In 1300, the future Edward II entered a new phase in his life. The prince was to accompany his father to war in Scotland. The long progress north was broken at several points, notably at Bury St Edmunds in May, where the prince remained for a week following the king’s departure. During this time, a local chronicle relates that ‘he had been made in chapter one of our brethren, for the regal dignity of the abbey and the monks’ abundance of spiritual comforts pleased him. Every day he asked for a monk’s allowance, just as the brethren ate in the refectory, to be given to him’. 3 Passing on by way of York and Durham, the king and his heir reached Carlisle on 25 June. On 4 July, the army moved northward into Scotland, making for Dumfries by way of Lochmaben Castle. Along the way, the army advanced upon Caerlaverock Castle. Prince Edward was in command of the rearguard:
The fourth squadron, with its train,
Edward the king’s son led,
A youth of seventeen years of age
And newly bearing arms.
He was of a well-proportioned and handsome person,
Of a courteous disposition, and well bred,
And desirous of finding an occasion To make proof of his strength.
He managed his steed wonderfully well. 4
Edward’s squadron contained established knights such as Robert de Tony, Henry le Tyes, William Latimer, William de Leyburn and Roger Mortimer of Chirk. Significantly, it also contained Piers Gaveston, who drew wages as a squire from July until November, when a truce was agreed and the English army returned to the south.
At the subsequent parliament at Lincoln in January 1301, Edward was endowed with the earldom of Chester and all of the crown’s lands in Wales except for the castle and town of Montgomery. In May of the same year, he was granted Montgomery too, from which time he was generally referred to as Prince of Wales. During the spring, he toured his new appanage, receiving fealty and homage from his tenants. He also ordered repairs at Chester Castle, where, interestingly, he ordered a painting of Thomas Becket and the knights by whom he was martyred. It is overly romantic to think that he developed a particular attachment to Wales; indeed, a letter from the prince, written to Louis of Evreux in May 1305, leaves little doubt about his sentiments. In this letter, Edward describes his gift to Louis of ‘some bandy-legged harriers from Wales, who can well catch a hare if they find it asleep’, and goes on to threaten to send ‘plenty of the wild men [of Wales] if you like, who will know well how to teach breeding to the young heirs and heiresses of great lords’. 5 On the other hand, he did have one of his minstrels, Richard the Rhymer, travel to Shrewsbury in order to learn how to play the Welsh crwth or harp.
Edward received as his own the manor at King’s Langley, which had previously belonged to Edmund of Cornwall, and for which the young prince had already shown a great fondness. Over the next few years, considerable sums would be spent on various building projects there. Nevertheless, despite his endowment with Wales and Chester, as well as his mother’s county of Ponthieu, Edward was far from independent. The revenues generated from his lands were generally insufficient to support his household (particularly in wartime) and, in many ways, his household continued to be under the supervision of his father. As late as October 1305, for instance, Edward was forced to demur when the earl of Lincoln requested the service of his household steward, Miles Stapleton, as the latter reported directly to the king and it was not within the prince’s power to release him.
In 1301, another Scottish campaign was undertaken. This time, Edward was to be given his own command, so that honour in arms might accrue to him. He was to be accompanied by the highly experienced earls of Lincoln and Arundel, and also by a group of younger peers, including the earls of Gloucester (Ralph de Monthermer), Hereford and Lancaster. Edward’s household went to war with him. His companions in arms included Sir Reginald Grey, Ralph de Gorges, Guy Ferre the younger, Roderic of Spain, Gilbert de Clare, Robert de Scales, Robert de Clavering, William de Munchensy and Piers Gaveston. Nine of his fourteen clerks, including Walter Reynolds, accompanied his army, which totalled in excess of 300 mounted men and hundreds more of foot-soldiers. Unfortunately, virtually nothing was achieved by either the king or the prince as the Scots refused to offer battle. Perhaps the most interesting insight provided by the movements of the prince’s army comes from his unsuccessful attempt to make a pilgrimage to Whithorn Abbey to view the relics of St Ninian, suggesting at the very least a conventional piety not always attributed to him in his later years. The prince wintered at Linlithgow with his father, although Gaveston, ill, was ordered by the king to remain at Knaresborough. A truce being ratified in January, the two Edwards left Scotland in mid-February 1302.
