Edward II: The Unconventional King (13 page)

Gaveston was placed in the custody of the earl of Pembroke, who took him south, to Wallingford. Edward and Gaveston kept in touch via messengers until 9 June, the day Gaveston and Pembroke reached the village of Deddington in Oxfordshire, about 30 miles short of Wallingford.
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Edward gave a pound to one William de la Paneterie for lending him a bow and arrows on or shortly before 4 June, and sent a letter to his father-in-law Philip IV on the 11th pettishly declaring that he was ‘grievously annoyed’ with his subjects.
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Probably not half as grievously annoyed as his subjects were with him, however – and not nearly as grievously annoyed as he would have been, had he known what was going on in Deddington. In his worst nightmares, he could hardly have guessed what would happen next.

On the night of 9 June, the earl of Pembroke decided to visit his wife Beatrice, and left Gaveston behind at the priory of Deddington under guard. The earl of Warwick, who loathed Piers Gaveston for his presumption and his insulting nicknames, seized an opportunity for revenge. Guy Beauchamp, about forty in 1312, was one of the few English earls not closely related to Edward II by blood or marriage. His character consisted of an odd mix of brutality, piety and cultured intelligence.
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Early on the morning of Saturday 10 June, Piers Gaveston woke to the sound of chaos outside, horses’ hooves clattering on the ground and men shouting. The earl of Warwick and a large armed force had surrounded the priory, and Gaveston heard the earl call out, ‘Arise, traitor, you are taken!’
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He must have known what terrible danger he was in, although even then his courage didn’t fail him. He looked out of the window and, catching sight of the earl, laughed and shouted down that the ‘black dog of Arden’ had arrived. Beauchamp, shaking with fury that he could not curb Gaveston’s tongue even when he had the Gascon surrounded by armed men, his rage failing to lend him eloquence, hurled back the not terribly witty retort that he was no dog, but the earl of Warwick.
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Warwick’s men overpowered the guards left by the earl of Pembroke, dragged Gaveston out of the priory barefoot and bare-headed, and tore his belt of knighthood from him.
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Surrounded by armed men, Gaveston was forced to walk through the streets of Deddington, a large crowd appearing to taunt him as soon as news spread. He was then given a mangy horse to speed his 30-mile journey to Warwick Castle. All the way, ‘blaring trumpets followed Piers and the horrid cry of the populace’.
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At Warwick, the earl cast Gaveston into the dungeon, in chains, and waited for the earls of Lancaster, Hereford and Arundel to arrive.

Warwick, Lancaster and the others had every intention of killing Gaveston. Lancaster, whom Gaveston had derided as the Churl and the Fiddler, declared, ‘While he lives there will be no safe place in the realm of England.’ Probably, they could see no alternative to killing him; if they exiled him for the fourth time, Edward would only recall him yet again, civil war would break out, and thus they decided that he should die.
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According to the Bridlington chronicler, they called in the royal justices William Inge and Henry Spigurnel to pronounce judgement on Gaveston, though given the trust Edward placed in both men in later years, this seems unlikely.
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On 19 June, the earl of Warwick sent a messenger to his prisoner, who insolently told Gaveston, ‘Look to yourself, my lord, for today you shall die the death.’
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The royal favourite was taken two miles along the road to Kenilworth until they reached Blacklow Hill, which lay on Lancaster’s lands. The earl of Warwick lost his nerve and remained in his castle, while Lancaster took responsibility for the bloody act. As Gaveston was the brother-in-law of the earl of Gloucester, Lancaster and the others agreed to grant him the nobleman’s death: decapitation, a privilege of rank, as beheading was much quicker than hanging, the method of execution reserved for common criminals. And so ‘they put to death a great earl whom the king had adopted as brother, whom the king cherished as a son, whom the king regarded as friend and ally’.
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The
Vita
has Gaveston sighing and groaning, and making an implausibly long and pious speech which sounds far more like something the author thinks he should have said, rather than anything the courageous and bitingly witty Gascon really would say. While Lancaster, Hereford and Arundel stood some distance away, one of Lancaster’s Welsh men-at-arms ran Gaveston through with a sword, and as he lay dying on the ground, another cut off his head.
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The earls demonstrated their contempt for Gaveston by leaving his mutilated body lying on the dusty road, and returned post-haste to the safety of Warwick Castle. A group of cobblers found the body, laid it on a ladder and took it to the castle, where the earl of Warwick refused to have anything to do with it.
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Ignorant of the etiquette governing this particular situation, and doubtless unwilling to incur the unpredictable king’s wrath by carting his friend’s body around the country, they not unreasonably took it back where they had found it. A group of Dominicans – Edward’s favourite order – from Oxford were the next to come across Gaveston’s body, either by accident or design, and took it to their house, where they embalmed it and sewed the head back on. An enormous ruby set in gold, worth £1,000 and a gift from Edward, was found on Gaveston’s body, as were an emerald, a diamond ‘of great value’ and three more large rubies set in gold.
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However, the Dominicans could not bury him, as he had died excommunicate.

