London Sheriffs Court Roll, 1320

The London sheriffs' court roll for 1320 has recently gone on British History Online, and here are some nice extracts from it...

Alice de Stockyngge accused John de Cornhulle, a surgeon, of trespass and theft: She claimed that on 'Wednesday before the feast of St. Barnabas the Apostle', 10 June 1320, John came to her at Fleet Street ('Fletestrete'), and declared that he would cure her "of an infirmity of the feet from which she was suffering, for the sum of half a mark, and applied diverse medicaments against the said infirmity."  Sadly, the medication failed to work, and as a result of it, Alice said that she "was within six days unable to put her feet to the ground and her malady became completely incurable."  On 23 June, she said that John "entered her house with force and arms and carried off a blanket, two sheets and a super-tunic worth 20 shillings....".  John indignantly denied the charged of trespass and theft, and also claimed that he had never undertaken to cure Alice's ailment and "did not infect her feet with his medicaments," but the jury found against him, and awarded Alice £30 16s 8d damages.

Hugh of Worcester complained that on 'Thursday before the feast of St. Margaret the Virgin, 14 Edward II', i.e. 18 July 1320, Benet of Feribi, chaplain, Henry of Farenbergh and Bartholomew le Cotiller came to his house in the parish of St Mildred in Poultry and carried off 'two escaped swans' against his will, to his damage of ten pounds.  The defendants claimed that they were legally entitled to enter Hugh's house and take the swans, as one Saloman le Cotiller had left ten marks in his will to pay for two chaplains celebrating Mass for his soul in the church of St Mildred, to be provided from the rent from the house where Hugh lived, and the amount had fallen into arrears and they were collecting it.  A jury was summoned to hear the case.

Items taken from Robet le Keu and his wife Margery as pledges for a debt of twenty-four shillings they owed to a woman named Emma, last name missing:  a chest,worth 18d; a chequer-board worth 12d; eight hard stockfish worth 8d; an old pot with two feet broken, worth 18d; an old brass pan holding two gallons, worth 6d; three old small pans, worth 12d; three [missing] of which two are broken, worth 18d; two [missing] of which one is broken, with a basin worth 9d; one little old iron pan worth 3d; one old and broken grid iron, worth 1d.

On 'Friday next before the feast of St Margaret the Virgin, 14 Edward II', 19 July 1320, John Clerk of the church of All Hallows Hay was accused of assaulting one Warin le White and was said to have "wounded him with a certain lute and inflicted other enormities upon him contrary to the peace and to the damage of the said Warin to the value of £40, as claimed by Warin."  On 18 September that year, a jury found him guilty and decided "that John is to be imprisoned until he makes satisfaction concerning these damages, and he is also to make fine to the lord king."

John of Bromptone, chaplain, complained that 'on the Tuesday called Hokeday' (?) in 1319, he had taken a knife and razor to the shop of Simon le Fourbour to be sharpened, and handed them to Robert, Simon's servant, and that Simon later refused to return the items.  Simon denied it.

I love this bit: "Gerard le Barber, Nicholas Hurle, Sabine of Hendone appear v. Richard of Redyngge in a plea of debt. The said Richard made default four times, and was attached by two chests and other household utensils."

John of Eye was charged with coming to the house of William of Toppesfelde in the parish of St Bride, Fleet Street, on 9 June 1319, "assaulting him and carrying off night firewood to the value of 100s."  The jury found him guilty and awarded William forty shillings damages, and John was committed to prison.

Alexander le Mazerer was convicted of stealing numerous items from William Broun, goldsmith, and others: four cups, valued by Thomas of St Botulph's and John of Caustone, goldsmiths, at 14s; a robe with a hood of murrey, for a woman, value 14s; two hoods of black stuff, 2s 6d; a woman's robe of green motley, with a cape, 16s; a red tunic, 6s; a green tunic, 6s; a blanket, 4s; a blanket, 18d; a carpet, 2 s. 6d; a blanket, 8d; a cooking vessel, a brass pot, a dish, value 9s; two copper mortar, 20s. 2d; a covelet of green cloth, furred with miniver, valued by Richard Lonekyn, Nicholas of Santone and John of Thorpe at 50s.

- And from the London Assize of Nuisance, also from British History Online:

Friday 9 August 1314: "The mayor and commonalty, by John Dode, chamberlain, complain that Walter le Benere has a house in the parish of St. Lawrence Jewry of which the stone wall extends from the outer gate of the Guildhall to the middle gate of the entrance of which part is ruinous, to the great danger of the passers-by, and although warned by the mayor he has not troubled to repair it. Judgment that he repair it within 40 days etc."

Friday 4 February 1317:  "Hugh de Garton complains that the rainwater from John de Sudington's tenement in the parish of St. Peter the Less in Bradestrete falls upon his land and floods it, and that he has windows and other apertures in his party-walls overlooking his tenement. The defendant comes and says that he and all the tenants of the tenement in question have been seised of the easement of the fall of rainwater and the apertures from time out of mind."

Friday 1 December 1318: "Perambulation by the mayor, sheriffs and aldermen of the land of the dean and chapter of St. Paul's in the parish of St. Dunstan, on complaint of Thomas de Neusom, clerk of Sir Ralph de Monthermer, that because the tenement of the dean and chapter adjoining that of Ralph is not built up along the street, vagabonds crossing the tenement by night break down Ralph's party-walls and enter and do damage there. The dean and chapter do not come and are not represented. Judgment that they be compelled to build a wall on their property, along the street, to a height of 16 ft."

Friday 8 December 1318: "Assize of nuisance brought at the instance of Henry le Palmere, who complains that William de Hallyngburi has made a gutter upon a stone wall on his land in the parish of St. Michael de Paternostercherch into which he and his household throw water and all kinds of refuse, which flows out on to the plaintiff's land, so that his timber and all his other property are rotted; and that by reason of the same gutter he cannot build on his land adjoining the same wall; and that the defendant has made windows therein 16 ft. from the ground. The defendant says that the gutter has been in situ for sixty years, and was not therefore made by him, and he puts himself upon the view of the mayor and aldermen."

Women Of Edward II's Reign: Margaret Wake, Countess Of Kent

A post today about Margaret Wake, lady of Badenoch and countess of Kent, who married Edward II's half-brother and was the grandmother of Richard II.  Writing about women of the early fourteenth century is often an exercise in frustration as they appear so rarely in the records, but anyway, here's some information about Countess Margaret.  (And as it's 22 March, let me just quickly mention Earl Thomas of Lancaster's execution on this day in 1322.)

Margaret was born sometime in the mid to late 1290s as the only daughter of John, Lord Wake (d. 1300) and Joan Fiennes; her brother Thomas, their father's heir, was born in 1297 or 1298, and there was also a younger brother, John.  She must have been at least a couple of years older than her second husband Edmund, earl of Kent, as her first husband John was killed at the battle of Bannockburn in June 1314 leaving her with a small child or at least expecting one; Edmund wasn't even thirteen in June 1314 (born 5 August 1301).  Although the Wakes, who held lands in Cumberland and Lincolnshire, were not a particularly wealthy or influential baronial house, Margaret's ancestry was illustrious.  Through her paternal grandmother Hawise de Quincy, she was the great-great-granddaughter of Llywelyn the Great, prince of Wales, and his wife Joan, illegitimate daughter of King John.  Her mother Joan Fiennes was the sister of Roger Mortimer's mother Margaret (and the Fiennes sisters were first cousins of Edward II's brother-in-law Humphrey de Bohun, earl of Hereford); her grandfather William Fiennes was killed at the battle of Courtrai in 1302; her great-great-grandfather Jean de Brienne was emperor of Constantinople; her great-great-grandmother Berenguela was the sister of Edward II's grandfather Fernando III of Castile.

