A biography of a young Scottish nobleman closely associated with Edward II.
The earldom of Mar is one of the oldest titles in Britain; the first known Earl of Mar lived in the 1130s, though he probably wasn't the first Mormaer (the ancient Gaelic title). Donald (Domhnall in Gaelic), the eighth known Earl of Mar, was probably born sometime between 1295 and 1300. His grandfather was Donald, the sixth earl, and his father was Gratney ( in Gaelic: Gartnait mac Domhnaill, Gartnait son of Donald), the seventh Earl, who was born around 1270 and died sometime in or before 1305, apparently of natural causes. Gratney's sister Isabel of Mar was the first wife of Robert Bruce, later King of Scots, and the mother of his daughter Marjorie.
Donald's mother was certainly one of the sisters of Robert Bruce; she is usually identified as Christina (or Christian), but Christina's entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography disputes this. She is never called 'Countess of Mar' or even 'of Mar' in contemporary documents, and there is no evidence of any communication between Donald and Christina when they were imprisoned in England. Earl Gratney is explicitly stated to have married the eldest Bruce sister, which Christina almost certainly wasn't; she is never referred to as such, and she outlived all her sisters by decades, surviving until 1357. It's likely that Donald's mother was a Bruce sister whose name is unknown, but perhaps Margaret, the name of Donald's daughter.
At any rate, Robert Bruce was Donald's uncle twice over, and when Robert submitted to Edward I in 1302, one of his conditions was that he be granted the wardship and marriage of his young nephew. Donald's aunt Isabel Bruce was Queen of Norway, the second wife of Erik II, father of the Maid of Norway. His uncle Alexander Bruce was Dean of Glasgow, his aunt Matilda Bruce Countess of Ross, and his aunt Margaret (or Mary or Marjorie) of Mar successively Countess of Atholl and Countess of Sutherland.
Donald's family appear in two of Barbara Erskine's novels, Child of the Phoenix and Kingdom of Shadows; the main character of Child of the Phoenix is Donald's grandmother Eleyne. Donald himself makes a brief appearance in both novels, most notably at the very end of Child of the Phoenix, when Edward of Caernarfon himself takes him prisoner and gloats about the fact to Eleyne.
Little is known of Donald's early life. He succeeded his father in about 1305, and attended his uncle's coronation as King of Scots on 25 March 1306. He had a sister, Helen or Ellen, who married Sir John Menteith, Lord of Arran. Helen seems to have escaped the imprisonment that was the fate of so many women of the family.
The early years of the fourteenth century saw King Edward I exact savage and terrible reprisals on Donald's family. His uncle Nigel (or Neil) Bruce was hideously executed in Berwick-on-Tweed in September 1306, dragged through the streets, hanged and beheaded. Nigel's brothers Alexander and Thomas were captured on their return from Ireland to raise support for Robert and executed in Carlisle on 9 February 1307. Also executed in 1306 was Sir Christopher Seton, husband of Christina Bruce and thus Donald's uncle or stepfather, and his uncle by marriage John of Strathbogie, Earl of Atholl, in London on 7 November 1306, hanged, drawn and quartered. (John's son David was restored to his earldom by Edward II, and remained Edward's loyal supporter; he was one of the men who condemned the Earl of Lancaster to death in 1322).
Although the women and children of the family were spared execution, they were also harshly treated. Donald's aunt Mary Bruce was imprisoned at Roxburgh Castle, in a cage hanging from the battlements; a fate also suffered at Berwick-on-Tweed by Isabel MacDuff, Countess of Buchan, who had exercised her family's hereditary right and crowned Robert Bruce as King of Scots. Christina, Donald's mother or aunt, was sent to the Gilbertine nunnery of Sixhills, Lincolnshire, where she joined Gwladys, daughter of Dafydd ap Gruffydd, the last independent ruler of Wales. Gwladys was sent there as a young child in 1283; Edward II would later copy his father's method of incarcerating the wives and children of his enemies in convents.
Elizabeth de Burgh, Robert Bruce's second wife and Donald's aunt, was placed under comfortable house arrest in Burstwick; her father was Edward I's ally the earl of Ulster. Elizabeth's stepdaughter Marjorie, who shared all four grandparents with Donald of Mar, was at first intended to be caged at the Tower of London, but Edward I relented and sent her instead to the nunnery of Watton, as she was only nine or ten years old. See here for Edward I's original orders regarding the women.
Donald himself, probably somewhere between six and eleven years old, was sent to Bristol Castle. The document ordering his incarceration can be read here; he is called "the child who is heir of Mar" and is ordered to be carefully guarded so that he cannot possibly escape. However, Edward I, offering further proof of his gentle and kind nature [/sarcasm], says that the boy does not have to be fettered in chains, "because he is of such tender age".
Donald's only surviving uncles were Robert and Edward Bruce. In 1315, Edward invaded Ireland and was crowned King in 1316, defeated Roger Mortimer at the Battle of Kells in 1315, and was himself killed in battle in October 1318. Mortimer's ally John de Bermingham, later earl of Louth, delivered Edward Bruce's head to Edward II. I wonder if Donald saw it.
By this date, Donald had been transferred into Edward II's household. It's not known exactly when this happened, but a curious entry in the Patent Rolls dated 15 October 1311 might provide the occasion:
Windsor: Writ of aid, until Martinmas, for Thomas de Langehulle, king's yeoman, from whose custody Ralph de Thedmershe and Oliver son of Peter de Parva Hasele have removed Douenald de Mar, son and heir of the late earl of Mar in Scotland. He is to arrest them and to conduct them and Douenald to Westminster before the Council.
Donald became a page of Edward II's chamber. Whether this was intended simply as a measure to keep him under closer scrutiny, or to humiliate King Robert by forcing his nephew to serve the King of England as a page, the lowest rank of household servant, I'm not sure. However, it was to prove a turning-point in Donald of Mar's life.
It's clear that a deep bond of affection developed between the two men. On 24 June 1314, Edward II lost the Battle of Bannockburn to Donald's uncle Robert; a Patent Roll entry of 18 July states "...the king has commanded to conduct to York, and deliver to him there, Robert, bishop of Glasgow, Elizabeth wife of Robert de Brus, Donald de Mar and certain other Scots, who are in the realm." (I love how the entry suggests that the Scots are in England of their own free will!)
Edward released all the Scottish prisoners in exchange for his brother-in-law the Earl of Hereford, captured at Bannockburn. The others all returned to their homeland; Donald of Mar, however, got as far north as Newcastle, changed his mind, and returned to Edward. In doing so, he gave up his earldom, a large income, power and influence as the nephew of the King of Scots, and possibly even a claim to the throne (it wasn't a strong claim, but it existed, as Donald was the son of Robert's eldest sister; Robert had no legitimate son until 1324.) This proves how strong his affection for Edward II was.
On 26 July 1314, he was to "come and give counsel to the King". I wonder what that was about?
After this, Donald crops up occasionally in the records as 'Donald/Douenald de Mar, king's yeoman'. 'Yeoman' was a couple of ranks higher in the household hierarchy than 'page'. He owned a ship called La Blithe, perhaps a gift from Edward, and the king also gave him several manors:
11 Sept 1317: Grant to Douenald de Mar, king's yeoman, of the custody of the lands and tenements, late of James de Perers, tenant in chief, to hold during the minority together with the marriage of the heir.
15 Feb 1318: Grant for life to Douenald de Mar, of the manor of Oveston, co. Northampton, quit of any payment.
6 Nov 1319: Grant, during pleasure, to Douenald de Mar, to enable him the better to remain in the king's service, of the manor of Long Bynyngton, co. Lincoln, to hold to the value of 160 pounds a year.
In June 1320, he accompanied Edward II to France, when the king had to pay homage to his brother-in-law Philip V for Gascony (Queen Isabella, Hugh le Despenser the younger, Roger Damory, and many others also attended the king.) The following February, he had protection for a pilgrimage to Santiago; it's not clear if he ever went, but as the Despenser War kicked off shortly afterwards, I would imagine not.
Donald, of course, remained totally loyal to Edward II during the turmoil of the years 1321-22. According to his ODNB entry, he fought at the Battle of Boroughbridge on 16 March 1322, when the Earl of Hereford was killed and the Earl of Lancaster captured. A few days after the battle, he and Robert FitzWalter (a retainer of the Earl of Pembroke, and formerly of the Elder Despenser) captured the rebel Bartholomew Badlesmere; the unfortunate Badlesmere, Edward II's Steward who had switched sides, subsequently suffered a terrible death at Canterbury. Donald, as a member of Edward's household, presumably knew Badlesmere well and may have shared the king's outrage at what he saw as Badlesmere's treachery.
Sometime before January 1322, Donald was made Constable of Newark Castle, a strategically important castle where Edward's great-grandfather King John had died in 1216. On 1 October 1322, Edward II ordered a commission of array of all men between sixteen and sixty, and was evidently keen to give Donald some responsibility; he was ordered to array all men within the town and wapentake of Newark. John de Segrave and Robert de Mauley, commissioners for Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, are sternly mandated "not to intermeddle in the said town and wapentake of Newark."
That same month, Donald, ironically, acompanied the English force that was humiliatingly defeated by the Scots at Byland. His uncle King Robert commanded the Scottish forces; I wonder if they faced each other on the battlefield?
The following July, 1323, Donald returned to Scotland: "Protection for one year for Douenald de Mar, king's yeoman, going to Scotland with four horsemen." This presumably has something to do with the thirteen-year peace Edward, the younger Despenser and the Earl of Pembroke concluded with Robert Bruce, beginning on 12 June 1323. Almost certainly this was Donald's first visit to his homeland since he had been taken prisoner seventeen years earlier; he was now about twenty-five or thirty. However, he soon returned to England and Edward.
Following the invasion of Queen Isabella and Roger Mortimer in September 1326, Donald of Mar remained as loyal to Edward II as ever. He was appointed "to pursue and arrest the invaders wherever he can find them". Earlier that year, he had been made Constable of Bristol Castle - which may well be the only occasion when a former prisoner of a castle became its keeper - and was present there with Hugh Despenser the Elder in October. Somehow, he slipped out of the town before Isabella and Mortimer took it; Despenser was taken and executed.
Donald fled to Scotland, mainly with the aim of raising forces to help Edward II and to lobby for the king's support. King Robert, who now had a son and heir, welcomed his nephew and restored his earldom. He gave Donald command of one of the three Scottish armies that invaded England in the summer of 1327. However, Donald is also said by the chronicle Annales Paulini to have been in the Welsh Marches in the summer of 1327, and to have been deeply involved in the plot that freed Edward from Berkeley Castle. He can hardly have been both in the north of England fighting the English forces, and in Wales and the south-west of England, at the same time; but what is clear is that he was doing his best to raise support for the deposed king.
In documents of 1327, most frequently in October, he is often described as "enemy and rebel" and many men were pardoned for adhering to him. The cluster of pardons in October 1327, after Edward's rescue from Berkeley in July and supposed murder in September, suggest that Donald was deeply implicated in the attempts to free the king. One Patent Roll entry of 22 July 1327 states:
Writ of aid for Thomas de Southorp and Richard Knyvet', appointed to arrest William son of William de Sancto Mauro, John de Makeseye, William de Makeseye, John de Lodynton, and others of their confederation,who lately went to Scotland in the company of Dunald de Mar, a rebel, and have returned to do what mischief they can to the king and the realm.
Five days after this entry, Lord Berkeley wrote his panicked letter that the Dunheved gang had recently freed Edward II from Berkeley and plundered the castle; the timing of the Patent Roll entry indicates that Donald was involved.
After the downfall of Queen Isabella and Roger Mortimer, however, Edward III's attitude to Donald softened; he was granted a safe-conduct on 15 October 1331 for "coming to England on his own affairs with a company of twelve horsemen and servants."
Donald finally married, probably in or around 1328, Isabel(la) Stewart, who seems to have been the daughter of Sir Alexander Stewart of Bonkill. They had two children: Thomas, Earl of Mar, who was married twice but died childless in 1374, and Margaret, who succeeded her brother as Countess of Mar in her own right. She died in the early 1390s and was the ancestor of the Earls of Douglas. Donald's grandson James, Earl of Douglas, was killed at the Battle of Otterburn in August 1388. Donald apparently also had an illegitimate daughter, name unknown, who married William Leith, Provost of Aberdeen, and had two sons.
Donald's uncle Robert Bruce died on 7 June 1329, not quite fifty-five; his heir was his son by Elizabeth de Burgh, David II, who was five years old and already married to Edward II's daughter Joan. In 1332, the regent Thomas Randolph died, and on 2 August, Donald, Earl of Mar, was elected regent of Scotland for his young cousin. It was a position he would hold for a mere nine days.
Donald was killed at the Battle of Dupplin Moor on 11 August 1332, aged probably in his mid-thirties. His cousin Robert, illegitimate son of King Robert, accused him of incompetence and of sympathising with the English and the pretender to the Scottish throne, Edward Baliol. To prove him wrong, Donald charged off wildly to face the bowmen of Baliol's army, and was promptly killed. The battle proved to be a dreadful defeat for the Scottish loyalists.
Donald of Mar's loyalty to Edward II was unwavering and lasted far beyond Edward's deposition and (official) death; Donald was also heavily involved in the Earl of Kent's conspiracy to restore his half-brother in March 1330. I don't know the reason for such intense loyalty and affection, but I can't help loving him for it. :) Nobody, in the fourteenth century or more recent times, has ever suggested a sexual relationship between them, though of course there’s no way of knowing for sure, but Donald was never a ‘favourite’ of Edward in the way that Gaveston and Despenser were. He had no influence on English politics and wielded no power. This strongly suggests that his devotion to Edward - the son of the man who had tried to destroy his entire family - was real, and not dependent on what Edward could do for him. Edward might have been deserted by most of his followers in 1326; but Donald remained loyal.
17 March, 2007
Alice de Toeni and Juliana de Leyburne
This weekend, I'd intended to write the second part of my Despenser War series, but I'm really busy preparing a two-day seminar I'm teaching on Monday and Tuesday and don't have enough time to sort out the tangled threads of Edwardian politics and battles! :) Instead, here's a post on two women of Edward II's (and Edward III's) reign: Alice de Toeni, countess of Warwick, and her daughter Juliana de Leyburne, countess of Huntingdon and mother of the earl of Pembroke. Both women were heiresses of their fathers and inherited lands in their own right; both women had three husbands. [More on the Despenser War soon!]
Alice de Toeni (or Tony or Tosny or Tosni) was born in 1283 or 1284, so was the same age as Edward II. Her father Ralph, or Raoul (1255-1295) was Lord of Flamstead in Hertfordshire; her mother Mary's parentage is unknown, but her paternal grandmother Alice was the daughter of Humphrey de Bohun, earl of Hereford (great-grandfather of the earl of Hereford of Edward II's reign). The de Toeni family came over to England with William the Conqueror.
Alice's brother Robert, Lord de Toeni, was born on 4 April 1276, married the daughter of Malise, earl of Strathearn, but died childless in 1309, so Alice was her father's ultimate heir. The de Toeni lands included manors in Essex, Worcestershire, Wiltshire, Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire and the Welsh Marches, and were worth around £500 a year.
Alice's first marriage, to Thomas de Leyburne (or Leyburn or Leybourne), took place sometime around 1300. The marriage produced one child, Juliana, born in 1303 or 1304. Thomas was the son of William, first Lord Leyburn, who outlived his son and died in 1310. Thomas himself - about whom I know practically nothing, sadly - was dead before 30 May 1307, so Juliana was the sole heiress of her grandfather William. Her inheritance comprised extensive estates in Kent and Sussex.
The widowed Alice made an excellent second marriage in early 1309: to Guy Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, arguably Edward II's most implacable enemy. Guy was probably born in 1272, succeeded his father William Beauchamp as earl of Warwick in 1298, and was the younger brother of Isabel, wife of Hugh Despenser the Elder. He was thirty-six or thirty-seven at the time of his marriage to Alice; it's odd that he was still unmarried and childless at such an advanced age. It's possible that he was married to Isabella de Clare, elder daughter of Gilbert 'the Red', earl of Gloucester, by his first marriage; she and her sister were disinherited in favour of Gilbert's children by Edward I's daughter Joan of Acre. However, Isabella was at least eight or nine years Guy's senior, which would make it a very odd match, and if the marriage did take place, it had ended in divorce by the early 1300s. In 1306 Guy, concerned by his lack of heirs, made the decision to entail all his estates to his nephew Philip Despenser (younger son of Hugh the Elder), but his issue by Alice, and the fact that Philip died young in 1313, meant that this plan never came to fruition.
Guy was famously well-educated and cultured, possessing an extensive library, yet was the greatest opponent of Piers Gaveston and played a leading role in his murder; he was a 'cultivated, aristocratic ruffian' [T. F. Tout], the only earl whose opposition to Edward II was unrelenting. His name appears in contemporary documents as Guy de Bello Campo; this is comparable to Roger Mortimer, who was often called 'Roger de Mortuo Mari', and the name Beaumont is often seen as 'de Bello Monte'.
Guy and Alice's marriage was extremely fruitful. They had two sons and five daughters, in about six and a half years of marriage. Guy's heir, Thomas, later earl of Warwick, was born in February 1314 and (presumably) named after Guy's friend and ally, Thomas, earl of Lancaster. There was a younger son, John, who played a large role in the Hundred Years War, carrying the royal standard at Crecy in 1346, and daughters Maud, Emma, Isabel, Elizabeth and Lucia. All the children lived long enough to marry. (Either Alice was perpetually pregnant, or some of her children were multiple births).
Guy died at the age of forty-three in August 1315; rumour had it that he was poisoned by Edward II for his role in Gaveston's death, but modern historians give the story little credence. He left Alice some of his plate, a crystal cup, half his bedding and all the vestments and books of his chapel. The extreme youth of their son - about eighteen months old - was a huge problem. Thomas wouldn't receive seisin of the Beauchamp lands until he was twenty-one; in the meantime, they would come into the possession of the Crown, and the king had the right to give or sell custody of them to anyone he wished. In this situation, neglect of lands, and a subsequent drop in their value, was common. Not long before he died, Guy managed to wrest from Edward II a valuable concession - amazingly enough, considering their mutual enmity - that the executors of his will would have full custody of the lands until Thomas came of age. Unfortunately - and probably predictably - Edward II didn't keep the promise, and within two years, Hugh Despenser the Elder had gained possession of his brother-in-law's lands. [This was one of the articles of complaint against the Despensers in 1321, which I'll look at in my next post.] After 1327, possession passed to Roger Mortimer.
On or shortly after 26 October 1316, Alice married, as her third husband, William la Zouche de Mortimer, Lord of Ashby in Leicestershire, a distant cousin of Roger Mortimer. William was a younger son and had been a retainer of Guy Beauchamp; he is assumed to have been born about 1280, and there's no evidence I know of that he had a wife before Alice. Their son Alan, William's heir, was born on 15 September 1317, and they also had a daughter, Joyce, born about 1318 or 1320. Altogether, Alice bore ten children to her three husbands.
