Fictionally Adulterous Queens, Especially Eleanor of Provence, And Maligning Piers

Some weeks ago on her excellent history blog, my friend Sarah wrote a great post entitled The Queen As Whore, discussing the annoyingly popular trend in modern historical fiction of portraying medieval queens as adulteresses who willingly foist non-royal sons fathered by lovers onto the throne. It's becoming, to me and quite a few other people I know, profoundly irritating, and Edward II and Isabella of France are by no means the only victims of it. The medieval kings of England I can think of who have been portrayed as not really the sons of their fathers in various novels are: Henry II (fathered by his mother Maud's cousin and enemy King Stephen, not Geoffrey of Anjou); Richard I (fathered by a troubadour, not Henry II); Henry III (fathered by his mother Isabelle of Angoulême's half-brother, not King John); Edward I (fathered by his uncle Simon de Montfort rather than Henry III); Edward II (Edward I thinks an invented character called William Wild, The Irish Irishman Who Is Irishly Irish, may be his son's father, not himself); Edward III (fathered by William Wallace, Roger Mortimer, Robert Holland, Edward I or pretty well any other man alive or dead in England, Scotland or Ireland at the time rather than Edward II); Henry VI's son Edward of Lancaster, prince of Wales (fathered by the duke of Somerset or sundry others, at least one of them also dead at the time, rather than Henry); Edward IV (fathered by the archer Blaybourne rather than the duke of York). Perhaps you know of others, from different time periods or in different countries, or novels about English kings that I've missed. Admittedly, a couple of these depictions are based on contemporary or near-contemporary rumours and slurs, but most are not, and I find 'OMG, King Whoever was not really the son of his father, SCANDAL!!!!' a tedious and overdone cliché in historical fiction, a lame way of making a novel more salacious and sensationalist - and extremely disrespectful to the queens and their children.  Of the eight kings of England from the mid-twelfth century to the end of the fourteenth (Henry II, Richard I, John, Henry III, Edward I, Edward II, Edward III and Richard II), that's six whose paternity has been changed in print, with John and Richard II the only exceptions, at least that I know of.

In a post titled Edward I of England and his Legitimate Parentage, Sarah also discusses in greater detail (with a few contributions by me) the idea put forward in a series of four self-published novels that Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester, killed at the battle of Evesham in 1265, was the real father of Edward I instead of Henry III. This of course presupposes that Eleanor of Provence was visiting Simon's castle of Kenilworth with the king in September 1238 - Edward I was born at Westminster on 17 June 1239 - and committed adultery with her husband's brother-in-law. (Simon married Henry III's youngest sister Eleanor in early 1238. She had taken a vow of chastity after the death of her first husband the earl of Pembroke from which she had to be released by the pope, but was not a nun, as the author states.) If this were just in a novel and clearly stated to be a fictional invention in an author's note or on her website, one would probably just roll one's eyes and let it be, but the author has been propounding her theory on Facebook, Amazon and various other websites and blogs as though it has a strong basis in fact. Henry III can be placed at Kenilworth on several days in September 1238, and presumably Queen Eleanor was with him, though this hasn't been proved conclusively. A member of the Historical Fiction Online forums pointed out a while ago that Simon de Montfort wasn't even in England at the time Edward I was conceived; he was still in Italy, and the chronicler Matthew Paris says that he returned to England on 14 October 1238, several weeks after Henry III stayed at his castle of Kenilworth. Unless Simon committed adultery with Queen Eleanor immediately on his return to England and Edward I was a month premature, both of these notions without a shred of evidence, this idea simply doesn't fly. 

Still the author is insisting that her decades of research mean that her theory of Edward I's parentage has a strong factual basis, and Sarah has noticed a growing number of people hitting her blog searching for things like 'Edward I was Simon de Montfort's son' and 'was Eleanor of Provence a whore?'. (In much the same way as I get searches every day along the lines of 'Was William Wallace Edward III's father?'. Thank you, Braveheart and several crappy novels. I hope the 'But it's FICTION!' crowd take note, though of course they won't.) Sarah's blog post goes into detail about why we believe that of course Edward I was Henry III's son. Just pause for a moment to consider how incredibly, astonishingly, vanishingly unlikely it is that in 1238 the fifteen(ish)-year-old queen of England could have had sex with her husband's brother-in-law in a castle where her husband was also present and that lots of people knew that Edward I was the result but no-one ever mentioned it until the Super-Sekrit Hidden Explosive Truth That They Tried To Hide!!! was cleverly unearthed by one author more than 750 years later.  That's before we remember that Simon wasn't even in England at the time of Edward's conception, and that the chronicler Nicholas Trivet, who was a near-contemporary of Edward I (around eighteen years younger) and probably saw him often, mentions that the king had a drooping eyelid, which Henry III also had. What are the odds of this, if they weren't father and son? 

The author also depicts Henry III having Simon de Montfort - his own brother-in-law, remember - vilely tortured, and says that "for 700 years it was a hanging crime to speak his [Simon's] name." Sadly, despite repeated requests, the details of this particular statute and its repeal in or about 1965 have not been forthcoming. In 1323, incidentally, Edward II paid a group of women in Yorkshire to sing songs about Simon de Montfort for him, so evidently it wasn't a 'hanging crime' to speak of him then, even in front of Henry III's grandson. Neither does it seem to have been a crime in the nineteenth century when several constitutional historians wrote enthusiastically of Simon and his achievements in parliament. Several of us asked the author for evidence that Eleanor of Provence was at Kenilworth at the time her eldest child was conceived and that anyone of the era knew Edward I was not Henry III's son and so on, and in return were removed and blocked from her Facebook page, and accused on her blog of 'bullying' and of being 'trolls' and 'harpies'. Surely, if a person is confident that her theory can stand up to scrutiny, she can provide the sources and debate her ideas with people who care passionately about medieval history as well as with fans who don't question her. Blocking people, completely misrepresenting what happened, patronising people by assuming they can't read Latin and/or look at thirteenth-century sources, insulting them by calling them names and deleting comments that are anything less than fawning don't create a very good impression, or inspire me to read the novels in question. Whatever Eleanor of Provence's faults - and for sure she had plenty, and was very unpopular in England in her own lifetime - she was a loving and devoted mother and grandmother, and for that I can't help liking her enormously, especially her concern for the six-year-old Edward of Caernarfon when she asked her son Edward I to provide a safe and healthy place for him in the south of England when the king went north in 1290. I really don't feel inclined to read anything which paints her as an adulteress.

A comment on an Amazon forum, by a person claiming to be a fan of the author who in fact appears to be the author herself.

My Facebook comment which got me banned from the author's page and accused of bullying.  I'm  in good company; a few other people suffered the same fate.  There's a typo: 'dropping' should be 'drooping'.

A comment on Amazon addressed to me, by the same person as above.  (Who in other comments proves herself remarkably knowledgeable about thirteenth-century sources and goes out of her way to fight the author's corner, and uses a pseudonym which the author herself uses on another site.)

The author, errrr, I mean her number one fan, on Amazon again.

In certain quarters these days it seems to be the case that anything less than fawning praise and adulation, and complete unquestioning agreement no matter how far-out a theory, is interpreted as a 'personal attack' on a writer and deemed to be 'venom', 'spite', 'vindictiveness', 'bullying' and 'pillorying'. In the same vein, a polite request for sources to back up jaw-dropping statements such as Simon de Montfort being most probably the real father of Edward I is also often interpreted as hostility, discourtesy and a personal attack. If you hold a different opinion to the writer and her - and mostly, though not always, it is 'her' - fans, if for example you believe that an extraordinary statement that Edward I was his uncle's son requires extraordinary evidence rather than a deliberate and unconvincing misinterpretation of a line in Matthew Paris's chronicle (the author postulates that when Henry III publicly accused Simon of 'seducing my sister' at his son's christening in 1239, he really wanted to say 'seducing my wife' but didn't dare), then you are often made to feel that you are in the wrong, and being uncivil and unreasonable.

