Queen Isabella: Treachery, Adultery, and Murder in Medieval England

by Alison Weir

  Isabella also had a receiver, who collected her revenues, and many officials who administered her estates: stewards, bailiffs, castellans, and the keepers of her manors and forests. Sir Henry Green was her advocate; she later granted him the manor of Brigstock, Northamptonshire.62 Like the King, the Queen enjoyed the right of purveyance, that is, the right to buy a wide selection of goods below market price, and to do this, she employed a number of purveyors, including William atte Putte, who was her purveyor for wine and ale.63 Understandably, this practice was not popular with merchants, nor with local people who had to pay higher prices, and it was easily open to abuse.

  Isabella’s personal attendants numbered several highborn ladies, including Isabella de Vesci. Her principal lady-in-waiting, though, was the King’s niece, Eleanor de Clare, the wife of Hugh le Despenser the Younger;64 she was a great favorite with the King. Eleanor was sufficiently important to have her own retinue, headed by her chamberlain, John de Berkhamsted. Then there was Alice Comyn, Countess of Buchan in her own right and the wife of Henry de Beaumont; Ida de Odingsells, the widow of John de Clinton; and Margaret de Abrenythy, who may have been Welsh. These ladies received no wages or fees but were entitled to allowances for ceremonial winter and summer robes. Since most of them had families and feudal responsibilities, they attended on the Queen on a shift system.

  Isabella was waited on by at least eight “damsels of the Queen’s chamber,” who were of lesser birth; some were the wives of male members of her household. These ladies did not just wait on their mistress; at least two of them were sent to London to attend to business matters for her, and four had pages to assist them in their duties.65 Isabella’s old nurse, Théophania de Saint-Pierre, was one of her damsels, and Alice de Leygrave, the King’s former nurse, was another, as was Alice’s daughter Cecilia, to whom the Queen once gave a gown made by John de Falaise.66 The tailor’s wife, Joan de Falaise, was another damsel. The others were Joan Launges, the wife of the Queen’s squire; Joan de Villers, to whom Isabella generously gave a length of cloth of gold,67 and whose son Guy was also in the Queen’s service; her daughter, Margaret de Villers, whose marriage to Odin Bureward, one of the Queen’s squires, prompted a rich gift of £300 from Isabella “for their sustenance”;68 Katherine Brovart; Mary de Saint Martino; and Juliana de Nauntel, who was probably the wife of the Queen’s messenger.

  There were ten senior clerks in the Queen’s household, among them Peter de Collingbourn, who sometimes doubled as the King’s Wardrobe Keeper.69 There was also a “writing clerk,” John de Gifford, who acted as Isabella’s secretary. He wrote out all her letters on parchment, probably at her dictation, then validated them by attaching her seal imprinted in red wax; the seal still survives and shows the full-length figure of the Queen standing beneath a canopy.70 No signature was required: this was normal procedure, and we should not infer from it that Isabella was unable to write. This was a skill that was beginning to be expected of royal ladies—Eleanor of Castile had bought tablets for her daughters to write on—and there is every reason to believe that Isabella herself was fully literate.

  Isabella had been very well educated and was developing into a cultivated person with refined tastes. She shared with her husband a love of “minstrelsy” and paid for Walter Hert, one of her watchmen, to go to London during Lent to receive musical training. Together, she and Edward spent vast sums on musical entertainment.71 There is evidence also that the Queen was interested in art, since she owned exquisitely illuminated manuscripts in the latest taste, and three panels of Lombard work, which were presumably paintings or sculptured reliefs.72

  The Queen owned several books and once paid 14s. (70p.) for one to be made, with an extra payment to Richard the Painter for some azure paint to be used in the illumination. In June 1312, her office of the chamber paid for “books for the Queen’s chamber” when she was staying at Beverley.73 Her library74 included “a great book covered in white leather, concerning the deeds of Arthur” and other manuscripts of the Arthurian legends; all her life, Isabella seems to have been fascinated by the chivalric legends of King Arthur. She also possessed eight romances, among them tales of the Trojan War and Charlemagne, and of Aimeri of Narbonne, which must rival that of Patient Grizelda as a marriage guidance textbook for medieval wives, for when Aimeri beat his wife, Lady Ermengarde, for protesting at his sending their seven sons out into the world to seek their fortune, she meekly called on God to “bless the arm which has so well recalled me to myself. What I said was folly. Do what you will.”75