In about 1312, Margaret married John Comyn, only son and heir of John 'the Red Comyn', lord of Badenoch and one of the guardians of Scotland, killed in church by Robert Bruce in February 1306.  John (the younger) was born sometime in the 1290s; I've previously written a post about his sisters Joan and Elizabeth.  After their father's death, the three children were sent to live in England, where they all married and spent the rest of their lives.  Little is known of John Comyn, except that Edward II granted him some lands and that he fought at Bannockburn on Edward's side - hardly surprising, given that Robert Bruce had killed his father - and died there, any dreams he might have had of avenging his father's murder in ruins.  His lands and the lands of Edmund Comyn, who must have been a relative but I'm not familiar with the Comyn family tree, were taken into the king's hands a few weeks later on 1 August 1314.  [1]

John Comyn and Margaret Wake had one known child, a son Aymer, named (presumably) after John's maternal uncle Aymer de Valence, earl of Pembroke.  On 16 August 1314, Edward II granted three manors in Nottinghamshire, Northamptonshire and Berkshire, with a total annual income of almost 140 pounds a year, to "Margaret, late the wife of John Comyn son of John Comyn, who was lately killed whilst on the king's service in Scotland, for her sustenance and that of Aymer their son...".  On 26 May 1316, Edward made a grant to Margaret of 30 pounds a year from the Exchequer in place of one of the manors "in aid of her sustenance and expenses"; little Aymer is not mentioned, and had probably died by then.  [2]  A sad loss for Margaret.  The boy's death left his aunts Joan and Elizabeth Comyn as heirs to the Comyn holdings, their claim to the throne of Scotland, and their share of the inheritance of their childless uncle the earl of Pembroke.

Margaret Wake remained a widow for more than eleven years.  Her brother Thomas, a ward of Edward II, married Henry of Lancaster's eldest daughter Blanche in 1316, to the great annoyance of the king, who had planned to marry him to Piers Gaveston's daughter Joan.  There's very little I can say about Margaret during this period; at least her lack of wealth kept her safe from the rapacious Despensers, unlike her sister-in-law Elizabeth Comyn.  Somehow, in 1325, Margaret got to know the man who would become her second husband: Edward II's half-brother Edmund of Woodstock, earl of Kent, the king's lieutenant in Gascony during the War of St-Sardos.  It may be, as Penny Lawne has suggested, that Margaret accompanied Queen Isabella to France in March 1325 and stayed there with her for the next few months, and met Edmund this way.  [3]  Edmund, a king's son and brother, might have expected to make a better match than with a widow some years his senior who was not an heiress or from an especially influential family.  He turned twenty-four in August 1325 and had been earl of Kent since June 1321, and it's interesting to speculate whether Edward II - who, contrary to Edmund's modern and undeserved reputation for stupidity and gullibility, had always shown a lot of faith in his ability - had any bride in mind for him.  Edmund's elder brother Thomas had made a rather bizarre (by the standards of the era) marriage to the coroner of Norfolk's daughter Alice Hales, though at least in his case Edward II had entered into negotiations in 1320/21 for Thomas to marry King Jaime II of Aragon's daughter Maria, widow of Pedro of Castile.  (Unflatteringly for Thomas, Maria decided she'd rather take the veil.)  [4]

Given that Margaret Wake was Roger Mortimer's first cousin, and given also that Edmund supported Mortimer and Queen Isabella against Edward II in 1326, is it possible that Edmund was publicly allying himself with Mortimer and the queen by agreeing to marry her and that this was a reason for their marriage?  I doubt it.  Pope John XXII granted Kent a dispensation to marry "a woman related to him in the third or fourth degree"* on 6 October 1325.  [5]  This is a few weeks before the public association of Isabella of France and Mortimer and the queen's refusal to return to England, and if the papal dispensation was granted on 6 October, it must have been applied for at least a few weeks or months previously.  Roger Mortimer in the summer and autumn of 1325 was, whatever secret sympathies Edmund may (or may not) have harboured for him, an escaped traitor whom Edward II feared and despised, and this is too early for Kent to have associated himself with him against his half-brother, at least in public; it wasn't until February/March 1326 that he openly backed his sister-in-law Queen Isabella and her favourite.  No doubt the family connection helped then to strengthen the two men's alliance, but in the summer and autumn of 1325, it is most unlikely to have been Kent's primary motivation in marrying Margaret and may not have been a factor at all.  As Margaret had no lands beyond the dower she received from her marriage to John Comyn and Edmund therefore cannot have married her for her wealth and influence, that leaves us with a love match, as suggested by Penny Lawne.  Romantically, this would mean that both of Edward I's sons by Marguerite of France married women of their own choice for (apparently) love.  Awww.

* Margaret and Kent were second cousins twice removed via common descent from King John (Edmund's great-grandfather, Margaret's great-great-great-grandfather).  Margaret was also Edward II's second cousin twice removed through a different line as well as via the King John connection (King Alfonso IX of Leon and Berenguela of Castile were Edward's great-grandparents and Margaret's great-great-great-grandparents).

The St Paul's annalist says that Margaret and Edmund married around the time that Queen Isabella's uncle and the ancestor of the Valois dynasty, the prolific Charles of Valois, died, which was on 16 December 1325.  [6]  Edward II appears to have reacted to the marriage by temporarily taking Margaret's lands into his own hands - assuming she's the 'Margaret Comyn' in question, which seems likely - though he changed his mind and countermanded the order on 27 January 1326.  (I can't find the original order in the chancery rolls, but it can't have been much earlier than that.)  This would seem to indicate that Edmund and Margaret's marriage took place without Edward's knowledge and consent, though whether he interpreted it as Edmund moving into Roger Mortimer's camp is unclear.  The king confiscated his half-brother's lands on 24 March 1326, when it became evident that Edmund would not return from France as ordered.  [7]  In late September 1326, Edmund did return, with Isabella and Mortimer's invasion force and his young nephew the future Edward III.  Presumably Margaret travelled back from the continent somewhat later, when it was safer, especially as it is highly likely that she was heavily pregnant.  It probably goes without saying that we don't have the faintest idea what she thought about her brother-in-law's deposition and her nephew's accession, or about Edward's supposed murder.

Edmund, earl of Kent and Margaret Wake were married from about mid-December 1325 to 19 March 1330 and had four children, of whom one was born nineteen days after Edmund's execution:

1) Edmund, the elder son, probably born in late 1326, died as a child in the early 1330s.
2) Margaret, the elder daughter, presumably born in 1327 (unless perhaps she was Edmund's twin).  She married the Gascon nobleman Amanieu d'Albret and died childless at an uncertain date, at any rate before her brother John in 1352.
3) Joan, the younger daughter, born in September 1328 and her father's ultimate heir.  This is the famous Joan of Kent, who was married to Sir Thomas Holland and the earl of Salisbury's son at the same time, and who later married Edward III's eldest son and became the mother of Richard II.  Died August 1385.
4) John, the younger son, born posthumously on 7 April 1330; married Queen Philippa's niece Elisabeth or Isabel of Jülich; died childless December 1352, leaving his sister Joan, his only surviving sibling, as his and their father's heir.

Margaret must have spent much of the period of Isabella and Mortimer's regime pregnant.  In 1329 and 1330, her husband plotted with many others to free the former Edward II from captivity at Corfe Castle - the plot I have a lot to say about - and was beheaded for treason in Winchester on 19 March 1330, leaving Margaret at least eight months pregnant and with three children under four.  Five days before Edmund's execution, Queen Isabella and Roger Mortimer ordered her to be imprisoned at Salisbury Castle; "the countess is to be accompanied on the way by only two damsels and her children."  The day after Edmund's execution, the pair, having perhaps been informed that Margaret - Mortimer's first cousin - was heavily pregnant and unable to travel the seventy miles from Arundel to Salisbury, allowed her to remain at Arundel.  They ordered Roger atte Asshe, keeper of Arundel Castle and the earl of Kent's other lands and manors which had all been taken into the king's hands, to pay Margaret a mark a day for the sustenance of herself, her children and the two attendants they had allowed her.  Margaret gave birth to her son on 7 April.  Several entries in the chancery rolls reveal Isabella and Mortimer's preoccupation with having her "jewels and other goods" brought to them, and they ordered two men "to enquire as to jewels and other goods of the countess taken away," just in case she had tried to cheat them of anything.  [8]

Margaret must have been delighted when her nephew by marriage Edward III overthrew Mortimer and Isabella a few months later.  At the November 1330 parliament, the incredibly eventful one when Mortimer was sentenced to death, Edward II's supposed murderers were named and Lord Berkeley made his intriguing statement that he hadn't known of Edward's death till the present parliament, Margaret and her elder son, four-year-old Edmund, presented petitions.  Margaret's read:
"To our lord the king, if it pleases him, his liege, Margaret, countess of Kent, prays for herself and for her children [ Margarete countesse de Kent, pur lui et pur ses enfauntz]: that of his grace he be willing to cause to come before him in his present parliament at Westminster the record and the process by which your uncle and her good lord my lord Edmund, late earl of Kent was put to death, considering, among other things, if it pleases you, that Sir Roger de Mortimer, late earl of March acknowledged at his death before the people that the said earl was wrongfully killed...".