From the author's website.

I'd like to reiterate my strong belief that Edward I was indeed the biological son of Henry III and that there is absolutely no reason to think otherwise, and certainly no reason to malign the memory of Eleanor of Provence by portraying her as an adulteress.  Among the many, many reasons why I'm totally sure that Edward I was Henry's son, I'd like to mention the Lancasters - the author believes that Eleanor of Provence's second son Edmund of Lancaster was Henry III's biological son, so in that case, why didn't Edmund's son Thomas, Edward II's first cousin and greatest enemy, ever try to claim the English throne as Henry III's rightful male heir, or at the very least spread malicious rumours about his cousin's lack of royal blood?  The royal pretender who appeared in 1318, John of Powderham, was believed in some quarters (not among anyone who mattered, though) to be Edward I's real son because Edward II's behaviour was so unregal, and it had nothing to do with Edward I's parentage.  Evidently John of Powderham had never heard that Edward I was meant to be Simon de Montfort's son; no pretender ever claimed the throne on the grounds that Edward I was not Henry III's son.  All his life, Edward I was treated with the respect and deference due to a man of royal birth, and no-one, not even his, his father or his mother's enemies, ever behaved as though he wasn't Henry III's son, the rightful heir to the throne and the rightful king.

EDIT: Thanks to Andrew Spencer in the comments of this post and Susan Higginbotham on Facebook for providing information that is the final nail in the coffin of the 'Simon de Montfort fathered Edward I' theory: the theory hinges on Eleanor of Provence being at Simon's castle of Kenilworth in September 1238, but the castle wasn't granted to Simon until 1244, as an entry on the Patent Roll proves: Calendar of Patent Rolls 1232-1247, p. 419, dated 13 February 1244: "The like [appointment during pleasure] of S[imon]. earl of Leicester to the custody of the castle of Kenilleworth, with like mandate to the tenants of the castellany.  And G. de Segrave, who had the custody of the said castle, has letters patent testifying that he surrendered the castle to the king at Wudestok on Saturday before Ash Wednesday."  Kenilworth was a royal castle when Henry III and perhaps Queen Eleanor stayed there in the early autumn of 1238, and thus there was no reason for Simon de Montfort to have been there, even if he had been in England at the time.

 And I still firmly believe that writers should avoid making up unpleasant tales about historical people they don't like, simply to make a person they do like look better or more sympathetic by comparison, or to claim that the royal line of England after 1239 wasn't royal at all but descended from a French nobleman they happen to be a huge fan of. I wrote a post recently about the serious allegation in books by Paul Doherty and Alison Weir that Hugh Despenser the Younger raped or physically assaulted Isabella of France. I dismissed as almost certainly untrue the notion that Hugh ever did such a thing and expressed my concern that, because Hugh is seen as some kind of one-dimensional evil villain with no redeeming features, certain writers feel they can invent any charges they like against him on the flimsiest of 'evidence' and use weaselly justifications such as "it is not beyond the bounds of possibility" that he did in fact do it. Frankly, I was quite upset to see a comment on Facebook recently on a post about the 700th anniversary of Piers Gaveston's execution, which said that "For what he (rumored) did to Isabella, he had it coming." When I asked what Piers was meant to have done to the queen, the answer was "Alison Weir hints that he physically assaulted her." You see, this is what happens when authors, authors claiming to be writing non-fiction at that, start making up unfounded, slanted nonsense about someone in an effort to make their beloved subject appear even more of a victim to their readers. Some readers will believe their inventions, and years later, mixing up Edward II's two best-known 'favourites', will believe Piers Gaveston to have been the perpetrator of a crime which didn't happen and declare that he deserved to die because of what he did. Lies told about historical people spread and grow in the telling. So stop telling them.

EDIT: Thanks to Kathleen for kindly providing a reading list of proper histories in the comments:

Margaret Howell, Eleanor of Provence: Queenship in Thirteenth-Century England (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998).

J. R. Maddicott, Simon de Montfort (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).

Louise J. Wilkinson, Eleanor de Montfort: A Rebel Countess in Medieval England (London: Continuum, 2012)

I'd also add David Carpenter, The Reign of Henry III (London: The Hambledon Press, 1996), which incidentally, clearly states on p. 226 that "Simon had received Kenilworth from the king in 1244..."

I have the first two, and they're excellent.

The author in another of her incarnations on Amazon.

EDIT: A comment I left today, 14 July, on a blog where the author expands on her theory of Edward I's paternity and once again claims that it was a 'hanging crime' to speak of de Montfort. At the time of writing, the comment has not been approved.

Joan Gaveston, Piers' Daughter

Piers Gaveston's only legitimate child, Joan, was born in York on or around 12 January 1312 (the Bridlington chronicler says his (unnamed) daughter was born "not long after Epiphany," 6 January, and her mother Margaret de Clare was churched on 20 February, which usually took place forty days after childbirth).  [1]  Piers had been sent into his third exile in November 1311, but Edward II, unsurprisingly, brought him back to England yet again as soon as he could. The king (probably) collected his heavily pregnant niece Margaret de Clare from her castle of Wallingford sometime in early January, and travelled to Yorkshire with her in order to keep her out of the way of his and Piers' baronial enemies in the south, despite the difficulties Margaret must have endured travelling while in such an advanced state of pregnancy, and despite it being the middle of winter. It is also possible that Edward caught up with Margaret on the road or that she travelled ahead of him and arrived in Yorkshire somewhat earlier, though Queen Isabella evidently expected her to be at Wallingford when she sent her messenger there with Margaret's New Year gifts in late December 1311. [2]  Edward II had reached Knaresborough by 8 January 1312 and was still there on the 11th and 12th, and seems to have met Gaveston there on 13 January. The two men travelled the seventeen miles to York that same day - a contemporary newsletter says Edward II arrived in York on Thursday 13 January - presumably so that Piers could see his wife and new-born child. [3] It may be that Piers had only ever intended to sneak into the country for a while to see Margaret and Joan and then leave again, but Edward II had other ideas, and on 18 January declared Piers "good and loyal" and restored the earldom of Cornwall to him, to the fury of many.

Joan Gaveston's maternal grandparents were Edward I's second daughter Joan of Acre (1272-1307) and Gilbert 'the Red' de Clare, earl of Gloucester (1243-1295); her paternal grandparents were Sir Arnaud de Gabaston, baron of Béarn (d. 1302) and Claramonde de Marsan (d. 1287), daughter of Arnaud-Guilhem de Marsan, baron of Gascony.  She was presumably named after her grandmother Joan of Acre, and as well as being his beloved Piers' daughter and heir, was also Edward II's great-niece. He had become a great-uncle at the ridiculously young age of twenty-four or twenty-five, at the birth of Eleanor de Clare and Hugh Despenser the Younger's first child Hugh in 1308 or 1309 (Edward I's eldest great-grandchild). In York on 20 February 1312, after Margaret's churching – the purification ceremony forty days after childbirth – Edward and the proud parents celebrated the birth of Piers' first legitimate child (as far as anyone knew then, he was likely to have more).  Edward paid out the huge sum of forty marks to celebrate Margaret's purification, and the guests were entertained by his minstrel 'King Robert'. [4]  He and Isabella conceived Edward III (born 13 November 1312) around this time.

