Edward II: The Unconventional King (25 page)

On 29 June, Edward met Philip V at Amiens and did liege homage before the high altar of the cathedral. In 1259, Edward’s grandfather Henry III had signed the Treaty of Paris with Louis IX, which had finally ended the many decades of military conflicts between England and France over the English kings’ lands in France, but which inadvertently created new tensions by including many clauses which were vague or could be interpreted in different ways.
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Three or four days after the ceremony, during a meeting between the two kings and their councils, Philip’s advisers decided that some of the concessions which Edward was prepared to make were inadequate, and demanded that he take an oath of personal fealty to the French king as well. A clerk of Edward’s, an eyewitness, gave this account of what followed: ‘And when some of the said prelates and nobles leaned towards our said lord [Edward] and began to instruct him, our said lord now turned towards the said king [Philip] without having been advised,’ and announced,

We well remember that the homage which we performed at Boulogne [in 1308] was done according to the form of the peace treaties made between our ancestors, after the manner in which they did it. Your father [Philip IV] agreed to it, for we have his letters confirming this, and we have performed it already in the same fashion; no one can reasonably ask us to do otherwise; and we certainly do not intend to do so. As to the fealty [oath] we are certain that we should not swear it; nor was it ever asked of us at that time.

The clerk continued, ‘And then the king of France turned to the men of his council, and none of them could say anything to contradict the response of our said lord.’
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Edward’s fluent and angry defence, spoken spontaneously without the benefit of any advice, reduced them to stunned silence, and the question of fealty was quietly dropped. As his remarks here show, Edward was an articulate and persuasive speaker and could think on his feet, and the
Scalacronica
calls him ‘amiable in conversation’ – as well as, uniquely, ‘wise’ and ‘gentle’.
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Edward held a banquet in Amiens on 8 July, in a tent or pavilion, and gave the large sum of twenty pounds to the minstrels who performed there.
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He and his retinue left the following day, made their way along the River Somme, and visited Abbeville, the capital of his county of Ponthieu, which he had granted to Isabella. The royal couple sailed from Wissant on 22 July, and the mayor and citizens of London rode out to meet Edward in early August: ‘Dressed in clothes appropriate to their office, they greeted him in fine style.’
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Edward’s twenty-year-old half-brother Thomas of Brotherton, earl of Norfolk, went to the king at Langley in mid-August to ask advice about his marriage.
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King Jaime II of Aragon had proposed his daughter Maria, widow of Pedro of Castile, as Norfolk’s bride, but in August 1321 reported that Maria had decided to become a nun and he did not think he would be able to change her mind.
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Norfolk married instead, at an unknown date perhaps in 1321, Alice Hales, daughter of the coroner of Norfolk: a decidedly odd choice for a man who was son and brother of kings of England and nephew of a king of France. Edward wrote on 27 August 1320 to the king of Cyprus, his distant cousin Henri de Lusignan, asking him to protect three Dominican friars going to preach to the ‘Saracens’, and on 14 September ordered ‘five pieces of silk, embroidered with birds’ to be laid on the body of the recently deceased countess of Pembroke at the conventual church of Stratford, London.
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Parliament opened at Westminster on 6 October 1320, and it was probably around this time that Edward and Queen Isabella conceived their fourth child Joan, who was born on 5 July 1321. Edward’s son Edward of Windsor, earl of Chester, was summoned to this parliament for the first time, although he was not yet eight years old. After his eloquent defence to the king of France, Edward proved once again that he was more capable than many commentators have given him credit for. The chronicler Nicholas Trevet wrote that Edward ‘showed prudence in answering the petitions of the poor, and clemency as much as severity in judicial matters, to the amazement of many who were there’.
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Of course, the ‘amazement’ makes clear how uninterested and uninvolved Edward usually was. The opening speech of parliament said that Edward had summoned it ‘in his great desire and wish to do all the things which concern a good lord for the benefit of his realm and of his people’. Edward’s behaviour and demeanour at the October 1320 parliament excited more comment. Thomas Cobham, bishop of Worcester, wrote approvingly, albeit condescendingly, in a letter to Pope John XXII,

Besides, which, Holy Father, your devoted son, our lord the king, in the parliament summoned to London bore himself splendidly, with prudence and discretion, contrary to his former habit rising early and presenting a nobler and pleasant countenance to prelates and lords. Present almost every day in person, he arranged what business was to be dealt with, discussed and determined. Where amendment was necessary he ingeniously supplied what was lacking, thus giving joy to his people, ensuring their security, and providing reliable hope of an improvement in behaviour.
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Cobham’s letter demonstrates that Edward was, for once, showing an interest in his duties and in his realm, and also prove that he could be wise, patient, judicious, merciful where necessary, and eloquent. But then, his subjects already knew that he had ability; it was just that, usually, he chose not to bother, as Cobham’s letters also amply demonstrate. Edward II’s problem was not lack of ability. It was lack of interest. On rare occasions, he chose to exercise his talents. Most of the time, he didn’t.

