire

- Pembridge, Weobley, Leintwardine, Orleton - villages in Herefordshire

- Church Stretton, Shropshire and surrounding countryside (The Long Mynd and Wenlock Edge)

I have about 750 photos, far more than I can post here, so if anyone's interested in seeing more, feel free to contact me at: mail at edwardthesecond dot com (with appropriate symbols and without spaces, of course), and I'll send them off to you.

Since the terrible floods in July, it's actually been pretty dry in England, as you can see from a dried-up stream bed in Church Stretton, the low level of the River Wye in Hereford, and a small lake close to Stokesay Castle:

But the countryside is still as green as you'd expect:

[Top to bottom: countryside near Church Stretton; the moat at Lower Brockhampton; the River Teme at Ludlow; view of the Herefordshire countryside from Wigmore Castle]

We stayed in northern Herefordshire, about halfway between Ludlow and Leominster (pronounced 'Lemster'), in a converted 19th century cider mill. The owners have kept the original features downstairs:

This is where the apples were crushed - the wheel was drawn by a horse.

This is my absolute favourite photo, taken inside Ludlow Castle:

I love the way the sun is coming through the windows - and check out the blue and purple splodges in the middle of the photo. (Also, if you look through the window on the left, you can see a workman bending over with his backside sticking up in the air. I didn't notice that when I took the photo...honest! ;)

This is my mum's dog Tara, learning all about Edward II (with my other half's feet in the background, haha)

But sadly, she soon lost interest!

Driving between Leintwardine and Clun, we passed over into Wales for a few miles.

In Wales, almost everything is written in Welsh and English, as on this van:

[Click on the photos to get a larger version.]

But this is my favourite sign, from Clun. "Dog owners beware, young ducks in the area"! :-)

And finally, this sign in Ludlow ("We speak Polish") caters to the vast numbers of Polish people working in the UK these days.

Great name for a bunch of lawyers, too.

Loads more to come soon!

Trip to the Marches

This will be the last post for a while, as my holiday starts tomorrow. We're off to Herefordshire/Shropshire, to explore lots of historic towns, castles, cathedrals, including: Roger Mortimer's castles of Wigmore and Ludlow; Hereford, where the Younger Despenser was executed in 1326; Hereford Cathedral and the Mappa Mundi; the Black and White Village Trail, with lots of medieval and Tudor buildings; the site of the Battle of Mortimer's Cross, 1461; and Lower Brockhampton, a late fourteenth-century moated manor house. And more! Yay!

Keep your fingers crossed for me that the weather isn't tooooo bad - and see you on or around 25 September!

Some Women of Castile

Lately, I've been getting really fascinated by Edward II's Castilian forebears. I sometimes wonder how aware Edward was of his Spanish heritage, what he thought of Spain and his ancestors (and his scandalous uncles). This post looks at some of the women of his Castilian family.

The story begins in Burgos, Northern Spain, in September 1177, with the marriage of two of Edward II's great-great-grandparents: Alfonso VIII of Castile and Eleanor of England (their wedding is also said to have taken place in 1170; this was presumably a marriage by proxy). Alfonso was born in Soria on 11 November 1155, the son of King Sancho III of Castile and Blanca of Navarre, the daughter of García VII of Navarre. Alfonso VIII succeeded his father as King of Castile on 31 August 1158, not yet three years old.

Eleanor was the second daughter of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine, born in Domfront, Normandy, on 13 October 1162. At the time of their wedding, Alfonso and Eleanor were almost twenty-two and almost fifteen respectively. Their marriage was to prove extremely successful. Alfonso's reign is beyond the scope of this post, but he was one of the great Spanish kings, and Queen Eleanor was her husband's chief counsellor. She bore him twelve children, of whom five (Sancho, Sancha, Mafalda, Enrique and Constanza) died young. Their eldest surviving son and heir, infante don Fernando, died of a fever on 14 October 1211, aged not quite twenty-two, which plunged Castile into deep mourning and must have been a terrible blow to his parents.

Alfonso VIII died at Gutiérre Múñoz on 6 October 1214, in his late fifties, succeeded by his youngest child and only surviving son, Enrique I. Enrique was born on 14 April 1204, so was only ten when he became King of Castile. Alfonso had left instructions that Queen Eleanor was to act as Regent for their son, but she was so devastated by grief that she became ill and only outlived him by several weeks. Instead, their daughter Berenguela acted as Regent.

Doña Berenguela (or Berengaria), the eldest child of Alfonso VIII and Queen Eleanor, and Edward II's great-grandmother, was probably born in the summer of 1180, in Segovia. In 1188, she was betrothed to Konrad von Hohenstaufen, Duke of Swabia and Rothenburg, the fifth of the six sons of Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa and Beatrice, Countess of Burgundy. Konrad was born in 1173, and was murdered in Durlach near Karlsruhe on 15 August 1196, before his marriage to Berenguela could take place; there's a story that the murderer was the husband of a woman Konrad had raped. He was said to be "thoroughly given to adultery, fornication, defilement, and every foulness; nevertheless, he was vigorous and brave in battle and generous to his friends." Possibly Berenguela had a lucky escape.

Instead, she was married in December 1197 to her first cousin once removed Alfonso IX, King of León, who was born on 15 August 1171 in Zamora and succeeded his father Fernando II in January 1188. Alfonso was known as 'the Slobberer', apparently because he foamed at the mouth during his frequent fits of rage (not such a lucky escape for Berenguela, then). Alfonso had previously been married to Teresa (Tarasia), daughter of Sancho I of Portugal, who gave him a son and two daughters, and had at least a dozen illegitimate children. The Pope was furious at the match, as no dispensation had been sought; he excommunicated Berenguela and Alfonso, placed Castile and León under an Interdict, and later annulled their marriage. However, he allowed their children to remain legitimate.

Alfonso returned to his first wife Teresa of Portugal, and eventually left León in his will to his two daughters by her (their son died in 1214). In 1214, Berenguela returned to Castile to preside over her father's funeral (her mother being too grief-stricken to do so) and soon afterwards began to act as Regent for her young brother Enrique I.

Enrique died aged thirteen in Palencia on 6 June 1217, when a falling tile hit him on the head. Berenguela thus became Queen of Castile in her own right, but immediately abdicated in favour of her eldest son, Edward II's grandfather, who became Fernando III. Fernando was sixteen, three years older than his uncle Enrique. Again, Berenguela acted as Regent. In 1230, her former husband Alfonso IX died, and Fernando inherited his kingdom of León; Fernando and Berenguela set aside the claims of his elder half-sisters, Alfonso IX's daughters by Teresa of Portugal. In 1219, Berenguela arranged her son's marriage to Elisabeth (Beatriz) of Swabia, the niece of her former fiancé Konrad, and the granddaughter of two emperors.

Queen Berenguela finally retired from public life in 1230, having acted as her son's chief counsellor for many years, and died on 8 November 1246, in her mid sixties. She was buried, as were her parents, at the monastery of Santa María la Real at Las Huelgas, in Burgos, which they had founded. In 1254, Berenguela's granddaughter Leonor (Eleanor) was married there to the future Edward I of England. She is sometimes called Berenguela the Great.

Doña Urruca, the second surviving daughter, was born in 1186 or early 1187, and married the future Afonso II of Portugal in 1206. Afonso, known as 'the Fat' (o Gordo), was born on 23 April 1185, and succeeded his father Sancho I on 26 March 1212. He was the brother of Teresa of Portugal, first wife of Alfonso IX of León. Queen Urraca bore her husband four sons, including two kings of Portugal, Sancho II and Afonso III, and a daughter Leonor, who was Queen of Denmark. She died in 1220. Her son Sancho II was forced to abdicate by his brother Afonso III in 1247, and died in exile in Toledo; Afonso III lived until 1279. Urraca's husband King Afonso II died on 25 March 1223 at Coimbra, his birthplace.

Doña Blanca. The most famous of the children of Alfonso VIII and Eleanor of England, known to history as Blanche of Castile. Blanca was born at Palencia shortly before 4 March 1188, and married the future Louis VIII of France on 23 May 1200. He had previously been betrothed to her sister Urraca, but the story goes that their grandmother Eleanor of Aquitaine, sent to Castile to fetch Urraca, judged that Blanca's character was better suited to be Queen of France.

Louis was born on 5 September 1187, exactly six months older than Blanca. He succeeded his father Philip Augustus on 14 July 1223, having previously taken part (with Blanca's support) in an invasion of England, invited by some of the English barons who were fed-up with King John, Edward II's great-grandfather. There's a strong case that Louis should be included in the list of English monarchs, as he was proclaimed King in London in May 1216. However, King John fortuitously died five months later, and Louis gave up all claims to the English throne in the Treaty of Lambeth the following year.

Louis, who gave Blanca twelve or thirteen children, died of dysentery on 8 November 1226, aged thirty-nine. He was succeeded by his eldest son Saint Louis IX, born 25 April 1214, and it was now that Queen Blanca/Blanche really came into her own. She ruled France as Regent until about 1234, though exactly when Louis took control of government is not clear. Blanca proved to be an enormously effective Regent.

Blanca died on 26 November 1252, in her mid sixties, a few days after she fell into a bale of hay (?!) at Melun, and was buried at Maubuisson. She had remained in close contact with her sister Berenguela until Berenguela's death. Like their mother Eleanor of England and their grandmother Eleanor of Aquitaine, both were powerful, intelligent and extremely capable women.

