by Alison Weir
Without Lancaster to restrain it, Parliament arranged a reshuffle of offices and promoted members of the court party, men high in the King’s favor—and in Despenser’s. On 27 January, Robert Baldock, a clerk of the Wardrobe, was appointed Keeper of the Privy Seal. Baldock owed his preferment not so much to his brilliant administrative talents but to the patronage of the Younger Despenser, whose “brain and hand” he was reputed to be.
Walter Stapledon, Bishop of Exeter, was made Treasurer. He was a learned man, who founded Stapledon Hall, later Exeter College, in Oxford, and he was utterly loyal to the King, but he would soon be detested for his extortions and his perceived alignment with the Despensers, to whom he probably owed his appointment as Treasurer. It is clear that Isabella came to hate and distrust Stapledon, and this enmity on her part was in time to have deadly consequences for him.
At the end of January, Edward and Isabella returned to Westminster,202 whence, in February, they departed for Dover. But having got as far as Canterbury, they suddenly made their way back to London; it seems that Philip had failed to issue a safe-conduct, or it had not arrived.203
Around this time, Thomas Cobham, Bishop of Worcester, noticed an improvement in the King’s conduct, which was signified by his rising earlier than hitherto in the mornings to face his duties and “respectfully, wisely and with discernment listening patiently to all who wished to speak to him, contrary to his wont.”204 Edward also won praise for banning from his court entertainers who were notorious for their insolence and greed.205
The King was apparently feeling the need to get away from all his troubles, for around this time, he began converting a hut or shack within the precincts of Westminster Abbey as a private retreat. The hut was known as “Burgundy,” and the King let it be known that he preferred “to be called King of Burgundy” than use “the magnificent titles of his famous royal ancestors.”206
Edward was back in Kent in March and visited Canterbury on the twelfth.207 On 24 March, Philip V issued the King and Queen a safe-conduct to travel through France,208 but again, on 7 April, Edward returned to Westminster.209
Edward and Isabella finally sailed to France on 17 June,210 leaving Pembroke as Keeper of the Realm. The Younger Despenser and Roger d’Amory were in Edward’s train, while Pembroke’s countess, Beatrice de Clermont, daughter of the Constable of France, was among the Queen’s chief attendants; Beatrice was to die that year. The Elder Despenser, Bartholemew de Badlesmere, and Edmund of Woodstock, Earl of Kent, the younger son of Edward I by Marguerite of France, joined the royal entourage in France.211
Edward paid homage to Philip before the high altar in Amiens Cathedral on 20 June, and in return, Philip took steps to ensure that the French party in Ponthieu would no longer pose a threat to Isabella’s authority there.212 Philip also promised Edward military aid against Lancaster.213 During this summit, Isabella presented a petition to her brother on behalf of an English merchant who had asked King Edward to intercede for him. Edward obviously thought that the man stood a better chance of success if the Queen put his request to her brother.214
The King and Queen lingered in France for a further month. On 20 July, they attended the consecration of the newly elected Bishop of Lincoln, Henry Burghersh, in Boulogne Cathedral. Burghersh, an avaricious and unscrupulous prelate215 who was related to both the Mortimers and Bartholemew de Badlesmere, was not yet thirty but was already riding high in the King’s favor, thanks to his championing of Edward at the papal court, which had contributed to the Pontiff’s releasing the King from his vow to obey the Ordinances; Edward had paid no less than £15,000 in bribes to the Holy See for Burghersh’s appointment, which created a scandal and led many to question its legality.216 Later evidence strongly suggests that Isabella also thought highly of Burghersh.
Two days after the new Bishop’s enthronement, the royal couple returned to England217 and on 2 August made a state entry into London, where they had a warm reception, the Mayor and citizens, in their robes of office, riding out to meet them “in fine style.”218
September found the Queen at Clarendon and then at her manor of Banstead in Surrey, which she had inherited from Queen Marguerite.219 The manor house, which had been in royal hands since 1273, was a large timbered building with a tiled roof and stood east of the churchyard, in a hunting park. Isabella ordered repairs to the roof but did little to restore the crumbling walls that enclosed the house.
A new conflict was looming on the horizon.