  The inclusion of three missals, a breviary, a book of homilies, two graduals,76 a martyrology, and an ordinal, or service book, among these volumes testifies to Isabella’s piety. One psalter, the Isabella Psalter,77 dating from 1303–08, has been identified through its heraldic emblems as having belonged to her and was perhaps made as a wedding gift.78 It has also been credibly suggested that the so-called Queen Mary’s Psalter, a vividly illuminated English manuscript produced around 1310–20, was Isabella’s, too; it may be significant that it has many prominent illustrations of biblical queens and noblewomen.79 We do know, again from heraldic evidence, that Isabella owned a French Apocalypse, which was perhaps given to her by her father.80

  Isabella owned several sacred relics, including a ring made by Saint Dunstan, the tenth-century Archbishop of Canterbury. Every day, she offered 7d. (3p.) in oblatory money, or “set obligations,” which was redeemed by her chaplain, except on the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, when the Queen offered £10 10s. (£10.50) in gold florins.81 When Isabella attended Mass in one of the great cathedrals or abbeys, she usually offered 4s. 8d. (23p.) in oblatory money. For the Easter service of Tenebrae, the clerk of the Queen’s chapel acquired a large wooden figure of Judas to hold the twelve Paschal candles that would be snuffed out, one by one, to symbolize the disciples abandoning Jesus. At this time, the chapel was adorned with embroidered altar cloths and hangings and curtains trimmed with corded ribbon and suspended by iron rings on rails, and there was a font for making holy water on the eve of Easter.82

  Isabella gave gifts of clothing and jewelry to various churches, and in January 1312, she sent some cloth to a hermit, Brother John, who lived in Windsor forest, so that he could make himself a chasuble. She and Edward donated a great window depicting Becket, their favorite saint, to Canterbury Cathedral; it was set up in the North Transept.83 As we have seen, both King and Queen frequently went on pilgrimage to the shrine of Becket, and Isabella also visited the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, where the Virgin Mary’s milk was venerated. This shrine was especially popular with mothers-to-be and those wanting a child.

  The royal couple were great patrons of the Dominican Order, but Isabella, in common with her aunt, Queen Marguerite, had a special affection for the Franciscans, who, by their emotive preaching, were promoting the involvement of the laity in devotional practices and attracting the interest of many important and talented people. The Order, which had been active in England and increasingly successful since 1224, was inspired by the life and teachings of Saint Francis of Assisi; the friars were forbidden to own property and had to earn their living by work or begging. All Isabella’s confessors were Franciscans,84 and among her books were several “for the use of the Friars Minor.”85 The Queen was a great benefactor of the Franciscan houses at King’s Lynn, Coventry, and from 1327, Newgate in London.86

  By the fourteenth century, the English court was becoming a more stable institution and was expanding in size and expenditure. Although the population of the royal household fluctuated from ruler to ruler, it was usual for several hundred persons to be residing at court at any given time. Both the King and Queen had their separate households and staffs. The court was a social as well as an administrative and political center and had its own elaborate code of courtesy and etiquette. Its language at this time was Norman-French, a bastardized version of the tongue spoken by the Conqueror and his companions; Latin, however, was the traditional language of the governmen
t and the royal secretariats.

