Marguerite Of France (2)

The second and final part (part one) of my post about Marguerite of France, second queen of Edward I and stepmother of Edward II. There is evidence to suggest that Marguerite was on close terms with Edward of Caernarfon - who was only about five years younger than she was - at least before his accession in 1307. In 1299, a few weeks after Marguerite's marriage to Edward I, her household was merged for a time with that of her fifteen-year-old stepson. Edward (of Caernarfon) sent her a gold ring set with a ruby as a New Year gift in January 1303, and in the regnal year of November 1302 to November 1303 gave her, and members of her household, jewels, rings, cups and belts to the value of a little over fifty pounds. Oh, and here are some nice details I forgot to mention in the first part: as her wedding gift in September 1299, Edward I gave his new wife jewels which had once belonged to her great-grandmother Blanche of Castile, queen of Louis VIII: a gold crown, a gold coronet and a gold belt, all adorned with precious stones. For New Year 1304, Edward I gave Marguerite a gold cup with foot and cover, and a gold pitcher; three years previously, she had given him a gold goblet with cover and "two silver platters called 'Lechefrithe'." [1]

Several hundred of Edward of Caernarfon's letters happen to survive for a few months in 1304/05, eight of them to Marguerite. [2] He usually addressed her as "my very dear lady and mother" (ma treschere dame e mere); references to Marguerite after Edward's accession to the throne almost invariably call her "the king's mother," though Edward also addressed his former wetnurse Alice Leygrave in the same terms and in 1305, rather poignantly given that he can barely have remembered Eleanor of Castile, called his much older kinswoman Agnes de Valence "our good mother" (nostre bone mere) and called himself her son. (Bless him.) It was in the summer of 1305 that Queen Marguerite really came into her own, acting as a liaison between Edward and his father the irascible sixty-six-year-old king: the two men fell out for a few weeks, supposedly after Edward of Caernarfon insulted Walter Langton, the treasurer, with "gross and harsh words" and went hunting, with Piers Gaveston, in Langton's parks without permission. [3] Edward wrote several letters to Marguerite during this period asking her to intercede with his father on his behalf, especially in the matter of Piers Gaveston and Gilbert de Clare, whom the king had, with many others, removed from his household: "if we should add those two to the others, we would feel much comfort and alleviation of the anguish which we have endured, and continue to suffer, by the ordinance of our aforementioned lord and father. My lady, will you please take this matter to heart, and pursue it in the most gracious manner that you may, so dearly as you love us." Marguerite evidently did so, the quarrel was soon resolved, and on 1 September 1305 Edward sent her a courteous letter of gratitude: "We thank you as dearly as we may for the distress which you have endured for us, and for the goodwill with which you have carried out the business touching us" (Nous vous mercioms si cherement come nous pooms des travals que vous avez endure pur nous, e du bien que vous avez mis en les busoignes que nous touchent; my translation).

Edward II's closeness to his stepmother, as well as to numerous other women such as his sisters (who, to judge from the surviving letters of 1304/05, thought the world of him), various nieces and other kinswomen, and the women who populate the pages of his chamber journals dining, drinking and otherwise spending quality time with him, goes a long way to disproving the notion that he was "hostile to women" (to cite a fairly recent review on Amazon which refers to him), a theory evidently based on some bizarre idea that men who love men must automatically hate women. To return to Marguerite, there are various entries which make it apparent that she followed her husband to Scotland on his campaigns of the early 1300s, which would seem to point to a close relationship. (Isabella of France also accompanied Edward II on his unsuccessful Scottish campaign of 1310/11 and spent a few months with him at Berwick-on-Tweed, a fact often missed or ignored; she also travelled as far north as Berwick with her husband in June 1314 when he went to fight at Bannockburn.) Marguerite must have been disappointed in the summer of 1305 when the planned trip to England of her mother Marie of Brabant and her brother Louis of Evreux was cancelled. Edward of Caernarfon, keen to present himself well during the visit of his royal relatives, had ordered "two palfreys which are beautiful and suitable for our proper mounting."

The death of sixty-eight-year-old Edward I on 7 July 1307 left Marguerite a widow in her late twenties with three children, Thomas, Edmund and Eleanor, aged seven, almost six and fourteen months. The now dowager queen was well dowered with lands, Edward II had bound himself to provide for her children, his half-siblings, and perhaps Marguerite looked forward to a continuation of the close relationship they had long enjoyed. Within months, however, Edward's obsessive favouritism towards Piers Gaveston began to fray this relationship, and it is possible that the dowager queen's opposition to the new earl of Cornwall was at least partly rooted in concern for her niece Isabella, daughter of Marguerite's half-brother Philippe IV of France and the queen of England from February 1308. Marguerite seems, however, not to have offered the twelve-year-old girl advice on how to deal with the complicated situation, but to have retired from court. According to a newsletter of May 1308, Marguerite and Philippe IV offered the English barons opposed to Piers Gaveston the enormous sum of £40,000, which sounds like one of those wild exaggerations so beloved of medieval chroniclers (to put the sum into perspective, Marguerite's dower gave her an income of £4500 a year). Another point of conflict between Marguerite and Piers arose over the castle of Berkhamstead, which was part of the dowager queen's dower but had previously belonged to Edmund (died 1300), Edward I's cousin and the previous earl of Cornwall; Edward II seems to have granted possession of the castle to Piers, and the royal favourite certainly married Margaret de Clare there in November 1307. Although it was sometimes stated in Edward II's lifetime, and still is nowadays, that Edward I had intended the earldom of Cornwall for one of his sons by Marguerite, a document which the king drew up in August 1306 states that Thomas should receive the earldom of Norfolk and Edmund unspecified lands worth 7000 marks a year, with no title mentioned. (See here: no mention of the earldom of Cornwall going to either son.)

Marguerite attended the wedding of Edward II to her niece Isabella in Boulogne on 25 January 1308; her mother Queen Marie and half-brother the king of France were also among the guests. Her opposition to Piers Gaveston later that year, however, appears to have cooled her relationship with her stepson, and for the remaining ten years of her life it is hard to say anything much about Marguerite of France - anything much that's interesting, at least - and she certainly played little if any role in politics. Edward briefly confiscated her castles of Gloucester, Berkhamstead (certainly hers after Piers Gaveston's death in 1312), Leeds and Odiham in October 1317, but soon restored them to her, and most of the references to Marguerite in the chancery rolls after 1308 concern her lands and are therefore pretty dull. [4] It's hard to say anything much about what kind of person she was; her successful relationship with a man four decades her senior and willingness to intercede with him on her stepson's behalf suggest a pleasant, accommodating personality. Various historians of the nineteenth century, foremost among them Agnes Strickland, record that Marguerite was "good withouten lack," though I don't know what the primary source for that quotation is. (I'm sure I could find out easily enough, but to be honest my interest in it only goes so far.)

Queen Marguerite died on 14 February 1318, probably not yet forty years old, at her castle of Marlborough in Wiltshire. On 8 March, Edward II sent two pieces of Lucca cloth to lie over her body, and sent six more pieces after it was moved to London shortly afterwards. The king visited his stepmother's remains at St Mary's Church in Southwark on 14 March, and attended her funeral at the Greyfriars Church the following day, purchasing six pieces of Lucca cloth for himself and two pieces each for two other people, his sister Mary the nun and Sir Roger Damory, his current court favourite, to wear. Edward appointed his half-brothers Thomas and Edmund, aged seventeen and sixteen, as executors of their mother's will. Isabella of France, then about six months pregnant with her and Edward's elder daughter Eleanor of Woodstock, also attended her aunt's funeral, apparently without the benefit of new Lucca cloth; forty years later she would be buried in the same church. [5]

Marguerite was survived by her brother Louis, count of Evreux, her mother Marie of Brabant, dowager queen of France, and two of her three children. Her younger son Edmund, earl of Kent, was beheaded in March 1330 at the age of twenty-eight after plotting to rescue the supposedly dead Edward II from Corfe Castle; her elder son Thomas, earl of Norfolk, died aged thirty-eight in August 1338 after a career which, to be frank, failed by some distance even to achieve mediocrity. Marguerite's granddaughters Joan of Kent (Edmund's daughter) and Margaret Marshal (Thomas's daughter) produced offspring from whom Marguerite has numerous illustrious descendants: Richard II, her great-grandson; all the kings and queens of England from Edward IV onwards; all the kings and queens of Scotland from James II (1430-1460) onwards; three of Henry VIII's wives, Anne Boleyn, Katherine Howard and Katherine Parr; and my friend at the Nevill Feast blog might be interested to learn that Isobel Ingoldisthorpe was Marguerite's five greats-granddaughter and Richard Nevill, earl of Warwick, her four greats-grandson.

Sources

1) Roy Martin Haines, King Edward II, p. 4; Alison Marshall, 'The Childhood and Household of Edward II's Half-Brothers, Thomas of Brotherton and Edmund of Woodstock', in The Reign of Edward II: New Perspectives, ed. Gwilym Dodd and Anthony Musson, p. 197, note 43; Pierre Chaplais, Piers Gaveston: Edward II's Adopted Brother, p. 99; Calendar of Documents Relating to Scotland 1272-1307, pp. 325, 370, 376.
2) Hilda Johnstone, ed., Letters of Edward, Prince of Wales 1304-5, pp. 44-45, 73-74, 88-90, 111, 127; J.S. Hamilton, 'The Character of Edward II', in Reign of Edward II: New Perspectives, pp. 16-17.
3) See Hilda Johnstone, Edward of Carnarvon 1284-1307, pp. 96-102, for a detailed account of the quarrel.
4) Calendar of Patent Rolls 1317-1321, pp. 38, 46, for the confiscation of the queen's castles.
5) Foedera 1307-1327, p. 360; Thomas Stapleton, 'A Brief Summary of the Wardrobe Accounts of the tenth, eleventh, and fourteenth years of King Edward the Second', Archaeologia, 26 (1836) p. 337.

