Edward II Novel of the Week (kind of) (4): 'Infamous' by Virginia Henley

Thanks once again to Susan Higginbotham for sending me a copy of this. (My Edward II library would be smaller without her kindness.) Although I've decided to review it, Infamous is not really an Edward II novel; although he appears a few times, he only gets one line of dialogue, the eloquent and moving "I am now Edward the Second, King of England!" Infamous is the story of Marjory ( known as Jory) de Warenne, the (fictional) niece of the Earl of Surrey, and her relationship with Guy de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick - a real person and abductor of Piers Gaveston. Edward II's sister Joan(na) of Acre is a major character and friend of Jory, and most of the other characters are real people.

Poor Edward II gets a pretty rough deal here. Later in the novel, he is a "poor excuse of a king". He "weeps like a girl", is an "elegantly garbed lout" and gets drunk and has a snowball fight on the day of his mother's death. Jory thinks disapprovingly "What an unseemly display when his mother has just died. Edward is no longer a child!" Well, yes, he was; he was six years old when his mother Eleanor of Castile died in 1290. Much later, Joan of Acre says that her brother will make a "piss-poor king" and, while discussing fighting and warriors, that he "hates martial arts". I can't get rid of a mental image of Edward reluctantly karate-chopping Roger Mortimer.

Historical inaccuracies

- the novel begins in 1290, at the time of Joan's marriage to Gilbert de Clare. It ends in 1308. Clearly, eighteen years have not passed in the narrative.
- Joan was twelve years older than her brother Edward II, not four.
- Roger Mortimer gets married in 1291, when he was actually four years old. (At least Henley gets his wife, Joan de Geneville, right.)
- Joan has only one child, a daughter named 'Margaret Eleanor'. Historically, she had four children by de Clare and four by her second husband Ralph de Monthermer. As it adds nothing to the plot and 'Margaret Eleanor' plays no role (though she does get the best line in the novel, the classic "My doggie pissed on the carpet") I don't see the point of changing this.
- Joan isn't sure if de Clare is the father of the mysterious 'Margaret Eleanor', as she slept with another man on the eve of her wedding. Historically, her first child Gilbert was born a little over a year after her wedding.
- Joan worries that her father Edward I will "set aside" her secret second marriage to Ralph. Apparently, she thought that he'd been elected Pope....the only man who had the authority to do this.
- Edward I was married to Eleanor of Castile for thirty-six years, not "almost fifty".
- The Earl of Warwick was eighteen in 1290, not thirty-four. His previous two wives are dead in the novel - in fact, he was divorced from his first wife Isabel de Clare and she outlived him, as did his second wife Alice de Toeni. Still, I'm not complaining about this too much, as he obviously needs to be single for the purposes of the novel.
- Warwick says that his son 'Rickard' (not Richard) is the same age as the future Edward II. In fact, Warwick's son was named Thomas, and he was born in 1313/4, thirty years later than Edward II.
- At the end of the novel, it's clear that Rickard and Roger Mortimer's 'sister' Catherine are falling in love. Warwick's son Thomas did marry Catherine Mortimer, but she was Roger's daughter, not his sister.
- the name 'Plantagenet' is used, more than two hundred years too early.
- the King is called 'Your Majesty', which wasn't used until the time of the Tudors. In the Middle Ages, kings were called 'Your Grace'. Likewise, it's anachronistic to refer to the King's daughter as 'Princess' - they were known as 'Lady'.
- Warwick is described as a Frenchman. In fact, he was no more French than any other of the English nobility of the time.
- Jory asks Warwick to teach her French, which would have been her first language.
- Roger Mortimer and others are furious that Edward II gives Roger's wardship to Piers Gaveston, 'proving' how 'unnatural' his affection for the other man is and that he will do anything to please his favourite. It was Edward I who gave Mortimer's wardship to Gaveston, in 1304.
- Edward II and Robert Bruce are the same age here; Bruce was ten years older (born 1274)
- Edward is present when Edward I dies near the Scottish border. In fact, he was in the South.
- Hugh Despenser the Elder is already Earl of Winchester in 1307, fifteen years too early.
- Lancaster is Edward II's uncle - he was his cousin.

Other irritations:

- I find the premise of the novel rather silly - Jory's uncle and brother refuse to marry her to the Earl of Warwick because he was sixteen years older. That strikes me as highly unlikely in the fourteenth century, as does the notion that they would turn down such a splendid match for Jory.
- Jory goes around everywhere with her hair uncovered, all the better to make men lust after her, which is improbable in the extreme for a married woman around 1300.
- Warwick constantly calls Jory chéri. That's the male version; the female version is chérie.
- Warwick hits the young Edward, on the day of his ill-advised and callous snowball fight. I doubt he could have got away with doing such a thing!
- It's Jory who has the brilliant idea that Bruce should marry the Earl of Ulster's daughter Elizabeth, who lives in his own household, to ally himself with the Earl. Because, you know, he'd never have thought of that himself.
- Joan says that she herself would make a much better king than her brother, but "Edward would make a far better queen!" Ooh, hilarious!