The Despensers were by now a political force to be reckoned with, and Edward was using them to create a new court party. The younger Hugh had become “the King of England’s right eye and his chief counsellor against the earls and barons, but an eyesore to the rest of the kingdom. His every desire became a royal command.”220 He had “gained so much influence over the King and had so moulded his opinions that nothing was done without him, and everything was done by him. The King paid more attention to him than to anyone.” More alarmingly, “Sir Hugh and his father wanted to gain supremacy over all the knights and barons of England,” and it looked as if they were succeeding in this objective. Unsurprisingly, “bitter hatred and discontent arose between the barons, and the King’s council especially, against Sir Hugh le Despenser,”221 who was, it was said, “even worse than Gaveston.”222 Unlike Gaveston, Despenser understood the nature of the baronial opposition and was ready to champion the King against his enemies, particularly Lancaster.
It is likely, too, that by now, the Queen had also come to regard Despenser as a sinister influence and that relations between her and the new favorites had become strained, for in 1320, the Elder Despenser suddenly ceased paying the Queen the considerable dues owed to her from his manor of Lechlade. It seems he had been infected by the contempt in which his son undoubtedly held Isabella, for up until recently, there had apparently been nothing but goodwill between the Queen and the Elder Despenser; indeed, back in 1312, he had been chosen as one of Prince Edward’s godfathers.
Capitalizing on his influential position, and “fired by greed,”223 Hugh the Younger was concentrating all his formidable efforts on getting his hands on the whole of the Gloucester inheritance and on building up a vast power base in south Wales. In May 1320, he had “deceitfully” wrested Newport and Netherwent from Audley, in return for lesser manors in England.224 He had also been granted Lundy Island, which gave him control over the Bristol Channel. The Mortimers and the other Marcher lords felt threatened by Despenser’s aggrandizement; they realized that he meant to build up a large lordship for himself in what had hitherto been their power base, and they feared that their independence, and even their own lands, were at risk. The Mortimers in particular had good reason to fear Despenser, for a Mortimer had killed his grandfather during the barons’ wars of the 1260s, and Despenser, whose family had borne a bitter grudge against the Mortimers ever since, was determined to avenge him.225 Already, he was doing his aggressive best to appropriate certain estates that had been granted to Roger Mortimer, and he was probably responsible for Roger’s recall from Ireland in September.
But the lordship that Despenser now coveted most was Gower, which lay alongside his lands in Glamorgan, and which had recently been purchased by John Mowbray from his penurious father-in-law, William de Braose, whose daughter and heiress was Mowbray’s wife. As was the time-honored custom with the Marcher lords, Mowbray did not obtain the King’s licence to take possession of Gower, but this omission was exploited by Despenser, who insisted it was illegal and urged Edward to declare the land forfeit and grant it to himself. This was a direct attack on Marcher privileges, but the King did not recognize it as such.226
On 26 October, Edward, a willing tool in Despenser’s hands, confiscated Gower from John Mowbray, who adamantly refused to surrender it. Furious, Edward sent men to take it from him by force on 14 November. The Marcher lords were outraged, and Hereford formed a confederacy against the Despensers, which included Mowbray, Audley, d’Amory, and the Mortimers; Lancaster also promised hi
s support. Effectively, there now occurred “a great schism” between the King and most of the nobility, all on account of his overweening affection for Despenser.227 Roger Mortimer was at court at Westminster in November, but by January 1321, having failed to persuade the King to agree to any compromise, he and most of the other Marchers had withdrawn from court and gone home to fortify their castles and rally the rest of the barons. “Deeply moved by [Despenser’s] abuse, the barons unanimously decided that [he] must be pursued and utterly destroyed.”228 As Isabella realized that she was once again pregnant, civil war seemed a certainty.
CHAPTER FIVE
The Displeasure of the Queen
On 27 February 1321, the Marchers met with Lancaster, hoping to enlist his support. They were well aware that they now faced an almost impossible choice between rising against their lawful King, which was treason, or countenancing the depradations of the Despensers. There was really no contest, for the latter were proving ruinous to the Marchers and their time-hallowed privileges, and so the Marchers resolved to force the King to dismiss his favorites, as he had Piers Gaveston.1 Lancaster agreed with them that the best way forward would be to mount an offensive on the Despenser lands in south Wales.
