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

by Alison Weir

  On 20 October, the day after his successful coup, Edward III proclaimed that he had arrested Mortimer and wished all men to know that he had assumed personal control of the government of his realm and would “henceforth govern his people according to right and reason, as befits his royal dignity.”4 Edward’s liberation from the tutelage of Mortimer and Isabella was greeted by his subjects as if it were the release of the Israelites from bondage,5 for it was recognized that he had freed the realm from tyranny, civil war, and anarchy.

  A day or so later, Edward left Nottingham, but before his departure, he sent his mother, who was in a very distressed state, to Berkhamsted Castle.6 This eleventh-century fortress, which consisted of a strong keep on a very high hill, surrounded by a unique double moat, had once been owned by Thomas à Becket, and later by Piers Gaveston, so it had mixed associations for Isabella, although she may not have been in any state to care where she was at this time.7 Here, she was to live under house arrest until the King had made up his mind what to do with her.

  Once news of the overthrow of Mortimer became known, Maltravers, Gurney, Ockle, Deveril, and several more of Mortimer’s followers panicked and fled abroad.8 Lord Berkeley, who had helped them to flee, made no move to escape and was taken into custody.9

  The King, accompanied by Lancaster, arrived in Leicester on 22 October, on his way south to London.10 Mortimer was taken from Leicester four days later, with an escort of a hundred guards.11 He was at Lutterworth on the twenty-seventh, but then nothing more is heard of his whereabouts until 26 November, when he is recorded as being a prisoner in the Tower of London,12 possibly in the Beauchamp Tower. He was probably sent there as soon as he reached the capital.13 This time, there was to be no chance of escape, for he was guarded by six men-at-arms.14

  By 3 November, Edward had joined Queen Philippa at Woodstock. On that day, Parliament was summoned to meet at Westminster on 26 November,15 which would allow time for Mortimer and his associates to be questioned. The King also invited his subjects to lay any charges against Mortimer before him in Parliament; as it turned out, not one petition would mention Isabella.16 On 13 November, Edward celebrated his eighteenth birthday.

  Parliament met at Westminster from 26 November to 9 December. Edward now had his chance to exact retribution from those who had perpetrated the crimes that had so discredited the previous regime. On the opening day, Berkeley was tried for the murder of Edward II.17

  He was asked how he wished to acquit himself of responsibility for that murder. His reply was astonishing: “He said that he had never consented to the King’s death, procured it or helped the murderers. Indeed, he never even knew that Edward was dead until this present Parliament.” He asked, therefore, to be acquitted. Of course, if Edward had escaped from Berkeley Castle, as Fieschi claims, Berkeley would have been telling the truth, even though he had publicly escorted what was assumed to be the King’s body to Gloucester for burial. Not surprisingly, Berkeley’s inquisitors did not accept this defense. It was hugely in Edward III’s interests that it be rejected.

  Furthermore, there was no way that Berkeley was going to be allowed to plead innocence on the grounds that Edward II was not dead, because Mortimer had probably confessed to his murder under interrogation in the Tower, and Edward III did not want the Crown’s case against him undermined. So Berkeley changed tack and asked to be acquitted of the charge of murder on the grounds that he was not at his castle at the time it had been committed but had been recovering from an illness at his manor of Bradley near Wootton-under-Edge, a plea that was accepted. But he was then charged with having appointed the two other alleged murderers, Gurney and Ockle, to help guard Edward. He admitted that he had done so, but without any evil intent, and his guarantors—who had doubtless been well primed beforehand—declared that those two were the guilty ones. Parliament released Berkeley on a surety, leaving this charge to hang over his head for the next seven years.18

  On 28 November, in the King’s presence, Mortimer was arraigned for high treason by his peers in Parliament. He was allowed to be present but was bound and gagged, and dressed in a tunic on which were emblazoned the words “quid glorians” (“Where is your glory?”).19 He was indicted on several counts of treason, the most serious being that he had “traitorously, feloniously and falsely murdered and killed” Edward II; he had also arrogated to himself the royal power and ignored the regency council; he had lured Kent to his illegal execution; he had attacked Lancaster; he had dared to question the King’s word; he had set spies upon the King; he had stirred up dissension in the kingdom; he had extended his territories to the disinheritance of the Crown; he had planned the destruction of the King’s friends; and he had embezzled public funds.20