Marguerite Of France (1)

The first part of a post about Edward II's stepmother, Marguerite of France, second wife of Edward I and the queen of England - albeit uncrowned - from September 1299 to July 1307. Edward II was the first king of England since before the Norman Conquest to have a stepmother; the next would be his great-great-grandson Henry V, as Henry IV's second wife Joan of Navarre outlived him by twenty-four years.

Marguerite was the daughter of King Philippe III of France and his second wife Marie of Brabant. Philippe was born in 1245 as the fourth child and eldest surviving son of Louis IX and Marguerite of Provence, and succeeded his father as king in 1270; Marie was born between about 1254 and 1260 as the daughter of Duke Hendrik III of Brabant and Adelaide, daughter of Duke Hugues IV of Burgundy, and was the aunt of Edward II's brother-in-law Duke Jan II of Brabant. Philippe III and Queen Marie married on 21 August 1274, two and a half years after the death of his first wife Isabel of Aragon, mother of Philippe IV and Charles, count of Valois (ancestor of the Valois dynasty), and had three children: Marguerite, Blanche and Louis, count of Évreux. Only Louis of Évreux's date of birth is known, 3 May 1276. Marguerite is said by the Liber de antiquis legibis [1] to have been twenty when she married Edward I on 10 September 1299, which would mean that she was born sometime between 11 September 1278 and 10 September 1279; her date of birth is often given in books and online as 1282, but there is no evidence for this. Blanche is likely to have been the youngest of the three siblings, as between 1291 and 1294 she was betrothed to the future Edward II, who was born in April 1284. There is a story, repeated as fact on Marguerite's Wikipedia page but completely without foundation, that Edward I wanted to marry Blanche because she was very beautiful but was tricked by Philippe IV into marrying Marguerite instead: perhaps the confusion arose from Blanche's betrothal to Edward of Caernarfon. Blanche ultimately married Rudolf, duke of Austria and (after Blanche's death) king of Bohemia and Poland, and died childless in 1305. Their brother Louis of Évreux, who died in 1319 and was a friend and correspondent of Edward II before his accession, married Marguerite of Artois and had five children, including Jeanne, queen of France, who married her first cousin Charles IV.

Marguerite of France's father Philippe III died in October 1285 when she was probably six, and her seventeen-year-old half-brother acceded as Philippe IV. Her mother Marie of Brabant outlived Philippe III by thirty-six years (Queen Marie in fact outlived all her three children and her stepson Philippe IV). Inevitably, almost nothing is known of Marguerite's childhood or of her relations with her siblings and half-siblings, and the first significant reference to her comes in 1294, when she was about fifteen. To cut a very long story short, it was first proposed that year, by her mother Queen Marie, Edward I's brother Edmund of Lancaster and Edmund's stepdaughter Jeanne, queen of France and Navarre (Philippe IV's wife), that Marguerite should marry Edward I in order to prevent a war between Edward and Philippe over Gascony; sadly the situation soon deteriorated and war did in fact break out. The betrothal of Edward's ten-year-old son to Marguerite's sister Blanche was terminated and little Edward betrothed instead to the count of Flanders' daughter Philippa, while Edward I's own marriage to Marguerite was cancelled. By 1299, however, diplomacy had won out: it was decided that Edward and Marguerite's marriage would go ahead after all, while his son, now fifteen, would marry the only surviving of Philippe IV's three daughters, Isabella. As she was only three or four in 1299, however, this marriage was of necessity postponed for a few years; but Marguerite's wedding to Edward I went ahead immediately.

Marguerite married Edward, who had been a widower for nine years since the death of Eleanor of Castile in November 1290, in Canterbury Cathedral on 10 September 1299; she was (apparently) twenty and he sixty, born in June 1239. They were first cousins once removed, Edward's mother Eleanor of Provence being the sister of Marguerite's grandmother, Louis IX's queen Marguerite. Edward's eldest surviving child Joan of Acre, countess of Gloucester, born in 1272, was about seven years older than her new stepmother, and his youngest child Edward of Caernarfon about five years younger. As far as one can tell, the marriage proved a happy one despite the age difference of four decades, although Edward never had Marguerite crowned queen. Their eldest child Thomas, later earl of Norfolk, was born on 1 June 1300 - nine days short of nine months after the wedding - at Brotherton in Yorkshire, one of the archbishop of York's manors. Sixteen-year-old Edward of Caernarfon, whose three brothers, none of whom he had ever known, had all died young, seems to have been delighted at the birth of his half-brother: he gave twenty pounds to the messenger who brought him the news, and generous gifts to the baby's nurses. [2]

Marguerite's second son, Edmund, later earl of Kent and destined to die on the scaffold in March 1330 for his support of his half-brother Edward II, was born fourteen months after his brother, on 5 August 1301 at the royal manor of Woodstock. Marguerite and Edward I also had a daughter, Eleanor, born on 4 May 1306 when the king was a few weeks shy of his sixty-seventh birthday. (There is some debate as to when Edward I's eldest child was born, but it was most probably in the early 1260s, meaning there was around forty-five years between the births of his eldest and youngest children. Edward I's eldest grandchild Gilbert de Clare, born in 1291, was fifteen years older than his little half-aunt; his eldest great-grandchild Hugh, Lord Despenser, son of Hugh Despenser the Younger and Eleanor de Clare, was only two or three years younger than little Eleanor, his great-aunt.) Marguerite's Wikipedia page says that her allowing her daughter to be named after her husband's first wife Eleanor of Castile is evidence of her "unjealous nature," though one wonders how much choice she really had; besides, her Wikipedia page is astonishingly inaccurate even by Wikipedia standards. Little Eleanor was betrothed at a mere four days old to Robert of Burgundy, born in 1300 as the son and heir of Othon IV, count of Burgundy and Mahaut, countess of Artois. Sadly, the little girl died at the age of five in the autumn of 1311; her half-brother Edward II paid £113 "for the expenses and preparations made for the burial of the body of the Lady Eleanor, the king’s sister" at Beaulieu Abbey in Hampshire. (Her fiancé Robert died unmarried in 1315; his eldest sister Jeanne inherited their parents' lands and became queen of France in 1316 by marriage to Philippe V.) [3]

In the next post, I'll look at Marguerite of France's relations with her stepson Edward II, before his accession and afterwards - there is much evidence of closeness before 1307, but her opposition to Piers Gaveston, as you'd expect, did not go down well with the king - and at other aspects of her life.

Sources

1) John Carmi Parsons, 'Margaret of France (1279?-1318)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
2) Hilda Johnstone, Edward of Carnarvon 1284-1307, p. 46.
3) Calendar of Patent Rolls 1301-1307, pp. 431, 460; 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. 124.

Edward II Prefers Speaking French To Latin And Therefore Is Stupid, 'Experts' Claim

Edward II's mother tongue was French, or rather the version of it used in medieval England, which is usually called Anglo-Norman today. In February 1308, Edward made his coronation oath in French, rather than in Latin as previous English kings had done (though records are missing for Edward I's coronation in 1274, and it may be that he made the oath in French too). In January 1312, the writ declaring that Piers Gaveston had returned to England from his third exile and that the king considered him "good and loyal" was written in French rather than the usual Latin, and a memorandum declares that the king himself had dictated the form of the writ (la dite forme fu fete par le Roi meismes). And in 1317, Pope John XXII thanked the archbishop of Canterbury, Walter Reynolds, for translating a papal bull from Latin into French for Edward's benefit. [1]

These factors caused various historians of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to condemn Edward II for 'laziness', 'stupidity' and 'illiteracy' because he had failed to master Latin. [2] This is completely and utterly ridiculous. Edward I's biographer Professor Michael Prestwich says that the king "had some understanding of Latin," [3] but I've never seen anyone condemn Edward I for 'laziness', 'stupidity' and 'illiteracy' because he wasn't completely fluent in the language. Funny, that, isn't it? I've never seen anyone claim that Edward III was stupid because he took his coronation oath in French not Latin in 1327, or Richard II in 1377, or Henry IV in 1399, or the other kings who also did. Pope John XXII asked Edward II's brother-in-law Charles IV of France in 1323 to write to him in Latin in the future, not in French as Charles was wont to do, as his (the pope's) knowledge of French, or rather the Parisian form of it, was inadequate. [4] Has anyone ever called Charles IV stupid and lazy for sending letters in his native language rather than in Latin? Of course not.

Hmmm. If you didn't know better, you might even think that some writers have been biased against Edward II and determined to think the worst of him in any and every situation. (God forbid.) Using Latin to give the responses during the coronation oath would have required the king to learn a mere five words (Servabo; Faciam; Concedo et promitto) by heart, assuming he didn't know them already, which he more than likely did. How on earth could Edward II, who might not have qualified for Mensa membership but who was certainly not stupid*, have been unable to learn five words by heart? A ludicrous notion. [5] It is virtually certain that Edward did learn Latin as a child, as his father and son did and his mother Queen Eleanor most probably did too, growing up at the sophisticated and literary Castilian courts of her father Fernando III and half-brother Alfonso X. [6] Despite his education, however, Edward II wasn't a great Latin scholar. Of course he wasn't; nobody would ever have expected him to be. His father and son weren't either. And regarding his coronation, it may be that Edward or his advisers decided that he should give his responses in French because it was the native language of just about everyone attending, and perhaps also out of respect for the large French delegation present, who included Queen Isabella's uncles the counts of Valois and Evreux and her brother, the future Charles IV.

* Some modern commentators have sneeringly described Edward as stupid, but they're wrong, as wrong as older commentators who sneered at him for supposedly being illiterate and lazy. Sneering at Edward II on highly dubious grounds (his rustic hobbies being a favourite excuse for a good old-fashioned lip curl, with his sexuality coming a close second) has been a popular pastime for more than a century, but that's no reason why we should take any notice of these people.