The novel contains a lot of amusingly bad "As you know, Bob" dialogue [that is, when one character tells another something s/he already knows, in order to inform the reader]. Some examples:

- "Your uncle, John de Warenne, and your brother, Lynx, will soon be arranging your marriage."
- "Your shining silver-gilt hair and pale green eyes make a perfect foil for the sultry dark colouring I inherited from my mother's Castilian ancestors."
- "You had an opportunity last year when we travelled to the Bruce estates in Essex for the ceremony where Bruce passed the Earldom of Carrick to his eldest son."
- "That happened the year after your brother wed Sylvia Bigod, the queen's lady-in-waiting."
- "Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, is England's premier noble."

And that's just from the first scene of the novel!!

Some of the names are just ludicrous. For example, Jory's father is called Lincoln, her brother is Lynx, and her daughter is named Brianna. Lynx's son is Lincoln Robert. Puh-leeze! Looking at Virginia Henley's website, she does this a lot; three of her other heroines are called Jasmine, Sabre and Summer. *Sniggers*

A lot of the language seems far too modern and/or colloquial, and often rather American. On the first page, Joanna of Acre talks about 'going all the way'. Jory is 'conflicted' several times, ponders 'sexual compatibility' and 'sexual energy', and wonders if her husband is 'sexually inadequate'. Also, some of the euphemisms are very silly. "He gloved himself in her honeyed sheath"??! *Sniggers uncontrollably*. The unfortunate phrase 'honeyed sheath' crops up a few times, in fact, as does 'her woman's center' (in the American spelling).

Near the end of the novel, I was jolted right out of the story by the references to Edward II and Piers Gaveston as 'cocksuckers'. Piers is also called a 'Gascon bum-fucker'. Nasty. I suppose you could argue that Henley is describing contemporary attitudes, but there are numerous other ways they could be expressed without using such crudely offensive language. It really doesn't belong in a romance novel, in my opinion (or any other kind of novel, come to think of it) . Warwick's son 'Rickard' is sexually assaulted (off-stage) by Piers Gaveston, and Roger Mortimer leaves court to avoid the same fate. Men who love men just have to try to seduce every young man in sight, apparently.


Virginia Henley is a hugely popular and successful romance author, and I suppose I can see why. Jory is a lot less irritating than other romance heroines I've read, and Warwick is pretty damn sexy- though he's waaaay sexier earlier in the novel, when he's rather sinister, than later on, when he evolves into a kind of modern New Man. He unhesitatingly agrees to marry Jory although she is pregnant by another man, and even helps to deliver the baby (and manages to keep a straight face when Jory names her Brianna).

However, I think that if Henley chooses to write about real people, she should make more effort to get the - incredibly basic - details correct. Her next novel, provisionally entitled Scandalous or Notorious, due for publication next summer, deals with Queen Isabella and Roger Mortimer, with the delightfully-named Brianna as the heroine. I dread to think what Henley will do with Edward in this one.

In conclusion, this is reasonably enjoyable as a romance. But it bears little resemblance to the real fourteenth century.

Almost the Anniversary of Piers Gaveston's Death

Piers was executed/murdered on 19 June 1312. Guy Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, seized him from the custody of the earl of Pembroke and imprisoned him in Warwick Castle for a few days. The earls of Lancaster, Hereford and Arundel arrived at the castle and sentenced him to death. He was led a couple of miles away to Blacklow Hill, which was on the earl of Lancaster's lands, and beheaded. This was a great favour, a nobleman's death, granted to him because he was the brother-in-law of the earl of Gloucester. His body was taken to Oxford, where the friars couldn't bury him as he had died excommunicate. Eventually, the Pope lifted the excommunication, but Edward II still refused to bury the embalmed body of his beloved favourite until January 1315.

In memoriam: Piers Gaveston, c. 1283 - 19 June 1312.

Two New Adaptations of Marlowe's 'Edward II'

Spotted on Lulu, a modern reworking of Christopher Marlowe's c. 1592 play Edward II, by Tal Lostracco. It "boldly portrays the sexual and political subtexts" of the play, and it has a pair of hotties on the front cover. What more could you want?? I'm definitely going to order this.

I'm rather ashamed to admit that I still haven't read Marlowe's play from beginning to end. I'm going to have to rectify that very soon, as I'm lucky enough to have tickets for a new production, on 30 July. It's directed by Malachi Bogdanov, performed by the Wales Theatre Company, in the German city of Neuss (on the other side of the Rhine from where I live) at the city's annual Shakespeare Festival. Here's a description of the production:

Edward II tells the tragic tale of a king who chooses to openly live his homoerotic passion for Gaveston, a Frenchman and alien element at the English court, setting his passion for this young man above the well-being of both his kingdom and his family. His queen, wounded and humiliated, falls under the control of the ambitious Mortimer, who, knowing he has both church and parliament behind him, hunts the king down like a wounded animal, his end a truly horrific one. Malachi Bogdanov directs the cast of the renowned Wales Theatre Company in this explosive mix of sex, crime and politics.