  Later sources allege that Mortimer was accused of being “over-homely” with the Queen,21 but their relationship is not referred to in the indictment in the Rolls of Parliament. In fact, Isabella is only once referred to in the charges, which reflects the King’s determination to preserve what was left of her reputation. The charge that mentions her claims that “the said Roger falsely and maliciously sowed discord between the father of our Lord the King and the Queen his companion, making her believe that if she came near her husband, he would poinard her, or murder her in some other manner. Wherefore, by this cause, and by other subtleties, the said Queen remained absent from her said lord, to the great dishonour of the King and of his mother, and great damage, perhaps, to the whole nation hereafter, which God avert.” This placed the responsibility for the rift between Edward and Isabella firmly on Mortimer’s shoulders.

  Mortimer was quite clearly guilty on all counts, and because he had sent Kent to his death without giving him a chance to speak in his own defense, and perhaps because there were fears that he might incriminate Isabella, his judges forbade him to plead. Thus, he was condemned unheard and sentenced “as a traitor and enemy of the King and of the realm to be drawn and hanged” and to the forfeiture of all his titles and property.22 It has been credibly suggested that it was at the request of Isabella that Edward refrained from exacting the full penalty of the law for traitors or that he did so in order to exacerbate Isabella’s terrible distress.23

  That day, Burghersh, who had been imprisoned in the Tower, was deprived of the office of Chancellor and Bishop Stratford elected in his place. Burghersh, however, was a man of some ability, and it was not long before he was released and able to regain his political influence. In 1334, he was back in high office, as Treasurer, and he would serve Edward well as a diplomat. John Stratford became Edward’s chief minister, held the office of Chancellor three times, and in 1333, was elected Archbishop of Canterbury. He died in 1348.

  Now that Mortimer had been condemned, Parliament made an official vote of thanks to William de Montagu, who had been largely responsible for bringing him to justice and freeing the King and the realm from tyranny;24 in reward, he received many of Mortimer’s confiscated estates. William d’Eland was rewarded for admitting Montagu and his fellows to Nottingham Castle.25 Archbishop Melton was appointed Treasurer. Later on, several of those who had helped to overthrow Mortimer were advanced by Edward III: in 1333, Richard de Bury was appointed Bishop of Durham and was made Chancellor the next year; in 1337, Montagu was created Earl of Salisbury, Robert de Ufford Earl of Suffolk, and William de Clinton Earl of Huntingdon; and in 1351, Ralph de Stafford was created Earl of Stafford.26 All who had taken part in the coup were indemnified by Parliament against charges of murder, so that they could not be prosecuted for killing Mortimer’s defenders on the night of the coup.27

  On 29 November, Mortimer, attired in the black tunic that he had worn for Edward II’s funeral, was brought from the Tower and drawn on an oxhide tied to two horses along the three miles to the Elms at Tyburn. The hordes of spectators jeered and chanted the words of Psalm 52, which began, “Why boastest thou in mischief, O mighty man? Thou lovest evil more than good.”28

  The Elms was London’s common gallows from 1196 until 1783 and consisted of two upri
ghts and a crossbeam long enough to accommodate ten felons. Here, Mortimer was allowed, or made, to say a few words to the watching crowds: he made no reference to Edward II’s murder but confessed that Kent had been the innocent victim of a cruel conspiracy.29 Then he was stripped naked, and “the same measure that he had meted out to others was measured to him.” In those days, it could have taken him up to twenty minutes to die of slow strangulation. His body was left hanging from the gallows for two days and nights.30

