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

by Alison Weir

  Three days later, the King rode out of the city to greet his new Queen. Isabella looked on as he took Philippa “by the hand, and then embraced and kissed her.” Side by side, the happy young couple led the cavalcade back into York to the joyous sound of “great plenty of minstrelsy,” to be greeted by many lords “in fair array.” Then Edward escorted Philippa to the Queen Mother’s lodgings, where she was to stay in Isabella’s care until the wedding.7 In the midst of a blizzard, the young couple were married in York Minster on 30 January, with Archbishop Melton officiating and Hotham assisting. It was freezing cold, as the choir was only partially roofed, but the ceremony was splendid and well attended.8

  Afterward, the young couple returned to the lodging that had been made ready for them in the Archbishop’s palace,9 which stood on the site now occupied by Dean’s Park. Because it would soon be Lent, a season during which the devout were supposed to abstain from sexual intercourse, Edward and Philippa delayed making any “display of marriage” but remained quietly in York until after Easter, when they consummated their union and celebrated it with three weeks of feasting, dancing, jousting, and revelry. Strickland claims that these marriage festivities were an attempt by Isabella to divert public attention from the death of Edward II, but if this was so, why had Edward been accorded such a lavish state funeral? Moreover, it would have been natural for the Queen to wish to bring some cheer to her son after he had lost his father.

  Despite Edward’s later passing infidelities, this was to be one of the most successful of royal marriages. Philippa was kindly, amiable, and maternal; she also dressed royally and looked every inch a queen, despite being inclined to plumpness. Edward evidently adored her. Like Isabella before her, she was to gain a reputation as a peacemaker and remained hugely popular with the English. Never, wrote Froissart, “since the days of Queen Guinevere,” had so good a queen come to England, “nor any who had so much honour. And as long as she lived, the realm enjoyed grace, prosperity, honour and all good fortune.”

  For the time being, however, Philippa’s role would be largely subordinate to that of her mother-in-law. She was not given an independent household as Queen of England but was expected to share the King’s. Nor was she assigned any dower, since the Queen Consort’s dower lands, which were meant to be held by her only during the lifetime of her husband, were firmly in the hands of Isabella. Nor were arrangements made for Philippa’s coronation.

  By any standards, Philippa had been slighted, and one may speculate that the root cause lay in Isabella’s resentment or jealousy of the young girl who had supplanted her as Queen Consort. Philippa had everything Isabella had lost, or never enjoyed—youth, a handsome husband who loved her, and what looked set to be a glorious life ahead—whereas Isabella was now thirty-two, which was quite middle-aged in the fourteenth century, and her famous beauty was probably fading. At Philippa’s age, she had been married to a man who ignored her, and her youthful efforts to establish a happy marriage had come to nothing, while that union had ended in cruelty, rebellion, and death. She had Mortimer’s love, or at least shared his bed, but she could not acknowledge him publicly as her lover, and as his wife was still living, she could not marry him. But what probably mattered to Isabella most now was her relationship with her son, which was so essential for the maintenance of her power, and Philippa represented a threat to that, for as Edward’s beloved wife, she would be able to influence him in ways that his mother never could. The solution, therefore, was to keep Philippa firmly in the background and deprive her of any means of exercising patronage.

  On 1 February, Charles IV died prematurely at Vincennes. His death brought to an end the male line of the Capetians, which had descended from father to son since 987, but he left a pregnant widow, and until the sex of her child could be known, Charles’s cousin, Philip of Valois, acted as regent of France.

  Mortimer joined Isabella at York on 4 February.10 Just over a week later, the regency council was meeting daily in the interests of promoting accord between the magnates,11 which was necessary because tempers were rising high over the proposed peace with Scotland, which was proving deeply unpopular. Yet Isabella and Mortimer were determined to have their way.