As for the 1317 translation by the archbishop of Canterbury, papal bulls, letters and so on were often written in a Latin difficult and convoluted even for scholars to understand, as Hilda Johnstone has pointed out. Edward's request for a translation does not demonstrate ignorance; for pity's sake, how many people would be able or willing to read a complex text in a language they had learned twenty years previously but had had little occasion to use since? If some commentators weren't so eager to slam Edward II for every single damn thing he ever did, they might realise that his wish to read the letter in his native language is far more likely to have arisen from common sense - because he wanted to ensure that he understood it correctly - than from ignorance. For myself, I can read French and German pretty fluently and have enough knowledge of various other languages to get the gist of, say, some newspaper articles and other texts that don't have an advanced level of vocabulary, but I'd still much rather read material in English if a translation is available. I don't think anyone would argue that this makes me stupid, ignorant or lazy. As anyone who's ever read (or tried to read) a contract will know, legalese is hard enough to grasp in your native language, never mind in a language you learned at school decades previously. Same for the writ declaring Piers Gaveston loyal in 1312; why should Edward have done it in Latin, when dictating it to his clerks in his native language was obviously going to be far more precise and to the point than struggling to find the right Latin words?

I'll end this post with the two memoranda appended to this writ and the one following, which restored Piers to his earldom and lands (and was written in Latin). The first begins, as stated above, with "this form was made by the king himself" and continues "he took the writs as soon as they were sealed and put them on his bed." The second reads "these writs were made in the king's presence by his order under threat of grievous forfeiture." Needless to say, Edward was not usually present, and indeed couldn't be owing to time constraints, whenever his clerks wrote and sealed writs, charters, letters and the like, but these two involved the return of Piers Gaveston; the king's emotions were therefore fully engaged and are easily visible from that second memo. It creates a vivid image in my mind of Edward II striding about telling his clerks what he wanted them to write about Piers and losing his temper when they were reluctant to do it - probably because they knew the effect Piers' restoration was going to have on Edward's barons - to the extent that he shouted dire threats at them. (Edward always did have a pretty vile temper.) The king's personality and emotions suddenly spring into view, not for the first time, in what would otherwise be a dry legal document.

Sources

1) Calendar of Close Rolls 1307-1313, pp. 448-449; Foedera 1307-1327, pp. 153-154; Pierre Chaplais, English Diplomatic Practice in the Middle Ages, pp. 128, 130; T.F. Tout, Chapters in the Administrative History of England, vol. 2, pp. 199-200.
Hilda Johnstone, Edward of Carnarvon 1284-1307, pp. 19-20, and J.R.S. Phillips, 'The Place of the Reign of Edward II', in The Reign of Edward II: New Perspectives, ed. Gwilym Dodd and Anthony Musson, pp. 221-223, make valuable points about some historians' insistence on Edward's 'stupidity' and 'illiteracy' and the lack of foundation for these claims.

2) For example, V.H. Galbraith, 'The Literacy of the Medieval English Kings', Proceedings of the British Academy, 21 (1935), p. 215, and W. Stubbs, The Constitutional History of England, vol. 2, p. 332.

3) Michael Prestwich, Edward I, p. 6.
4) Pierre Chaplais, English Medieval Diplomatic Practice, vol. 1, pp. 21-22.
5) The full text of Edward II's coronation ceremony is given in Foedera 1307-1327, pp. 33-36, in Latin. The French and English versions of his oath are in the sidebar on the left.

6) See Phillips, 'Place of the Reign of Edward II', pp. 224-225.

For interest's sake, here's the original text and my translation of the January 1312 writ restoring Piers Gaveston, which Edward II himself dictated and addressed to all the sheriffs of England:

Come monsieur Peres de Gavaston, counte de Cornwaill', n'adgueres fust exile hors de nostre reaume, contre les leis et les usages de mesmes le reaume, as queus garder et meintenir nous sumes tenez par le serment, que nous feismes a nostre coronement; en le quel exil il fu nome autre que bon et leal; Et meismes celui counte, par nostre maundement, seit ja revenu a nous en dit reaume, prest d'ester a droit, devant nous, a touz que de rien li vodront chalanger, solom les leis et les usages avanditz; Par quei nous li tenoms bon et loial, et a nostre fei et a nostre pees, et unqes a autre ne li tenismes: Nous, de nostre real poer, vous commandoms ceste chose facez par tote vostre baillie publier.

As Sir Piers Gaveston, earl of Cornwall, was lately exiled from our realm contrary to the laws and customs of the same realm, which we are held to keep and to maintain by the oath which we made at our coronation; in which exile he was named as other than good and loyal; And this same earl, by our order, has now returned to us in the said realm, and is ready to stand trial [literally 'stand to right'], before us, of everything he may be accused of, according to the laws and customs aforesaid; Wherefore we hold him good and loyal, and in our allegiance and in our peace, and at no time will we hold him otherwise; We, of our royal power, command you to have this judgement published throughout your whole jurisdiction.

Speeches Of Edward II

For all his many faults, Edward II was - or at least, was capable of being on occasion - a fluent, articulate and persuasive speaker who could think on his feet, as the following story demonstrates. In June 1320, Edward had to travel to Amiens in France to pay liege homage to his brother-in-law Philip V for his French territories, Gascony and Ponthieu. (Philip had succeeded to the throne on the death of his five-day-old nephew John I 'the Posthumous' in November 1316; Edward managed to put off the dread moment of having to kneel to him for more than three and a half years.) Philip's counsellors insisted that Edward swear an oath of personal fealty to the French king as well, and a clerk of Edward's, an eyewitness, gives this account of what followed:

"And when some of the said prelates and nobles leaned towards our said lord [Edward] and began to instruct him, our said lord now turned towards the said king [Philip] without having been advised," and announced: "You will well remember that the homage which we did at Boulogne [in 1308] was done according to the form of the agreement between our ancestors, and according to the form in which our ancestors performed it, and your father [Philip IV] agreed to this form, and we have his letters regarding this, and we have now done homage in this same form. One cannot properly demand another form of us, and we will not recognise the validity of doing it. And as for this fealty, we are certain that we will not do it, and nor should it be demanded of us at a later time, and we are unable to believe that this fealty should be given as you demand of us." The clerk/eyewitness continues "And then the king of France turned to the men of his council, and none of them could say anything to contradict the response of our said lord." [My translation from the French.] [1]

Edward's fluent response, spoken spontaneously without the benefit of any advice, reduced the French delegation to stunned silence, and the issue of personal fealty was quietly dropped. And thus we can see that whatever else Edward II might have been, he wasn't "a scatter-brained wastrel," "brutal and brainless," "a greater ninny never sat on the English throne" or "a fool" as he has sometimes been described by people (J. Mackinnon, K. H. Vickers, T. F. Tout and May McKisack) who really should know better. (Richard Baker in his Chronicle of the Kings of England says that Edward was "worthy never to have been born." How dare anyone say such a vile thing about another human being? Edward II was deeply flawed, of course, he made numerous mistakes, of course, but he wasn't evil, a sadistic serial killer, a child rapist, a concentration camp guard, a professional torturer, an insane genocidist; whatever did he do to deserve such an incredibly harsh judgement?)

Another speech Edward gave, to parliament in October 1324, still survives (the only one of his speeches to parliament which does), which he delivered in French, his native language. At the time, England and France were at war over Gascony, the War of Saint-Sardos. I won't quote the king's speech in full here as it's pretty long and frankly not terribly interesting, but it begins:

"Lords, I have shown you certain things which concern the crown which have come under debate, as one who is your chief and who has the sovereign keeping of it, and as one who is ready to maintain the crown in all its rights, with your counsel and aid, and to defend it as far as a man can, by the power of all your might, on which matter I have always asked for your counsel, and have done nothing in the said business [i.e. war with France] without counsel, in which I believe that I have done my part."
(Seignurs, joe vous ai monstre ascunes choses qe appendent a la coroune qe cheent en debat, come celi qest vostre chief et qe en ad la sovereyne garde et come celi qest prest est a meintenir la coroune en touz ses dreitz, par conseil et eide de vous, et adeffendre le come un homme purra fere par la puissaunce de tutes voz forces, sur quele chose j'ai touz jours voz conseals demandez et rien en la dite busoigne sanz conseil n'ay fet, par qoi je entenqe avoir fait ce que a moy apartient)

Edward's speech ends "I do not want any concealment or sly evasion between us on such an important matter but to be answered orally, clearly and distinctly, just as the matters are distinctly and openly shown to you." [2]

A month or so after Edward gave this speech, the envoys of Robert Bruce, king of Scots, arrived in England to say that Robert wanted "to turn the truce into a perpetual peace," that is, the thirteen-year truce which the two men had agreed in 1323. Edward, fighting a war with France, "wrote back that he would willingly consent," but changed his mind when he heard the Scottish demands "that Scotland should be forever free from every English exaction," that Robert should be restored to "a certain barony in Essex" which he had forfeited to Edward I, that the Stone of Scone be restored to Scotland (it remained in England until 1996) and that Edward's son Edward of Windsor marry Robert's daughter to seal the peace. Edward II's reply to all this is a fascinating - and doubtless infuriating, if you're Scottish - illustration of how he had been raised to think of Scotland as part of his own inheritance. This is given by the Vita Edwardi Secundi in Latin, though Edward presumably spoke French; how closely it matches what he really said is a matter for conjecture:

"The Scots have come to us not to draw us into a peace but to seek opportunities for further discord and for unprovoked breaches of the truce. To grant these demands would be much to our loss, and they will return to their own country without satisfaction. For how without prejudice to our Crown can we surrender the right we have in Scotland, which from the coming of the Britons to the coming of the Saxons and down to our own time, is known always to have been subject to our ancestors; which, although in rebellion it often spurned our authority, was, nevertheless, as no one doubts, reduced to its due state of servitude, though unwillingly?...Robert Bruce claims the inheritance which my father once took from him for manifest crime, and it is not fitting that the son should make void what the father decreed. For we know that my father, when Scotland had been conquered, took with him the famous royal stone [of Scone] as a sign of victory; and if we were to restore it we should seem basely to repudiate the right thus acquired. Nevertheless, we should make little difficulty about returning the stone, if their other demands were not beyond all reason...But, as their demands are too damaging to us, they shall return home unsatisfied." [3]

