Edward II: The Unconventional King (37 page)

With hindsight, Edward’s decision to send his son to France, given that it resulted in Isabella’s seizing control of the boy and invading England, seems the most incredible folly, and many writers have assumed that he stupidly fell into his wife’s clever trap and that he was blind to the dangers. Edward’s indecisive behaviour in the autumn of 1325 in fact demonstrates that he was completely aware of the risks. If he had been as oblivious to the consequences of his actions as many commentators have assumed, he would have blithely sent his son to France without a second thought. That Edward was also well aware of the dangers of sending his son to the Continent unmarried, in the knowledge that someone could arrange young Edward’s marriage and use the girl’s dowry to pay for ships and soldiers to invade England, is obvious from his injunctions to his son, both in September 1325 and in subsequent letters, not to marry ‘without the king’s consent and command’.
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He made a very bad decision, but this does not mean that he made it blindly and unthinkingly, and if Edward had gone to France himself and been assassinated or captured by his enemies, historians would no doubt ask how he could have been so stupid as to travel abroad when he could have sent his son instead. Whichever decision Edward made in September 1325 is likely, in retrospect, to have been the wrong one. As for the alleged trap which Isabella and her supposed allies, the English exiles on the Continent, were planning for him, there is nothing at all to suggest that Isabella had ever been in contact with them or sympathised with them. It is more likely that in fact she was hoping for her husband to come to France so that she could talk to him without the constant irritation of Hugh Despenser’s presence and persuade him to treat her with the respect and courtesy she deserved as his queen.

It was Despenser who finally persuaded Edward not to travel abroad, and the
Anonimalle
says that he ‘lamented piteously to the king that if he passed beyond sea, he [Despenser] would be put to death in his absence’, a story confirmed by Adam Murimuth and the
Vita
.
¹¹⁶
Edward, concerned about his friend’s safety and his own, therefore made the decision which would lead inexorably to the loss of his throne, the decision for which he has unfairly been criticised as a fool ever since.

He sent his son to France.

Edward of Windsor, earl of Chester and now duke of Aquitaine and count of Ponthieu, had joined his father in Kent by late August 1325, accompanied by his household and his nine-year-old brother John of Eltham. The young duke sailed from Dover on 12 September, his father’s injunctions not to marry without his approval no doubt ringing in his ears.
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The boy performed homage for Gascony and Ponthieu to his uncle Charles IV at Vincennes on the 24th, in the presence of his mother and others.
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Edward II, who happily had no way of knowing that he would never see his son again, travelled via Leeds Castle to the village of Maresfield in Sussex, where he spent ten days at the end of September. Maresfield, on the edge of Ashdown Forest, was a royal deer hunting reserve and presumably Edward hunted while here. Surprisingly, given his recent certainty that his life would be in danger without the king’s presence, Hugh Despenser did not remain with Edward but went instead to Tonbridge in Kent, where Edward sent him letters.
³
The king travelled slowly through Surrey to Westminster, staying at Banstead, a manor he had given to Isabella in 1318, and Bletchingley, forfeited in 1321 by his former favourite Hugh Audley, where the living quarters and the chapel were hastily cleaned and refurbished before his arrival.
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While at Bletchingley, Edward himself bought a ‘red cow’ from one Maud Croweprest, and at Maresfield gave a parker who had once served in his household ten shillings to buy himself a cow.
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He arrived at Banstead late in the evening of 5 October, and at midnight sent out messengers ordering the array of his army on land and sea to be renewed because of ‘some news which he had heard’, also summoning the treasurer, his friend and close ally William Melton, and other members of his council to come to him at Banstead on the 7th, ‘at the king’s rising’.
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On the day he returned to Westminster, 9 October, Edward gave ten shillings to Jack the Trumpeter of Dover, who had bought forty-seven caged goldfinches for Edward to give to his niece Eleanor Despenser.
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Edward stayed at his palace of Sheen from 12 to 18 October, with Eleanor, paying her expenses and ordering forty bundles of firewood for her chamber.
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Hugh Despenser, for his part, set off for Wales: he was at Caerphilly on 9 October, and still away from court on 19 November, when Edward wrote to him.
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On 16 October, Edward asked the pope to grant dispensations for his children Eleanor of Woodstock and Edward of Windsor to marry Alfonso XI and Leonor of Castile, and sent letters to Jaime II of Aragon’s son Alfonso and the regents of Castile on the 18th, thanking them for their affection for him and ‘the gracious and benevolent way’ they had handled his affairs.
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He left Sheen for Cippenham that day, and bought fish from five Thames fishermen as he travelled along the river; his clerk carefully noted that it was Edward himself, not one of his servants, who purchased the fish. Edward also gave a hundred shillings to the bailiff of Kingston to repair the bridge there, because, he said, the last time he passed that way, he had noticed defects in it. While at Cippenham, the king gave a pound to a woman who had brought him a gift of ale, bread and more fish, and twenty-five shillings to his valet Will Shene and his new wife Isode as a wedding present.
¹¹
He gave the large sum of ten marks each on 20 November to three members of his household whom he had sent hastily to Wales to bring him news of Hugh Despenser’s welfare, having heard from Jack Pyk, a valet of his chamber, that Despenser had been killed. They returned to reassure him that the chamberlain was, ‘by God’s mercy’, perfectly well.
¹²

