The Three Edwards

by Thomas B. Costain

  In testimony of the truth of all I have narrated here etc.

  Manuele Fieschi, Papal Notary.

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  The Earl of Kent, who was with Isabella when she landed her army, had been repenting ever since the part he had played. He was a man of limited capacity, fickle and vain and easily led, although of decent instincts in the main. He had not recovered from the shock of the murder of the deposed king, his half brother, and he became interested at once in a story which a mysterious friar told him. The friar came to his house at Kensington and swore the devil had revealed to him in a dream that Edward II was still alive and being held in captivity at Corfe. To check on this strange story, the friar had gone to Corfe and had been shown through the bars of a cell a seated figure which resembled the former king greatly in stature and face.

  The earl went at once to Corfe and demanded of the governor that he be allowed to speak with his brother, Edward of Caernarvon. The governor, a party to the conspiracy, did not deny that the deposed king was being held in the castle, but he declared firmly that he could not permit anyone to see him. The thought of his unfortunate brother being in such close confinement aroused in Edmund of Kent a deep desire to do something for him. He sat down and wrote a letter which he requested be handed by the governor to his prisoner.

  Edmund then stepped deeper into the net by telling others of his conviction that the ex-king was still alive. He seems to have convinced Archbishop Melton of York and Bishop Gravesend of London among others. He was even imprudent enough to make speeches demanding that something be done in the matter. On March 13, 1330, he was arrested and at an inquest held before Robert Howel, the coroner of the royal household, he acknowledged the authorship of the letter written at Corfe. This confession was taken before Parliament, which was sitting at Windsor, and he was charged with treason. The weak and undoubtedly befuddled earl was led in to hear his sentence, clothed in nothing but his shirt and with a rope around his neck. He made an abject plea for mercy but was declared guilty and sentenced to death. The clerical offenders were released under sureties.

  To prevent any measures which might be taken in his behalf, it was decided to carry out the sentence the next day. This decision undoubtedly was made by Isabella and Mortimer. Two explanations are given in various chronicles for the failure of the king to intervene. One is that Isabella kept him so beset with matters of state that he had no time to think of the fate of his uncle, with whom, it should be pointed out, he had always been on affectionate terms. This, of course, is beyond the limits of belief. An impending execution is an event which grips the emotions and cannot be dismissed lightly from the mind, particularly when the condemned one is of royal rank and close in relationship. The second explanation is that the young king was away when this happened. The weakness here is that Parliament was sitting at the time, and duty would have kept Edward at his post. The writ of execution would need the stamp of the Great Seal. Had Edward allowed possession of the Seal to his mother and Mortimer?

  There is a bare possibility that he had ridden to Woodstock, where his young consort was expecting the arrival of their first child and that this cruel travesty of justice was put through in his absence. This contingency is not mentioned in any reports of the case. It is the only explanation which would exempt the young king from a share of the odium.

  Early the next morning the earl was led out to the block. Word of what was happening had spread and a sense of horror had gripped the immediate countryside. This was even felt by the official headsman, who was not on hand when the white-faced prisoner reached the place of execution in the light of dawn. It was found that the executioner, to avoid any part in this terrible act, had run away. The unfortunate earl was kept beside the block while efforts were made to find someone ready to take the place of the absconding headsman. For long hours no one could be induced to wield the ax, and in the meantime the pallid Edmund, hoping against hope, believing to the very end that his nephew would intervene in his behalf, stood beside the instruments of death. Finally a prisoner under sentence of death was persuaded to perform the act in return for a pardon. It was nearly dusk when the head of Edmund of Kent rolled from the block.

  It should be explained that Edmund had never been popular with the people, having some of the qualities of his brother, Edward II. He was of great personal strength and was prone to a display of magnificence in everything he did. The household he maintained was a riotous one, however, and he allowed his officers to plunder the people wherever he went.

  Despite the ill feelings which had been engendered in this way, a wave of horror swept the country when the news of his death was heard. Realizing that they had gone too far, Isabella and Mortimer hastened to write the Pope in justification of what they had done and to address explanations to the people of the country. Their attempts at palliation of the deed were coldly received everywhere.

  It is certain that this judicial murder convinced the young king that he could no longer delay in assuming full charge of the affairs of the kingdom. If he had needed any further pressure, it was supplied by the birth of his first child on June 15 of that year.

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  The royal manor of Woodstock had always been a favorite hunting lodge for the kings of England. Wychwood Forest stretched east and west from Woodstock to the borders of Gloucestershire, and as far back as the reign of Henry I a large part of it was enclosed to form a royal game preserve. A wall of stone was built around it, so high that the boldest of poachers would have hesitated at scaling it. There were trees of remarkable size within this park, and it is believed that some of the ancient oaks which stand there at the present time spread their majestic arms over glade and path in the days of the Edwards.