Edward had finally, thirteen years after his accession, learned how to be a king. But 1320 would prove to be the highest point of his reign. The day after parliament ended, he took the step which would lead inexorably to the outbreak of civil war the following spring and the exile of his friends the Despensers.

In October 1320, Edward II abandoned the prudent and capable behaviour he had been demonstrating for much of that year, and the latest crisis of his reign reared its ugly head in South Wales. The partition of the de Clare lands among Hugh Despenser, Roger Damory and Hugh Audley in 1317 had, in addition to making all three men rich and influential, perhaps inevitably caused much rivalry, discontent and envy among them.
Lanercost
says that ‘being a most avaricious man, he [Despenser] had contrived by different means and tricks that he alone should possess the lands and revenues, and for that reason had devised grave charges against those who had married the other two sisters’.
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The
Vita
agrees, saying that Despenser ‘set traps for his co-heirs; thus, if he could manage it, each would lose his share through false accusations and he alone would obtain the whole earldom [of Gloucester]’.
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Despenser now decided that his lands of Glamorgan and Gwynllwg were not enough, and set his heart on gaining possession of the Gower peninsula, where Swansea lies. Gower belonged to a baron named William Braose, who had no son and who had at various times offered to sell Gower to his son-in-law John Mowbray, Despenser himself, the earl of Hereford, Roger Mortimer and his uncle Roger Mortimer of Chirk. All these men claimed that Braose had sold the reversion of Gower to them.
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By the autumn of 1320, Hugh Despenser stood high in the king’s favour, and Edward was infatuated with him. Geoffrey le Baker wrote a few years later that many people considered Despenser to be ‘another king, or more accurately ruler of the king…in the manner of Gaveston, so presumptuous that he frequently kept certain nobles from speaking to the king. Moreover, when the king, out of his magnanimity, was preoccupied with many people addressing him about their affairs, Despenser threw back answers, not those asked for but to the contrary, pretending them to be to the king’s advantage’.
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According to the
Annales Paulini
, Edward had also allowed Gaveston to make decisions on his behalf.
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Despenser’s abuse of his position as chamberlain became obvious, and the
Brut
says that he ‘kept so the king’s chamber, that no man might speak with the king … the king himself would not be governed by no manner of man, but only by his father and by him’.
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The
Anonimalle
says that ‘no man could approach the king without the consent of the said Sir Hugh’ and calls him haughty, arrogant, greedy, evil and ‘more inclined to wrongdoing than any other man’.
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The
Vita
says, ‘Confident of the royal favour, he did everything at his own discretion, snatched at everything, did not bow to the authority of anyone whomsoever.’
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Regarding Despenser’s enormous influence over the king, the
Flores
says that he led Edward around as though he were ‘teasing a cat with a piece of straw’,
Lanercost
that he was the ‘king of England’s right eye’, and Knighton that he led Edward around for his own aggrandisement.
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The men who had heaved a sigh of relief at the death of Piers Gaveston now realised, to their horror, that Edward had replaced him with a man who was far worse and far more dangerous.
Scalacronica
says, ‘the great men had ill will against him [Edward] for his cruelty and the debauched life which he led, and on account of the said Hugh, whom at that time he loved and entirely trusted’.
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What the writer meant by ‘debauched’ is unclear, and there is even less evidence than with Piers Gaveston to tell us what kind of relationship Edward had with Despenser. He never referred to him as his brother, as he did Gaveston, and we have none of Edward’s letters where he describes his feelings for Despenser. The favourite was ruthlessly determined to get what he wanted, and prepared to use the king’s infatuation with him as a means to this end. He was, at least, honest about his ambitions, and told John Inge, sheriff of Glamorgan, on 18 January 1321, ‘We command you to watch our affairs that we may be rich and achieve our ends…’
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John Mowbray, who must have been well aware that Despenser was now the king’s favourite, took possession of Gower in the autumn of 1320, even though his father-in-law William Braose was still alive (he died in 1326). A furious Despenser persuaded Edward that, as Mowbray had not received a royal licence to enter the lands, Gower should be forfeit to the king.
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The Marcher lords, the men who owned the lordships in Wales and along the English-Welsh border, protested that in the March, they did not need a royal licence to enter their lands, which was correct; as the old saying ran ‘The king’s writ does not run in the March’, where the lords dispensed their own justice, were not subject to the jurisdiction of the local sheriff, and enjoyed sovereign powers in their lordships. Their role, in exchange for these privileges, was to keep the turbulent Welsh-English border quiescent. Since Edward I’s conquest of Wales in 1282, however, this was no longer necessary; the Marchers thus had wide-ranging privileges but few responsibilities to justify them.