Sounds wonderful, doesn't it? I can hardly wait.

Edward III's Answer, and other stuff

Edward III has responded to Roger Mortimer....;)

Also, this post and this one are well worth a read.

Roger Mortimer Speaks

Somewhat belatedly, here's Roger Mortimer's take on the 'Me Too' meme. And to redress the balance of posting a photo of sexy Andy Gillet as Hugh Despenser in Les Rois Maudits, here's a photo of the less pretty but very hunky Bruno Todeschini, who played Roger in the same series. (Which Blogger won't let me post here, for some reason.)

I am: the de facto king of England. The earl of March. The man who saved England from that pathetic king and his catamite.
I want: to go and look at Despenser's head on London Bridge again. Just one more time - this week....
I wish: Despenser's death could have been drawn out a little longer.
I hate: Henry, the earl of Lancaster. Now, if I could only devise some way of getting rid of him...
I miss: my uncle Roger Mortimer of Chirk. That bastard Despenser had him killed in the Tower. Still, at least I got the opportunity to disinherit his son and grandson, and take over his lands myself.
I fear: that the young king will find out what really happened to his father...
I hear: rumours that Lancaster, Kent and Norfolk are planning a rebellion against me. Ha!
I wonder: if that fool Kent will dare to try to rescue his brother, the pathetic ex-king?
I regret: that peace treaty with Scotland. Now everyone will think I'm militarily incompetent.
I am not: going to take any criticism. Whatsoever.
I dance: at my daughters' weddings. I'm marrying them off to all the important earls and peers of the realm, you know. Two of them are getting married today - now, which ones is it again? Catherine? No, she got married last month. Beatrice? Blanche? I'm almost sure Agnes is one of them. Joan! Who's getting married today?
I sing: lovely duets with Queen Isabella, my mistress.
I cry: with laughter every time I think of the younger Despenser dancing on the gallows. And the elder one, come to think of it.
I am not always: going to be merely earl of March.
I made: love with the queen of England all over Paris.
I confuse: my eight daughters. See above.
I need: more lands. What do you mean, I'm worse than the Despensers?
I should: really not stand every time that boy comes into the room. Yes, I know he's the king of England, but he's only fifteen! And ask yourself, who's the real king of England round here?
I start: to imagine the crown of England on my head.
I finish: as king of England? Maybe...who knows? The lives of fifteen-year-olds can be very precarious...

Comments on some historical novels

I've been lucky enough to get two new Edward II novels lately, thanks to Susan Higginbotham who kindly sent me photocopies of them. One is The Queen and Mortimer by Brenda Honeyman, which I enjoyed very much and will write about in the near future. The other was The Lord of Misrule by Eve Trevaskis, which both Susan and Sarah Johnson have reviewed recently. It's a refreshingly different look at Piers Gaveston, extremely difficult to find these days and thus hugely expensive. There's one copy available on Amazon UK for 399.81 pounds, and one on Amazon US for 1,009.61 dollars. What a bargain!!

Another novel I picked up lately - and wish I hadn't - is The Wounded Hawk by Sara Douglass. It's a fantasy novel, which is not my genre, but it's set in 14th century England - or a version of it. Richard II and Henry of Bolingbroke - both great-grandsons of Edward II and Isabella - are major characters, although the timeline is historically 'incorrect'. Richard II is murdered in 1380, as an adult - in reality, he was born in 1367 and murdered in 1400 - his friend Robert de Vere is married to 'Philippa Percy' not Philippa de Coucy, the king of France is 'John' and Joan of Arc is active, about half a century before she really was. There are many other differences, which presumably Douglass changed for a reason. Unfortunately, I didn't read enough of the novel to learn why.

I suppose I can't quibble about historical inaccuracies in a novel where Bolingbroke is a shapeshifter, but there was a lot about Wounded Hawk that really disturbed me. There's a particularly nasty scene where Richard and de Vere rape a woman almost to the point of insanity. This vile act is described over a number of pages. De Vere later murders a young prostitute, which is also very graphically described. The violence in the novel is really quite horrific, but perhaps the worst part is the murder of Richard II himself, which is achieved by the 'red-hot poker' method - traditionally associated with his great-grandfather Edward II. [I'm going to write a post on Edward II's 'death' soon....I've just been too lazy to do it yet].

The murder is described in the most excruciating detail, with organs bursting and rupturing and sizzling all over the place, and Richard's suffering lovingly dwelt on. It is absolutely vile - makes me want to throw up just thinking about it. There was a thread on another blog – Carla’s, I think – where we discussed things that would put you off reading any more of an author’s works. That was it for me. No more Sara Douglass, Ever.