  On 1 March, because his mother insisted on it, a glowering Edward III appeared in Parliament in York and publicly acknowledged Scotland’s independence. Afterward, a new embassy was commissioned to treat with Robert the Bruce in drawing up a peace treaty.12 That same day, Hotham resigned as Chancellor, and news of Charles IV’s death reached the English court. The latter must have occasioned Isabella much sorrow, for now all her siblings were dead, and Charles had been a constant support to her over the years. His death meant that Isabella was the last surviving child of Philip IV, and grief did not blind her to the fact that her son was now Charles’s nearest male relative. In her view, should Jeanne of Evreux bear a daughter, the French throne should go to Edward III.

  Orleton was now back in favor; the Queen and Mortimer had realized they valued his support too much to lose it, and early in March, after he had satisfactorily answered questions in Parliament about his acceptance of the See of Worcester, he at last received its temporalities.

  The kingdom now seemed to be settling down at last, and Isabella seized this first opportunity she had had of snatching a few weeks away with Mortimer. On 2 March, the King ordered the sheriffs to render his mother all possible assistance during her coming progress throughout the realm,13 and from 3 March to 21 April, Isabella and Mortimer were absent from court.14 There is no record of where they went. On the day of their departure, Mortimer’s nominee, Sir John Maltravers, was appointed Steward of the Household to the Queen in place of Lancaster’s man, John, Lord Ros.15 The fact that Maltravers held the post for just over a week suggests that his appointment was merely a means of ousting the Lancastrian. This was another crack in the facade of friendship between Isabella and Lancaster.

  On 17 March, Robert I sealed the formal peace treaty with England at Edinburgh. Despite lengthy negotiations, the claims of English lords who held land in Scotland were expressly excluded, which led to these unfortunate peers’ becoming known as “the Disinherited.”

  Charles IV’s widow had not yet given birth, but on 28 March, doubtless primed by Isabella but needing no encouragement, Edward III announced that he intended “to recover his rightful inheritance,” the Crown of France, which he would be claiming through his mother.16 Both Edward and Isabella were to argue that the Salic law did not prevent a woman from transmitting a claim, and that, rather than going to a cousin of the late King, the Crown should pass to his nephew, who was nearer in blood. But on 8 April, after Queen Jeanne had borne a daughter, the French peers assembled at Paris chose Philip of Valois as their king. He was proclaimed Philip VI on 14 April.

  Isabella and Mortimer had arrived at Stamford by 21 April,17 and Mortimer went ahead the same day to Northampton,18 where Parliament assembled three days later. Isabella was still in Stamford on the twenty-sixth and held a council meeting there at the end of the month, which Mortimer attended. Then they both traveled to Northampton, arriving before 3 May.19

  Meanwhile, Parliament had approved the Treaty of Northampton, which Robert I had sealed in Edinburgh.20 This treaty conceded to the Scots everything they had fought for—chiefly, the right to sovereign independence and recognition of Robert the Bruce as King of Scots. It also renounced any claims to English overlordship over Scotland, claims that had been pressed by nearly every English king since the Conquest, and the rights of any English lords to lands in Scotland. The treaty was to be cemented by the marriage of the Princess Joan to David Bruce. In return, as he had promised, Bruce undertook to give England aid against any enemy except the French and to pay compensation of £20,000 for the losses caused by his savage raids of the North. The treaty was ratified by a reluctant Edward III on 4 May, and the next day, the peace with Scotland was proclaimed in London.21

  There was an outcry. People called it “the shameful peace,” whereby Edward
III, “through the false counsel of traitors,” had been “fraudulently disinherited” of Scotland.22 The young King, who had been powerless to resist the determination of his mother and Mortimer, was outraged at having been forced to agree to this humiliating settlement, and horrified at the selling of his sister,23 while Lancaster objected that the treaty had been passed without the consent of the King or the realm.24 The Disinherited were particularly appalled.