The petition was granted and the judgement against Earl Edmund of a few months previously was duly reversed.  What I find really funny about the response to Margaret and her son's petitions is the constant repetition that Edward II had been dead in March 1330 and that therefore it had been impossible for Edmund and his allies to free him: "...caused the same earl to understand that the Lord Edward, late king of England, the father of our present lord the king, and brother of the said earl, was alive, when he had been dead for a long time.  And they did this to encourage him to purchase the release of his said brother, as if it had been possible to do this"; "...willing to purchase the easement and the release of his same brother, which release was impossible to secure all that time seeing as he was already dead, as is said above"; "he had knowingly wished the said release to the prejudice of the king our present lord, which was completely impossible as is said above"; "...caused the said earl of Kent, who is dead, to understand that our lord the king the father of our present lord the king was alive when he was dead, and for that reason it had been impossible to have secured or purchased his release".

Countess Margaret's brother Thomas, who had fled from England in March 1330 having taken part in the earl of Kent's plot to free Edward of Caernarfon, died childless on 30 May 1349, perhaps of the plague; his widow Blanche of Lancaster lived until 1380, and his eventual heir would be his niece Joan of Kent.  Margaret succeeded briefly to the Wake lands before dying on 29 September 1349, in her early fifties, having lived long enough to see her daughter Joan cause a great scandal by being married to William Montacute and Thomas Holland at the same time.  Margaret outlived two husbands and at least two of her children (Aymer Comyn and Edmund of Kent, and perhaps also her elder daughter Margaret).  She has many modern descendants via her daughter Joan's sons Thomas and John Holland, half-brothers of Richard II.

Sources

1) Calendar of Fine Rolls 1307-1319, p. 206.
2) Calendar of Patent Rolls 1313-1317, pp. 164, 657.
3) Penny Lawne, 'Edmund of Woodstock (1301-1330): A Study of Personal Loyalty', in C. Given-Wilson, ed., Fourteenth Century England VI (2010), pp. 37-38.
4) Pierre Chaplais, English Medieval Diplomatic Practice, part 1, vol. 1, pp. 64-66.
5) Calendar of Papal Letters 1305-1341, p. 246.
6) Annales Paulini 1307-1340, in W. Stubbs, ed., Chronicles of the Reigns of Edward I and Edward II, volume 1, Rolls Series, 76, p. 310.
7) Calendar of Chancery Warrants 1244-1326, p. 573; Calendar of Close Rolls 1323-1327, p. 464.
8) Cal Pat Rolls 1327-1330, p. 499; Cal Close Rolls 1330-1333, p. 14.

Edward II's Bad Press

Some of the harsh judgements passed on Edward II by historians of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries:

"A more complete ninny than Edward II has seldom occupied a throne. He was indeed a man of commanding presence — tall, strongly built, and very handsome — but his kingly figure was not yoked with a kingly intellect or will. He had no taste and no capacity for kingship, except in the mere matter of military parade and Court ceremony. He preferred to ride a horse, row a boat, dig a pit or thatch a barn, get up masques, and patronise playwrights, try his hand at farming and horse- breeding, to the work of government. As recreations these pursuits might do credit to a great ruler, but when they are the chief occupations of a monarch who cannot rule, they betoken the trifler and the pitiful incapable.": J. Mackinnon, History of Edward III (1900).

"[B]rutal and brainless athlete...incompetent, idle, frivolous and incurious": T.F. Tout, 'The Captivity and Death of Edward of Carnarvon' (1934).  Tout does allow that Edward was "not, I suspect, exceptionally vicious or depraved."  Gosh.

"A scatter-brained wastrel": Ibid.

"A weakling and a fool": May McKisack, The Fourteenth Century 1307-1399 (1959).

"Weak-willed and frivolous": T.F Tout, The Place of the Reign of Edward II in English History (1914).

"A coward and a trifler": Tout again, in Edward the First.

"He has no high aims, no policy beyond the cunning of unscrupulous selfishness.  He has no kingly pride or sense of duty, no industry or shame or piety...vulgar pomp, heartless extravagance, lavish improvidence, selfish indolence make him a fit centre of an intriguing court.  He does no good to anyone": William Stubbs, A Constitutional History of England (1875).  In fairness, Stubbs also describes Edward III as "unscrupulous, selfish, extravagant, and ostentatious.  His obligations as a king sat very lightly on him."

And a much older and particularly unpleasant judgement on poor Edward: "Of four sons which he [Edward I] had by his wife Queen Eleanor, three of them died in his own lifetime, who were worthy to have outlived him; and the fourth outlived him, who was worthy never to have been born": Richard Baker, A Chronicle to the Kings of England (1643).  That one makes me furious.

Not entirely on-topic, but I had a good giggle at this page, which starts badly (by claiming that the centuries-later story of Edward I deceiving the Welsh by presenting to them a 'prince who could speak no English' is true) and gets worse (by suggesting that "Some doubt could be raised as to whether King Edward II was the genetic father of Prince Edward", AGH!!!). There's also a list of Edward II's supposed bad points, among which are included:

- Flaunted his homosexuality
- Enjoyed good food and wine
- Enjoyed fine, expensive but elegant, showy, bizarre clothes & jewellry- Liked acting or 'theatricals'
- Patron of writers and players
- Enjoyed poetry and wrote some.
- Played kettle drums, loved music & had a troupe of Genoese musicians [2 trumpeters, harpist, horn player and a drummer.]
- With Gaveston he enjoyed jesters, jugglers, actors and singers.
- Collected books on French romances and legends.

It had honestly never occurred to me before that being a patron of writers, enjoying poetry and music, and collecting books could actually be considered bad things. Perhaps the writer means that such cultured hobbies were out of place in a king of the fourteenth century and that they distracted Edward from the real business of making war and killing lots of people. If so, this should really have been stated more clearly. I also wonder about the 'flaunting his homosexuality' bit. There's an awful lot I could say about that particular statement, but I'll limit myself to wondering whether 'flaunting his heterosexuality' would have been considered a bad thing, or even worthy of comment.

Finally, and definitely off-topically, today is the 690th anniversary of the battle of Boroughbridge, where Andrew Harclay, sheriff of Cumberland, defeated the earls of Hereford and Lancaster.  See here for the Battlefields Resource Centre's pages about the battle, and here for my post on the aftermath of the battle and the possessions of the fleeing Contrariants seized by Edward II's household.  Oh, and here for the dishonesty of some modern writers in misquoting the Vita Edwardi Secundi's account of the battle and its aftermath.

Blog Visitors

 

I hadn't checked my blog visitor map for absolutely ages until a couple of days ago, and was thrilled to see all the readers I've had, from all over the world!

The top twenty countries my blog visitors come from are, in order:

United States
United Kingdom
Australia
Canada
Germany
Netherlands
France
India
Belgium
Portugal
Russian Federation
Taiwan
New Zealand
Italy
Spain
Ireland
South Africa
Philippines
Japan
Switzerland

I can't help noticing from the map that I've never had any blog visitors from Madagascar, Siberia or most of Central Africa.  Hmph.  :-)  Great to see that I've had a fair few readers in South America and Asia, though.

Since 2008, the blog has had almost 350,000 page views.  Between 150 and 230 people visit the blog every day.  My Facebook page about Edward has almost 800 fans now.

I happened to do Google searches for Edward II's friends Sir Roger Damory and Donald, earl of Mar recently, and found that the top results for them are my blog (I have the top three results for Damory!).  It's also third on Google's results for Piers Gaveston, with my friend Anerje's blog just behind, yay.

My blog is usually the third result on Google for Edward II himself, behind the Wikipedia page for him and the Wiki page for Christopher Marlowe's play about him.  (Occasionally, it comes fourth or fifth behind the Internet Movie Database page for Derek Jarman's 1991 film 'Edward II', the brief page about him on Britannia.com, or an E-Notes page about the Marlowe play.)  It usually comes second, third or fourth for anyone else of Edward's reign I've written about, yippee.

