Isabella and the Strange Death of Edward II

by Paul Doherty

  The tomb has only been opened once, for a short while, in 1855. The description of it made by the sub-sacristan in 1855, can still be read in the archives of Gloucester Cathedral. It reads as follows:

  On the 2nd October 1855, in the presence of Dr. Jeune, the Canon-in-Residence, Mr Waller, the cathedral architect, Allen, the sub-sacrist, and Henry Clifford, the master mason, the tomb of Edward II in the cathedral was opened, by removing the floor on the south side of the tomb: only just below the flooring, immediately under the tomb. We came first to a wood coffin, quite sound, and after removing a portion of this, we came to a leaden one, containing the remains of the King: the wood, although light as cork, was still very perfect, and the lead one quite entire, and made with a very thick sheet of lead, its shape very peculiar, being square at the bottom, and rising on each side like an arch, and so turned over the body in an oval or arched form, and made to set nearly down upon the body. The tomb was never known to have been opened before this. It remained open but the space of two hours, and was then closed again, without the slightest injury being done to the tomb. The fact of his internment being now five hundred and twenty-eight years since, it was considered to be in a wonderful state of preservation.

  Isabella must have been secretly delighted that the vexatious problem of her deposed husband had now been resolved. No courtier could object to her intimate relationship with Mortimer, no bishop demand that she return to her husband. Edward’s corpse lay beneath the cold slabs of Gloucester Abbey and Isabella appears not to have given it a second thought. She and Mortimer had more important business in hand. A settlement was to be reached with the Scots whilst she had to honour her promise to the Count of Hainault that the young Edward III, now sixteen years of age, would marry his daughter, Philippa.

  On 23 December, three days after the funeral, Philippa landed at Dover where she was met by household knights. She was rapturously received by the Londoners and travelled via Canterbury to York where, on 30 January 1328, the young couple were married in the city cathedral by Archbishop Melton of York and the Bishop of Ely.12 No doubt the marriage was used to curry public favour, and distract attention from the ostentatious but empty ceremony in Gloucester a few weeks earlier, as well as from the distasteful policies Isabella and Mortimer were about to proclaim at the coming York Parliament. The historian John Froissart, who was lavishly patronized by Queen Philippa, visited Berkeley Castle in 1366 and made enquiries about the death of Edward of Caernarvon. ‘An ancient squire told me,’ he wrote, ‘that he died within a year of coming to Berkeley. For someone cut his life short and thus died that King of England. Let us not speak long of him but turn to the Queen and her son.’

  Once the wedding ceremony of her son was over, Isabella attended the York Parliament, which opened on 7 February 1328. Isabella and Mortimer were both determined on peace with Scotland. The council was divided about the issue but Isabella controlled the young King. On 1 March 1328, Edward III drew up formal letters containing a treaty agreeing to Scotland’s sovereignty and bringing all hostilities between the two kingdoms to an end. At the end of April 1328, the Northampton Parliament ratified this peace treaty, in which Isabella also promised the hand of her youngest daughter, Joanna, to Bruce’s heir, David. Scotland would pay some compensation but Bruce had won his war and his kingdom was recognized as both independent and sovereign, free of any English claims.13 Isabella was exhausted and, for the first time since her invasion, completely withdrew from the court. Mortimer, too, was absent. The last time he had witnessed a charter was on 3 March 1328, and both the Queen and her adviser only reappeared towards the end of April at another council meeting at Stamford.14

  Isabella and Mortimer were now living in a fool’s paradise: their rapacity and monopoly of government tore holes in the great alliance which had toppled the de Spencers in 1326. Henry of Lancaster was not impressed. He and his followers had played a decisive part in the overthrow of the de Spencers. Now, within two years of their destruction, England had a new favourite and once again the party of Lancaster was marginalized. Earl Henry was supported by other dissidents, who resented Mortimer’s ambitions in Wales as well as those who had lost estates as a result of the peace with Scotland.