  The King made no secret of the fact that he was passionately opposed to making peace and wanted nothing to do with the treaty, even publicly declaring that “the Queen and Mortimer had arranged the whole thing.”25 Through their counsel, he had been obliged to give up “the kingdom of Scotland, for which realm the King’s ancestors had full sore travail, and so had died many a nobleman for the right.”26

  Because of the Treaty of Northampton, the popularity of Isabella and Mortimer evaporated virtually overnight. How, people asked, could they have conceded so much to a man whom most Englishmen regarded as a war criminal? There were even wild rumors that Mortimer had made concessions to the Scots in exchange for their aid in setting him up as King of England.27 The Lanercost chronicler was nearer the mark when he claimed that Edward III, “acting on the pestilent advice of his mother and Roger Mortimer,” had been forced to agree to the treaty in order to pursue his claims to France.

  Yet in major respects, the Treaty of Northampton was a successful piece of policy making, for it released England from a hopeless and expensive war and brought peace to the North. Although the King and most of his subjects would have infinitely preferred one decisive push to conquer Scotland, bitter experience had shown that this was a fast-receding possibility, and the government could not afford it anyway, since Isabella and Mortimer had spent so lavishly that Edward II’s treasure was now virtually exhausted. And as they had both argued in Parliament, peace was essential if there was to be a war with France.28

  It was the Treaty of Northampton, rather than rumors that she had colluded in the murder of Edward II, that cost Isabella the goodwill of the people and lost her her allies. In fact, there is very little evidence that there was an upsurge of public feeling against Isabella after Edward’s death or funeral. Certainly, there had been mounting disillusionment with her regime since the autumn of 1327, but it is clear that this resulted from the ignominious failure of the Weardale campaign.

  It is clear, too, that, in 1328, Isabella and Lancaster became involved in an increasingly bitter rivalry for control of the King and the government. They had never been natural allies, despite their kinship, and had only been drawn together to make common cause against the Despensers. But from the time that Isabella had appropriated the Lincoln inheritance, relations between them had rapidly deteriorated. The Queen seems to have gone out of her way to provoke Lancaster and undermine his authority, and he, in turn, was to become one of her severest critics and would have ousted her from power if he could.

  The affair of Sir Robert Holland graphically illustrates the impasse that was developing between the Queen and Lancaster. Originally a trusted adherent of Thomas of Lancaster, and much beholden to him for his wealth and advancement, Robert Holland had abandoned the Earl in 1322 and gone over to the King, a betrayal for which the present Earl of Lancaster had never forgiven him, for Holland’s desertion had deprived Thomas of crucial support in the Midlands and led directly to his defeat. Even the royalists were appalled at such treachery, and Edward II had imprisoned Holland and confiscated his lands. In the Parliament of February 1327, in which Isabella and Mortimer were amicably collaborating with Lancaster, it had been decreed that he should not be restored to his estates, although he was pardoned for escaping from jail. In September 1327, Holland petitioned for the return of his lands at a time when Isabella was beginning to regard Lancaster as a threat to her position, and his petition was finally granted by Edward III, at her instance, in December.29

  This was a sure indication that the alliance between Isabella and Lancaster was crumbling by the end of 1327. Lancaster resented being marginalized by Mortimer, and Isabella was aware that Lancaster, who was both influential and popular, had the potential and means to become a powerful and effective opponent. Determined to retain her monopoly of power, she dared not risk further eroding her popularity by forcing an open breach with the Earl, but she began to subvert his authority by subtle means and by excluding him and his faction from government.30 After Holland’s restoration, she deliberately extended her patronage to him and “did love him wonder much,”31 a policy that was probably calculated not only to win over one of Lancaster’s chief enemies but also to provoke the Earl to a quarrel and thus give her a pretext for ousting him from power.32

  But Lancaster had other reasons for disapproving of Isabella’s rule. She was greedy and avaricious—there can be no doubt about that. As we have seen, there were compelling reasons for her to seek financial security and the trappings of her status, but by any standards, her acquisitiveness was excessive and deserving of censure. It is also clear that, from the passing of the Treaty of Northampton in 1328, her integrity as a ruler became increasingly compromised and that this alienated most of her former allies.

