Article, The Earl Of Kent's Plot

 It has now been confirmed that my article 'The Adherents of Edmund of Woodstock, Earl of Kent, in March 1330' will be published in the August 2011 edition of the English Historical Review.  Kent was beheaded for treason against his nephew Edward III on 19 March 1330, aged twenty-eight, after he admitted plotting to free his half-brother Edward II from captivity - two and a half years after Edward's supposed death at Berkeley Castle on 21 September 1327.  It is often assumed that Kent had been tricked into trying to rescue a dead man to provide an excuse for Isabella of France and Roger Mortimer to execute him - which explanation either ignores altogether the men who supported Kent in his plot, or dismisses them as a few friars and a handful of others with grievances against Isabella and Mortimer's rule who did not truly believe in Edward II's survival.  (Although the archbishop of York, William Melton, certainly did, and told the mayor of London in January 1330 that "my liege lord Edward of Caernarfon is alive and in good health of body"; Donald, earl of Mar certainly believed that Edward was alive too.)  In fact, around seventy men can be demonstrated to have supported Kent in 1330, and in my article, I've provided backgrounds and allegiances for almost all of them, showing that the majority had been close to Edward II and had shown great loyalty to him before, during and after the revolution of 1326/27.  Kent's adherents in 1330 included two Scottish earls (Mar, Robert Bruce's nephew, and Buchan, Henry Beaumont), Welsh knights, a former chamberlain of North Wales and a former keeper of the peace in Berkshire, the earl of Warwick's stepfather, two sheriffs of Kent, a glover, a cellarer and a mercer, Edward II's tailor, the Dunheved brothers, and the notorious gang leader Malcolm Musard.  I hope the article goes some way to destroying the often-repeated myth that Kent only believed Edward was still alive in 1330 because he was 'stupid' and 'gullible'.  He wasn't, and in fact I believe that his many supporters, including men who had reason to dislike and distrust him (former adherents of Edward II and of the Despensers, whom Kent condemned to death in 1326) demonstrate that he was seen as a plausible and credible figure, a genuine leader.  The merciless speed with which Kent was condemned and executed for the 'crime' of trying to free a man who had officially been dead for two and a half years also indicates that Isabella and Roger Mortimer saw him (and his plot) as a real threat, not as a fool.

Anyway, more news about the publication of my article here as and when I know more!  :-) 

The Knighting Of 22 May 1306

Today is the 705th anniversary of the knighting of Edward of Caernarfon at Westminster on Sunday 22 May 1306, described by the contemporary chronicler Piers Langtoft as the greatest event in Britain since King Arthur was crowned at Caerleon.*

Some of the nearly 300 men knighted at the same time were: Roger Mortimer and his uncle Roger Mortimer of Chirk; Hugh Despenser the Younger and his kinsman Ralph Basset, future steward of Gascony; the earls of Arundel and Surrey; Edward Balliol, son of the former King John of Scotland; John Comyn, son of the John Comyn of Badenoch recently killed by Robert Bruce and destined to die fighting for Edward II at Bannockburn; John Maltravers, one of Edward II's custodians in 1327; Fulk Fitzwarin and William la Zouche, two of the men who joined the earl of Kent's plot to free Edward in 1330; John, Lord Mowbray, executed in 1322; and the Castilian Roderick of Spain (Rethericus de Ispania), a member of Edward's household.  The name of Edward of Caernarfon himself is given on the list of new knights as 'Lord Edward, Prince of Wales' (Dominus Edwardus Princeps Walliae).  Piers Gaveston (Petrus de Gavaston) appears on the list, but was in fact knighted four days later and not with the others (perhaps because of illness?).

I wrote a post about this splendid event on the 700th anniversary, and here's another one.  :-)  Edward I ordered all his sheriffs on 6 April 1306 to "cause proclamation to be made that all those who are not knights and wish to be shall come to London before Whitsunday to receive from the king's wardrobe all the gear necessary for them in this case, of the king's gift, so that they may be able to receive knighthood from the king there," having announced his intention the previous day of "making Edward, his eldest son, a knight."  The king purchased eighty rolls of scarlet and other coloured cloth, 2500 yards of linen and 5000 yards of canvas.  Edward of Caernarfon himself received, to adorn his chamber in Westminster Palace, five pieces of yellow silk to line his quilt; one piece of green silk to line his cloak; five pieces of red silk to make a dorsal curtain for his bed and five of green for another curtain; six pieces of red silk to line another quilt and five pieces of silk of an unspecified colour to line his second bed.  During the banquet after the knighting, four lengths of gold-threaded cloth were hung on the wall of Westminster Hall behind Edward I and his son.

The minstrels who performed during the splendid banquet afterwards included: the famous acrobat Matilda Makejoy; "the minstrel with the bells" (le menestral oue les cloches); Guilleme the Harper "who is with the Patriarch,"  i.e. Anthony Bek, bishop of Durham, patriarch of Jerusalem and a good friend of Edward of Caernarfon; Martinet "who is with the earl of Warwick"; Baudetti the Taborer and his companion Ernolet; Gauteron the Small and Gauteron the Big; Pearl In The Eye, who had cataracts, and unnamed companion; Mahu "who is with La Dammoisele de Baar," i.e. Edward of Caernarfon's niece Jeanne de Bar, who was shortly to marry the earl of Surrey; Mahu "of the North"; Edward's trumpeters Januche and Gillot, his crwth player Nagary and his harper Amekyn; Reginald The Liar; Lion de Normanville; Master Walter Leskirmissour and his brother, who performed a sword dance.  For their performance, the men and women received between twelve pence (the majority of them) and ten marks (for the highly-skilled musicians such as the trumpeter Janin of the Tower, the vielle-player Guillot de Roos, and the citole-player Richard de Leyland).