A big resounding THANK YOU to all my readers, whether you're regulars or occasional visitors or one of the many hundreds of people who find my article explaining why William Wallace couldn't have been Edward III's father after watching Braveheart when it's on television yet again.  :-)  I've been writing this blog for the best part of six and a half years now, since 3 December 2005.  Here's to the next six and more years of the Edward II blog, and lots more 'myth-squidging' as someone on Tumblr (linking to the blog) so nicely described it a couple of days ago.  :-)

The Marriages Of The Two Hugh Despensers

Hugh Despenser the Elder, created earl of Winchester by Edward II in 1322, was probably the only man of rank who remained completely loyal to Edward from the beginning to the end of his reign.  He was destined to end his long life executed by Roger Mortimer and Isabella of France at Bristol on 27 October 1326, his head taken afterwards on a spear to adorn the walls of Winchester Castle and his body fed to dogs.  Hugh was sixty-five at the time of this grotesque fate, born on 1 March 1261.  [1]  His father Sir Hugh Despenser, justiciar of England and a staunch supporter of Simon de Montfort, was killed at the battle of Evesham in August 1265 fighting against the future Edward I, but luckily for the four-year-old boy's future, his maternal grandfather Sir Philip Basset, who lived until 1271, was a royalist baron and a personal friend of Henry III's brother Richard of Cornwall.  Hugh's widowed mother Aline, Philip Basset's only child and heir, married secondly Roger Bigod (born c. 1245), earl of Norfolk, and died in early April 1281.  (It's interesting to note that even during her second marriage, Aline continued to use the name 'Despenser', even though her second husband was of a higher rank than her first; anyone who thinks the Despensers were nobodies, please take note.)  The Bigod earls' biographer Marc Morris relates an interesting story whereby Roger Bigod attempted to wrest control of his late wife's inheritance out of his stepson's hands by pretending that Aline had borne him a child, who had taken a breath before dying.  A living child meant, by the contemporary custom known as the 'courtesy of England', that Earl Roger would have gained a life interest in his wife's entire estate.  Hugh Despenser vigorously contested the claim, and Roger was forced to drop it.  [2]  (He died childless in 1306, having married secondly the count of Holland and Hainault's daughter Alicia; his patrimony passed eventually to Edward II's half-brother Thomas of Brotherton.)

Hugh was twenty when his mother Countess Aline died, and on 28 May 1281, a few weeks after her death, Edward I granted his marriage to William Beauchamp, earl of Warwick.  On 2 April 1282, shortly after he came of age (i.e. twenty-one), Hugh bought his marriage from Warwick for 1600 marks.  [3]  Though no-one could have known it then, his future wife was Warwick's daughter Isabel, who exactly two months before this purchase had given birth to her eldest child, Maud Chaworth, by her husband Patrick.  Patrick died in July 1283 leaving Maud, his only child, as his heir, and by 2 March 1297 she had married Edward I's nephew Henry of Lancaster (younger brother of Thomas).  [4]  At an uncertain date, probably in 1286, Hugh Despenser and Isabel Beauchamp married without a royal licence, for which they were fined 2000 marks by the king (Edward acquitted them of the payment in November 1287, but by then they had already paid almost £1000 of it).  [5]

I've seen Hugh Despenser the Elder called a nobody, a mere humble knight of no great background; one book even states, incredibly, that Hugh and his son were "not members of a baronial family," a jaw-dropping statement.  Hugh the Elder was stepson of the earl of Norfolk and son-in-law of the earl of Warwick.  Given that his father had died in rebellion against the Crown, he'd done remarkably well for himself, and, his marriage without royal licence notwithstanding, was high in Edward I's favour.  He and Isabel Beauchamp had six children: Hugh, Philip, Aline, Isabel, Margaret and Elizabeth, who were via their elder half-sister Maud Chaworth brothers- and sisters-in-law of Edward I's nephew Henry of Lancaster, whose own half-sister Jeanne was queen of Navarre in her own right and queen of France by marriage.  In 1306, Edward I demonstrated his appreciation of Hugh Despenser the Elder's loyalty and abilities by arranging the marriage of Hugh's heir Hugh the Younger to his eldest granddaughter Eleanor de Clare - further evidence, if it were needed, that the claim that the Despensers were not a baronial family is utter nonsense.  Their wedding took place in the king's presence at Westminster on 26 May 1306, the day after Eleanor's first cousin Jeanne de Bar married the earl of Surrey and four days after Hugh, Surrey and many others were knighted with Edward of Caernarfon.

Eleanor was thirteen and a half at the time of her marriage (born in October or November 1292), Hugh probably between sixteen and nineteen (his date of birth is unknown, somewhere between 1287 and 1290).   Somewhat confusingly, an entry on the Patent Roll of 14 June 1306 talks of a "[g]rant to Hugh le Despenser, son of Hugh le Despenser, between whom and Eleanor daughter of Gilbert, sometime earl of Gloucester and Hertford, the king's niece [actually granddaughter], a marriage is contracted, with the king's and the said Hugh's assent...".  [6]  From other evidence, however - gifts from Edward I to Eleanor and his hiring of minstrels to play at the wedding, and the chronicle of Pierre Langtoft - it is apparent that the couple had already married some weeks before.

Isabel Beauchamp died on or shortly before 30 May 1306, on which date the escheator was ordered to take into the king's hands "the lands which Isabel late the wife of Hugh le Despenser, deceased, held with Hugh in chief in frank marriage of the gift of William de Bello Campo [Beauchamp], earl of Warwick, deceased."  [7]  That week in late May 1306 must have been a strange one for Hugh the Younger: he was made a knight and got married, but lost his mother.  As with almost all women of the era, Isabel is a shadowy figure about whom little is known.  Something of her personality emerges in a petition presented at the beginning of Edward III's reign, when William de Odyham complained that the younger Hugh had removed him from his job as parker of Odiham Castle in Hampshire because Odyham had once "levied hue and cry upon Isabel the said Hugh's mother, who was taking five bucks in the park without warrant." [8]

Hugh Despenser the Elder never remarried and remained a widower for a little over twenty years.  Hugh the Younger and Eleanor de Clare were married for almost exactly the same period, and had at least ten children together.  One of the two Hughs was most probably the father of Nicholas de Litlyngton, abbot of Westminster from 1362 to 1386 (see Susan Higginbotham's post).  Hugh the Elder seems not to have been on good terms during Edward II's reign with his brother-in-law Guy Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, the man who in 1312 abducted Piers Gaveston, of whom Hugh was a staunch supporter.

Sources

1) Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 2, nos. 101, 389; Calendar of Fine Rolls 1272-1307, pp. 149, 152.
2) Marc Morris, The Bigod Earls of Norfolk in the Thirteenth Century (2005), p. 125.
3) Calendar of Patent Rolls 1272-1281, p. 439; Calendar of Close Rolls 1279-1288, p. 184.
4) Cal Pat Rolls 1292-1301, p. 239.
5) Cal Close Rolls 1279-1288, p. 462; Martyn Lawrence, 'Rise of a Royal Favourite: the Early Career of Hugh Despenser the Elder', in Gwilym Dodd and Anthony Musson, eds., The Reign of Edward II: New Perspectives (2006), p. 208.
6) Cal Pat Rolls 1301-1307, p. 443.
7) Cal Fine Rolls 1272-1307, p. 538.
8) Calendar of Inquisitions Miscellaneous (Chancery) 1308-1348, no. 988; The National Archives SC 8/160/7986

Brief Biographies: The Fisher Family

Just a quick post today (I've had an eye injury and haven't been able to come online for a while) about a family who served Edward II: the Fishers.

Edmund Fisher, Fissher, Fisshere or Fyssher, whose first name almost always appears on record as the diminutive 'Monde' - Edmund in the early fourteenth century was spelt 'Esmon' or 'Edmon' - was a valet of Edward II's chamber by February 1323 and probably a lot earlier, but unfortunately few of Edward's chamber accounts survive.  That month, he was given a gift of five shillings by the king (paie a Monde Fissher vadlet de la chambre de doun le Roi v s).  He often appears in Edward's extant chamber accounts of the 1320s doing errands for the king, usually called 'valet of the king's chamber', and in January 1326 'the king's fisherman', as per his name, given three shillings by Edward to buy himself fishing boots (botes p' lewe, literally 'boots for the water').