  But Isabella was in an impossible position. She had not led an invasion, overthrown a king, reestablished her authority, and set up her own government only to have it snatched away from her. What mattered to Isabella was retaining control over her son, with whom she certainly had a close relationship, as well as maintaining her status and influence, and keeping her lover; and doubtless she anticipated that she would remain the power behind the throne after the King had come of age. But with Lancaster and his faction maneuvering against her, she was in danger of losing all three. Therefore, her policies had of necessity to be directed toward bolstering her regime and discrediting her enemies. And that included controlling access to the King, appointing her own nominees to the high offices of state, and amassing enough wealth and territory to ensure that her power extended throughout the realm and that she was well equipped to cope with any crisis or threat to her political supremacy.

  It also meant that the Queen resorted to underhanded measures such as excessive use of the King’s Privy Seal in exercising patronage,33 in order to maintain an affinity of support that could be called upon if necessary, and to the occasional subverting of justice in the interests of undermining her enemies.34 And it meant building up the power of Mortimer, her chief ally and staunchest supporter, however unpopular he might be, and sidelining Lancaster and the rest of the regency council. Isabella was well aware that the Earl was the King’s official guardian, while she herself was just his mother and had no formal role in the government. Lancaster could, if he wished, legally seize control of the King. And while Isabella was faced with that appalling and intolerable prospect, she was compelled to look to her own interests, and—as she doubtless sincerely believed, as a loving, possessive, and certainly manipulative mother—her son’s, before the welfare of the kingdom.

  In a bid to win approval, Isabella sponsored a statute to curb the endemic lawlessness in the country, a legacy of the weak rule of Edward II and the revolution that had overthrown him, and a matter of great grievance to many. Lancaster’s influence can be detected in some of its provisions. Henceforth, the use of the Privy Seal would be restricted, and pardons and grants, which the Queen and Mortimer had certainly issued far too liberally,35 would not be so easily obtainable; accused men would not be allowed to bring armed followers to court with them; justices of the peace had their powers extended; royal officials were to exercise fairness in the execution of their duties and maintain the King’s peace at all times, and they would be under the supervision of justices invested with the power to punish those who defaulted.36 These were eminently sensible measures, and Isabella was plainly determined to ensure that they were implemented.

  Already she had made stringent efforts to curb unrest in London, through a subtle combination of threats, conciliatory gestures, and punitive measures such as tempor
arily removing the Exchequer and the Court of King’s Bench to York for a time. The citizens were fierce defenders of their liberties and well aware of their power to influence the rest of the kingdom. Isabella knew that, although they had vigorously supported her in 1326–27, their allegiance was fickle and they might turn against her at a whim. Already, in October 1327, they had reelected the pro-Lancastrian Hamo de Chigwell as their Mayor. It had been necessary therefore to retain their approval while at the same time making it clear that violence and unrest would not be tolerated and in the process establishing the supremacy of the Crown.

  Now, bending before public opinion, the Queen had shown herself zealous to reestablish law and order throughout the realm. For the next two years, she would issue a steady stream of commissions of oyer and terminer to her circuit judges, to assist them in their task of implementing the new statute. She had also instructed the sheriffs to forbid armed assemblies of men.37 Isabella knew that a regime that could not enforce law and order was in danger of falling and that, having suffered years of misgovernment and unrest, the people of England would surely be grateful to those who had restored justice and peace within the realm. Again, she was demonstrating her understanding of the need to cultivate public opinion, and this statute was probably intended to counterbalance the catastrophic effects of the Treaty of Northampton. Unfortunately, for all the Queen’s orders and fine words, within six months, there would be complaints that it was not being properly enforced, although this may not have been entirely her fault. Yet, as we will see, she herself was to undermine the integrity of the statute when she blatantly contravened its provisions.