The King, warned by Despenser, had anticipated this, and on 1 March, at Westminster, began mobilizing troops and gave orders that all the royal castles in Wales be prepared for war. By so closely identifying himself with the Despensers’ interests, he was effectively placing the fundamentally royalist Marchers in open rebellion against the Crown, making reluctant traitors of most of them and losing the support of other barons who also resented the influence of the favorites. On 27 March, and again on 13 April, the King commanded all his subjects to keep the peace and forbade any assemblies.2 The next day, he summoned the Marcher lords to convene at Gloucester on 5 April.3 But Hereford and Mortimer refused to come into the King’s presence while the Younger Despenser remained in his company and demanded that Hugh be placed in Lancaster’s custody while their grievances were aired in Parliament. Edward refused to listen. Three days later, he confiscated Audley’s estates in the Marches.
Isabella herself was known to be no friend to the Despensers; her support was enlisted at this time in a dispute in which they had involved themselves. This quarrel, between the Abbot of Saint Albans and his subordinate, William de Somerton, Prior of the abbey’s cell at Binham in Norfolk, was in itself relatively unimportant—that is, until the Abbot called upon Despenser to support him. Resorting to his usual brutal methods, Despenser dispatched his men to arrest Somerton and drag him to the Abbot, who summarily cast him in jail. Some of the Marchers eager to discredit Despenser, notably Mowbray and Mortimer, now appealed to the Queen to intervene with the King in order to secure Somerton’s release. Clearly, Isabella was ready and willing to defy the favorites, and so persuasive was she that Edward granted her request—much to the annoyance of the Despensers, who must have added another notch in their reckoning against Isabella.4
Yet whatever she might have felt about the Despensers, Isabella’s loyalties at this time lay firmly with the King. Certainly, she had no sympathy for Lancaster, and she may even have come to regard the Marchers’ hostility to Despenser as an attack on the King, as did Edward himself. On 20 April, in demonstration of her loyalty, Isabella turned over her castle at Marlborough to the Elder Despenser; at Easter, she appointed a prominent royalist, John de Trejagu, to her shrievalty of Cornwall; then, on 3 May, she put her castle at Devizes in the custody of another of Edward’s supporters, Oliver de Ingham.5
The King had now raised a strong force and marched westward, reaching Bristol by Easter. From here, he issued a further summons to the Marchers to meet with him on 10 May. On 1 May, as they took up battle stations, he warned them not to attack the Despensers.6 But they paid him no heed and, on 4 May, launched a devastating attack on the Despenser lands. By 12 May, Newport, Cardiff, and Caerphilly had fallen to Mortimer and the vast Marcher army, which thereafter swept across Glamorgan and Gloucestershire, seizing castles, burning, looting, destroying crops, and leaving in its wake a trail of devastation.7 Having accomplished their objective, the Marchers then rode north to meet once more with Lancaster.
On 24 May, Lancaster held what was effectively a private parliament at Pontefract. The result was an alliance between the Earl and the Marchers, who all swore to defend their own lands and one another’s.8 This was followed by a baronial convention at Sherburn-in-Elmet on 28 June, at which the rebels—henceforth to be known as the “contrariants”—were loud in their condemnation of the Despensers and swore to see them disinherited.9
Edward, meanwhile, had returned to London. The Queen was now nearing her confinement, and for safety, it was decided that her child should be born in the Tower of London, which was committed to her custody on 14 June. That the King should place such a strategically crucial fortress in her care is a measure of his trust. On 5 July (or a week or so later), Isabella bore a second daughter, Joan, in the palace within the fortress.10 The Queen’s apartments there were in a sad state of disrepair, and as Isabella lay in labor, rain dripped through the ceiling, soaking the bedclothes. When this was reported afterward to the King, he reacted furiously and instantly dismissed the constable, John, Lord Cromwell, from his post.11
On 14 July, as a further mark of trust, the Great Seal was entrusted to the joint custody of the Queen (who was still recovering from her confinement in the Tower), William Airmyn, and Roger de Northburgh,12 two prominent royal clerks.
The next day, Parliament met at Westminster.