* Unkes en Bretagne puys que Dieu fu nez
N'estoye tel nobleye en villes n'en citez
Forpriz Karlioun en antiquitez
Quant sire Arthur luy reis i fust coronez.

Sources


- Calendar of Close Rolls 1302-1307, pp. 375, 377, 438, 484.
- Constance Bullock-Davies, Menestrellorum Multitudo: Minstrels at a Royal Feast
- Pierre Chaplais, Piers Gaveston: Edward II's Adoptive Brother

Piers Gaveston's Brothers And Some Of Edward II's Supporters In 1326

The second part of my post about Henry of Lancaster is coming soon (I hope)!  In the meantime, here's a kind of random post about some petitions I've been looking at on the National Archives website lately.

1) There's one presented by Piers Gaveston ('Perrot de Gavastun') and his elder brother Arnaud-Guilhem de Marsan to Edward I in or about 1305.  The two men call themselves "sons of Sir Arnaud de Gavastun, late knight of Gascony" (iadis chevaler de Gascoigne; Arnaud had died in 1302), and make various requests of the king, including that "the testament of the lady of Marsan their mother be kept and fulfilled."  Claramonde de Marsan died before 4 February 1287 (see J.S. Hamilton, Piers Gaveston, earl of Cornwall 1307-1312: Politics and Patronage in the Reign of Edward II, p. 25), when four castles of her inheritance were taken into Edward I's hands; Piers' and Arnaud-Guilhem's c. 1305 petition also relates to these castles.  [TNA SC 8/291/14546]

2) A petition presented sometime during Edward II's reign by "Arnaud Guilhem de Marsans and Fortaner de Lescun, brothers" asking for arrears to be paid to them from the lands of their mother the lady of Marsan, i.e. Claramonde.  This is interesting, as J.S. Hamilton (Piers Gaveston, pp. 22, 27-8) identifies Fortaner as Claramonde's brother, not her son.  The petition is pretty faded, and I need to go through it more carefully, but there appears to be a reference to "Sir Arnaud de Gavastun father of the aforesaid Arnaud Guilhem...".  It doesn't say, as far as I can tell, that Arnaud was Fortaner's father.  I'm confused about the Gaveston/Marsan/Lescun family tree.  Was Fortaner de Lescun a brother (or half-brother) of Piers, another son of Claramonde?  Why does Hamilton say he was Claramonde's brother?  Or were there two men called Fortaner de Lescun, one Claramonde de Marsan's brother and the other her son?  Who was the 'Bourd de Gavaston' living at Wallingford Castle in 1312 (Close Rolls 1307-13, p. 468)?  What happened to the younger brothers Gerard and Raymond-Arnaud which Hamilton (p. 26) says Piers had?  Hmmmmm.  [TNA SC 8/278/13863]
 
3) A petition presented by a John Beauchamp of Somerset which must date from the very end of Edward II's reign, as it's presented to "the king and his council" but mentions "my lady the queen and my lord the duke of Aquitaine her son," i.e. the soon-to-be Edward III.  The petitioner is clearly of Isabella's allegiance and it is apparent from the entire document that she and her faction are now in charge, which makes the naming in the petition of the powerless, imprisoned and soon-to-be ex-king Edward II rather puzzling - although perhaps it reflects the confusion over Edward's status in the weeks before his deposition and indicates that it was still unclear at this point what would happen to him.  Anyway, John Beauchamp complains that John de Toucestre and Richard Broun of Halford led men (eleven are named) from his manor of Shepperton to Bristol to fight against Isabella and her son, against their will (supposedly, but then Beauchamp would say that, wouldn't he?).  I don't know who Richard Broun was - though intend to look into it - but John de Toucestre was a staunch supporter of Edward II in 1326 and long afterwards, joining the earl of Kent's plot to free the former king in 1330.  I wrote about him a while ago.  Fascinating to see what's going on here: Toucestre and Broun take men to fight against a rebel army and for their lawful king and are accused of wrong-doing while he is still their lawful king.  [TNA SC 8/32/1572]

4) Another petition addressed to "my lady the queen and my lord the duke [of Aquitaine]," which presumably dates to the same period of December 1326/January 1327, by one John Giffard of Essex.  Giffard claims that his manor of Bowers Giffard was attacked by Roger Wodeham and more than fifty armed men (Giffard calls them "rebels") who stole some of Giffard's horses to ride against Isabella and her army, Wodeham supposedly claiming in doing so that Giffard was an enemy of Edward II and Hugh Despenser the Younger and of the queen's faction.  Without irony, the petition refers to Wodeham and his men as acting "against the peace of our lord the king" (encontre la pees n're seigneur le Roi).  Giffard says that Wodeham and the rest remained in the company of Hugh Despenser until Despenser went overseas - presumably a reference to his and Edward's sailing from Chepstow on 20 October 1326 - and then returned to Essex and attempted to kill Giffard because of his support of Isabella.  Roger Wodeham was a valet of Edward II's chamber and constable of Hadleigh Castle in Essex, and was said in March 1327 to have ousted a couple from their lands in Essex on Edward II's orders because they refused to "receive Hugh le Despenser, the younger, at the time of his exile" in 1321/22 (Close Rolls 1327-30, pp. 49-50).  As with the previous petition, men fighting on behalf of their king are accused of wrongdoing and named as 'rebels'.  [TNA SC 8/307/15309]