And so passed Piers Gaveston, the charismatic and notorious favourite of a king. He was perhaps thirty or so when he died, the father of a five-month-old daughter and an illegitimate daughter, age unknown. So many centuries later, it is hard to see precisely what he did that was so objectionable. His arrogance, his presumption and his ostentation, and supposedly his love of fine clothes, irritated his contemporaries beyond bearing, but hardly merited death.
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Whatever his relationship with Edward might have been, Gaveston did not die merely because the barons believed he was the king’s lover, and it is inaccurate to portray him – as has sometimes been the case – solely as a martyr to his (and Edward’s) sexuality. If Edward had been more even-handed with his favour, if he had defeated Robert Bruce, if he had not been so incapable of ruling his country, it is doubtful that his magnates would have much cared about his private relationship with Gaveston. The favourite was a scapegoat for Edward’s failures, killed by men deeply dissatisfied with their king.

On the day of Piers Gaveston’s death, Edward was at Burstwick with Isabella, now about four months pregnant. The king probably heard the news on or just before 26 June, after he and Isabella had returned to York. His primary reaction was utter rage.
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His grief at the loss of his beloved friend must have been shattering. He had loved Gaveston for at least twelve years, nearly half his life, and been emotionally reliant on him to an extraordinary degree. Losing him must have been like losing part of himself, and his recalling Gaveston from exile three times despite the political consequences indicates that he felt he could not live without him. But however much Edward raged and howled in private, he managed to control his emotions in public for once, and said only,

By God’s soul, he acted as a fool. If he had taken my advice he would never have fallen into the hands of the earls. This is what I always told him not to do. For I guessed that what has now happened would occur. What was he doing with the earl of Warwick, who was known never to have liked him? I knew for certain that if the earl caught him, Piers would never escape from his hands.

The writer of the
Vita
goes on to say, with notable compassion for a man with a low opinion of Edward, ‘When this light utterance of the king became public it moved many to derision. But I am certain the king grieved for Piers as a father grieves for his son. For the greater the love, the greater the sorrow.’
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It is doubtful that Edward was telling the truth about guessing beforehand what Warwick would do. His reaction is probably that of a man in profound shock and disbelief, and, perhaps, he felt guilt that he had left Gaveston at Scarborough, or hadn’t made enough efforts to release him from Warwick’s custody, though in reality there was little he could have done. Besides, Edward must have known that Gaveston had not gone with Warwick willingly. The king managed to keep a hold on himself in public while he grieved in private and plotted revenge.
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The earl of Lancaster, Edward’s cousin and former ally, had done the one thing he knew the king would and could never forgive him for, and the dire relations between these two powerful men dominated the next decade. The
Scalacronica
comments on the ‘mortal hatred, which endured forever’ between Edward and Lancaster on account of Gaveston’s murder.
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Edward’s later actions speak volumes about his genuine grief for Gaveston. That he adored him is beyond question, and until the end of his reign, he remained devoted to his memory.