  Isabella had also created a breach with someone more important – her eldest son. King Edward III was now sixteen: married, old enough to bear arms, though still young enough to have to listen to the advice of his council. Edward was particularly angry with Isabella’s management of Scottish affairs. He publicly proclaimed that the marriage of his younger sister Joanna to David Bruce did not have his blessing, so he would not be attending the wedding, scheduled to take place at Berwick on 16 July 1328.15

  The young King kept to his word but his anger only increased when Isabella agreed to surrender the Stone of Scone. This was the holy relic of Scottish history on which former kings had been crowned until Edward I had seized it and brought it to London. Isabella insisted that her son order that the Stone of Scone be released and despatched to Berwick to be handed over to the Scottish Commissioners. Edward III obeyed the letter but not the spirit of her order. He issued a rather flippant instruction to the Abbot of Westminster to take the Stone of Scone to Queen Isabella: ‘in whatever part of the north of England she may be’.16 The young King was being deliberately obstructive and the capital was infected by his mood. The Londoners staged a dramatic demonstration against the Stone’s removal, so the Abbot wrote to Edward that he could not agree to surrendering it until the matter had been discussed further.17 This was play-acting on the part of the monks of Westminster. They knew the King didn’t want the Stone removed and so secretly co-operated with him. The incident demonstrated the young King’s defiance and a growing restlessness against his mother’s rule which others would support.

  By February 1329, however, Isabella and Mortimer had managed to crush any opposition at home and, by brute force, obliged Earl Henry and the Lancastrian party to submit. Lancaster and his principal lieutenants were made to sign recognizances, or promises, guaranteeing their good behaviour and, if they reneged, he and his two lieutenants would face fines amounting to £55,000. They were also made to swear oaths on the gospels before the full King’s council, that ‘under pain of forfeiture of life, limb and property, they would do nothing against Our Lord the King, his mother the Queen, or any other great or small of their council’.18 In effect Mortimer and his henchmen now controlled the young King’s household.

  At the Salisbury Parliament of the previous year, 1328, Mortimer had been created Earl of March,19 and was beginning to emerge from the shadows and display the same unbounded ambition as his former enemy, de Spencer. The new Earl of March emphasized his descent from the mythical King Brutus of Albion and displayed his power in gorgeous extravangazas, in which he performed as Arthur with the Knights of the Round Table. Isabella, who had collected a number of books on the Arthurian romances, probably played Guinevere to Mortimer’s Arthur. On 9 September 1329, the Queen’s lover organized another demonstration of his glory and power at Hereford to mark the anniversary of de Spencer’s downfall some three years previously. The occasion was the marriage of his two daughters: one to the eldest son of the Earl of Norfolk, the King’s uncle; the second to the heir of the great landowner, John de Hastings. The latter provided Mortimer with more wealth. The marriage to Norfolk’s heir, however, linked the Mortimers with the royal family and proclaimed their new position as one of the premier families of the realm. It was an ascendancy the Mortimer clan would develop and strengthen: by 1398, Roger Mortimer, the third Earl of March, was Richard II’s acknowledged heir to the English throne.20

  Isabella’s paramour began to act more and more like a deputy king. Mortimer’s self-glorification and pride became so well known that even one of his sons called him ‘the King of Folly’, not only a caricature of his father’s ambitions, but a veiled warning against the reaction which his father’s arrogance might provoke.21 The astute and wily Pope John XXII was also receiving similar repor
ts. He wrote to Mortimer and Isabella, quoting the Latin tag: ‘That whatever they do, they do prudently and keep an eye on the end and to put up with minor irritations lest worse be thrust upon them.’ The Pope may have been talking about their pride or subtly alluding to their adulterous relationship. In the winter of 1329–30, Isabella may even have become pregnant by Mortimer. During that period, and again in the summer of 1330, Isabella nominated Mortimer as heir to several properties in the event of her death.

  After the celebration of the marriage at Hereford, Isabella and Mortimer travelled to Dunstable for another great extravaganza involving tournaments and pageants. After that, they removed themselves from the public eye once more, spending their time quietly at Northampton and Kenilworth before journeying into London for the coronation of the young Queen Philippa in January 1330. But their stay at Northampton and Kenilworth, however, was not simply a holiday from affairs of state. Their past deeds had returned to haunt them and the ‘ghost’ of Edward II refused to remain silent.