Finally, here's a speech of Edward II also cited in the Vita, dating from early 1322, when Edward was on campaign against the Contrariants and Andrew Harclay, sheriff of Cumberland, came to ask him for aid to defend the north against Robert Bruce's friends and allies James Douglas and Thomas Randolph, who had invaded England with their armies as soon as the two-year truce between England and Scotland expired at Christmas 1321. Edward's attitude towards his domestic enemies and the Scottish invasions could hardly be clearer:

"You may know for certain, Andrew, that if Robert Bruce attacks me from behind, and my own men, who have committed such enormities against me, should appear in front, I would attack the traitors and leave Robert Bruce alone. Small wonder if the Scots, who are in no way bound to me, invade my kingdom, while those who are bound to me by fealty and homage rise against me, plunder my men and set fire to my towns; if the servants attack the lord, how much more will a foreigner?...Return to your own country, and keep the strongholds committed to you; I shall pursue my traitors whithersoever they betake themselves, and I shall not turn back until they are brought to naught." [4]

Given that Edward was shortly to execute at least twenty men for treason and numerous other crimes and imprison dozens more, he was as good as his word, as perhaps Hamo Hethe, bishop of Rochester, had guessed that he would be. The day after the Contrariants forced Edward to consent to the Despensers' exile in August 1321, Edward ate breakfast at Westminster with Hethe, who told him consolingly that he would soon "amend the defeat." Edward responded that he "would within half a year make such an amend that the whole world would hear of it and tremble." [5]

Sources

1) E. Pole Stuart, 'The Interview between Philip V and Edward II at Amiens in 1320', English Historical Review, 41 (1926), pp. 412-415.
2) The Parliament Rolls of Medieval England, ed. C. Given-Wilson et al, October 1324 parliament.
3) Vita Edwardi Secundi, ed. N. Denholm-Young, pp. 131-134.
4) Ibid., pp. 120-121.
5) Parliament Rolls of Medieval England, July 1321 parliament, citing Historia Roffensis.

Basins, Crystal Cups And Illegitimate Children: Fourteenth-Century Wills

Inspired by Susan Higginbotham's recent posts on wills written by Anthony Woodville and other nobles of the fifteenth century, and partly by a recent comment here on the blog, here's a post about wills of the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In this era, it was usual to write your will only when you were dying or thought you were dying, with the unfortunate result that a lot of people died intestate. Sadly Edward II was one of them, which is a huge shame. Anyway, here's a look at the wills of some of the people close to him (which are in French in the original).

As an exception to what I wrote above, Edward's father Edward I wrote his will while on crusade in June 1272 and, oddly, never updated it, though he lived for another thirty-five years. His father Henry III was still alive then - he died later that year - and Edward's heir at the time was his second eldest son, also Henry, born in 1268 (and died in 1274, shortly after Edward's return to England and his coronation). Edward appointed as his executors his brother-in-law John, future duke of Brittany, his half-uncle William de Valence, Anthony Bek, future bishop of Durham and patriarch of Jerusalem, his friend Sir Otto Grandisson, and others, whom he requested to bury his body wherever they saw fit and to look after his children should he and his father die while the children were still under age. "We will that the realm of England, and all other lands which should descend to our children, remain in the hands of our executors before named, and also in those of our dear father the archbishop of York..." Lastly, Edward requested his executors to ensure that the dowry of "our dear wife Eleanor" (nostre chere femme Alianore) be administered as well and profitably as possible.

Edward II's son Edward III made his will on 7 October 1376; he was seriously ill at this time and had just buried his eldest son the prince of Wales, and was not expected to live much longer. (See Ian Mortimer, The Perfect King: The Life of Edward III, pp. 387-388.) In the end, as it happened, Edward lived a few more months and finally died in June 1377 at the age of sixty-four. The king left to his nine-year-old grandson and heir Richard of Bordeaux, the future Richard II, "an entire bed, marked with the arms of France and England, now in our palace at Westminster," and to Richard's widowed mother Joan of Kent (daughter of Edward II's half-brother executed in 1330) the generous sum of a thousand marks (£666). Edward also left 300 marks to his eldest daughter Isabella, countess of Bedford, and one of the ten men he appointed as his executors was his eldest surviving son John of Gaunt, carefully referred to as "king of Castile and Leon and duke of Lancaster" (Gaunt was married to Constanza, elder daughter and heir of King Pedro the Cruel of Castile). Edward requested burial at Westminster, and left money for masses to be sung for the souls of himself and Queen Philippa, who had died in 1369.

Edward II's niece Elizabeth de Clare (b. 1295) made her will on 25 September 1355, though she lived until November 1360; the will is extremely long, and Elizabeth appears to have left bequests to just about every person she had ever met. She left money for masses to be sung for the souls of her three husbands John de Burgh, Theobald de Verdon and Roger Damory, whom in typical fourteenth-century fashion she called 'my lords', mes seignours. The heir to Elizabeth's vast lands and properties was her granddaughter Elizabeth de Burgh (b. 1332), only child of Elizabeth's son William, earl of Ulster; the younger Elizabeth married Edward III's son Lionel, and her grandmother bequeathed her, rather snippily it seems, "all the debt which my son, her father, owed me on the day he died" (tote la dette qe mon fils son piere me devoit le jour q'il morust). Elizabeth, however, clearly enjoyed a close relationship with her youngest and only surviving child Elizabeth (Damory) Bardolf, to whom she left a "bed of green velvet," bed hangings and coverlets decorated with parrots and cockerels, and her - enormously expensive - travel carriage (char) with all its necessary equipment. She also left items to various friends and relatives: to her first cousin Jeanne de Bar, an image of St John the Baptist; to her close friend Marie de St Pol, a "little cross of gold with a sapphire"; to Henry, duke of Lancaster, a psalter. One of Elizabeth's executors, and one of her most trusted household officials for many years, was Sir Nicholas Damory, who I assume must have been a relative of her third husband Roger Damory, though unfortunately the precise connection still eludes me. Elizabeth asked for her body to remain above ground for fifteen days after her death and then to be buried at the 'Sisters Minories beyond Aldgate' in London, and left money for 200 pounds of wax to burn around it.

Edward II's nephew Humphrey de Bohun, earl of Hereford - born in 1309 as one of the many children of Edward's sister Elizabeth and the earl of Hereford killed at Boroughbridge in 1322 - wrote his will on 4 October 1361, and died eleven days later. (He died unmarried and childless, and, given that he played no role whatsoever in his cousin Edward III's wars with France and Scotland, although his younger brother William, earl of Northampton did, must presumably have suffered some kind of illness or disability.) Humphrey asked to be buried with the Augustine Friars of London, "before the high altar, without any pomp, and that no great men be invited to our funeral, which shall only be attended by one bishop and by common people." He bequeathed to his namesake, nephew and heir Humphrey (William of Northampton's son) a gold brooch "surrounded with large pearls, a ruby between four pearls, three diamonds, and a pair of gold paternosters of fifty pieces, with ornaments, together with a cross of gold, in which is a piece of the true cross of Our Lord." Humphrey also left items to his sister Eleanor, countess of Ormond, his other sister Margaret and brother-in-law Hugh Courtenay, earl and countess of Devon, and his niece Elizabeth, future countess of Arundel; these items included "a large sapphire stone of a fine blue colour" and a basin "in which we are accustomed to wash our head." The earl remembered many of his servants in his will, and requested that "a chaplain of good condition be sent to Jerusalem principally for my lady my mother, my lord my father, and for us [himself]; and that the chaplain be charged to say masses by the way at all times that he conveniently can, for our souls." Rather pointedly perhaps, given that Humphrey's father had died in battle against Humphrey's uncle Edward II in March 1322, Humphrey left forty shillings to be offered at the tomb of Thomas, earl of Lancaster in Pontefract, but nothing for Edward's tomb.

William Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, died in June 1298, and was the grandfather of Edward II's favourite Hugh Despenser the Younger and father of Guy, earl of Warwick, who abducted Piers Gaveston in 1312. William made his will on 14 September 1296 and asked, if he died "within the compass of the four English seas," to be buried with the Greyfriars of Warwick or otherwise at the Greyfriars house nearest to where he died, and his heart to be buried where his wife Maud FitzJohn (who died in 1301) "may herself resolve to be interred." William left one hundred pounds "to the maintenance of two soldiers in the Holy Land" and all his silver vessels to Countess Maud, including the one which contained the inevitable fragment of the True Cross. His son Guy received his "best suit" and a gold ring with a ruby in it, and William also left fifty marks to two of his (unnamed) daughters, nuns at Shouldham Priory, though nothing to his daughter Isabella Despenser or her children.

Guy Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, son of the former and enemy of Edward II, wrote his will at Warwick Castle on 28 July 1315 and died on 12 August, probably in his early forties. He asked to be buried at Bordesley Abbey in Worcestershire "without any funeral pomp," and left his wife Alice Toeni "a proportion of plate, with a crystal cup and half my bedding, and also all the vestments and books belonging to my chapel." Two sons are mentioned: Thomas, the elder and future earl of Warwick, then only eighteen months old, received Guy's "best coat of mail, armour and suit of harness, with all that belongs thereto," and John was bequeathed the second best. Two daughters, Maud and Elizabeth, are mentioned, bequeathed half of their father's beds, rings and jewels; Maud also received a crystal cup and Elizabeth "the marriage of Astley's heir" (Thomas Astley, her future husband).

Henry of Grosmont, duke of Lancaster, Edward II's first cousin once removed, wrote his will on 15 March 1361 and died eight days later, probably in his early fifties. He requested to be buried in the Collegiate Church of the Annunciation of Our Lady in the Newarke at Leicester, which he had founded, three weeks after his death, and asked Edward III and Queen Philippa to attend the funeral. Henry appointed his eldest sister Blanche, Lady Wake, as one of his executors; his daughters Maud and Blanche are not mentioned in the will.