Many people in the country rejoiced at Piers Gaveston’s death. One contemporary Latin poem exults, ‘Glory be to the earls who have made Piers die!’ and another says, ‘Blessed be the man who ordered the execution!’ According to the
Vita
, ‘The land rejoices, its inhabitants rejoice that they have found peace in Piers’ death.’
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Some people, however, were horrified at the earls’ brutal and illegal act, and a groundswell of sympathy for the king swept the country. Gaveston’s death strengthened Edward’s position, especially as the earls of Surrey and Pembroke came back to his side, appalled by Gaveston’s murder. The reaction of Gaveston’s widow Margaret is not recorded, but she and Edward paid for two clerks to watch over his embalmed body, which the Dominicans dressed in cloth of gold.
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Edward would later demonstrate enormous concern and care for Gaveston’s earthly remains, and paid for Masses to be said for Gaveston twice a year, on 18 July – perhaps his birthday – and on the anniversary of his death, all over England. He asked the Dominicans to pray daily for Gaveston’s soul, and gave them the large sum of eighty pence a day for the purpose.
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Edward gave lands worth 2,000 marks a year to Margaret for her sustenance.
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He also took care of Gaveston’s household, and his daughter Joan, the king’s great-niece, was sent to Amesbury Priory with her cousin Eleanor de Bohun, daughter of the earl of Hereford and Edward’s sister Elizabeth. The king granted them the generous sum of 100 marks a year. Sending girls to grow up at Amesbury was entirely normal, not Edward shoving his favourite’s child out of the way. Several of Joan’s relatives lived at Amesbury, which had been fashionable among royal ladies since Edward’s grandmother retired there in the 1280s: Edward’s sister Mary, his niece Joan Monthermer, and Isabel of Lancaster, daughter of the earl of Lancaster’s brother Henry, were all nuns there.

Probably many of Edward’s subjects sighed with relief that the ‘evil male sorcerer’ who had enslaved him was dead, and looked forward to a future where the king did not fawn over a man and show him excessive favour. However, Edward did not change. Although he did not take another male favourite until years later, emotional reliance on men was an important part of his make-up, and all the barons had achieved was, firstly, to arouse terrible anger and the desire for revenge within Edward, and secondly, to open the door to men who were far worse. Killing Gaveston was the worst hurt anyone could have inflicted on Edward, and he was the kind of man who could nurse a grudge for many years, as Lancaster would find out.

Edward left York on 28 June and travelled south through Lincolnshire towards London, leaving Isabella behind, to keep his pregnant wife out of the way of any danger. She sent him a letter the day after his departure.
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Probably in an attempt to take his mind off Gaveston’s death, the king gave a pound to Graciosus the Taborer (drummer) who played for him on 30 June, a pound to Janin the Conjuror for performing tricks in the king’s private chamber at Swineshead Priory on 7 July, and three shillings to a group of acrobats for ‘making their vaults’ before him on 8 July.
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He met the earls of Surrey and Pembroke, Hugh Despenser the Elder and Henry Beaumont in London, and at the house of the Dominicans made an impassioned speech addressed to the ‘good people’ of his capital, remarking on the marvellous situation wherein some of his magnates conducted themselves towards him as they should not, and asking the Londoners to defend the city against Gaveston’s killers. The earls of Lancaster, Warwick and Hereford met at Worcester to discuss their next moves, then brought their army to Hertfordshire.
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The Londoners supported Edward for once, and closed the gates of the city. On the other hand, the king summoned the earls of Lancaster, Warwick and Hereford to appear before him at Westminster or London, playing a double game, as he often did; Edward had an aptitude for political intrigue, if little else.
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Rumours swirled: that Edward intended to seize Lancaster as soon as he entered London; that Lancaster would, with the help of a group of Londoners, capture Edward in the city.
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Some of Edward’s adherents tried to persuade him to raise an army and make war on the earls, declaring that what they had done was treason.
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Cooler heads advised caution, pointing out the dangers of fighting the powerful Lancaster, and that Edward would place himself at risk of being captured. Edward, understandably, strongly favoured war.
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He was especially keen, at this juncture, to avenge himself on Warwick, and intended either to have his head or banish him from the country.
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Probably he considered Warwick, as the abductor of Gaveston, as the prime mover in the affair. Later, however, he put all the blame on Lancaster, perhaps having heard that his cousin had taken most of the responsibility for the death on himself. The earls entered London armed, although Edward had expressly forbidden them to do so.
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They knew that Edward ‘would, if he could, proceed to take vengeance as though for a wrong done to himself’, as the
Vita
perceptively points out.
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