  By any standards, Edward II’s court was a disorderly hotbed of jealousies, intrigues, and tensions. The chroniclers complained that it was “full of ruffians, parasites and ribalds, [who] spent the night in jesting, playing and banqueting, and in other filthy and dishonourable exercises.” The King was no great judge of character and employed many persons of questionable probity, who became bitterly hated. Take, for example, Robert Lewer, who had been ordered out by the Ordainers but who defiantly stayed on, building up a fortune by dubious methods and murdering his mistress’s husband along the way; when arrested for “trespasses, contempts and disobediences,” he threatened to cut up his captors limb by limb—and in the King’s presence, if necessary.87 In 1317, Gilbert de Middleton, a household knight, gained lasting notoriety by mugging the Bishop of Durham and two cardinals as they were riding north. And in 1326, another member of the household, a felon called Roger Swynnerton, who already had a record for violent intimidation, was indicted for murder.88

  Edward’s court was essentially a masculine world, and very few women were permitted access to it. Early on in his reign, the King decreed that no member of his household, “of what condition so ever he be, keep a wife at court, nor elsewhere as a follower to the court; but only such women to be there which are in chief with the King.” That included the Queen and her ladies, of course, and female members of the royal family. It was certainly not misogyny that dictated such a ban, for it is clear that Edward very much enjoyed the society of some women; he was probably more concerned about the onerous cost of maintaining unauthorized persons in his household.

  Three times a year—at Easter, Whitsuntide, and Christmas—the King held court and gave a great feast, at which he and the Queen wore their crowns, a custom dating from Norman times. There was much revelry after these feasts, with games, theatricals, and disguisings. At other times, the court was entertained by minstrels, jesters, acrobats, and tumblers, while gambling was rife. Isabella and her ladies enjoyed games of chess, draughts, or “tables” (backgammon) and at quieter times would have sat together at their embroidery, telling stories and riddles for one another’s amusement, or playing charades. Isabella inherited the set of crystal and jasper chessmen that had been made for Eleanor of Castile; it is mentioned in an inventory of her goods taken at her death. The Queen also regularly partnered her husband at gambling and games of chance.

  Isabella shared her husband’s enthusiasm for hunting and hawking89 and owned eight greyhounds, who each got one bone a day, a falcon-gentle—a bird suitable for a prince—some hawks and lanners, and a tercel. There is a picture of a noblewoman hunting in Queen Mary’s Psalter, which, as has been noted, may well have belonged to Isabella. There were plenty of opportunities for indulging in this traditional royal sport, for most royal residences either had their own hunting parks or were situated in or near the royal forests, which were specifically reserved for the King’s hunting.

  Medieval courts were essentially nomadic; state business and the need to have houses cleansed and freshened after a large number of people had been staying for some time meant that the royal households were kept constantly on the move. During his reign, Edward II lodged at more than four thousand places in England.

  But travel in the Middle Ages could be arduous. No decent roads had been built since Roman times, those that did exist were rarely well kept, and it was easy to get lost in remote areas, for there were no signposts and very few milestones. Wise travelers hired local guides to see them to their destination; Isabella’s officers paid for guides “for leading the Queen on the right and best roads with her chariots on her travels throughout parts of England.” An average day’s journey on horseback was twenty to thirty miles. Sometimes it made more sense to go by river, with baggage being transported by barge; boat hire was the responsibility of the office of the scullery.

  Most people traveled on foot, but for noblewomen, there were three preferred forms of travel. Most ladies rode either on horseback—usually pillion behind a manservant—or in a horse-drawn litter. For the very rich, there were carriages known as “charettes” (chariots) or “chairs,” which resembled elaborately decorated wagons and were pulled by chargers; some were large enough to seat the Queen and her ladies. Litters and chariots were unsprung but were well upholstered and liberally provided with cushions to buffer passengers from the jolts. In 1311–12, Isabella thoughtfully provided her tailor with some cloths of gold to be made into cushions for the chariot used by her ladies, and in 1318, the King’s Household Book records a payment to one Vanne Ballard for pieces of flame-colored silk and gold tissue for making cushions for the chariots of the Queen and her ladies.

  Litters and chariots were purchased for the Queen by the office of the hall. Isabella’s Household Book records repairs to her chariots, including the fitting of an axle, and, in August 1311, the payment of £120 to a foreign merchant for three black chargers to pull the Queen’s chariot. A bay charger costing £20 was purchased as a palfrey “for the person of the Queen”; it is clear that Isabella loved riding and did not always travel by litter or chariot. The Queen’s horses were looked after by grooms of the Marshalsea, who purchased mown hay, oats, barley, horsebread, bran, horseshoes, tallow for the candles that burned in the cressets on the stable walls, saddlecloths, stable equipment, and carts.