Edward II's nephew by marriage, John de Warenne, earl of Surrey, wrote his will on 24 June 1347 and died five or six days later, either on his sixty-first birthday or the day before. I've written before about John's will, which includes provisions for six of his (at least nine) illegitimate children and his mistress Isabel Holland, but not a single thing for his wife Countess Jeanne. The full text of the will, in English and the original French, is available here.

And finally, Edward II's half-nephew by marriage Sir Walter Manny, whom he never met (Walter married Thomas of Brotherton's daughter Margaret, who married firstly John Segrave) and who died in 1371. I just wanted to mention Walter's will because of the terrific names of various members of his family: he left money to his two illegitimate daughters, Mailosel and Malplesant, and to a cousin named Cishbert.

Sources

- John Nichols, ed., A Collection of All The Wills, Now Known to be Extant, of the Kings and Queens of England...
- Nicholas Harris Nicolas, ed., Testamenta Vetusta: Being Illustrations of Wills of Manners, Customs...

Marie de St Pol, Countess of Pembroke (2)

This is the second part of my post (part one) about Edward II's cousin Marie de St Pol, who married Aymer de Valence, earl of Pembroke, in July 1321. Practically nothing is known of their married life together, which lasted slightly less than three years: Aymer died suddenly on his way to Paris on 23 June 1324, sent by Edward II to negotiate with Charles IV regarding the latest outbreak of hostilities between England and France over Gascony. Edward, in Kent, heard the news of Aymer's death a mere three days later, and sent his confessor Robert Duffield to Marie to break the news; she heard on the 27th. [1] Aymer, who was in his late forties or early fifties - Marie was about twenty - collapsed and died unshriven in his servants' arms, although the Brut chronicle includes a scurrilous story that Aymer was murdered while sitting on the toilet. This, thought the chronicler - as pro-Lancastrian as ever - was God's vengeance, as Pembroke had been one of the men to condemn 'Saint' Thomas of Lancaster to death and never repented of "that wicked deed." [2] Aymer de Valence was buried in Westminster Abbey on 1 August, where his tomb can still be seen; although it was Edward II's own decision to bury his kinsman in the abbey, the king was still in Kent at the time and did not attend the funeral.

As I've pointed out before, Edward II's treatment of the wives and children of his enemies in the 1320s was despicable, and Marie, although her late husband had long been a supporter of the king, suffered because Aymer had not supported the Despensers and had begged the king to exile them in 1321. Marie was later to claim - albeit surely with some exaggeration - that Edward II seized over £20,000 worth of her late husband's possessions and kept them in his own hands in return for a pardon of royal debts to Aymer. She also had to sell all her late husband's livestock to Hugh Despenser the Younger for 1000 marks, a sum certainly far below their true value, in order to pay for her husband's funeral, and was also forced to relinquish certain wardships and lands to Despenser. Fifty-three years later, Marie had still not paid off all Aymer's debts. [3]

In August 1324, Edward II went to war with his brother-in-law Charles IV of France, and in November that year granted protection for two years to Marie and several members of her household, as they were "of the power of the king of France" and thus enemy aliens. [4] Various modern writers claim that Marie de St Pol was a close friend of Queen Isabella and that this was probably a reason for the Despensers' hostility towards the dowager countess [5], although I'm not sure what evidence this statement is based on; Isabella and Marie were, at least, connected by marriage, as Marie's eldest sister was the third wife of Isabella's uncle Charles de Valois. Although some secondary sources state that Marie accompanied Isabella on her trip to France from March 1325 to September 1326, Marie in fact was not named as one of Isabella's attendants at the time of her departure, only appointed attorneys to act for her in England while she travelled overseas on 12 December 1325 (by which point Edward II knew that Isabella had refused to return to him so would not have permitted Marie to join her in France), was in England in August 1325 and June 1326, and was exempted from the order to arrest French people in England that summer. [6] There is considerably more evidence of Marie's close friendship with Edward II's niece Elizabeth de Clare, eight or nine years her senior, with whom Marie remained in frequent contact until Elizabeth's death in 1360. [7] Marie may well have been inspired by her friend's foundation of Clare College, Cambridge in 1338 (Elizabeth in turn was following in the footsteps of her Uncle Edward), and in 1347 founded Pembroke College, originally known as Valence Marie Hall, at Cambridge.

Marie, whether a close friend of Queen Isabella or not, was, given the Despensers' shabby treatment of her which took place with Edward II's knowledge and consent, presumably very glad to see their downfall in 1326/27, and her uncle John of Brittany, earl of Richmond - first cousin of Edward II and second cousin of Isabella - supported the queen and Roger Mortimer. On 3 September 1327, Mortimer, the latest royal favourite and ruler of England, requested a grant of Marie's marriage to his second son, Roger. Given that the elder Roger was not yet earl of March, this was hardly a great match for a dowager countess, and in fact the marriage was destined never to take place, as the younger Roger died sometime before 27 August 1328. [8] Marie de St Pol, countess of Pembroke, would live for a staggering fifty-three years as a widow, and died on 16 March 1377 in her early seventies, failing by just three months to live into the reign of Edward II's great-grandson Richard II. Of her contemporaries, probably only Edward II's niece Margaret de Bohun, countess of Devon (1311-1391) and Blanche of Lancaster, Lady Wake (c. 1302-1380) lived to be older. Marie made her will three days before her death, bequeathed a gold cross to Westminster Abbey where her late husband was buried, and asked to be laid to rest at Denny Abbey in Cambridgeshire.

Sources

1) J.R.S. Phillips, Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke 1307-1324: Baronial Politics in the Reign of Edward II, p. 233.
2) The Brut or Chronicles of England, ed. F.W.D. Brie, vol. 1, p. 232.
3) Phillips, Valence, pp. 235-237; Calendar of Patent Rolls 1324-1327, p. 165; The National Archives SC 8/66/3266.
4) Cal Pat Rolls 1324-1327, p. 57.
5) Natalie Fryde, The Tyranny and Fall of Edward II 1321-1326, p. 113; Alison Weir, Isabella, She-Wolf of France, Queen of England, pp. 131, 143; Frances A. Underhill, For Her Good Estate: The Life of Elizabeth de Burgh, p. 38.
6) Cal Pat Rolls 1324-1327, pp. 200, 275; Calendar of Close Rolls 1323-1327, pp. 412, 505, 557.
7) Underhill, Good Estate, pp. 103-107.
8) Cal Pat Rolls 1327-1330, p. 166; Ian Mortimer, The Greatest Traitor: The Life of Sir Roger Mortimer, pp. 201, 320.

Marie de St Pol, Countess of Pembroke (1)

Today, the first part of a post about Edward II's kinswoman Marie de St Pol, countess of Pembroke, who was a wife for less than three years and a widow for fifty-three, and who was born in Edward I's reign and failed by only three months to live into the reign of his great-great-grandson Richard II; she was born in 1303 or 1304 and died on 16 March 1377. Countess Marie is best known nowadays for founding Pembroke College, formerly the Hall of Valence Marie, at Cambridge University in 1347.

Marie de St Pol, who is also sometimes known as Marie de Châtillon, was the daughter of Guy de Châtillon, count of St Pol (d. 1317) and Marie de Dreux (d. 1339), daughter of Duke John II of Brittany, whose peculiar death I wrote about recently on Edward II's Facebook page: he was killed by a collapsing wall as he led Pope Clement V's horse around Avignon in 1305. Duke John II's wife, Marie de St Pol's maternal grandmother, was Beatrice, one of the sisters of Edward I of England, which makes Marie the great-granddaughter of Henry III and Eleanor of Provence and thus Edward II's first cousin once removed. Marie was very well-connected to European nobility: her aunts and uncles included the duke of Brittany, the earl of Richmond, the abbess of Fontevrault, the count of Blois and the countesses of Artois and Eu, and her brothers and sisters were count of St Pol, lord of Ancre, ladies of Coucy and Crèvecœur, and countess of Valois (Marie's eldest sister Mahaut married Philip IV of France's brother Charles de Valois as his third wife; Mahaut's children, half-siblings of Philip VI of France, were Holy Roman Empress, duchesses of Calabria and Bourbon and Louis, count of Chartres, who was proposed as a potential husband for Edward II's daughter Joan of the Tower in 1323). Marie de St Pol was also the first cousin of Earl Thomas of Lancaster: they were both grandchildren of Matilda of Brabant, who married firstly Louis IX of France's brother Robert, count of Artois (d. 1250) and secondly Guy de Châtillon the elder (d. 1289), count of St Pol.

In late March 1321, Edward II - then also corresponding with King Jaime II of Aragon regarding the possible marriage of his elder son Edward of Windsor to Jaime's daughter Violante - asked Pope John XXII to grant a dispensation for Marie (Mariam de Sancto Paulo) to marry Aymer de Valence, earl of Pembroke, another close relative of the king. [1] Aymer was many years Marie's senior, born around 1270 0r 1275 as the third but only surviving son of William de Valence, earl of Pembroke (1225-1296), one of the unpopular de Lusignan half-siblings of Edward II's grandfather Henry III (children of King John's widow Isabelle d'Angoulême by her second husband) and Joan de Munchesney or Munchensi (d. 1307), granddaughter of the great William Marshal, earl of Pembroke. Aymer had three sisters: Isabel, who married John, Lord Hastings and had issue; Joan, who married John the Red Comyn, lord of Badenoch, and was the mother of the Comyn sisters; and Agnes, whom the future Edward II rather poignantly addressed as his "good mother" in a 1305 letter and whose three marriages to the lords of Offaly, Balliol and Avesnes remained childless. Aymer's two elder brothers were William, killed at the battle of Llandeilo Fawr in June 1282 during Edward I's campaign in Wales, and John, who died as a child in 1277.