Anyway, the main point of this post was to talk about a new novel of Queen Isabella which is due out in November 2006. It's entitled Queen of Shadows: a Novel of Isabella, Wife of Edward II, and the author is a well-known romance writer called Edith Layton. This is her first novel under her real name of Edith Felber. Here's the blurb:

In fourteenth century England, beautiful Queen Isabella – humiliated by her weak, unfaithful husband – is emerging from the shadows to take her revenge. But her newly-arrived, twenty-one-year old Welsh handmaiden, Gwenith de Percy, also seeks vengeance – against the English invaders who crushed her beloved Wales. Isabella’s once-golden marriage is now her penance. Due to his rumoured relations with men, Parliament forced Edward to share his throne – a demeaning arrangement that torments Isabella. With the help of her secret, noble lover, Roger Mortimer – an enemy of her husband, imprisoned in the Tower – the queen plots to take control. Thrilled by this turn of events, Gwenith realises that a king cannot afford to be weak – especially when his formidable, discontented queen seeks his power as her due.

Unfortunately, this sounds as though it's going to be the usual 'same old same old' story of a weak, feeble Edward, but I’m trying not to have too many preconceptions. A novel of Edward and Isabella is always welcome, though I'd love to see one where they're both sympathetic characters. It's difficult to be sure if this blurb is an accurate depiction of the novel, or merely a bad attempt at conveying the events. Some book blurbs are really awful, such as this one from Alison Weir's biography of Isabella: Had it not been for her unfaithfulness, history may have immortalised her as a liberator - the saviour who unshackled England from a weak and vicious monarch and helped put a strong king - her Lover Mortimer - on the throne.
This sounds as though Roger Mortimer became the king of England, which of course he didn't (though he acted like it sometimes!). And why the heck is 'lover' spelt with a capital L?

It’s difficult to know what to make of Queen of Shadows from this. The details chosen are odd – when the blurb writer presumably had only a limited number of words to play with, why choose the detail that the fictitious Gwenith is twenty-one? The idea that Parliament forced Edward to share his throne is odd – I presume that means the earl of Lancaster, but that’s very inaccurate. And it had little to do with Edward’s ‘rumoured relations with men’.

Is Isabella the main character, or this fictitious Gwenith? How does the Welsh lovely get her revenge on the nasty old English? Is this Braveheart set in Wales? Only time will tell. There was another discussion in blogland a while ago, where some of us discussed how much we dislike it when a main character is fictitious, but interacts with real people.

Anyway, roll on November, so I can find out! And roll on 20 July, when this book is finally published. I'm particularly looking forward to numbers 2, 3 and 11!

Congratulations to Eleanor de Clare and Hugh le Despenser...

...who married exactly 700 years ago, on 26 May 1306. Minstrels were paid by King Edward I to play at the wedding at Westminster, as seen here:

£37.4.0d to Richard de Whiteacre, Richard de Leyland, harpers, and various other minstrels making their minstrelsy before the king and other nobles on the 25 May, on which day Joan, daughter of the Count of Baar, was married to Earl Warrenne, and on the 26 May, on which day Eleanor, daughter of the Earl of Gloucester, was married to the younger lord Hugo le Despenser in the king’s Chapel at Westminster: London, May.

The reference comes from '34 Ed I: E101.369.11. Keeper’s Book', which can be seen on page 40, here.

The marriage was arranged by Edward I, Eleanor's grandfather, and not her uncle Edward II, as many people think even today. Eleanor's sisters Margaret and Elizabeth were later married to three of Edward's other favourites - Piers Gaveston and Hugh Audley for Margaret, and Roger Damory for Elizabeth, so I suppose it seems logical to assume that Edward II aranged this marriage too. However, I'm sick of reading novels where Hugh and Eleanor don't marry until about 1321, thanks to Edward's infatuation with Hugh and his desire to make him rich and powerful. In fact, Edward seems to have disliked Hugh until at least 1318 and to have been keen to keep the lands Eleanor inherited from her brother out of Hugh's hands for as long as possible.

Marriage to the king's eldest granddaughter was a splendid match for Hugh. Although his maternal grandparents William and Maud Beauchamp were earl and countess of Warwick, and his paternal grandmother Aline Basset was countess of Norfolk, in 1306 Hugh was nothing more than a landless knight, albeit a very well-connected one. The king owed his father 2000 marks (1333 pounds) and the marriage was arranged in lieu of the debt.

Eleanor's mother Joan of Acre was presumably present at the wedding - she had another eleven months to live. I don't know if Hugh's mother Isabel Beauchamp was there - she died just four days later. The future Edward II was probably there too, with his friend Piers Gaveston - later evidence shows that Edward was very fond of his eldest niece, who was only eight and a half years younger than he was. Even when her husband was nothing more than an obscure nobleman who played little role in the first few years of Edward's reign, Eleanor was a favourite at court. Edward II paid many of her expenses early on in his reign, even when she was out of court - a privilege not extended to her two sisters.

Eleanor was thirteen and a half at the time of the wedding (born October 1292) - a perfectly normal age for a girl of her rank to marry then. Hugh's date of birth is unknown, but he was several years older, most likely seventeen, eighteen or nineteen.