Alice de Toeni de Leyburne de Beauchamp la Zouche (!!), countess of Warwick, died on 1 January 1324, three years before the end of Edward II's reign, aged forty or just under. Her eldest child, Juliana, was about twenty, her youngest, Joyce, perhaps only about four. Five years after her death, her widower William la Zouche abducted Eleanor de Clare from Hanley Castle, and married her. Eleanor of course was the widow of Hugh Despenser the younger, Alice's nephew by marriage (son of Guy Beauchamp's sister).
William was, amusingly enough, one of the men who captured Despenser in Wales in late 1326, and besieged his son Hugh at Caerphilly. Susan Higginbotham has a great post on William and Eleanor, who both died in 1337. (And check out Gabriele's comment about William's 'badass sexiness', which kills me! :)
Meanwhile, Alice's eldest daughter Juliana was embarking on her own marital adventures. Although her half-brother Thomas Beauchamp would inherit the de Toeni lands of their mother, Juliana was the Leyburne heir, and her marital prospects were excellent. Accordingly, she married, around 1318, John, Lord Hastings, who was seventeen or eighteen years her senior - he was born on 29 September 1286. He was the eldest (surviving) son of John, Lord Hastings (1262-1313) who put in a claim to the throne of Scotland in the early 1290s, and Isabel de Valence (died 1305), who was the sister of Aymer, earl of Pembroke. The younger John's stepmother was Isabel Despenser, daughter of Hugh the Elder; she was several years younger than he was. This has caused some confusion among historians, for example Natalie Fryde, who assumes that Isabel was the wife of the younger John and mother of his son. In fact, Isabel was the mother of John's much younger half-siblings, Margaret, Thomas and Hugh Hastings.
Juliana and John's son, Laurence Hastings, was born on 20 March 1320, at Allesley, Warwickshire. Juliana was about sixteen, John thirty-three. Despite Juliana's three marriages, Laurence would be her only child.
John Hastings was the nephew of the earl of Pembroke, and one of his retainers. Pembroke was childless, and when he died in June 1324, John and his cousins Elizabeth and Joan Comyn (daughters of Joan de Valence, another of Pembroke's sisters) shared the de Valence inheritance. John was one of the men who attested the Treaty of Leake in August 1318 (a reconciliation between Edward II and his baronial opponents, Lancaster in particular). In the Despenser War and Marcher campaign of 1321/22, he at first opposed the king, but was reconciled to him, perhaps influenced by his uncle Pembroke. Apparently Edward trusted him, but in 1324 John fell out with Hugh Despenser the younger and was forced to make a recognisance - Despenser's usual method of binding men to him by force - for the huge sum of £4000.
John, Lord Hastings died on 27 January 1325, a year after his mother-in-law Alice, aged thirty-eight. His son Laurence was not yet five. Later that year, Laurence was betrothed to the younger Despenser's third daughter, Eleanor, who was about the same age or a little older. Custody of the Hastings lands passed, inevitably, to Despenser (whose sister Isabel was Laurence's step-grandmother, though she was only in her mid-thirties).
Juliana's feelings about the Despenser alliance, and about the political situation in England, are of course unknown. Apparently, though, she stood in favour with the king and Despenser, as she married Thomas le Blount in or around September 1325, a few months after John's death, still only in her early twenties. Thomas le Blount had succeeded Richard Damory as Steward of Edward II's Household in April or May 1325. In late 1326, however, le Blount abandoned Edward, and in January 1327 at Kenilworth Castle, he ceremoniously broke his staff of office to show that the king's reign was over.
Juliana and Thomas had no children; Thomas had a son, William, by an unknown first wife. They were married less than three years, as Thomas died on 17 August 1328. Juliana, evidently not a woman given to long-term mourning, married her third husband William Clinton before 17 October 1328, less than two months after Thomas's death. I wonder if this means that their marriage was unhappy, and if Thomas's family were offended by the speed of her re-marriage. She was still only twenty-four or twenty-five, and would be married to William for twenty-six years. He was about the same age as Juliana, born around 1304, and was knighted by 1324. Edward II sent him to Gascony in 1325 during the War of Saint Sardos, but William evidently supported Isabella and Mortimer's invasion, as Isabella rewarded him with the castle and manor of Halton, Cheshire, in September 1327.
Around the time that Juliana married William, her half-brother Thomas Beauchamp and son Laurence Hastings also married. Half-uncle and nephew, though there was only six years between them, they both married daughters of Roger Mortimer. Roger had been granted Thomas's marriage back in July 1318, and although the upheaval of the 1320s meant that he lost the rights and Thomas Beauchamp was intended to marry one of the daughters of the earl of Arundel, the marriage never took place, and Thomas married Katherine Mortimer, probably in May 1328, when he was fourteen. Although Laurence Hastings was betrothed to Eleanor Despenser, Queen Isabella ignored the contract and forced the young girl to take vows at Sempringham Priory at the beginning of 1327; Eleanor was probably about nine at most. Instead, Laurence was married to Roger Mortimer's daughter Agnes, in 1328 or 1329.
Laurence was a great catch; he inherited his great-uncle's earldom of Pembroke, and was given livery of his lands in 1339, though still under age. In the meantime, his stepfather William Clinton was playing an important role in English political life. High in favour with Isabella and Mortimer, he accompanied Philippa of Hainault to England for her January 1328 marriage to Edward III, and was appointed Justiciar of Chester. However, it became apparent that his loyalties were to the young king, not the disreputable pair governing England in his name, and in October 1330 he was one of the men who took part in Edward III's coup at Nottingham Castle. For this action, he was rewarded with the earldom of Huntingdon in 1337. No longer only the stepdaughter and mother of earls, Juliana became a countess.
For the rest of his life, William Clinton remained a close friend and supporter of Edward III. He hosted a tournament at Dartford in 1331, at which the king himself fought under William's standard, a great honour which points to the close bond between the two men. Again, Juliana's feelings about her husband's choices are unknown; did she support his action against Mortimer and Isabella, or did she feel loyalty towards the queen? She must surely have been delighted at his favour with Edward III, however; the comital revenues the king bestowed on William, and the income from her own lands, enabled them to live in considerable state. They had no children.
William Clinton died on 25 August 1354, aged about fifty, and Juliana was a widow for the third time. Although she and her husband had mostly lived in Warwickshire, as a widow she preferred to live on her own estates in Kent, rather than on her dower lands from William.
Her son Laurence and Agnes Mortimer had a son, John, born 29 August 1347 - Juliana's only grandchild (unless Laurence fathered illegitimate children). A year and a day later, Laurence died, aged only twenty-eight.
Juliana de Leyburne de Hastings le Blount de Clinton, countess of Huntingdon, died between 30 October and 2 November 1367, aged about sixty-three or sixty-four. She was buried in St Anne's Chapel at St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, where she had founded a chantry. She had outlived her son Laurence by nineteen years, her third husband by thirteen years.
Her daughter-in-law Agnes Mortimer, who had re-married John Hakelut, died in July of the following year.
Juliana's grandson John Hastings, earl of Pembroke, married Edward III's daughter Margaret, who died in 1361, then Anne Manny, the granddaughter of Edward II's half-brother Thomas of Brotherton. He died in April 1375, only twenty-seven; a year younger than his father at his own death.
William Clinton's earldom of Huntingdon passed to the Poitevin Guichard d'Angle, who died in 1380, then to Richard II's half-brother John Holland.
Juliana's half-brother Thomas Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, died of plague in November 1369; his wife Katherine Mortimer died around the same time. Another half-brother, Alan la Zouche, died in 1346 and was succeeded by his son Hugh. All Juliana's six half-sisters married, and most had children. Her half-brother John Beauchamp died childless in 1360.
Alice de Toeni (or Tony or Tosny or Tosni) was born in 1283 or 1284, so was the same age as Edward II. Her father Ralph, or Raoul (1255-1295) was Lord of Flamstead in Hertfordshire; her mother Mary's parentage is unknown, but her paternal grandmother Alice was the daughter of Humphrey de Bohun, earl of Hereford (great-grandfather of the earl of Hereford of Edward II's reign). The de Toeni family came over to England with William the Conqueror.
Alice's brother Robert, Lord de Toeni, was born on 4 April 1276, married the daughter of Malise, earl of Strathearn, but died childless in 1309, so Alice was her father's ultimate heir. The de Toeni lands included manors in Essex, Worcestershire, Wiltshire, Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire and the Welsh Marches, and were worth around £500 a year.
Alice's first marriage, to Thomas de Leyburne (or Leyburn or Leybourne), took place sometime around 1300. The marriage produced one child, Juliana, born in 1303 or 1304. Thomas was the son of William, first Lord Leyburn, who outlived his son and died in 1310. Thomas himself - about whom I know practically nothing, sadly - was dead before 30 May 1307, so Juliana was the sole heiress of her grandfather William. Her inheritance comprised extensive estates in Kent and Sussex.
The widowed Alice made an excellent second marriage in early 1309: to Guy Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, arguably Edward II's most implacable enemy. Guy was probably born in 1272, succeeded his father William Beauchamp as earl of Warwick in 1298, and was the younger brother of Isabel, wife of Hugh Despenser the Elder. He was thirty-six or thirty-seven at the time of his marriage to Alice; it's odd that he was still unmarried and childless at such an advanced age. It's possible that he was married to Isabella de Clare, elder daughter of Gilbert 'the Red', earl of Gloucester, by his first marriage; she and her sister were disinherited in favour of Gilbert's children by Edward I's daughter Joan of Acre. However, Isabella was at least eight or nine years Guy's senior, which would make it a very odd match, and if the marriage did take place, it had ended in divorce by the early 1300s. In 1306 Guy, concerned by his lack of heirs, made the decision to entail all his estates to his nephew Philip Despenser (younger son of Hugh the Elder), but his issue by Alice, and the fact that Philip died young in 1313, meant that this plan never came to fruition.
Guy was famously well-educated and cultured, possessing an extensive library, yet was the greatest opponent of Piers Gaveston and played a leading role in his murder; he was a 'cultivated, aristocratic ruffian' [T. F. Tout], the only earl whose opposition to Edward II was unrelenting. His name appears in contemporary documents as Guy de Bello Campo; this is comparable to Roger Mortimer, who was often called 'Roger de Mortuo Mari', and the name Beaumont is often seen as 'de Bello Monte'.
Guy and Alice's marriage was extremely fruitful. They had two sons and five daughters, in about six and a half years of marriage. Guy's heir, Thomas, later earl of Warwick, was born in February 1314 and (presumably) named after Guy's friend and ally, Thomas, earl of Lancaster. There was a younger son, John, who played a large role in the Hundred Years War, carrying the royal standard at Crecy in 1346, and daughters Maud, Emma, Isabel, Elizabeth and Lucia. All the children lived long enough to marry. (Either Alice was perpetually pregnant, or some of her children were multiple births).
Guy died at the age of forty-three in August 1315; rumour had it that he was poisoned by Edward II for his role in Gaveston's death, but modern historians give the story little credence. He left Alice some of his plate, a crystal cup, half his bedding and all the vestments and books of his chapel. The extreme youth of their son - about eighteen months old - was a huge problem. Thomas wouldn't receive seisin of the Beauchamp lands until he was twenty-one; in the meantime, they would come into the possession of the Crown, and the king had the right to give or sell custody of them to anyone he wished. In this situation, neglect of lands, and a subsequent drop in their value, was common. Not long before he died, Guy managed to wrest from Edward II a valuable concession - amazingly enough, considering their mutual enmity - that the executors of his will would have full custody of the lands until Thomas came of age. Unfortunately - and probably predictably - Edward II didn't keep the promise, and within two years, Hugh Despenser the Elder had gained possession of his brother-in-law's lands. [This was one of the articles of complaint against the Despensers in 1321, which I'll look at in my next post.] After 1327, possession passed to Roger Mortimer.
On or shortly after 26 October 1316, Alice married, as her third husband, William la Zouche de Mortimer, Lord of Ashby in Leicestershire, a distant cousin of Roger Mortimer. William was a younger son and had been a retainer of Guy Beauchamp; he is assumed to have been born about 1280, and there's no evidence I know of that he had a wife before Alice. Their son Alan, William's heir, was born on 15 September 1317, and they also had a daughter, Joyce, born about 1318 or 1320. Altogether, Alice bore ten children to her three husbands.
Alice de Toeni de Leyburne de Beauchamp la Zouche (!!), countess of Warwick, died on 1 January 1324, three years before the end of Edward II's reign, aged forty or just under. Her eldest child, Juliana, was about twenty, her youngest, Joyce, perhaps only about four. Five years after her death, her widower William la Zouche abducted Eleanor de Clare from Hanley Castle, and married her. Eleanor of course was the widow of Hugh Despenser the younger, Alice's nephew by marriage (son of Guy Beauchamp's sister).
William was, amusingly enough, one of the men who captured Despenser in Wales in late 1326, and besieged his son Hugh at Caerphilly. Susan Higginbotham has a great post on William and Eleanor, who both died in 1337. (And check out Gabriele's comment about William's 'badass sexiness', which kills me! :)
Meanwhile, Alice's eldest daughter Juliana was embarking on her own marital adventures. Although her half-brother Thomas Beauchamp would inherit the de Toeni lands of their mother, Juliana was the Leyburne heir, and her marital prospects were excellent. Accordingly, she married, around 1318, John, Lord Hastings, who was seventeen or eighteen years her senior - he was born on 29 September 1286. He was the eldest (surviving) son of John, Lord Hastings (1262-1313) who put in a claim to the throne of Scotland in the early 1290s, and Isabel de Valence (died 1305), who was the sister of Aymer, earl of Pembroke. The younger John's stepmother was Isabel Despenser, daughter of Hugh the Elder; she was several years younger than he was. This has caused some confusion among historians, for example Natalie Fryde, who assumes that Isabel was the wife of the younger John and mother of his son. In fact, Isabel was the mother of John's much younger half-siblings, Margaret, Thomas and Hugh Hastings.
Juliana and John's son, Laurence Hastings, was born on 20 March 1320, at Allesley, Warwickshire. Juliana was about sixteen, John thirty-three. Despite Juliana's three marriages, Laurence would be her only child.
John Hastings was the nephew of the earl of Pembroke, and one of his retainers. Pembroke was childless, and when he died in June 1324, John and his cousins Elizabeth and Joan Comyn (daughters of Joan de Valence, another of Pembroke's sisters) shared the de Valence inheritance. John was one of the men who attested the Treaty of Leake in August 1318 (a reconciliation between Edward II and his baronial opponents, Lancaster in particular). In the Despenser War and Marcher campaign of 1321/22, he at first opposed the king, but was reconciled to him, perhaps influenced by his uncle Pembroke. Apparently Edward trusted him, but in 1324 John fell out with Hugh Despenser the younger and was forced to make a recognisance - Despenser's usual method of binding men to him by force - for the huge sum of £4000.
John, Lord Hastings died on 27 January 1325, a year after his mother-in-law Alice, aged thirty-eight. His son Laurence was not yet five. Later that year, Laurence was betrothed to the younger Despenser's third daughter, Eleanor, who was about the same age or a little older. Custody of the Hastings lands passed, inevitably, to Despenser (whose sister Isabel was Laurence's step-grandmother, though she was only in her mid-thirties).
Juliana's feelings about the Despenser alliance, and about the political situation in England, are of course unknown. Apparently, though, she stood in favour with the king and Despenser, as she married Thomas le Blount in or around September 1325, a few months after John's death, still only in her early twenties. Thomas le Blount had succeeded Richard Damory as Steward of Edward II's Household in April or May 1325. In late 1326, however, le Blount abandoned Edward, and in January 1327 at Kenilworth Castle, he ceremoniously broke his staff of office to show that the king's reign was over.
Juliana and Thomas had no children; Thomas had a son, William, by an unknown first wife. They were married less than three years, as Thomas died on 17 August 1328. Juliana, evidently not a woman given to long-term mourning, married her third husband William Clinton before 17 October 1328, less than two months after Thomas's death. I wonder if this means that their marriage was unhappy, and if Thomas's family were offended by the speed of her re-marriage. She was still only twenty-four or twenty-five, and would be married to William for twenty-six years. He was about the same age as Juliana, born around 1304, and was knighted by 1324. Edward II sent him to Gascony in 1325 during the War of Saint Sardos, but William evidently supported Isabella and Mortimer's invasion, as Isabella rewarded him with the castle and manor of Halton, Cheshire, in September 1327.
Around the time that Juliana married William, her half-brother Thomas Beauchamp and son Laurence Hastings also married. Half-uncle and nephew, though there was only six years between them, they both married daughters of Roger Mortimer. Roger had been granted Thomas's marriage back in July 1318, and although the upheaval of the 1320s meant that he lost the rights and Thomas Beauchamp was intended to marry one of the daughters of the earl of Arundel, the marriage never took place, and Thomas married Katherine Mortimer, probably in May 1328, when he was fourteen. Although Laurence Hastings was betrothed to Eleanor Despenser, Queen Isabella ignored the contract and forced the young girl to take vows at Sempringham Priory at the beginning of 1327; Eleanor was probably about nine at most. Instead, Laurence was married to Roger Mortimer's daughter Agnes, in 1328 or 1329.
Laurence was a great catch; he inherited his great-uncle's earldom of Pembroke, and was given livery of his lands in 1339, though still under age. In the meantime, his stepfather William Clinton was playing an important role in English political life. High in favour with Isabella and Mortimer, he accompanied Philippa of Hainault to England for her January 1328 marriage to Edward III, and was appointed Justiciar of Chester. However, it became apparent that his loyalties were to the young king, not the disreputable pair governing England in his name, and in October 1330 he was one of the men who took part in Edward III's coup at Nottingham Castle. For this action, he was rewarded with the earldom of Huntingdon in 1337. No longer only the stepdaughter and mother of earls, Juliana became a countess.
For the rest of his life, William Clinton remained a close friend and supporter of Edward III. He hosted a tournament at Dartford in 1331, at which the king himself fought under William's standard, a great honour which points to the close bond between the two men. Again, Juliana's feelings about her husband's choices are unknown; did she support his action against Mortimer and Isabella, or did she feel loyalty towards the queen? She must surely have been delighted at his favour with Edward III, however; the comital revenues the king bestowed on William, and the income from her own lands, enabled them to live in considerable state. They had no children.
William Clinton died on 25 August 1354, aged about fifty, and Juliana was a widow for the third time. Although she and her husband had mostly lived in Warwickshire, as a widow she preferred to live on her own estates in Kent, rather than on her dower lands from William.
Her son Laurence and Agnes Mortimer had a son, John, born 29 August 1347 - Juliana's only grandchild (unless Laurence fathered illegitimate children). A year and a day later, Laurence died, aged only twenty-eight.
Juliana de Leyburne de Hastings le Blount de Clinton, countess of Huntingdon, died between 30 October and 2 November 1367, aged about sixty-three or sixty-four. She was buried in St Anne's Chapel at St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, where she had founded a chantry. She had outlived her son Laurence by nineteen years, her third husband by thirteen years.
Her daughter-in-law Agnes Mortimer, who had re-married John Hakelut, died in July of the following year.
Juliana's grandson John Hastings, earl of Pembroke, married Edward III's daughter Margaret, who died in 1361, then Anne Manny, the granddaughter of Edward II's half-brother Thomas of Brotherton. He died in April 1375, only twenty-seven; a year younger than his father at his own death.