Aymer de Valence married firstly, before 18 October 1295, a French noblewoman named Beatrice de Clermont-Nesle, whose father Ralph de Clermont was constable of France and lord of Nesle in Picardy. [2] Almost nothing is known of their married life or of the lady herself - she seems remarkably obscure for a countess - and Beatrice died childless shortly before 14 September 1320. Edward II sent "five pieces of silk, embroidered with birds" to lie over Countess Beatrice's body at the conventual church of Stratford in London, and on 8 February 1321 attended a mass there in her memory. [3] The widowed Aymer de Valence, then aged about fifty, married Marie de St Pol, aged about seventeen, in Paris on 5 July 1321, on the same day that Isabella of France gave birth to her and Edward II's youngest child Joan of the Tower a couple of hundred miles away. [4] What is rather odd is that Aymer had no children by either of his wives, but did father an illegitimate son named Henry de Valence, old enough to serve in Aymer's retinue from about 1314 onwards and to marry a woman named Margery, but who pre-deceased his father, sometime before 23 June 1322. [5] Needless to say, the identity of Aymer's mistress is unknown.

Marie de St Pol, the teenaged countess of Pembroke, arrived in an England torn apart by the Despenser War and Edward II's subsequent successful campaign against the Contrariants. Although her new husband remained loyal to the king and played an important role in the king's victory, it seems that the Despensers never forgave Aymer for urging their exile in August 1321: Edward II forced Aymer to swear on the gospels in June 1322 that he would always be obedient and faithful to him, because "the king was aggrieved against him for certain reasons…and could not assure himself of the earl" and made Aymer swear that he would not ally himself against the king or "anyone whom the king will maintain," surely a reference to the Despensers. [6] Although an anonymous letter of April 1324 named Aymer, with Hugh Despenser the Younger, as one of the men closest to the king (les plus privetz le roi), in fact the remaining years of his life after the Despensers' return from exile in early 1322 were spent in the shadows, his influence over Edward II minimal to non-existent. [7] Edward's decidedly unfair and unjust mistreatment of Aymer, his cousin and a man who had been his faithful ally for almost all of his reign, was to have a profound effect on Marie de St Pol after Aymer's sudden death - which I'll look at in the second part of this post.

Sources

1) Foedera 1307-1327, p. 446.
2) J.R.S. Phillips, Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke 1307-1324: Baronial Politics in the Reign of Edward II, pp. 5-6.
3) 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. 338-339; Phillips, Valence, p. 191.
4) Calendar of Patent Rolls 1321-1324, pp. 12-13; Phillips, Valence, p. 206.
5) Cal Pat Rolls 1321-1324, p. 141; Phillips, Valence, pp. 116, 255, 267, 302.
6) Calendar of Close Rolls 1318-1323, pp. 563-564.
7) Pierre Chaplais, ed., The War of Saint-Sardos (1323-1325): Gascon Correspondence and Diplomatic Documents, p. 42.

Crime And Punishment, Medieval Style

Hope everyone is well and enjoying good weather! It was great to go on holiday, and it's also great to be online again and back to Edward II. Before I went away, I was looking through the Calendar of Inquisitions Miscellaneous for (most of) Henry III's and Edward I's reigns, from 1219 to 1307 - as you do - and found some interesting entries which are full of lovely details about medieval life...

Inquisition taken in Shropshire, 4 June 1276: "Philip the Taylor of Clun broke the house of Reynold Kaym of Upton in the night-time; the same Reynold came out with his sword and wished to attach [i.e. arrest] the said Philip, who shot the said Reynold with an arrow through the testicles and fled; the said Reynold followed him with cry and horn, and killed him with his sword as a robber and a fugitive."

Reynold managed to run after Philip with an arrow through his testicles? Ouch.

Inquisition taken in York on 18 September 1268: "A certain stranger being new-married was taking his wife and others who were with her to one end of the town of Byrun, when William Selisaule asked for a ball [pelota], which it is the custom to give; and they having no ball gave him a pair of gloves for a pledge; afterwards other men of Byrun asked for a ball, and they said they would not give one, because they had already given a pledge for one, and the men of Byrun would not believe them, but still asked for the said ball; and so there arose a dispute, and the wedding party, being slightly drunk, assaulted the men of Byrun with axes and bows and arrows, and wounded very many..."

I find that one interesting for the statement that it was then the custom to 'give a ball'. Give a ball to whom, precisely, and only after weddings?

Inq. taken on 6 May 1249: "Ughtred Smith of Botland came to Peter Grapere at the house of Richard de Boteland, and asked him to come to the wood to kill a wood-pigeon. Peter agreed, and Ughtred went on a long way in front till he came to a hill outside the wood and waited there. Peter wishing to try his bow shouted to Ughtred to look out for his arrow as he was going to shoot towards the hill. So having shot, from a longer distance than any bow was thought to carry, he came to the hill and asked Ughtred where his arrow was. "Here," said Ughtred, "stuck in my head." On this Peter fell on his face groaning and crying; but Ughtred bade him not to grieve since he felt no hurt, and said "Let us go to that knoll and do you pull out the arrow from my head, so that my wife may not see it, for she would perhaps grieve over-much." So they went and pulled out the arrow, and went home. And Peter went to Horsele for William the leech and brought him to see the wound, which he thought he could heal in a day or two. But Ughtred died, of the wound as it is thought. However the jurors believe that it was by misadventure, and the whole county witnesses the same."

That one jumped out at me because of Ughtred's dignity and courage, and Peter's very physical demonstration of his deep distress; it seems that English people of the Middle Ages weren't nearly as unemotional and stiff-upper-lipped as they gained a reputation for being in later centuries.

Inq. taken at Carlisle on 11 April 1287: "Ralph Deblet on All Saints' Day 13 Edward I [1 November 1285] at evening was so drunk that he did not know what he was doing and went by night into the house of Thomas le Tayllor at Carlisle, and walked up the stairs of a solar and fell upon Thomas as he lay asleep in bed. Thomas woke up crying out and asking what had fallen on him, and Ralph going down the stairs in his drunkenness, fell upon a cartload of wood and was wounded to the head even to the brain. He died by misadventure."

Inq. taken in Northamptonshire, 26 October 1254: "As Robert son of Robert de Olneye and others with him stood in the king's highway singing drunk, there came one William de Yerdelegh in a cart, likewise drunk, and drove his horse and cart over the singers. AndRobert pursued William and struck him on the head with a hatchet, but not feloniously or with malice prepense, since they were unknown to each other. And William was carried in the cart to his father's house in Yerdel' and lived there fifteen days and more and then died. Verdict: Robert slew William by misadventure."

Driving under the influence and road rage, thirteenth-century style.

Inq. taken in Kent, 30 October 1257: "On the occasion of a wedding in the town of Romenal, John Loterich and others were tilting at the quintain. John having run twice and broken two lances, as he had begun to ride a third time, Laurencia daughter of John le Portur, an infant of four or five years old, came out among them opposite her father's house; and owing to the crowd the child was trampled under their feet, and under the feet of John's horse, by misadventure."

Poor little girl, what a tragic accident.

"Inquisition taken Monday after Lady Day 45 Henry III [28 March 1261] whether John Harpetro killed Belechera his wife by misadventure: - By misadventure: John had a carcass of beef hanging in the house, and saw a cat eating the meat. He threw his knife at the cat, but by sudden chance Belechera came between and was wounded in the leg, the wound causing her death."

Belechera, what an extraordinary name! Here's a similar case, from Suffolk in May 1259: "It happened that William Huctred came to the house of Avice de Buchanne, intending no evil, and Alice Canun sister of the said Mabel [what Mabel? Are Avice and Mabel different forms of the same name?] attacked him with quarrelsome words, and then took a stool to strike him maliciously on the head; and the said Mabel came in and, trying to hinder her, came between them; and he, having a knife in his hand, not for any evil purpose, but because he was cutting a rod, she chanced to get a wound with it between her elbow and her body on her right arm and of this and of other sickness she died three weeks after; and whatever befell there was by mishap and not of malice aforethought."

Inq. taken in Worcestershire, 28 July 1280: "One Roger Shitte [!!], bailiff of the earl of Warwick, took the horse of one John de Ledene, by way of distress, out of a cart full of wheat-sheaves. John charged the bailiff with unlawful distress, but he being very drunk struck John hard on the right hand with a stick. And Walter Codard, the bailiff's man, ran up to strike John with a knife. A woman called Felicia Hende saw this and called to John to "Turn round, Walter Codard will strike you with a knife." John turned to defend himself and struck Walter on the head with a hatchet, of which he died within a fortnight. On account of this John has absconded."

Inq. taken in Lincolnshire, 3 March 1287: "Thomas del Boure of Alkewbarwe killed Gilbert Nade in self-defence. Thomas came to his own house at Alkebarwe on Thursday before Candlemas 14 Edward I [31 January 1286] after sunset and was surprised to find nobody there, and found his beasts which were in the keeping of his servant Gilbert Nade straying about the house and court. At bedtime Gilbert came back and found Thomas sitting on his bench. Thomas asked him why he was so late and why his beasts were so badly kept; and Gilbert took a wooden candlestick and struck Thomas on the head, of malice, because of previous quarrels, so that he fell to the ground. Thomas rose and fled to a chamber, but the door was shut, and Gilbert pursued him with the candlestick and struck him again, but part of the blow fell on the door. And he found a spade by the door and hit Gilbert back in self-defence so that he died of the blow."

Inq. taken in Yorkshire, 25 August 1280: "Peter de Baddesworth killed John de Duffeld by the greatest misadventure. Peter threw a stone, together with many other men then in York Castle, and John ran in the way; the stone struck him on the head and killed him."

Which of course begs the question, why on earth were lots of men in York Castle throwing stones? Did it not occur to anybody that this might be a bad idea? Did they have no concept of elf n safety in 1280??