Margaret de Clare was probably seventeen when she gave birth to Joan. The fact that she and Piers only had one child, born over four years after their wedding, has been used by some commentators as evidence that they rarely slept together or had an unhappy marriage (Natalie Fryde calls Margaret "tragic," for example).  I don't agree.  Margaret's date of birth is not known, but her elder siblings Gilbert and Eleanor were born in May 1291 and October/November 1292, and her younger sister Elizabeth was born in September 1295.  The likeliest date of Margaret's birth is the spring or summer of 1294, and therefore she was thirteen when she married Piers on 1 November 1307 - young enough so that she most likely hadn't yet become fertile.  Her sisters Eleanor and Elizabeth were also both thirteen when they married Hugh Despenser the Younger on 26 May 1306 and John de Burgh on 30 September 1308 respectively.  Eleanor's first child Hugh was born two or three years after her wedding sometime in 1308 or 1309, and Elizabeth's first child William was born four years after her wedding in September 1312, the day after her seventeenth birthday.  Isabella of France was twelve when she married Edward II on 25 January 1308 and conceived their first child just over four years later.  Joan Gaveston must have been conceived in about April 1311, which may have been around the time of Margaret de Clare's seventeenth birthday.  Margaret's aunt by marriage Queen Isabella and her sisters Eleanor and Elizabeth married at twelve or thirteen and first became pregnant at sixteen (perhaps fifteen in Eleanor's case, as her son Hugh's date of birth cannot be narrowed down to a month), so Margaret was hardly far behind the norm in her family.  In any case, we don't know for certain that Joan was her first pregnancy, only that she was her first surviving child, and previous miscarriages can't be ruled out. She had only one child, Margaret Stafford née Audley, by her second husband Hugh Audley as well. Margaret the daughter's date of birth is not known, but must have been sometime between early 1318 (nine months after Hugh and Margaret's wedding on 28 April 1317) and late 1322 (nine months after Edward II imprisoned Hugh as a Contrariant). As Margaret the daughter was abducted and forcibly married by Ralph Stafford in January or February 1336, I tend to assume that she was born in 1320 or later rather than 1318, as it would be odd if such a great heiress had reached the age of seventeen or eighteen and was not yet married. This would mean that Margaret de Clare also took several years to become pregnant or to bear a living child in her second marriage, and that therefore, the supposed 'delay' in becoming pregnant by Piers doesn't say anything negative about her relationship with him.

Joan Gaveston was only five months old when her father was killed at Blacklow Hill on 19 June 1312. As Piers had been a tenant-in-chief - i.e. he held land directly of the king - Edward II as the king became her legal guardian, as per the rules of the time.  Edward sent her to live at Amesbury Priory in Wiltshire with her cousin Eleanor de Bohun, future countess of Ormond, daughter of Edward's sister Elizabeth and the earl of Hereford (one of the men present at Piers Gaveston's execution, in fact).  The king provided generously for the girls' upkeep. They had relatives at the priory, which had become fashionable among royal ladies since the dowager queen Eleanor of Provence retired there in the 1280s: Edward II's sister Mary was a nun there, as were Joan Gaveston's aunt Joan de Monthermer (her mother's half-sister, one of Joan of Acre's five daughters) and Henry of Lancaster's daughter Isabella. Other royal and noble ladies appear to have lived at Amesbury temporarily on occasion: Joan Gaveston's aunt Elizabeth de Clare stayed there for a year or so after her marriage before she went to Ireland to join her husband, and again when she was pregnant with her second child Isabella de Verdon. So Joan likely had plenty of her relatives about and didn't lack for company.

Joan was two years old when her uncle Gilbert de Clare, earl of Gloucester was killed at the battle of Bannockburn in June 1314. As the only child of one of Gilbert's three sisters and co-heirs, she became an enticing marriage prospect. In 1316, Edward offered her to his ward Thomas, future Lord Wake of Liddell, who was then eighteen or nineteen (and the brother of the future countess of Kent). However, Edward discovered that Wake had married Henry of Lancaster's eldest daughter Blanche without his permission, and fined him a large sum, probably £1000, which he granted to "our very dear relative," Joan.   [5]  In November 1317, Wake paid 1000 marks (£666) in "part satisfaction" of the fine.  As he had no means of raising such a large sum – he was still under twenty-one and hadn't yet come into his lands – he probably had to borrow the money from his father-in-law Henry, the earl of Lancaster's brother, or Lancaster himself; a nice way for Edward to get money out of his enemy and give it to Piers Gaveston's daughter. It is somewhat odd that Wake chose Blanche of Lancaster in preference to Joan, as Blanche had a brother and thus would not inherit anything from her father or uncle, while Joan was then sole heir to a third of the vast de Clare inheritance. Perhaps Wake gambled that Margaret de Clare would marry again and have a son and that Joan Gaveston ultimately wouldn't inherit anything, and that it was more advantageous in the political climate of 1316 to be allied to the earl of Lancaster than to Edward II.  Margaret in fact had another daughter, but no son, which would have meant that the two half-sisters Joan Gaveston and Margaret Audley shared the inheritance equally as her joint heirs (primogeniture not applying to women).

On 25 May 1317, Edward II arranged Joan Gaveston's future marriage to John, son and heir of Thomas Multon, lord of Egremont in Cumberland.  John, born in 1308, was the eldest grandson of Richard de Burgh, earl of Ulster (d. 1326) via his mother, and nephew of Elizabeth de Burgh, queen of Scotland and Gilbert de Clare's widow Maud, dowager countess of Gloucester (the lady who pretended to be pregnant by Gilbert for years after Bannockburn).  John's other aunts included the countesses of Louth, Desmond and Kildare.  In the agreement between the king and Thomas Multon, Joan is called "daughter of Sir Piers Gaveston, formerly earl of Cornwall" (Johane la feile monsieur Piers de Gavaston, jadys counte de Cornewayll). The marriage of John and Joan would take place "as soon as the said children shall be of reasonable age" (si tost come les ditz enfauntz serront venuz a age covenable, qils peussent estre marietz). Thomas Multon agreed to grant Joan 400 marks' worth of land yearly, and promised the king that "he will not eloign from himself any lands that he now holds or that he shall inherit by reversion or otherwise, to the damage or disinheritance of his son," though presumably it wasn't John Multon's disinheritance that Edward cared about, but Joan Gaveston's. He intended for Joan to go and live with the Multons – though apparently she didn't – and ordered Thomas Multon to maintain her honourably, "as it shall please our lord the king or other friends of the said Joan."  Edward agreed to give Multon £1000 for Joan's dowry, in three instalments of 500 marks, the first payable immediately, the second on 24 June (Nativity of St John the Baptist) and the third on29 September (Michaelmas). Edward did not in fact pay this money to Multon; Thomas Wake did so on his behalf, "for refusing a suitable marriage, which the king offered to him, and marrying elsewhere without licence." Multon had to promise to pay the king the staggeringly large sum of £10,000 if he defaulted on his son's marriage – proof of Edward's determination that this match he had arranged for Piers Gaveston's daughter should succeed where the first hadn't. [6]
After this, Joan Gaveston remains obscure until she died suddenly at Amesbury Priory on 13 January 1325, of an unknown illness. This may have been the day after her thirteenth birthday.  I very much doubt that Edward II would have let the death of Piers Gaveston's child and his own great-niece pass without making expensive and elaborate funerary arrangements for her, though sadly no record of such is still extant. Edward spent, for example, considerable amounts of money on the funeral of his friend William Montacute's teenaged son John in 1317, and seems to have been particularly affected by John's death.  It's hard to imagine that he felt less sorrowful at the death of Piers' thirteen-year-old daughter.