Doña Constanza, the fourth or fifth daughter, was born sometime between 1195 and 1203. She became Abbess of the monastery of Santa María la Real, Las Huelgas, which was founded by her parents. Her niece doña Constanza, daughter of Berenguela, was also a nun at Las Huelgas, as were many other women of the Castilian royal family. Abbess Constanza died in 1243.

Doña Leonor, the fourth or fifth daughter, was born around 1200 or 1202. On 6 February 1221, she married Jaime I of Aragón, el Conquistador, who was much Leonor's junior, born on 1 or 2 February 1208 (so he married Leonor a few days before his thirteenth birthday). In April 1229, Jaime had their marriage annulled on the grounds of consanguinity, although their child don Alfonso, who was born before February 1228, remained legitimate. Alfonso married the countess of Bigorre, Constance de Béarn, on 23 March 1260, and died three days later. Constance de Béarn then married Henry of Almain, son of Richard of Cornwall and nephew of Henry III of England.

After her separation from Jaime, Queen Leonor became a nun at Las Huelgas, and died in 1244. Jaime subsequently married Yolande, daughter of Andras II of Hungary, by whom he had numerous children, including his heir Pedro III, Isabella, queen of Philip III of France, and Violante, queen of Alfonso X of Castile.

Of the five daughters of Alfonso VIII and Eleanor of England, four were queens, and one was an abbess.

And finally, another of Edward II's great-great-grandmothers, another one with a Castilian connection: Alais (Alys, Alix, Alice, Adele etc - the poor woman's name isn't even known for certain) of France. Alais was born on 4 October 1160, the younger daughter of Louis VII of France and his second wife Constanza of Castile, who died giving birth to Alais.

Alais was the first cousin of Alfonso VIII of Castile and of Alfonso IX of León, above, and was betrothed to Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine's second son Richard (the Lionheart) in January 1169, when she was eight and Richard eleven. Her elder sister Marguerite married Richard's elder brother Henry the Young King in 1177. Henry died in 1183, and Marguerite married King Béla III of Hungary (by his first wife, the four greats-grandfather of Edward III of England).

Alais' marriage to Richard never took place, and she was said to be the mistress of her would-be father-in-law, Henry II - whose wife Eleanor of Aquitaine was the first wife of Alais' father Louis VII, and the mother of her two half-sisters Alix and Marie, who were also her fiancé Richard's half-sisters. (Complicated doesn't begin to cover it.)

Richard , having succeeded to the English throne in July 1189, repudiated Alais in March 1191, on the grounds that she had borne a child to his father. On 12 May 1191, Richard married Berengaria of Navarre, daughter of Sancho VI; she was Alais' first cousin (their mothers Constanza and Sancha were sisters). Alais continued to live in England in disgrace until Richard sent her back to France in 1195.

Her half-brother King Philip Augustus promptly married her off to Guillaume, Count of Ponthieu. The wedding took place on 20 August 1195, a few weeks before Alais' thirty-fifth birthday; Guillaume was probably sixteen. Despite the age gap, Alais and Guillaume had a daughter, Marie, born in April 1199; it's possible that they also had a son, Jean, who was killed at the Battle of Bouvines in 1214, and another daughter who died young.

Alais died sometime after 28 July 1218. Count Guillaume died on 4 October 1221, and Ponthieu passed to their daughter Marie. She married Simon, Count of Aumale, and was the mother of Jeanne, also Countess of Ponthieu in her own right. Jeanne married the widowed Fernando III of Castile in 1237, and they were the parents of Eleanor of Castile, Edward II's mother.

Alais is the protagonist of Judith Koll Healey's entertaining but wildly inaccurate novel The Canterbury Papers (also called The Lost Letters of Aquitaine).

Edward II And His Niece – An Affair?

It’s a little-known fact that two chronicles contemporary with Edward II’s reign state explicitly that Edward had an affair with Eleanor de Clare, his own niece, wife of Hugh Despenser the Younger. Eleanor was the eldest daughter of Edward’s sister Joan of Acre, and only eight and a half years younger than he was.

Both chronicles were written in Hainault, not England: the Chronographica Regum Francorum of 1322/23 and Willelmi Cappellani, in 1326. Cappellani states that the reason Eleanor was imprisoned in the Tower of London from autumn 1326 was because she might be pregnant by Edward. In this context, I should point out that Queen Isabella was in Hainault in 1326, so the source for the allegation may have come from her retinue.

Is there any truth to the statement, or was it merely a rumour, possibly to discredit Edward? In 1326, this would make sense, as Queen Isabella was estranged from her husband and negotiating an alliance with Count William of Hainault against Edward. In 1322/23, however, there was no reason to try to discredit the king. As mentioned, none of the English chronicles refer to a possible affair, except possibly the later chronicler Henry Knighton, who states somewhat cryptically that while Isabella was in France from 1325 to 1326, Eleanor de Clare was treated as though she were queen. Queen in every way – or only in terms of Edward’s affection for her, and the influence she wielded through her husband, the king’s favourite?

It’s important to point out here that no contemporary sources, either in England or anywhere else, state explicitly that Edward II had sexual relations with men, either - although the contemporary Vita Edwardi Secundi talks about Edward’s ‘love and tenderness towards Piers’, Edward’s ‘unswerving affection’ for him, and says, with a notable lack of censure, ‘I do not remember to have heard that one man so loved another’. The chronicler Robert of Reading, who died in 1325 and who hated Edward II, says in his Flores Historiarum that Edward enjoyed ‘wicked and forbidden sex’ and ‘rejected the sweet conjugal embraces of Queen Isabella’. Does this mean sex with men? Or incest? Or both?

In modern times, Edward II is frequently depicted as a ‘gay icon’, the ‘only openly homosexual king’ of medieval England, for example in Derek Jarman’s explicit film version of Christopher Marlowe’s play Edward II, the film Braveheart, and numerous online texts. The presumed (and in my view, 100% untrue) narrative of Edward’s murder by red-hot poker is often seen as a punishment for his presumed sexual acts with men. However, it’s apparent that he was capable of enjoying sexual relations with women, too - and that his sexuality was rather more complex than commonly supposed.

I’ve written before of the existence of Edward’s illegitimate son Adam, which presupposes that he had a relationship with Adam’s mother, whoever she might have been – as Edward would hardly have acknowledged the boy if he hadn’t been sure he was the father, which would hardly be the case if he only met the mother for one night. Piers Gaveston almost certainly had an illegitimate daughter, Amie, Hugh Despenser the Younger was probably the father out of wedlock of Nicholas de Litlyngton, Abbot of Westminster, and Roger Damory – another of Edward II’s favourites – seems also to have had at least one illegitimate son, and possibly three or four. (Apologies for all the ‘probably’s and ‘seems’ in that paragraph; it’s very difficult to be sure of paternity 700 years later).

As well as his illegitimate son, Edward showed sexual interest in women on other occasions: two chronicles say that he ‘consorted with harlots’, and when he was fourteen, he paid a woman called Maud Makejoy two shillings to dance for him. In 1313, in Pontoise, he watched fifty-four people dance naked for him – but whether men or women or both, I don’t know. However, Edward’s behaviour makes clear that he was emotionally reliant on men, and no mistresses appear in the records, even though he responded to women physically.

To return to Eleanor de Clare, is there any evidence that she did have a relationship with her uncle? Other than the two chronicles, not directly. However, there are some hints of the closeness between Edward and Eleanor:

After 1322, Edward II generally only granted Queen Isabella’s requests to him (for favours for herself or others, pardons, etc) if they came through Eleanor, who had far more influence with Edward than his wife did. This is rather odd.

In the final year of his reign, Edward visited Eleanor eleven times. He accommodated her at Sheen, a royal manor, in 1325, and visited her there. One of the visits, in October 1325, cost the large sum of 67 pounds and 17 shillings.

Edward showered his niece with gifts, including: expensive jewels, 47 caged goldfinches, and money – lots of money, for example 100 marks (66 pounds) on one occasion, 100 pounds on another. 100 pounds was roughly half of the annual income of Eleanor and her husband Hugh Despenser prior to 1317.

‘Privy dining’ between the two is mentioned numerous times. Edward’s Chamber accounts show that sugar to make sweets for Eleanor was bought on the king's instructions.

When Eleanor was in childbirth in December 1325, probably with her youngest daughter Elizabeth, future Lady Berkeley, he made an offering to the Virgin to give thanks for her safe recovery. He didn't do this with his other nieces, or sisters, that I’ve read about.

Edward’s Wardrobe account of 1319/20 mentions medicines bought for Edward and Eleanor 'when they were ill'. It’s rather odd to see them connected in this way.

On the other hand, there are entries in Edward's Chamber Accounts which point to a degree of intimacy between Edward and Hugh Despenser: for example, on 7 January 1323 three clerks were paid the large sum of forty shillings for playing interludes in the hall of Cowick, Yorkshire, before the King and Hugh Despenser, and on another occasion an oystermonger of Westminster was paid for providing oysters for Edward and Hugh. Many of the expenses of Hugh's household were paid by Edward's Chamber (Hugh was the Chamberlain, not entirely coincidentally), including such basic necessities as wax.

In 1321, according to the Vita Edwardi Secundi, at the height of the crisis between Edward and his Marcher lords which Hugh Despenser himself had caused, the Earl of Pembroke supposedly told Edward: "...take heed of the danger that threatens; neither brother nor sister should be dearer to thee than thyself. Do not therefore for any living soul lose thy kingdom. He perishes on the rocks who loves another more than himself."