William Clinton's earldom of Huntingdon passed to the Poitevin Guichard d'Angle, who died in 1380, then to Richard II's half-brother John Holland.
Juliana's half-brother Thomas Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, died of plague in November 1369; his wife Katherine Mortimer died around the same time. Another half-brother, Alan la Zouche, died in 1346 and was succeeded by his son Hugh. All Juliana's six half-sisters married, and most had children. Her half-brother John Beauchamp died childless in 1360.
11 March, 2007
The Despenser War of 1321 (part one)
I wrote a post recently about some letters written by Hugh Despenser the Younger in 1321, which show how England was sliding towards civil war at this time - thanks entirely to Despenser's actions, and Edward II's infatuation with him.
In this post, I'll be looking at the background and build-up to the so-called 'Despenser War'; I'll cover the war itself, its aftermath and far-reaching consequences in later posts.
The years 1318 to 1320 were, at least on the surface, some of the calmest of Edward II's turbulent reign. However, since the younger Despenser had been elected by Parliament as Edward II's Chamberlain in the summer or early autumn of 1318, he had been tirelessly working himself into the affections of a man who'd never shown him any great favour before, despite their close familial relationship (Despenser was of course married to the king's eldest niece) and the fact that they'd partly grown up together. Despenser managed to displace Edward's other favourites, Hugh Audley and Roger Damory, who had married Edward's other de Clare nieces, from the king's affections.
Despenser's close personal relationship with Edward II was a threat to the English barons for several reasons. Firstly, they knew by then exactly what Edward was like; they had seen his infatuation with Piers Gaveston and, later, with Audley and Damory. Edward allowed his favourites to wield enormous influence over him - in 1317, he let Damory persuade him to attack the earl of Lancaster at his stronghold of Pontefract, an incredibly foolish and dangerous action. Fortunately, the earl of Pembroke managed to talk Edward out of it at the last minute, but the king's habit of allowing himself to be swayed by those closest to him, men with ulterior motives, unbridled ambition and a high degree of selfishness, could not be viewed with anything but the gravest concern.
Secondly, Despenser's determination to build himself a huge 'empire' in South Wales was a huge problem. In the Middle Ages, land was power, and every landowner's greatest fear was that a neighbour or an enemy would take over his land with impunity, without being stopped by the king. Therefore, Despenser's actions in South Wales worried many. He didn't let even family ties stop him; in May 1320, he forced his sister-in-law Margaret de Clare and her husband Hugh Audley to exchange their valuable lordship of Newport for some of his English lands of lesser value, and his machinations against them had begun almost as soon as the Clare lands were divided in 1317. At first, Edward II had tried to protect Audley, but as time went on and his infatuation with Despenser developed, he allowed his new favourite to gain control of Newport.
Edward II was prepared to sacrifice the well-being of a former favourite to satisfy his current one. Despenser was by now as important to him as Gaveston had ever been, but Despenser was far more dangerous than the Gascon - and cleverer, more ruthless and unscrupulous than Audley and Damory.
Thirdly, Despenser was abusing his position as Chamberlain by refusing anyone permission to see the king unless he himself or his father were present. He was controlling patronage and depriving the barons of their influence over Edward, and he frequently demanded bribes before he would allow anyone to see the king. He answered petitions as he wanted, 'throwing back answers', replaced Edward's household officials with his own supporters, and didn't allow Edward to take advice from anyone but himself or his father.
By the autumn of 1320, the situation in England was already very tense. At this time, Roger Mortimer returned to England from Ireland, where he had served as King's Lieutenant and Justiciar. Now thirty-three, about the same age as Despenser, Mortimer must have been horrified when he saw the situation in England. The dominant force in the country was Hugh Despenser, his enemy; the Despensers and Mortimers had a long-standing feud, and Despenser had sworn revenge on Mortimer because of the death of his grandfather, who had apparently been sought out and killed on the battlefield of Evesham in 1265 by Mortimer's grandfather. [The grandfathers were named, inevitably, Hugh Despenser and Roger Mortimer.]
In the autumn of 1320, Hugh Despenser set alight the powder keg that was contemporary England by his actions regarding the Gower peninsula in South Wales. Gower belonged to an impecunious baron named William de Braose, who had no son, and had since about 1315 been trying to sell it, in a series of rather spectacular double dealings. Edward II's brother-in-law Humphrey de Bohun, the earl of Hereford, was keen to buy it for one of his sons, and had in fact made a down payment. Roger Mortimer was interested, as was his uncle, Roger Mortimer of Chirk. However, Hugh Despenser had also shown interest in Gower, since at least 1319. As the owner of Glamorgan, and now Newport, Cantref Mawr, Dryslwyn and many other lands in the area - and as the greedy, ambitious man he undoubtedly was - he probably felt that Gower should rightfully be his, as it would nicely round off his estates in the area. And Edward II agreed with him.
In 1320, William de Braose sold Gower to John, Lord Mowbray (born 1286), the husband of one of his daughters, Alina. Knowing full well how furious Hugh Despenser would be at losing this prime piece of land, Mowbray took immediate possession. Despenser persuaded the pliant king that Mowbray had broken the law by taking possession of the land without a royal licence. In England this was technically correct, but Gower was a Marcher lordship, and no royal licence was necessary (although Natalie Fryde in The Tyranny and Fall of Edward II states that the original grant of Gower in the thirteenth century was as a royal lordship.) Hugh Despenser declared that any baron who disagreed with him on the issue was guilty of treason.
On 26 October 1320, Edward II confiscated Gower from John Mowbray and took it into royal hands. The implication was clear: he would re-grant it to his favourite. The Marcher lords were furious at this attack on their privileges, the unfairness of Edward's actions in blatantly acting in Despenser's interests, and being accused of treason by the royal favourite. On top of Despenser's other abuses, it was the final straw. In late 1320 and early 1321, they gradually left court. Roger Mortimer - a long-term supporter and friend of the king - was one of the last to leave, in February 1321, but even he realised that there was no negotiating with Edward, whose stubbornness and determination to protect Despenser must have been exasperating.
Edward II, in fact, found it very difficult to obtain seisin of Gower - in late November, his officers met armed resistance, and it wasn't until the 14th of December that royal sergeants managed to take possession.
Hugh Despenser had built up a powerful alliance against himself. The earl of Hereford and Roger Mortimer were the leaders. Edward II's former favourites Hugh Audley and Roger Damory also abandoned him, not surprisingly. Other important enemies of Despenser included John Giffard of Brimpsfield and Roger, Lord Clifford, whose inheritance from his de Clare mother had been taken by Despenser. (John Mowbray's mother was also a de Clare). Maurice, Lord Berkeley and his son Thomas, who had recently married Roger Mortimer's eldest daughter Margaret, formed an important part of the coalition.
Interestingly, Aymer de Valence, the earl of Pembroke, left England at this time. A staunch royalist who had no wish to go against the king, he nevertheless sympathised with the Marchers (he was one himself) and, rather than take sides, preferred to leave the country. The man best able to negotiate between the two parties was gone.
On 30 January 1321, twenty-eight men were ordered not to attend an assembly held by Edward II's greatest enemy, the earl of Lancaster. This pointed to a powerful and dangerous confederation of the Marcher Lords, led by Hereford and Mortimer, and the northern barons, led by Lancaster. Lancaster played no active role in the coming war and the destruction of Despenser lands - perhaps it was too strange for him to make common cause with men he hated and had until recently been his enemies, i.e., Damory and Audley, and also Bartholomew Badlesmere, as we'll see. However, Lancaster held a meeting at Pontefract on 22 February with other (unnamed) magnates, where it was decided to attack the Despenser lands.
Edward II and Hugh Despenser put their Welsh castles into a state of readiness. They left Windsor around the 6 March and were in Gloucester by the 27th, attempting to negotiate. It was on the 6th that Despenser sent the letter to John Inge that I quoted in a previous post; he was 'subtly' taking hostages (?!). Despenser's over-confidence is obvious - he over-estimated his ability to defend his lands and drastically under-estimated his enemies' hatred of him and determination to hurt him.
Around this time, Sir John Inge described the earl of Hereford in a letter to Despenser as mornes et pensifs plus qu'il ne soleit, "even more gloomy and thoughtful than usual". Despenser retorted that it was hardly a wonder if he was, as he was taking against his liege lord who had done him much honour ("n'est mye mervaille sil est, quar il se ad si portez en contenances devers son lige seignour...")
Hereford refused to come into Edward's presence while Despenser was with him, allegedly for fear of being murdered - an excuse previously used by Lancaster in the Gaveston years. Hereford suggested that Despenser should be placed in Lancaster's custody until he could appear before Parliament to explain his actions - a suggestion which must have worried Edward enormously, given Gaveston's fate. He sent Hereford a cleverly-written letter reminding him that Despenser had been elected Chamberlain by Parliament (including Hereford himself) and no official complaints had been registered against him, and that it would be against Magna Carta, the Ordinances and Edward's coronation oath to put Despenser into someone's custody without just cause.
In early April 1321, Edward II confiscated the lands of Hugh Audley, his former favourite and nephew by marriage. On 1 May, he received intelligence that the Marchers were planning to sack Despenser's lands, and he forbade the men to touch them. He also summoned the earl of Hereford and Roger Mortimer to a council at Oxford on 10 May. But the time for negotiation and reasoned debate was long past.
The Marchers no doubt felt that they had no other option but violence and attack. One of Despenser's letters contains the line "...and if you think it necessary that we send men-at-arms for the garrisons of our castles, if you will inform us speedily, we will send some of the king’s men and our own, as many as shall be necessary", which shows how closely associated he and the king were, that the Marchers could not defend themselves against his abuses without attacking the king, too. If Edward refused to protect them, their rights, and their lands, and favoured one man above all others, allowing him to behave in any way he wanted, he would face the consequences.
On 4 May 1321, the Marchers began sacking, looting and pillaging numerous Despenser properties in South Wales. The Despenser War had begun in earnest...
(to be continued soon...;)
In this post, I'll be looking at the background and build-up to the so-called 'Despenser War'; I'll cover the war itself, its aftermath and far-reaching consequences in later posts.
The years 1318 to 1320 were, at least on the surface, some of the calmest of Edward II's turbulent reign. However, since the younger Despenser had been elected by Parliament as Edward II's Chamberlain in the summer or early autumn of 1318, he had been tirelessly working himself into the affections of a man who'd never shown him any great favour before, despite their close familial relationship (Despenser was of course married to the king's eldest niece) and the fact that they'd partly grown up together. Despenser managed to displace Edward's other favourites, Hugh Audley and Roger Damory, who had married Edward's other de Clare nieces, from the king's affections.
Despenser's close personal relationship with Edward II was a threat to the English barons for several reasons. Firstly, they knew by then exactly what Edward was like; they had seen his infatuation with Piers Gaveston and, later, with Audley and Damory. Edward allowed his favourites to wield enormous influence over him - in 1317, he let Damory persuade him to attack the earl of Lancaster at his stronghold of Pontefract, an incredibly foolish and dangerous action. Fortunately, the earl of Pembroke managed to talk Edward out of it at the last minute, but the king's habit of allowing himself to be swayed by those closest to him, men with ulterior motives, unbridled ambition and a high degree of selfishness, could not be viewed with anything but the gravest concern.
Secondly, Despenser's determination to build himself a huge 'empire' in South Wales was a huge problem. In the Middle Ages, land was power, and every landowner's greatest fear was that a neighbour or an enemy would take over his land with impunity, without being stopped by the king. Therefore, Despenser's actions in South Wales worried many. He didn't let even family ties stop him; in May 1320, he forced his sister-in-law Margaret de Clare and her husband Hugh Audley to exchange their valuable lordship of Newport for some of his English lands of lesser value, and his machinations against them had begun almost as soon as the Clare lands were divided in 1317. At first, Edward II had tried to protect Audley, but as time went on and his infatuation with Despenser developed, he allowed his new favourite to gain control of Newport.
Edward II was prepared to sacrifice the well-being of a former favourite to satisfy his current one. Despenser was by now as important to him as Gaveston had ever been, but Despenser was far more dangerous than the Gascon - and cleverer, more ruthless and unscrupulous than Audley and Damory.
Thirdly, Despenser was abusing his position as Chamberlain by refusing anyone permission to see the king unless he himself or his father were present. He was controlling patronage and depriving the barons of their influence over Edward, and he frequently demanded bribes before he would allow anyone to see the king. He answered petitions as he wanted, 'throwing back answers', replaced Edward's household officials with his own supporters, and didn't allow Edward to take advice from anyone but himself or his father.
By the autumn of 1320, the situation in England was already very tense. At this time, Roger Mortimer returned to England from Ireland, where he had served as King's Lieutenant and Justiciar. Now thirty-three, about the same age as Despenser, Mortimer must have been horrified when he saw the situation in England. The dominant force in the country was Hugh Despenser, his enemy; the Despensers and Mortimers had a long-standing feud, and Despenser had sworn revenge on Mortimer because of the death of his grandfather, who had apparently been sought out and killed on the battlefield of Evesham in 1265 by Mortimer's grandfather. [The grandfathers were named, inevitably, Hugh Despenser and Roger Mortimer.]
In the autumn of 1320, Hugh Despenser set alight the powder keg that was contemporary England by his actions regarding the Gower peninsula in South Wales. Gower belonged to an impecunious baron named William de Braose, who had no son, and had since about 1315 been trying to sell it, in a series of rather spectacular double dealings. Edward II's brother-in-law Humphrey de Bohun, the earl of Hereford, was keen to buy it for one of his sons, and had in fact made a down payment. Roger Mortimer was interested, as was his uncle, Roger Mortimer of Chirk. However, Hugh Despenser had also shown interest in Gower, since at least 1319. As the owner of Glamorgan, and now Newport, Cantref Mawr, Dryslwyn and many other lands in the area - and as the greedy, ambitious man he undoubtedly was - he probably felt that Gower should rightfully be his, as it would nicely round off his estates in the area. And Edward II agreed with him.
In 1320, William de Braose sold Gower to John, Lord Mowbray (born 1286), the husband of one of his daughters, Alina. Knowing full well how furious Hugh Despenser would be at losing this prime piece of land, Mowbray took immediate possession. Despenser persuaded the pliant king that Mowbray had broken the law by taking possession of the land without a royal licence. In England this was technically correct, but Gower was a Marcher lordship, and no royal licence was necessary (although Natalie Fryde in The Tyranny and Fall of Edward II states that the original grant of Gower in the thirteenth century was as a royal lordship.) Hugh Despenser declared that any baron who disagreed with him on the issue was guilty of treason.
On 26 October 1320, Edward II confiscated Gower from John Mowbray and took it into royal hands. The implication was clear: he would re-grant it to his favourite. The Marcher lords were furious at this attack on their privileges, the unfairness of Edward's actions in blatantly acting in Despenser's interests, and being accused of treason by the royal favourite. On top of Despenser's other abuses, it was the final straw. In late 1320 and early 1321, they gradually left court. Roger Mortimer - a long-term supporter and friend of the king - was one of the last to leave, in February 1321, but even he realised that there was no negotiating with Edward, whose stubbornness and determination to protect Despenser must have been exasperating.
Edward II, in fact, found it very difficult to obtain seisin of Gower - in late November, his officers met armed resistance, and it wasn't until the 14th of December that royal sergeants managed to take possession.
Hugh Despenser had built up a powerful alliance against himself. The earl of Hereford and Roger Mortimer were the leaders. Edward II's former favourites Hugh Audley and Roger Damory also abandoned him, not surprisingly. Other important enemies of Despenser included John Giffard of Brimpsfield and Roger, Lord Clifford, whose inheritance from his de Clare mother had been taken by Despenser. (John Mowbray's mother was also a de Clare). Maurice, Lord Berkeley and his son Thomas, who had recently married Roger Mortimer's eldest daughter Margaret, formed an important part of the coalition.
Interestingly, Aymer de Valence, the earl of Pembroke, left England at this time. A staunch royalist who had no wish to go against the king, he nevertheless sympathised with the Marchers (he was one himself) and, rather than take sides, preferred to leave the country. The man best able to negotiate between the two parties was gone.
On 30 January 1321, twenty-eight men were ordered not to attend an assembly held by Edward II's greatest enemy, the earl of Lancaster. This pointed to a powerful and dangerous confederation of the Marcher Lords, led by Hereford and Mortimer, and the northern barons, led by Lancaster. Lancaster played no active role in the coming war and the destruction of Despenser lands - perhaps it was too strange for him to make common cause with men he hated and had until recently been his enemies, i.e., Damory and Audley, and also Bartholomew Badlesmere, as we'll see. However, Lancaster held a meeting at Pontefract on 22 February with other (unnamed) magnates, where it was decided to attack the Despenser lands.
Edward II and Hugh Despenser put their Welsh castles into a state of readiness. They left Windsor around the 6 March and were in Gloucester by the 27th, attempting to negotiate. It was on the 6th that Despenser sent the letter to John Inge that I quoted in a previous post; he was 'subtly' taking hostages (?!). Despenser's over-confidence is obvious - he over-estimated his ability to defend his lands and drastically under-estimated his enemies' hatred of him and determination to hurt him.
Around this time, Sir John Inge described the earl of Hereford in a letter to Despenser as mornes et pensifs plus qu'il ne soleit, "even more gloomy and thoughtful than usual". Despenser retorted that it was hardly a wonder if he was, as he was taking against his liege lord who had done him much honour ("n'est mye mervaille sil est, quar il se ad si portez en contenances devers son lige seignour...")
Hereford refused to come into Edward's presence while Despenser was with him, allegedly for fear of being murdered - an excuse previously used by Lancaster in the Gaveston years. Hereford suggested that Despenser should be placed in Lancaster's custody until he could appear before Parliament to explain his actions - a suggestion which must have worried Edward enormously, given Gaveston's fate. He sent Hereford a cleverly-written letter reminding him that Despenser had been elected Chamberlain by Parliament (including Hereford himself) and no official complaints had been registered against him, and that it would be against Magna Carta, the Ordinances and Edward's coronation oath to put Despenser into someone's custody without just cause.
In early April 1321, Edward II confiscated the lands of Hugh Audley, his former favourite and nephew by marriage. On 1 May, he received intelligence that the Marchers were planning to sack Despenser's lands, and he forbade the men to touch them. He also summoned the earl of Hereford and Roger Mortimer to a council at Oxford on 10 May. But the time for negotiation and reasoned debate was long past.
The Marchers no doubt felt that they had no other option but violence and attack. One of Despenser's letters contains the line "...and if you think it necessary that we send men-at-arms for the garrisons of our castles, if you will inform us speedily, we will send some of the king’s men and our own, as many as shall be necessary", which shows how closely associated he and the king were, that the Marchers could not defend themselves against his abuses without attacking the king, too. If Edward refused to protect them, their rights, and their lands, and favoured one man above all others, allowing him to behave in any way he wanted, he would face the consequences.
On 4 May 1321, the Marchers began sacking, looting and pillaging numerous Despenser properties in South Wales. The Despenser War had begun in earnest...
