by Ian Mortimer
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We have only one fact illustrating the nature of Roger and Isabella’s relationship at this time, and it can hardly be described as representative. At some point before June 1326 there was an emotional outburst between them in which Isabella, probably confused and frightened, suggested that she might return to her husband. Although the young prince and others were present, Roger angrily replied that, rather than let her go back to Edward, he would himself ‘kill her with his knife or some other way’.33 The prince was profoundly shocked by Roger’s threat, as were all those present, including Despenser’ spy. But it offers a tantalising glimpse into the relationship. On the strength of it one might say that, after the initial rush of passion, it seems Isabella had doubts about their joint course of action, and considered going back to Edward seriously enough to say so. Roger, on the other hand, did not have this option, and refused to countenance her idea. But that he did this in a way which was sufficiently public for the discussion to become more widely known suggests that his emotions got the better of him, and that his feelings for Isabella were stronger than his self-control. This is the only evidence we have of him being anything other than circumspect in his personal affairs. One last point we can make about this outburst: Isabella’s doubts proved only temporary. With Roger’s support thereafter she was resolute.
Isabella’s wavering might possibly explain why Roger’s attack from Hainault, planned initially for February 1326, was delayed. Intervention by the Pope, however, is a more likely explanation.34 In view of the international situation, Roger and Isabella – particularly Isabella – had to be seen to have exhausted all other options for resolving the dispute with Edward before invading. In February the Pope wrote to Hugh Despenser ordering him to prevent civil war by leaving court, as Isabella had requested. Despenser, lacking the vision to manipulate this intervention to his advantage, told the Pope’s legates that the queen had no right to demand his withdrawal. The real reason why she had not returned to England, he claimed, was that Roger was threatening to kill her if she did. Edward himself wrote to the Pope at this time admitting that his wife was sharing her living accommodation with Roger, with the obvious implication that she was also sharing her bed. Only then did the Pope realise that the hatred the English felt for Hugh Despenser, and the hatred Despenser and Edward felt for Roger and the queen, would not be dissipated except by force of arms.
Despenser was trying to find another, simpler solution to his difficulties. In May he despatched barrels of silver to France in an attempt to bribe Charles’s courtiers to murder the queen. The plot was discovered when a Hainault ship captured the vessel carrying Despenser’s treasure.35 Time now was clearly running out for Roger and Isabella. The longer their invasion was delayed, the more dangerous the situation. They attended the coronation of the Queen of France together in May, Roger bearing Edward’s robes on the occasion in a marked reference to his role at the coronation of Edward II eighteen years earlier. They were probably still in France in June, when the king wrote a final letter to his son, ordering him to ignore Roger’s influence and to shun his company.
In July the queen went to her county of Ponthieu to raise money and men for the invasion, and Roger went to Hainault to begin organising the assembly of the fleet. At last he was exercising the function of a commander again, just as he had done in 1317. This invasion fleet, however, was larger than his Irish flotilla. Count William of Hainault ordered one hundred and forty vessels to be assembled between Rotterdam and Dordrecht by 1 September, and ordered his harbour masters to assist Roger in every way. Eventually ninety-five ships were gathered: four warships, fifteen hulks, or transporters, twenty-nine other ships and forty-five fishing vessels.36 If one assumes that a warship and a hulk could each transport at least thirty men and the requísite horses and armour, besides the crew, and the average ship or fishing vessel large enough to be of use could take an average of six men, it would seem that Roger’s army was at least 1,100 men strong, despite some contemporaries’ claims that it was smaller.37 If more foot-soldiers were transported, it is quite possible that the higher estimates of 1,500 or 2,500 men were more accurate. Given the probability that only a fifth of the army, at the most, was mounted it would be reasonable to assume that Roger had an army of approximately 1,500 men at his disposal.
In September, the fleet was ready, and the invasion of England imminent. On the 7th Isabella arrived in Hainault, and from there went to Rotterdam, where Roger had been organising the fleet in conjunction with Sir John of Hainault, Count William’s younger brother, who was to command the Hainaulters on the expedition. Roger, Isabella, Sir John and the Hainault court then moved to the port of Brill, ready for the embarkation.38 On 20 September they feasted together for the last time and prepared themselves for departure.
In his career Roger had led a force which had successfully invaded Ireland; he had been part of an army which had successfully re-established Edward I’s control of Scotland, and he had put down a popular revolt in Wales. Now he was about to invade England. He and Isabella stood together on the threshold of either greatness or death. But if his nerve was wavering at this point it must have been made firm by the news which reached him just before sailing. His old uncle, Lord Mortimer of Chirk, was dead. He had died in his cell in the Tower on 3 of August. According to the coroner, the corpse showed no wound, lesion or bruise. But Roger may well have had his doubts.