A very sad one next, I'm afraid, taken on 25 July 1276. "Commission to John de Lovetot to enquire whether Richard de Cheddestan, said to be imprisoned at Norwich for killing his wife and two children six years ago in a frenzy was then mad, and whether he may now safely be released...The jurors say that as Richard and his wife came from Refham market and came by a marl-pit full of water, Richard was taken with a frenzy, threw himself in and tried to drown himself, but his wife dragged him out with difficulty. Afterwards, being taken home, and there behaving quietly, when his wife went out to get necessaries, he was taken with a frenzy and killed his two children. His wife came home and found the children dead and cried out for grief, and tried to hold him, but he killed her in the same frenzy. When the neighbours heard the noise and came to the house they found Richard trying to hang himself, but prevented him. They say that Richard committed all these acts in a frenzy and that he is subject to it.
Richard is at present sufficiently sensible, but it cannot be said that he is so far restored to sanity as to be set free without danger, especially in the heat of summer."

Inq. taken in Northumberland, 7 September 1280: "Henry son of William de Ellinton while playing at ball at Ulkham on Trinity Sunday with David le Keu and many others, ran against David and received an accidental wound from David's knife from which he died on the following Friday. They were both running to the ball, and ran against each other, and the knife hanging from David's belt stuck out so that the point, though in the sheath, struck against Henry's belly, and the handle against David's belly. Henry was wounded right through the sheath."

I always said football was dangerous! ;-) Here's another one, from Staffordshire in April 1266: "Alan the hayward of Hertil and William of Wyndhul were playing at ball; and both running together, trying which could get the ball first, each caught the other on the shoulder and fell to the ground. Alan falling on Walter's knife, which was in its sheath received a wound in the shoulder between the shoulder and the elbow, by no fault of Walter's. They got up and went on playing, as Alan did not feel much hurt, and afterwards went to the tavern and drank new ale together, and afterwards went peacefully home. The next day the arm swelled up, and Alan, saying this was due to the new ale, asked Walter to send for a leech to heal his arm. Treatment was applied, but he died the following Saturday; and Walter, seeing that he had died of the wound, absconded and has not returned."

Inq. taken in Warwickshire on 30 September 1276: "It is stated on behalf of the priory and convent of Kenyllwurth [Kenilworth] that one William le Hare, the Nativity of Our Lady last, without the knowledge of the prior and convent, climbed alone up a new work of theirs adjoining the church of Kenyllewurth to take squabs in the hollows of the said work; and setting his foot in a piece of wood placed in one of the hollows, high up from the ground, the wood broke and he fell to the ground and was smashed to pieces and immediately expired. And when two servants of the prior and convent, Robert de Tene and John Corbyn, knew of the accident they secretly bore the body outside the convent into a wood by Kenyllewurth and left it there as though William had been slain by robbers."

Robbers who smashed him to pieces, apparently.

Inq. taken at Westminster, 26 December 1248: "Cunrad de Bruneweye had a dispute with his man Terry de Estland in his own house, and Terry knocked down his master and lay on him. Conrad being unable to escape without danger of death, wounded Terry in the shoulder with a knife. He survived ten days and died of drinking half a gallon of wine after dinner on the day of his death."

Inq. taken 19 November 1263: "Richard son of William de Swerdeston came along Newgate in Norwich, and a dog belonging to William Garlonde came and bit him. He followed the dog to Garlonde's house, demanding justice [some text missing]. Robert Winter was sitting at supper with three women. And so they quarrelled, and Robert struck Richard on the head with a pint pot full of beer, and the three women came on either side of him and pulled at his supertunic till they tore it, and took it from him, so that he barely escaped alive. Richard came back with a companion, to recover his supertunic, and Robert Winter again took a pint pot and struck him on the head. So Richard in self-defence took his knife, with the sheath, and tried to defend himself. But by misadventure he struck Robert with the point. He then took up a basin and pursued Robert and put him to flight. And Robert afterwards died, but he would not have done so had he not neglected the wound."

Hard not to neglect your wound when you're being pursued with a basin, really.

And finally, an undated inquisition "upon the death of Nicholas son of Thomas Kouke: Rose de Bokland kept a tavern at her house at Sutton, to which Thomas Kouke and Mabel his wife, the parents of Nicholas, came, and also one Margery de Totewell, whom Thomas was accused of frequenting lecherously. Thereupon Mabel and Margery quarrelled and fought; but Alard, Rose's son, being in the house, took Mabel and put her out. So she being angry went to her son Nicholas, saying that Alard had thus put her out, and that it was most disgraceful that Margery had committed this trespass against her, and that before her husband Thomas. So Nicholas went to the tavern to thrash Margery. But when he came, and sought to lay hands on Margery, Alard would not allow him, and put him out against his will. Nicholas was angry with Alard for this, and took to him his brother William Koc. And in the evening they went, armed with bows and arrows, and attacked the house where Rose and Alard were. Alard defended the house, but Nicholas broke down the door and entered. And Alard in self-defence wounded Nicholas severely with an arrow and killed him. He did this in self-defence and by misadventure, not feloniously."

Robin Hood And Edward II The Nasty Piece Of Work

This will be my last post till 6 June or thereabouts, as I'm off on holiday. Yay!

Edward II good news: he now has 237 fans on Facebook, a number which creeps up by at least one or two people daily. Edward II bad news: I was deeply irritated by a very silly recent review of Seymour Phillips' new biography of the king, which calls Edward "a nasty piece of work" and makes more factual errors about him and his reign than I can shake a stick at. Writing about Edward's "grisly murder," saying that he "was also thought to have been a homosexual, who...was killed by a red-hot poker thrust into his anus" as though these are certain facts and claiming that Edward inherited a rich, peaceful country on the verge of 'annexing' Scotland in 1307 and left it impoverished twenty years later make it painfully, embarrassingly apparent that the reviewer has not read any recent, or even semi-recent, scholarship on the subject and is a long, long way from being even remotely knowledgeable about Edward II and his reign. (In fact, Edward I left his son £200,000 of debt in July 1307; Edward II left £60,000 in his treasury in November 1326.) No, I'm not linking to the review. Bleugh. Bad, horrid review.

But anyway, here's some more good news: Ian Mortimer's Medieval Intrigue is due out in early September, a collection of essays including several on Edward II. Woot! For more info, see Ian's website.

The new Robin Hood film with Russell Crowe has led to much online speculation about Robin's real identity, with many people expressing their belief that he lived during Edward II's reign rather than Richard I's. See here and here for more about this debate.
This forum thread - scroll down past all the arguing - puts forward the theory that Robin Hood "was contemporary with Edward II (and perhaps had to rebuff that monarch's homosexual advances)". This theory is developed at greater length here:

"We have seen that Edward was undoubtedly "gay" as it is called these days, and that in 1324 he was behaving very badly with the Despensers, pillaging the land and terrorising the population and more than likely sharing his bed with Hugh the Younger. We also know that he had a taste for the lower elements of the population, which had probably begun as a simple enjoyment of the Great Outdoors but by 1322 he is recorded as entertaining the likes of Wat Cowherd and other roughnecks, and paying them for their company! Could it be that, perish the thought, the king was casting a roving eye in Robin’s direction? Was Robin both afraid for his life from the jealous Hugh, and afraid too, for his honour! Was this the reason he asked the king if he could go back north on a pilgrimage to the church of St Mary Magdalene, and that once away from court, he refused to return to London? Or did he know, or suspect, that terrible events were just round the corner ? Whatever the cause of his defection, it must have incurred Edward’s wrath so much that Robin was re-outlawed as a result..."

OK, this theory is tongue in cheek and I don't want to be accused of lacking a sense of humour, but as Edward II's (self-appointed) Official Defender, I feel that this is putting 2 and 2 together to make 67. As I've pointed out before, Wat Cowherd and the other supposed 'roughnecks' like Simon and Robin Hod who have been named in print as Edward II's probable lovers (Edward quote was being promiscuous with low-born men unquote and paying them lots of money for their 'company', allegedly) were in fact members of his chamber staff who often appear in the king's accounts and were in close attendance on him for the last few years of his reign. There is nothing at all to suggest, absolutely no reason whatsoever to think, that Edward took these men as his lovers or that he ever hit on them, to use a modern idiom. I don't know why Robin Hood, a porter of the king's chamber, was sent away from court; some kind of misbehaviour, perhaps. The Household Ordinance of 1318 sets out misdemeanours for which the king's servants could be punished, which included taking bread, wine or food out of the household without permission, eating outside the hall without permission and riding a horse if below the rank of vallet de mestier. Wat Cowherd, far from being some roughneck paid for providing sexual services to the king for a couple of weeks in 1322, remained loyal to Edward to the very end: he was one of the men ('Walter Couhierd') pardoned in March 1327 for holding out at the late Hugh Despenser the Younger's stronghold of Caerphilly against the new regime. Other former members of Edward's chamber staff, such as Peter Bernard and Giles of Spain, joined the earl of Kent's conspiracy to rescue Edward from Corfe Castle in 1330, which demonstrates their loyalty to and affection for him, even two and a half years after his supposed death. There's nothing at all anywhere to suggest that Edward came on to his servants and ordered them away from court in a rage if they rejected him.

I feel that it's also worth stating here, for all the countless statements online and in books that Edward II was 'undoubtedly gay', for all the portrayals of him in fiction as a swishy, mincing, horrible stereotype of a gay man, what we actually know about Edward's sex life amounts to this:

- He had intercourse with Isabella of France four times, in or about February 1312, November 1315, September 1317 and October 1320, which resulted in their children.

- He once had intercourse with an unknown woman, sometime between about 1305 to 1308, which resulted in his illegitimate son Adam.

And that is it. Everything else is speculation. Whether Edward had sex with Piers Gaveston, Hugh Despenser or other men or women, whether his sexual preference was for men or women or both, whether he had an incestuous relationship with his niece Eleanor, how regularly or irregularly he had sex with his queen and how much he enjoyed it or didn't, I have no idea, and neither does anyone else, whatever they might claim to be 'fact' or 'undoubted truth'. (Yes, person on Facebook who stated as 'fact' that Edward "begat children on her [Isabella] - note not with her - as a painful duty," this means you too. You cannot know that.) Certainly Edward II loved Piers Gaveston, and most probably Hugh Despenser the Younger too. How he loved them...well, I'm sure everyone reading this will have their own opinion.