  In January 1330 Isabella summoned a Parliament to meet at Winchester, ostensibly to discuss relations with France and the need to send men and supplies to Gascony.22 The court left London and arrived at Winchester on 1 March, where the assembly were astounded by the sudden arrest of Edmund, Earl of Kent, Isabella’s brother-in-law, the King’s uncle, on a charge of high treason.23 A court was swiftly assembled. Kent was brought before Robert Howell, coroner of the royal household, with Mortimer acting as prosecutor. The Earl of March, as he was now commonly known, produced certain letters and asked Kent if they belonged to him. Kent admitted that they did. Mortimer read them out and they revealed a most astonishing plot to free Edward II. Kent broke down and admitted everything: his published confession is still extant and makes lurid reading.

  According to Kent, Edward II had not been murdered at Berkeley but in fact was still alive at Corfe Castle on the Dorset coast. Two friars, ‘Edmund Savage and John’, had confirmed the rumours and offered to act as intermediaries between Kent and his imprisoned royal half-brother. However, Kent had first been appraised of this matter via a Dominican whom he had met in Kensington: this friar, through the black arts, had raised a demon who had informed Kent that Edward II was still alive and well at Corfe. Edmund of Kent had shared this information with leading nobles and churchmen, including Melton, Archbishop of York and Gravesend, Bishop of London. He had been assured of financial and military support by these powerful men, as well as by exiles now living abroad, for freeing his brother and restoring him to his throne. The stamp of approval for the entire plot had been given by Pope John XXII, whom Kent had visited in Avignon and with whom he had conferred. Kent confessed he was so certain that Edward II was still alive, he had actually despatched letters to him through certain people and these documents had fallen into the hands of Mortimer.24

  At first glance this must be one of the most bizarre plots in the history of the English royal family. Two and a half years after an ostentatious funeral, his half-brother, Edmund, firmly believed that Edward II was still alive and sheltering at Corfe Castle. Now there is no real evidence that the above confession faithfully reflected Kent’s conspiracy. Edmund of Kent, son of Edward I and Margaret of France, was a young man whom very few people liked. Since the battle of Boroughbridge in 1322, he had demonstrated a predisposition for gullibility and inconsistency. In 1324 Edward II and the de Spencers had made him Commander-in-Chief of the English task force in Gascony, where Isabella’s uncle, Charles of Valois, had tricked him into signing the disastrous Treaty of La Reole. After that, Kent, frightened of facing the De Spencers, joined Isabella and the others in exile, becoming a prominent member of her council in Paris. Even then he compromised himself by secretly trying to assure Edward II that his intentions were not treasonable.

  Once Isabella had staged her coup, Kent’s allegiance swung back to his brother and he may have been one of the ‘Great Ones of the Land’, who supported the plots by the Dunheveds and Rhys Ap Griffith to free Edward II from Berkeley Castle. Kent opposed Lancaster but then changed his mind and joined Earl Henry. He proved to be more extreme than Lancaster, denouncing the young King personally for breaking his coronation oath and violating Magna Carta. However, when Kent realized that Lancaster could not possibly succeed, he deserted him and made his peace with Isabella. To all intents and purposes Kent was an unstable young man, with an obvious guilt complex about his betrayal of Edward II. Nonetheless, was he stupid or feckless enough to become embroiled in such an unlikely plot? In his confession Kent first implicates one of the most astute politicians of his day, Pope John XXII, reformer, theologian and poet, who probably wrote the ‘Anima Christi’, the beautiful Catholic poem on the Eucharist. According to Kent, Pope John actually ordered him, with his blessing, to deliver his brother from prison and encouraged him to look for support among the English nobility. Kent, of course had already done this; indeed, he may have begun his machinations as early as the winter of 1328, when he first mentioned his secret to Lancaster. In a letter to the Londoners of 5 November 1328, Earl Henry refers to ‘certain matters’ told to him by the Earl of Kent but he was too frightened to put these into writing, although his messenger would report them by word of mouth.25 This may refer to Kent’s belief that his brother was still alive.

  Kent attended Edward II’s funeral, was at Gloucester when Edward was buried, and witnessed a charter there.26 He did not see the corpse but he may have picked up rumours which he thought warranted further investigation. At the beginning of June 1329, Kent and Robert Taunton, another conspirator, were so convinced of the rightness of their cause, that they visited Pope John XXII at Avignon. Afterwards the Earl travelled to Paris, where he visited two refugees from Isabella’s and Mortimer’s government, Thomas Rosslyn, one of Henry of Lancaster’s henchmen, and the loud-mouthed Henry Beaumont. The latter, together with the rest of his family, had broken all ties with Isabella over her treaty with Scotland, which had deprived them of estates and holdings north of the border.

