The Plantagenets: History of a Dynasty

by J. S. Hamilton

  If the early years of Edward II’s reign were dominated by the influence of Piers Gaveston, then the final years were shaped by the two Hugh Despensers, father and son. Hugh Despenser the elder was the son of Hugh le Despenser who had died fighting on the side of Simon de Montfort at Evesham, but he himself proved to be a dedicated royal servant throughout his long and successful life. In the reign of Edward I, he served as a soldier in the king’s many wars both in Britain and on the Continent, and also served on a variety of diplomatic missions. By 1297, he had been appointed a royal councillor. It is clear from Prince Edward’s letters of 1304–1305 that Despenser had already become a trusted adviser to the prince; nor was Edward II’s faith in him misplaced. During the crisis of 1308, he was entrusted with several strategic castles. In the subsequent attacks on Piers Gaveston, he stood virtually alone in defending the favourite. Consequently, he was one of the courtiers singled out at the Northampton parliament for dismissal from the council. During Lancaster’s ascendancy following Bannockburn, Despenser, who had been present at the disastrous battle, was seldom (if ever) found at court. In the spring of 1316, however, he again became prominent at court and in the royal council, this time alongside his eldest son, the younger Hugh.

  The younger Despenser had been knighted by the prince in 1306. In the same year, Edward I had arranged for him to wed Eleanor de Clare, eldest daughter of the earl of Gloucester, and the king’s own granddaughter. His prospects were greatly enhanced by the death of his brother-in-law at Bannockburn, although a settlement of the Clare estate was not reached until November 1317, at which time Eleanor Despenser received her share of the Gloucester estates along with her sisters Margaret, Piers Gaveston’s widow now remarried to Hugh Audley the younger, and Elizabeth, wife of Roger Damory. Surprisingly, perhaps, the younger Despenser figures little in the royal records until February 1319, at which point he and the king become virtually inseparable until July 1321. Despenser’s increased proximity to the king can be attributed to his appointment as chamberlain of the king’s household in October 1318, but proximity alone does not account for the violent response to his growing ascendancy. His acquisitiveness, more pronounced than Gaveston’s had been, soon led to war. His greed became increasingly apparent after the partitioning of the Gloucester inheritance, as he sought to absorb large portions of the lands assigned to his coheirs. Through his ambition, he created an unusually broad opposition comprised not only of the king’s most vocal detractor, the earl of Lancaster, but also the marcher lords led by the earl of Hereford, who resented Despenser’s intrusion into the west midlands, and even the other courtiers of Edward II who saw themselves being undermined and isolated.

  The younger Despenser’s interference in the disputed inheritance of William de Braose’s lordship of Gower late in 1320 proved to be the spark that ignited this latest conflagration. Negotiations to end the impasse had failed when Edward, cynically, refused to remove Despenser from his presence on the grounds that he had been appointed chamberlain in parliament, and that to do so would therefore be a violation not only of the Ordinances but of the Magna Carta and the common law as a whole. Left with no alternative, on 4 May 1321, the marchers launched a devastating attack on the Despenser lands, initially in Wales but later in the south and the midlands as well. In the months that followed, the earl of Lancaster set about building a coalition of northerners and marchers with which to oppose the king and his newest favourites, largely on the same lines as he had articulated for the past decade. At parliament in August, the king was faced by a sizeable opposition, and was counselled by the trusted earls of Pembroke and Richmond, by the queen, and by the prelates to send the Despensers away. He may even have been threatened with deposition in the event of his refusal to hear the charges against the Despensers. On 14 August, reluctantly, Edward II agreed in parliament to the exile of his favourites.