There was no campaign in Scotland in 1302, and the prince appears to have spent much of his time on administrative business of one sort or another. In March, the prince held a parliament in London on behalf of his father, and he was summoned to the subsequent parliaments in July and October at Westminster. In October 1302, the Seneschal of Ponthieu, John de Bakewell, came to England for an audit of the county’s accounts for the previous 3 years. The county seems to have generated barely more revenue than expenses, although the prince appears to have received a large quantity of sheet glass from Ponthieu, which presumably was used in renovations at King’s Langley. At Christmas 1302, Edward stayed at South Warnborough in Hampshire, where he was entertained on the eve of epiphany by ‘three clerks of the town of Windsor’, while at the same time he was provided with £5, delivered to him by Gaveston, with which to indulge his passion for gambling at dice.
Although the latter pastime may fit more conveniently into the popular image of Edward II as a dissolute wastrel, records from the same period also indicate something more than just a conventional religiosity. To the evidence of his ease among the monks at Bury St Edmunds and his interest in visiting the relics of St Ninian, can be added a pattern of arranging for or attending requiem masses for those near to him, both great and modest in status. Not only did he attend services in remembrance of his grandmother, Eleanor of Provence, at Amesbury on 16 November, and for his mother Eleanor of Castile on 27 November 1302, but early in the following year he attended masses in February for the king’s former squire, Walter de Beauchamp, and for his own yeoman, William Comyn, and another for Guy Ferre in April. In the case of Comyn, his household roll specifically recounts that this mass was held when the prince first heard of William’s death.
The summer of 1303 saw the prince accompanying his father’s army north on yet another Scottish campaign. This lengthy military adventure lasted from May until early November and was highlighted by a grand, and highly destructive, chevauchée north to the Moray Firth. The prince wintered in Perth until March 1304. During this period, he was intimately involved in diplomatic activity, meeting John Comyn, Guardian of Scotland, on 5 February. Spring 1304 saw the siege of Stirling Castle, which surrendered on 24 July. Victory in Scotland was to have been followed by further reconciliation with France. In the autumn of 1304, the prince was to have travelled to France to do homage in his father’s stead, but although he made his way to Dover in late October, letters of safe conduct did not arrive from Philip the Fair, and the expedition was ultimately cancelled. Edward spent the winter of 1304–1305 at King’s Langley, moving to Kennington in March in order to attend the Westminster parliament. At his temporary residence there, the prince heard petitions from Wales and attended to other business. Now 20 years old, the prince was at the centre of national affairs in both war and peace, and he was clearly in harmony with his father the king: as yet, no inkling of the unfortunate nature of the son’s reign could have been foreseen. Leaving Kennington in late April, Edward returned to Langley, where he remained until early June, when he travelled to meet his father at Midhurst in Sussex. Here, on Monday 14 June, father and son had a monumental falling out that brought to the forefront Prince Edward’s growing attachment to Piers Gaveston, an attachment that receives no notice in any documentary or chronicle source until this moment
.
The initial source of the explosive confrontation was an alleged trespass against Walter Langton, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield and Treasurer of England. The prince had apparently broken into a wood belonging to the bishop, but more importantly, had verbally abused the bishop following the event. For these ‘gross and harsh words’, Edward was banished from his father’s presence and cut off from financial support. The prince hoped to achieve a speedy reconciliation, and for more than a month he shadowed the movements of the king’s household at a reasonably close but respectful distance of 10–12 leagues, a plan he had explained to the earl of Lincoln in a letter written on the very day of his banishment. His sister Joan, Countess of Gloucester, provided him with her own seal in order that he might provide for himself during this difficult period, and by 21 July he was able to return this seal, confident in his ability to support himself once again, as on that same day letters to the sheriffs of England instructed them no longer to prohibit loans or other provision made to the prince.