This seems to imply that Edward and Hugh's relationship went beyond friendship, though a sexual relationship between the men – however likely it seems – cannot be proved.

So what was the truth about Edward II, Hugh Despenser and Eleanor de Clare? There’s no way of knowing for sure, of course. Was there some kind of weird love (or sex) triangle going on between them? Or can Edward’s actions towards Eleanor be seen in the context of a close familial relationship? Was his very preferential treatment of Eleanor motivated by his close relationship with her husband, out of guilt? (Though as stated, it’s not certain that Edward and Hugh were lovers). Is it even possible that Eleanor alone was Edward’s lover, not Hugh?

Ultmately, a discussion of Edward II’s sexuality and possible sex partners all dissolves into interpretation and later hearsay, and it’s impossible to say who Edward II was having sex with, or who he wanted to have sex with. (Though let me state here, for the seventeenth time, that's there no doubt that Edward was the father of Isabella's children). As for the possible affair with his niece, given that it would of course have been incestuous, perhaps it’s best to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that Edward was motivated by fondness for Eleanor, not sexual desire.

Medieval Darwin Awards

Just a short post, while I'm preparing the next proper one. This is about some men related to Edward II and the silly ways they died - candidates for Medieval Darwin Awards!

- Edward's uncle by marriage, Duke John II of Brittany (widower of Edward I's sister Beatrice), was killed in Avignon on 18 November 1305, at the ripe old age of sixty-six. He was leading Pope Clement V's horse through the town, during Clement's coronation (or whatever you call it) when a wall collapsed, thanks to all the people sitting on it to watch the procession, and crushed John to death.

- Edward's great-great-uncle King Enrique I of Castile (much younger brother of Edward's great-grandmother Queen Berenguela) was killed in Palencia on 6 June 1217, at the age of thirteen, when a tile fell off a roof and hit him on the head.

- Count Henri II of Champagne, grandson of Louis VII and Eleanor of Aquitaine and thus the nephew of Edward II's great-grandfather King John, died in Jerusalem on 10 September 1197 (he was the third husband of Isabelle, Queen of Jerusalem in her own right). He fell through a window, probably while watching a parade. One of his servants tried to grab hold of him to save him, but ended up falling out of the window as well and landing on top of Henri; he died, too. Poor Henri might have survived otherwise!

And finally, Almost A Medieval Darwin Award, from the Patent Rolls of 30 March 1324:

"Notification, lest sinister suspicion should arise hereafter, that the defect which William Sampson suffers in his right ear arose from the stroke of a tun of wine as he was walking amongst the tuns on board a ship to see that no harm came to them, as the king is informed on sufficient evidence." :-)

Children of Edward II: Childhood and Betrothals

A post on the four children of Edward II and Isabella, some details of their childhoods, and their betrothals and marriages.

Edward III

Edward was born at Windsor on Monday 13 November 1312. Edward II spent most of the last two months of Isabella's pregnancy with her at Windsor; he left for Sheen, about twenty miles away, on 9 November, and hurried back on the 12th, probably because he'd received a message that Isabella had gone into labour. Young Edward was created Earl of Chester when he was only a few days old (Edward II had become Earl of Chester in February 1301, aged sixteen). By January, still only a few weeks old, young Edward already had his own household, and was looked after by his nurse, Margaret.

Edward II and Isabella occasionally visited their son, who lived at Bisham in Berkshire from 27 January 1313, and the little boy was also taken to court - for example, spending twenty-seven days there in the early summer of 1313. He also lived at Ludgershall in Wiltshire for a time, then at Windsor Castle. In early 1318, Edward II appointed Sir Richard Damory as his son's guardian: 'keeper of the body of my lord Sir Edward, Earl of Chester'. Damory was the elder brother of Edward II's great favourite at the time, Roger Damory. Late that same year, Edward's brother John and sister Eleanor came to live with him.

The marriage of his eldest son and heir was a matter of great importance to Edward II, and in late 1318 - when his son had just turned six - he began the process of finding his son a royal bride. Margaret, the eldest daughter of Count William of Hainault, was put forward in 1319; she was born in 1311, and ultimately married Louis IV von Wittelsbach, future Holy Roman Emperor, in 1324 (he was a widower, born in 1282). In March 1321, Edward II informed Count William that he was keen to arrange the match, but that the King of Aragon and others had also shown interest in a marriage alliance with young Edward, and the plans fizzled out.

In the summer of 1323, Queen Isabella's uncle Charles, Count of Valois, proposed a match between Edward and one of his ten daughters. Edward II, however, being half-Spanish himself, favoured Spanish marriages for his children, and decided to continue with the Aragon match. The King of Aragon at the time (until November 1327) was Jaime II, whose elder brother Alfonso III had once been betrothed to Edward II's sister Eleanor. Jaime had five daughters, though one was a nun and one a prioress. The others were: Constança (born 1300), Isabel (born 1305) and Violante (born 1310) - all older than Edward III.

For some reason, the Aragon alliance did not work out, and in January 1325, Castile opened negotiations for young Edward to marry Leonor, daughter of Fernando IV (died 1312) and sister of Alfonso XI (born 1311). The young King of Castile would marry Edward's sister, Eleanor of Woodstock (born 1318). In October, negotiations were finalised, and Edward II informed Afonso IV of Portugal, who had proposed a match between young Edward and his daughter Maria, who was almost exactly the same age as the boy, that the proposed arrangement couldn't go ahead.

In September 1325, Edward II created his son Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Ponthieu, and sent him to France to pay homage to Charles IV for the lands. Edward was almost thirteen, and was soon caught up in his mother's plans to invade England. In August 1326, Isabella arranged a marriage alliance between Edward and an (unnamed) daughter of Count William of Hainault; there were three unmarried daughters. The girl's dowry was spent on ships and soldiers to invade England.

On 30 January 1328, fifteen-year-old Edward III married Philippa of Hainault, second daughter of Count William, at York Minster. Her mother was Jeanne, one of the ten daughters of Charles de Valois, and she was thus Edward's second cousin. Edward and Philippa were married for over forty years, and had twelve children.

John of Eltham

John was born on 15 August 1316, at Eltham Palace near London. Edward II was at Lincoln at the time, attending Parliament, but sent money for his son's christening, gave Isabella gifts of lands and jewellery, and had the Dominicans in York say prayers for his wife and child. In early September, conflict with Earl Thomas of Lancaster (who was meant to be John of Eltham's godfather, but didn't show up for the christening) came to a head, and fearing an armed confrontation with his powerful cousin, Edward ordered Isabella to come to him at York as quickly as possible. He generously rewarded a messenger who informed him that Isabella was on her way, and was clearly very anxious about her safety. As always when the royal couple were apart, they kept in frequent contact via messengers.

This episode, however, gets considerably less attention from historians and novelists than his alleged 'abandonment' of a tearful Isabella at Tynemouth on 10 May 1312, when she was pregnant with Edward III, which is often portrayed as callousness on Edward's part and proof that he cared far more about Piers Gaveston's safety than his wife's. However, he and Piers subsequently spent five days bobbing about in a small boat on the North Sea - hardly an ideal situation for a woman who was three months pregnant with the (possible) heir to England. Edward left Piers at Scarborough and travelled to York, where he and Isabella were reunited a mere week after he'd 'abandoned' her; she made her way there by land, a far safer mode of travel in her condition. But it's another stick to beat Edward with, and fits so nicely into the usual 'Isabella the Victim' theme.

John of Eltham joined his brother Edward's household in late 1318; his nurse was named Matilda Pyrie. In September 1324, he was granted his own household, under the command of Edward II's niece Eleanor de Clare. In October 1326, after Edward II and his few remaining supporters had fled to Wales, John was living in the Tower, where his first cousin and guardian Eleanor de Clare had been left in charge. Eleanor surrendered the Tower to the mob, who promptly made ten-year-old John the nominal Keeper of London.

John of Eltham became Earl of Cornwall (a title previously held by Piers Gaveston) on 31 October 1328, aged twelve. In 1334, a marriage alliance was proposed between John and Maria of Castile, another sister of Alfonso XI, and a papal dispensation was granted, but Maria died shortly afterwards. Other possible brides put forward for John were: a daughter of Philip VI of France; a daughter of the Count of Blois; a daughter of the Lord of Coucy; and a daughter of Guy, brother of the Duke of Brittany.

John died at Perth on 13 September 1336, wounded in a skirmish with Scots troops. He was only twenty, and still unmarried. It's on record that Edward III suffered nightmares over his brother's death.

Eleanor of Woodstock

Eleanor was born at Woodstock on Sunday 18 June 1318. Edward II arrived at Woodstock on the day of her birth and stayed for ten days, when he and Isabella left for Northampton, for the opening of Parliament.

In late 1318, just a few months old, Eleanor joined the household of her elder brothers. In September 1324, Eleanor and her younger sister Joan were granted their own household, and lived with Isabella Hastings, sister of the Younger Despenser, and her husband Ralph de Monthermer. Monthermer was the girls' uncle, kind of - he had previously been married to Edward II's sister Joan of Acre.

In 1325, Eleanor was betrothed to Alfonso XI of Castile, who was seven years her senior. He ultimately married Maria, daughter of Afonso IV of Portugal, once proposed as a bride for Edward III. By Maria, Alfonso was the father of King Pedro the Cruel, but he ignored his wife in favour of his mistress doña Leonor Núñez de Guzmán, by whom he had ten children - so Eleanor probably had a lucky escape. Doña Leonor was later murdered on the orders of Pedro the Cruel.

