The Greatest Traitor

by Ian Mortimer

  The confirmation of the treaty with Scotland was only one of many issues discussed at Northampton. In addition a number of judicial points and law-enforcement measures were discussed and passed. These included restrictions on the issuing of pardons and the use of the privy seal, the prevention of men riding while armed, the prohibition of groups of armed men attending fairs and, most significantly, the extension of the powers of the assize judges who travelled from county to county to sit in judgement on the most important cases. Some of these points, especially the restrictions on pardons and the use of the privy seal, were aimed at reducing Roger’s authority. But, as with his negotiations in Scotland, Roger was prepared to give a lot of ground in order to achieve what he wanted. Now what he most desired was an extension of central government authority, which he, of course, could control. In increasing the powers of the central administration, he was attempting to reduce the power of the crowd to act as a political force. Nowhere would this have worked so much to his advantage as in London, where riots had accompanied his assumption of power and threatened the stability of the administration. Riots had also broken out at Abingdon and other places in the south. Through the central courts and local law-enforcement measures he sought to control the people as efficiently as he controlled the king and the peers.

  *

  Following the parliament of Northampton, which ended on 15 May, Roger and Isabella made their way to Hereford, where a double wedding was to take place. Roger had had the rights of marriage of several important young men for a number of years, two of whom were now of an age to marry. He also had a large number of unmarried daughters. Although the details are confused by Adam Murimuth, the only chronicler to mention the event, it seems that on 31 May 1328 his daughter Joan was married to his ward James Audley, the fifteen-year-old lord of Heleigh.22 Probably at the same time, his daughter Catherine was married to another of his wards, Thomas de Beauchamp, the fourteen-year-old Earl of Warwick. After the event the wedding party made its way north, to Ludlow, for feasting and entertainment in the ancient castle of the de Geneville family, now Roger’s most spectacular residence.

  Herein lay a problem. Ludlow Castle was Joan’s inheritance, and taking the royal party there raised the question of how to bring Isabella and Joan face to face without one or the other losing dignity. Under the laws of hospitality and precedence, when the queen came to Ludlow, Joan would have been expected to give up her position as lady of the castle. Normally there would be no problem in this, but when the queen was her husband’s mistress, the situation was potentially fraught. But Roger had anticipated the problem and had constructed a solution.

  On entering the inner ward of Ludlow Castle, Isabella and members of the court would have found a newly completed but unfamiliar arrangement of buildings. The centre of a great building was always the great hall, and one could expect normally to find the private, solar accommodation (where the lord and his family mainly lived), at one end of this hall, and the kitchens, buttery and other catering and storage rooms at the other. At Ludlow, Joan’s father and mother had rebuilt the great hall and solar about forty years earlier. Recently, Roger had added a new top storey to the de Geneville solar block, and had built an entirely new complex of solar buildings at the other end of the hall. The kitchens were moved across to the other side of the courtyard. In effect the castle had two splendid and luxurious solars: one for Joan, and one for Isabella. Roger’s solution to the problem of housing both his wife and mistress under one roof, without his wife having to cede precedence to his mistress in her own castle, was an architectural masterpiece, two semi-detached medieval palaces. Joan presumably remained in the extended de Geneville building while Isabella, Edward and Philippa stayed in the new solar, surrounded by the sculptures of kings and queens which formed part of the decoration. History does not relate which wing Roger himself retired to that night, or whether discretion proved the better part of valour and he slept in the gatehouse.