Joan's marriage to John Multon, who was sixteen or seventeen when she died, had not yet taken place.  (John was destined to die childless in 1334, leaving his three sisters as his co-heirs.)  An inquisition taken in January 1332 - which was probably commissioned in order to ascertain whether John Multon owed any of the £10,000 penalty agreed by his father and Edward II to Edward III, which he didn't as he hadn't defaulted on the marriage - states vaguely that Joan "died of illness" and also, wrongly, that she was fifteen at the time of her death.  [7]  This discrepancy of two years, easily explicable by the fact that the two men sitting on the inquisition seven years after Joan's death had almost certainly never met her and were going on hearsay of how old some people thought she might have been, in a world where birth certificates and parish records of births did not yet exist, was used by some commentators on soc.genealogy.medieval a few years ago to create endless confusion with Joan's half-sister Amie, Piers' other daughter, who was certainly not Margaret de Clare's daughter and thus must have been illegitimate. Amie Gaveston was a damsel of Queen Philippa's chamber, granted lands by the queen in 1332 (the entries relating to this are on the Patent Roll), and in 1334 called "Amie, daughter of Piers Gaveston", Amie filie Petri de Gauaston. The endless and for the most part astonishingly pointless debate about Amie - if you go to Google groups and search for 'Amie/Amy Gaveston' you'll find it - resulted in such craptacular statements as "just because she [Amie] was called the daughter of Petrus de Gaveston did not make her his blood relation."  Yeah, happens all the time, doesn't it, that someone named in an official document as the child of someone else wasn't actually a blood relative of that person. Seems that some people have trouble imagining that Piers, the beloved of Edward II, might have fathered an illegitimate child, but given that Edward II himself certainly did, it's hardly to be wondered at that Piers did too. Another classic ('classic' here meaning 'totally bonkers') argument from a few years back was that 'Amie, daughter of Piers Gaveston' was in fact the illegitimate daughter of Margaret de Clare. Ho ho ho, I'm still laughing at that one. From some extremely knowledgeable comments left on my blog recently by a lovely anonymous commenter (thank you!), I now know that Piers Gaveston had a sister named Amie or Amye, born in 1285 - I'd thought before that she was in fact called Amie, but had no evidence. This makes it pretty well certain that the Amie Gaveston found on record in the 1330s said to be Piers' daughter was indeed his daughter (what a surprise!), whom he named in honour of his younger sister. (Who, according to the Vita Edwardi Secundi, naming her only as 'his sister', was with him during the siege of Scarborough in May 1312.)  Both Edward II and Piers Gaveston fathered children by two women each that we know of, as well as carrying on their own intense relationship. The mothers of their illegitimate children are unknown.

RIP, Joan Gaveston. I wish you'd lived longer. I wish your father had lived longer.

Sources

1) Gesta Edwardi de Carnarvon Auctore Canonico Bridlingtoniensi, in W. Stubbs, ed., Chronicles of the Reigns of Edward I and Edward II, volume 2 (1883), p. 42; Pierre Chaplais, Piers Gaveston: Edward II’s Adoptive Brother, pp. 78-79; J.S. Hamilton, Piers Gaveston, Earl of Cornwall 1307-1312: Politics and Patronage in the Reign of Edward II, pp. 93-94.
2) F. D. Blackley and G. Hermansen, eds., The Household Book of Queen Isabella of England, p. 139.
3) Elizabeth Hallam, The Itinerary of Edward II and His Household, 1307-1328, p. 81; Calendar of Chancery Warrants 1244-1326, p. 382; Chaplais, Gaveston, pp. 77-78.
4) Constance Bullock-Davies, A Register of Royal and Baronial Domestic Minstrels 1272-1327, p. 143.
5) Calendar of Patent Rolls 1313-1317, p. 553; Cal Pat Rolls 1317-1321, p. 43; Calendar of Close Rolls 1313-1318, p. 468; Foedera 1307-1327, pp. 299, 331.
6) Cal Pat Rolls 1317-1321, p. 43; Foedera, p. 331.
7) Calendar of Inquisitions Miscellaneous 1308-1348, pp. 325-326.

Edward II And His Relationship With His Children

I'm becoming perturbed at a notion I've seen repeated several times recently - in two badly-written and barely-researched novels and various online articles - that Edward II 'ignored' his children and didn't care about them, to the point where he could hardly even remember their names and was unwilling to pay their expenses.  Where the hell does this notion come from?  And why do some people think, as I was informed in a blog comment and an email, that there's actually some historical evidence for it?  I can't imagine, but it's time to put this idiocy to rest right now.  The promised 'evidence', incidentally, was not forthcoming.  Now there's a surprise.  In fact, no historian or non-fiction writer of the last 700 years has ever, to my knowledge, argued that Edward II was a negligent parent; even Alison Weir, who appears to despise him, admits that he was a "good and loving father."  Neither did anyone in his own time claim that he was cruel to or did not love or was in any way neglectful of his children and his responsibilities towards them.  So, therefore, to anyone who is perpetuating this nonsense about him: just stop it.  To anyone who's read this rubbish somewhere and is wondering if there's any truth in it: no, there certainly isn't.  (You know, I am so damn sick of people inventing this kind of nasty, hateful nonsense to make Edward more unsympathetic or unlikeable to their readers.  How would you like it if you were accused of being a bad, unloving and neglectful parent when in fact you adore your children and would do anything for them?  It would hurt, wouldn't it?  Why are you saying it about Edward II then?)

See also here and here for my previous posts about Edward II and Isabella of France's four children (Edward III, born November 1312; John of Eltham, born August 1316 (Johan in contemporary spelling); Eleanor of Woodstock, born June 1318 (Alianore or Alienora); Joan (Johane) of the Tower, born July 1321).  Firstly I should point out that we're talking about 700 years ago and there really isn't very much evidence for anyone's personal relationship with anyone else, sadly; personal letters are practically non-existent, diaries actually are non-existent.  Secondly, we have to remember that familial norms of 700 years ago were different, and that Edward II was a medieval king, not a modern hands-on father.  This is so obvious it shouldn't even need pointing out, but unfortunately it does to some people.

Edward II was twenty-eight when his son and heir the future Edward III was born at Windsor on 13 November 1312.  (He might have become a father much sooner, but had to wait for Isabella, who was sixteen when their son was conceived, to be old enough to bear children.  Actually, he had become a father much sooner: his illegitimate son Adam was born sometime before 1310.)  The Vita Edwardi Secundi and the St Albans chronicler both say that the boy's birth "much lessened the grief which had inflicted the king on Piers' death," [1] which, given how much and for how long Edward had loved Piers Gaveston, is significant.  Edward granted the enormous sum of eighty pounds annually to Isabella's steward John Launge and his wife Joan, "on account of his bringing to the king the news of the birth of Edward his first-born son," on 16 December.  [2]  As Edward II was actually at Windsor at the time of the birth, this can hardly have been an onerous task for John Launge, and eighty pounds a year gave him and his wife a higher income than some knights.  Edward of Windsor was only eleven days old when his father granted him the entire earldom of Chester on 24 November, an earldom for which Edward of Caernarfon himself had had to wait until he was almost seventeen to receive from Edward I.  [3]  As Ian Mortimer points out in his biography of Edward III, "The king's [Edward II's] instinct was to shower those whom he loved with presents, and so he immediately ordered that the baby be raised to the front rank of the peerage."  [4]  Further grants of lands were made to the boy over the next few years, and he was also given a large household of his own.  This, of course, was entirely expected and normal for the heir to the throne, and it would have been an insult to the boy if he hadn't.