Monde's son Wille was also a member of Edward II's household, and appears in the records as a page of the king's chamber and later as a huntsman.  What I love is that he is almost always called Litel Wille, Little Will.   (Edward also had servants called Litel Colle, Little Colin, and Grete Hobbe, Big Rob.  So cute.)  Although Edward's chamber accounts were written in French, the nickname was always written in English, Litel or Lytle, not Petit, although I have seen it once in Latin, Parvo Willelmo.  The name Fisher always appears in English too, not in French (le Peschour, it would have been).

In November 1322, Edward gave Litel Wille and another page of his chamber, Wille de Donestaple, nine pence to buy themselves shoes, and in August 1325 the two young men and two others received money from him to buy themselves robes.  From October 1325 to January 1326, 'Lyttle Wille' was sent to Somerset and Dorset with Richard Beauchamp 'the king's huntsman', six other men, forty-one 'coursing hounds' and eleven greyhounds, for which he was paid seven pence a day, a very generous amount for a young man of his rank.  In late April 1326, 'Litel Wille Fyssher, page of the king's chamber' was given a gift of five shillings "for what he did when the king mounted his horse."  (Unfortunately, whatever he did is not specified.)  Edward was leaving Kenilworth Castle in Warwickshire that day, and Litel Wille was forced to remain behind, ill; presumably the five shillings was at least partly intended in aid of any expenses he incurred while not travelling with the court.

Monde Fisher's wife, Wille's mother, named Isabelle or Sibille for short, first appears in Edward II's chamber account in the autumn of 1325, receiving a gift of five shillings in exchange for sending him fish.  On 1 April 1326, Edward sent 'Esmon le Fisshere' to the priory of Coventry on his retirement; it was a usual and frequent occurrence for kings to send their former servants to a convent to receive sustenance there for the rest of their lives when they retired.  Monde was still with the king at Sturry in Kent on 12 June, however, when Edward gave ten shillings to "Monde Fissher, one of the valets of the king's chamber, remaining ill at the said Sturry."  Edward departed that day for Leeds Castle, leaving Litel Wille behind with a gift of two shillings to help look after his father, but sadly Monde "was called to God" (fust a dieu commande) the next day.  Edward gave twelve pence to "Peres, boy of Monde Fissher" who came to inform him of Monde's death.

Edward met Monde's widow Sibille while travelling between Sheen and Byfleet on 2 July.  He gave her a gift of twenty shillings (a pound), and also gave ten shillings to her and Monde's daughter Joan ('Johane' in contemporary spelling), his chamber account noting that the money was given to the women in his presence.  On 25 July, Edward encountered Sibille (her name this time recorded as 'Isabell') again, also when travelling between Sheen and Byfleet - this was the day he met a man named John de Walton who gave him a bucket of fish and who "sang before the king" - and she gave him and his niece Eleanor Despenser, travelling with him, a present of loach.  He gave her five shillings in return.

This is the last instance I can find of Edward II's association with the Fisher family, though Litel Wille was named as one of Edward III's huntsmen in 1330.  I hope he thrived.  I'm so fond of him.  :-)  I like the glimpse into the lives of some of the lower-ranked people who served Edward and how he looked after them, and also into contemporary nicknames - Monde, Wille, Sibille.  Finally, it's interesting to see that Monde, who really was a fisherman, had the name Fisher, and that his son Wille bore the same name, despite not being a fisherman to the best of my knowledge.  He wasn't called 'Hunter' or 'Page' or 'of the Chamber' or 'of Byfleet' or anything else which might have served to identify him and distinguish him from other men named Wille.  Are we seeing part of the evolution of fixed English surnames here?

Sources

The National Archives E 101/379/17
Society of Antiquities Library MS 122
Calendar of Memoranda Rolls Michaelmas 1326-Michaelmas 1327
Calendar of Close Rolls 1323-1327

Some Ancestors Of Edward II

I've been doing some research into a few of Edward II's ancestors lately.  I didn't know that he had some Polish blood: one of his great-great-great-great-great-grandfathers was Władysław II, High Duke of Poland and duke of Silesia (1105-1159), whose daughter Richeza married Alfonso VII of Castile.  (And that's interesting in itself - a marital alliance between Spain and Poland in the twelfth century.)  Richeza and Alfonso's only child Sancha married Alfonso II of Aragon, and their son Alphonse was count of Provence and the grandfather of Edward's paternal grandmother Eleanor:

Edward II - Edward I - Eleanor of Provence, d. 1291 - Ramon Berenger V, count of Provence, d. 1245 - Alphonse, count of Provence, d. 1209 - Sancha of Castile, d. 1208 - Richeza of Poland, d. 1198 - Władysław II, d. 1159.

Władysław's grandfather Sviatopolk II, the father of his mother Sbaslawa or Zbyslava, was the ruler of Kievan Rus and prince of Novgorod.  (My friend Christy Robinson knows a lot about this family.)  Władysław's father was Bolesław III Wrymouth (d. 1138), prince of Poland.  Through Bolesław's mother Judith, Edward II was descended from kings of Bohemia, German dukes and counts, the grand dukes of Kiev (again) and was the ten greats grandson of Olga Prekrasna (d. 969), wife of Igor I of Kiev, who converted to Christianity in Constantinople and took the name Yelena or Helen.  She was canonised as a saint and equal-to-the-Apostles in 1547 and is considered the first saint of the Russian Orthodox church, instrumental in spreading Christianity in Russia.

The mother of Richeza of Poland and wife of Władysław II was the German noblewoman Agnes of Babenberg.  Agnes' father Leopold III (d. 1136), margrave of Austria - Edward II's six greats grandfather - is the patron saint of Austria.  Agnes of Babenberg's mother Agnes of Franconia (d. 1143) was the mother of Conrad III of Germany, the first king of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, by her first marriage.  She was the daughter of  the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV (d. 1106), Edward II's seven greats grandfather, by his first wife Bertha of Savoy.  Henry IV is most famous for being forced to wait for three days in the snow at Canossa in 1077 by Pope Gregory VII, who had excommunicated him.

Also via Agnes of Babenberg and her father Leopold III, Edward II was the ten greats grandson of Otto Orseolo, doge of Venice from 1008 to 1026, and his wife Sarolta Arpad, daughter of Geza, Grand Prince of the Magyars.  Sarolta's brother Stephen (or István, d. 1038) was the first king of Hungary and was canonised in 1083; his feast day is still a national holiday in Hungary.  Edward II is descended from Otto Orseolo and Sarolta's daughter Froila.  Geza's great-grandfather was Arpad Arpad (d. c. 907), Edward's fourteen greats grandfather, second Grand Prince of the Magyars (after his father Almos).

Another saint in the family, ancestor of Richeza of Poland and Edward II's thirteen greats grandmother, is Saint Ludmila of Bohemia (d. 921), who is a patron saint of Bohemia, the Czech Republic, widows, people who have problems with their in-laws, and - of all people - duchesses.  Her grandson Boleslav, Edward's ancestor, was the brother of St Wenceslas (as in 'Good King Wenceslas looked out, on the feast of Stephen, where the snow lay round about...').

Olaf Skötkonung, also known as Olaf Eiríksson, king of Sweden from 995 to 1022, was Edward II's eight or nine greats grandfather through three lines: via Richeza of Poland, and via both of Edward's parents, who were descended from Anna Yaroslavna (also known as Anne of Kiev), daughter of Yaroslav, prince of Novgorod and Kiev and granddaughter of Olaf.  Anna married Henry I of France (d. 1060).  Olaf Skötkonung's maternal grandmother was Dobrava of Prague, daughter of Boleslas, king of Bohemia and an English mother, Adiva or Edith, daughter of Edward the Elder, king of Wessex, son of Alfred the Great (d. 899).  Edward II was descended from Alfred the Great many times over, including via Alfred's daughter Ælfthryth and her son Adalulf (d. 933), count of Boulogne.  Edward the Elder's daughter Edith (d. 946) married Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 973), Edward II's ten greats grandparents

Edward II was the great-great-grandson of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine; he was also the great-great-grandson of Alais of France, daughter of Eleanor's former husband Louis VII of France, who was betrothed to Henry and Eleanor's son Richard Lionheart but may have been Henry's mistress.