And finally, combining support for Edward II in 1326 and Piers Gaveston's family, here's some info about Arnaud Caillau, who may have been Piers' cousin (Piers' aunt Miramonde de Marsan married Pierre Caillau of Bordeaux) and was certainly a close ally of Edward II and Hugh Despenser the Younger, called "very dear friend" by the latter in a letter of February 1325.  The Gascon Caillau was in England in 1326, and was preparing to sail from Southampton on 10 September "for the expedition of certain of the king's affairs"; presumably the arrival of Roger Mortimer and Isabella's invasion force shortly afterwards delayed his departure. (Close Rolls 1323-27, p. 615 and Fine Rolls 1319-27, p. 415.)  On 22 February 1327, Mortimer and Isabella paid £35, 6 shillings and 6 pence to 158 men in three ships for pursuing Caillau along the coast of Devon and Cornwall between 8 and 20 December 1326; the timing strongly suggests that he had been with Edward until shortly before his capture.  (Close Rolls 1327-30, p. 9.)  The king was not entirely friendless...

Henry, Earl Of Lancaster

I've written four posts about Henry of Lancaster's brother Thomas, three about his son Henry of Grosmont, and one about his daughters, but never about Henry himself, so it's high time I rectified that (thanks to reader Kate S. for the the suggestion!). 

Henry of Lancaster, Edward II's first cousin, was born in or about 1281 as the second son of Edward I's brother Edmund, earl of Lancaster, Leicester and Derby (16 January 1245 - 5 June 1296), and Blanche of Artois (c. 1245/48 - 2 May 1302).  Blanche was the niece of Louis IX of France, queen of Navarre by her first marriage, mother-in-law of Philip IV of France and grandmother of Louis X, Philip V, Charles IV and Isabella of France.  (Yes, Isabella's grandmother was also the aunt by marriage of Isabella's husband Edward II; oh, these complicated royal inter-relations.)  Henry of Lancaster was thus grandson and nephew of kings of England, brother-in-law of a king of France, half-brother of a queen of Navarre, and uncle of three kings of France and a queen of England.  So was pretty well-connected, then. 

Sometime before 2 March 1297 [1], when he was about fifteen, Henry married the heiress Maud Chaworth (elder half-sister of Hugh Despenser the Younger), who was born on 2 February 1282 and inherited the lands of her father Patrick and uncle Payn in Carmarthenshire, Glamorgan, Hampshire and Wiltshire.  Henry inherited a part of his father's vast lands, though of course the bulk of it went to his elder brother Thomas, and was lord of Kidwelly and owned the Three Castles in Monmouthshire (Grosmont, Skenfrith and the White Castle).  Henry and Maud had six daughters - the countesses of Arundel and Ulster, the prioress of Amesbury, Lady Percy, Lady Wake and Lady Mowbray - and one son, the great Henry of Grosmont, first duke of Lancaster.  Henry was the grandfather of: Elizabeth, duchess of Clarence; Blanche, duchess of Lancaster (both of the latter daughters-in-law of Edward III); Richard, earl of Arundel, executed by Richard II in 1397; Thomas, archbishop of Canterbury; Maud, countess of Oxford; Alice, countess of Kent; Joan, countess of Hereford; Henry, earl of Northumberland and Thomas, earl of Worcester; and was also the great-grandfather of King Henry IV and of Philippa, queen of Portugal.

As well as his elder brother Thomas, Henry of Lancaster had a younger brother, John, who died childless in 1317; Henry was heir to his lands in France, including Beaufort, after which the illegitimate children of his grandson by marriage and heir John of Gaunt were named.  Henry was widowed sometime before 3 December 1322 [2], and never remarried (the Alix de Joinville often named on genealogical sites as his second wife was in fact the wife of his brother John).  How Henry got on, or not, with his brother-in-law Hugh Despenser the Younger is a matter for speculation, though he seems to have been a loving and caring father to his children and formed close relationships with them: his daughters Blanche Wake, Joan Mowbray and Maud de Burgh (and perhaps the others) lived with him most of the time even after they married, and Henry paid all or most of the expenses of his son Henry long after he reached adulthood.  There is also evidence that the siblings were close and that they and their spouses often travelled together.  [3]  On the other hand, Henry's relationship with his elder brother Thomas was, according to Thomas's biographer John Maddicott, a distant one [4] - for which Thomas's prickly personality was perhaps largely to blame.

Given the eminence of the Lancaster brothers, it's surprising how little is known of their early lives; even their dates of birth are not known.  Henry accompanied his elder brother and their cousin by marriage Jan of Brabant - husband of Edward II's sister Margaret - on several visits to their cousin the future king in 1293, and were with him for his ninth birthday on 25 April.  The boys stayed with Edward again in June, Henry and Thomas accompanied by thirty horses and twenty-one servants and Jan by thirty horses and twenty-four servants, much to the exasperation of Edward's clerk, as Edward's household had to bear all the costs ("They are still here" and "Here they are still, and this day is burdensome," the clerk wrote).  In September 1293 Henry stayed with Edward again, for longer than expected, as he fell ill.  [5]  Henry accompanied his uncle Edward I on the Flanders campaign of 1297, when he was perhaps only sixteen - he wasn't paid for it - and took part in the king's siege of Caerlaverock three years later; the Roll of Arms of Caerlaverock says of him:
"I may go on to speak of Henry,
Whose whole daily study
Was to resemble his good father..."  [6]

In the Barons' Letter to the pope of February 1301, Henry - then about twenty - is named as 'Henry of Lancaster, lord of Monmouth' (Henricus de Lancastre Dominus de Munemue).  He appears tenth on the list, after the eight earls and William, Lord Leyburn.  According to the later and frequently unreliable chronicler Jean Froissart, Henry was known as Wryneck (Tort-Col in French).  To quote Scott L. Waugh in the ODNB, this name "could refer either to a physical deformity, or to the stiff-necked pride that he displayed in his family's political and territorial heritage."