  When a queen traveled, meticulous organization and hard labor were involved, for her household and most of her movable goods, even the furniture, went with her, packed in coffers and boxes that were stacked onto carts and covered with waxed canvas to keep the rain out. Smaller items were packed in saddlebags, which were carried by sumpter horses. Isabella’s Household Books reveal that sumpter horses frequently died in her service and had to be replaced at a cost of at least 40s. (£2) each. Boys rode as outriders beside the Queen’s baggage train to keep it safe from robbers.

  The Queen’s harbingers would ride ahead to warn the keepers of her manors and castles that she was on her way, often precipitating a frenzy of repairing and cleaning. When her servants arrived, they would unpack everything and put it in its place. If the Queen needed to make an overnight stop, she would usually lodge in the guest house of an abbey; if there was insufficient room for her retinue, they would be housed in tents or wooden huts or might even have to sleep out in the open.

  Tucked away into the Queen’s litter or chariot would be two small barrels bound with iron, one containing wine, the other water to dilute it, “for her own drinking.” During her frequent journeying, her almoner would distribute money to “various paupers through various parts of England, each day at 2s” (10p.).

  When Isabella ventured to sea, she would have sailed in a ship with fore- and sterncastles and a mast with a square sail, and been accommodated in a cabin fitted out with every comfort. But a Channel crossing could last any length of time from a few hours to a month, depending on the wind and the weather. Isabella made nine such sea crossings during her lifetime.

  In Edward II’s reign, there were twenty-five royal residences scattered all over the country, and within their walls, Isabella lived lavishly, thanks in part to Henry III’s great program of improvements in the middle years of the previous century. At this period, castles were still used primarily for defense, but palaces and manor houses were being built with only minimal fortifications, and there is evidence of a new accent on domestic architecture and comfort, and also on privacy, which was a luxury in an age of communal living. The life of a medieval household centered upon the hall, where most people lived, ate, and slept, but the wealthier had for some time now been building themselves suites of private rooms adjoining the hall, often at right angles to it. By the thirteenth century, most manor houses were built to an L-shaped ground plan, and brick was the most commonly used building material; timber and thatch were also favored.

  The halls in royal residences usually had two aisles of stone pillars stretching along their length. Architecturally, these halls were built in what the Victoria
ns called the Decorated style and followed a trend set by Henry III when he began rebuilding Westminster Abbey in 1245 and embellished the older Early English style with less rigidly defined lines, frivolous floral ornament, and the introduction of the double curved or ogee arch. Halls were lofty and usually dwarfed the two-story blocks of apartments at each end. Until circa 1340, halls were heated by a fire on a central hearth, the smoke escaping through a louver in the roof. At the end of the hall nearest the chamber block would have been a dais, where the King and Queen held court, seated on carved chairs beneath a canopy of estate. They also dined here. At the opposite end of the hall, there was usually a decorated screen with arched doorways set into it, and above it a galleried area where minstrels might play. Beyond was the screens passage, which led to the kitchens and service area. Some royal halls were centered upon courtyards, around which other ranges of lodgings were beginning to be built. Access to the courtyard was via a fortified gatehouse.

  Until the thirteenth century, English queens lived in the King’s household. Separate lodgings for a queen consort were first built for Eleanor of Provence, who married Henry III in 1236, and it was she who set new standards in comfort and style. Since her day, every queen had been allocated her own spacious suites of rooms in each royal residence. Isabella’s apartments normally comprised a chamber, a bedchamber, and a chapel. What would strike us most today about these rooms would be their vibrant color schemes and sumptuous decor.

  The Queen’s chamber usually featured a great hooded fireplace of stone or marble, in which logs were burned in winter. Smaller rooms without fireplaces were heated by charcoal braziers. Firewood and charcoal were supplied by the offices of the hall and scullery. No fires were lit after Easter Sunday, when the hearths were cleared and adorned with floral displays.