Edward and Isabella's second son John was born at Eltham in Kent on 15 August 1316, and perhaps named in honour of the new pope, John XXII.  Edward was 250 miles away in Yorkshire at the time, meeting his cousin Earl Thomas of Lancaster; John was his only child for whose birth he wasn't somewhere close by.  The king had shown his concern for Isabella's comfort during her pregnancy by paying twenty pounds to John Fleg, horse dealer of London, for a bay horse "to carry the litter of the lady the queen" and paying Vannus Ballardi of the Lucca banking firm the Ballardi almost four pounds for pieces of silk and gold tissue and flame-coloured silk to make cushions for Isabella’s carriage, so that she could travel in greater comfort. [5] Edward gave £100 to Isabella’s steward Eubulo Montibus, who rode from Eltham to York to bring him the happy news, and the St Albans chronicler comments on Edward’s joy at the birth of his son. He had heard the news from Montibus by 24 August, on which date he asked the Dominicans of York to say prayers for himself, "Queen Isabella our very dear consort, Edward of Windsor our eldest son, and John of Eltham our youngest son, especially on account of John." Edward had a piece of Turkey cloth and a piece of cloth-of-gold delivered to Eltham, to cover the font in the chapel during John's baptism, and ordered Isabella's tailor Stephen de Falaise to make her a robe from five pieces of white velvet for her churching ceremony. [6]  John appears to have joined the household of his older brother the heir to the throne, and in later years - I'm not sure when - was granted his own household under the command of his first cousin Eleanor (née de Clare) Despenser, who remained in charge until late 1326.  Paul Doherty, a harsh critic of Edward II and just about everything he ever did, and the inventor of what I sometimes call the 'OMG Edward II totally stole Isabella's children from her OMG!!!' theory, calls Eleanor in his rather bizarre book Isabella and the Strange Death of Edward II merely "Eleanor de Spencer [sic], Hugh the Younger's wife." It's interesting to note how he neglects to point out that she was also Edward I's eldest granddaughter, the daughter of Gilbert 'the Red' de Clare, earl of Gloucester (d. 1295), in his day arguably the greatest nobleman in England, and a mother of at least nine children. Eleanor was thus of extremely high birth and an entirely appropriate person to be in charge of the household of the second in line to the throne (who was her own first cousin, albeit twenty-four years younger).

Edward II was at Woodstock with Isabella when their first daughter Eleanor was born on 18 June 1318, and the king's wardrobe accounts record a payment of 500 marks to "Lady Isabella, queen of England, of the king's gift, for the feast of her purification after the birth of Lady Alienora her daughter." The little girl soon joined the household of her elder brothers, under the care of a nurse named Joan du Bois. [7]  The king and queen's youngest child Joan was born in the Tower of London on 5 July 1321; Edward, then somewhere in London or Westminster, granted Robert Staunton a respite of eighty pounds on a debt of £180 he owed to the Exchequer, "in consideration of his services to queen Isabella, and of his bringing news of her delivery of Joan, the king's daughter." [8]   Edward arrived at the Tower on 8 July and stayed with Isabella and their newborn daughter for six days, removing the constable, John Cromwell, from his post, as the Tower was in a rather dilapidated state and rainwater had come in through the roof onto the queen's bed while she was in labour.  Edward later set up a household for Eleanor and Joan under the overall command of Hugh Despenser the Younger's sister Isabel, Lady Hastings; the girls' governess (mestresse) was Joan Jermy, sister of Edward's sister-in-law Alice Hales, countess of Norfolk. Isabel Hastings was married to Ralph de Monthermer, who had previously been married to Edward II's sister Joan of Acre and was therefore the girls' uncle. And thus, three more entirely appropriate people looked after the king and queen's children. There is nothing at all to suggest, incidentally, that Edward II cruelly and spitefully 'removed' his children from Isabella's care in 1324, as a few modern writers claim (I'll be looking at this in more detail in a future post). The king wrote to his daughters, then living at Marlborough Castle, on 26 July 1326, and no doubt on other occasions too, but the record of those letters happens to survive (Edward gave a messenger five shillings to ride from Sheen to Marlborough "to his daughters, with letters from the king"). He arranged excellent marriages, which didn't go ahead owing to his deposition, for Eleanor and Joan with King Alfonso XI of Castile and the future King Pedro IV of Aragon.

Edward's actions during Isabella's pregnancies indicate how concerned he was about her well-being and that of their children, and I'm going to point out again here that the oft-repeated story that he 'abandoned' her at Tynemouth when she was pregnant with Edward III in May 1312 is a total myth, as Isabella's own surviving household account of 1312 proves.  See also Seymour Phillips, Edward II (2010), p. 203: "Contrary to the report in Trokelowe's chronicle, written at St Albans, the pregnant Isabella was not abandoned at Tynemouth; instead she left there with her husband on 5 May and accompanied him to Scarborough before returning to York on 17 May."  As Professor Phillips points out in a footnote, Trokelowe confuses events of 1312 with those of 1322, another occasion when Isabella was in Tynemouth and caught behind Scottish lines.  Not that this is ever going to stop fans of the Victim!Isabella school of thought repeating it solemnly as fact, however.  I imagine they can even think of something to find fault with in Edward's concern for his pregnant queen; no doubt in their minds, it proves that he was only interested in her as a 'brood mare' or some such nonsense.  If we try to look at the details we know about Edward II and Isabella of France's family life objectively or with sympathy towards Edward, rather than with the assumption that he was a cruel neglectful horrid husband and father to his long-suffering wife and children, a touching picture emerges of the king's delight in his children, his concern for their and Isabella's health and well-being, his treating his children with the respect to which royal children were entitled by granting them lands and their own households and servants, arranging good marriages for them and frequently ordering prayers to be said for them and his wife.  Not least, his actions demonstrate his total certainty that his children were indeed his. 

I have no idea how Edward of Windsor, the future Edward III, felt about Edward II as he was growing up. It's hard to imagine that he could have felt much pride in his father's rule. The boy's childhood was punctuated by his father's failures, problems and errors, such as Bannockburn when he was only nineteen months old, the endless conflict with the powerful earl of Lancaster, the loss of Berwick, the Contrariant rebellion of 1321, the disastrous Scots campaign of 1322, the unsuccessful war with France in 1324/25, the domination of the Despensers, and so on. Edward III's attitude to his father may have been very similar to his grandfather Edward I's attitude to his inept father Henry III: whatever his determination to be a better ruler and warrior and to avoid making Henry's mistakes, there is no doubt that Edward I loved Henry as a father, enjoyed a very close relationship with him and mourned him sincerely when he died. Edward of Windsor's probable embarrassment and shame at his father's misrule and his concern that Edward II was destroying his inheritance, does not necessarily mean that their personal relationship as father and son was an unhappy or not a close one. Edward II's younger children John, Eleanor and Joan were very young, only ten, eight and five, at the time of his deposition.  There is no reason whatsoever to suppose that they did not love their father or that he did not love them or care about them.