(to be continued soon...;)
03 March, 2007
Edmund Fitzalan, earl of Arundel
Edmund Fitzalan's career provides a fascinating perspective on Edward II's troubled reign. Here's a mini-bio of him.
Edmund was born on 1 May 1285 in Marlborough Castle, Wiltshire, which makes him almost exactly a year younger than Edward II. His father Richard was only eighteen at the time of his birth - born 3 February 1267 - and became earl of Arundel in 1289. Edmund's paternal grandmother was Isabel Mortimer (c. 1248-1292), sister of Edmund (c. 1251-1304), the father of Roger Mortimer. Roger and Edmund Fitzalan were therefore first cousins, once removed. Roger would have Edmund executed in 1326.
Edmund's mother was Italian: Alesia, or Alasia, di Saluzzo, eldest daughter of Tomasso, marchese (margrave) of Saluzzo and Luisa di Ceva; Tomasso had eighteen children altogether, some of them illegitimate. Alesia's date of birth is unknown, but she was probably younger than her husband, so maybe only fifteen or sixteen when Edmund was born; she and Richard also had three daughters, and a younger son, John, who went into holy orders. Alesia died very young, on 25 September 1292, when Edmund was seven. Through Alesia, Edmund was closely related to European royalty and nobility. His uncle Manfredo IV, marchese di Saluzzo, married Beatrix von Hohenstaufen, daughter of King Manfred of Sicily; his great-grandmother Beatrice of Savoy was King Manfred's first wife; another uncle, Filippo, was Governor of Sardinia. His grandfather Tomasso's sister married Edmund de Lacy, earl of Lincoln, and was the grandmother of Alice de Lacy. Edmund was, however, one of the very few English earls of Edward II's reign not closely related to the king by blood or marriage. He and Edward were only third cousins once removed.
Richard, earl of Arundel, died in early 1302, aged not quite thirty-five; his son was not yet seventeen. Edmund's wardship and marriage rights were granted to John de Warenne, earl of Surrey (died 1304); Edmund would later marry John's granddaughter Alice. Custody of the Arundel lands was given to Amadeus, count of Savoy, until Edmund came of age.
Edmund was knighted in the great ceremony of 22 May 1306, and was summoned to Parliament on 9 November of that year as the earl of Arundel. He was given livery of his lands in the same year, shortly before his twenty-first birthday. In documents of Edward II's reign, he is called 'Monsire Edmond conte de Arundel' (or 'Arundell').
In 1305, Edmund married Alice de Warenne, whose brother John succeeded their grandfather as earl of Surrey in 1304. Alice must have been her father William de Warenne's posthumous child, born in 1287, as he married her mother Joan de Vere in June 1285, and her brother Surrey was born in June 1286; William was killed at a jousting tournament in December 1286. Edmund and Alice had several children, though, as so often, ascertaining exactly how many is difficult. Their son Richard was presumably born in 1313 or the beginning of 1314 (he was said to be seven years old at the time of his wedding in February 1321). Their eldest daughter Alice married Edward II's nephew John de Bohun, later earl of Hereford, in 1325. Genealogics gives Edmund and Alice four daughters, though other sites state that they had three. Edmund's nephew John de Segrave, son of his sister Alice, married Edward II's niece Margaret, later duchess of Norfolk (she was the daughter of Edward's half-brother Thomas of Brotherton).
[EDIT: I've just found this document in the Patent Rolls, dated 30 December 1304, which says that Edmund refused to marry Alice! I suppose someone must have persuaded him!]
Although Edmund was a contemporary of Edward II and Piers Gaveston, he spent the first few years of Edward's reign in opposition to them. Edmund was, along with his brother-in-law Surrey, one of the earls defeated by Piers in the great jousting tournament at Wallingford in December 1307, which helped to crystallise opposition to Piers. Despite this, Edmund played a prominent role in Edward's coronation on 25 February 1308, carrying Edward's robes, along with his cousin Roger Mortimer, Hugh Despenser the Elder, and the earl of Oxford's son Thomas de Vere (whose mother was Margaret Mortimer, making him a cousin of Edmund and Roger).
In 1310, Edmund became one of the Ordainers, or Lords Ordainer, a kind of reform committee. All the English earls were members, except: Surrey (for some unknown reason); Oxford, who was totally insignificant, and Cornwall, who was Piers Gaveston. In June 1312, Edmund was one of the men who had Gaveston killed. He joined the earls of Warwick, Lancaster and Hereford at Warwick Castle, and condemned Piers to death; unlike the earl of Warwick, who skulked in his castle, Edmund attended Piers' 'execution'.
Two years later, he refused to fight for Edward II at Bannockburn - the only earls who accompanied the king to Scotland were Hereford, Pembroke and Gloucester. (Sometimes, the changes of allegiance in Edward II's reign are dizzying.)
Surprisingly, sometime after 1314, Edmund changed sides completely. The reasons for this are unknown, but he is later found as one of Edward II's greatest supporters. Clearly, Edward forgave him for Piers' death, which is equally surprising. It may be that Edmund - in common with most other people - grew tired of his former ally the earl of Lancaster, who was the de facto ruler of England after Edward's defeat at Bannockburn, and who proved to be equally as incompetent as his cousin the king.
Edmund was not the kind of man to act as an effective political leader, and he isn't noted for any great abilities or strong opinions. Maybe, after 1318, he simply saw that English political life was coming to be dominated by Edward's new favourite the younger Despenser, and decided to ally himself with him. On 9 February 1321, Edmund's seven-year-old son Richard was married to the younger Despenser's eldest daughter, eight-year-old Isabel, one of the king's great-nieces. The wedding took place at Havering-atte-Bower, in Edward II's presence. The king's Wardrobe account:
"Ninth day of February, in money thrown by the King's order at the door of the King's chapel, within the manor of Havering-atte-Boure, during the solemnisation of the marriage between Richard son of Edmund Earl of Arundell and Isabella, daughter of Sir Hugh le Despenser, junior, 2 pounds....Delivered, for a veil to be spread over the heads of Richard de Arundell and Isabella, daughter of Sir Hugh le Despenser, junior, at their nuptial mass in the King's chapel, at Haveryng, 9th of February, one piece of Lucca cloth."
Later that year came the Despenser War and the exile of both Despensers, father and son. Edmund presented the younger Hugh's petition (to return to England) to Parliament, claiming that he'd been forced to agree to the Despensers' exile, probably truthfully. He fought for the king in his campaign against the Marcher lords, and on 5 January 1322, he replaced his grandmother's brother Roger Mortimer of Chirk - uncle of the younger Roger Mortimer - as Justice of North Wales, and gained custody of many lands of the Mortimers, John Mowbray and Bartholomew Badlesmere, other rebels. [I'll look at the Despenser War and Marcher Campaign in future posts.]
In March 1322, he was one of the men who condemned Thomas, earl of Lancaster to death, along with his brother-in-law the earl of Surrey, Edward II, the earls of Kent, Pembroke and Richmond, the Scottish earls of Atholl and Angus, and both Despensers.
The period 1322 to 1326, when his ally the younger Despenser was all-powerful, was also the period that saw Edmund reach the height of his power and influence. In 1323, he was made Justice of South Wales as well as the North, and in 1325 was Warden of the Welsh Marches. He also made use of Despenser's method of 'recognisances' - binding men to him by forcing them to acknowledge huge debts (Roger Mortimer also used the method in his own years of power).
In June 1326, Edward II gave Edmund and the younger Despenser some valuable velvet cloth - the king was apparently more interested in distributing gifts than in the impending invasion of his wife and her lover!
In the autumn of 1326, following Isabella and Mortimer's invasion, Edmund remained loyal and fled towards Wales with Edward II and the Despensers. The earl of Surrey also remained loyal - though apparently not entirely, as Isabella and Mortimer spared his life (he lived until 1347).
In November 1326, Edmund was captured by John Charlton, who had been Edward II's chamberlain until 1318. Charlton joined the Marcher rebellion of 1321/22, was later pardoned by the king, but repaid him by promptly joining Isabella and Mortimer in 1326. His son John had married Roger Mortimer's daughter Maud in 1319.
Edmund was beheaded, almost certainly without a trial, on 17 November 1326, probably at Hereford, though one chronicle says Shrewsbury. Exactly a week later, the younger Despenser, his ally and close relative by marriage, would be excuted in a far more public manner, also at Hereford. Two of Edmund's friends, John Daniel and Thomas de Micheldever, were executed with him. What they are meant to have done is unclear. According to the well-informed chronicler Adam Murimuth, Roger Mortimer hated his cousin with a 'perfect hatred', which is perhaps understandable, but doesn't excuse Edmund's illegal execution. His crimes seem mainly to have been his loyalty to the king, his familial relationship with Despenser, and his rivalry with Mortimer in Wales. Even Alison Weir is forced to admit that the executions of the three men were 'acts of tyranny'.
Edmund was forty-one at the time of his death. Although his estates and titles were forfeit to the crown, his widow Alice was given some manors for the sustenance of herself and her children - and presumably her fourteen-year-old daughter-in-law Isabel Despenser, whose father and grandfather were dead, and whose mother and eldest brother were in prison. Edmund's body was later removed to Haughmond Abbey, where many of the Fitzalans were buried. According to the historian Linda E. Mitchell, his captor John Charlton and his son (Roger Mortimer's son-in-law) later paid for three chaplains at Haughmond to pray for Edmund's soul. Towards the end of the fourteenth century, Edmund's great-granddaughter Alice Fitzalan married John, fourth Lord Charlton, great-grandson of both John Charlton and Roger Mortimer (and also of Margaret de Clare).
Edmund's son Richard, known by the nickname 'Copped Hat', was arrested in the summer of 1330 after plotting to overthrow Mortimer, but a few months later was restored to his father's earldom and estates by Edward III. In 1344 he divorced Isabel Despenser; he was succeeded as earl of Arundel by his eldest son from his second marriage, who shared his grandfather's fate and was beheaded by Richard II in 1397. Richard 'Copped Hat' was one of the richest men in England in the entire fourteenth century, and lived until 1376. He succeeded to the title of earl of Surrey, as his uncle John de Warenne had no (legitimate) children. Susan Higginbotham has written an excellent post on the Fitzalans.
The present duke of Norfolk, Edward Fitzalan-Howard (born 1956), is Edmund Fitzalan's eighteen greats-grandson; he is also earl of Arundel and Surrey. Edmund is also the ancestor of earls of Shrewsbury, Southampton, Northampton, Scarborough, Peterborough, Devon, Warwick, Exeter, Salisbury; dukes of Rutland, Suffolk, Northumberland, St Albans, Newcastle; and countless others.
Edmund Fitzalan, earl of Arundel, born Marlborough 1 May 1285, executed Hereford 17 November 1326.
Edmund was born on 1 May 1285 in Marlborough Castle, Wiltshire, which makes him almost exactly a year younger than Edward II. His father Richard was only eighteen at the time of his birth - born 3 February 1267 - and became earl of Arundel in 1289. Edmund's paternal grandmother was Isabel Mortimer (c. 1248-1292), sister of Edmund (c. 1251-1304), the father of Roger Mortimer. Roger and Edmund Fitzalan were therefore first cousins, once removed. Roger would have Edmund executed in 1326.
Edmund's mother was Italian: Alesia, or Alasia, di Saluzzo, eldest daughter of Tomasso, marchese (margrave) of Saluzzo and Luisa di Ceva; Tomasso had eighteen children altogether, some of them illegitimate. Alesia's date of birth is unknown, but she was probably younger than her husband, so maybe only fifteen or sixteen when Edmund was born; she and Richard also had three daughters, and a younger son, John, who went into holy orders. Alesia died very young, on 25 September 1292, when Edmund was seven. Through Alesia, Edmund was closely related to European royalty and nobility. His uncle Manfredo IV, marchese di Saluzzo, married Beatrix von Hohenstaufen, daughter of King Manfred of Sicily; his great-grandmother Beatrice of Savoy was King Manfred's first wife; another uncle, Filippo, was Governor of Sardinia. His grandfather Tomasso's sister married Edmund de Lacy, earl of Lincoln, and was the grandmother of Alice de Lacy. Edmund was, however, one of the very few English earls of Edward II's reign not closely related to the king by blood or marriage. He and Edward were only third cousins once removed.
Richard, earl of Arundel, died in early 1302, aged not quite thirty-five; his son was not yet seventeen. Edmund's wardship and marriage rights were granted to John de Warenne, earl of Surrey (died 1304); Edmund would later marry John's granddaughter Alice. Custody of the Arundel lands was given to Amadeus, count of Savoy, until Edmund came of age.
Edmund was knighted in the great ceremony of 22 May 1306, and was summoned to Parliament on 9 November of that year as the earl of Arundel. He was given livery of his lands in the same year, shortly before his twenty-first birthday. In documents of Edward II's reign, he is called 'Monsire Edmond conte de Arundel' (or 'Arundell').
In 1305, Edmund married Alice de Warenne, whose brother John succeeded their grandfather as earl of Surrey in 1304. Alice must have been her father William de Warenne's posthumous child, born in 1287, as he married her mother Joan de Vere in June 1285, and her brother Surrey was born in June 1286; William was killed at a jousting tournament in December 1286. Edmund and Alice had several children, though, as so often, ascertaining exactly how many is difficult. Their son Richard was presumably born in 1313 or the beginning of 1314 (he was said to be seven years old at the time of his wedding in February 1321). Their eldest daughter Alice married Edward II's nephew John de Bohun, later earl of Hereford, in 1325. Genealogics gives Edmund and Alice four daughters, though other sites state that they had three. Edmund's nephew John de Segrave, son of his sister Alice, married Edward II's niece Margaret, later duchess of Norfolk (she was the daughter of Edward's half-brother Thomas of Brotherton).
[EDIT: I've just found this document in the Patent Rolls, dated 30 December 1304, which says that Edmund refused to marry Alice! I suppose someone must have persuaded him!]
Although Edmund was a contemporary of Edward II and Piers Gaveston, he spent the first few years of Edward's reign in opposition to them. Edmund was, along with his brother-in-law Surrey, one of the earls defeated by Piers in the great jousting tournament at Wallingford in December 1307, which helped to crystallise opposition to Piers. Despite this, Edmund played a prominent role in Edward's coronation on 25 February 1308, carrying Edward's robes, along with his cousin Roger Mortimer, Hugh Despenser the Elder, and the earl of Oxford's son Thomas de Vere (whose mother was Margaret Mortimer, making him a cousin of Edmund and Roger).
In 1310, Edmund became one of the Ordainers, or Lords Ordainer, a kind of reform committee. All the English earls were members, except: Surrey (for some unknown reason); Oxford, who was totally insignificant, and Cornwall, who was Piers Gaveston. In June 1312, Edmund was one of the men who had Gaveston killed. He joined the earls of Warwick, Lancaster and Hereford at Warwick Castle, and condemned Piers to death; unlike the earl of Warwick, who skulked in his castle, Edmund attended Piers' 'execution'.
Two years later, he refused to fight for Edward II at Bannockburn - the only earls who accompanied the king to Scotland were Hereford, Pembroke and Gloucester. (Sometimes, the changes of allegiance in Edward II's reign are dizzying.)
Surprisingly, sometime after 1314, Edmund changed sides completely. The reasons for this are unknown, but he is later found as one of Edward II's greatest supporters. Clearly, Edward forgave him for Piers' death, which is equally surprising. It may be that Edmund - in common with most other people - grew tired of his former ally the earl of Lancaster, who was the de facto ruler of England after Edward's defeat at Bannockburn, and who proved to be equally as incompetent as his cousin the king.
Edmund was not the kind of man to act as an effective political leader, and he isn't noted for any great abilities or strong opinions. Maybe, after 1318, he simply saw that English political life was coming to be dominated by Edward's new favourite the younger Despenser, and decided to ally himself with him. On 9 February 1321, Edmund's seven-year-old son Richard was married to the younger Despenser's eldest daughter, eight-year-old Isabel, one of the king's great-nieces. The wedding took place at Havering-atte-Bower, in Edward II's presence. The king's Wardrobe account:
"Ninth day of February, in money thrown by the King's order at the door of the King's chapel, within the manor of Havering-atte-Boure, during the solemnisation of the marriage between Richard son of Edmund Earl of Arundell and Isabella, daughter of Sir Hugh le Despenser, junior, 2 pounds....Delivered, for a veil to be spread over the heads of Richard de Arundell and Isabella, daughter of Sir Hugh le Despenser, junior, at their nuptial mass in the King's chapel, at Haveryng, 9th of February, one piece of Lucca cloth."
Later that year came the Despenser War and the exile of both Despensers, father and son. Edmund presented the younger Hugh's petition (to return to England) to Parliament, claiming that he'd been forced to agree to the Despensers' exile, probably truthfully. He fought for the king in his campaign against the Marcher lords, and on 5 January 1322, he replaced his grandmother's brother Roger Mortimer of Chirk - uncle of the younger Roger Mortimer - as Justice of North Wales, and gained custody of many lands of the Mortimers, John Mowbray and Bartholomew Badlesmere, other rebels. [I'll look at the Despenser War and Marcher Campaign in future posts.]
In March 1322, he was one of the men who condemned Thomas, earl of Lancaster to death, along with his brother-in-law the earl of Surrey, Edward II, the earls of Kent, Pembroke and Richmond, the Scottish earls of Atholl and Angus, and both Despensers.
The period 1322 to 1326, when his ally the younger Despenser was all-powerful, was also the period that saw Edmund reach the height of his power and influence. In 1323, he was made Justice of South Wales as well as the North, and in 1325 was Warden of the Welsh Marches. He also made use of Despenser's method of 'recognisances' - binding men to him by forcing them to acknowledge huge debts (Roger Mortimer also used the method in his own years of power).
In June 1326, Edward II gave Edmund and the younger Despenser some valuable velvet cloth - the king was apparently more interested in distributing gifts than in the impending invasion of his wife and her lover!
In the autumn of 1326, following Isabella and Mortimer's invasion, Edmund remained loyal and fled towards Wales with Edward II and the Despensers. The earl of Surrey also remained loyal - though apparently not entirely, as Isabella and Mortimer spared his life (he lived until 1347).
In November 1326, Edmund was captured by John Charlton, who had been Edward II's chamberlain until 1318. Charlton joined the Marcher rebellion of 1321/22, was later pardoned by the king, but repaid him by promptly joining Isabella and Mortimer in 1326. His son John had married Roger Mortimer's daughter Maud in 1319.
Edmund was beheaded, almost certainly without a trial, on 17 November 1326, probably at Hereford, though one chronicle says Shrewsbury. Exactly a week later, the younger Despenser, his ally and close relative by marriage, would be excuted in a far more public manner, also at Hereford. Two of Edmund's friends, John Daniel and Thomas de Micheldever, were executed with him. What they are meant to have done is unclear. According to the well-informed chronicler Adam Murimuth, Roger Mortimer hated his cousin with a 'perfect hatred', which is perhaps understandable, but doesn't excuse Edmund's illegal execution. His crimes seem mainly to have been his loyalty to the king, his familial relationship with Despenser, and his rivalry with Mortimer in Wales. Even Alison Weir is forced to admit that the executions of the three men were 'acts of tyranny'.