The King had done little to counteract the threat from the contrariants, and Mortimer was now marching on London with an armed force clad in green livery bearing the royal arms, underlining their loyalty to the King.13 Mortimer was at Saint Albans on 22 July, and on the twenty-ninth, he left Waltham with the intention of entering London and forcing the expulsion of the Despensers. Finding that the citizens had closed their gates to him, he ordered his men to surround the walls with a ring of steel, effectively placing under siege the Tower, where Isabella lay with her newborn infant.
By 1 August, Lancaster and other aggrieved barons had joined Mortimer, and all demanded that the King hear their complaints concerning the Despensers. They cited eleven articles against them, accusing them among other things of usurping the royal authority, inciting civil war, perverting justice, barring the magnates from the King’s presence, committing acts of violence and fraud, and alienating the King from his people. If Edward did not banish the favorites, they warned, they would renounce their homage and set up another in his place.14 Notwithstanding this, Edward stubbornly refused to accede to their demands, and Despenser sailed menacingly up and down the Thames in a borrowed ship, only stopping when the barons threatened to burn to the ground all the royal buildings between Charing Cross and Westminster Abbey.
Isabella had left the Tower by 24 July but was still in London on that date.15 She, Airmyn, and Northburgh retained custody of the Great Seal until at least 24 August.
Pembroke, meanwhile, had just returned from Paris, where he had married Marie de Châtillon, daughter of Guy IV, Count of Saint Pol by Mary of Brittany, a granddaughter of Henry III. Count Guy’s half sister, Blanche of Artois, was Isabella’s grandmother, so the Queen and Marie were cousins; they were also related through Marie’s sister, Matilda, who had married Charles, Count of Valois, Isabella’s uncle. Not surprisingly, Isabella and Marie soon became close friends. A well-educated woman and a great patron of letters, the Countess Marie was to found Pembroke College at Cambridge in 1347.
On 1 August, the King, panicking at the barons’ demands, summoned Pembroke to Westminster; the Earl arrived the next day, met first with Edward and subsequently with the Marchers, then did his best to persuade the King to agree to the Marchers’ demands. But the King would not hear of it.16
Then Pembroke suggested that the Queen intervene in the hope of achieving a settlement; she had been so successful in the past that she had now ea
rned a reputation as a peacemaker.17 Isabella was willing to do her best, and, supported by Pembroke, Richmond, and the bishops, she went to the King and “begged on her knees for the people’s sake” that he would show mercy to his subjects by banishing the Despensers and making peace with his lords.18 It was now that Pembroke warned Edward, “He perishes on the rocks that loves another more than himself.”19 The Queen’s intervention allowed the King to capitulate to his opponents without too much loss of face, and at length, on 14 August, he reluctantly summoned the Marchers to Westminster Hall and icily informed them that he had agreed to send away his favorites within the month. Five days later, the Despensers were sentenced to exile and forfeiture and forbidden to return to England without the consent of Parliament. On the following day, 20 August, pardons were issued to Lancaster, the Mortimers, and the other Marcher lords who had risen against the King.20
“Reluctantly,” the Despensers “left their native soil and splendour.” The Elder Hugh went first to Flanders, thence to Bordeaux, while his son embarked upon a successful career as a pirate in the English Channel, where he became a sea monster, lying in wait for the merchants as they crossed his path. He was master of the seas, their merchandise, and chattels, and no ship got through unharmed. His greatest prize was a Genoese ship; having boarded it, he slew its crew and stole more than £5,000 worth of treasure.21 Many years later, King Edward III had to repay that amount, with interest, in compensation to the owners of the vessel.22
Edward had no intention of being parted from the Despensers for long and was resolved to be revenged on those barons who had forced him to have them exiled.23 With a cunning scheme in mind, he went to Rochester on 30 August and to Gravesend by 19 September. Some sources claim that he and Isabella then went on yet another pilgrimage to Canterbury, but this is unlikely, since the city was packed with the armed retainers of the powerful Kentish baron, Lord Badlesmere, and Badlesmere, despite being steward of the royal household, had recently thrown in his lot with Lancaster and the Marchers; his daughter Elizabeth was married to Mortimer’s heir, Edmund. It is almost certain that the King was in contact with Despenser at this time, because he and Isabella met with him when the latter’s ship put in at the Isle of Thanet later in September.24