  The rebuilding of the interior of Ludlow was not undertaken simply out of duty; Roger enjoyed spending his money on building work. It was one of his pleasures, along with exotic clothes and fine textiles, jewellery, silverware, armour, wine and jousting. At the same time as working on Ludlow, he was continuing the rebuilding of Wigmore Castle, which was probably why he asked the king to give him all the lead then being stripped from the royal castle at Hanley.23 He was also having a chantry added to Leintwardine church, probably building an extension to the parish church at Wigmore for the use of the parishioners,24 and, in the outer ward of Ludlow Castle, he was having a chapel to St Peter built. Building chapels might appear a little out of character for Roger: by comparison with his contemporaries, and especially compared to Isabella, he was not an overtly religious man. He went on no pilgrimages – although he did once promise to go25 – and he made few grants to monastic institutions. Most of those he did make were on account of members of his family. It was only when extreme situations faced him that his mind turned to God. One such occasion had been in the Tower on the eve of his escape. Then he had promised that if St Peter would deliver him from the Tower he would build a chapel dedicated to the saint, hence the chapel under construction in the outer ward of Ludlow Castle. He also constructed a semi-circular tower adjacent to this chapel, now known as Mortimer’s Tower. Two priests, for whom the tower was probably built as a residence, were paid to sing masses in the chapel daily, to celebrate for eternity the miracle of his escape from the most daunting prison in the country.26

  Roger was now at the height of his power. He could afford to relax and feast with the royal entourage, to go hawking with the young king, and to joust with his sons and members of the court. Perhaps he joined in the dancing, or listened to romances read aloud in the company of his wife and Isabella. He was surrounded by splendid embroideries and tapestries, exotic armour and silver and gold ornaments. Although the bedspreads and cushions and tapestries and luxurious fabrics and textiles mentioned in the inventories of Roger’s and Joan’s possessions in 1321–2 had all gone, a glimpse of the interior of the castle is possible from an inventory of Roger’s goods found at Wigmore and Ludlow in 1330. Roger’s personal travelling possessions and Joan’s personal items were not recorded, but there were several gilt silver-lidded cups, including one which, inside, was decorated with the figure of a baboon with a bow in his hand, and another which had a shield engraved at the bottom with the arms of England and France. There were several silver water vessels, and a great hall curtain illustrating historical scenes from Welsh history. Most suggestively, there was a set of silk bedclothes with a bedspread embroidered with a castle of love, with accompanying hangings of green silk with ray taffeta, and four matching green rugs covered with white and red roses. In addition there was a set of white linen bedcovers, decorated with butterflies, with an accompanying bedspread and four matching carpets, and a set of red woollen bedclothes with a matching bedspread and two carpets. There was a great arras tapestry for the hall, of eighteen pieces, in white, again decorated with butterflies. There were two tunics emblazoned with the arms of Roger’s uncle, Lord Mortimer of Chirk, one of velvet, the other of silk covered with yellow velvet and lined with red sindon (a fine linen), and a yellow padded tunic decorated with lilies and yellow roses.27 With regard to the possessions which travelled with him, a few silver items were recorded in a London goldsmith’s in 1330, and this short list reveals more of the splendour in which Roger now lived on a daily basis. He had a great silver dish weighing nineteen pounds; a large silver wine goblet, the lid and base of which were gilt and enamelled with his arms. There was a cup with a cover and tripod, all of silver, engraved with foliage, gilt and enamelled with the arms of Mortimer and de Geneville, and a silver wine jug enamelled with the various arms of Roger’s ancestors, with a matching water jug. There were four wine goblets of which one had a gilt interior and the others had bases enamelled with Roger’s arms. There was a great salt cellar with a silver cover weighing more than six pounds, and a cloth-of-si
lver table cover.28 There is no doubt that from the silk bedclothes to the silverware, Ludlow Castle in June 1328 was as opulent and luxurious as any palace in the kingdom.