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Edward, ‘who promoted Hugh’s designs as far as he could’, ordered Gower to be taken into his own hands on 26 October 1320, presumably intending to grant it to his favourite.
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However, the sub-escheator of Gloucestershire, Richard Foxcote, was unable to take possession of it thanks to the ‘large multitude of armed Welshmen’ who detested Despenser’s lordship, and who gathered at the chapel of St Thomas at Kilvey near Swansea and prevented Foxcote ‘executing the mandate, so that he could do nothing therein without danger of death’.
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The Marchers were furious and concerned. This latest infatuation of Edward’s threatened their privileges, and no doubt they knew that Hugh Despenser was a very different proposition from Piers Gaveston, who with hindsight was probably coming more and more to be seen as harmless. ‘Deeply moved by such abuse, the barons departed full of indignation, and meeting in Wales, they unanimously decided that Hugh Despenser must be pursued, laid low and utterly destroyed.’
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Most of the men who owned lands in the Marches turned against Edward and Hugh Despenser: Humphrey de Bohun, earl of Hereford; Roger Mortimer of Wigmore, formerly a close ally of the king and his lieutenant of Ireland, and his uncle Roger Mortimer of Chirk; Roger Damory; Hugh Audley; John Mowbray; Roger Clifford, son of the Robert Clifford killed at Bannockburn in 1314; Edward’s former chamberlain John Charlton; the earl of Lancaster’s brother Henry; and fifty-year-old Maurice Berkeley, who succeeded as Lord Berkeley in July 1321 when his elderly father finally died, with his son Thomas and son-in-law John Maltravers. Edward cared little for the formidable coalition that was building against him; once again, he was prepared to put the wishes of a favourite above all else. The
Polychronicon
points out that he was ‘passionately attached to one person, whom he cherished above all, showered with gifts and always put first; he could not bear being separated from him and honoured him above all others’. The
Scalacronica
agrees, saying that Edward was too familiar with his friends, shy with strangers, and ‘loved too exclusively a single individual’.
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While all this was going on, Edward was still working towards an alliance between himself and Hainault, and in November 1320 wrote again to the pope to ask for a dispensation for his son Edward of Windsor to marry Margaret, daughter of Count William III.
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Evidently, however, William had grown lukewarm on the alliance, and Edward wrote a frustrated letter to him four months later, saying that he would go ahead with other marriage plans for his son if he did not hear from William by 8 July 1321.
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He also wrote to the cardinals who had been abducted and robbed by Gilbert Middleton in 1317 informing them that he could not recover their stolen possessions, on the prosaic grounds that he did not know where the items were to be found.
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In December 1320, Edward paid three shillings and four pence to William, bookbinder of London, ‘for binding and newly repairing the book of Domesday
,
in which is contained the counties of Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk’, a manuscript dating to 1086 which still exists in the National Archives in Kew and is now known as ‘Little Domesday’.
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He spent Christmas and New Year at Marlborough in Wiltshire, probably with the pregnant Queen Isabella, spending nearly sixty pounds on the festivities for Christmas and Epiphany.
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The Marcher lords left court over Christmas. Hugh Despenser knew how angry they were with him, and told the sheriff of Glamorgan on 18 January 1321 that ‘envy is growing, and especially among the magnates, against us, because the king treats us better than any other’.
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Edward, also well aware of the Marchers’ hostility towards his friend, ordered the earl of Hereford and twenty-eight others not to attend armed assemblies or to make treaties ‘prejudicial to the king and crown’.
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The Marchers found a willing ally in the earl of Lancaster. Lancaster himself had few interests in the Marches but was willing to support anyone against his detested cousin the king, although he took no direct action in the events of 1321, preferring, as always, to lurk at his Yorkshire castle of Pontefract; even so, he was seen as the Marchers’ leader.
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For Lancaster to associate with his former enemies Roger Damory and Hugh Audley must have been anathema, but his desire to coerce the king took priority. For obscure reasons, he loathed Hugh Despenser the Elder, and wanted the Marchers to ‘not only rise against the son, but destroy the father along with him’.
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