In February 1308, Henry was ordered to meet his cousin Edward II and Isabella of France on their arrival in England after marrying in Boulogne.  [7]  Whether Henry had ever met his niece before, I don't know.  At their coronation several weeks later, Henry carried "the royal rod [virga], at the top of which was a dove" in the procession.  [8]  He crops up occasionally throughout Edward's reign, though as he was a younger brother, he wielded little political influence and didn't play a huge role in events of Edward's turbulent reign.  Edward was probably annoyed with Henry in 1316, when Henry's eldest daughter Blanche (then aged about twelve or fourteen) married Sir Thomas Wake without the king's permission; Edward had been planning to marry Wake, his ward, to his great-niece Joan Gaveston.  Still, it doesn't appear to have had a deleterious effect on the two men's relationship, and Henry took part in the campaign against Llywelyn Bren in early 1316, with Sir William Montacute.  [9]

Henry's younger brother John died childless in 1317, and in May 1318 Edward II granted him permission to travel to France to "obtain the inheritance in that land which by the death of John de Lancastre, his brother, descended to him."  In June 1319, Edward excused Henry from attending the siege of Berwick as he was "beyond the seas on important business."  Henry appears to have spent much if not all of the next few years in France, to judge from the number of times Edward granted him permission and protection to remain overseas (he was still out of England in January 1322 and perhaps even later).  [10]  The pope wrote to Henry several times in 1318 as a close kinsman of both the king and the earl of Lancaster, and "bound to pay them reverence and affection," asking him to promote accord between them "so that the realm may be freed from disturbance" (Edward and Thomas of Lancaster were, to cut a very long story short, feuding endlessly).  [11]  I wonder how effective Henry's intervention was, assuming he even attempted one, given that he was not close to his brother and had little if any influence over his cousin Edward II.

Henry's life was to change dramatically in March 1322, when his brother Earl Thomas was beheaded for treason.  As Thomas had no legitimate children by his wife Alice de Lacy (though had at least two illegitimate sons), Henry was heir to his vast inheritance - but Edward II was unwilling to give all or even most of it up to him, and Henry was to play a vital role in the revolution of 1326/27 and the regime of his niece Isabella. 

Sources

1) Calendar of Patent Rolls 1292-1301, p. 239 (a grant to "Henry de Lancastre and Matilda his wife").
2) Calendar of Close Rolls 1318-1323, p. 687 (when the "executors of the will of Matilda, late the wife of the aforesaid Henry" are mentioned).
3) Kenneth Fowler, The King's Lieutenant: Henry of Grosmont, First Duke of Lancaster 1310-1361, pp. 26-27.
4) J.R. Maddicott, Thomas of Lancaster 1307-1322: A Study in the Reign of Edward II, p. 319.
5) Seymour Phillips, Edward II, pp. 51-53.
6) Maddicott, Thomas of Lancaster, p. 68 (for 1297); Thomas Wright, ed., The roll of arms, of the princes, barons, and knights who attended King Edward I to the siege of Caerlaverock, in 1300, p. 20.
7) Close Rolls 1307-1313, p. 51.
8) Ibid., p. 53.
9) Calendar of Chancery Warrants 1308-1348, p. 439.
10) Patent Rolls 1317-1321, pp. 145, 146, 153, 217, 329, 343, 503; Ibid. 1321-1324, p. 69.
11) Calendar of Papal Letters 1305-1341, p. 439.

Thank You, My Readers

Edward II's Effigy

Keep of Berkeley Castle

Just wanted to put up a quick post before the next proper one (about Edward II's cousin Henry, earl of Lancaster) to say: today the average number of daily visitors to this blog reached 200 for the first time.  The number of page views stands at just under 225,000 since I added a counter to the site in 2008, and readers have left 4220 comments.  Wow, that's a lot of people who read a blog dedicated to a disastrous and unpopular king of 700 years ago.  :-)  Edward also has almost 600 fans on his Facebook page now.

I'm so pleased, and really want to say a big THANK YOU to all of you for visiting and for your support!  By the way, I'm open to suggestions about future posts, so if there's anything or anyone of Edward II's era you'd like to read about, let me know any time, either in a comment thread or via email: mail(at)edwardthesecond(dot)com, or edwardofcaernarfon(at)yahoo(dot)com.

Edward II's Effigy, with angel

Edward II's Effigy: lion at his feet

Edward II's Tomb

Edward II's Tomb and Effigy

Gloucester Cathedral

Happy Birthday And Happy Easter

Happy Birthday to Edward II, who was born on 25 April 1284 and is thus 727 years old today!  Looking good for his age, isn't he...?  :-)  It's also the birthday of King Louis IX of France in 1214; Edward II was seventy years younger to the day than Louis, who was both his father's uncle by marriage (Louis's wife Marguerite being the elder sister of Edward I's mother Eleanor of Provence) and his wife Isabella's great-grandfather.

Today is of course also Easter Monday, and I thought I'd take a quick look in this post at where Edward was for every Easter of his reign and what he was up to at that time.  Oh, he had a lovely tradition on Easter Monday, inherited from his father: if he was caught in bed that morning, his 'captors' had the right to drag him out, and he had to pay them a large ransom to free himself.  In 1311, Edward paid twenty pounds to three of his household knights who dragged him out of bed, and in 1312, gave forty marks to Isabella of France's damsels and ladies for 'capturing' him. 