Edward II - Eleanor of Castile, d. 1290 - Jeanne de Dammartin, queen of Castile and countess of Ponthieu, d. 1279 - Marie, lady of Ponthieu, d. 1250 - Alais of France, countess of Ponthieu and the Vexin, d. c. 1220.

I really like one of Isabella of France's lines: she was the seven greats granddaughter of Harold Godwinson, the king of England killed at the battle of Hastings in 1066, via Harold's daughter Gytha, who married Vladimir II Monomakh, grand duke of Kiev, in about 1070.  It makes me happy to think that the kings of England from Edward III onwards are Harold Godwinson's descendants:

Isabella of France - Philip IV, d. 1314 - Isabel of Aragon, queen of France, d. 1271 - Yolande of Hungary, queen of Aragon, d. 1251 - Andras II, king of Hungary, d. 1235 - Bela III, king of Hungary, d. 1196 - Euphrosyne of Kiev, d. before 1186 - Mstislav I, grand duke of Kiev, d. 1132 - Gytha Haroldsdaughter, d. 1107 - Harold Godwinson, king of England, d. 1066.

Talking of an Anglo-Saxon connection, as well as another saint in the family, Edward II was the seven greats grandson of Edmund Ironside, briefly king of England for a few months in 1016 until his defeat in battle by Cnut, via Edmund's son Edward the Exile (who grew up in Hungary) and Edward's daughter Saint Margaret, queen of Scotland (who married Malcolm Canmore):

Edward II - Edward I - Henry III - King John - Henry II - Empress Matilda, d. 1167 - Edith (Matilda) of Scotland, queen of England, d. 1118 - Saint Margaret of England/Hungary, queen of Scotland, d. 1093 - Edward the Exile, d. 1057 - Edmund Ironside, d. 1016.

Edward II's great-great-great-great-grandmother Petronilla (c. 1135-1173) was queen of Aragon in her own right.  Her father Ramiro was a monk forced to give up his monastic vows temporarily to become king of Aragon on the death of his childless brother; he returned to his monastery after fathering Petronilla (by Agnes of Poitou, aunt of Edward II's great-great-grandmother Eleanor of Aquitaine) and betrothing her as a baby to Raymond Berenger IV, count of Barcelona.  Petronilla abdicated in 1163 in favour of her young son Alfonso II, and acted as regent for him until her death the following year.

Edward II - Edward I - Eleanor of Provence - Raymond Berenger, count of Provence - Alphonse, count of Provence - Alfonso II, king of Aragon, d. 1196 - Petronilla, queen of Aragon, d. 1164 - Ramiro 'the Monk', king of Aragon, d. 1147.

Edward's great-grandmother Berenguela (1180-1246, granddaughter through her mother of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine) became queen of Castile in her own right on the death of her brother Enrique I in 1217, but immediately abdicated in favour of her son Fernando III.  She acted as her son's regent for a few years and was still his chief adviser after he came of age.

The first king of Portugal, Afonso Henriques (c. 1109-1185), was Edward's great-great-great-grandfather:

Edward II - Eleanor of Castile - Fernando III of Castile and Leon, d. 1252 - Alfonso IX of Leon, d. 1230 - Urraca of Portugal, d. 1188 - Afonso Henriques, d. 1185.

Leo VI Mamikonian, emperor of Byzantium (d. 912), was Edward's twelve greats grandfather, by his second wife Zoe Zaoutzaina.  Leo was known as 'the Wise' or 'the Philsopher', and his paternity is uncertain, though his mother was certainly the Empress Eudokia Ingerina, wife of one Byzantine emperor and mistress of another.

Edward's thirteen greats grandmother may have been Auria or Oria bint Lopo, who may have been the wife of Fortún Garcés, king of Pamplona (d. 905).  She came from the Banu Qasi dynasty of northern Spain, who converted to Islam in the early eighth century following the Umayyad conquest of much of the Iberian peninsula.

Edward was descended from the Bagratuni or Bagratid dynasty, who ruled Armenia as princes and kings from the eighth to eleventh centuries.  For example, Varaz-Tirots Bagratuni, Marzpan (i.e. governor-general) of Armenia from 628 to 635, was Edward's twenty greats grandfather (roughly).

The Well-Connected Anjou/Naples Siblings

A post today about some of Edward II's first cousins once removed and second cousins.

Edward's paternal grandmother Eleanor of Provence was the second of four sisters, daughters of Count Raymond Berenger V of Provence and Beatrice of Savoy, who all became queens (for more information about them, see Nancy Goldstone's non-fiction book Four Queens: The Provencal Sisters Who Ruled Europe, and also Sherry Jones' forthcoming novel Four Sisters, All Queens).  The eldest, Marguerite, married Louis IX of France in 1234 and was the mother of Philip III (and others); Eleanor married Henry III of England in 1236 and was the mother of Edward I (and others); Sanchia married Henry III's brother Richard of Cornwall, future king of Germany, in 1243, and was the mother of Edmund, earl of Cornwall; Beatrice married Louis IX's brother Charles of Anjou, future king of Sicily, in 1246, and was the mother of Charles, king of Naples (and others).  Philip III, Edward I, Edmund of Cornwall, Charles of Naples and their siblings were thus all very closely related, being the offspring of one set of sisters and two sets of brothers.

It's the descendants of Charles, king of Naples (c. 1248/54 - 5 May 1309) whom I mainly want to talk about today.  His father Charles of Anjou was crowned king of Sicily in 1266; the story of how he took the kingdom from Manfred, illegitimate son of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, and then lost it again to Manfred's daughter Constanza and her husband Pedro III of Aragon and died in exile, is a fascinating one.  The other children of Beatrice of Provence (d. 1267) and Charles of Anjou (d. 1285) were: Beatrice (d. 1275), who married Philip de Courtenay, titular emperor of Constantinople, and whose only child Catherine married Philip IV of France's brother Charles of Valois; Blanche (d. 1270), who married Robert of Béthune, count of Flanders; Philip (d. 1277), titular king of Thessalonica; Isabella (d. 1304), who married László IV, king of Hungary.

Charles of Naples - first cousin once removed of Edward II, whose wedding to Isabella of France he attended the year before his death - had many titles: king of Albania, king of Naples, prince of Salerno, prince of Achaea (part of the Peloponnese peninsula in Greece), prince of Taranto (a port in Apulia, southern Italy), count of Provence and count of Anjou.  He was not, however, king of Sicily as his father had been; the kingdom passed to Pedro III of Aragon and then to two of his sons and their descendants.  He is known to history as Charles 'the Lame' (le Boiteux in French).  In 1270, Charles married Marie of Hungary (c. 1257-1323), sister of  László IV who married his sister Isabella.  Two of Marie's sisters were queens of Serbia, while the fourth married the Byzantine emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos, whose second wife was Edward II's first cousin once removed Yolande of Montferrat.  Charles of Naples and Marie of Hungary's many children, Edward II's second cousins, are the main focus of this post:

- Charles Martel, titular king of Hungary (1271-1295).  The eldest son and named after his father Charles of Naples and his grandfather Charles of Anjou.  Charles Martel ('Hammer') was seen by some as the successor of his mother's childless brother László IV of Hungary, though never ruled the country.  His son Charles (or Károly in Hungarian) sent to Hungary as a child by his grandfather Charles of Naples in 1300, did successfully press the family's claim, however, and eventually ruled the country, and was also king of Croatia.  Charles Martel married Clementia of Hapsburg (also d. 1295), one of the daughters of Rudolf, king of Germany and duke of Austria, Styria and Carinthia; their daughter Clemence married Louis X of France in 1315 and was the mother of the short-lived John I 'the Posthumous' of France.  (Clementia of Hapsburg's brother Hartmann was betrothed to Edward II's sister Joan of Acre from 1278 to 1281, when he drowned in the Rhine.)  Charles Martel died the month before his twenty-fourth birthday.