In May 1332, not quite fourteen, Eleanor married Count Reinald II of Gelderland at Nijmegen, and gave birth to the first of her two children before she turned fifteen. She died on 22 April 1355, aged thirty-six, and was buried in Deventer Abbey.

Joan of the Tower

Born in the Tower of London on 5 July 1321. The royal apartments were rather dilapidated, and rain came in onto Isabella's bed while she was in labour. Later, a furious Edward II relieved John Cromwell, Constable of the Tower, of his post. Joan was born in the middle of the Despenser War, and shortly after her birth, her mother went down on her knees before Edward II and begged him to exile the Despensers.

In 1325, Edward II received a papal dispensation for one of his daughters to marry Pedro, eldest son and heir of Alfonso IV of Aragon and grandson of Jaime II. He must have had Joan in mind, as his other daughter Eleanor was betrothed to Alfonso XI of Castile. Pedro was born in September 1319 and succeeded his father as Pedro IV of Aragon on 24 January 1336. After the alliance with England fell through, he married, in 1338, Marie of Navarre, granddaughter of Louis X of France (brother of Edward II's Queen Isabella) and lived until 5 January 1387.

On 17 July 1328, Joan married David, son and heir of King Robert (Bruce) of Scotland, as part of the Treaty of Northampton. She had just turned seven, and David was four, born on 5 March 1324. Her sixteen-year-old brother Edward III refused to attend the wedding, and Robert didn't either. On 7 June 1329, King Robert died, and his five-year-old son succeeded him as David II. Joan and David's marriage was an unhappy one, and they had no children. David was captured at the Battle of Neville's Cross on 17 October 1346 and spent eleven years as a prisoner in England. The couple never lived together again, and Joan spent the rest of her life in England, often in the company of her mother Queen Isabella, who died in August 1358. Joan died on 7 September 1362, at the age of forty-one. David II died on 22 February 1371, and was succeeded by Robert II - his nephew, although eight years older.

Rioters and Ruffians? The Dunheved Gang (2)

The second part of my investigations into the Dunheved gang of 1327 - the first part is here. Unless stated otherwise, the men all disappear from the records after the summer of 1327.

Richard de Birchesden (or Bircheston) of Warwickshire

Birchesden or Bircheston (also spelt in fourteenth-century documents as Bercheston, Byrcheston, etc) is the Warwickshire village now written as Barcheston, which lies on the opposite bank of the river Stour to Shipston-on-Stour. In the last census, 2001, it had a population of 134. Barcheston is about thirty-five miles from the Dunheveds' home of Dunchurch, and twenty-two miles from Kenilworth.

Richard was described as lord of the manor of Barcheston in 1316, and apparently called to Parliament in 1322. He was an 'armiger' - a man entitled to his own coat of arms, often translated as 'squire'. A Simon de Bircheston, perhaps a relative, was Abbot of Westminster from 1344 to 1349, and was associated with Nicholas de Litlyngton, Abbot of Westminster from 1362 to 1386. Litlyngton was probably the illegitimate son of Hugh Despenser the Younger (or perhaps of his father).

On 25 May 1327, a 'Richard son of Thomas de Bercheston' was pardoned for an unnamed offence, but I don't know if that was the same one. 'Richard de Berchiston' was mentioned on 28 February 1319 for assault at Shipston-on-Stour - given that Richard came from less than a mile away, it must be the same one. And in June 1320, a 'Richard de Byrcheston' was given protection for going to France in the company of John, Lord Hastings, on the occasion of Edward II having to pay homage for Gascony to his brother-in-law Philip V. Hastings (husband of Juliana Leyburne) owned lands in Warwickshire, so I presume he was Richard's overlord.

I don't know of any connection between Richard and Edward II - perhaps he was an associate of Stephen Dunheved in some way. But I have no evidence for that, except that they both came from Warwickshire.

It's possible that Richard, one of the men named as taking part in the assault on Berkeley, was one of the handful of gang members who lived past the summer of 1327. 'Richard de Burcheston' (yet another spelling!) is mentioned on 21 November 1327 for committing theft at Campden in Gloucestershire. One of the men named with him is Malcolm Musard, the aristocratic leader of a notorious robber band of up to 300 men, famous for assault, theft, kidnapping, extortion and so on, like the Folvilles. Musard's lands were seized in 1327 because of his adherence to the Elder Despenser, whose retinue he joined in 1305. He was made Keeper of Hanley Castle, which belonged to the Younger Despenser, in 1321. However, Despenser wasn't always pleased with Musard, as shown by his letter requesting that the appointment of Musard as keeper of the peace in Worcestershire be revoked, because he was unsuitable. The reason for this was probably because Musard had attacked two manors belonging to Aline Burnell - who was Despenser's sister. (Got to love the irony of a notorious gang leader being made keeper of the peace.) And on 7 August 1326, Musard was pardoned for "adherence to the rebels", so apparently he switched sides at his own convenience.

Richard de Barcheston was described as the chief taxpayer in Barcheston in 1332. However, I suppose it's possible that this was his son, or nephew.

John de Rihale and Henry de Rihale, friar preacher

Presumably brothers, though unfortunately I haven't been able to find either man. Henry was a Dominican, and perhaps from the same convent as Thomas Dunheved, or John Stoke [last post]. A plot of land in the manor of Riseley, Bedfordshire, was called 'la Rihale', for example on 26 December 1329. Rihale may also be Ryhall near Stamford in Lincolnshire (then Rutland), or Ryall near Upton-upon-Severn in Worcestershire, which is thirty-seven miles from Berkeley and just two miles from Hanley Castle, which (had) belonged to the Younger Despenser. Ryhall near Stamford also had a connection with Despenser: in 1320, he granted it and other manors to his brother-in-law Hugh Audley, in exchange for lands in South Wales. In July 1322, Despenser was granted "the corn, hay, grass, cattle and goods" in Ryhall and other manors.

These possible links to Despenser may have been a reason for the two Rihale men to join the Dunheved gang, or alternatively it might have been the strong support for Edward II found among the Dominicans. Unfortunately, I have no more information on the two men, and neither appears after the summer of 1327.

Richard le Flesshewere

The name 'le Fles(s)hewere' (or 'Fleshewer', or about ninety-seven other possible spellings) means 'butcher'. The only reference I've found to Richard is on 15 March 1324, when Edward II sent his sergeant-at-arms Oto le Alemaund ('Otto the German') to arrest him - assuming it *is* him - and seven other men. No reason is given. If this was the same man, he must have forgiven Edward for having him arrested! According to Thomas Berkeley's letter of 27 July, Richard came from Gloucestershire.

One of the men ordered to be arrested with Richard by Otto the German was John Andreu. Andreu was one of the men accused of assault with John de la Haye [last post] on 13 July 1327.

Master Robert de Shulton, monk of Hailes [daunz Robert de Shultone, moigne de Hayles]

'Shulton' is probably Shoulton near Worcester, but could be one of several places named Shelton, or one of two towns named Shilton. One of these is in Warwickshire, fifteen miles from Dunchurch. Hailes Abbey is Cistercian, and was founded in 1246 by Edward II's great-uncle Richard of Cornwall. It's near Winchcombe in Gloucestershire, about forty miles from Berkeley.

William, nephew of Master Michael atte Hull, canon of Llanthony, Gloucester
[Williame nevou daunz Michael atte Hulle, chanoign de l'Antony de Glouc']

The mention of the Augustinian house of Llanthony Priory is significant in this context, as it was there that Edward II spent the night of 4/5 April 1327, on his way from Kenilworth to Berkeley, with Thomas Berkeley and John Maltravers. They left Kenilworth on 3 April, made very good time to cover the fifty-five miles to Gloucester in two days, and probably travelled the remaining sixteen miles from Gloucester to their final destination the next day. The Berkeley Castle records show that Edward II was at Berkeley by 6 April at the latest.

It was Llanthony Secunda Priory in Gloucester where they stayed, not the mother house of Llanthony Prima in Monmouthshire, as often stated, for example by Alison Weir and Paul Doherty. Kenilworth to Llanthony Prima is just under 100 miles, and Llanthony to Berkeley is another sixty-five miles - an impossible journey in three days in 1327 for anyone except professional messengers travelling alone. It's also often stated that Maltravers and Berkeley took Edward from Kenilworth to Llanthony Prima and then to Corfe Castle in Dorset, then to Berkeley via Bristol, zigzagging around the country and laying false trails to prevent Edward's friends finding him. Kenilworth to Llanthony in Monmouthshire to Corfe to Bristol to Berkeley is about 350 miles. Ridiculous! It would have taken at least a couple of weeks to make that journey, and dramatically increased the number of people who would have seen Edward when Berkeley and Maltravers were trying to keep his whereabouts secret.

Did Michael atte Hull, the canon of Llanthony, inform his nephew William that Edward was there on 4/5 April? It would have made the gang's job a lot easier to find Edward - who could have been taken from Kenilworth more or less anywhere in the country.

For a while, I thought that this William atte Hull was the man of the same name who murdered Agnes Coleman in Norfolk and abjured the realm sometime before September 1325, and who came from Thorndon in Suffolk. However, Thomas Berkeley's letter of 27 July 1327 specifically states that the William of the Dunheved gang came from Gloucestershire, and besides, I haven't been able to find any connections between William atte Hull the murderer and Edward II, or the Dunheved gang. (And the notorious William atte Hull was still active in East Anglia, accused of imprisoning a man and threatening to cut off his genitals - what a charmer - in 1346.) The William of the Dunheved gang is far more likely to be the "Thomas atte Hulle and William his son, and Robert brother of the same William, [who] assaulted a man" at Campden, Gloucestershire, on 26 February 1314. Thomas would then be the brother of Michael atte Hull, the canon of Llanthony.