Here are the dates of Easter Monday, and what Edward was up to:

1308, 15 April: Edward was at Windsor Castle with Piers Gaveston, and fortified the place against his barons, who were gathering at Westminster with the intent of forcing Edward to exile Piers.  (Which he duly had to do a few weeks later, to his great fury.) 

1309, 31 March: Edward was at Langley in Hertfordshire, his favourite residence, plotting to bring Piers back to England.  (Which he duly did a few weeks later, to his great joy. :)

1310, 20 April: Edward was at Windsor, having been recently forced to consent to the formation of a group of barons and bishops called the Lords Ordainer, who were to have sweeping powers to reform his household.

1311, 12 April: at Berwick-on-Tweed with Isabella, avoiding the Lords Ordainer and attempting a military campaign against Robert Bruce, which failed because Robert (sensibly) refused to meet an English army in the field and undertook guerrilla warfare instead.  Meanwhile, the Lords Ordainer in London were preparing the Ordinances, which would limit Edward's sovereign powers considerably and force Piers Gaveston into exile yet again.

1312, 27 March: at York, with the newly-pregnant Isabella and - guess who? - Piers Gaveston, who had returned to England from his third exile some weeks before.  Edward was, as he had been the previous year, staying (or is 'skulking' a better word?) in the north to avoid his baronial opponents.

1313, 16 April: at Windsor, avoiding the Westminster parliament which should have started on 18 March - it was on 7 April postponed until 6 May - by pretending to be ill ("the king did not come at the appointed day, detained, as was thought, by a feigned illness," says the Vita Edwardi Secundi).

1314, 8 April: at Ely Cathedral, quizzing the monks as to their supposed possession of the body of St Alban when he'd just seen it in St Albans Abbey.  Heh.  "You know that my brothers of St Albans believe that they possess the body of the martyr. In this place the monks say that they have the body of the same saint. By God’s soul, I want to see in which place I ought chiefly to pay reverence to the remains of that holy body."  You tell 'em, Edward.

1315, 24 March: at Windsor, having recently attended the parliament which regulated the price of basic foodstuffs in the early months of the Great Famine.

1316, 12 April: at Windsor, shortly after the rebellion of Llywelyn Bren and shortly before the rebellion in Bristol came to a head.

1317, 4 April: at the palace of Clarendon, supposedly plotting with Roger Damory and his other court favourites to annoy his cousin Thomas of Lancaster by abducting Lancaster's wife Alice de Lacy, shortly before Damory married Edward's rich widowed niece Elizabeth de Clare.

1318, 24 April: at Wallingford Castle, which had formerly belonged to Piers Gaveston, a few days after some of his barons and bishops met Thomas of Lancaster at Leicester in an attempt to improve the dire relations between the two most powerful men in the country.  Isabella was then heavily pregnant with their elder daughter Eleanor of Woodstock.

1319, 9 April: at Kirkham, around the time that Edward embarrassed himself by asking the pope for permission to have himself re-anointed with the holy oil of St Thomas Becket, in the belief that this would bring his political troubles to an end.  (In a remarkably honest letter to John XXII, Edward condemned his own gullibility and "dove-like simplicity.")

1320, 31 March: at Eltham in Kent with Isabella, waiting for safe-conducts from her brother Philippe V of France to arrive, for them to travel to Amiens so that Edward could pay homage to Philippe for his French lands.  The safe-conducts failed to arrive, so they returned to Westminster a week later, and finally travelled to Amiens in late June.

1321, 20 April: at Gloucester, attempting unsuccessfully to negotiate with the Marcher lords, who began attacking the lands of the two Hugh Despensers on 4 May.

1322, 12 April: at Pontefract Castle, formerly Thomas of Lancaster's, a few weeks after the successful campaign against the Contrariants and Lancaster's execution, and before parliament opened in York in May.

1323, 28 March: at Langley, not long after Edward returned south after a long sojourn in Yorkshire.  This was the year when it all started to go horribly wrong for him, as I mentioned recently.

1324, 16 April: also at Langley, nine days before Edward's fortieth birthday.  By now the king was, brilliantly, openly feuding with several of his bishops and his cousin Henry of Lancaster, while war with his brother-in-law Charles IV broke out this year and the king and the Despensers were wildly unpopular.  Bravo, Edward.

1325, 8 April: at Beaulieu Abbey, a few weeks after Queen Isabella sailed for France to negotiate with her brother Charles IV; Edward would never see his wife again.  She sent him a letter on 31 March, calling him "my very sweet heart" (mon tresdoutz coer).

1326, 24 March: at Kenilworth, also formerly his cousin Thomas of Lancaster's.  Crisis crisis crisis, with Isabella and Roger Mortimer's invasion expected any time and war with France breaking out again.  Edward did find time a few weeks before Easter to found Oriel College at Oxford, however, and on 11 March, gave money to his painter Jack of St Albans for dancing on a table and making him laugh.

Easter Monday fell on 13 April in 1327; Sir Edward of Caernarfon, formerly King Edward II, spent it at his new home of Berkeley Castle - not entirely voluntarily, shall we say - where he had been moved from Kenilworth a few days previously.