- Marguerite, countess of Anjou in her own right, countess of Valois (1273-1299).  Marguerite took Anjou with her as dowry when she married Philip IV's brother Charles, count of Valois (1270-1325) in 1290 (his second wife was Marguerite's first cousin Catherine de Courtenay, titular empress of Constantinople, mentioned above; his third was Mahaut of Châtillon or of St Pol, whose sister Marie married Aymer de Valence, earl of Pembroke).  Marguerite was the mother of Philip VI, the first Valois king of France, and through her daughter Jeanne, the grandmother of Edward III's queen Philippa of Hainault.

- Saint Louis of Toulouse (1274-1297).  Elected bishop of Toulouse just a few months before his death at the age of twenty-three, the same age as his elder brother, having previously been elected archbishop of Lyon in 1294.  Louis was canonised by Pope John XXII in April 1317, his feast day 19 August, the date of his death; the great-uncle after whom he was presumably named, Louis IX of France, had been canonised in 1297.  For more info about him, see here.

- Robert 'the Wise', king of Naples, titular king of Sicily and Jerusalem, prince of Salerno, duke of Calabria, count of Provence, Forcalquier and Piedmont (1277-1343).  The fourth child and third son of Charles of Naples and Marie of Hungary, and the eldest to outlive their father.  I can hardly do justice to Robert's long and eventful life here, or to his contested claims to the throne of Jerusalem, which came from Marie of Antioch (d. 1277).  Edward II tactfully addressed his kinsman as 'king of Sicily and Jerusalem' when he unsuccessfully tried to claim a share of the county of Provence from him in 1323.  Robert married firstly Violante or Yolande, daughter of Pedro III of Aragon and Constanza of Sicily - two of her brothers really did reign as kings of Sicily - and secondly Sancha, daughter of Jaime, king of Majorca.  His heir when he died was his granddaughter Jeanne or Joanna, whose mother was one of the many daughters of the prolific Charles of Valois, by his third wife Mahaut of Châtillon.  The notorious, much-married and murdered Queen Jeanne is the subject of another of Nancy Goldstone's books.

- Philip, titular emperor of Constantinople, king of Albania, prince of Achaea, prince of Taranto, despot of Epirus*, lord of Durazzo** (1278-1333).
* a successor state of the Byzantine Empire in Greece and Albania

** a city in Albania.

I've mentioned Philip of Taranto before, as he sent a violist named Robert Daverouns to Edward II in 1316.  In 1294 he married Thamar Angelina Komnena, great-niece of the Byzantine emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos (Edward II wrote to Michael's son Andronikus, and his cousin Empress Eirene, in 1314, asking them to help free Sir Giles Argentein).  Philip and Thamar's marriage was not successful: Thamar, raised in the Orthodox faith, was forced to convert to Catholicism and renamed Caterina, and in 1309, Philip accused her of adultery with no fewer than forty noblemen, annulled their marriage and imprisoned her.  She died in 1311.  Philip then married, in 1313, his first cousin once removed Catherine of Valois, daughter of - who else? - Charles of Valois and his second wife Catherine de Courtenay, titular empress of Constantinople.  Philip's children included: Jeanne, who married Oshin, king of Armenia; Marguerite, who married the titular duke of Athens; and Philip, despot of Romania, who married his first cousin Violante, daughter of Jaime II of Aragon, who had once been proposed as a bride for Edward III.

-  Blanche, queen of Aragon (c. 1280-1310).  Blanche married Jaime II, king of Aragon, in 1295.  Jaime succeeded his brother Alfonso III, who was planning his marriage to Edward II's sister Eleanor when he died suddenly in 1291.  He himself first married Sancho IV of Castile's eldest daughter Isabel, but had the marriage annulled when Sancho died in 1295, and married Blanche soon afterwards.  Blanche's son succeeded as Alfonso IV in 1327; her grandson the future Pedro IV (b. 1319) was betrothed to Edward II's younger daughter Joan in 1325; Edward had previously made plans to marry his son and heir Edward III to Blanche and Jaime II's youngest daughter Violante (b. 1310).  Edward II said in February 1325 that Jaime "is old and decrepit and it is not certain that he is not dead," although Jaime lived for another two years and nine months.  After Blanche's death aged about thirty, Jaime married Marie de Lusignan, daughter of the king of Cyprus, and fourthly Elisenda de Montcada, daughter of an Aragonese nobleman.

- Raymond Berenger, count of Andria (1281-1307).  Died unmarried.

- John, a priest (1283-1308), and Tristan, born and died 1284.

- Eleanor or Alienore, queen of Sicily (1289-1341).  She married Fadrique (Frederick), king of Sicily, one of the sons of Pedro III of Aragon and Constanza of Sicily, whose sister Violante married her brother Robert 'the Wise'.  Her children included Pedro, king of Sicily, and Constanza, who married firstly Henry of Lusignan, king of Cyprus, and secondly Leo IV, king of Armenia.

- Marie, queen of Majorca (1290-1346/47).  Married in 1309 to Sancho I, king of Majorca, who died childless in 1324. His father was the brother of Pedro III of Aragon, of Isabel, who married Philip III of France, and of Violante, who married Alfonso X of Castile.

- Peter 'Tempesta', count of Eboli and Gravina (1291-1315).  Died childless.

- John, lord of Durazzo, count of Gravina (1294-1336).  (Another John.)  In 1318 he married, as her third husband, Matilda of Hainault, after abducting her with the connivance of his brothers Robert and Philip, but their marriage was annulled for non-consummation in 1321.  John married secondly Agnes of Périgord, by whom he had three sons.

- Beatrice, Countess of Andria (1295-1335).  She married firstly the decades-older Azzo VIII d'Este, marchese of Ferrara, who died in January 1308 when she was still barely pubescent, and secondly Bertrand III des Baux, count of Andria, with whom she had one daughter.

Be My Valentine, Not A Dummy

Some years ago, Edward II penned a deeply moving Valentine letter to Piers Gaveston, using the Valentine Generator. He now writes one to Hugh Despenser.

To my delicious hedgehog,

You are the pearl of my surcoat. I want to smooch with you more than any Castilian in the whole privy.

The first time we roller-bladed, I felt scrumptious in my liver, and I was so anguished that I could barely yodel. I knew that we would prevaricate together for a minute and a half.

Whenever you stampede, it makes me pout awesomely and belch like a sumptuous ruby.

I will fondle with you fluffily until the Tower of London throbs and the parliament reveres.

Magnificent Valentine's Day!
Love, your disgruntled heretic
Edward, king of England, lord of Ireland, prince of Wales, duke of Aquitaine, earl of Chester and count of Ponthieu.

More of the Edward II for Dummies series, from here :-)

Some anagrams of 'Edward of Caernarfon' (from here):

A Cad Narrow Offender

A Facade Nod Err Frown
A New Afforded Rancor
A Canon Forward Freed
A Farce Adorn Frowned

A Dancer Narrowed Off

A Racoon Dwarf Fender

Isabella of France:

A Faecal Snob Lifer
A Facial Noble Serf
A Rascal Noble Fief
A[n] Anal Bile Scoffer
A Fabric Sale Felon

Piers Gaveston:

Grapevines Sot
Envisage Strop
Avengers Posit
Veteran Gossip
Overeats Pings
Vintage Posers
Onstage Vipers
Pensive Groats
Pats Sovereign

Hugh Despenser:

He Spurns Hedge
He Hugs Spender
Her Pens Gushed
Nerds Hug Sheep
Hug Ends Herpes

A Plot To Free Some Contrariants, 1323

 I've already written several posts about Edward II's successful campaign against the Contrariants in 1321/22, and the executions of twenty or twenty-two men which followed.  In addition, a few dozen men were imprisoned - various chroniclers give the numbers as sixty-two, eighty-three or a hundred [1] - while others were released in and after 1322 after being forced to acknowledge that they owed large debts to the king in return for a pardon.  The men imprisoned included Roger Mortimer of Wigmore and his uncle Roger Mortimer of Chirk; Maurice, Lord Berkeley and his son Thomas, Edward's future captor at Berkeley Castle; Edward's former favourite Sir Hugh Audley and his father Hugh Audley the elder.  I have no idea what Edward II's long-term plans were regarding the imprisoned Contrariants; did he intend to keep them locked up forever, or did he think that one day he might be secure enough on his throne to release them?  That day never came, and with the exception of a handful of escapees (Hugh Audley, Robert Walkfare, and, of course, Roger Mortimer), the Contrariants imprisoned in 1322 remained there until freed after Mortimer and Isabella's invasion in 1326.