On 8 March 1327, William atte Hull, with Roger Inman and John Ingelard, was accused by Philip Cheyne of stealing thirteen oxen and a cow, worth ten pounds, at 'Momerfeld' in Shropshire, which I can't identify (unless it's Munderfield, which is in Herefordshire). John Ingelard, sometimes called 'John Ingelard de Warley', was a merchant, the brother of Ingelard de Warley, who was the unpopular Keeper of Edward II's Wardrobe from 1309 to 1314. He (Warley, the Keeper of the Wardrobe) had served in Edward's household before he became King, and attended Piers Gaveston's funeral in January 1315. He was dead by 1327.

Why William atte Hull was willing to put his life on the line for Edward II is unclear, as he doesn't seem to have served him in any capacity, and as he came from Gloucestershire, was not likely to be an associate of the Dunheveds. Perhaps he was attracted more by the possibility of violence and plunder, not because he was loyal to Edward. However, he was ordered to be arrested in March 1327, before Edward II was sent to Berkeley - so probably he was already a gang member, and didn't join them simply because they were passing through Gloucestershire, where he lived. And the fact that he's named in Berkeley's letter and in the indictment of 1 August suggests that he was an important member of the gang, not someone who'd joined the attack simply for plunder.

A William atte Hull served as a juror in London on 7 July 1347. I'd love to think that this was the same man. But sadly, I doubt it.

Walter de Saunford

Another gang member who's difficult to trace. 'Saunford' could be one of many places called Sandford, or it could even be Stamford or Stanford or Sampford. One of the villages called Sandford is in Dorset, roughly halfway between Lytchett Matravers (where John Maltravers came from) and Corfe Castle, where Edward II seems to have been held at some point in 1327.
There are several possibilities regarding Walter's identity: there was a draper in London in 1310 called Walter de Saunford, and in 1322/23 a Walter de Staunford, possibly the same man, rented a shop with a solar at St Mary le Bow in London; he was granted a reduction of eight shillings in his rent "lest he should never leave because of the poverty of the time". In November 1317, there's a mention of "Walter son of Andrew de Stannford", who made a grant to the Carmelite friars, and in May 1310, a Walter de Stanford and others imprisoned a man named Matthew de Lescheqer ('of the Exchequer') at Norwich. One of the other men was named as Walter Langton, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, former Chancellor and Treasurer of England, and a great enemy of Edward II.

Whether the Walter de Saunford of the Dunheved gang was any of these men, I'm afraid I don't know. Or maybe he was none of them! A Walter de Saunford was Abbot of Abbotsbury (?!) in Dorset from 1343 to 1348, but the gang member is not identified as a cleric, and I'm pretty sure it's not the same one.

William de Roscele, parson of the church of Huntele [William de Roscele, persone de l'eglise de Huntele]

'William Russell' in modern spelling. On 11 December 1323, "William de Roscele, parson of the church of Huntelegh" was accused with many other men of assaulting a man named Richard de Portes in Gloucester and stealing his goods. So he was probably an aggressive, fighting kind of priest, and one not too bothered about breaking the law! Richard de Portes was an associate of Thomas, Lord Berkeley, John Maltravers and Thomas Gurney.

Huntley is a village seven miles to the west of Gloucester, about twenty-five miles from Berkeley. However, William was probably already a member of the gang before Edward was taken to Berkeley, as two orders for his arrest appears on 8 March: one for breaking into a house, and cutting down trees, in Berkshire, and the other for the same offence in Wiltshire. No mean feat, to be in Berkshire and Wiltshire at the same time, and all the manors mentioned are pretty far from his parish.

It's possible that the gang made use of Huntley as a useful base not far from Berkeley, or as a meeting point. It's on the edge of the Forest of Dean, a very handy place to hide. Huntley church was built in the eleventh century, but demolished and rebuilt in 1861. Only the tower is as it would have been in William's day.

Sir Edmund Gascelyn (Gacelyn, Gacelin, Gasselyn, Goscelyn, Wacelyn, etc etc)

Sir Edmund Gascelyn was a knight, and is therefore by far the easiest of the Dunheved gang to trace. He was born probably in 1281, aged twenty-six when his father died on 24 September 1307; his father Edmund had been a household knight of Roger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk (died 1306) and his grandfather Geoffrey a household knight of King Henry III. Edmund Gascelyn himself served in the Earl of Pembroke's retinue at around the same time as the Berkeleys and Thomas Gurney.

Edmund owned Sheldon Manor in Chippenham, which still exists and is open to the public, and other lands in Wiltshire. (One website I looked at says "The house, unfortunately, is closed this year due to ill health." I hope it gets better soon.)

Between 4 March and 1 August 1327, warrants were issued for Edmund's arrest no fewer than eight times - probably he was considered to be a particular threat, as he was a knight. On 4 March, he was said with a few others to have stolen "twenty horses, sixty oxen, fifty cows and fourteen hundred sheep, worth 300 pounds" in four villages in Gloucestershire; on 5 March, to have imprisoned a man at Shilton, near Coventry, until he paid a fine of ten pounds, and to have "mowed his corn" (the horror!); on 8 March, with a few others, to have stolen "two horses, six mares, two bulls, thirty-six oxen, thirty-two cows, six hundred and fifty sheep and twenty swine, worth two hundred pounds" in Wiltshire; on 10 March, to have stolen unspecified goods at Bushton, Wiltshire; also on 10 March, to have "imprisoned and maltreated" a man at York; and on 15 April, to have stolen unspecified goods at Langley Burrell, Wiltshire. Langley Burrell is just outside Chippenham, where Edmund held lands.

Plus, he was ordered to be arrested on 15 July for 'withdrawing himself' from Thomas Berkeley, and on 1 August for the Berkeley Castle affair. A busy man, and obviously an unusually talented one in managing to be in so many parts of the country at once - especially York and Bushton in Wiltshire, which are over 200 miles apart.

Edmund married a woman named Eleanor, widow of Sir John Kiriel, in 1303, and had a son called Geoffrey. Other knights with the name Gascelyn often show up in the records of Edward II's reign, Roger, John and Walter - brothers or cousins of Edmund. Roger Gascelyn was captured fighting against the royal army at Boroughbridge on 16 March 1322, and Edmund was granted his manor of Catmore, Berkshire, on 1 June 1322. He also received 'Wroxhale' in Wiltshire - which I can only imagine is Wroxall, which is actually in Warwickshire. On 6 April 1322, Edmund's lands were restored to him, having been seized by the Contrariants, Edward II's baronial enemies.

In July 1322, he went on the Scots campaign with Edward II, was summoned to the Great Council at Westminster on 9 May 1324, and was a Commissioner of Array for Wiltshire in November and December 1324, with responsibility for raising fifteen men-at-arms, 100 archers and more than 250 footmen (to send to Gascony). Lots of other men did the same - I can't see that Edmund was unusually privileged, or held any positions of power or influence, or that Edward II favoured him particularly.

Why Edmund Gascelyn was so determined to free Edward is rather puzzling, as there's really nothing to suggest that the two men were ever close. If Edmund served Edward II or Hugh Despenser as a household knight, I haven't found any evidence. On 16 October 1313, Edmund, Roger and John Gascelyn, his brothers or cousins, were three of the hundreds (really - there's pages of them) of men pardoned "of all causes of anger, indignation, suits, accusations, etc, arisen in any manner on account of Peter [Piers] de Gavaston..." There is some indication that Edmund was considered an adherent of the younger Despenser, but I'm not sure of the precise connection.

John Gascelyn was named with Edmund in one of his alleged crimes, mentioned above, so may have been suspected of gang involvement or sympathy for the former Edward II. And Walter Gascelyn was one of the men accused of stealing "fish, trees and corn" with William Aylmer in 1328 [last post], but both John and Walter crop up often enough in records of Edward III's reign.

Edmund Gascelyn does not. I can't find him after the summer of 1327, and he was surely dead. However, his son Geoffrey was in possession of Sheldon Manor by 30 December 1337. The fortunes of the Gascelyn family waned, perhaps because of Edmund's fate: Geoffrey was never knighted, and in 1351, reached an agreement with Thomas, Lord Berkeley, of all people (yes, that Thomas Berkeley) that he would hand over most of his lands to Berkeley in return for an annual rent and maintenance as a squire in Berkeley's household. At the end of the seven-year agreement, Berkeley offered Geoffrey the choice of staying in his household for a further five years or taking an annuity of 10 marks (six pounds, sixty-six pence) with an acre of meadow and an acre of field - evidence of the sad decline of the family, which had once enjoyed an income of £200 a year.

John de Hill

I couldn't find John de Hill for ages. However, I think I've finally traced the elusive git. He was a knight, albeit a very obscure one, came from Hill Croome in Worcestershire, and was also known as John de Hull or de Hulle. The family were either called 'de Hill', 'de Hill Croome' or 'de Hulle', confusingly, and their manor was called Hulecrumb, Hulcrombe, with many variants in the spelling, and also as Hull or Hulle.

Hill Croome is in southern Worcestershire, near the Gloucestershire border. It's about seven miles north of Hugh Despenser the Younger's manor of Tewkesbury, even closer to his manor of Hanley Castle, and three miles from Ryall, where two other gang members may have come from. Its thirteenth-century church is still extant; there are some photos by Tudor Barlow here.