Edmund was forty-one at the time of his death. Although his estates and titles were forfeit to the crown, his widow Alice was given some manors for the sustenance of herself and her children - and presumably her fourteen-year-old daughter-in-law Isabel Despenser, whose father and grandfather were dead, and whose mother and eldest brother were in prison. Edmund's body was later removed to Haughmond Abbey, where many of the Fitzalans were buried. According to the historian Linda E. Mitchell, his captor John Charlton and his son (Roger Mortimer's son-in-law) later paid for three chaplains at Haughmond to pray for Edmund's soul. Towards the end of the fourteenth century, Edmund's great-granddaughter Alice Fitzalan married John, fourth Lord Charlton, great-grandson of both John Charlton and Roger Mortimer (and also of Margaret de Clare).
Edmund's son Richard, known by the nickname 'Copped Hat', was arrested in the summer of 1330 after plotting to overthrow Mortimer, but a few months later was restored to his father's earldom and estates by Edward III. In 1344 he divorced Isabel Despenser; he was succeeded as earl of Arundel by his eldest son from his second marriage, who shared his grandfather's fate and was beheaded by Richard II in 1397. Richard 'Copped Hat' was one of the richest men in England in the entire fourteenth century, and lived until 1376. He succeeded to the title of earl of Surrey, as his uncle John de Warenne had no (legitimate) children. Susan Higginbotham has written an excellent post on the Fitzalans.
The present duke of Norfolk, Edward Fitzalan-Howard (born 1956), is Edmund Fitzalan's eighteen greats-grandson; he is also earl of Arundel and Surrey. Edmund is also the ancestor of earls of Shrewsbury, Southampton, Northampton, Scarborough, Peterborough, Devon, Warwick, Exeter, Salisbury; dukes of Rutland, Suffolk, Northumberland, St Albans, Newcastle; and countless others.
Edmund Fitzalan, earl of Arundel, born Marlborough 1 May 1285, executed Hereford 17 November 1326.
22 February, 2007
Short, random post
I'm going to be mostly offline for the next few days, so in the meantime, here are two quizzes to test your knowledge of Edward II and his reign. I got all the answers correct (I'd have been deeply ashamed if I hadn't! ;) By the way, one of the questions is wrong - it doesn't give the correct alternative for the number of Edward and Isabella's children. Hint: go one higher.
For those of you who like quizzes, here's a link to loads more, on medieval history in general. I particularly like the 'Henry Who?' one (and got them all correct, she boasted).
The Rules for Historical Fiction some of us did last year have surfaced again, on Erastes' journal (and several others). Erastes has done a few Rules of his own, on Regency fiction - hilarious and well worth a read!
I've added a new poll to the sidebar on the left, 'who's your least favourite medieval king of England?' To the two people who've voted for Edward II - I'm assuming that you misread the poll and thought you were voting for your favourite king. Otherwise, shame on you! :) However, my lovely Edward is currently in second place in the 'favourite king' poll with 14% of the vote, behind Richard III with 17%. Henry II is making a late challenge, though, with 13%. Henry III is the only king without a single vote, the poor man. To be honest, I'm amazed that nineteen people besides me have voted for Edward II as their favourite medieval king. I was sure Susan Higginbotham and I would be the only ones.
It's also great that 20% of people who've voted in the 'fate of Edward II in 1327' poll believe in something other than Edward being murdered in his cell at Berkeley. 62% believe in the 'red-hot poker' death - not as high as I might have thought, given that it's usually presented as the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I'm planning a series of posts on the events of 1327 to 1330, and some of the oddities and implausibilities in the traditional narrative...watch this space!
For those of you who like quizzes, here's a link to loads more, on medieval history in general. I particularly like the 'Henry Who?' one (and got them all correct, she boasted).
The Rules for Historical Fiction some of us did last year have surfaced again, on Erastes' journal (and several others). Erastes has done a few Rules of his own, on Regency fiction - hilarious and well worth a read!
I've added a new poll to the sidebar on the left, 'who's your least favourite medieval king of England?' To the two people who've voted for Edward II - I'm assuming that you misread the poll and thought you were voting for your favourite king. Otherwise, shame on you! :) However, my lovely Edward is currently in second place in the 'favourite king' poll with 14% of the vote, behind Richard III with 17%. Henry II is making a late challenge, though, with 13%. Henry III is the only king without a single vote, the poor man. To be honest, I'm amazed that nineteen people besides me have voted for Edward II as their favourite medieval king. I was sure Susan Higginbotham and I would be the only ones.
It's also great that 20% of people who've voted in the 'fate of Edward II in 1327' poll believe in something other than Edward being murdered in his cell at Berkeley. 62% believe in the 'red-hot poker' death - not as high as I might have thought, given that it's usually presented as the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I'm planning a series of posts on the events of 1327 to 1330, and some of the oddities and implausibilities in the traditional narrative...watch this space!
17 February, 2007
Eleanor and Margaret de Bohun
Continuing my 'case-studies' of fourteenth-century noblewomen, here's the lowdown on two of Edward II's nieces and their families.
Eleanor de Bohun, the second but oldest surviving child of Edward II's sister Elizabeth and Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford, was born at Knaresborough Castle on 17 October 1304 [EDITED TO ADD, 2020: no, this is wrong; she was born c. 1310] two years after her parents' marriage at Westminster Abbey. Elizabeth, the widow of Jan, Count of Holland, was twenty-two at the time of Eleanor's birth, Humphrey twenty-eight. Eleanor was presumably named after her grandmother, Eleanor of Castile. It's likely that her birth caused her father some disappointment, as she was his second child and second daughter, and he returned to London shortly after the birth. Both King Edward I and the twenty-year-old Lord Edward gave Elizabeth's valet forty marks for bringing them news of Eleanor's birth.
Elizabeth and Humphrey's eldest child, Margaret, had been born in late September 1303 but died young, probably in 1305. This child was perhaps named after Elizabeth's stepmother, Queen Marguerite, to whom she was close. Countess Elizabeth gave birth extremely regularly: her third child Humphrey was born in October 1305 (he also died young), and her fourth child John was born on 23 November 1306. He would succeed his father as Earl of Hereford in 1326 (a few years after Humphrey's death in battle).
Between 1306 and 1309, Elizabeth had a well-deserved break from childbearing. But she had plenty more children to come: another Humphrey, born on 6 December 1309, who succeeded his brother John as Earl of Hereford; another Margaret (see below), born on 3 April 1311, twins Edward and William, born in 1312 or 1313, the oddly-named Eneas, born in 1314 or 1315, who was still alive at the time of Hereford's death in 1322 but died unmarried before 1343, and Isabel, born 5 May 1316.
This was the day that Countess Elizabeth died, aged thirty-three, in childbirth. Little Isabel died soon afterwards. Given Elizabeth's frequent childbearing, her death in childbirth is hardly surprising. Eleanor de Bohun was eleven when she lost her mother. On 16 March 1322, when Eleanor was seventeen, her father was horribly killed at the Battle of Boroughbridge when an iron pike pushed up between planks of the bridge where he was fighting skewered him through the anus.
Eleanor grew up at Amesbury Priory, in the care of her aunt Mary, Edward II's sister. The king gave the priory a very generous allowance of 100 marks annually for the upkeep of Eleanor and her younger cousin, Joan Gaveston. Some of Eleanor's other cousins were there, such as Isabel of Lancaster and Joan de Monthermer - they were later professed as nuns.
The 1320s were a difficult time for the de Bohun siblings; although they were nieces and nephews of the king, their father had died in rebellion against him. If Elizabeth, arguably Edward II's favourite sister, had still been alive, their situation would surely have been a lot easier, but as it was, the de Bohun boys - at least, the older ones, John and Humphrey - were imprisoned at Windsor Castle. In late 1326, Eleanor's brother Edward was with their uncle Edward II during his flight to South Wales - Edward sent his nephew, aged about fourteen, to negotiate with Queen Isabella. The young Edward was one of the men who took part in Edward III's coup against Isabella and Roger Mortimer in 1330.
Rather oddly, Eleanor didn't marry until some time in 1327, when she was in her early twenties - a pretty advanced age for a noblewoman at this time. However, given her family's status in the 1320s and Edward II and Hugh Despenser's tyranny, disruptions in familial affairs were quite normal. There seems to have been quite a rush on noble weddings in 1327! Eleanor's brother John had married in 1325, but his bride was Alice, daughter of the Earl of Arundel, who was loyal to Edward II and whose son was married to the Younger Despenser's daughter, so this was a 'safe' marriage. Likewise, Eleanor's sister Margaret also married in 1325, to Hugh de Courtenay - whose paternal grandmother was the Elder Despenser's sister.
I'm not quite sure why the much younger Margaret de Bohun was chosen for Courtenay, who was born in 1303 and was therefore much closer in age to Eleanor. Several websites claim that Eleanor was married to Roger, Lord Clifford (born 1300), who was badly wounded at Boroughbridge in March 1322 and finally died of his wounds in 1327. It's possible that they were married, or at least betrothed, but I'm not totally sure. It would be one explanation for her late marriage.
At any rate, Eleanor was married in 1327 to James Butler, who was created first Earl of Ormond in 1328. James was born in about 1305, so was probably a little younger than his wife. He and Eleanor had several children:
- John, born 6 November 1330, died young
- James, born 4 October 1331. He succeeded his father as second Earl of Ormond, married Elizabeth Darey in 1346, and died in 1382.
- Petronilla, or Pernel, date of birth unknown, married before 8 September 1352 to Gilbert, Lord Talbot. She married several years later than her brother, so was presumably younger.
James Butler died on 6 January 1337, and Eleanor was a widow at the age of thirty-two. Around 1340 - or 1343, according to some authorities - she was remarried to Thomas Dagworth. Thomas was one of the lieutenants of Eleanor's brother William, who was created Earl of Northampton in 1337. William was one of the great commanders of the Hundred Years War, and Thomas Dagworth was his deputy in Brittany, where he won a famous victory at La Roche-Derrien in 1347. Although she was in her mid to late thirties at the time of her marriage, Eleanor bore Thomas two children:
- Thomasine, died 20 July 1409, who married William, Lord Furnival (born 1326) - son of Joan de Verdon from my previous post!
- Nicholas, died January 1401. He owned and rebuilt Blickling Hall in Norfolk, which later belonged to the Boleyns. A full-length brass of him can still be seen in the church of St Andrew, Blickling.
Thomas Dagworth was killed in an ambush in Brittany, in 1352. Eleanor de Bohun outlived him by eleven years, dying on 7 October 1363 - ten days before her fifty-ninth birthday. She outlived all but one of her siblings. Eleanor's descendants include: dukes of Beaufort, Newcastle, Norfolk, earls of Ormond, Desmond, Shrewsbury, Dorset, Rochester, Sandwich, Arundel, Stafford, etc etc...:)
Margaret de Bohun, the sixth child and second surviving daughter of Humphrey and Elizabeth, was born on 3 April 1311. She was five when her mother died, and almost eleven when her father was killed. On 11 August 1325, at the age of fourteen, she was married to Hugh de Courtenay; he was twenty-two, born on 12 July 1303. Part of her dowry was the manor of Powderham, near Exeter, which she left to her son Philip. Hugh's father, also Hugh, became Earl of Devon in 1335, when he was past sixty; he died on 23 December 1340, so Margaret was twenty-nine when she became Countess of Devon.
Margaret de Bohun and Hugh de Courtenay had - lots of children. Ascertaining exactly how many is difficult! Leo van de Pas' Genealogics, a site I trust, gives them eight sons and nine daughters, a whopping seventeen children altogether. Their eldest son, named Hugh, inevitably, was born on 22 March 1327 - so Margaret became a mother shortly before her sixteenth birthday. (Hugh is sometimes said to have been born on 22 March 1326, but as that is only about thirty-two weeks after his parents' wedding, it seems highly unlikely.) Young Hugh died in September 1349, perhaps of the plague.
Other children of Margaret and Hugh included:
- William, Archbishop of Canterbury 1381-96. His predecessor Simon Sudbury was beheaded in the Tower of London, during the Peasants' Revolt. He married Richard II and Anne of Bohemia in 1382, and crowned Anne as Queen of England. William was an avowed enemy of John Wycliffe and the Lollards.
- Philip, died 1406, said to be the the sixth son of Hugh and Margaret, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. His son Richard was Bishop of Norwich.
- Elizabeth, died 1395, Lady of the Garter in 1386.
Hugh de Courtenay, Earl of Devon, died on 2 May 1377, a few weeks before the death of his wife's cousin, Edward III. He was almost seventy-four; he and Margaret had been married an incredible fifty-two years, which must make them strong contenders for the longest marriage of the Middle Ages. Their eldest son Hugh was long dead, and his son, (yet another) Hugh, had died several years previously, so Hugh was succeeded as Earl of Devon by his twenty-year-old grandson Edward, son of his second son Edward. Earl Edward lived until 1419 and was known as the 'Blind Earl'.
Margaret de Bohun de Courtenay, sixty-six when she was widowed, died on 16 December 1391, at the age of eighty. She had outlived all her siblings by decades, and also outlived all but one of her cousins, Edward I's grandchildren (Margaret Marshal, daughter of Edward II's half-brother Thomas of Brotherton, lived until 1399). She was buried in Exeter Cathedral.
10 February, 2007
A Notorious Royal Favourite: Piers Gaveston
"I do not remember to have heard that one man so loved another. Jonathan cherished David, Achilles loved Patroclus. But we do not read that they were immoderate. Our King, however, was incapable of moderate favour, and on account of Piers was said to forget himself, and so Piers was accounted a sorcerer." (Vita Edwardi Secundi)
I suppose most people have heard of Piers Gaveston, whose life and career have often been used as a warning against royal favourites. Originally I'd intended to write a post on his political life, his three exiles from England, execution, and so on, but then I thought that this is easily available to read elsewhere - for example, his Wikipedia page, Everything, and this article. There are also a couple of biographies of him, by J. S. Hamilton and Pierre Chaplais. So I decided I'd rather concentrate on more personal issues, which are not so well-known.
Piers is often described as French, but that's not strictly true; he came from Gascony, ruled back then by the English crown, and more specifically, from the area of Bearn. His family came from the tiny village of Gabaston (also called Gavaston). In English documents of the early fourteenth century, Piers was called 'Pieres de Gavaston'.
Piers' date of birth is unknown. However, Edward I granted him the wardship of Roger Mortimer in July 1304, after Roger's father Edmund died; Piers must have been at least twenty-one, so he was born in the summer of 1283 at the latest. As he was described as Edward II's contemporary, and Edward was born in April 1284, Piers was probably not born before 1281. His paternal grandfather was named Garsie; his father was Arnaud de Gabaston, first mentioned in 1269 and one of the leading barons of Béarn. Arnaud married, sometime before 30 June 1272, Claramonde (or Claramunde) de Marsan, whose father Arnaud Guillaume de Marsan and brother Fortaner de Lescun were major landholders in Gascony. Claramonde's sister Miramonde married Pierre Caillau de la Rue Neuve, of Bordeaux; it's possible that Piers Gaveston was named after this uncle, as the name 'Piers' doesn't appear to be a Gabaston/Gavaston family name.
Arnaud and Claramonde had several children. The eldest son was Arnaud-Guillaume, who used his mother's surname of de Marsan and fathered four sons. Piers was the second son, and there were apparently two others, Gerard and Raimond-Arnaud, about whom nothing is known. There were at least two sisters, who married in 1286 and 1291, so were evidently older than Piers. According to the Vita Edwardi Secundi, Piers' sister Amie accompanied him when he was besieged at Scarborough Castle in 1312, and his illegitimate daughter was presumably named after this sister (see my post about Amie). Arnaud de Gabaston also had an illegitimate son named Guillaume-Arnaud de Gabaston (all these Arnauds get confusing, don't they?)
Piers' mother Claramonde died in 1287, when he was no more than six - this gave him something in common with Edward II, who was also six when his mother died. There were rumours that Claramonde was burned as a witch; she wasn't, but it seems that many of Piers' contemporaries believed it, and it may be the origin of the Vita's comment that he was 'a sorcerer'.
Arnaud de Gabaston, heavily involved in Gascon politics and several times a hostage to Philip IV of France, fled to England in 1297. His son Piers first appears in English records this year, accompanying Edward I's army to Flanders. He was probably somewhere between fourteen and sixteen, and received a wage of twelve pence a day, a standard sum for a man-at-arms. He fought in Scotland in the late 1290s, when he was a member of the king's retinue. By late 1300, he had made the fateful move that has made his name famous (or infamous) even seven centuries later: he transferred into the young Lord Edward's household.
Piers was one of the ten pueri in custodia, royal wards, who were Edward's companions; he was the only one not accompanied by a magister, which probably means that he was the eldest. As his biographer points out, it's somewhat ironic that he was apparently intended as a role model for the Lord Edward (who became Prince of Wales in early 1301) - he was a little older and also militarily experienced. In August 1303, Piers is described in Edward's household records as the Prince's socius (companion), not his scutifer (squire) - apparently, he had already found favour with the young prince.
The first real sign that their relationship was a very close one comes in the summer of 1305. Prince Edward had a falling-out with his elderly and hot-tempered father, which lasted several months. King Edward I ordered a reduction in the size of his son's household, and also ordered some of his companions away from him. One was Piers, another was Gilbert de Clare (not Edward's nephew, the future earl of Gloucester, but Gloucester's cousin, the Lord of Thomond). On 4 August 1305, the twenty-one-year-old Prince Edward wrote a letter to his sister Elizabeth, asking her to persuade their stepmother Queen Marguerite to intercede with the king (he also wrote to Marguerite directly).
Edward self-pityingly described his 'suffering' over being deprived of his friends: "If we had those two [Piers and Gilbert], along with the others whom we have, we would be greatly relieved of the anguish which we have endured and from which we continue to suffer from one day to the next." ["si nous eussoms ceux deux, ove les autres que nous avoms, nous serrioms molt alleggez del anguisse que nous avoms endure, e suffroms uncor de iour en autre".]
Incidentally, William Wallace of Braveheart fame was captured on 5 August, the day after Edward wrote this letter, and was executed on 22 August. Edward was not reconciled to Edward I till they jointly held a banquet on 13 October, and thus had nothing to do with Wallace's death.
In May 1306, Prince Edward, Piers Gaveston and 265 others were knighted at Westminster. Some months later, on 26 February 1307, Edward I banished Piers from England. The odd thing is that it doesn't seem to have been intended punitively; the king decreed that the exile wouldn't begin until 30 April, awarded Piers an annual salary of a hundred marks (sixty-six pounds), and mentioned that Piers should 'await his recall'. Perhaps Edward I was concerned about the closeness of his son's relationship with the handsome Gascon. Prince Edward accompanied Piers to Dover, and showered him with money and gifts: the vast sum of £260, five horses, no fewer than sixteen tapestries in diverse colours [what was he supposed to do with them in exile?!], and two quilted tunics. A little later, Edward sent on two jousting outfits, one of green velvet decorated with pearls and gold, and silver piping, and the other of green sindon. His dearest friend would not be embarrassed on the jousting field by a lack of luxurious clothes.