In the meantime, Edward’s half-brother Edmund of Woodstock, earl of Kent, perhaps unwilling to return to England and face the king and Despenser’s wrath over his mishandling of the La Réole siege, had joined Edward’s enemies. Kent received permission from John XXII on 6 October to marry a woman to whom he was related in the third or fourth degree, and married Margaret Wake sometime in December.
¹³
A woman from a minor baronial house was hardly a great match for a king’s son, so this almost certainly represents an alliance with Roger Mortimer: Margaret was his first cousin. Kent loathed the royal favourite, resenting – understandably – the fact that Despenser had deprived him of his position at court and political influence with his half-brother. He continued, however, to write to Edward assuring him that his intentions were not treasonable and that he had done nothing against the king’s wishes, and Kent’s later actions demonstrate that in 1326 he sought the downfall of the Despensers, not necessarily Edward himself. Edward confiscated his lands in March 1326.
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Sometime in the late autumn or early winter of 1325, Queen Isabella made the momentous decision not to return to England and her husband. The news may have been brought to Edward by Walter Stapeldon, bishop of Exeter, whom Edward had sent to France with his son. Stapeldon, seen by many as a close associate of the Despensers, fled from Paris dressed as a common traveller, in the belief that some at the French court meant him harm. A furious Isabella sent him a sharply worded letter on 8 December accusing him of being more obedient to Hugh Despenser than to her, and of dishonouring herself, Charles IV and Edward.
¹⁵
Isabella declared,

I feel that marriage is a joining together of man and woman, maintaining the undivided habit of life, and that someone has come between my husband and myself trying to break this bond; I protest that I will not return until this intruder is removed, but discarding my marriage garment, shall assume the robes of widowhood and mourning until I am avenged of this Pharisee.

The
French Chronicle of London
confirms that she took to wearing clothes ‘as a lady in mourning who had lost her lord’.
¹⁶
Isabella’s speech and wearing widow’s weeds have usually been interpreted as defiance of her husband and an open declaration of rebellion against him, and not seen for what they really are: exactly what they seem to be, an expression of her genuine sorrow at the breakdown of her marriage and fury at the role played in it by the ‘Pharisee’ Hugh Despenser. Isabella expressed no hostility towards Edward himself either at this time or later, and explained that she was unable to return to him because she felt herself to be in physical danger from Despenser.
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The real meaning of Isabella’s speech has been overlooked because of the frequent and wrong assumption that the royal marriage was nothing but a tragic disaster and that she despised her husband. But Isabella hated Despenser, not Edward, because she thought Despenser had destroyed her marriage, which implies that she felt it had been a successful one before his intrusion into it. Her speech indicates that she hoped to bring Edward back to his senses, to shock him so that he would send Despenser away and she could resume her normal married life with him, and makes it seem unlikely that at this point she was in love with Roger Mortimer and had been plotting with him for years against her husband. Edward, emotionally or politically reliant on Hugh Despenser, refused.