John was summoned to the Great Council at Westminster on 9 May 1324, as was Edmund Gascelyn. He was named as a Commissioner of Array in Worcestershire on Christmas Day 1325 and on 12 September 1326, just twelve days before Mortimer and Isabella's invasion force landed in Suffolk. A Thomas de Hull, who may or may not have been a relative, was pardoned on 20 March 1327 for holding out against Isabella and Mortimer's forces at Caerphilly.

John inherited Hill Croome from his father Nicholas sometime before 1324. On 12 March 1347, there's a mention of John de Hulle, his son: "that he and his heirs for ever shall have charter of free warren...in his demesne lands of Hullecroumbe and Kereswell, co. Worcester." The charter was witnessed by a host of luminaries: Edward III's eldest son Edward of Woodstock, William de Bohun, Earl of Northampton, Robert Ufford, Earl of Suffolk, Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, and Richard Talbot, Steward of Edward III's household.

John de Hill/Hulle was one of the men mentioned on 15 July for 'withdrawing himself' from Thomas Berkeley, and indicted on 1 August for the attack on Berkeley Castle.

Roger atte Watre ('Atwater' in modern spelling)

Roger was one of the men pardoned on 20 March 1327 for holding out at Caerphilly Castle. I don't know when he joined the gang, but it must have been around the time that Edward II was moved to Berkeley, or later.

He was a sergeant-at-arms of Edward II, as were William Beaukaire, also pardoned at Caerphilly, who would play a very different role at Berkeley Castle, and several other members of the Dunheved gang. Roger came from London, and often appears in records there, as do many other atte Watres. He had a garden called the Hermitage, on the south side of Aldgate, which he leased in 1325 to a man named Peter de Staundone for ten shillings a year.

Roger had been a sergeant of Edward II since at least April 1311, as letters of safe-conduct were issued on 25 April "in favour of Roger le Palmere, William de Flete, and Roger atte Watre proceeding to Scotland with the King's treasure." On 18 July 1314, he and two other sergeants took Donald of Mar (who became one of Edward's most fervent adherents), Donald's aunt Elizabeth de Burgh, who was Robert Bruce's wife, and the other Scottish hostages to Edward at York, where they were freed. And in 1321: "as regards the sum of £20 12s. which Roger atte Watre, the King's Serjeant, demands on account of those who were in the King's service at Ledes, it was understood that this was given of the King's courtesy, but the money would be returned if the King would signify his pleasure." This is a reference to Edward II's siege at Leeds Castle in Kent, the opener to his successful campaign against the Marcher lords in 1321/22.

There are lots of other references to Roger atte Watre in connection with London. Probably, Edward II trusted him to act in his best interests in a place where he (Edward) was deeply unpopular.

Roger vanishes from the records after the summer of 1327, almost certainly dead. However, there are a few mentions of John atte Watre and John atte Watre junior in the 1340s, who I'd like to think were his son and grandson. John atte Watre junior appears as late as 1373. Roger's father may also have been named John - a John atte Watre appears in various London records in the 1310s.

William le Parker of Alecestre

Also very difficult to trace. There were plenty of William le Parkers in Edward II's reign, but none of them were designated 'of Alecestre'. A William le Parker, no placename given, accompanied Queen Isabella to France in 1314 and 1320, but it's probably not the same one.

'Alecestre' is Alcester in Warwickshire, thirty-five miles from the Dunheveds' home of Dunchurch, twenty-two miles from Kenilworth, and also twenty-two miles from Barcheston, where another gang member came from. William may therefore have been an associate of one of these men.

On 9 October 1327, an Adam le Parker was pardoned for adherence to Edward II's friend and Dunheved gang supporter Donald, Earl of Mar. Adam was "received into the king's peace" by Henry Percy, "provided that he return to, and abide on, the march, and aid in harassing the enemy." He may have been a relative of William, but then, it's a common name.

Conclusion

Although I would never deny that most people in England were glad to see the back of Edward II in 1327, I hope these posts demonstrate that he was far from friendless. Several members of his household, men who knew him well, were willing to risk their necks for him: his confessor Thomas Dunheved, Rhys ap Gruffydd, Donald of Mar, Thomas de la Haye, Roger atte Watre, John Boteler. It's not surprising that some of the Dunheved gang were Dominican, as Edward had always shown them great favour, but other clerical members of the gang were not Dominican - there were two Cistercians, an Augustinian, and several parsons. And there were others whose connection to Edward remains mysterious, but who nevertheless put themselves in great danger - and usually ended up dead - to help him. And as I'll write in a future post, a few of the men who helped the Earl of Kent in his conspiracy to free Edward in 1329/30 were also former members of his household. Even two and a half years after the official announcement that he was dead, there were still men willing to risk imprisonment, exile, and death for Edward II.

Ruffians and Rioters? The Dunheved Gang (1)

This post is a continuation of the one directly beneath, or you can read it here. On 1 August 1327, Thomas, Lord Berkeley was appointed to arrest, "for coming to Berkele[y] Castle with an armed force to plunder it, and refusing to join the king in his expedition against the Scots", the following men:

- Brother John de Neumester, Stephen Dunhevid, brother Thomas Dunhevid, William son of William Aylmer, John Boteler of Staffordshire, Thomas de la Haye, Peter de Rokele, William Aylemer, the elder, Richard de Birchesden of Warwickshire, John de Rihale, Henry de Rihale, friar preacher, Richard le Flesshewere, Robert de Shulton, monk of Hayles, William nephew of Michael atte Hull, canon of Lantony, Gloucester, Walter de Saunford, William de Roscele, parson of the church of Huntele, Edmund Gascelyn, John de Hill, Roger atte Watre, William le Parker of Alecestre.

These men were the gang leaders, not the entire gang. Thomas Berkeley stated in his letter of 27 July to the Chancellor that "I will make great efforts to take them" ( jeo mettrai peine a les prendre). The desertion from the Scots expedition is thrown in as an extra reason for arresting the men - as though clerics would have joined it! The fact that the men did plunder the castle, and release Edward II, at least for a while, is carefully not mentioned.

In addition to these men, there were two others, named in Berkeley's letter to the Chancellor: John de Redemere (possibly Redmire in North Yorkshire), the "keeper of our lord the king's stud-farm" (gardein del haras nostre seignor le roy) and John Norton. These men, who Berkeley describes as "great leaders of this company", were taken by the 'community of Dunstable', Bedfordshire, and held there in prison. They were taken to Newgate, the notorious prison in London, and disppear from history.

This John Norton may have been the man of the same name who was a clerk of Edward II, and who was appointed the King's attorney before the justices of the King's Bench on 5 September 1312. And finally, Brother John Stoke, a Dominican friar of the convent in Warwick, was in some way involved in the plot to free Edward from Kenilworth in March 1327. On 1 May, he was ordered to be arrested and taken to Edward III, who was still only fourteen. Three days later, Stephen Dunheved was ordered to be taken to Queen Isabella [see below].

There are some mentions of John Norton in the early months of Edward III's reign. On 3 March 1327, he and twenty-two others are said to have "carried away the goods" of William Trussell - who was the man who had pronounced the death sentence on both Hugh Despensers a few months earlier, and had acted as "proctor of the prelates, earls and barons and of other persons named in my proxy", renouncing their fealty and allegiance to Edward II at Kenilworth on 20 January 1327.

So here's the information I've found on the men, including Rhys ap Gruffydd - involved in a plot to free Edward II in August/September 1327, and possibly a supporter of the Dunheved gang - in order of their mention in the indictment of 1 August.

Sir Rhys ap Gruffydd [His name was usually anglicised in contemporary documents as 'Rees ap Griffith']

The son of Gruffydd ap Hywel ap Gruffydd ab Ednyfed Fychan and Nest ferch Gwrwared ap Gwilym, Rhys was a yeoman and 'privy squire' of the chamber of Edward II, and married Joan Somerville around 12 February 1325. Joan brought him lands in six English counties, in addition to the lands he inherited in Cantref Mawr. Rhys fought for Edward II during the Marcher campaign of 1321/22 - i.e., against Roger Mortimer, John Maltravers et al - and served in the retinue of the Younger Despenser from 1322 to 1326. In November 1326, he was one of the men Edward II sent to (unsuccessfully) negotiate with Queen Isabella, along with the Abbot of Neath, Edward's young nephew Edward de Bohun, and John Harsik and Oliver de Bordeaux, two of Edward's squires.

In August and early September 1327, Rhys, with Donald of Mar, was plotting to free Edward II from Berkeley Castle. They were betrayed to William Shalford, but Rhys evaded capture and fled to Scotland, most likely with Donald, the nephew of Robert Bruce. Rhys was offered a pardon several times in 1328, but evidently wasn't interested.

In 1329 and early 1330, Rhys and Donald were involved in the Earl of Kent's plot to free his (dead?) half-brother. Donald returned to Scotland, but Rhys fled to Brabant, where he joined some of the enemies of Mortimer and Isabella who were gathered there, such as Henry Beaumont, Thomas Roscelyn and Thomas Wake, Mortimer's own first cousin, who had played a big role in the deposition of Edward II. It's interesting to see that Mortimer and Isabella had alienated many of their supporters in much the same way as Edward II and Hugh Despenser had, and Edward II's enemies had also gathered abroad and plotted against him. In 1330, Edward II's sister Margaret was dowager Duchess of Brabant, and Duke Jan III was his nephew, so Brabant was a safe haven for enemies of Mortimer and Isabella.