  Although the king had acquiesced to baronial demands, his insincerity was soon apparent. While the elder Despenser spent his exile in Bordeaux, the younger Hugh took to piracy in the Channel off Sandwich. But if his piratical career was scandalous, it seems not to have bothered the king, who met with his favourite at Harwich before the end of September. An opportunity for revenge, and with it the recall of the Despensers, soon presented itself on 13 October when Queen Isabella was denied entry into Leeds Castle in Kent by the wife of its lord, Bartholomew Badlesmere. Formerly steward of the king’s household and an associate of the younger Despenser, by 1321 Badlesmere had gone over to the marchers’ side, although his position was complicated by his personal antipathy towards the earl of Lancaster. In any case, with the support of the earls of Pembroke, Richmond and Norfolk, the king quickly launched a siege of Leeds, which in the absence of relief from either the marchers or Lancaster, succeeded by 31 October. The garrison, including its commander Sir Walter Culpeper, was executed on the spot. Based on the consent of convocation rather than parliament, on 8 December the king recalled the Despensers from exile.

  Refusing to negotiate or hold parliament, in late 1321 and early 1322, Edward II launched the most effective military campaign of his reign. By swift movement and the use of Welsh allies, he quickly routed the marchers, receiving the surrender of the Mortimers in late January and that of the Berkeleys in early February. He then turned his attention to the north and the greatest enemy of all, Thomas of Lancaster. Although the king was concerned about the small size of his army, and attempted to raise troops from Gascony and even from his brother-in-law, the king of France, in the end he had sufficient means to end the war. He was aided by the desertion of one of Lancaster’s most trusted retainers, Sir Robert Holand. As Lancaster’s army retreated north toward his great fortress at Dunstanburgh, it was trapped and defeated on 16 March at Boroughbridge by a Cumberland levy led by Andrew de Harcla. The earl of Hereford was killed in the battle and Lancaster himself taken prisoner. Six days later, Lancaster, the most powerful magnate in England, was condemned on the king’s record for having ‘in his land ridden with banner displayed against his peace as a traitor’. He was not allowed to speak in his own defence, and as a traitor he was sentenced to be drawn, hanged and beheaded. Out of respect for his royal blood, he was spared all but the beheading.

  In the years to come, his shrine at Pontefract was to become a site of popular pilgrimage and a cult developed to ‘St Thomas’ of Lancaster, although he was never canonized by the Church. With him died all meaningful resistance to the Despenser regime that now directed the affairs of the king. Edward II quickly followed up his greatest victory by having the Ordinances repealed in parliament by the Statute of York in 1322. Indeed, not only were they repealed, it was decreed that never again was the royal power to be so constrained. The Statute of York has been the subject of much debate, particularly with regard to its language concerning the role of parliament. In the context of the Ordinances of 1311, however, the Statute of York was clearly an effort to reset the political clock to reflect the status quo ante 1310.

  Whether or not England had lost a saint at Boroughbridge, the queen in particular had lost a counterweight to the influence of the Despensers in the king’s council. The return of the Despensers to power threatened her position as it had not been since Gaveston’s ascendancy. On 10 May 1322, the elder Despenser was elevated to the peerage as earl of Winchester, and the following few years saw an orgy of revenge against those who had opposed the favourites, coupled with unprecedented aggrandizement of the Despenser family. The period between 1322 and 1326 saw the Despensers’ wealth, power and influence reach their zenith. The younger Despenser, in particular, used a combination of royal favour, legal manipulation and outright force to consolidate his holdings in Wales and the marches, so that by the time of his death his lands were valued at no less than £7,000. The enduring monuments to his lavish expenditures at Caerphilly Castle and Tewkesbury Abbey attest to his exalted stature during these years. Queen Isabella was treated poorly. In 1324, she was humiliated by the confiscation of her lands and the exile o
f 27 French members of her household, while at the same time Eleanor de Clare, the younger Despenser’s wife, was placed into her household as a minder. There were even rumours that Despenser was attempting to have the king’s marriage annulled in Avignon.

  In 1323, a war broke out between the English and the French over the building of a bastide at Saint-Sardos in the disputed region of the Agenais. The War of Saint-Sardos in 1323–1325 was only a minor military affair, but for Edward II and the Despensers it proved to have major consequences. The king’s inability or unwillingness to leave the country prevented a negotiated settlement to this conflict, so in March 1325 he sent his wife Isabella, sister of Charles IV, as his mediator. The settlement arranged by the queen called for Edward II to fulfil his obligation to perform homage to Charles IV for his English lands in France, but Edward was subsequently allowed to send his heir in his place. However, neither the queen nor the prince returned to England following Edward’s performance of homage in absentia.