Edward I died at about 3pm on 7 July 1307, near Carlisle. The new king, who was in or close to London, heard the news on the 11th - thanks to the royal express messengers, who travelled approximately 315 miles in four days. Recalling Piers Gaveston from exile was almost certainly the first act that Edward II made as king. Piers was back in England within about ten days. That year, Edward made him earl of Cornwall, married him to his (Edward's!) niece Margaret de Clare, and awarded him one of the highest incomes in England - around £4000 a year. Edward, now twenty-three, and Piers spent the first Christmas of his reign together in Wye, Kent, a manor of the Abbey of Battle. In early 1308, Piers acted as Regent of England for two weeks, while Edward went to France to marry Isabella. Perhaps surprisingly, he did nothing at all controversial during his tenure (apart from making the earls who remained in England kneel to him), and his biographer Hamilton postulates that, without Edward, he was uncomfortable and out of his depth.
Piers played a huge role at the coronation of Edward and Isabella at Westminster Abbey on 25 February 1308. All the other English earls wore cloth-of-gold, as they had the right to do in the king's presence, but Piers dressed in regal purple trimmed with pearls. To the great annoyance of just about everyone present - including Queen Isabella, I imagine - Piers took last and most important place in the procession into the Abbey, just in front of Edward and Isabella themselves. He carried the crown of St Edward and fastened on one of Edward's spurs - both highly symbolic and significant acts. At the banquet afterwards, Edward II offended everyone by ignoring his young wife and her family and focusing all his attention on Piers. The royal favourite was responsible for the organisation of the banquet, and it went badly wrong - the food wasn't served until after dark, was badly cooked, and the service was also poor. Strangely, Edward had ordered tapestries for the occasion, at a cost of five pounds, bearing his own arms and Piers' - not Isabella's. If Edward was intending to insult his wife specifically, and the French in general, he certainly succeeded in a very public fashion.
A further exile followed in the summer of 1308, thanks to Edward and Piers' alienation of most of the barons. Edward hit on the brilliant idea of making Piers his Lieutenant of Ireland, to the annoyance of Piers' enemies, who'd hoped to see him leave England in disgrace. Piers, perhaps surprisingly, performed his duties as military adminstrator extremely satisfactorily. While there, it's almost certain that he went on campaign with Roger Mortimer. Readers familiar with later events may be surprised to learn that Roger was a close friend and companion of Edward II and Piers Gaveston in the early 1300s.
Edward II exerted all his abilities - of which he had plenty, when he chose to exercise them - and got Piers' exile overturned in the summer of 1309. Unfortunately, Piers had learnt neither tact nor the importance of not alienating the powerful English barons. It was in the period 1309-1311 that he gave them insulting nicknames: the earl of Warwick was 'the mad dog of Arden', the earl of Pembroke was 'Joseph the Jew', the earl of Lancaster 'the churl', the earl of Lincoln 'Mister Burst-Belly' or Monsieur Boele-Crevée, and Piers' brother-in-law the earl of Gloucester 'cuckoo's bird' or, cruelly, 'whoreson' (filz a puteyne). I wonder if Edward II was offended by this unkind reference to his favourite sister Joan of Acre. At least the nicknames give us an indication of what Lincoln and Pembroke, at least, must have looked like.
Piers Gaveston was exiled for the third and last time in November 1311. The difference this time was that his wife Margaret was about six months pregnant, and it's not even clear that he ever left England; the barons sent men to look for him in Cornwall. When exactly he returned to court is not clear, as the chronicles are very confused, but he was with Edward II and Margaret in York in early 1312. It may be that he returned, despite the personal danger to him, for the birth of his child.
Margaret gave birth to his daughter Joan in January, and after her churching in February Edward II threw a very expensive party to celebrate the birth. He paid his minstrel 'King' Robert forty marks for entertaining them. Queen Isabella joined them, and she and Edward II conceived Edward III at this time. [I know I've written this a few times, but as a lot of people still parrot the stupid notion that Edward II wasn't Edward III's father, including a novel published last year, I think it bears repeating.]
Piers was executed, or murdered, on Blacklow Hill, Warwickshire, on 19 June 1312. He was run through with a sword and beheaded, then left lying in the road by the earls of Lancaster, Hereford and Arundel (the earl of Warwick, who'd abducted him, didn't even have the nerve to attend the execution, or rather murder). They at least gave him the honour of beheading, the nobleman's death, because he was the brother-in-law of the earl of Gloucester. His body was taken to the Dominicans at Oxford, who sewed his head back on and embalmed him. Edward II's reaction to news of his beloved's death can only be imagined. Although many people had hated Piers, the sympathies of most of the country swung violently towards the king, and civil war seemed likely.
Piers and Edward II had been forced to leave Piers' possessions behind at Newcastle, when the earl of Lancaster almost captured the two. These possessions were later catalogued and - reluctantly - returned to Edward. It's fascinating to see the kind of things Piers owned: pages and pages of jewels, buckles, clasps, more than sixty horses, pots, tapestries, cloaks, curtains, chasubles, cups, basins, carts....
Just a handful (out of a few hundred) examples:
"a buckle of gold with two emeralds, two rubies, two sapphires, and eleven pearls";
"a golden piece of jewellery with nine emeralds and nine garnets"
"another belt of lion skin, decorated in gold with a cameo, worth £166"
"one hundred silver shields, marked with an eagle"
" a fur-backed altar frontal of green cloth, decorated with gold birds and fishes"
A ruby worth the staggering sum of £1000 - perhaps a million or two in modern money - was found on Piers' body after his death. He was also famous for owning silver forks, for eating pears. Let it never be said that the man was lacking in style.
Piers Gaveston - only about thirty at the time of his death - was by no means a vicious or cruel man. He was handsome, athletic, bright, flamboyant, arrogant, and supremely confident (over-confident). He gave Edward the confidence that the young king lacked. In later centuries, Piers was often used as a salutary warning against kings' favourites, which has tended to obscure his own personality. He was about as far from the stereotypical image of him as an effeminate, perfumed court fop as it's possible to be: he was a very successful military leader in Ireland, King of the Joust, who could knock any man off his horse almost at will, a soldier as early as 1297 when he might only have been fourteen, or probably sixteen at the most.
It's difficult to see what he did to merit the death penalty, and I find it easy to imagine that the men who killed him were horrified by later events, when Piers was replaced in Edward's affections by men who were far worse.
Edward II, to his great credit, never forgot Piers Gaveston. He had his friend buried at Langley Priory, which Edward himself had founded in 1308, in early January 1315 (Piers was excommunicated at the time of his death and thus couldn't be buried in consecrated ground. Even after Edward managed to get this lifted, he was evidently hugely reluctant to bury his friend.) The funeral was vastly expensive and obviously a very emotional occasion for Edward. He paid £300 for three cloths of gold to dress Piers' embalmed body for burial and ordered 23 tuns of wine (something like 22,000 litres, or 5800 gallons). Edward later endowed Langley with 500 marks per year. He was deeply concerned with the well-being of Piers' soul and bodily remains: between October 1315 and October 1316 he ordered every Augustinian house in England and Ireland to celebrate a daily mass for Piers' soul; in 1319 he paid for a Turkish cloth to be placed over the tomb, which was replaced later by gold cloth; in 1324 he sent his confessor to Langley to mark the anniversary of Piers' death, and in 1325 he sent a man there with 100 shillings to give to each friar, so they would remember Piers. In 1326, the last year of his reign, he made provision for numerous clerks at numerous houses to pray for the soul of his lost love.
Piers Gaveston, earl of Cornwall, royal favourite par extraordinaire, born Béarn 1281/83, died Warwickshire 19 June 1312.
I suppose most people have heard of Piers Gaveston, whose life and career have often been used as a warning against royal favourites. Originally I'd intended to write a post on his political life, his three exiles from England, execution, and so on, but then I thought that this is easily available to read elsewhere - for example, his Wikipedia page, Everything, and this article. There are also a couple of biographies of him, by J. S. Hamilton and Pierre Chaplais. So I decided I'd rather concentrate on more personal issues, which are not so well-known.
Piers is often described as French, but that's not strictly true; he came from Gascony, ruled back then by the English crown, and more specifically, from the area of Bearn. His family came from the tiny village of Gabaston (also called Gavaston). In English documents of the early fourteenth century, Piers was called 'Pieres de Gavaston'.
Piers' date of birth is unknown. However, Edward I granted him the wardship of Roger Mortimer in July 1304, after Roger's father Edmund died; Piers must have been at least twenty-one, so he was born in the summer of 1283 at the latest. As he was described as Edward II's contemporary, and Edward was born in April 1284, Piers was probably not born before 1281. His paternal grandfather was named Garsie; his father was Arnaud de Gabaston, first mentioned in 1269 and one of the leading barons of Béarn. Arnaud married, sometime before 30 June 1272, Claramonde (or Claramunde) de Marsan, whose father Arnaud Guillaume de Marsan and brother Fortaner de Lescun were major landholders in Gascony. Claramonde's sister Miramonde married Pierre Caillau de la Rue Neuve, of Bordeaux; it's possible that Piers Gaveston was named after this uncle, as the name 'Piers' doesn't appear to be a Gabaston/Gavaston family name.
Arnaud and Claramonde had several children. The eldest son was Arnaud-Guillaume, who used his mother's surname of de Marsan and fathered four sons. Piers was the second son, and there were apparently two others, Gerard and Raimond-Arnaud, about whom nothing is known. There were at least two sisters, who married in 1286 and 1291, so were evidently older than Piers. According to the Vita Edwardi Secundi, Piers' sister Amie accompanied him when he was besieged at Scarborough Castle in 1312, and his illegitimate daughter was presumably named after this sister (see my post about Amie). Arnaud de Gabaston also had an illegitimate son named Guillaume-Arnaud de Gabaston (all these Arnauds get confusing, don't they?)
Piers' mother Claramonde died in 1287, when he was no more than six - this gave him something in common with Edward II, who was also six when his mother died. There were rumours that Claramonde was burned as a witch; she wasn't, but it seems that many of Piers' contemporaries believed it, and it may be the origin of the Vita's comment that he was 'a sorcerer'.
Arnaud de Gabaston, heavily involved in Gascon politics and several times a hostage to Philip IV of France, fled to England in 1297. His son Piers first appears in English records this year, accompanying Edward I's army to Flanders. He was probably somewhere between fourteen and sixteen, and received a wage of twelve pence a day, a standard sum for a man-at-arms. He fought in Scotland in the late 1290s, when he was a member of the king's retinue. By late 1300, he had made the fateful move that has made his name famous (or infamous) even seven centuries later: he transferred into the young Lord Edward's household.
Piers was one of the ten pueri in custodia, royal wards, who were Edward's companions; he was the only one not accompanied by a magister, which probably means that he was the eldest. As his biographer points out, it's somewhat ironic that he was apparently intended as a role model for the Lord Edward (who became Prince of Wales in early 1301) - he was a little older and also militarily experienced. In August 1303, Piers is described in Edward's household records as the Prince's socius (companion), not his scutifer (squire) - apparently, he had already found favour with the young prince.
The first real sign that their relationship was a very close one comes in the summer of 1305. Prince Edward had a falling-out with his elderly and hot-tempered father, which lasted several months. King Edward I ordered a reduction in the size of his son's household, and also ordered some of his companions away from him. One was Piers, another was Gilbert de Clare (not Edward's nephew, the future earl of Gloucester, but Gloucester's cousin, the Lord of Thomond). On 4 August 1305, the twenty-one-year-old Prince Edward wrote a letter to his sister Elizabeth, asking her to persuade their stepmother Queen Marguerite to intercede with the king (he also wrote to Marguerite directly).
Edward self-pityingly described his 'suffering' over being deprived of his friends: "If we had those two [Piers and Gilbert], along with the others whom we have, we would be greatly relieved of the anguish which we have endured and from which we continue to suffer from one day to the next." ["si nous eussoms ceux deux, ove les autres que nous avoms, nous serrioms molt alleggez del anguisse que nous avoms endure, e suffroms uncor de iour en autre".]
Incidentally, William Wallace of Braveheart fame was captured on 5 August, the day after Edward wrote this letter, and was executed on 22 August. Edward was not reconciled to Edward I till they jointly held a banquet on 13 October, and thus had nothing to do with Wallace's death.
In May 1306, Prince Edward, Piers Gaveston and 265 others were knighted at Westminster. Some months later, on 26 February 1307, Edward I banished Piers from England. The odd thing is that it doesn't seem to have been intended punitively; the king decreed that the exile wouldn't begin until 30 April, awarded Piers an annual salary of a hundred marks (sixty-six pounds), and mentioned that Piers should 'await his recall'. Perhaps Edward I was concerned about the closeness of his son's relationship with the handsome Gascon. Prince Edward accompanied Piers to Dover, and showered him with money and gifts: the vast sum of £260, five horses, no fewer than sixteen tapestries in diverse colours [what was he supposed to do with them in exile?!], and two quilted tunics. A little later, Edward sent on two jousting outfits, one of green velvet decorated with pearls and gold, and silver piping, and the other of green sindon. His dearest friend would not be embarrassed on the jousting field by a lack of luxurious clothes.
Edward I died at about 3pm on 7 July 1307, near Carlisle. The new king, who was in or close to London, heard the news on the 11th - thanks to the royal express messengers, who travelled approximately 315 miles in four days. Recalling Piers Gaveston from exile was almost certainly the first act that Edward II made as king. Piers was back in England within about ten days. That year, Edward made him earl of Cornwall, married him to his (Edward's!) niece Margaret de Clare, and awarded him one of the highest incomes in England - around £4000 a year. Edward, now twenty-three, and Piers spent the first Christmas of his reign together in Wye, Kent, a manor of the Abbey of Battle. In early 1308, Piers acted as Regent of England for two weeks, while Edward went to France to marry Isabella. Perhaps surprisingly, he did nothing at all controversial during his tenure (apart from making the earls who remained in England kneel to him), and his biographer Hamilton postulates that, without Edward, he was uncomfortable and out of his depth.
Piers played a huge role at the coronation of Edward and Isabella at Westminster Abbey on 25 February 1308. All the other English earls wore cloth-of-gold, as they had the right to do in the king's presence, but Piers dressed in regal purple trimmed with pearls. To the great annoyance of just about everyone present - including Queen Isabella, I imagine - Piers took last and most important place in the procession into the Abbey, just in front of Edward and Isabella themselves. He carried the crown of St Edward and fastened on one of Edward's spurs - both highly symbolic and significant acts. At the banquet afterwards, Edward II offended everyone by ignoring his young wife and her family and focusing all his attention on Piers. The royal favourite was responsible for the organisation of the banquet, and it went badly wrong - the food wasn't served until after dark, was badly cooked, and the service was also poor. Strangely, Edward had ordered tapestries for the occasion, at a cost of five pounds, bearing his own arms and Piers' - not Isabella's. If Edward was intending to insult his wife specifically, and the French in general, he certainly succeeded in a very public fashion.
A further exile followed in the summer of 1308, thanks to Edward and Piers' alienation of most of the barons. Edward hit on the brilliant idea of making Piers his Lieutenant of Ireland, to the annoyance of Piers' enemies, who'd hoped to see him leave England in disgrace. Piers, perhaps surprisingly, performed his duties as military adminstrator extremely satisfactorily. While there, it's almost certain that he went on campaign with Roger Mortimer. Readers familiar with later events may be surprised to learn that Roger was a close friend and companion of Edward II and Piers Gaveston in the early 1300s.
Edward II exerted all his abilities - of which he had plenty, when he chose to exercise them - and got Piers' exile overturned in the summer of 1309. Unfortunately, Piers had learnt neither tact nor the importance of not alienating the powerful English barons. It was in the period 1309-1311 that he gave them insulting nicknames: the earl of Warwick was 'the mad dog of Arden', the earl of Pembroke was 'Joseph the Jew', the earl of Lancaster 'the churl', the earl of Lincoln 'Mister Burst-Belly' or Monsieur Boele-Crevée, and Piers' brother-in-law the earl of Gloucester 'cuckoo's bird' or, cruelly, 'whoreson' (filz a puteyne). I wonder if Edward II was offended by this unkind reference to his favourite sister Joan of Acre. At least the nicknames give us an indication of what Lincoln and Pembroke, at least, must have looked like.
Piers Gaveston was exiled for the third and last time in November 1311. The difference this time was that his wife Margaret was about six months pregnant, and it's not even clear that he ever left England; the barons sent men to look for him in Cornwall. When exactly he returned to court is not clear, as the chronicles are very confused, but he was with Edward II and Margaret in York in early 1312. It may be that he returned, despite the personal danger to him, for the birth of his child.
Margaret gave birth to his daughter Joan in January, and after her churching in February Edward II threw a very expensive party to celebrate the birth. He paid his minstrel 'King' Robert forty marks for entertaining them. Queen Isabella joined them, and she and Edward II conceived Edward III at this time. [I know I've written this a few times, but as a lot of people still parrot the stupid notion that Edward II wasn't Edward III's father, including a novel published last year, I think it bears repeating.]
Piers was executed, or murdered, on Blacklow Hill, Warwickshire, on 19 June 1312. He was run through with a sword and beheaded, then left lying in the road by the earls of Lancaster, Hereford and Arundel (the earl of Warwick, who'd abducted him, didn't even have the nerve to attend the execution, or rather murder). They at least gave him the honour of beheading, the nobleman's death, because he was the brother-in-law of the earl of Gloucester. His body was taken to the Dominicans at Oxford, who sewed his head back on and embalmed him. Edward II's reaction to news of his beloved's death can only be imagined. Although many people had hated Piers, the sympathies of most of the country swung violently towards the king, and civil war seemed likely.
Piers and Edward II had been forced to leave Piers' possessions behind at Newcastle, when the earl of Lancaster almost captured the two. These possessions were later catalogued and - reluctantly - returned to Edward. It's fascinating to see the kind of things Piers owned: pages and pages of jewels, buckles, clasps, more than sixty horses, pots, tapestries, cloaks, curtains, chasubles, cups, basins, carts....
Just a handful (out of a few hundred) examples:
"a buckle of gold with two emeralds, two rubies, two sapphires, and eleven pearls";
"a golden piece of jewellery with nine emeralds and nine garnets"
"another belt of lion skin, decorated in gold with a cameo, worth £166"
"one hundred silver shields, marked with an eagle"
" a fur-backed altar frontal of green cloth, decorated with gold birds and fishes"
A ruby worth the staggering sum of £1000 - perhaps a million or two in modern money - was found on Piers' body after his death. He was also famous for owning silver forks, for eating pears. Let it never be said that the man was lacking in style.
Piers Gaveston - only about thirty at the time of his death - was by no means a vicious or cruel man. He was handsome, athletic, bright, flamboyant, arrogant, and supremely confident (over-confident). He gave Edward the confidence that the young king lacked. In later centuries, Piers was often used as a salutary warning against kings' favourites, which has tended to obscure his own personality. He was about as far from the stereotypical image of him as an effeminate, perfumed court fop as it's possible to be: he was a very successful military leader in Ireland, King of the Joust, who could knock any man off his horse almost at will, a soldier as early as 1297 when he might only have been fourteen, or probably sixteen at the most.
It's difficult to see what he did to merit the death penalty, and I find it easy to imagine that the men who killed him were horrified by later events, when Piers was replaced in Edward's affections by men who were far worse.