On 9 July 1330, Edward III's father-in-law Count William of Hainault warned Edward that the Brabant exiles were planning an invasion of England, and that at the same time, their friends would attack Mortimer's Welsh lands. A general muster of troops was ordered and jousting tournaments were cancelled - a usual reaction, as tournaments provided a convenient excuse for armed men to gather together. However, nothing came of it. On 25 November 1330, after the overthrow of Mortimer and Isabella but four days before Mortimer's execution, Edward III invited Rhys and all the others back from exile, and restored their lands. Rhys fought at Crecy in 1346, and died on 10 May 1356. He was buried at Carmarthen.

Brother John de Neumester/Neumoster

'Neumester' is Newminster, a Cistercian abbey near Morpeth, Northumberland, which is over 300 miles north of London and about forty-five miles south of Berwick-upon-Tweed. Edward II sometimes stayed at the abbey, the last time in August 1322.

Presumably Brother John joined the Dunheved gang out of sympathy for the former King he'd met or seen at Newminster, though it's hard to say, as he doesn't appear in any records besides the order for his arrest and Thomas Berkeley's letter (not that you'd really expect him to). Although a monk, he took part in the attack on Berkeley Castle.

Brother Thomas Dunheved (Donheved, Dunhevid, Dunneheved, Donhesd, Dunhead, etc)

(Called frere Thomas Dunhevid in Thomas Berkeley's letter of July 1327. More information on the Dunheved family follows below, in the Stephen part)

Brother Thomas Dunheved was a Dominican friar (the Friars Preacher, or Blackfriars) and Edward II's confessor - the Dominicans were Edward's favourite order. In return, they supported him, which made them very unpopular, and supposedly they had to flee from London after Isabella and Mortimer's invasion in the autumn of 1326.

Thomas became a papal chaplain on 16 September 1325, and sometime in 1324 or 1325, Edward II sent him to Avignon on 'secret business'. The Annales Paulini and Lanercost (in the far north of England) chronicles report a contemporary rumour that Edward was seeking a divorce from Isabella. I think this is very unlikely, for various reasons. Not a shred of evidence has ever been found, and when Thomas wrote to Edward on 7 October 1325, he made no mention of it. However, some historians have reported Edward's attempts to procure a divorce (or annulment) as an established fact, probably because it fits so nicely into the 'Isabella the Victim' theme. Obviously the authors of the chroniclers had no idea what the King's 'secret business' might be and could only speculate, but historian F. D. Blackley states that some of it at least was connected with Alexander Bicknor, the Archbishop of Dublin - which isn't a fraction as 'sexy' as Edward II trying to divorce Isabella.

Thomas stayed with Edward II in South Wales until the King's capture on 16 November 1326, and was paid for taking letters to the Younger Despenser. But he evaded arrest, and went to ground, plotting how to free Edward. He was joined by his brother and the others.

At some point after the gang freed Edward in the summer of 1327, however, Thomas was captured, apparently at 'Bidebrok' (Budbrooke), about eighteen miles from Dunchurch, where his family held land. He was taken to Queen Isabella. Thereafter, there are different accounts of what happened to him. One is that he was sent to the notorious Newgate prison in London, where he either died of prison fever or was murdered. Another states that he was sent to Pontefract Castle in Yorkshire, where, after a failed escape attempt, he was thrown into a horrible cell, then tortured and murdered, and his body thrown down a disused well. (The Annales Paulini chronicler claims he was captured and imprisoned at Pontefract as early as 11 June 1327, which can't be right, as that was before the attack on Berkeley.)

Almost certainly, Thomas was dead by 1329, although several chronicles claim that he was involved in the Earl of Kent's conspiracy of 1330, and raised a devil who told Kent that Edward II was still alive. As a cleric, he should have been allowed benefit of clergy, but evidently his fanatical devotion to Edward II and his determination to release the former King meant that he was considered very dangerous, and Isabella and Roger Mortimer merrily ignored the legalities.

Stephen Dunheved (Estephne de Dunhevid in Berkeley's letter)

Stephen was not a friar, as is often stated. He was the eldest son of John Dunheved, who probably died in February 1308, and a woman named Eustachia - though she may have been the Dunheveds' stepmother. Stephen's younger brothers were John, Thomas (the murdered friar) and Oliver, and there was also a sister, Roese. The Dunheveds owned the manor of Dunchurch, which is just outside Rugby on Dunsmore Heath in Warwickshire, and is fifteen miles from Kenilworth, where Edward II was imprisoned from November 1326 to April 1327.

Thomas and Stephen's paternal grandparents were John Dunheved and Christiane Butler, who inherited Dunchurch from her father Jordan. In 1300, Christiane's son John and his wife Eustachia, keeping two parts of the manor for themselves for their lives, settled the remainder on their children (or stepchildren).

In 1321 Stephen was forced to 'abjure the realm' for an unspecified, but obviously very serious, felony. Abjuring the realm was a legal procedure whereby outlaws could avoid trial and probable execution by solemnly swearing to leave England forever. There was a set routine for leaving the country, determined by the Coroner of a county - in some places, it meant wading into the sea every day to signify your willingness to leave, then getting on the first ship that agreed to carry you.

He managed to avoid forfeiting Dunchurch by leasing it to Sir John Somery, for life. Somery died in August 1322, and Stephen's brother John seems then to have mortgaged it to Sir John Pecche, granting it to him and his heirs completely in 1330. In this context, it's interesting to note that Pecche was Constable of Corfe Castle from 16 December 1325 to 24 September 1329, where Edward II may have been sometime after his rescue. In March 1330, Pecche was ordered to be arrested as an adherent of the Earl of Kent, along with Stephen Dunheved and Giles of Spain. Much more on all this in a future post.

I don't know when Stephen Dunheved returned to England, but certainly by March 1327. On 4 May, two men were appointed "to arrest Stephen Dunheved and bring him to the castle of Walynford, to be there imprisoned." Wallingford Castle, near Oxford, had formerly belonged to Piers Gaveston, and Edward II granted it to Isabella on 22 April 1317. Dunheved was therefore to be taken to Isabella herself, a strong indication of how dangerous Stephen was believed to be. Other writs for his arrest were issued on 2 March, for stealing "five horses, six oxen, two cows, a hundred sheep and fifty-two swine" from the parson of Duntisbourne church, near Cirencester, on 8 June at Chester, and on 1 July.

The other Dunheved brothers, John and Oliver, evidently didn't take any part in the plot to free Edward II, and John was pardoned for an unspecified crime (either the murder of his cousin Oliver Dunheved in 1325, or the rape of Edith de Grasbrok in 1319/20, or both) on 5 May 1327 - the day after his brother Stephen was ordered to be taken before Queen Isabella.

The Close Rolls, in fact, state that he was taken to Newgate prison on 1 July 1327 - but exactly a month later, Thomas, Lord Berkeley was ordered to arrest him, and other gang members. The records are terribly confused, as the government (i.e., Isabella and Mortimer) were desperately trying to arrest the Dunheveds without the reasons for their arrest becoming known.

If Stephen was incarcerated at Newgate at some point, he must have escaped. It's also on record that he was arrested again in June 1329 - if this is true, he must have escaped again. He was definitely free by late 1329 or early 1330, when he joined Edward II's half-brother the Earl of Kent in his attempts to free Edward.

I don't know why Stephen was such a fanatical supporter of the former Edward II. There's no evidence of any closeness between the two men, though surely they must have had some connections, as it hardly seems likely that Stephen would have put himself in so much danger for Edward, for years on end, merely because his brother was Edward's confessor.

He appears on the list (as "Stephen Donhesd") of Kent adherents ordered to be arrested in March 1330, with John Pecche, Giles of Spain and almost fifty others. Unfortunately, I have no idea what happened to him after that. If he was still alive in October that year, after the downfall of Mortimer and Isabella, he would have been safe. I hope he was. I hope he thrived.

William Aylmer, parson of Dadynton, and William Aylmer, parson of Bradewell (also called William son of William Aylmer and William Aylmer the elder)

A profusion of William Aylmers. 'Dadynton' is probably Deddington in Oxfordshire, which was owned by Hugh Despenser the Elder (incidentally, Deddington is where Piers Gaveston was abducted and taken to his death in June 1312), and 'Bradewell' is probably one of several places in England called Bradwell. Alternatively, it could be one of several places called Broadwell; one of these is less than five miles from the Dunheveds' home of Dunchurch in Warwickshire.

A William Aylmer was Steward of Hugh Despenser the Elder's manor of Soham, Cambridgeshire, in 1315 - he was probably the father of the William Aylmer identified as "the son of William Aylmer", most likely the Deddington one. William Aylmer the steward of Soham was assaulted by a group of men in 1315. One of his attackers was called 'William Aylmer of Soham'. *Groans*

One of the William Aylmers, almost certainly the parson of Deddington and the son of William Aylmer the assaulted steward, was a clerk of Hugh Despenser the Younger, and so closely associated with him that in April 1327 he was linked with Despenser as one of "the enemies of the king [Edward III] before he assumed the governance of the realm". Aylmer was the only 'enemy' named apart from Despenser, a clear sign of his close association with him (and if I'm right about his father, the family were long-term servants of the Despensers).