The twenty years of their marriage seem to have been reasonably successful; they must have spent a good bit of time together, as they had many children:

Hugh, Lord Despenser, born 1308/09 when Eleanor was fifteen or sixteen. He was besieged at Caerphilly Castle during Isabella and Mortimer's rebellion in 1326, when he was seventeen or eighteen. The Calendar of Patent Rolls records this on February 17, 1327: 'Pardon to all who were in Kaerfilly Castle when it was held against Queen Isabella, except Hugh son of Hugh le Despenser the younger', but the garrison remained loyal to him, and he was pardoned on March 20, though all the lands he had inherited were forfeit to the Crown. He was imprisoned till July 1331, when Edward III released him. After this, he worked hard at restoring his family name and fought bravely in the early years of the Hundred Years War, gaining Edward III's favour. Before April 1341 he married Elizabeth Montacute, daughter of the earl of Salisbury. He died February 1349 at the age of about forty, childless. Hugh and Elizabeth's effigy at Tewkesbury Abbey still exists, and can be seen here and here.

Edward, born before November 1315 when his father bought a reversion of land from John and Idonea Cromwell for him. He duly inherited the land in 1334, and married his second cousin Anne Ferrers in 1335. They had four sons; the eldest, Edward, succeeded his uncle Hugh as Lord Despenser, and the youngest, Henry, born 1341/2, became Bishop of Norwich in 1370. Edward was killed at the Battle of Morlaix in 1342, in his late twenties.

Gilbert, named after Eleanor’s father and brother, born before July 1321 when Edward II granted him (through his mother) lands forfeited by John Mowbray. He married and had a son called John, who pre-deceased him (1361-1375). He died in 1381.

John, date of birth unknown, but probably in the 1320s. A very obscure son about whom little is known. He is mentioned in a document of 1351, and was murdered in London in June 1366. The murderers were afterwards hanged by a group of Londoners.

An unnamed son, born and died 1321. He is mentioned in Edward II's Wardrobe account for that year: 'for the son of Hugh le Despenser junior, one piece of gold and silk tissue'. The context makes clear that the cloth was intended to be laid over a dead body. Probably, the boy died before he could be baptised.

Isabel(la), presumably named after Hugh’s mother Isabel Beauchamp, and born in 1312. She married the earl of Arundel’s son Richard in February 1321, when she was eight and he was seven. They had one son, Edmund, born about 1328, when they were both teenagers. Richard was restored to his executed father’s earldom in late 1330. They divorced in 1344 and Edmund was bastardised, though he later married Sibyl Montacute (another daughter of the earl of Salisbury) and had three daughters. Isabella’s date of death is unknown, but she was still alive in 1356, when she was involved in a court case.

Joan, named after Eleanor’s mother. Probably the second daughter, born about 1316. Betrothed in 1323 to John FitzThomas, son of the earl of Kildare, who died a couple of years later. She became a nun at Shaftesbury a few weeks after her father’s execution in late 1326. Unlike her sisters, the order for her veiling is missing, so it *may* have been voluntary. She died in 1384, probably in her late sixties.

Eleanor, probably the third daughter and born about 1318/20. She was betrothed in 1325 to Laurence Hastings, the future earl of Pembroke, but was forcibly veiled by Queen Isabella in early 1327. (Laurence later married Roger Mortimer’s daughter Agnes.) Eleanor lived at Sempringham Priory until her death, sometime after 1351.

Margaret, named after her aunts Margaret de Clare and Margaret Despenser, the fourth daughter, born sometime between 1319 and 1325. The Calendar of Close Rolls records that a man named Thomas de Houk 'by the late king's [Edward II] orders, kept Margaret, daughter of Hugh le Despenser, the younger, in his house with a nurse and a great household for more than three years at his cost'. She was forcibly veiled by Isabella in early 1327, and died in Watton Priory in 1337.

Elizabeth, named after her mother’s sister, the youngest daughter. She may have been the child born in December 1325 when Eleanor de Clare is known to have given birth, or she may have been Hugh’s posthumous child, born in late 1326 or 1327. She married Maurice Berkeley in 1338; born in 1330, he was the grandson of Roger Mortimer and the eldest son of Thomas Berkeley, Edward II’s jailer. (Oh, to be a fly on the wall at Berkeley family mealtimes.) They had 4 sons and 3 daughters before Maurice died in 1368 of old wounds received at the Battle of Poitiers in 1356. Elizabeth married again to Sir Maurice Wyth, outlived him too, and died in July 1389.

Clearly, a few of their children were conceived after Hugh became the 'favourite' of Eleanor's uncle in the period 1318-1320, a position he held till his execution in 1326.

The Feast of the Swan, 22 May 1306

700 years ago today, one of the great events of the Middle Ages took place in Westminster Abbey: the knighting of 267 men, the largest mass knighting in medieval England, described by one contemporary chronicler as the 'most splendid event since King Arthur was crowned at Caerleon'.