This was not, however, the end of the prince’s punishment, for the king had apparently removed several members of his son’s household for an indefinite period. A letter to his sister, Elizabeth, in August noted that two of his companions, John de Haustede and John de Weston, had been allowed to return, and he asked his sister to persuade their young stepmother, Queen Margaret, to intercede with the king in order that Gaveston and Gilbert de Clare might also be restored to his household. In this letter, he says ‘if we had those two, along with the others whom we have, we would be greatly relieved of the anguish which we have endured and from which we continue to suffer from one day to the next’. Throughout August and September, the prince resided at Windsor Park at his father’s direction, declining offers to visit his sisters, Joan and Mary, for fear of further arousing his anger. Although the worst was over by the end of July, a final reconciliation was not achieved until 13 October, when the prince presided over a banquet at Westminster celebrating the feast of the Translation of St Edward, a particularly important date on the Plantagenet calendar since the reign of Henry III.
During the period of the prince’s banishment, the Scottish situation seemed to have been resolved with the execution of William Wallace. All this changed, however, on 10 February 1306, with the notorious murder of John Comyn by Robert Bruce, earl of Carrick, at Dumfries. Edward I immediately issued writs to begin the military preparations for yet another campaign. But there was a noteworthy difference this time: increasingly, the writs spoke of an expedition to be led by the prince, with the king playing a supporting role to his son. In consequence of his growing military leadership, the prince was to be knighted at Pentecost, leaving no doubt about the complete nature of the reconciliation between father and son.
The knighting of Prince Edward was a magnificent affair. The king had issued a summons for all those entitled through succession and having sufficient means to present themselves at Westminster to be knighted. Some 267 young men, including Piers Gaveston, the younger Hugh Despenser and Roger Mortimer of Wigmore, responded. The crowd of aspirant knights was so great that they could not all be accommodated at Westminster Palace. Walls were demolished and fruit trees cut down at the New Temple to make room for the many tents and pavilions required. The prince and a small group of companions passed their vigil on the night of 21–22 May 1306 in Westminster Abbey, while the other aspirants spent the night in the Temple Church. In order to maintain himself ‘better and more honourably’, the prince at this time was granted, like his father before him, the duchy of Aquitaine along with the island of Oléron and the Agenais.
Edward I knighted his son personally, girding him with the belt of knighthood. The prince then received his spurs from the earls of Lincoln and Hereford. He, in turn, then knighted the other notable aspirants, including the earls of Arundel and Surrey. Gaveston and many others were knighted on the following Thursday, 26 May. The knighting ceremony was followed by the famous ‘Feast of Swans’, at which some 80 minstrels entertained the throng, and where the king swore an oath to go on crusade, having first avenged himself against the traitorous Robert Bruce, with the prince and others swearing variations on this theme. The prince swore never to sleep two nights in the same place until he reached Scotland.
The prince accompanied his father’s army northwards to Scotland again in 1306, and his forces consolidated Aymer de Valence’s victory over Robert Bruce at Methven by capturing Lochmaben Castle in June, and Kildrummy in September. But after the king established his winter quarters at Lanercost, an incident occurred that would have far-reaching repercussions into the next reign.
A group of some 22 prominent knights – including several who were closely associated with the prince, such as Gilbert de Clare, John Chandos, Robert de Tony and Piers Gaveston – deserted the army to attend tournaments in France, despite specific royal orders to the contrary. The aged Edward I was enraged and ordered the confiscation of all their lands. Eventually, at the urging of his queen, Edward relented, and all of the knights involved appear to have been pardoned except for one: Gaveston.