  Besides architecture and fine living, Roger’s principal entertainment was still the tournament. Although all his old armour had been sold by Edward II after his imprisonment in 1322, he had acquired more. At Ludlow and Wigmore he kept what was spare, including a pair of armour plates covered with gold cloth, and another pair covered with red sindon; a red velvet jousting suit with silver embroidery, an accompanying shield decorated with butterflies whose wings were the Mortimer coat of arms, and a matching banner of sindon; a set of green velvet horse trappings for jousting, two banners of the arms of Mortimer, one of sindon, the other old and battered; various pieces of metal armour for the shoulders, arms, hands and legs; three hardened leather thigh protectors; two pairs of shoes; ten coats of Welsh cloth quartered with one sleeve red; four tournament bascinets (close-fitting helmets), four jousting helmets (three of which were gilt); six iron corsets; three war helmets and various other odds and ends. The velvet suit for jousting sounds very similar to those given by Edward II to Piers Gaveston in 1307, and the quartered coats with one arm red are reminiscent of the green tunics quartered with one sleeve yellow which Roger’s men wore in the 1321 rebellion. This was more than mere nostalgia. This was his attempt to create his own knightly court: to promote himself in men’s estimations and to live up to the highest chivalric ideal.

  Chivalry was an elusive concept even in 1328. King Edward still seethed with anger at being forced to surrender Scotland. It was, in his eyes, an appalling act, an act of cowardice. It belittled him as a king, and he wanted everyone to know exactly what he thought of it. While Roger had the honour of entertaining the king at Ludlow, the honour was greater than the pleasure. After two days the royal party with all its noise, servants, clerks, general bustle and scowling young monarch moved on, first to the nearby manor of Bromyard, and then to Worcester.

  At Worcester, while the royal party waited to discuss the French war with Henry of Lancaster, the king agreed to give Roger the roof lead which he had requested. It seemed that the king’s anger was abating. Then Lancaster arrived, and, petulantly, he refused to discuss France. This council, he said, referring to Roger and his coterie of lords and prelates, was too small to discuss such a weighty issue.29 This was an open accusation: that Roger was appropriating power to himself. Edward agreed with the earl, again expressing his anger at how Scotland had been taken from him. Lancaster insisted Parliament be called in the north. Roger acquiesced, and ordered that such a meeting would take place at York six weeks later. The king protested that he did not want the treaty with Scotland to go ahead. It was too late, Isabella explained: the king’s own sister, Joan, was due to be married to David Bruce, the future King of Scotland, in a month. Edward declared defiantly that he would never recognise Scottish independence and that he would not attend the wedding. The end of the argument was its solution: if the king did not wish to attend, they would leave him behind. And they did.

  *

  Roger and Isabella went north with Henry de Burghersh and Isabella’s daughter, Joan, leaving the king in the Welsh Marches with Henry of Lancaster. It appears at first sight that they were taking a risk, placing the king in their enemy’s hands; but they had taken precautions. They had the great seal with them, in Burghersh’s keeping, and, although they had left the privy seal with the king, Edward knew better than to incur Roger’s anger. Ministers and spies kept watch on the king and what he ordered. As for Lancaster, he was powerless for, most importantly, Edward did not trust him.30 Furious and frustrated, Lancaster declared his enmity towards Roger and Isabella. The author of the Brut chronicle dated Roger and Isabella’s tyranny from this time onward.

  As Isabella rode north to Berwick in early July, her feelings may be imagined. She was giving away her seven-year-old daughter to the Scots, the mortal enemies of England. For little Joan the journey must have held many terrors. At the age of four she had been separated from her mother when Isabella had gone to France. Now it was happening again, but this time it was for ever. The Scots did not help by calling her ‘Joan Makepeace’, as if that were her sole purpose. At Berwick, on 16 July, she was married to the five-year-old David Bruce and handed over to Thomas Randolph and Black Douglas. The English and Scots appeared to get on well – there was much feasting and celebration – but the emotions must have been burning in the hearts of both bride and bride’s mother.

  Roger too had reason to reflect. Although he had learnt by now that his eldest son’s wife was expecting his first grandchild, he had also heard that his second son, Roger, had died. In the summer of his glory, following the wedding of his daughters in the king’s presence, and after the honour of entertaining the king at Ludlow, Roger suffered the most humbling of blows. The aftermath of his triumphant summer was arranging for his son’s corpse to be taken to Wigmore Abbey for burial.