Foremost among the new knights was the man who would become King Edward II just over a year later, but at the time was 'merely' Edward of Caernarvon, Prince of Wales, Duke of Aquitaine, Earl of Chester and Count of Ponthieu. Now a month past his 22nd birthday, it was high time that he was knighted, and his father Edward I - who was almost 67 but had just become a father again, for about the 19th time - sent out a writ that "all who are not knights but wish to be" should come to London to be knighted.

267 men were accepted, and accordingly arrived in London with their retinues. The logistics of housing all these men were difficult, and required a great deal of preparation: wheat, oats, sheep, oxen and swine were purveyed in five counties, many new utensils were bought for the king's kitchen, and fifty carpenters were hired to build temporary structures at Westminster and elsewhere. Most of the men were housed at the church of the Knights Templar, the 'New Temple', where walls were levelled and fruit trees cut down to make space for all the tents and pavilions which were required, some as robing-rooms.

As was customary in knighting ceremonies, the men spent the night before the ceremony in vigil, in church - most of them at the New Temple, but a few in the Abbey church with Prince Edward. The vigil was supposed to be spent in silent prayer and meditation, but in the Temple there was a great deal of talking, shouting and trumpet calls. Tsk, young men, eh?

The following morning, Whitsunday, 22 May 1306, Prince Edward was knighted by his father in a private ceremony in the chapel of Westminster Palace. The king touched his sword to his son's shoulders, girded him with the belt and sword of knighthood, and the earls of Lincoln and Hereford - the latter Prince Edward's brother-in-law - fastened on his golden spurs. The royal party then made their way into Westminster Abbey.

In the meantime, all the other knights-to-be had processed through a huge, excited crowd from New Temple to the Abbey. More noise and chaos reigned, to the extent that great war-horses were brought in to clear a path and restore order. Finally, in front of the high altar, the men were called forward in pairs, made their vows of knighthood, and Prince Edward touched the sword to their shoulders and fastened on the belt, sword and spurs.

The banquet held afterwards in the Great Hall of Westminster Palace was equally splendid. 80 minstrels had been hired for the occasion, which cost Edward I £130, a huge sum (more than three times the minimum annual income for knighthood). The highlight of the feast came when some musicians brought in a huge platter bearing two swans (I'm not sure if they were real or not) and those present took vows on the swans. The king's was to avenge the injuries done by Robert Bruce, after which he would never take up his sword again except in the cause of the Holy Land. The Prince of Wales' vow was to never sleep in the same place twice till he reached Scotland, in his attempt to help his father keep his vow.

Many of the men who would play a vital role in Edward II's reign were present on that day, though apparently Piers Gaveston was knighted a few days later, not during this great ceremony.

Roger Mortimer of Wigmore was there, just turned 19 but already long married and a father, probably several times over.
His uncle Roger Mortimer of Chirk, about 50 but never knighted. He was imprisoned with his nephew in the Tower in 1322, and died there.
Hugh le Despenser the Younger, aged between 16 and 19 and due to marry the king's eldest granddaughter, 13-year-old Eleanor de Clare, 4 days later. Late May 1306 was a big month for Hugh: knighted on the 22nd, married on the 26th, and his mother Isabel Beauchamp died on the 30th.
As far as I know, Roger Damory, Edward II's favourite between 1315 and 1318 (he was described as a knight in a document of 1306)
John de Warenne, earl of Surrey, aged almost 20. Surrey would marry another granddaughter of the king, Joan of Bar, 3 days later.
Edmund Fitzalan, earl of Arundel, aged just 21. One of Gaveston's killers, but executed by Mortimer and Isabella in 1326.
John Maltravers, later notorious as one of Edward II's jailers at Berkeley Castle.
Bartholomew Badlesmere, who was Steward of Edward's household between 1318 and 1321, turned against him, and was hideously executed in 1322.
John Mowbray, one of the many of Edward's enemies (or rather, Hugh le Despenser's enemies) executed in 1322.
And well over 200 others! :)

Edward II Novel of the Week (3): 'The Cup of Ghosts' by Paul Doherty

(Published in paperback 2006)

This is the first in a new series of murder mysteries, featuring Mathilde of Westminster, the finest physician in London during the reign of Edward II. Mathilde, escaping the carnage of Philip IV's persecution of the Templars, joins the retinue of Philip's daughter Isabella shortly before Isabella's wedding to Edward II in January 1308. The negotiations over the wedding form an important part of the novel; Mathilde investigates the murder of several of the English envoys. This is fiction, but the novel is firmly based on historical fact.

The novel is narrated by Mathilde, in the first person. It moves much more slowly than other novels I've read by Doherty, and some readers might get impatient, especially as it seems that everything worn or eaten by Isabella and the French court is described in great detail. However, Doherty is skilled at conveying atmosphere, of the dangerous streets of Paris, the corruption of the French court, the menace that surrounds the main characters.