  In France, Isabella had found considerable support for her opposition to the Despensers from a number of political exiles, including Roger Mortimer of Wigmore. After the defeat of the marchers and Lancaster in 1322, Mortimer had been among the many opponents of the Despenser regime, the so-called Contrariants, imprisoned in the Tower of London. Apparently with the assistance of his custodian, Gerard de Alspaye, he had escaped in dramatic fashion on 1 August 1323 by drugging the Constable of the Tower, Stephen de Seagrave.

  Once he had reached the safety of Paris, he quickly became the focal point of discontent, and before the year was out he was rumoured to be behind a plot to murder the king and his favourites. By the autumn of 1325, Queen Isabella had certainly become associated with Mortimer and his party, although whether or not she had yet become his lover is unclear. In any case, in November 1325, Walter Stapeldon, bishop of Exeter and one of the prince’s guardians, returned to England in haste and secrecy, allegedly in fear for his life at the hands of Mortimer and the queen. It can have come as no surprise to the king in January 1326 when Isabella wrote that she would not return until the Despensers had been removed from the court.

  By the summer of the following year, it was clear that the queen would lead an invasion of England. In order to buy support, she had arranged the marriage of her son Edward to Philippa, the daughter of count William of Hainault. With support from the count and also from her cousin Philip of Valois, himself the heir to the childless Charles IV of France, she raised a small fleet of ships in the Dutch port of Dordrecht, sailing on 23 September 1326. Despite elaborate preparations for the defence of the realm on the king’s behalf, the queen’s landing at Orwell in Suffolk on the following day was virtually unopposed. Within 10 days, the king and the younger Despenser had abandoned London and headed west, towards Despenser’s lands and the Welsh allies who had served Edward so well in 1321–1322. The queen pursued them, and Bristol fell to Isabella on 26 October, when king and favourite were at Cardiff, and the elder Despenser was forced to surrender. He was tried in a court of chivalry before William Trussell on the following day, and denounced and sentenced to death under martial law. He was condemned to be drawn for treason, hanged for robbery and decapitated for his crimes against the church, his head to be taken to Winchester, where he had been earl ‘against law and reason’.

  Meanwhile, the king and the younger Despenser had attempted to sail from Bristol to safety, perhaps in Ireland, but were blown ashore at Cardiff by contrary winds. They then travelled to the favourite’s stronghold at Caerphilly, which was afterwards left in charge of Despenser’s eldest son, another Hugh. The king and Despenser continued on their westward flight, perhaps still hoping to raise troops in Wales or to take refuge in Ireland and there to regroup. Whatever their plans, on 16 November they were taken prisoner near Neath. Separated from the king, Despenser was transported to Hereford. Outside the city, he was degraded and humiliated by being stripped and redressed with his coat of arms reversed and being crowned with nettles. Having been condemned as a traitor, he was drawn and then hanged from a scaffold raised to a height of 50 feet. Still alive, he was cut down and eviscerated before finally being beheaded. His head was displayed on London Bridge, while his quartered remains were sent to Bristol, Dover, York and Newcastle. The king, meanwhile, was taken to Monmouth by his captor, Henry of Leicester, brother of the late earl of Lancaster. On 20 November, he was made to surrender the great seal. From Leicester’s castle of Monmouth, Edward was moved to the royal castle of Kenilworth for greater security; from there, he would observe the final unravelling of his reign.