Edward II, to his great credit, never forgot Piers Gaveston. He had his friend buried at Langley Priory, which Edward himself had founded in 1308, in early January 1315 (Piers was excommunicated at the time of his death and thus couldn't be buried in consecrated ground. Even after Edward managed to get this lifted, he was evidently hugely reluctant to bury his friend.) The funeral was vastly expensive and obviously a very emotional occasion for Edward. He paid £300 for three cloths of gold to dress Piers' embalmed body for burial and ordered 23 tuns of wine (something like 22,000 litres, or 5800 gallons). Edward later endowed Langley with 500 marks per year. He was deeply concerned with the well-being of Piers' soul and bodily remains: between October 1315 and October 1316 he ordered every Augustinian house in England and Ireland to celebrate a daily mass for Piers' soul; in 1319 he paid for a Turkish cloth to be placed over the tomb, which was replaced later by gold cloth; in 1324 he sent his confessor to Langley to mark the anniversary of Piers' death, and in 1325 he sent a man there with 100 shillings to give to each friar, so they would remember Piers. In 1326, the last year of his reign, he made provision for numerous clerks at numerous houses to pray for the soul of his lost love.
Piers Gaveston, earl of Cornwall, royal favourite par extraordinaire, born Béarn 1281/83, died Warwickshire 19 June 1312.
03 February, 2007
Ancestry of Edward II
As is widely known, Edward II's parents were Edward I, born 1239, King of England 1272 to 1307, and Eleanor, the Infanta Leonor de Castilla, probably born in 1241, died 1290. Eleanor was the twelfth of her father's fifteen children, and succeeded her mother as Countess of Ponthieu and Montreuil, though she never used the title in England.
Edward's grandparents were:
Henry III, King of England, born 1207, reigned 1216 to 1272. Crowned at the age of nine, Henry reigned for fifty-six years, one of the longest reigns in British history. In many ways, his reign foreshadows that of Edward II; Henry advanced his 'favourites' (actually his half-siblings and his wife's relatives) and was involved in long-running conflicts with his barons, led by his brother-in-law Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester. Henry was even imprisoned for a time, though he never suffered his grandson's fate of deposition. On the plus side, Henry is remembered for his ambitious re-building programme at Westminster Abbey, Windsor Castle, etc, and was a devoted husband and father.
Eleanor (or Eleonore or Alianore, etc) of Provence, Queen of England, c. 1223 to 1291. Married to Henry III in January 1236, when he was twenty-eight and she was probably twelve or thirteen. Eleanor was the second of four sisters, who all became queens. They were: Marguerite, who married Louis IX of France; Sancha, married to Henry III's brother Richard of Cornwall, who became King of the Romans in 1257; and Beatrice, the wife of Louis IX's brother Charles of Anjou, King of Sicily. She and Henry had two sons and three daughters; Eleanor outlived all three daughters. She retired to Amesbury Priory in 1285.
Fernando III, King of Castile and Leon, 'the Saint', 1199/1201 to 1252. He fought against the Moors as part of the Spanish Reconquista, capturing Cordoba, Jaen and Seville. He was first married to Elisabeth of Swabia, who was known as Beatriz in Spain; she bore him ten children, including his heir Alfonso X, 'the Wise'.
Jeanne de Dammartin, Queen of Castile and Countess of Ponthieu in her own right, 1216/20 to 1279. She was betrothed to Henry III of England, but Blanche of Castile, mother of Louis IX and Regent of France, opposed the match, and it never took place. Instead, Blanche proposed a match with her widowed nephew Fernando III for the heiress, and they married in 1237. Jeanne returned to Ponthieu after she was widowed in 1252, and lived till 1279.
Edward II's great-grandparents were:
John, King of England, born 1166
Isabelle, Queen of England and Countess of Angoulême in her own right, born c. 1187/88
Ramon-Berenger IV, Count of Provence, born c. 1195/98
Beatrice, Countess of Provence, daughter of Count Thomas I of Savoy, born c. 1198/1205
Simon de Dammartin, Count of Aumale, born c. 1180
Marie, Countess of Ponthieu in her own right, born 1199
Berenguela the Great, Queen of Castile in her own right, born 1180
Alfonso IX, King of Leon, born 1171
Only one of the eight (King John) was born in England; of his sixteen great-great-grandparents, not a single one was born in England. They included: King Henry II of England (who was born in Le Mans); Eleanor, duchess of Aquitaine, queen of France then queen of England; Alix (or Alais or Alys or Adele, etc), daughter of Louis VII, who was betrothed to Richard I of England and repudiated by him as she was allegedly his father Henry II's mistress; King Fernando II of Leon; King Alfonso VIII of Castile; and Eleanor, queen of Castile, daughter of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine (she was born in Normandy, not England).
Edward II himself was born in Caernarfon, Wales, though he lived practically his whole life in England. However, his ancestry was only minimally English!
Edward's grandparents were:
Henry III, King of England, born 1207, reigned 1216 to 1272. Crowned at the age of nine, Henry reigned for fifty-six years, one of the longest reigns in British history. In many ways, his reign foreshadows that of Edward II; Henry advanced his 'favourites' (actually his half-siblings and his wife's relatives) and was involved in long-running conflicts with his barons, led by his brother-in-law Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester. Henry was even imprisoned for a time, though he never suffered his grandson's fate of deposition. On the plus side, Henry is remembered for his ambitious re-building programme at Westminster Abbey, Windsor Castle, etc, and was a devoted husband and father.
Eleanor (or Eleonore or Alianore, etc) of Provence, Queen of England, c. 1223 to 1291. Married to Henry III in January 1236, when he was twenty-eight and she was probably twelve or thirteen. Eleanor was the second of four sisters, who all became queens. They were: Marguerite, who married Louis IX of France; Sancha, married to Henry III's brother Richard of Cornwall, who became King of the Romans in 1257; and Beatrice, the wife of Louis IX's brother Charles of Anjou, King of Sicily. She and Henry had two sons and three daughters; Eleanor outlived all three daughters. She retired to Amesbury Priory in 1285.
Fernando III, King of Castile and Leon, 'the Saint', 1199/1201 to 1252. He fought against the Moors as part of the Spanish Reconquista, capturing Cordoba, Jaen and Seville. He was first married to Elisabeth of Swabia, who was known as Beatriz in Spain; she bore him ten children, including his heir Alfonso X, 'the Wise'.
Jeanne de Dammartin, Queen of Castile and Countess of Ponthieu in her own right, 1216/20 to 1279. She was betrothed to Henry III of England, but Blanche of Castile, mother of Louis IX and Regent of France, opposed the match, and it never took place. Instead, Blanche proposed a match with her widowed nephew Fernando III for the heiress, and they married in 1237. Jeanne returned to Ponthieu after she was widowed in 1252, and lived till 1279.
Edward II's great-grandparents were:
John, King of England, born 1166
Isabelle, Queen of England and Countess of Angoulême in her own right, born c. 1187/88
Ramon-Berenger IV, Count of Provence, born c. 1195/98
Beatrice, Countess of Provence, daughter of Count Thomas I of Savoy, born c. 1198/1205
Simon de Dammartin, Count of Aumale, born c. 1180
Marie, Countess of Ponthieu in her own right, born 1199
Berenguela the Great, Queen of Castile in her own right, born 1180
Alfonso IX, King of Leon, born 1171
Only one of the eight (King John) was born in England; of his sixteen great-great-grandparents, not a single one was born in England. They included: King Henry II of England (who was born in Le Mans); Eleanor, duchess of Aquitaine, queen of France then queen of England; Alix (or Alais or Alys or Adele, etc), daughter of Louis VII, who was betrothed to Richard I of England and repudiated by him as she was allegedly his father Henry II's mistress; King Fernando II of Leon; King Alfonso VIII of Castile; and Eleanor, queen of Castile, daughter of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine (she was born in Normandy, not England).
Edward II himself was born in Caernarfon, Wales, though he lived practically his whole life in England. However, his ancestry was only minimally English!
28 January, 2007
Fourteenth-Century Noblewomen: Some Case Studies
I thought it might be really interesting to take a look at the lives of some fourteenth-century noblewomen - kind of 'snapshots' of their lives, how old they were when they married, gave birth, etc. The only condition is, they must have lived part of their lives in Edward II's reign, or be related to him in some way.
Today I'm looking at Joan and Isabella de Verdon, and Elizabeth Damory....plenty more to come! :)
Joan de Verdon, the niece of Roger Mortimer, was born on 9 August 1303, almost exactly a year after her parents' wedding on 29 July 1302. Her father, Theobald de Verdon, later Justiciar of Ireland, was born on 8 September 1278, and was therefore almost twenty-five when Joan, the eldest of his four daughters, was born.
Joan's mother was Maud Mortimer, daughter of Edmund Mortimer and Margaret de Fiennes - and sister of Roger. Her date of birth is unknown, but her parents married in September 1285, and her brother Roger was born on 25 April 1287. It's just possible that Maud was older than Roger, but the chronology is very tight, and it's much more likely that she was younger, born probably 1288 or 1289. This would make her thirteen or fourteen at marriage and about ten years younger than her husband. Maud died on 18 September 1312, aged about twenty-three or twenty-four.
Theobald married Edward II's niece, the widowed Elizabeth de Clare, in Bristol on 4 February 1316. This was an illicit marriage, without a royal licence, which was necessary for the marriage of wealthy widows. Theobald was thirty-seven, Elizabeth twenty. He died just under six months after the marriage, on 27 July 1316, not yet thirty-eight.
Joan de Verdon was nine years old when she lost her mother, and not quite thirteen when her father died. Theobald had been one of the king's tenants-in-chief, so the wardship and marriage rights of his under-age children passed to the king. Even if Maud Mortimer had still been alive, she would have had no say whatsoever in her daughter's marriage - a perfectly normal situation at the time. Shortly after Theobald's funeral, Edward II gave Joan's wardship and marriage rights to William Montacute, one of his great court favourites at the time. At this time, she probably went to live with the Montacutes, or possibly, she went to a convent for a few months.
On 28 April 1317, still aged thirteen, she was married to his son, John Montacute, at Windsor Castle, in the presence of King Edward II (her stepmother's sister Margaret de Clare married Hugh Audley at the same time, as I mentioned in my Margaret post). I can't find John's accurate date of birth; his brother, William Montacute the younger - the future close friend of Edward III and earl of Salisbury - was born in 1301. It's not clear if John was older or younger than William. Some websites gave his date of birth as 1299, but I'm not sure how accurate they are. Anyway, John was somewhere between thirteen and eighteen when he married Joan.
John died suddenly in the summer of 1317, only a few weeks after the wedding. Again, I can't find the exact date, only that he was 'dead by 14 August'. As Joan was born on 9 August 1303, she was widowed either just before or just after her fourteenth birthday. The poor kid.
On 28 February 1318, aged fourteen and a half, Joan de Verdon married for the second time. Her new husband was Thomas Furnivall, the son of Thomas Furnivall Sr and Joan Despenser, sister of Hugh Despenser the Elder. He was apparently born in 1296, which means his mother must have been over thirty when she gave birth to him, as her father Hugh Despenser the Even Elder died in 1265. Thomas Jr, who had three sisters, was in his early twenties at the time of his marriage to Joan de Verdon.
I don't know when Joan Despenser died, but on 8 June 1322, the widowed Thomas Furnivall Sr was pardoned for marrying without royal licence. His second wife Elizabeth de Montfort was the widow of Edward II's friend William Montacute Sr, who had died in Gascony in 1319...and the mother of John Montacute. Joan de Verdon's former mother-in-law was now her husband's stepmother. You couldn't make medieval family trees up, could you?!
Thomas Furnivall Jr was, apparently, not involved in the nefarious activities of his Despenser uncle and cousin, and survived Edward II's reign. He and Joan produced two children: their son and heir, also Thomas, inevitably, was born on 22 June 1322, when Joan was almost nineteen. Another son, William, was born on 23 August 1326; he eventually succeeded his childless elder brother as Lord Furnivall. A month after William's birth, Joan's uncle Roger Mortimer and his lover Queen Isabella invaded England.
Joan de Verdon died on 2 October 1334, at the age of thirty-one. Her husband outlived her by five years. Their sons died in 1365 and 1383. Joan's younger sisters, Elizabeth (born circa 1306) and Margery (born 10 August 1310) lived until 1360 and 1363, respectively.
EDIT: I've just seen an entry about Thomas Furnivall in the Patent Rolls, 3 March 1322:
Writ of aid directed to the men of the counties of York and Nottingham, for Thomas de Fournival, the younger, appointed to levy all the forces of Hallumshire to go against the king's rebels.
An entry in Edward II's Wardrobe Accounts records her birth:
To Michael de Anne, valet of the Lady Maria, the King's sister, bringing to the King the news of the birth of a daughter of the Lady Elizabeth de Burgh [the name of Elizabeth's first husband], kinswoman of our Lord the King, of the King's gift, being the price of a cup silver-gilt, with stand and cover. Clarendon, 21st of March. 1 pound 10 shillings.
Theobald de Verdon's four daughters shared his inheritance equally; the law of primogeniture, 'the eldest son inherits everything', did not apply to women. Isabella's wardship and marriage rights belonged to her stepfather Roger Damory, as did her half-sister Margery's. After his rebellion in 1322, they were forfeit to the Crown, and eventually passed to Queen Isabella, after whom Isabella de Verdon was almost certainly named.
Isabella was married to Henry Ferrers, Lord of Groby in Leicestershire, in about 1328. Henry was much older, born sometime before 1304 - perhaps as early as the 1290s. (His father William was born in 1271.) Confusingly, Henry's paternal grandmother was Anne Despenser, sister of Hugh the Elder and Joan, mother of Thomas Furnivall, above. The Ferrers family had been earls of Derby from 1139 to 1266; Henry's great-grandfather Robert rebelled against Henry III, who awarded his lands and earldom to his second son Edmund. Henry's much younger sister, Anne, married Isabella de Verdon's cousin Edward Despenser in 1335; he was the son of Hugh the Younger, and the second cousin of Henry and Anne Ferrers.
Isabella gave birth to her first child in about February 1331; her mother sent gifts for her churching in March of this year. In February 1331, Isabella was not even fourteen years old. Unsurprisingly, the child did not survive, and I can't even find out if it was a boy or a girl. It's possible that the pregnancy didn't go full term.
Her second child, a son named William, was born on 28 February 1333 (he died in 1371, and married Margaret, the daughter of Robert Ufford, first earl of Suffolk). Isabella was almost sixteen.
She and Henry would have three more children who survived into adulthood:
- Ralph, who married Joan, the daughter of Richard de Grey, Lord of Codnor
- Philippa, who married Guy, the eldest son of Thomas Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, and grandson of Roger Mortimer. Guy would have succeeded as earl of Warwick, but he died in 1360, a few years before his father
- Elizabeth, who married David de Strathbogie, earl of Atholl.
Henry died on 15 September 1343; Isabella was widowed at the age of twenty-six. She died on 25 July 1349, almost certainly of the Black Death, which was raging through England at the time. She was thirty-two.
Elizabeth Damory was also the half-sister of Isabella de Verdon, only fourteen months younger, born shortly before 23 May 1318. Her parents Roger Damory and Elizabeth de Clare had married on or around 1 May 1317, only a few weeks after her mother gave birth to Isabella de Verdon. Edward II put huge pressure on his niece to marry Roger, currently his great favourite; he sent her a letter to this effect even before Theobald de Verdon's funeral. (No doubt he was furious with her for marrying Theobald without his permission.) Elizabeth's pregnancy (with Isabella de Verdon) merely delayed the inevitable.
Again, an entry in Edward II's Wardrobe Accounts records Elizabeth's birth:
To John de Pyrro, valet of Sir Roger Dammori, of the King's gift, for the news which he brought to our said lord the King, of the delivery of the Lady de Burgo, wife of him the said Roger. Westminster, 23rd of May. 20 pounds.
Notice the huge discrepancy between what Edward paid for news of the births of Isabella de Verdon (1 pound 10 shillings) and Elizabeth Damory, although they were both his great-nieces. This is a good indication of his feelings for Roger Damory, who would, however, soon lose his position as favourite, and ultimately rebel against the king.
Roger Damory and Elizabeth de Clare had no more children, although Elizabeth was only twenty-two. This might indicate an unhappy relationship, or that Elizabeth Damory's birth was a difficult one. Roger's date of birth is uncertain, but his father Sir Robert died in 1285, so Roger was well into his thirties by the time his daughter was born, probably born in the early 1280s and a little older than Edward II.
Elizabeth Damory was not yet four years old when her father died in rebellion against the king on 12 March 1322. Elizabeth de Clare was widowed for the third time, still only twenty-six. (She lived as a widow for almost forty years.)
Elizabeth Damory was very well-connected by birth: she was the first cousin once removed of Edward III, the half-sister of the earl of Ulster, and her niece Elizabeth de Burgh married Edward III's son Lionel. However, her potential to make a great marriage was severely limited by the fact that she wasn't an heiress. Roger had been a younger son, and the Damory lands - which weren't extensive, anyway - passed to Elizabeth's cousin Richard Damory. Besides, any lands Roger owned were forfeit to the Crown.
She was married to Sir John Bardolf, of the brilliantly-named Wormegay in Norfolk, in about 1327. John was born about 13 January 1313, so he wasn't too much older than Elizabeth. It wasn't a brilliant match, considering Elizabeth's family connections, but it kept her in the peerage at least.
The date of Elizabeth's marriage means that she was about nine at the time, but she remained with her mother for a few years. She and John had three children: Agnes, Isabel and William. The birthdates of her daughters are uncertain, sometime between 1337 and 1342. Her son William was born on 21 October 1349, when Elizabeth was the advanced age of thirty-one; her half-sister Isabella de Verdon died when Elizabeth was six months pregnant.
Elizabeth de Clare's 1355 will leaves some items to her Bardolf granddaughters: plate, beds and coverlets "in aid of their marriage". Isabel is called "ma joefne fille", 'my young daughter' and Elizabeth Damory is called "my daughter Bardolf". (Confusingly, Elizabeth de Clare's will doesn't distinguish between daughters and granddaughters.) Unfortunately, I've been unable to discover who Isabel and Agnes Bardolf married, or when they died. William Bardolf married Agnes Poynings and became a father in December 1369, at the age of twenty.
Elizabeth de Clare died on 4 November 1360 at the age of sixty-five. Elizabeth Damory Bardolf was the only one of her three children to outlive her, although the date of her death is uncertain. The Complete Peerage states that she died on 5 February 1361, but I haven't found any confirmation of that date so far. Every other source states only that she died 'before July 1363'. Sir John Bardolf went to Italy after his wife's death, where he died on 29 July 1363, and was buried in Assisi. Their son William died in 1386.
One of the modern-day descendants of Elizabeth and John was Walt Disney! :)
Today I'm looking at Joan and Isabella de Verdon, and Elizabeth Damory....plenty more to come! :)
Joan de Verdon, the niece of Roger Mortimer, was born on 9 August 1303, almost exactly a year after her parents' wedding on 29 July 1302. Her father, Theobald de Verdon, later Justiciar of Ireland, was born on 8 September 1278, and was therefore almost twenty-five when Joan, the eldest of his four daughters, was born.