On 27 February 1327, a king's yeoman named Robert de Prestbury was granted "all cattle, wool and hay, late of the Despensers, and William Ayllemere, their adherent" in Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire. On 23 April 1327, gang member Peter de la Rokele was pardoned for adhering to Despenser and Aylmer; however, two days later, Aylmer himself was pardoned for his former allegiance to Despenser. The pardon was granted at the request of William Clinton, who in October 1330 would be one of the men who took part in Edward III's coup d'etat against Mortimer and Isabella, but who at this time was high in favour with them.

On 4 March 1327, both William Aylmers were accused of carrying away the goods of Sir Richard de la Rivere in 'Heghworth, Hampton and Westthorp' in Wiltshire, with Peter de la Rokele, Richard Aylmer, presumably a relative of one of them, and five other named men.

Parsons or not, both Aylmers took part in the attack on Berkeley Castle. One of them, probably the Bradwell/Broadwell one, was captured in Oxford by 20 August 1327; we know this because of a mandate to the Sheriff of Oxfordshire ordering him to indict Aylmer on charges of plundering Berkeley Castle, abducting Edward of Caernarfon, and raising the populace in a war against Edward III. This is in fact the most explicit reference to the freeing of Edward II that exists.

Amazingly, Aylmer was released on condition that he found adequate sureties for his appearance in court. He did appear, all charges against him were quashed, and he was set free. Paul Doherty speculates that he had betrayed his colleagues in return for his own freedom, which makes sense. I would imagine that it was the Bradwell/Broadwell parson, who had never been described as an enemy of Edward III, but I'm not sure. The other William Aylmer was probably dead.

On 20 February 1328, William Aylmer was accused of stealing mares, oxen and "fish, trees and corn", in Gloucestershire, along with about thirty other men. One of them, oddly, was Sir Richard de la Rivere, whose goods he had been accused of stealing a year earlier. Three others were men ordered to be arrested with members of the Dunheved gang in March 1327: Robert and Henry Aston, and Richard Foxcote. Foxcote succeeded Thomas, Lord Berkeley as Sheriff of Gloucestershire in 1332. Another was Sir Walter Gascelyn, the brother or cousin of Edmund Gascelyn, another Dunheved gang member. A strange mix of men.

In 1329/30, William Aylmer was named as an associate of one Gregory Foriz, who was being prosecuted for murder. Henry, Earl of Lancaster stood as Foriz's guarantor - a link between a member of the Dunheved gang and the influential Lancaster, and perhaps an indication that Lancaster had indeed supported the gang, as I speculated in my last post.

Finally, on 4 March 1339, one 'John le Cok of Spellisbury' was pardoned "for the death of William Aylmer". Whether this was the Dunheved one, or the William Aylmer who had once been the steward of Hugh Despenser the Elder, or the one who assaulted the steward, or yet another one, I don't know. 'Spellisbury' or 'Spelesbury' in Oxfordshire belonged to the Elder Despenser.

John Boteler of Staffordshire

A difficult man to trace, as there were lots of John Botelers in Edward II's reign (the name also appears as Botiler, or Botiller). However, this one was probably the sergeant-at-arms of Edward II mentioned on 7 February 1322: "John le Botiller, king's sergeant, captured on the king's service in Wales and detained a long time, for two years."

Assuming this is the right man, John was a colleague of Roger atte Watre, Thomas de la Haye and William Beaukaire - two other gang members, and the man who watched over Edward II's dead body for a month.

A Stephen Boteler, presumably a relative, appears twice in March 1327, accused of the usual theft of horses, oxen and so on - once with William Roscele, a Dunheved gang member. John himself wasn't accused of any crimes at this time, so either he joined the gang later, or wasn't known to the authorities. John took part in the attack on Berkeley Castle, and not surprisingly, is not to be found after the summer of 1327. However, Stephen Boteler, perhaps his brother, was still alive on 21 September 1327.

Thomas de la Haye

Thomas was a sergeant-at-arms of Edward II. I'm pretty sure he was a relative, perhaps a younger brother or a nephew, of Sir John de la Haye, Sheriff of Essex and Hertfordshire, and of Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire. John was summoned to Parliament as a Knight of the Shire for Buckinghamshire in 1319. His son was also named Thomas.

In 1321, Thomas de la Haye was accused of stealing 300 sheep and taking them to the King's manor of Thorne. (Whether Edward ever returned them, I don't know.) On 30 November 1321, during Edward II's campaign against the Marcher lords, Thomas was ordered to raise 500 footmen in Essex and Hertfordshire, with two other men: Thomas Lovayn and William Marenny. This is interesting, as Marenny was one of the men ordered to be arrested in March 1330 as an adherent of the Earl of Kent, plotting to put his brother back on the throne. In July 1322, Thomas and gang member Edmund Gascelyn were two of the men who accompanied Edward on yet another unsuccessful expedition against the Scots.

On 9 March 1323, Thomas de la Haye was ordered to levy 300 archers in Essex and Hertfordshire, this time with Sir John Pabenham, who had served in the Earl of Pembroke's retinue with Edmund Gascelyn [next post], the Berkeleys and Thomas Gurney. On 3 July 1326, he and Badin de Fourne, "king's sergeants", were appointed "keepers of the mouth of the Thames to pursue and arrest malefactors infesting the same with ships and boats and plundering merchants coming by that water to London, and to keep scrutiny of persons landing or leaving the shore." This was in connection with the expected invasion of Queen Isabella and Roger Mortimer.

However, Thomas must have accompanied Edward II on his flight into Wales in the autumn of 1326 (trying to hold back the invasion forces having become a hopeless task almost as soon as they landed) as on 10 October 1326, he and John de Toucestre and John le Keu were appointed "to select all men at arms wherever he goes and to lead them to the king as he is instructed; with power to arrest the disobedient." John le Keu was a sergeant-at-arms of the Younger Despenser; John de Toucestre (Towcester in Northamptonshire) was another of the men ordered to be arrested as an adherent of the Earl of Kent in 1330. Four days later, Thomas was appointed to "dwell in the castle of Wilton and those parts, and to arrest and destroy to the utmost of his power the king's enemies if they come to those parts..." There are several towns called Wilton, and I'm not sure which one is meant. Isabella and Mortimer were at Wallingford on 14 October, where they freed Thomas, Lord Berkeley.

I don't know what happened to Thomas de la Haye after Edward II's capture, but evidently he remained loyal, as he took part in the attack on Berkeley, and may have been involved in the earlier attempt to free Edward from Kenilworth. On 24 March 1327, he and twenty-eight other named men were accused of attacking the manor of 'Modeslee, Somerset' (probably Mudgley), burning timber and "broom, rushes, heath and grass growing there", and several other felonies. One of the men accused with him was Adam, Abbot of Glastonbury. ;)

On 13 July 1327, Sir John de la Haye, probably a close relative of Thomas, was accused of assaulting William de Storteford. This may have been genuine, but the timing - two days before four Dunheved gang members were ordered to be arrested, and probably after the attack on Berkeley had taken place - seems a little suspicious. As I wrote in my last post, there was a conspiracy to free Edward II in Buckinghamshire and neighbouring counties, and John de la Haye was the former Sheriff of Buckinghamshire, so may have been involved - though that's only speculation. Unlike most Dunheved gang members, however, John was still alive after the summer of 1327, so either he wasn't involved, or it couldn't be proved.

Predictably, Thomas de la Haye disappears after his indictment on 1 August 1327. There was a Thomas de la Haye of Edward III's reign, but this was John de la Haye's son, who was also summoned to Parliament as a Knight of the Shire for Buckinghamshire, in 1338.

Peter de la Rokele

Astonishingly, Peter de la Rokele was the grandfather of the great poet William Langland! Langland was born around 1330, died around 1390, and wrote the marvellous alliterative poem The Vision of Piers Plowman. Peter de la Rokele held lands in Buckinghamshire, and was in the service of Hugh Despenser the Younger; in fact, William Langland's ODNB entry says that Peter was "violently and unlawfully active in his [Despenser's] interest" and the Literary Encyclopedia calls him a "hired thug". He was probably a relative of Richard and William de la Rokele, knights of Edward II's reign.

On 30 May 1316, Peter and Geoffrey de la Rokele - perhaps his brother - were said with a few other men to have assaulted Elias Ashburn, who was one of Edward II's yeomen. However, in June 1322, he was given a commission of oyer and terminer to investigate a theft at Hugh Despenser the Younger's manor of Frampton ('Frauncton') in Lincolnshire. Perhaps this was one occasion where he was "violently and unlawfully active" in Despenser's interest. The affair dragged on for well over a year.

Peter joined the Dunheved gang early: he was one of the men accused on 4 March 1327 of carrying away the goods of Richard de la Rivere at 'Heghworth, Hampton and Westthorp' in Wiltshire. And on 22 March 1327 came a complaint by the abbot of Bruern that "Peter de la Rokele and James his son, with others, carried away two horses, two cows and three hundred and seventeen sheep, worth 41 pounds 3s, and other goods" in Oxfordshire.

I haven't found any references to Peter de la Rokele or his son James after 1327. However, his son Eustace, or Stacy, survived, and was a tenant of Hugh Despenser the Even Younger in Oxfordshire, where he was a well-respected man. He was the father of William Langland - why William's name was different from his father's is unclear, but he may have been illegitimate. One manuscript of Piers Plowman says: "It should be noted that Stacy de Rokayle was the father of William de Langlond; this Stacy was of noble birth and dwelt in Shipton-under-Wychwood, a tenant of the Lord Spenser in the county of Oxfordshire."

The next post, on the remaining gang members, will follow soon.