  Woodstock is best remembered, of course, for the part it played in the romance of Henry II and the Fair Rosamonde. That Henry kept his beautiful mistress in a bower concealed in the garden maze and that she was discovered there by Queen Eleanor and poisoned is a story which has long been discounted. The truth is that the mistress was maintained in a small stone house just outside the stone wall. This became known as Rosamonde’s Chamber and it was still standing, although in a state of disrepair, when King Edward took his bride there. Whether or not the young couple believed in the legend of the ball of silk thread which was the only clue to the whereabouts of the bower, they took considerable interest in the House Beyond the Wall and, being so happy themselves, sighed over the sad fate of the fair but ill-fated Rosamonde. They were so much interested, in fact, that a few years later, in 1334, Edward gave written instructions that the house was to be repaired.

  It was at Woodstock that Philippa presented Edward with their first child, a boy, a fine and healthy fellow of great beauty; so it was declared, although it is doubtful if more than a hint of later good looks can ever be discerned in the red and puckered face of a newborn infant. This much was certain: the boy was large and strong and particular stress is laid on the fine texture and solidity of his limbs as he was wrapped in his swaddling clothes. This was taken as an indication that the child would become a great warrior. There was no mistake in that prediction. The lusty child, held so lovingly in the arms of his flaxen-haired mother, was given the name of Edward and would gain great fame in the French wars and would be known forever after as Edward the Black Prince.

  Perhaps it should be explained at once that this appellation had nothing to do with the appearance of the prince. He grew up as fair of hair and blue of eye as all the Plantagenets. It grew out of the fact that he wore black armor at the battle of Crécy, supplied by his father. It is not clear whether or not he continued to wear sable mail, but it seems likely that he did. It is true also that he used black in his heraldic devices.

  Whatever the reason, the Black Prince he became and by that name he will be remembered as long as the history of England is read.

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  Small credence, either official or popular, was placed at any time in this rumor that Edward II was still alive. The scatteration of the rep
uted assassins was in itself an admission of guilt.

  There was no thought that William of Berkeley had been an accomplice, although there did seem to be a neatness about his being away on affairs of his own at the exact time the foul deed was accomplished. He was summoned to appear before Parliament, where an inquiry was made into the responsibility for the appointment of Gurney and Ogle. Because Berkeley was a son-in-law of Mortimer and a brother-in-law of Maltravers, it was possible to believe that there had been a family compact at work. The selection of Gurney and Ogle was easily traceable to Mortimer, however, and so the inquiry did not uncover anything to the dishonor of the lord of Berkeley. The case was allowed to drag on, perhaps because silence and delay seemed desirable to the king, and at the end of nearly seven years Edward declared himself satisfied of Berkeley’s complete innocence.

  Edward did not display any great eagerness at any time to track down the guilty trio. This was understandable in the light of his fear that the complicity of his mother would be brought out into the light of day if the murderers were placed on open trial.

  Ogle managed to get away at once. This is surprising because it was generally believed that, acting under orders from the others, he had been the perpetrator of the murder. Certainly Ogle would have made a convenient scapegoat. He had no knowledge to divulge of the guilt of higher-ups, his hands were still red with blood figuratively, and the purse of gold under his belt was still heavy. Perhaps he got away ahead of the hue and cry. At any rate, he was believed to have escaped to the continent and to have died there.

  A determined effort seems to have been made to apprehend Gurney. Perhaps he had done some indiscreet talking or had placed his hand on an incriminating document. At any rate, they wanted him back. In 1331 he was located in the dominions of the King of Castile and was thrown into prison at the instance of the English king. A member of the royal household was dispatched to fetch him. There were long delays, however, and by the time the officer of the crown arrived, Gurney had made his escape. The following year it was learned that he was in Naples, and Edward sent a Yorkshire knight to bring him to England. Gurney was taken across the Mediterranean to one of the ports of southern France. His jailer decided then to continue the journey by land. Gurney riding chained to his saddle, they got as far as Gascony. Here the prisoner took sick and died.

  The story was widely circulated that Gurney was beheaded at sea, but there was no foundation for this. The Yorkshire knight, after the death of his prisoner from natural causes, had the body embalmed and sailed with it from the port of Bordeaux.