Several chroniclers describe a plot to free several of the Contrariants from captivity in early 1323, and there are also references to the plot in official government sources and an extant letter of Edward II.  Maurice, Lord Berkeley and Hugh Audley the Elder were imprisoned at Wallingford Castle in Berkshire - which had formerly belonged to Piers Gaveston - and, according to a long account of the plot in the Vita Edwardi Secundi [2], "a certain esquire who had long been in his [Berkeley's] service used often to visit him...it happened one day that this esquire with three or four companions entered the castle, by leave of the guard, and because his visit was customary it was in no way suspicious.  The same night Maurice invited the constable to dine with him, and all the doorkeepers and watchmen in the castle as well.  As they were dining the esquire and his companions suddenly rose and demanded the keys of the castle, threatening with death anyone who resisted."  The constable handed over the keys, and the squire let in twenty or so others, intending "to warn certain friends and to get his lord Maurice away at cockcrow together with the other prisoners."  Unluckily for them, a boy "living at the outer gate, realising that affairs in the inner ward were not as they should be, secretly slipped out, went to the mayor of the town, and at once reported that the castle was lost, and that many strangers had entered."  Thus was the plan foiled, and the sheriff arrived in the morning and ordered the men inside to surrender.  The Vita says that Edward II's half-brother Edmund of Woodstock, earl of Kent, and Hugh Despenser the Elder, earl of Winchester, happened to be in the area, and entered the castle, where they found "Maurice in custody as usual, and the rest in the chapel."  Berkeley "stoutly maintained that he had plotted nothing to the prejudice of the lord king...".  (A leaf of the Vita is unfortunately missing at this point, so the story remains unfinished.)

The Sempringham continuation of the Livere de Reis de Britanie has a totally different account of events [3]: it says that on 11 January 1323 Wallingford Castle was captured by Maurice Berkeley's wife, and that they held the castle for about two weeks until Edward II's forces besieged it and they surrendered.  The Livere says that they were aided by Sir John Maltravers, Sir Edmund de la Beche and Hodgkin de Wandon, who "chiefly held the castle, [and] were bound and brought before the king."  Two interesting things here.  John Maltravers was another of Edward of Caernarfon's captors at Berkeley Castle in 1327, and is usually assumed to have fled from England after the battle of Boroughbridge in March 1322, though it's not impossible that he was still there or had returned temporarily and was trying to create as much trouble for Edward II as possible (his father John Maltravers the Elder was still in England and at liberty, and attacked a fair in Dorset in or shortly before October 1325).  [4]  Secondly, Maurice Berkeley's wife - his second wife, whom he married in 1316 or thereabouts when she was already in her mid-fifties - was Isabel de Clare, the much older half-sister of Eleanor de Clare and thus Hugh Despenser the Younger's sister-in-law.  (Much as I'd love to think of Isabel, the eldest child of Gilbert 'the Red', earl of Gloucester and then aged sixty, holding a castle with her husband against the king and some of his powerful nobles, I'm afraid I just don't think the annalist's account is correct.)  The Brut chronicle contains a short account similar to the Vita's [5], naming Maurice Berkeley's squire as Roger Wauton, and saying that Sir Edmund Beche and Sir John 'Goleinton' were taken to Edward II at Pontefract after the castle's surrender and that Wauton was drawn and hanged at York.  John 'Goleinton' has been identified as John Wilington, a Contrariant and adherent of John, Lord Giffard, and pardoned in November 1323; John's brother Henry and Giffard were executed in 1322.  [6]

Edward II, at Stowe Park in Lincolnshire, heard of Maurice Berkeley and his friends' plot on 17 January - perhaps six days later, according to the date in the Sempringham continuation - when he wrote to the constable of Skipton Castle to see to the castle's safety and report to him, because of "some strange and diverse news we have heard" (par ascuns estranges et diverses novelles qe nous avons oy).  [7]  On the same date, he sent his household steward and the sheriffs of Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Wiltshire to "besiege the castle of Walyngford and to arrest all rebels who have entered therein."  [8]  The steward of the royal household was Sir Richard Damory, elder brother of Edward's former favourite and nephew-in-law Sir Roger Damory, who had died in the Contrariant rebellion ten months previously.  (Natalie Fryde's Tyranny and Fall of Edward II, p. 261 note 26, misses Edward's letter and the order to Richard Damory and says that the king heard of the plot on 20 January.)  On 6 June 1323, Edward II paid seven pounds, six shillings and eight pence to Drogo Barentyn, sheriff of Oxfordshire and Berkshire, "which he expended by order of Edmund, earl of Kent, Hugh, earl of Winchester, and Richard Damory, steward of the king's household, whom the king appointed to take into his hands Walyngford castle, which was lately held against the king...".  The money included payments to seven footmen from 27 January till 14 February and twenty-three footmen from 14 to 23 February, and for four men to bring one 'Thomas de Fencote, a prisoner' to the king, and a horse for him.  [9]  (I love this bit: "6s 8d. for the expenses of the said four men returning home for five days; and 20d. for the expenses of the horse returning for the same time.")

Edward II cannot have been a happy man in early 1323; the rebellion of Andrew Harclay, earl of Carlisle, came to light at the same time, and that of Robert Lewer had taken place only a few weeks before.  Rightly or wrongly, the king suspected that Maurice Berkeley's attempt to escape from Wallingford was part of a wider plot to free other Contrariants from the Tower of London and Windsor Castle, a suspicion he gave voice to in November 1323, some months after Roger Mortimer's escape from the Tower on 1 August.  [10]  On 5 February 1323, Edward ordered a commission of oyer et terminer "touching the persons who seditiously entered the castle of Walyngford, co. Berks, wherein Maurice de Berkeleye and Hugh Daudele, the elder, and other prisoners were detained, and held it against the king; as the king now understands that the said Maurice and Hugh and the other prisoners consented thereto, and kept the castle against the king jointly with the said persons," a commission repeated on 7 April with the addition of Windsor and "other of the king's castles."  [11]

Maurice Berkeley and the elder Hugh Audley both died in 1326, before the invasion of Roger Mortimer and Queen Isabella, as did Mortimer's uncle Roger Mortimer of Chirk.  Berkeley was fifty-five, Mortimer of Chirk about seventy, Audley in his late fifties or early sixties.  Given their ages, I don't think we need to look for a sinister explanation for their deaths, and there is nothing to suggest they weren't natural; none of the younger Contrariants imprisoned in the 1320s, who would have been more of a threat to Edward and the Despensers, died in captivity.  The account of the plot given in the Vita, with Maurice Berkeley allowed frequent guests and permitted to wine and dine his captors, and Roger Mortimer's escape from the Tower later that year by putting poison in his captors' wine while he ate with them and the constable of the Tower, argues that the Contrariants' imprisonment was hardly onerous.  The unsuccessful plot of 1323 should, however, be seen as part of the general unrest in England in 1323 and unhappiness at the king's incompetence and his and the Despensers' greed and tyranny.

Sources

1) G.L. Haskins, 'A Chronicle of the Civil Wars of Edward II', Speculum, 14 (1939), p. 83; The Chronicle of Lanercost 1272-1346, ed. Herbert Maxwell, p. 62; Vita Edwardi Secundi Monachi Cuiusdam Malmesberiensis, ed. N. Denholm-Young, p. 100.
2) Vita Edwardi Secundi, pp. 129-131.
3) Le Livere de Reis de Britanie e le Livere de Reis de Engletere, ed. John Glover, p. 347.
4) Calendar of Patent Rolls 1324-1327, p. 232.
5) The Brut or the Chronicles of England, ed. F. W. D. Brie, vol. 1, p. 231.
6) Seymour Phillips, Edward II, p. 439 note 189.  See also Roy Martin Haines, King Edward II, pp. 166-167; Natalie Fryde, The Tyranny and Fall of Edward II 1321-1326, pp. 155-156.
7) Phillips, Edward II, p. 438 note 187.
8) Cal Pat Rolls 1321-1324, p. 234.
9) Calendar of Close Rolls 1323-1327, pp. 656-657.
10) Foedera 1307-1327, pp. 537-538.
11) Cal Pat Rolls 1321-1324, pp. 257, 314.