  On 24 March 1330, the young King, at Isabella’s command, informed the Pope of the plot. They pointed out how Kent had been present at the funeral in Gloucester and that the source of his story was a demon-raising friar. Edward III added how his messenger, John Walwayn, would provide further details. On 15 September Pope John XXII wrote back to both Isabella and her son, expressing surprise that Edward II, whose funeral had been so public, could still be alive. The Pope added: ‘That those who were present at the funeral could not possibly have been deceived and did not attempt to deceive. If the funeral had been in secret there would have been some grounds for suspicion but the funeral was public enough.’ Moreover, the Pope added, if he’d really believed such a story he would have contacted the Queen and her son immediately and directly.27

  The letter was a masterpiece of diplomatic evasion. Almost a year earlier, the Earl of Kent and the clerk Taunton had been in Avignon. However, the Pope was at pains not to deny that such a story was told to him, only that he didn’t believe it, hence his silence for almost a year. He lays great emphasis on the public funeral. He protests his innocence but his doubts are tangible. His references to the obsequies at Gloucester are highly ironic. Had he seen through Isabella’s strategies? Pope John XXII already had the measure of Isabella and Mortimer. He didn’t tell them everything he knew, including the fact that the young King himself was now engaged in secret correspondence with the papacy, in direct opposition to his mother and Mortimer.

  The story about the demon-raising friar in Kensington may have been a deliberate distortion by Mortimer and Isabella. The ‘Dominican’ in question was probably Thomas Dunheved’s brother, Stephen, who, despite the best efforts of government agents, was still busy around the country on behalf of his former royal master. Kent may have been gullible but he would hardly commit high treason simply because a Dominican claimed he had been visited by the devil. In her letter to the Pope of 24 March 1330, Isabella repeats this story, knowing full well that it would put th
e focus on Kent as well as the source of his conspiracy.28

  Nor would Kent have been able to convince others that his brother was still alive on the strength of a lurid story told to him by some devil-raising friar. The list of notable accomplices is quite extensive: the astute and saintly Melton, Archbishop of York, joined the conspiracy, pledging £5000. Melton, indeed, appears to have played a prominent part in actively encouraging Kent. The rest of his supporters were either fervent opponents of Mortimer or the heirs and adherents of de Spencer, who had managed to survive the crash of October 1326. The conspiracy, then, was widespread, even though the Earl of Kent was highly unpopular.

  On 18 and 22 March the arrest of the principal plotters was ordered. On the 31st a list of more minor figures implicated was publicly distributed to the sheriffs. On the 21 March and 13 April 1330, commissioners, with wide, sweeping powers, were despatched into Norfolk, Suffolk and Northampton to search out and arrest possible adherents of the Earl of Kent. All were imprisoned and the more important, including the Archbishop of York, indicted for high treason before King’s Bench. Proclamations were also issued on 13 April 1330, condemning people who persisted in spreading rumours that Edward II was still alive.29

  On the one hand, Kent’s conspiracy may appear lightweight and eccentric. A more critical examination demonstrates that it was well supported and far reaching, which explains how Isabella and Mortimer learnt about Kent’s activities long before the Winchester Parliament of March 1330. Kent arrived back from France on 10 December 1329, when he rejoined the court at Kenilworth. According to his confession, two friar preachers, one called Edmund Savage, the other simply ‘John’, were ‘the chief dealers in this matter’. The Brut Chronicle claims these friars approached Kent once he was back in England. They confirmed the rumour that Edward was still alive and claimed they had discovered that he was being kept at Corfe Castle. Isabella and Mortimer were responsible for infiltrating the Earl of Kent’s clique with ‘agents provocateurs’. The two Dominicans, Edmund Savage and ‘Brother John’ were never included in the lists of those to be arrested, nor has any documentary evidence of their existence ever been found. Possibly they were Isabella’s own agents, luring Kent towards treason. Three months earlier, on 24 September 1329, John Maltravers, who had been associated with Berkeley in the custody of the deposed King, had been made custodian of Corfe Castle. Maltravers was later accused, together with Mortimer, of luring Kent to his death: it seems possible his appointment was part of the counter-plot and may prove that, as early as the autumn of 1329, Isabella and Mortimer’s agents had informed them of Kent’s conspiracy.30