Edward II's relationship with Edward of Windsor became much more difficult and fraught in late 1325 and 1326, when Isabella chose to use the boy (then thirteen) as a weapon against her husband. It's unfortunate that much of what we know about Edward II's relationship with his son comes from the period when the latter was being held in France, whether with his consent or not is impossible to say.  Edward II sent three letters to his 'fair son' (Beaufitz) which are full of his distress, fear and anger that his beloved son had been taken from him and was being used against him, and that a marriage was being arranged for him to which Edward (the king) had not consented.  On 19 June 1326, a furious and distraught Edward ended his final letter to his son, who must also have been distraught to read it, with a threat: "...if the king find him contrary or disobedient hereafter to his will, he will ordain in such wise that Edward [of Windsor] shall feel it all the days of his life, and that all other sons shall take example thereby of disobeying their lords and fathers."  After September 1325, father and son would never see each other again, and I find it so sad that this is the last known contact between them.  In their rush to praise Isabella for her cleverness and bravery in detaining her son in France and using him as a figurehead in the invasion of England, very few commentators stop to consider the tragic personal consequences of this act: the destruction of Edward II and Edward III's relationship.  But hey, it's only Edward II, the useless snivelling gay king whom most people despise and who probably didn't even father the boy anyway, so who cares?   And it's Isabella, the patron saint of medieval feminist empowerment, so her actions are seen as brave and wonderful.  I'm struggling to imagine another woman who could destroy the personal relationship of her husband and son as completely as Isabella did, another woman who could hold her adolescent son hostage in another country to prevent him returning to his father - or who at the very least forced him to choose between his father and her - and ensure that the two could never meet or ever enjoy the same closeness again, and be lauded for it as Isabella usually is.

These letters of Edward II, and his letters sent at the same time to his rebellious queen and her brother, have often been used by writers as evidence that he was weak, feeble, unmanly; the contempt with which his emotive and anguished phrases have been dissected and sneered at in certain quarters is truly remarkable to me.  (Or it would be, if I weren't so used to the utter contempt in which many writers hold Edward.)  I'm not sure really what the correct and appropriate way would be for someone to react and feel and write in emotionally painful and difficult circumstances where he feels that he is losing his own child, and that the child has been forced to choose between his parents and is being deliberately used as a weapon against his father. (I'm sure Edward's detractors would themselves have written much more manly, strong, virile and unequivocally heterosexual letters in this horrible situation. Or you know, whatever.  Stiff upper lip and all that, what what?)

I have a personal interest in all this, admittedly; I care very much about Edward II and it genuinely hurts and upsets me when people accuse him without any evidence whatsoever of being a bad uncaring father.  Say all you want about him being an inadequate military leader and ruler, he deserves it, but don't make up such horribly personal insulting things about him.  Simply being a bad king doesn't mean he was bad at everything and a total failure in all his personal relationships.  Even if he was a bad husband - which isn't nearly as obviously true as a lot of people seem to think - this doesn't automatically make him a bad father.  It really doesn't.

Sources

1) Johannis de Trokelowe et Henrici de Blaneforde Chronica et Annales, ed. H. T. Riley, pp. 79-80; Vita Edwardi Secundi, ed. N. Denholm-Young, p. 36.
2) Calendar of Patent Rolls 1307-1313, pp. 516, 519.
3) Calendar of Charter Rolls 1300-1326, p. 202.

4) Ian Mortimer, The Perfect King: The Life of Edward III, Father of the English Nation, p. 23.

5) Frederick Devon, Issues of the Exchequer: Being A Collection of Payments Made Out of His Majesty’s Revenue from King Henry III to King Henry VI Inclusive, p. 131; Thomas Stapleton, 'A Brief Summary of the Wardrobe Accounts of the tenth, eleventh, and fourteenth years of King Edward the Second', Archaeologia, 26 (1836), pp. 342-343.
6) Stapleton, 'Brief Summary', p. 320 (Montibus and baptism); Trokelowe, ed. Riley, p. 95; Close Rolls 1313-1318, p. 430 (prayers).
7) Stapleton, 'Brief Summary', p. 337 (purification); Calendar of Fine Rolls 1307-1319, p. 389 (household); Patent Rolls 1327-1330, p. 163 (nurse).
8) Patent Rolls 1321-1324, p. 23.

19 June 1312: My Heart Is As An Anvil Unto Sorrow

700 years ago today, Piers Gaveston, earl of Cornwall, was run through with a sword and beheaded at Blacklow Hill in Warwickshire.  He was probably just under thirty*, and left his five-month-old daughter Joan as his heir as well as an illegitimate daughter, Amie, and his eighteen-year-old widow Margaret de Clare.  And, of course, the grieving and furious Edward II, and a very real chance that England would slide into civil war.

* EDITED TO ADD: After I wrote this post, more information about Piers and his family came to light, and I now believe he was older than thirty at the time of his death.

For more information, see: Piers' return to England; his execution; its aftermath.

"If I be England's king, in lakes of gore
Your headless trunks your bodies will I trail,
That you may drink your fill, and quaff in blood,
And stain my royal standard with the same,
That so my bloody colours may suggest
Remembrance of revenge immortally
On your accursed traitorous progeny,
You villains that have slain my Gaveston!"

Christopher Marlowe, Edward the Second, Act 3 Scene 3.  The title of the blog post comes from Act 1 Scene 4.

*
"This King Edward the Second after the Conquest bestowed great affection during his father's life upon Piers de Gaveston, a young man of good Gascon family; whereat his father became so much concerned lest he should lead his son astray, that he caused him to be exiled from the realm...Piers became very magnificent, liberal and well-bred in manner, but haughty and supercilious in debate..."  (Scalacronica).

"Piers was an alien of Gascon birth...the magnates of the land hated him, because he alone found favour in the king's eyes and lorded it over them like a second king, to whom all were subject and none equal.  Almost all the land hated him too, great and small, even the old, and foretold ill of him; whence his name was reviled far and wide.  Nor could the king's affection be alienated from Piers, for the more he was told, in attempts to damp his ardour, the greater grew his love and tenderness towards Piers...Piers was very proud and haughty in bearing.  All those whom the custom of the realm made equal to him, he regarded as lowly and abject, nor could anyone, he thought, equal him in valour."  (Vita Edwardi Secundi)

*
And this is my attempt to express Edward II's love for Piers, in a fictional scene set in 1316 where Edward is talking to his friend Donald of Mar:

"...He was the most perfect, radiant, desirable, extraordinary creature that ever lived. There was never anyone like him. Damn Thomas for killing him! It's three years, seven months and twenty-three days since he and Warwick had him slaughtered, and God, I still need him, I can't bear my life without him. Every day I've woken up without him has been pointless."

He sent the chess piece flying across the room, and it struck the wall above a tapestry and smashed. Tristan [the king's dog] jumped at the sound and Edward patted his head absent-mindedly, and took a few deep breaths to try to control himself. "One day, Donald, I'll have my revenge for Piers' murder."

*
And another fictional scene of mine where Edward goes to see his cousin Thomas of Lancaster the evening before having Thomas executed for treason, at Pontefract in March 1322 (the earl is in chains in one of the towers of his own castle):

"...And do you remember how you once swore you’d protect me against all comers, in battle if need be, when almost all the others had deserted Piers and me before they sent him into exile? You stood by me, and I loved you for your loyalty. What happened to us? What went wrong, Thomas? Why did you abandon me, you, of all people? I still don't know."
     Thomas fidgeted, and picked at a thread on his soiled cloak, one of the few movements his manacles would allow. "That was before I found out what a fool you were," he finally said, though his voice lacked rancour. "Good lord, you let that Gascon get away with anything. A king can't rule like that!"
     "You can't even say his name, can you, Thomas?" Edward said, almost under his breath. He shifted position on the cold floor. "Let me say it instead: Piers Gaveston. The man you murdered."
     "I didn't! I had him executed. He was an outlaw, an excommunicate! He was begging for death."
     "I loved him, Thomas," Edward said with quiet emphasis. "He was my life. You knew how much I loved him, how much I needed him, but you murdered him anyway. Whatever you might think of me, you must know how deeply I can love. Have you ever loved, Thomelyn?" he asked suddenly, and Thomas didn't answer. "For all your hordes of mistresses, have you ever truly loved? And been loved? Have any of your women ever loved you, the real Thomas, and not your wealth and influence? I think not. But Piers, he loved the real me, Edward, the man not the king. And you tore him from me, humiliated him, you and your crony Warwick, before you murdered him. And there isn't a day that I don't think about him." The torment of ten years before ripped into Edward, as he fought to keep his voice level.
     Thomas stared at the wall above Edward's head. "I didn't have a choice. The way you acted forced me into it – it was the only way to get him away from you!"
     Edward shook his head. "You had a choice – to be faithful to your king and cousin, or not. And I share some of the blame, because I had a choice too. I had the choice between my kingdom and my love, and I chose my kingdom. I see now that I made the wrong choice, and we all live with the consequences of that, don't we?"
     Thomas dropped his eyes to Edward's face. "You're going to sentence me to death tomorrow, aren't you? As I sentenced the Gascon? For revenge?"
     "Yes," Edward said, and to his credit, Thomas didn't flinch, but merely sighed.