Lots more Edward II posts (and, according to this terrific post which I love every word of, an equal amount of 'excitable squee' about Edward loving Piers Gaveston 4eva!) to come in June. See you then, and take care.

Saint Thomas Of Lancaster

Further to my last few posts, here's one about the aftermath of Earl Thomas of Lancaster's execution on 22 March 1322. Miracles were being reported at the site of Thomas's execution and at his tomb within weeks of his death and were reported to Edward II at the parliament which began in York in late April 1322; here's how the extremely pro-Lancastrian author of the Brut chronicle reports them (the Brut is in English; I've modernised the spelling and quoted extensively as it's such a fascinating insight into the fourteenth-century mindset). "And soon after the good earl of Lancaster was martyred, a priest, that long time had been blind, dreamed in his sleeping that he should go to the hill that the good Earl Thomas of Lancaster was done to death, and he should have his sight again."

The priest had this dream for three consecutive nights, so made his way to the hill in Pontefract, and "devoutly he made there his prayer, and prayed God and Saint Thomas that he might have his sight again. And as he was in his prayers, he laid his hand upon the same place there the good man was martyred on; and a drop of dry blood and small sand cleaved on his hand, and therewith he rubbed his eyes, and anon, through the might of God and of St Thomas of Lancaster, he had his sight again, and thanked Almighty God and St Thomas. And when this miracle was made known among men, the people came thither on every side, and knelt, and made their prayers at his tomb that is in the Priory of Pontefract [Pountfrett], and prayed that holy martyr, of succour and of help, and God heard their prayer. Also there was a young child drowned in a well in the town of Pontefract, and was dead three days and three nights; and men came and laid the dead child upon St Thomas's tomb, the holy martyr; and the child arose there from death unto life, as many a man it saw; and also many people were out of their mind [miche peple wer' out of here mynde], and God hath sent them their mind again through virtue of that holy martyr. And also God hath given to cripples their going, and to the crooked their hands and their feet, and to the blind also their sight, and to many sick folk their health, that had diverse maladies, for the love of his good martyr."

The chronicler goes on: "Also there was a rich man in Condom in Gascony; and such a malady he had, that all his right side rotted, and fell away from him; and men might see his liver, and also his heart; and so he stank, that scarcely men might come near him. Wherefore his friends were for him full sorry. But at the last, as God wanted, they prayed to St Thomas of Lancaster, that he would pray to Almighty God for that prisoner, and promised to go to Pontefract for to do their pilgrimage. And the good man soon after slept full soft, and dreamed that the martyr St Thomas came unto him, and anointed all over his sick side. And therewith the good man awoke, and was all whole; and his flesh was restored again, that before was rotted and fell away; for which miracle the good man and his friends loved God and St Thomas evermore after. And this good man came into England and took with him four fellows, and came to Pontefract; and came to that holy martyr, and made their pilgrimage; but the good man that was sick came thither all naked, save his breeches; and when they had done, they turned home again into their country, and told of the miracle whereso that they came. And also two men have been healed there of their morimal [cancer or gangrene] through help of that holy martyr, though that evil be held incurable."

According to the Brut, when the two Hugh Despensers "heard that God wrought such miracles for his holy martyr, and they would not believe it in no manner wise, but said openly that it was great heresy, such virtue of him to believe." It goes on to say that Hugh the Younger sent a messenger to Edward II, who according to the chronicler was on pilgrimage, to inform him about the miracles. The story gets pretty disgusting: as Hugh's messenger passed through Pontefract, he "made his ordure" at the place where Thomas had been beheaded, and later suffered punishment for this sacrilegious act when a "strong flux" came upon him and he "shed all his bowels at his fundament," which prevented him reaching the king. [1] Lovely.

In 1323, 2000 people, some of them from as far away as Kent, gathered to pray and make oblations at Thomas of Lancaster's tomb. [2] Edward II, from Barnard Castle in early September 1323, ordered Richard Moseley, his clerk and the constable of Pontefract Castle, to "go in person to the place of execution of Thomas, late earl of Lancaster, and prohibit a multitude of malefactors and apostates from praying and making oblations there in memory of the said earl not to God but rather to idols, in contempt of the king and contrary to his former command." (Edward making his view of the situation pretty clear, there.) Feelings were running high: Moseley and his servants were assaulted, and two of them, Richard de Godeleye and Robert de la Hawe, were killed. [3] The archbishop of York, Edward II's friend and ally William Melton, twice had to remind his archdeacon that Thomas of Lancaster was not a canonised saint and order him to disperse the throng gathering at the earl's tomb, some of whom were crushed to death. [4] Several months earlier, in June 1323, Edward had been forced to order the bishop of London (Stephen Gravesend, another friend and ally of his; both Gravesend and William Melton joined the earl of Kent's plot to restore Edward in 1330) to prevent people praying and making offerings at a tablet in St Pauls "whereon are depicted statues, sculpture or images of diverse persons," Thomas of Lancaster's among them, "as the king learns with displeasure that many of the people go to the said tablet and worship it as a holy thing without the authority of the church of Rome, asserting that miracles are done there." The Croniques de London describes this object instead as a tablet which Thomas of Lancaster had had made to celebrate Edward's granting of the Ordinances in 1311. [5]

Thomas of Lancaster's cult grew in popularity at least in part as a reaction to the tyranny of Edward II and the Despensers' regime. One of the charges against Hugh Despenser the Younger in November 1326 declares that Hugh "had him [Thomas] falsely imprisoned and robbed, and in his own hall in his castle, by your royal power which you had seized from our lord the king, had him judged by a false record contrary to law and reason and Magna Carta and also without response, and you had him martyred and murdered by hard and piteous death...And because you knew that God made miracles by my good lord whom you murdered so cruelly against the law without cause, you, Hugh, as a false Christian, sent armed men into Holy Church and had the doors of monasteries shut down and closed so that no-one was bold enough to enter the Church and worship God or his saints." Whether, or to what extent, that latter statement is true, I'm not sure.

Thomas of Lancaster wasn't the only dead nobleman elevated to a heroic, saintly status in the 1320s. The great unpopularity of the Edward II/Despenser regime after the king's defeat over his enemies in 1322 meant that the Contrariants, who were, when all's said and done, little more than a bunch of treacherous, violent criminals, were praised and remembered with great affection because they were seen to have opposed the king and his favourites. Two Contrariants executed in March 1322 in Bristol were Henry de Montfort and Henry Wilington: in September 1323, miracles were also said to have taken place at their execution site. The mayor of Bristol told Edward that Montfort's brother Reginald bribed a ‘poor child’ of the city with two shillings "to pronounce to the people that he received healing of his sight." Men named William Cliff (presumably a different one to the man of this name arrested for aiding the earl of Kent in his 1330 plot to restore Edward II) and William and John Corteis "went there many times and preached to the people that miracles were done and forcibly maintained this, saying that without doubt the things done there were true." [6]

After Edward II's downfall in 1327, a campaign to canonise Thomas of Lancaster began in earnest. Edward's half-brother the earl of Kent - one of the men who condemned Thomas to death, and also one of the men who sat in judgement on the younger Despenser and accused him of murdering Thomas, hypocrisy which doesn't seem to have bothered anyone at the time - visited Pope John XXII in 1329 to ask him to canonise Thomas. (Kent seized the opportunity while at the Curia to ask the pope for his help in rescuing the supposedly dead Edward II from imprisonment.) A text written in Latin probably in the late 1320s laments Thomas as "the blessed martyr" and "flower of knights," and says "the pouring out of prayers to Thomas restores the sick to health; the pious earl comes immediately to the aid of those who are feeble." It begins "Rejoice, Thomas, the glory of chieftains, the light of Lancaster, who by thy death imitatest Thomas [Becket] of Canterbury, whose head was broken on account of the peace of the Church, and thine is cut off for the cause of the peace in England; be to us an affectionate guardian in every difficulty." The notion that Thomas was condemned to death unfairly and was a freedom fighter for the people of England against royal despotism also appears: "He is called Earl Thomas, of an illustrious race, he is condemned without cause, who was born of a royal bed. Who when he perceived that the whole commons were falling into wreck, did not shrink from dying for the right, in the fatal commerce...he is delivered to dire death, on account of which England mourns. Alas! he is beheaded for the aid of the commons...O Thomas, strenuous champion of plentiful charity, who didst combat for the law of England's liberty, intercede for our sins with the Father of Glory, that he may give us a place with the blessed in the heavenly court." [7] (One might suggest that if Thomas of Lancaster had in fact cared at all about the common people, he would have protested against the Contrariants' abuse of them in 1321/22 and tried to protect them rather than supporting and condoning it.) Although Thomas was never actually canonised, his hat and belt preserved at Pontefract were used as remedies in childbirth and for headaches as late as the Reformation. [8] Amazing...

Sources

1) The Brut or the Chronicles of England, ed. F. W. D. Brie, vol. 1, pp. 228-230.
2) J.R. Maddicott, Thomas of Lancaster 1307-1322: A Study in the Reign of Edward II, pp. 229-230.
3) Calendar of Inquisitions Miscellaneous 1308-1348, pp. 528-529.
4) Natalie Fryde, The Tyranny and Fall of Edward II 1321-1326, p. 153.
5) Calendar of Close Rolls 1318-1323, p. 723; Flores Historiarum, ed. H. R. Luard, vol. 3, p. 213; Croniques de London depuis l’an 44 Hen III jusqu'à l'an 17 Edw III, ed. G. J. Aungier, p. 46.
6) Calendar of Chancery Warrants 1244-1326, p. 543.
7) T. Wright, The Political Songs of England, pp. 268-272.
8) Maddicott, Lancaster, p. 329.