  No effort was made to bring Maltravers to justice, although his record was far from creditable. He had been an adherent of Mortimer and had been with him during his exile in France. Later he was an instrument in the judicial murder of Edmund, Earl of Kent. He had remained at Berkeley after the killing of the deposed king, ostensibly in charge of the body, until the burial at Gloucester in October of that year, although the other pair, Gurney and Ogle, had vanished in the fear, no doubt, that they would be made the scapegoats. After the death of Mortimer, Maltravers was condemned to death for his share in the killing of the Earl of Kent and no mention was made of his complicity in the death of King Edward. Being an adroit and glib fellow, he had succeeded, it seems, in convincing everyone that Gurney and Ogle had been wholly responsible. Before the sentence could be carried out, he escaped to Flanders, where he had extensive properties and where he proceeded to make himself most useful in maintaining friendly relations between England and the Flemish states. His wife Agnes, a daughter of Sir William Beresford, lived comfortably on her dower lands in Dorset and was even permitted to pay him visits. Maltravers played such a skillful role in international affairs that in 1340 Agnes received the royal permission to stay with her husband as long as she desired.

  The Flemish alliances began to crumble and the suave Maltravers found himself in a precarious position, his life as well as his overseas possessions in jeopardy. He obtained an interview with Edward at this time at the port of Sluys and expressed a desire to give himself up and return to England. It must have been a strange interview, the meeting of the king and the man who almost certainly had given the signal for the death plot against the king’s father to be carried out. There may have been a tacit understanding that this most tragic page in English history would be left unturned. He received Edward’s promise of a safe-conduct to England for trial.

  The king seems to have been partial to this controversial figure. In order to facilitate the restitution of his estates, Edward had the properties of Maltravers taken out of the jurisdiction of the Exchequer and reserved for the king’s chamber. The settlement of the case was delayed, however, by the errands abroad on which Maltravers was sent. The estates were finally returned to him in 1352, and from that time on he lived in England in comfort, if not exactly in honor, and died in his bed in 1365.

  And so nothing was done to make the guilty parties pay for this most terrible murder in all the annals of England.

  CHAPTER IV

  The Royal Hamlet Strikes

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  MORTIMER must have realized that the murder of Kent had been a grievous mistake and that public sentiment was rising against him. But he did not allow the knowledge to check his aggressions or abate his arrogance. Parliament was to meet at Nottingham that autumn, and he rode to attend it with his usual long train of knights and his Welsh mercenaries to strip the country of food as they passed.

  What he did not realize at once was that the young king had at last decided to act. Edward had discovered the man he needed, a courageous and compatible friend in the person of William de Montacute, one of the younger barons. He was making his plans in concert with Montacute and a knight in the service of the latter, Sir John de Molines. They had to be very careful, for the king’s mother was beginning to sense the danger surrounding her and had been taking minute precautions. It was arranged that Edward was to go into residence with them at Nottingham Castle. Guards were kept about the grounds at all hours of the day and night to prevent anyone from having audience with the king. As a further measure, all the locks on the castle gates and posterns had been changed and each night the keys were taken to Isabella, who slept with them under her pillow. Edward was allowed no more than four attendants. The earls of Lancaster and Hereford, the leading figures in the baronage, had been forbidden to find lodgings in the town and were compelled to seek quarters at some distance in the country. It was almost as though the guilty pair, knowing retribution to be close at hand, were throwing caution to the winds in a willingness to provoke it.

  There must have been tension in the castle among the trio. Edward, in addition to evasions and omissions because of the course of action he had decided upon, was anxious to be with his wife and that great fine man child she had presented to him, and so was impatient of delays. Woman’s intuition would tell Isabella that there was something on his mind and it would not be hard for her to make an accurate guess. Nothing that is recorded of Mortimer suggests that he had any subtlety about him, but every time his eye rested on Edward he would see the inevitable end to his day of power approaching and he would puff up with resentment and, perhaps, hatred. If the young king could only be trapped and dealt with as he, Mortimer, had disposed of Edmund of Kent! But that was impossible. The rancor in his mind fattened on the inevitability of his fall.

  By some means, not disclosed, Edward had succeeded in establishing communication with his two chief aides on the outside. He got word to them of a secret confided to him by the castellan, William Holland. Centuries before, when the danger from Danish invasions was acute, a secret passage had been run underground from the keep to a cave in a woods some distance from the castle, to provide an avenue of escape. It had not been used for several generations, but it was still open. It was arranged, therefore, that on the night of October 19 Montacute would bring a body of armed men through the passage and join the king at the stair leading up to the keep.

  The plan worked perfect
ly. Edward made a pretense of retiring early but did not undress, and at the appointed time he made his way cautiously down the stone stairway, becoming aware in doing so of loud masculine voices from Mortimer’s room. The boudoir-appointed despot was conferring with his immediate assistants and confidants. The young king knew, of course, that his mother occupied the adjoining apartment, and a sense of shame for the imputations to be drawn from this undoubtedly hardened his resolution for what lay ahead.