*
R.I.P. Piers Gaveston, oh thou beloved of a king.

Blanche of Artois, Queen of Navarre

A post about Blanche of Artois, queen of Navarre and countess of Brie, Champagne and Lancaster, who was both Edward II's aunt by marriage and his queen Isabella of France's grandmother.

Blanche of Artois's date of birth is usually estimated as about 1248, though may have been some years earlier.  Her father was Robert, count of Artois, who was born in September 1216 as the second surviving son of King Louis VIII 'the Lion' of France and Blanche of Castile (granddaughter of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine) and was thus the brother closest to age to Louis IX, who was two years and five months Robert's senior.  Blanche's mother Matilda was the daughter of Duke Henry II of Brabant and Marie of Hohenstaufen, third daughter of Philip of Swabia, king of Germany and Eirene Angelina of Byzantium, dowager queen of Sicily.  (Marie's younger sister Elisabeth was the first queen of Edward II's grandfather Fernando III of Castile and the mother of Alfonso X.)  Blanche of Artois was thus the great-granddaughter of Philip Augustus, king of France, of Alfonso VIII, king of Castile, and of Philip of Swabia, king of Germany, and the great-great-granddaughter of Frederick Barbarossa, Holy Roman Emperor, of Isaac Angelos, emperor of Byzantium, and of Henry II, king of England.

Blanche's father Count Robert of Artois was killed at Mansurah in Egypt on 9 February 1250, during the crusade of his brother Louis IX.  He left as his heir his son Robert, born posthumously in September 1250; Blanche was his only other child.  Robert's widow Matilda of Brabant, who was born in 1224 and married Robert in 1237 when she was thirteen, married secondly Guy de Châtillon, count of Saint-Pol, and had another five children.  She died in 1288.  Her daughter Beatrice of Saint-Pol, Blanche's half-sister, was described in a chronicle of the late fourteenth century as la plus belle qui fust en France, 'the most beautiful (woman) who was in France'.  Blanche of Artois's brother Robert was killed at the battle of Courtrai in 1302, leaving his daughter Mahaut as his heir; his son Philippe had predeceased him, leaving a son, also Robert, born in 1287.  The long struggle between Blanche's niece Mahaut of Artois - the mother of Jeanne and Blanche of Burgundy, who married Philippe V and Charles IV of France - and Mahaut's nephew Robert over the rights to the county of Artois form a major part of Maurice Druon's The Accursed Kings/Les Rois Maudits series of novels.

In 1269, when she was in her early twenties, Blanche married Henri or Enrique, younger son of King Thibaut I of Navarre, who was known as le Chansonnier or the Troubadour.  Henri himself was known as 'the Fat', le Gros or el Gordo.  In December 1270, Henri - then about in his mid-twenties - succeeded his childless elder brother Thibaut II, who was married to Blanche's first cousin, Louis IX and Marguerite of Provence's eldest surviving child Isabelle, as king of Navarre and count of Champagne and Brie.  Blanche and Henri had a son, whose name I'm uncertain of (possibly Thibaut?), who suffered a terrible, tragic fate as a baby: his nurse dropped him from the battlements of Henri's castle at Estella.  Their only other child was a daughter named Jeanne or Joan, born in early 1273, who succeeded her father as Queen Jeanne I of Navarre as a baby when Henri died in July 1274, aged thirty or so.  The little girl was arguably the most desirable marriage prize in Europe, and although Edward I of England arranged a marriage between her and his second-born son Henry (born July 1268), with Henri, the latter's death in July 1274 put paid to that alliance, and young Henry himself died at the age of six in October that year.  Blanche of Artois was left as regent of Navarre for her daughter the baby queen, and faced down threats of civil war and invasion by the kings of Castile (Alfonso X, Edward II's uncle) and Aragon (Jaime I).  In the treaty of Orléans of May 1275, she accepted the aid of her first cousin, King Philippe III of France.  The young Queen Jeanne thus married Philippe's sixteen-year-old son and heir in August 1284, almost certainly in Paris* - he succeeded as Philippe IV of France a little over a year later - and became the mother of Louis X, Philippe V, Charles IV and Isabella, queen of Edward II, as well as two other daughters and a son who did not survive childhood.  Blanche of Artois was thus the grandmother of three kings of France and a queen of England.

[* Powicke's The Thirteenth Century 1216-1307 says they married at Estella, but my friend Elena looked up Philippe III's itinerary for August 1284, and he was in Paris, so it seems extremely likely that the wedding took place there.  Elena isn't sure if Jeanne or Philippe IV ever set foot in Navarre.]

The treaty of Orléans gave Philippe III control over the kingdom of Navarre, and it ultimately passed  to Jeanne and Philippe IV's eldest son Louis on Jeanne's death in the spring of 1305, and later to Louis's daughter Jeanne II.  Blanche herself kept control of the county of Champagne, which meant by the standards of the time that she needed a powerful husband.  A man was chosen, either by herself or others, who was also Philippe III's first cousin (their mothers were sisters) and was as royal as Blanche of Artois herself was: Edmund, earl of Lancaster, Leicester and Derby, fourth child of Henry III of England and Eleanor of Provence and thus Edward I's brother.  Blanche and Edmund married sometime between 18 December 1275 and 18 January 1276.  Edmund was born in January 1245, and had previously and briefly been married to the great heiress Aveline de Forz, daughter of the count of Aumale and the countess of Devon, who died aged fifteen in 1274.

Blanche and Edmund had three sons: Thomas, earl of Lancaster, born c. 1278, executed 1322; Henry, earl of Lancaster, born c. 1281, died 1345; John, who died childless in France in 1317 - Henry was his heir - and is very obscure.  Earl Henry had one son, the wonderful Henry of Grosmont, duke of Lancaster, and six daughters; five of his seven children had children of their own, so Blanche had numerous descendants in England in the fourteenth century, and also a few in France via the descendants of her grandsons Louis X and Philippe V.  Blanche of Artois was the great-grandmother of Edward III and the great-great-grandmother of Charles the Bad, king of Navarre.  Her great-granddaughter and namesake Blanche of Lancaster married Edward III's son John of Gaunt and carried the vast Lancastrian inheritance to him.  Her sons Thomas and Henry of Lancaster, when they were growing up, were brothers-in-law of the king of France and nephews of the king of England.  It is often missed that they were Isabella of France's (half-)uncles as well as Edward II's first cousins, and I can think of at least a couple of novels that portray Thomas as opposed to Edward at least in part because he is in love with Isabella.  Thomas and Henry of Lancaster's ancestry was remarkably illustrious, a fact which needless to say did not go unnoticed at the time: the Vita Edwardi Secundi remarks "Earl Thomas was related to the king in the second degree of kinship, for they were descended from two brothers...His mother was Queen of Navarre, his sister Queen of France, and his sister's daughter now Queen of England. As each parent was of royal birth he was clearly of nobler descent than the other earls."