  Until recently, there has been disagreement and indeed confusion with regard to the question of Edward II’s removal from the throne. It is now clear, however, that Edward II was in fact deposed, although he was subsequently induced to abdicate in his son’s favour. It is also clear that the regime of Mortimer and Isabella subsequently revised historical accounts of these events in order to promote the belief that Edward II had abdicated willingly, making deposition unnecessary. In early January 1327, the king refused to attend the parliament that had been summoned to Westminster in his name, thereby rendering it invalid, in theory, if not in practice. On 12 January, a consensus seems to have been reached to depose the king; these plans were put into motion on the following day. An oath of loyalty to the young king was taken at the Guildhall in the morning, and the deposition was agreed to in parliament in the afternoon. A series of addresses, beginning with a speech by Roger Mortimer and concluding with a sermon on the text ‘the voice of the people is the voice of God’ by Walter Reynolds, archbishop of Canterbury, culminated in the election and acclamation of Edward III as king. A deputation was subsequently sent to Edward II at Kenilworth, probably on 20 or 21 January, to inform him of his deposition and formally to withdraw fealty from him. The king was presented with a stark choice between acquiescence in his deposition and the continuation of the family line through the elevation of his son, or a forced deposition after which the community of the realm would seek its own successor to wear the crown. Edward therefore assented to his own deposition, following which William Trussell withdrew his own homage and that of those whom he represented by proxy. Thomas Blunt, steward of the king’s household, is reputed thereupon to have broken his staff of office, releasing all of the king’s servants from their offices. Ten days later, on 1 February 1327, Edward III was crowned.

  A deposed king posed certain fundamental problems for any subsequent regime, so it comes as no surprise that Edward II should soon have disappeared from sight. By the autumn of 1327, he was almost certainly dead. His death, on 21 September 1327, was announced as a fact at the Lincoln parliament, which was meeting at that time. There is, however, a highly romantic account of Edward II’s death, in which the beleaguered king escaped from his captors in Berkeley Castle, and thereafter embarked on a long and circuitous flight. The fugitive king makes his way from Corfe Castle to Cologne, by way of Avignon – where he gained an audience with the pope – and Paris, and ultimately to northern Italy, where he died, years later, in a hermitage in the diocese of Pavia. This account is supported by a fourteenth-century transcript of a letter written to Edward III by the papal notary Manuel de Fieschi. But while the letter itself may be authentic, historians from William Stubbs to the present, have found it difficult to give much credence to the fantastic claims it makes.

  Against this, there is also an incredibly gruesome, and much better known, account of Edward II’s death, recounted a generation later by the chronicler Geoffrey le Baker. In this version of events, the king was murdered in Berkeley Castle on the night of 21 September 1327 by having a red-hot plumber’s iron inserted into his rectum, thus to mask the foul play inherent in murder, and just possibly to symbolize the late king’s homosexual proclivities. Whatever may have happened, the unfortunate, and now superfluous king, disappeared from sight sometime in 1327. He is commemorated – whether or not his remains actually reside within – in the magnificent tomb in Gloucester Cathedral,
where his purported remains were interred on 20 December 1327. He is the only Plantagenet king of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries not buried in Westminster Abbey and, in some sense, this physical absence may symbolize the reign of Edward II as the nadir of the dynasty.

  CHAPTER 4: EDWARD III (1327 – 1377)

  The birth of the future Edward III at Windsor on 12 November 1312 was greeted with great joy not only by the royal family, but also by the citizens of London and the kingdom as a whole. Edward II apparently took consolation in the birth of his first son in the aftermath of the recent violent death of his favourite, Piers Gaveston. He awarded the queen’s yeoman John Launge an extravagant annuity of £80 for bringing him the news of the birth. Isabella, attended by her father’s own surgeon, Henri de Mondeville, expressed her own joy in a letter to the citizens of London. She hoped, with her French relatives, that the child might be named Philip after her father, but the king insisted that his son and heir be named Edward after his own father. The infant Edward was baptized just 4 days later, at Windsor, with the queen’s uncle Louis of Evreux standing as godfather, along with John of Brittany, earl of Richmond, and several other bishops and nobles.

  A week later, Edward was granted the counties of Chester and Flint, although he was not named prince of Wales or earl of Cornwall, the latter contentious title being so closely associated with Edward II and Gaveston. In any case, he was soon established in his own household, more often than not separated from both his parents. The tradition that he was tutored by the great bibliophile Richard Bury has been challenged, but Bury was certainly a member of his household and later one of his closest advisors. Another figure associated with the prince’s education was John Paynel, a parson from Cheshire who may have instructed Edward in reading and writing; he is the first English king known to have been able to write.