  That same day, in Parliament, Simon de Bereford, John Deveril, Bogo de Bayouse, John Maltravers, Thomas Gurney, and William Ockle were all condemned to death—Gurney and Ockle for Edward II’s murder; Maltravers, Deveril, and Bayouse for assisting in Kent’s destruction; and Bereford, “by common repute,” for aiding and abetting Mortimer “in all his treasons, felonies and plots.”31 Bereford was the only one of the five in captivity, the rest having fled into exile. It is surprising that Maltravers was not indicted for Edward II’s murder, especially since Berkeley had admitted to being away at the time and Maltravers had been left in charge of the former King, but Berkeley may have told his interrogators that Maltravers knew no more of the murder than he did, which would explain why Edward III was to concentrate his efforts on finding Gurney and Ockle. According to Baker, Deveril had confessed to murdering Edward II, but there is no evidence that he was involved. Since efforts to find the condemned had so far proved fruitless, warrants for their arrest were issued on 3 December, and rewards were offered to anyone apprehending them, alive or dead.32 At the end of November, the lands and property of all Mortimer’s principal adherents were seized by the Crown.33

  On 1 December, Mortimer’s body was cut down from the gallows and delivered to the Franciscans, who initially took it to their church at Newgate. Murimuth says he was buried there, but it was a grand resting place for so great a traitor, and other sources state that he was actually interred in the convent of the Grey Friars at Coventry.34

  Knighton voiced what was probably the opinion of many when he asserted that Isabella deserved to be executed. She herself feared that she would be punished severely.35 Yet it would be left to Henry VIII to order the first execution of an English queen consort, two centuries in the future. The Pope, as soon as he had learned of the toppling of Isabella and Mortimer, had written to Edward III, urging him in his righteous wrath not “to expose his mother’s shame” but to treat her with honor.36 It is unlikely that Edward had had any intention of doing anything else, not only because of his filial love for Isabella but also because his claim to the throne of France derived from her, and any scandal attaching to her name would certainly prejudice that claim. It would, furthermore, cause untold damage to the English monarchy, whose prestige, after more than two decades of misrule and factional fighting, was lower than it had been for two centuries. Public censure might also damage his mother’s health at this time and would have meant the scandalous exposure of any illicit pregnancy.

  Edward decided, therefore, that he would spare Isabella any public disgrace and instituted the official line that all the evils of the regency were to be blamed upon Mortimer, while his “dearest mother” was to be portrayed as just another of that tyrant’s victims—which, in a sense, of course, she was. Her adulterous relationship with Mortimer would be airbrushed from history. Had Edward been convinced of Isabella’s involvement in Edward II’s murder—and she would surely have been questioned about this—he would hardly have been as lenient. Yet his treatment of her suggests that he held her responsible in part for the misrule of the past three years. Clearly, he was determined that she should never again wield any political power but should live out the rest of her life in honorable and comfortable retirement. She was to be treated with respect and courtesy and would henceforth be referred to as “Madame the Queen Mother” or “our Lady Queen Isabella.”37

  For the present, considering her pregnancy and the grief she must have been experiencing as a result of Mortimer’s execution, it was decided that she be kept out of the public eye and that Philippa at last assume her rightful place as Queen of England.

  On 1 December, Isabella “simply and spontaneously” surrendered all her lands to the King.38 In January 1331, she would be assigned a fixed income of £3,000 per annum to live on and “maintain her noble estate all the days of her life,”39 while Philippa would receive the lands that Isabella had held in dower.40

  In December 1330, the King issued a general pardon to all opponents of the previous regime; invited exiles such as Wake, Beaumont, Hugh de Audley, and Rhys ap Gruffydd to come home; and restored their property.41 On 7 December, Kent’s son, Edmund, was restored to his father’s earldom and lands, on the grounds that the late Earl had “been at all times good and loyal, though deceived by wicked men.” Kent’s daughter Joan was taken into the royal household to be brought up by Queen Philippa.42 In 1361, after a checkered marital career, she married the King’s heir, Edward, Prince of Wales, and, by him, became the mother of Richard II.