Blanche of Artois, queen of Navarre, countess of Brie, Champagne and Lancaster, the wife, granddaughter, niece, mother-in-law and sister-in-law of kings, was widowed on 5 June 1296, when Earl Edmund died in Bayonne at the age of fifty-one.  He was buried in Westminster Abbey, where his elaborate tomb still exists, next to that of his brother Edward I; his first wife the teenaged Aveline de Forz is also buried nearby.   Blanche was the chief executor of his will.  [1]  Edmund and Blanche's eldest son Thomas succeeded to the considerable Lancastrian inheritance, augmented still further by his 1294 marriage to the wealthy heiress Alice de Lacy.  Queen Blanche herself died at Vincennes on 2 May 1302 and was apparently also buried in England, though not next to her husband but at the convent of the Minoresses without Aldgate, which Earl Edmund had founded in 1293.  I've also seen it stated, however, that she was buried at the Franciscan nunnery of Nogent l'Artaud near Paris, which she herself had founded; I'm not sure which is correct.  One of the executors of her will was her daughter Jeanne, queen of France and Navarre.  [2]  Blanche of Artois and Edmund of Lancaster feature as characters in Sharon Penman's novel The Reckoning, the final part of her Welsh trilogy.

Sources

1) Patent Rolls 1292-1301, p. 288; Close Rolls 1296-1302, pp. 174, 180, 387.
2) Patent Rolls 1301-1307, p. 117.

- J.R. Maddicott, Thomas of Lancaster 1307-1322: A Study in the Reign of Edward II
-  Maurice Powicke, The Thirteenth Century 1216-1307
- Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

Don't Defame The Dead (2)

Why do some people make it their life's mission to invent hurtful rubbish about people who are no longer here to defend themselves, and get all snidey and huffy when you politely point out that, just maybe, trashing people's posthumous reputations is not very fair?  Why do some people make it their life's mission to get offended by absolutely anything or anyone at all that even slightly disagrees with their opinion, and bang on about another person's respectfully-expressed point of view as though it's a personal attack on them?  Anyway, continuing the Don't Defame The Dead campaign, here are some excellent contributions by friends of mine, and please see also the terrific cards on A Nevill Feast's own Don't Defame The Dead post and Undine's great post Speaking Up For Those Who Can No Longer Speak For Themselves on her equally great World of Edgar Allan Poe blog.  EDIT: Hannah at the Thomas Cromwell Experience has also done a great post on her blog.

To everyone who drones on tediously about poor Isabella and her tragically awful sex life with Edward II, when, dammit, she was desperate for so long for a real manly strong virile man, I give you this:

I still get a good laugh at the statement posted on Facebook a while back with as much as certainty as though there was a video camera on the wall of Edward and Isabella's bedchamber: Edward II was "a fastidiously gay guy who begat children on her - note not with her - as a painful duty."  Classic.

"One of the strongest men of his realm."  Not that you'd know it from some books and films.

My card about Joan de Geneville, based on my annoyance at novels which turn her into a grossly overweight, unattractive, sexless bore (when they even bother to mention her in the first place):

My card about Isabella (which could also apply to Margaret of Anjou):

My card about a novel which maligns a fifteenth-century man beyond all my previous notions of maligning by choosing to ignore this essential difference:

My friend Rachel's card about Isobel MacDuff (of Fife), countess of Buchan (with ref to a novel which turns her husband John Comyn, earl of Buchan into a thuggish rapist who beats her up even when she's pregnant):

Also from Rachel, Joan de Geneville's card to Isabella of France:

Blogger is up to its usual tricks and being weird so I can't put spaces between some of these cards - that last one was made by my friend Hannah.  You can probably guess who it's about.  :-)

Two made by my friend at A Nevill Feast:

This is about Richard Nevill, earl of Warwick (1428-1471), though could also apply to other men of the Middle Ages deemed 'cruel' for arranging their daughters' marriages (though not their sons' for some reason):

Rachel's card featuring Thomas Boleyn (who has already featured on my blog as one of the indignant people maligned in histfict): 

Lovely Ashmodiel's card about our beloved Piers Gaveston:

Don't Defame The Dead (1)

Well, would you like it? If not, why are you inventing such hateful, hurtful nonsense about Edward II in your badly-written melodramatic novels? Don't defame the dead.

This is one of the most disrespectful and unpleasant things that you can write about anyone. Don't defame the dead.

I am bored beyond tears with all the nasty snidey bigoted remarks about Edward II's sexuality. Deal with it. Don't defame the dead.

Do you have any actual evidence that Hugh Despenser raped or sexually assaulted Queen Isabella? No. Don't defame the dead.

Edward II was popular in Wales and didn't order any Jewish people murdered, as a 2006 novel says he did. Don't defame the dead.

Roger Mortimer and to a lesser extent Henry of Lancaster are SO useful to Isabella fans in this respect. Don't defame the dead.

Is it so hard to believe that Piers Gaveston was more than some idiotically one-dimensional cardboard cut-out 'favourite'? Don't defame the dead.  Isabella of France was a complex human being who was neither a devil nor a saint. Don't defame the dead.

Don't defame the dead.  It's easy to do.  You just remember that they were human beings as much as you are and remember that telling lies about them says far more about you than it does about them.

Some friends of mine joined in my Don't Defame The Dead campaign on Facebook; their posts are coming here soon.  If you fancy having a go yourself, here's the site to make the cards!

Interview And Links

Many thanks to the wonderful historical novelist Sharon Penman for re-posting my 'Commandments for Writing about History' on her own blog!  I'm delighted!  After she, Michael Jecks and a few of my friends linked to the post on Facebook and Twitter, I got literally thousands of blog visitors within a couple of days.  Thanks, everyone!

My lovely talented awesome friend Paula Lofting has an interview with me today on her blog Paula's Perusings.  Thanks so much for inviting me and asking great questions about Edward II, Paula!  Her other blogs are Sons of the Wolf, about her fab forthcoming novel set in England in the eleventh century, and Threads to the Past, about the Bayeux Tapestry.   Hope you enjoy the interview!

I'd also like to draw your attention to some other blogs by friends of mine (please read them! :), in no particular order:

Piers Gaveston, by Anerje, who often comments here - mostly about everyone's favourite fourteenth-century Gascon knight and earl, with posts about other periods of history too.

A Nevill Feast - a detailed look at the family which played such an important role in the Wars of the Roses.

Historical novelist Susan Higginbotham - many fascinating posts about the fourteenth century, the Wars of the Roses and the Tudors.

Hannah's Thomas Cromwell Experience and Henry Tudor Experience, about Henry VII.

A Bit of Henry Love, about Henry VIII.  The latest post is an excellent rant about non-fiction history books.

Sam's Loyalty Binds Me, featuring all aspects of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century history.

Sarah's Remembering the Executed, with posts about all manner of people executed in the past, and her Sarah's History Blog, with book reviews, photos and discussions about history.  Her latest post in Remembering the Executed features Edward II's half-brother Edmund of Woodstock, earl of Kent.

Christy's blogs Rooting for Ancestors, about genealogy, and Mary Barrett Dyer, focusing on seventeenth-century cultural history in England and New England.

Fem's It Happened To Her, with posts about female oppression in history.

Lorri's exciting new blog about nineteenth-century Australia.