Plotting To Free Edward II, 1327 And 1330

In the early autumn of 1327, a group of Welsh knights plotted to release the former Edward II from captivity at Berkeley Castle - which appears to have been unrelated to the plot of the Dunheved brothers and their allies to free Edward that summer.  The ringleaders were Rhys ap Gruffydd of South Wales, lord of Narberth, sheriff of Carmarthen and formerly a squire of Edward II's chamber (see here for more about him), and Sir Gruffydd Llwyd of North Wales, lord of Dinorwig and Tregarnedd, sheriff of Anglesey and Merioneth.  Rhys (with half a dozen of their allies) fled to Scotland after the failure of the plot, while Gruffydd was imprisoned at Caernarfon Castle for eighteen months.  [1]

Edward II's loyal Scottish friend Donald, earl of Mar, Robert Bruce's nephew, appears to have been deeply involved in the plots to free Edward from Berkeley in 1327.  Donald - captured in 1306 as a child by Edward I and imprisoned at Bristol Castle - remained totally loyal to Edward II throughout his reign and only returned to his homeland at the time of Edward's capture in November 1326.  In the summer of 1327, he led one of the columns of his uncle Robert's army against the new regime, and Queen Isabella and Roger Mortimer evidently considered him a great threat: in July and August 1327, they ordered the arrest of two of his supporters in Staffordshire merely for sending letters to him, and also ordered the arrest of Richard le Brun, former mayor of Chester, for adherence to Donald.  (The Dunheved brothers, perhaps not coincidentally, were in Chester in early June 1327.)  In the summer of 1327, Donald's adherents were said to be gathering in the Marches "to do and procure the doing of what evils they can against the king [Edward III] and his subjects" and to have returned from Scotland "to do what mischief they can to the king and his realm."  [2]

What's interesting is that Donald of Mar, Rhys ap Gruffydd and Gruffydd Llwyd's son Ieuan (future governor of the Channel Islands) were also involved in the earl of Kent's plot of 1329/30 to free his half-brother Edward - supposedly dead since September 1327 - from Corfe Castle.  [3]  William Melton, archbishop of York, sent a messenger to Donald to inform him that Edward was alive; Donald duly promised Melton that he would come to England with an army of 40,000 men when instructed by the archbishop.  [4]  (Rather a large army to free a dead man, you might think.)  Rhys ap Gruffydd met other enemies of Roger Mortimer and Isabella in Paris and Brabant - whose duke was Edward II's nephew - who were also plotting an invasion of England.  On 8 August 1330, Roger Mortimer appointed himself, as justice of Wales, to arrest and imprison any followers of Rhys, who was said to be "propos[ing] to enter the realm with a multitude of armed men"; it was said that many people in Wales were "of his confederacy."  [5]

This planned invasion never took place, but caused panic in England, where Roger Mortimer and Isabella were by now deeply unpopular: the Brut chronicle wrote that the country was "ful sore adrade, and almost destroiede," and "bigan the communite of Engeland for to hate Isabel the Quene...".  [6]  In mid-July 1330, Mortimer and Isabella ordered all the sheriffs in the country to array knights, squires and others who bore arms; they should prepare themselves as speedily as possible "to set out against certain contrariants and rebels who lately withdrew secretly from the realm and who have assembled a multitude of armed men in parts beyond the sea and have prepared ships of war and other things and who propose entering the realm to aggrieve the king and his people."  Other arrays were ordered in late July and August against "certain rebels who lately withdrew from the country by stealth."  [7]

As well as Edward II's good Welsh and Scottish friends, there were plenty of English men keen to free him from captivity.  In 1330, they included the bishop and mayor of London; William la Zouche, lord of Ashby, who had besieged Hugh Despenser the Younger's castle of Caerphilly in 1326/27 with Hugh's son inside; Malcolm Musard; William Aune; Giles of Spain; and many dozens of others.

Sources

1) See my previous post, which lists the sources for this paragraph.
2) Gesta Edwardi de Carnarvon Auctore Canonico Bridlingtoniensi, in W. Stubbs, ed., Chronicles of the Reigns of Edward I and Edward II, vol. ii, p. 96; H. Maxwell. ed., The Chronicle of Lanercost 1272-1346, pp. 256-257; Calendar of Close Rolls 1327-1330, pp. 142, 157, 212; Calendar of Patent Rolls 1327-1330, pp. 139, 180-181, 183, 191.
3) E.M. Thompson, ed., Adae Murimuth Continuatio Chronicarum, p. 256; Calendar of Fine Rolls 1327-1337, pp. 169-170.
4) Ian Mortimer, 'The plot of the earl of Kent', in his Medieval Intrigue: Decoding Royal Conspiracies, p. 161; Seymour Phillips, Edward II, p. 567.
5) Murimuth, p. 256; Close Rolls 1330-1333, p. 51.
6) F.W.D. Brie, ed., The Brut or the Chronicles of England, vol. 1, p. 257.
7) Close Rolls 1330-1333, pp. 147, 151; Patent Rolls 1327-1330, pp. 544, 563, 570-572.

Everything Going Wrong

A post about Edward II in late 1322 and early 1323, following his humiliating flight from a Scottish army at Rievaulx Abbey in Yorkshire on 14 October - when he was forced to ride fifty miles to Bridlington on the coast to evade capture, leaving all his possessions behind, "to the great shame and ruin of the king and his realm" as the Anonimalle chronicle (not at all unreasonably) wailed.  For the second time in his reign - the first was after the battle of Bannockburn in June 1314,when the king left his great seal behind on the battlefield - one of Edward's seals was captured by a Scottish force he was fleeing from, and for the second time, the Scots courteously returned it.  (A writ of 27 October 1322 mentions that Edward had recovered his privy seal.)  [1]  Edward's half-brother the earl of Kent, Hugh Despenser the younger, the king's former steward John Cromwell and other men accompanied him on his flight, while John Dalton, once the executed Thomas of Lancaster's bailiff of Pickering, helped Despenser's ally Robert Baldock in some way at Rievaulx and received a reward of ten marks from the king.  [2]