  Oliver Ingham was pardoned on 8 December43 and soon afterward restored as Seneschal of Gascony. On the fifteenth, Edward ordered that the bones of Hugh le Despenser, which had been on public display for more than four years, be taken down and given decent burial. Despenser’s widow, Eleanor de Clare, had them interred in Tewkesbury Abbey and built a fine tomb in his memory. Their son, another Hugh, was restored to the Despenser barony.

  Simon de Bereford was executed on 24 December, the only one of Mortimer’s associates to share his fate.44

  At Christmas, Isabella was with the court at Windsor.45 After Mortimer’s execution, Lord Wake, John Lestraunge, and the Bohun brothers had been ordered to escort her from Berkhamsted to the King.46 She apparently remained at Windsor for the next two years, in the “safe-keeping” of the constable. Effectively, she was under house arrest; in a grant of 1331, Edward refers to the year 1330–31 having been “the first year of her imprisonment.”47 But it was a gilded cage. The King, “by the advice of his council,” had “ordered his mother to be confined in a goodly castle, and gave her plenty of ladies and damsels to wait upon her, as well as knights and squires of honour. He made her a handsome allowance to keep and maintain the state to which she had been accustomed, but forbade her ever to go out or show herself abroad, except at certain times and when any shows were exhibited in the court of the castle,”48 such as those put on by mummers and traveling players.

  We do not know whether Isabella mingled with the King and his courtiers that first Christmas after her fall or whether she was simply in residence in the castle at that time and unable to participate in the festivities. If she had conceived around May, she would have been seven months pregnant at Christmas. But there is no further mention of her pregnancy in any source. The likelihood is, therefore, that, in the wake of the disaster that had overtaken her, she had lost her baby while she was at Berkhamsted.

  Strickland and other writers have claimed that Isabella was shut up at Windsor because she suffered a period of mental derangement after Mortimer’s execution. Strickland mentions a persistent contemporary rumor that she actually died on the day that Mortimer’s corpse was cut down, which reveals that very few people could say with any certainty what had happened to Isabella. A nervous breakdown is a possibility. The shock of learning of her lover’s death perhaps coincided with the depression that follows a stillbirth and caused such a breakdown. We do know that the King paid large sums for a physician to attend his mother during this period.49 It has also been claimed that, for the rest of her life, Isabella suffered from periodic attacks of insanity or neurosis, but there is no evidence for this. If she did suffer initially from a mental illness, it is more likely to have been depression or anxiety than a personality disorder such as schizophrenia.

  Isabella passed her time at Windsor “meekly.”50 She was certainly receiving spiritual comfort, for the King gave his chaplain, Edmund de Rammersby, “on behalf of our mother, the first year of her imprisonment, two crystal vases containing minute b
ones, relics of the Holy Innocents; one silver flask, containing relics of St. Sylvester; part of the side of St. Lawrence, enclosed in silver; and a joint of John the Baptist’s little finger.”51

  Queen Philippa was extremely kind to Isabella at this time, and in the summer of 1331, the Pope wrote to thank and commend her for the sympathy and consolation that she had shown to her mother-in-law in her tribulation. He urged her “to aim at restoring the good fame of the Queen Mother, which has been undeservedly injured.” It may be that the shrewd John XXII was following the official line that Isabella was sinned against rather than sinning, in the interests of fostering harmonious relations in the English royal family and boosting the prestige of the monarchy. Or he could have been told of Isabella’s mental state. He was not supposed to know about her liaison with Mortimer, and would surely not have referred to it in a letter, so in speaking of “her tribulation” he was perhaps alluding to her nervous collapse.

  Edward III was to enjoy a long and largely successful reign. To his subjects, he came to epitomize what a king should be: powerful, magnificent, warlike, merciful, wise, and “familiar and gentle to all men.” According to Murimuth, “he was glorious among all the great ones of the world.” Physically, he seems to have taken after his Plantagenet ancestors, being more than six feet tall with good bone structure and an aquiline nose, and he had the good looks of their race—“his face was like the face of a god.”52