  We know nothing of Roger’s emotional life, nor anything of the private lives of any of his family, thus it is very difficult to say what this loss meant to him. It seems he held his family in high esteem. A cynical explanation might be that he valued his children for their potential to make political alliances through marriage; but this would only be partly true, for interfamily marriages tended to be most meaningful when the individuals were close. Furthermore, rather than forging new alliances, marriages tended to cement existing ones. It is significant that Roger and Joan were not like previous generations of their families, marrying off the eldest son and the eldest daughters and putting the younger ones into the church. Instead all their children were given the opportunity of marriage and independence. The younger sons were all knighted and provided with lordships of their own. Edmund and Geoffrey spent time at court, and Geoffrey especially seems to have been favoured by both his parents.31 All the daughters who had been placed in nunneries by Edward II and Despenser were redeemed and allowed the greater luxury, and the relatively greater freedom, of an aristocratic married woman’s lifestyle. Only one daughter, Isabella, did not marry, but this may indicate merely that she did not live to receive a husband. Just as the number of children Roger and Joan had together indicates a greater than usual propensity to spend time with each other, so too his treatment of their children seems to reflect a loyalty deeper than that normally borne by power-obsessed magnates for their offspring.

  As for Roger’s relationship with his wife, he obviously continued to see her, on occasion at least, and she may well have visited court in addition to the visits he made to her at Ludlow. His feelings towards her were respectful, as shown by his sending the present of books in 1327, his occasional small gifts to her sisters’ nunnery, Aconbury Priory, and his inclusion of her name in the list of those whose souls were to be the object of prayers in December 1328. There were no grants made to her which were not also to him, but this was due to the nature of medieval land tenure. In all legal matters touching Ireland and Ludlow her name is usually mentioned with his, but again this is only as one would expect. It is possible that the extended grants to them in Ireland benefited both of them, and certainly Joan was not left penniless. But it is perhaps in the strange arrangements of the solar wings at Ludlow Castle, and the silverware which bore their arms combined – which Roger still had with him in London two years later – that one can perhaps detect elements of their relationship lasting. Because of these hints of closeness with Joan and his children, one suspects that the death of his son Roger was a real blow, and perhaps one of the reasons why he started building the chantry at Leintwardine church.

  *

  Whatever Roger’s and Isabella’s personal feelings must have been on heading south from Berwick, they had to put them to one side and gather their resources for the meeting at the end of July at York. The Earl of Lancaster, disgruntled with Roger’s hold on power, had decided not to attend the York meeting which he himself had demanded, to the king’s ill-concealed disapproval. Thus Edw
ard was at York on the appointed day to meet his mother and Roger, but Henry of Lancaster was not. Lancaster’s supporters, including Thomas Wake, were also absent. Of most concern, however, was the absence of the king’s two uncles, the Earls of Kent and Norfolk.

  The court remained in York for most of August. Orders to attend a special parliament at Salisbury were despatched at the end of the month. The Controller of the King’s Wardrobe, Thomas de Garton, was sent on a special mission to Lancaster, presumably to try to persuade him to come to Salisbury.32 But Lancaster remained defiant. On 7 September he met Roger, Isabella and the king at Barlings Abbey near Lincoln. He had an army with him, and, shouting at Roger and Isabella in the king’s presence, he threatened to use it.

  It was a foolish move. The king was genuinely shocked by the earl’s behaviour, and, faced with the reality of an aggressive vassal, Roger had no difficulty in persuading Edward of the merits of taking military precautions. The following week all armed followings were once again forbidden. He began to review positions of authority, removing any sheriffs or constables whom he did not trust, strengthening his hold on the country and the government. On hearing that in London, the Bishop of Winchester and Thomas Wake were negotiating with important London merchants on Lancaster’s behalf, Roger advised the king that a rebellion was underway, and sent Bishop Burghersh and Oliver Ingham to demand an explanation from the Londoners. They replied in the form of a letter sent by Hamo de Chigwell on 27 September which listed the grievances of the Earl of Lancaster.