Edward spent one night at Bridlington Abbey, and the abbot, Robert of Scarborough, escorted him to Burstwick the following day.  Edward had written to the abbot on 12 September, thanking him warmly for the two carts and eight horses he had provided for Edward's disastrous expedition in Scotland and returning them, adding that the abbot would "find him [Edward] his most gracious lord when he has affairs at court."  The Bridlington chronicler, who might have seen Edward or talked to members of his retinue, asks rhetorically "What worse fate could befall the English than to behold their king fleeing from place to place in the face of the Scots?"  [3]  After his flight from Rievaulx, Edward spent late October and early November in York, where he gave - among many other gifts - a pound to the earl of Louth (John de Bermingham)'s minstrel Sourelius for performing before him, two pounds to a monk of Rievaulx to buy himself a habit and nine pence to Litel Wille Fissher (whose father Monde was also in the king's household) and Wille de Donestaple, pages of his chamber, to buy themselves shoes.  [4]

Edward probably saw the interesting phenomenon on 31 October recorded by the Sempringham annalist and the Brut: the sky "of a colour like blood," which supposedly lasted from Terce to Vespers, or nine a.m. to sunset.  [5]  He spent the second week of November at Tutbury in Staffordshire, forfeited to the Crown by the earl of Lancaster and where his great favourite Roger Damory had died the previous March.  On the way back to York, Edward stayed at Thorne near Doncaster, where he gave two shillings each to ten fishermen "who fished in the king’s presence and took great pike, great eels and a large quantity of other fish."  His chamber account also records a payment of ten shillings to John Burnet for a small boat "bought from him in the king’s presence," and two pounds to the Carmelite friar Walter Mordon, "whose mass the king often heard in the chapel" at Temple Hirst.  The account sheds light on Edward's enjoyment of 'low' pursuits and fondness for the company of the lowborn: for example, he went to the forge at Temple Hirst to talk to his blacksmith, John Cole.  [6]


The king decided to spend the winter in the north, and on 27 December, once more ordered a muster of his army at York on 2 February 1323 - a campaign destined never to take place (he would never fight in Scotland again).  Edward spent Christmas 1322 at York, and ate porpoise, sturgeon, swans, peacocks, herons, pigeons, venison and wild boar, among much else.  He paid two women for singing for him in the garden of the Franciscans on 26 December, presumably a mild day.  [7]  Hugh Despenser was with him, but Isabella of France - perhaps still angry at what she chose to see as their 'abandonment' of her at Tynemouth - apparently was not: Edward gave Jack Stillego ten shillings on 19 December for bringing him letters from his wife, and there is little evidence of other contact between the couple for the next few months.  [8]  Four days after receiving the queen's letters, Edward informed various (unspecified) sheriffs that Isabella was going on pilgrimage at "diverse places within the realm" until the following autumn, and granted writs of aid to eighteen members of her household "to provide lodging for her company and horses."  [9]

Isabella's whereabouts for the next few months are rather obscure for the most part, though there's a romantic notion that she spent some of this time visiting and otherwise aiding Roger Mortimer, imprisoned at the Tower of London.  (And, according to several novelists, having hot sex with him.  Riiiiiight.)  Quite how the queen of England of all people was meant to have gone into Mortimer's cell without anyone in the Tower, a very busy place, ever noticing, I cannot imagine - but there you go, that's the theory.  Make of it what you will.  She certainly spent some time at the Tower in early 1323, in the company of Hugh Despenser's wife and her niece by marriage, Eleanor de Clare. The queen wrote a letter to the treasurer on 17 February, from the Tower, asking him to ensure that her "dear and beloved cousin" Joan Mortimer (née de Geneville) received promptly the money allocated for her sustenance.  This has sometimes been seen as evidence of her collusion with Joan's husband Roger, with whom the queen began a relationship in late 1325.  Although it is possible that Mortimer smuggled a message to Isabella asking for her help, it is equally likely that the queen was motivated by concern for a (partly-French) noblewoman who was her distant cousin.  Eleanor de Clare also wrote a letter on Joan's behalf, on the same date and from the Tower; I think we can safely say that Eleanor was not colluding with Roger Mortimer.  [10]

Edward II, meanwhile, remained in Yorkshire with Hugh Despenser until 19 March 1323, when he began to make his way back south.  On 7 January, he gave two pounds to four clerks for playing "interludes" before himself and Hugh Despenser in the great hall at Cowick, and spent three shillings playing dice.  On 4 February, he had to pay fourpence to replace a key which opened a chest of money, "which the king himself lost" (q' le Roi mesmes perdist).  [11]  More and more problems beset the troubled, unpopular and increasingly tyrannical king in 1323: Andrew Harclay's treason; a near-escape from Wallingford Castle by some of the Contrariants imprisoned there; a remarkable royal vendetta which he carried out against several of his bishops; persistent reports of miracles at the execution sites of several Contrariants; Roger Mortimer's escape from the Tower; and conflict with his brother-in-law Charles IV of France which would ultimately end in war in 1324.  Edward II's troubled reign was becoming ever more chaotic and beginning its final descent towards his deposition in January 1327...