The novel opens with a prologue, where Mathilde, in extreme old age, looks back over her eventful life as friend and confidante of Queen Isabella. I'm afraid the prologue almost made me put the book down, thanks mainly to two lines. One, where Edward is described as "great of body and small of brain". Also, Isabella "tore her husband from his throne. She locked him in Berkeley Castle, sealing him up like some rabid animal".
Doherty, in the prologue, repeats the usual myth that Mortimer was buried at Greyfriars in London and that Isabella asked to be buried there so she could lie next to him: "Bury me...next to Mortimer, like a bride beside her lover". This is simply not true. Mortimer was either buried at Greyfriars in Shrewsbury (according to the Wigmore Chronicle) or, more likely, at the Franciscans in Coventry. They were licensed on 7 November 1331 to deliver the body to Wigmore for burial, after a petition by Joan de Geneville, Mortimer's widow.

When reading the Prologue, I thought the novel would be more of the same old stuff about Edward II, but in fact the Prologue is very different in tone from the rest of the novel, and hardly seems to belong - in the novel proper, both Isabella and Edward are sympathetic and vividly drawn characters. Edward - who only appears on page 199 - is energetic, clever and devious, handsome and strong, about as far from the feeble creature of the Druon novel as you can get. Isabella is a knowing young woman, also cunning and clever, who has been forced to grow up fast at a corrupt and vicious court. She is superb at playing a role, at mimicry, at hiding her true feelings. She is extremely loyal to those whom she loves and has a sense of humour. Piers Gaveston, though only a minor character, is also sympathetic: he is a 'truly beautiful man' who treats Isabella with great respect.

Edward and Isabella get on very well, despite her extreme youth (she's thirteen). This is such a refreshing take on the whole thing that I almost wept with gratitude (yes, I'm a sad tragic person, I know). There's a lovely scene between the couple, where Edward tells her "let me assure you, on my solemn oath, that you are my princess and wife, the only woman in my life, never to be supplanted." Isabella blushes with pleasure. Edward goes on to ask her if she accepts Piers Gaveston, and she says she does. He asks her to pretend to be Gaveston's enemy in public, then explains the game he and Piers are playing: they are deliberately antagonising Philip IV and the French court in order to force Edward's opposition among the English nobility into the open.
He tells her that he will not publicly give her lands, estates and income as is her right, but that in private he will ensure she lacks for nothing. Isabella willingly goes along with the plan, and it is her own idea to let Piers wear her jewellery, to increase her father's anger. Edward and Gaveston deiberately ignore the queen, "though both men sent her secret messages and tokens of their love on an almost daily basis."
This is a really interesting idea, as Edward's behaviour early on in his marriage - insulting Isabella and by extension her family, and openly favouring Gaveston - was pretty bizarre. I'm delighted that Doherty made Edward such a sympathetic, appealing character.

I have some problems with Doherty's Author's Note at the end of the novel. He states that Isabella had a very unhappy relationship with her father and her brothers, never attended any of their funerals, and did terrible damage to her own family.
I can't think what he means here. It's possible that Isabella broke the scandal of the adultery of her sisters-in-law in 1314, but that's hardly terrible damage, as she may have thought she was acting for the best, and it was the adultery itself that did the damage, not her revelation of it.

As for her failure to attend her brothers' funerals: although I haven't checked exactly when their funerals took place, Louis X died in June 1316 when Isabella was pregnant with her son John of Eltham. Philip V died in January 1322, during Edward II's campaign against the Marchers and the earl of Lancaster, which Isabella was involved in. Charles IV died in February 1328, when she and Mortimer were acting as regents and perhaps didn't dare leave the country. As for her father Philip IV - perhaps she didn't go because she'd visited France once that year, 1314, and a Channel crossing was not to be undertaken lightly - it could take days. I really can't see that she was on bad terms with her family and tried to hurt them. There seem to be pretty good reasons why she didn't return to France for their funerals.

Again in the Author's Note: "She was one of the few monarchs before 1603 who realised that any war against Scotland was destructive for both countries and of profit to no one."
I've stated before that I think it's far more likely that Isabella and Mortimer didn't have enough money for a full-length Scottish campaign and made peace for purely pragmatic reasons. It's only from our modern viewpoint that deciding not to fight a long, pointless, unwinnable war seems like a good idea - their negotiation of peace with Robert Bruce lost them a lot of sympathy and was called the 'Shameful Peace'. And how does Doherty know that it was Isabella's realisation that war with Scotland was pointless, and not Roger Mortimer's?

I've reviewed this as an Edward II novel, not as a murder mystery, which is not my favourite genre. However, I would recommend this novel to anyone interested in the early days of Edward and Isabella's marriage, long before it went so tragically wrong, and for anyone who'd like to see a depiction of Edward that's a million miles from the feeble, feckless sybarite he usually is in fiction. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing both Isabella and Edward portrayed as strong, sympathetic characters, and look forward to reading more of the series. Bravo Paul Doherty.

Edward II's brothers and sisters (2)

Second and final part of my post on Edward II's numerous siblings! :) The first part is here.