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TEN
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Invader
ROGER AND ISABELLA and their small army of mercenaries landed in Suffolk, on the north bank of the River Orwell, on 24 September 1326.1 Although the chronicler Jean le Bel claimed that a storm had blown them off course during their voyage, and that this was to their advantage since the king knew of their plans, it is likely that they intended to land here. It was within striking distance of London, yet defended by rivers from the king’s forces in the south. It was also within the lands controlled by the Earl of Norfolk, who loathed the Despensers. Le Bel was probably right in one respect, that the king knew of their plans: three weeks earlier Edward had ordered the admiral John de Sturmy to take a defending force of two thousand men to Orwell. Fortunately for Roger and Isabella, de Sturmy’s fleet did not show up, and they were able to disembark quickly and efficiently within a few hours of landing.2
Edward was at the Tower of London when he heard the news. Initially he did not believe it: he had been expecting a large invasion force of many thousands of men. A few boatloads from Hainault represented a comparatively minor threat. A day or so later, when further reports confirmed that Roger and Isabella had indeed landed in East Anglia, he saw his opportunity. His enemies were within his grasp, and protected by a comparatively small number of mercenaries. If he could neutralise any local lords who might be tempted to support them, they would be at his mercy. On 27 September he ordered Robert de Waterville to levy and assemble ‘all the men-at-arms and footmen of the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Hertford, Cambridge and Huntingdon, and to pursue the rebels and do what harm they can to them’.3 Other men were ordered to do the same in Kent, Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Wales. Orders were sent to all the sheriffs to forbid anyone from assisting the invaders and to muster the feudal levy. The immense total of 47,640 men-at-arms, hobelers, footsoldiers and archers was summoned, a larger army than had ever before been raised in England. More men were ordered to come to the king to defend him the following day. All the murderers and other criminals held in custody were offered their freedom if they would take up arms against Roger: pardons were issued to more than a hundred murderers straightaway. Finally the king placed a reward on Roger’s head. All sheriffs were to proclaim it ‘in fairs, markets, and other places at least two or three times a week’:
Whereas Roger Mortimer and other traitors of the king and his realm have entered the realm in force, and have brought with them foreign strangers for the purpose of taking the royal power from the king, the king wills you to go in force aga
inst his said enemies to arrest and destroy them, except the queen, his son and the Earl of Kent, whom he wills shall be saved. And, although in such case every man of the realm is bound by his allegiance to come with all his force and power in defence of the king, of themselves and of the realm, the king nevertheless wills on this occasion, for the ease of his people, that all those who shall come to him to set out with him against his enemies – men-at-arms, hobelers and armed footmen, crossbowmen, archers and other footmen – shall be paid wages according to their value promptly, to wit: a man-at-arms 12d, a hobeler 6d, a footman armed with double garment 4d, armed with a single garment 3d, and an archer 2d a day each … If any person or persons bring and render to him the body of the said Roger or bring his head, the king wills that he or they shall have his charters of peace for any felony, adherence or other matter against his peace, and he grants that he will pay them £1,000 sterling.4
At this point Roger’s familiarity with the key members of the court in past years worked to his advantage. They understood his purpose in invading. They knew that he was essentially a loyal servant of the Crown who had been forced into an impossible position, and that his enmity had always been directed at Despenser rather than the king. Even men loyal to the government were swayed. Although a loyal king’s man, Robert de Waterville was a longtime friend of Roger and had been one of the guests at the wedding of young Edmund Mortimer in 1316. Instead of attacking Roger in East Anglia he joined forces with him. Similarly Thomas Wake, Roger’s cousin, deserted the king upon being ordered to take arms against the invaders. The king, suspecting Henry of Lancaster would do the same, did not even send him orders. He was right to be suspicious. Immediately on hearing the news Henry raised an army at Leicester, stole the treasure which the elder Despenser’s agent had deposited in the abbey there, and prepared to march south to join the invaders.
Roger and Isabella spent their first night in England at the Earl of Norfolk’s manor of Walton, on the Suffolk coast. They had planned well. In particular they had given considerable thought to how they might sway popular opinion in their favour. Firstly, and most importantly, they understood the power of the royal banner. The common people could be relied upon to support – or at least not to defy – their future monarch and those bearing the royal arms. Certainly many more people would follow the banner of the future King Edward than that of a famous rebel. It was also important for Roger to distance himself personally from Isabella: if the leaders of the invasion were seen to be living in sin then people might expect God to exert a moral sentence upon them by having them defeated in battle. Although the military impetus came from him, this was ostensibly the queen’s invasion, and it was a moral campaign with the purpose of ridding England of Hugh Despenser the younger. Isabella had to play the part of a lady in distress. She did this so well that her conquests outweighed those of any number of mercenaries. She conquered the hearts of the ordinary people, who might otherwise have mustered against her.
Roger’s role was to plan the strategic movements of the army. The fleet which had carried them from Hainault was ordered to return to the Continent as soon as the army had disembarked. Maybe Roger recalled the tactic employed by Duke William of Normandy in 1066. By ordering the ships to leave he ensured there would be no retreat for the Hainault mercenaries. They would have to fight and die alongside him and the other Englishmen. Roger was also required to discipline the army. At Walton the foreign mercenaries started looting. This was immediately brought to a halt. The queen offered compensation to those whose houses had been affected, and at a stroke regained the confidence of the local inhabitants and obtained the respect of many others who feared her approach. Although Isabella may well have had a hand in planning such gestures, discipline of an army was completely outside her experience, and she was reliant on Roger from the moment they landed. He was in effect her ‘strong arm’, her Field Marshal.