Isabella’s servants, whom she could no longer afford to pay, began arriving back in England in early December, and Edward reimbursed their costs and gave them cash gifts. Roger Querndon, his son’s Dominican confessor, had also returned by early 1326, when Edward gave him two pounds by the hands of his own confessor, Robert Duffield.
¹⁸
Henry Beaumont, who had witnessed Edward of Windsor’s homage to Charles IV on 24 September, must have returned to England, as the Sempringham annalist says that he was imprisoned in February 1326 ‘because he would not swear to the king and to Sir Hugh Despenser the son, to be of their part to live and die’. He was certainly in prison at Warwick Castle by early August 1326.
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John Stratford, bishop of Winchester, also returned to England in late 1325, despite the appalling way Edward had treated him.
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The king stopped his wife’s expenses in mid-November, and, short of funds, Isabella was forced to borrow 1,000 Paris
livres
from Charles IV on 31 December 1325.
²¹
This was less than a month’s income for Isabella even on the reduced amount imposed on her in September 1324, and was a loan, not a gift – hardly a sign of her brother’s great favour towards her, as it has sometimes been interpreted. Parliament, the last Edward would preside over, began on 18 November 1325 at Westminster, though the king stayed a dozen miles away at Isleworth throughout. No official record of this parliament survives, but it is reasonable to assume that the queen’s refusal to return or to send Edward’s son back to him dominated. According to the
Vita
, Edward reminded parliament that Isabella had gone to France to make peace and should have returned immediately once this was achieved,

and on her departure she did not seem to anyone to be offended. As she took her leave she saluted all and went away joyfully. But now someone has changed her attitude. Someone has primed her with inventions. For I know that she has not fabricated any affront out of her own head.

This ‘someone’ was most probably not Roger Mortimer, who had not returned to the French court at this point, and it is likely that Edward was referring to the earl of Richmond, his cousin and the queen’s; Edward said in March 1326 that he had ordered Richmond many times to come to him but the earl was staying with Isabella and urging her not to return, and the king condemned Richmond’s disobedience and ingratitude. Richmond wrote to Edward explaining his actions, ‘which excuses the king deems wholly frivolous’.
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Edward’s priority at this point was to defend Despenser before parliament, and he claimed that his chamberlain was ‘much cast down’ by Isabella’s hostility to him. The king’s obstinate refusal to see Isabella’s point of view and his continuing to put Despenser’s interests and feelings above hers must have hurt her even more. Edward repeated his conviction that Isabella ‘has been led into this error at the suggestion of someone, and he is in truth wicked and hostile whoever he may be’. He asked all the English bishops to write to her, ‘that she whom the teaching of evil men incites to guile, may be led back to the due path of unity’.
²³
The bishops repeated obediently in their letter that Despenser had ‘solemnly demonstrated his innocence before all’ and produced the friendly letters the queen had sent him from France as evidence.
²⁴
How Edward felt about Isabella’s declaration that she felt like a widow is unknown – surely he too regretted that he had allowed their marriage to deteriorate to this point – but her refusal to return to him with their son was a public humiliation, not to mention a huge political danger.

Edward’s utter refusal to send Despenser away from him, listen to his wife or take her seriously left Isabella with no choice but to stay in France and act on her threat to avenge herself on Despenser. To this end, in late 1325 she arranged a betrothal for their son Edward of Windsor, without Edward II’s consent. William, count of Hainault, had long held grievances against Edward II for his failure to do justice to the count’s men who had been robbed in England, and although Edward offered safe-conducts for the count’s envoys to come and ‘treat with the king or his deputies touching damages on both sides’ in September and November 1325 and again in 1326, it was too late, and the count threw in his lot with Isabella.
²⁵
William’s wife Joan de Valois, Isabella’s first cousin, was in France between 1 December 1325 and 19 January 1326 with her daughter Philippa to visit her father the count of Valois, who died on 16 December.
²⁶
This was presumably the first time that Edward of Windsor met Philippa of Hainault, his second cousin and future wife. Edward II wrote to his kinswoman Maria Diaz de Haro, lady of Biscay, on 1 January 1326, vehemently assuring her that his son was not going to marry in France. Just two days later, his certainty was given the lie by his pleas to the pope not to grant a dispensation for his son’s marriage to any member of the French royal family without his consent. John XXII respected Edward’s wishes, and did not grant the dispensation until late August 1327, seven months after Edward’s deposition.
²⁷
Edward’s greatest error was not just to send his son to France, but to send him unmarried. Without military support provided by the father of young Edward’s fiancée, the exiles would not have been able to raise enough money, ships and troops for an invasion; if this had been possible, they would have struck against Edward II before 1326.