Sources


1) The Anonimalle Chronicle, 1307-1334, ed. W. R. Childs and J. Taylor, p. 112; Foedera 1307-1327, p. 498.
2) Gesta Edwardi de Carnarvon Auctore Canonico Bridlingtoniensi, in W. Stubbs, Chronicles of the Reigns of Edward I and Edward II, vol. 2, p. 79; James Conway Davies, 'The First Journal of Edward II’s Chamber', English Historical Review, 30 (1915), p. 676.
3) Calendar of Documents Relating to Scotland 1308-1348, p. 143; Gesta Edwardi de Carnarvon, pp. 79-80.
4) Rastall, Richard, 'Secular Musicians in Late Medieval England' (PhD thesis, University of Manchester, 1968), part 2, p. 70; Davies, 'First Journal', 675-676.
5) Le Livere de Reis de Britanie e le Livere de Reis de Engletere, ed. John Glover, p. 347; The Brut or the Chronicles of England, ed. F. W. D. Brie, vol. 1, p. 228.
6) Davies, 'First Journal', pp. 676-678; The National Archives E 101/379/17.
7) Calendar of Close Rolls 1318-1323, pp 687, 690 (muster), Mary Saaler, Edward II 1307-1327, p. 116 (food); E 101/379/17 (singers).
8) Davies, 'First Journal', p. 678.
9) Calendar of Patent Rolls 1321-1324, pp. 227, 229.
10) Isabella's letter: TNA SC 1/35/45; Eleanor's: SC 1/37/4.
11) Davies, 'First Journal', pp. 678-679; E 101/379/17.

Links

Oh dear, I've really been neglecting the blog lately!  :(  I don't even have a proper post today, either.  Apologies; life seems to be getting in the way at the moment.

So in the absence of a post about Edward II or an aspect of his reign or someone else who lived then, here are a few links to other sites:

- Alan Flower of History and the Sock Merchant hosted an excellent History Carnival recently.

- My blog, and Hannah's blog, get a nice mention here.

- A great post about Edward II by Martin Porter.

- I've discovered the Alternate History Discussion Board lately, which is very active and has some fascinating 'what if' threads, including: what if Edward II had been more competent and what if Edward I had outlived him?

- More generally, The Guardian has had a few articles recently about history and the teaching of it in schools; see here, here, here and here (as usual in The Guardian, the comment threads below the articles are well worth a read too).

- A production of Marlowe's play about Edward II, updated to Latin America (with Edward renamed Eduardo and Piers Gaveston Gustavo), is on at the Rose Theatre, directed by Constanza Hola Chamy.

- And last but certainly not least: The Daisy and the Bear, K. L. Clark's hilarious historical spoof set in the fifteenth century (it's brilliant; see her blog for extracts), is now available to buy on Lulu.

Edward II The Attorney

On 19 December 1316, Edward II made a most unusual offer: he wrote to his cousin* Aymer de Valence, earl of Pembroke, offering to act personally as Pembroke's attorney while Pembroke travelled to Avignon to see Pope John XXII on Edward's behalf.

* Aymer de Valence (c. 1270/75 - 23 June 1324) was the son of William de Valence, earl of Pembroke (died 1296), Henry III's half-brother, and was thus Edward II's half-first cousin once removed.  Aymer's mother Joan Munchensi, who died in 1307, was the granddaughter of the great William Marshal, earl of Pembroke (died 1219).

Here's my translation of the letter, with punctuation added as there's very little in the original!

***
Edward, by the grace of God king of England, lord of Ireland and duke of Aquitaine, to our dear and faithful cousin Sir Aymer de Valence, earl of Pembroke, greetings.  Very dear cousin, we have well understood the letters and the message which you sent us by our dear and faithful Sir John Sapy and Oliver de Bordeaux, and we thank you as dearly as we can, and we are extremely grateful that you have our business so tenderly at heart.  And we make known to you, very dear cousin, that we have a special interest in all the affairs which touch you, and we will be your attorney for as long as you are overseas, and we wish you to charge your people who will remain here [in England] that for the period of time while they manage the affairs which touch you that they should come to us in person, to show to us the state of your said affairs, and we will see to them in such a way that, if it please God, you will consider yourself satisfied on your return to us.  And know, very dear cousin, that all the items which you have drawn up regarding our estate, we will observe them.  Wherefore we beg and charge you especially that you may have our affairs tenderly at heart, which you have so well begun, and pursue them with all the diligence that you can, in the same way that we will especially do for you. And the progress of our affairs you will make known to us from time to time, with the news which comes to you, as dearly as you love us.
Given under our privy seal at Clipstone on the nineteenth day of December, in the tenth year of our reign [1316].
***

How the earl of Pembroke felt about this is anyone's guess; as Professor Seymour Phillips points out, "Edward's advice and assistance on anything might be regarded as a mixed blessing."  Still, as Phillips says, the letter demonstrates the remarkable level of trust and affection Edward II had for his kinsman, and it's also interesting to see that Pembroke had made some suggestions to Edward regarding the governance of the kingdom which Edward agreed to act on.  Sadly for Pembroke, however, the rise of Edward's favourite Roger Damory at court in 1317 led to a considerable reduction in the earl's influence over the king, which declined even further after Hugh Despenser the Younger became all-powerful at court.  In June 1322, Edward even forced Pembroke to swear an oath on the Gospels that he would always be obedient and faithful to him, because "the king was aggrieved against him for certain reasons…and could not assure himself of the earl," most probably because Pembroke had persuaded Edward to consent to the Despensers' exile in August 1321, and also made Pembroke swear that he would not ally himself against the king or "anyone whom the king will maintain," surely a reference to the Despensers.  [Calendar of Close Rolls 1318-1323, pp. 563-564.]  By the time Pembroke died in June 1324, on Edward II's service in France - still, despite everything, faithfully serving him - his influence over the wayward and ungrateful king was a thing of the past.

[Edward's letter is printed in French (or Anglo-Norman, rather) in J.R.S. Phillips' Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke 1307-1324: Baronial Politics in the Reign of Edward II, p. 317, and see also p. 110.  The original document is located in the National Archives, SC 1/49/39.]