The young Gascon knight was sent into what was to be the first of his three exiles. That he was singled out for such punishment is significant; but it is equally significant, and has generally been overlooked, that the decree of exile was temporary – not perpetual – and non-specific with regard to cause. Gaveston could be recalled and, of course, he would be recalled as soon as Edward I died and Edward II ascended the throne. Moreover, the terms of his exile were far from harsh: he was to receive 100 marks sterling annually ‘for as long as he shall remain in parts beyond the sea during the king’s pleasure and awaiting his recall’. This raises the question of the nature of his offence – surely he alone was not singled out for the desertion of the army – as well as the king’s purpose in banishing him from the realm.
Regarding this episode, the chroniclers are largely silent, except for the highly colourful, and equally unlikely, account of Walter of Guisborough. According to Guisborough, when the prince had done everything possible to advance Gaveston’s fortunes, he summoned his old nemesis, Walter Langton, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield and treasurer to the king. Langton was sent to the king, to whom he supposedly related the prince’s request that the county of Ponthieu be conferred upon Gaveston. Summoned into his father’s presence, the prince acknowledged his request, only to be verbally and physically assaulted by the king before being driven from his presence. Immediately after this exchange, Guisborough continues, the king summoned his council and arranged for Gaveston’s perpetual banishment. 6
The description of these events in Guisborough’s chronicle is suspect for several reasons. First of all, it is a literary set-piece, with clear resonances of the biblical account of Saul’s confrontation with David over his relationship with Jonathan, a topos that would resurface in the works of other chroniclers writing about Edward II and Gaveston. Moreover, Gaveston’s exile was far from onerous.
Not only did Gaveston receive a generous annuity, he was also allowed to await his recall in nearby Ponthieu, even though the terms of the original decree of exile called for Gaveston to return to his native Gascony. This is even more remarkable when we bear in mind that Prince Edward was scheduled to visit his county later in 1307 – and that, according to Guisborough, it was the prince’s desire to give Ponthieu to Gaveston that had been at the root of the dispute between the king and the prince.
What, then, accounts for the king’s violent reaction to Gaveston’s seemingly minor transgression? It is possible, even attractive, at this point to agree with the suggestion that Edward I sought the separation of his son and Gaveston to break an inappropriate bond of brotherhood between two youths of unequal status, an inequality that the prince seemed determined to overcome through his elevation of his companion. Had the union between them been an openly sinful, sexual liaison, as has often been suggested, it is difficult to imagine the king being so lenient in the terms of exile. Having said that, however, and
regardless of the exact nature of their relationship, the king had clearly underestimated the depth of the bond between his son and Gaveston. It is worth noting that Edward II was to father at least one illegitimate child, a son named Adam who apparently died while on campaign in Scotland in 1322. Presumably, therefore, this child was born prior to Edward’s accession, and this birth might well have reassured Edward I that the relationship with Gaveston, even if sexual, was not exclusive and might prove impermanent. Moreover, the prince was to marry Isabella of France in less than a year, and the king may perhaps be forgiven if he imagined that marriage would turn his son’s mind away from any former lover – or lovers – once and for all. Such, of course, was not to be the case.
Edward I died at Burgh-by-Sands on 7 July 1307. By the end of the month, the new king had withdrawn his army from Scotland. Such a military policy was certainly justifiable given the state of the treasury, which was empty, and the limited opportunities for success occasioned by an enemy unlikely to offer battle.
Edward attempted to arrange for the security of the north before departing for the south, strengthening garrisons at Stirling, Perth and Dumfries, and calling out the levies of Lancashire, Westmorland and Cumberland. He also installed the experienced commander Aymer de Valence, soon-to-be earl of Pembroke, as Guardian of Scotland. Nevertheless, the economic and military basis for Edward’s decision to withdraw from Scotland was quickly overshadowed by other motivations, real or imagined. Most importantly, even before he had crossed the border, Edward had been joined at Dumfries by Gaveston, recalled from exile, and on 6 August elevated to the peerage as earl of Cornwall, a dignity hitherto conferred only on members of the royal family. It had been assumed that the earldom of Cornwall would pass to one of the king’s young half-brothers, having previously been held by the brothers of Henry III and Edward I.
The Plantagenets: History of a Dynasty Page 14