Margaret (March 1275 - c. 1333)

Nine years older than her brother, Margaret was married to John II, Duke of Brabant, at Westminster Abbey in the summer of 1290. She was fifteen, and John a few months younger, born in September 1275. John lived in the same household as Margaret's cousins Thomas and Henry of Lancaster - sons of Edward I's brother Edmund - at least in the years 1292-93. A roll of John's expenses still exists for this year, full of items about horses, falcons, minstrels and games.
Margaret and John lived in England until 1297, when they were 22. Only one child was born of the marriage: Duke John III, born 1300, who married Marie of Evreux, niece of Philip IV of France. John II died in 1312. Margaret lived until about 1333, in her late fifties (it used to be said that she died in 1318, but this seems to be incorrect). Although she attended her brother Edward II's wedding to Isabella in Boulogne in January 1308, she doesn't seem to have ever visited England again. She's the most obscure of Edward's sisters, and I'm afraid I don't know anything else about her!

Mary (March 1279 - May 1332)

Five years older than Edward II. Mary was veiled as a nun at Amesbury at the very young age of six in 1285. Amesbury was extremely fashionable for royal women at this time, thanks to Mary's grandmother Eleanor of Provence, widow of Henry III, who took the veil there and apparently wished Mary to accompany her. Unfortunately for Mary, she had no vocation whatsoever, and seems to have spent almost as much time travelling and at her brother's court as she did at the priory.

Edward II's Wardrobe accounts are full of presents that he had sent to Mary, indicating perhaps that they had a close relationship. For example, "To the Lady Maria the king's sister, and nun at Amesbury, of the king's gift, being the price of fifteen pieces of tapestry, with divers coats of arms.....given to the Lady Mary on her departure from the court home, 26l 13s 4d."

Edward also paid Mary's many gambling debts. At Amesbury, she had her own pantry and many servants, slept in an enormous bed with satin hangings, and often went hunting with her own hunting dogs and horses! In the spring of 1317, Edward II paid the enormous expenses of Mary's pilgrimage to Canterbury in the company of her niece Elizabeth de Clare, newly married to Edward's favourite Roger Damory, and Isabel, daughter of Henry of Lancaster and niece of the earl of Lancaster and the younger Despenser. Isabel would later be Prioress of Amesbury, though her vocation was as about as strong as Mary's, and she also enjoyed hunting.

Mary was the only one of Edward's sisters still alive and in England at the time of his deposition in 1327. Her opinions are, sadly, urecorded. She died in 1332 at the age of fifty-three.

Elizabeth (August 1282 - May 1316)

Only twenty months older than her brother, and therefore no doubt the closest to him in their childhood. Elizabeth was married in February 1297, at the age of fourteen and a half, to John, Count of Holland, who was born in 1284 and who grew up at Edward I's court. I've seen a letter (online) from him to Edward I in 1298 or 1299, begging him to allow Elizabeth to leave England and live in Holland as her people were keen to see her, but I've been unable to find it again. I don't know if Elizabeth ever left England, as John died in 1299 at the age of fifteen.

Elizabeth - childless from her first marriage, understandably - was married again in November 1302 to Humphrey de Bohun, earl of Hereford, born 1276. They had six children who survived into adulthood:
1) Eleanor, countess of Ormond, born 1304
2) John, earl of Hereford, born 1306
3) Humphrey, earl of Hereford, born about 1309
4) Margaret, countess of Devon, born 1311
5) William, earl of Northampton, born about 1312
6) Edward, born about 1312 and died 1334 (William's twin)

They also had a son with the very unusual name of Eneas, who died unmarried sometime after 1322, and several other children. Elizabeth died in 1316 at the age of thirty-three, giving birth to her 10th or 11th child Isabel, who did not survive.

Earl Humphrey was one of the men who had Edward's beloved Piers Gaveston killed in 1312, and although he was reconciled to the king in 1313, this must have been a tense period in Elizabeth's life.
The most famous fact about her concerns her father, who must once have ripped her coronet off her head during an argument and thrown it into the fire - an entry in his Wardrobe account states that he had to pay to replace the stones!

As for the relationship between Edward II and his five older sisters, they seem mostly to have been very good. Joan, Elizabeth and Mary were all very supportive of him when his father cut off his income after a huge row between them in 1305. (Eleanor was dead by then and Margaret was in Brabant). Joan lent him her seal to order goods, and all three invited their brother to stay with them. Elizabeth pleaded with their stepmother Marguerite to intercede with her husband on Edward's behalf.

Then there were Edward I's three children by his second wife Marguerite of France, half-sister of Philip IV. I've covered Thomas of Brotherton (born 1300) and Edmund of Woodstock (born 1301) in my post on the earls, but it's a little-known fact that there was also a daughter of this marriage: Eleanor, born in May 1306, a month before Edward I's 67th birthday. The little girl died in Amesbury Priory in 1311.

These children of Edward I's old age led to some interesting relationships:
his eldest grandchild Gilbert de Clare, earl of Gloucester (born 1291) was fifteen years older than his aunt, little Eleanor.
His eldest great-grandchild Hugh le Despenser 'the Even Younger' (son of Eleanor de Clare and guess who) was born in 1308 or 1309. Only two or three years between the births of a child and a great-grandchild! :)