Joan's mother was Maud Mortimer, daughter of Edmund Mortimer and Margaret de Fiennes - and sister of Roger. Her date of birth is unknown, but her parents married in September 1285, and her brother Roger was born on 25 April 1287. It's just possible that Maud was older than Roger, but the chronology is very tight, and it's much more likely that she was younger, born probably 1288 or 1289. This would make her thirteen or fourteen at marriage and about ten years younger than her husband. Maud died on 18 September 1312, aged about twenty-three or twenty-four.
Theobald married Edward II's niece, the widowed Elizabeth de Clare, in Bristol on 4 February 1316. This was an illicit marriage, without a royal licence, which was necessary for the marriage of wealthy widows. Theobald was thirty-seven, Elizabeth twenty. He died just under six months after the marriage, on 27 July 1316, not yet thirty-eight.
Joan de Verdon was nine years old when she lost her mother, and not quite thirteen when her father died. Theobald had been one of the king's tenants-in-chief, so the wardship and marriage rights of his under-age children passed to the king. Even if Maud Mortimer had still been alive, she would have had no say whatsoever in her daughter's marriage - a perfectly normal situation at the time. Shortly after Theobald's funeral, Edward II gave Joan's wardship and marriage rights to William Montacute, one of his great court favourites at the time. At this time, she probably went to live with the Montacutes, or possibly, she went to a convent for a few months.
On 28 April 1317, still aged thirteen, she was married to his son, John Montacute, at Windsor Castle, in the presence of King Edward II (her stepmother's sister Margaret de Clare married Hugh Audley at the same time, as I mentioned in my Margaret post). I can't find John's accurate date of birth; his brother, William Montacute the younger - the future close friend of Edward III and earl of Salisbury - was born in 1301. It's not clear if John was older or younger than William. Some websites gave his date of birth as 1299, but I'm not sure how accurate they are. Anyway, John was somewhere between thirteen and eighteen when he married Joan.
John died suddenly in the summer of 1317, only a few weeks after the wedding. Again, I can't find the exact date, only that he was 'dead by 14 August'. As Joan was born on 9 August 1303, she was widowed either just before or just after her fourteenth birthday. The poor kid.
On 28 February 1318, aged fourteen and a half, Joan de Verdon married for the second time. Her new husband was Thomas Furnivall, the son of Thomas Furnivall Sr and Joan Despenser, sister of Hugh Despenser the Elder. He was apparently born in 1296, which means his mother must have been over thirty when she gave birth to him, as her father Hugh Despenser the Even Elder died in 1265. Thomas Jr, who had three sisters, was in his early twenties at the time of his marriage to Joan de Verdon.
I don't know when Joan Despenser died, but on 8 June 1322, the widowed Thomas Furnivall Sr was pardoned for marrying without royal licence. His second wife Elizabeth de Montfort was the widow of Edward II's friend William Montacute Sr, who had died in Gascony in 1319...and the mother of John Montacute. Joan de Verdon's former mother-in-law was now her husband's stepmother. You couldn't make medieval family trees up, could you?!
Thomas Furnivall Jr was, apparently, not involved in the nefarious activities of his Despenser uncle and cousin, and survived Edward II's reign. He and Joan produced two children: their son and heir, also Thomas, inevitably, was born on 22 June 1322, when Joan was almost nineteen. Another son, William, was born on 23 August 1326; he eventually succeeded his childless elder brother as Lord Furnivall. A month after William's birth, Joan's uncle Roger Mortimer and his lover Queen Isabella invaded England.
Joan de Verdon died on 2 October 1334, at the age of thirty-one. Her husband outlived her by five years. Their sons died in 1365 and 1383. Joan's younger sisters, Elizabeth (born circa 1306) and Margery (born 10 August 1310) lived until 1360 and 1363, respectively.
EDIT: I've just seen an entry about Thomas Furnivall in the Patent Rolls, 3 March 1322:
Writ of aid directed to the men of the counties of York and Nottingham, for Thomas de Fournival, the younger, appointed to levy all the forces of Hallumshire to go against the king's rebels.
So apparently he stayed loyal to Edward II in 1322. I don't know if he took sides in 1326, though - having to choose between his cousin and his wife's uncle...
Isabella de Verdon, born in Amesbury Priory, Wiltshire, on or just before 21 March 1317, was the half-sister of Joan, Elizabeth and Margery de Verdon. Her mother, Elizabeth de Clare, was aged twenty-one at the time (born 16 September 1295). Her father Theobald died eight months before she was born.An entry in Edward II's Wardrobe Accounts records her birth:
To Michael de Anne, valet of the Lady Maria, the King's sister, bringing to the King the news of the birth of a daughter of the Lady Elizabeth de Burgh [the name of Elizabeth's first husband], kinswoman of our Lord the King, of the King's gift, being the price of a cup silver-gilt, with stand and cover. Clarendon, 21st of March. 1 pound 10 shillings.
Theobald de Verdon's four daughters shared his inheritance equally; the law of primogeniture, 'the eldest son inherits everything', did not apply to women. Isabella's wardship and marriage rights belonged to her stepfather Roger Damory, as did her half-sister Margery's. After his rebellion in 1322, they were forfeit to the Crown, and eventually passed to Queen Isabella, after whom Isabella de Verdon was almost certainly named.
Isabella was married to Henry Ferrers, Lord of Groby in Leicestershire, in about 1328. Henry was much older, born sometime before 1304 - perhaps as early as the 1290s. (His father William was born in 1271.) Confusingly, Henry's paternal grandmother was Anne Despenser, sister of Hugh the Elder and Joan, mother of Thomas Furnivall, above. The Ferrers family had been earls of Derby from 1139 to 1266; Henry's great-grandfather Robert rebelled against Henry III, who awarded his lands and earldom to his second son Edmund. Henry's much younger sister, Anne, married Isabella de Verdon's cousin Edward Despenser in 1335; he was the son of Hugh the Younger, and the second cousin of Henry and Anne Ferrers.
Isabella gave birth to her first child in about February 1331; her mother sent gifts for her churching in March of this year. In February 1331, Isabella was not even fourteen years old. Unsurprisingly, the child did not survive, and I can't even find out if it was a boy or a girl. It's possible that the pregnancy didn't go full term.
Her second child, a son named William, was born on 28 February 1333 (he died in 1371, and married Margaret, the daughter of Robert Ufford, first earl of Suffolk). Isabella was almost sixteen.
She and Henry would have three more children who survived into adulthood:
- Ralph, who married Joan, the daughter of Richard de Grey, Lord of Codnor
- Philippa, who married Guy, the eldest son of Thomas Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, and grandson of Roger Mortimer. Guy would have succeeded as earl of Warwick, but he died in 1360, a few years before his father
- Elizabeth, who married David de Strathbogie, earl of Atholl.
Henry died on 15 September 1343; Isabella was widowed at the age of twenty-six. She died on 25 July 1349, almost certainly of the Black Death, which was raging through England at the time. She was thirty-two.
Elizabeth Damory was also the half-sister of Isabella de Verdon, only fourteen months younger, born shortly before 23 May 1318. Her parents Roger Damory and Elizabeth de Clare had married on or around 1 May 1317, only a few weeks after her mother gave birth to Isabella de Verdon. Edward II put huge pressure on his niece to marry Roger, currently his great favourite; he sent her a letter to this effect even before Theobald de Verdon's funeral. (No doubt he was furious with her for marrying Theobald without his permission.) Elizabeth's pregnancy (with Isabella de Verdon) merely delayed the inevitable.
Again, an entry in Edward II's Wardrobe Accounts records Elizabeth's birth:
To John de Pyrro, valet of Sir Roger Dammori, of the King's gift, for the news which he brought to our said lord the King, of the delivery of the Lady de Burgo, wife of him the said Roger. Westminster, 23rd of May. 20 pounds.
Notice the huge discrepancy between what Edward paid for news of the births of Isabella de Verdon (1 pound 10 shillings) and Elizabeth Damory, although they were both his great-nieces. This is a good indication of his feelings for Roger Damory, who would, however, soon lose his position as favourite, and ultimately rebel against the king.
Roger Damory and Elizabeth de Clare had no more children, although Elizabeth was only twenty-two. This might indicate an unhappy relationship, or that Elizabeth Damory's birth was a difficult one. Roger's date of birth is uncertain, but his father Sir Robert died in 1285, so Roger was well into his thirties by the time his daughter was born, probably born in the early 1280s and a little older than Edward II.
Elizabeth Damory was not yet four years old when her father died in rebellion against the king on 12 March 1322. Elizabeth de Clare was widowed for the third time, still only twenty-six. (She lived as a widow for almost forty years.)
Elizabeth Damory was very well-connected by birth: she was the first cousin once removed of Edward III, the half-sister of the earl of Ulster, and her niece Elizabeth de Burgh married Edward III's son Lionel. However, her potential to make a great marriage was severely limited by the fact that she wasn't an heiress. Roger had been a younger son, and the Damory lands - which weren't extensive, anyway - passed to Elizabeth's cousin Richard Damory. Besides, any lands Roger owned were forfeit to the Crown.
She was married to Sir John Bardolf, of the brilliantly-named Wormegay in Norfolk, in about 1327. John was born about 13 January 1313, so he wasn't too much older than Elizabeth. It wasn't a brilliant match, considering Elizabeth's family connections, but it kept her in the peerage at least.
The date of Elizabeth's marriage means that she was about nine at the time, but she remained with her mother for a few years. She and John had three children: Agnes, Isabel and William. The birthdates of her daughters are uncertain, sometime between 1337 and 1342. Her son William was born on 21 October 1349, when Elizabeth was the advanced age of thirty-one; her half-sister Isabella de Verdon died when Elizabeth was six months pregnant.
Elizabeth de Clare's 1355 will leaves some items to her Bardolf granddaughters: plate, beds and coverlets "in aid of their marriage". Isabel is called "ma joefne fille", 'my young daughter' and Elizabeth Damory is called "my daughter Bardolf". (Confusingly, Elizabeth de Clare's will doesn't distinguish between daughters and granddaughters.) Unfortunately, I've been unable to discover who Isabel and Agnes Bardolf married, or when they died. William Bardolf married Agnes Poynings and became a father in December 1369, at the age of twenty.
Elizabeth de Clare died on 4 November 1360 at the age of sixty-five. Elizabeth Damory Bardolf was the only one of her three children to outlive her, although the date of her death is uncertain. The Complete Peerage states that she died on 5 February 1361, but I haven't found any confirmation of that date so far. Every other source states only that she died 'before July 1363'. Sir John Bardolf went to Italy after his wife's death, where he died on 29 July 1363, and was buried in Assisi. Their son William died in 1386.
One of the modern-day descendants of Elizabeth and John was Walt Disney! :)
25 January, 2007
Happy 699th Wedding Anniversary!
...to Edward II and Queen Isabella, who married on Thursday 25 January 1308, at the church of Notre Dame in Boulogne.
The royal wedding was, naturally, a magnificent occasion. Edward, who had controversially made Piers Gaveston Keeper of the Realm, left England on Monday 22 January, from Dover. He arrived in Boulogne on the 24th, three days late; the Channel crossing in January was probably horrendous.
Edward's huge retinue was housed in canvas tents in and around the town. The king himself had lodgings near the church, which he shared with Isabella after the wedding - though it's extremely unlikely that the marriage was consummated, given Isabella's youth. She was almost certainly only twelve; Edward was twenty-three and nine months.
Excluding Edward himself, the nuptials were attended by seven kings and queens, and other notables -
Isabella's mother Jeanne, Queen of France and Navarre, had already died, almost three years earlier, but Isabella's father was present: Philippe le Bel, or Philip the Fair, forty this year and king of France since October 1285. He was currently engaged in the destruction of the Knights Templar; his enemy Bernard Saisset, Bishop of Pamiers, said of him "he is neither a man nor a beast, but a statue." His eldest son Louis was there, the future Louis X of France, at this time eighteen years old and King of Navarre, which he had inherited from his mother. Also present were Isabella's other brothers, Philip and Charles, also destined to be kings of France, and her younger brother Robert, who was ten or eleven, and died a few months later.
Also present:
- Charles II, King of Naples and Sicily, titular King of Jerusalem, known as 'the Lame'
- Albert of Hapsburg, King of the Romans, with his Queen Elisabeth of Tyrol. Albert died on 1 May of this year.
- Arch-Duke Leopold I of Austria, who was only seventeen; he was one of the seven sons of Albert and Elisabeth (they also had five daughters.)
- Marie of Brabant, Dowager Queen of France, widow of Philip III and stepmother of Philip IV
- her daughter Marguerite, Dowager Queen of England and stepmother of Edward II.
- Presumably, Marguerite brought her two sons, Thomas (aged seven) and Edmund (aged six), half-brothers of Edward II and cousins of Isabella.
- Queen Marie's son, Louis, Count of Evreux - half-brother of Philip IV
- Charles, Count of Valois. Philip IV's brother (they were the sons of Philip III by his first queen Isabella of Aragon).
- Queen Marie's nephew Duke Jan II of Brabant and his wife Margaret, who was one of Edward II's three surviving sisters.
- and finally, 'a whole host of European nobility'.
The royal couple must have looked absolutely superb. Isabella wore a gown and overtunic in blue and gold, and a red mantle lined with yellow sindon; fifty years later, she would be buried with this mantle. Edward wore a satin surcoat and cloak embroidered with jewels. Both wore crowns glittering with precious stones. Isabella's trousseau was equally impressive; she took to England with her seventy-two headdresses, 419 yards of linen, many furs, two gold crowns, tapestries, and numerous dishes, spoons and plates of gold and silver.
King Philip's wedding presents to Edward and Isabella included rings and other jewellery, a couch 'more beautiful than any other' and expensive warhorses. He also handed over Isabella's dowry of 18,000 pounds, which he had appropriated from the Templars.
Eight days of celebration and feasting followed the wedding ceremony, with the most magnificent feast of all taking place on the 28th. On the 30th, Edward hosted yet another great feast. All in all, it was a superbly lavish occasion, as befitted the wedding of the King of England and the King of France's daughter, but there were tensions and conflicts beneath the surface. Philip IV took the opportunity to present Edward with a list of his grievances concerning Gascony, which Edward ignored; apparently, he retaliated by sending all his and Isabella's wedding gifts to Piers Gaveston. While in France, a group of English nobles, including the earls of Pembroke, Lincoln, Surrey and Hereford - the latter two Edward's nephew by marriage and brother-in-law - put their seals to the Boulogne Agreement, which attempted to separate the two sides of kingship - the king as a person, and the Crown, and stated that the barons' loyalty was due to the Crown. This demonstrates the enormous concern over Edward's reliance on Piers Gaveston.
And Edward soon proved yet again that this concern was completely understandable. On 7 February, when the royal party arrived back in Dover, the king caused a huge scandal by ignoring Isabella and hugging and kissing Piers Gaveston in front of everybody. If Isabella had been unaware of Gaveston's existence and her new husband's relationship with him, she certainly wasn't any longer...
The royal wedding was, naturally, a magnificent occasion. Edward, who had controversially made Piers Gaveston Keeper of the Realm, left England on Monday 22 January, from Dover. He arrived in Boulogne on the 24th, three days late; the Channel crossing in January was probably horrendous.
Edward's huge retinue was housed in canvas tents in and around the town. The king himself had lodgings near the church, which he shared with Isabella after the wedding - though it's extremely unlikely that the marriage was consummated, given Isabella's youth. She was almost certainly only twelve; Edward was twenty-three and nine months.
Excluding Edward himself, the nuptials were attended by seven kings and queens, and other notables -
Isabella's mother Jeanne, Queen of France and Navarre, had already died, almost three years earlier, but Isabella's father was present: Philippe le Bel, or Philip the Fair, forty this year and king of France since October 1285. He was currently engaged in the destruction of the Knights Templar; his enemy Bernard Saisset, Bishop of Pamiers, said of him "he is neither a man nor a beast, but a statue." His eldest son Louis was there, the future Louis X of France, at this time eighteen years old and King of Navarre, which he had inherited from his mother. Also present were Isabella's other brothers, Philip and Charles, also destined to be kings of France, and her younger brother Robert, who was ten or eleven, and died a few months later.
Also present:
- Charles II, King of Naples and Sicily, titular King of Jerusalem, known as 'the Lame'
- Albert of Hapsburg, King of the Romans, with his Queen Elisabeth of Tyrol. Albert died on 1 May of this year.
- Arch-Duke Leopold I of Austria, who was only seventeen; he was one of the seven sons of Albert and Elisabeth (they also had five daughters.)
- Marie of Brabant, Dowager Queen of France, widow of Philip III and stepmother of Philip IV
- her daughter Marguerite, Dowager Queen of England and stepmother of Edward II.
- Presumably, Marguerite brought her two sons, Thomas (aged seven) and Edmund (aged six), half-brothers of Edward II and cousins of Isabella.
- Queen Marie's son, Louis, Count of Evreux - half-brother of Philip IV
- Charles, Count of Valois. Philip IV's brother (they were the sons of Philip III by his first queen Isabella of Aragon).
- Queen Marie's nephew Duke Jan II of Brabant and his wife Margaret, who was one of Edward II's three surviving sisters.
- and finally, 'a whole host of European nobility'.
The royal couple must have looked absolutely superb. Isabella wore a gown and overtunic in blue and gold, and a red mantle lined with yellow sindon; fifty years later, she would be buried with this mantle. Edward wore a satin surcoat and cloak embroidered with jewels. Both wore crowns glittering with precious stones. Isabella's trousseau was equally impressive; she took to England with her seventy-two headdresses, 419 yards of linen, many furs, two gold crowns, tapestries, and numerous dishes, spoons and plates of gold and silver.
King Philip's wedding presents to Edward and Isabella included rings and other jewellery, a couch 'more beautiful than any other' and expensive warhorses. He also handed over Isabella's dowry of 18,000 pounds, which he had appropriated from the Templars.
Eight days of celebration and feasting followed the wedding ceremony, with the most magnificent feast of all taking place on the 28th. On the 30th, Edward hosted yet another great feast. All in all, it was a superbly lavish occasion, as befitted the wedding of the King of England and the King of France's daughter, but there were tensions and conflicts beneath the surface. Philip IV took the opportunity to present Edward with a list of his grievances concerning Gascony, which Edward ignored; apparently, he retaliated by sending all his and Isabella's wedding gifts to Piers Gaveston. While in France, a group of English nobles, including the earls of Pembroke, Lincoln, Surrey and Hereford - the latter two Edward's nephew by marriage and brother-in-law - put their seals to the Boulogne Agreement, which attempted to separate the two sides of kingship - the king as a person, and the Crown, and stated that the barons' loyalty was due to the Crown. This demonstrates the enormous concern over Edward's reliance on Piers Gaveston.
And Edward soon proved yet again that this concern was completely understandable. On 7 February, when the royal party arrived back in Dover, the king caused a huge scandal by ignoring Isabella and hugging and kissing Piers Gaveston in front of everybody. If Isabella had been unaware of Gaveston's existence and her new husband's relationship with him, she certainly wasn't any longer...
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