While Roger’s role was publicly played down, Isabella’s was exaggerated. She was given prominence as the religious figurehead of the invasion as well as the mother of the future king. She played on her reputation for religious devotion, travelling ‘as if on pilgrimage’ to Bury St Edmunds. There she stayed in the abbey. This mixing of religion and her righteous grievances was very potent; it gave the invaders’ act of war a holy sanctimony, like a crusade. It also had the advantage of reducing the power of the sheriffs to raise the feudal army. Even those captains and sheriffs willing to support Edward were unable to raise sufficiently large numbers of men to crush the invasion in its infancy. By the time Roger and Isabella reached Dunstable, where they were joined by Henry of Lancaster, their army was far too large to be defeated by a single sheriff. The religious aspect also meant that the bishops who supported the invaders (the Archbishop of Dublin and the Bishops of Hereford, Ely, Lincoln, Durham and Norwich) had no qualms about speaking out in their favour. It was largely due to Isabella that the invasion very quickly acquired the mass support necessary for it to appear a credible opposition to the king.
Edward and Despenser were completely surprised by the growth of the invaders’ power. Although they had known for two years that Roger was planning an invasion, although they had a full Treasury, and money to spare, and although they knew when and where he would attack, they failed to stop him, or even to engage him in battle. Rarely can such a well-resourced and well-established authoritarian government have been so paralysed by just a few hundred mercenaries. But therein lay the problem: the government had proved itself too authoritarian. There may have been £60,000 in the Treasury but Hugh Despenser was adept only at amassing huge sums; he did not know how to spend the money to his and the king’s best advantage. Roger, on the other hand, was adept at spending money strategically. Both men were intelligent manipulators, but Despenser was all calculation and theory while Roger had the ability to put his ideas into practice, and make his physical force quickly and suddenly felt. Despenser’s strengths were the law courts and the Exchequer; Roger’s were his power of command and his sword. When it came to fighting a battle, Despenser could only order other people to fight for him. As events now showed, this was something they were unwilling to do.
Edward had complete faith in Hugh Despenser, and trusted both his loyalty and his judgement. But as September turned into October, his position began to crumble. London was collapsing into anarchy around him, and although the Tower was an immensely strong castle, it was not enough by itself to hold back the citizens and the advancing army. Edward and Despenser were aware that their enemies were in contact with the leading churchmen and merchants. The huge army summoned by the king had not materialised. In all the counties the sheriffs had failed to gather enough men. The most loyal gave excuses, the others remained silent, or set about their business with a lacklustre purpose. The king and his favourite began to realise that they were isolated, and would soon be cut off inside a lawless city, facing forces of barbarity which they could not combat and with which they could not negotiate. In desperation the king sought promises of loyalty from the Londoners. He received a very half-hearted response. Alarmed, he prepared to leave London. On 1 October he arranged for the transfer of Roger’s three sons to the security of the Tower, and on the following day he abandoned his capital.
On Edward’s departure, authority in the city collapsed further. Its inhabitants had hated the Despensers for many years; now they began to persecute their agents. Houses began to be looted, citizens known to be faithful to the king were jeered and harassed. But although the city was turning away from Edward it was not necessarily a safe place for Roger and Isabella to stake their claim to authority. It was fickle, and, like most oligarchies, the controlling forces were principally interested in their own continued prosperity. As Edward left London and rode towards Acton, Roger and Isabella began to turn their army after him. Their pursuit was like the 1321–2 campaign in reverse; this time it was Roger chasing the king across the country from Surrey to South Wales. Although his sons were in the city, and although Isabell
a’s younger son, Prince John, was also in the Tower, their highest priority was to seize the king and Despenser. Only when they had them in their custody could they address the questions of London, the security of members of their family, and government.
On 6 October, when Roger and Isabella were at Baldock, the king was at Wallingford. Three days later, as the king rode into Gloucester, they were near Dunstable. That day, in response to the £1,000 reward set on Roger’s head, they set a price of £2,000 on the head of Hugh Despenser. The king and the queen, each equally at the mercy of their favourite’s advice, eyed each other across southern England with anger. Their favourites eyed each other with unmitigated and powerful urges to destroy one another. But while Despenser and the king waited at Gloucester, hoping in vain that an army would join them there, Roger and Isabella advanced, their army growing stronger all the time. On 10 October the king learnt that Henry of Lancaster had joined the rebels. Although he had long suspected the earl, the news hit him hard, for he knew now that he had lost control of the country. He sent orders to the garrisons he had positioned across Roger’s estates to give up their defence of Roger’s castles and lands and to join him at Gloucester with all possible speed. He prepared to set out once again for South Wales, to make a defence of his kingdom in the lands of Hugh Despenser.
