Isabella and the Strange Death of Edward II (8 page)

Apart from this, 1316 was to be the ‘Annus Horribilis’ of Edward’s reign. Not only was he fighting a losing battle against the Scots but was now forced to begin humiliating negotiations with the hated Lancaster. It was also the year of the Pretender. A young Oxford clerk came forward to claim that he, not Edward II, was the real King of England. The Pretender, with his cat, was taken before the Justices in Oxford and told the most fantastic story. He pointed out that he was missing an ear, the principal proof for his claim to kingship. He then informed the astounded Justices how, many years earlier, he had been playing in the courtyard of
the royal castle when he had been attacked by a sow. The animal had bitten off his ear and the nurse, terrified of the old King’s rage, had exchanged the royal child for the son of a peasant. That, the Pretender triumphantly concluded, was why he was making his claim and why the present King was more interested in rural pursuits and hobbies than good governance. The case caused great scandal and not a little merriment. Isabella was very upset by the story and eventually the comedy began to wear thin. The Pretender was closely interrogated, broke down and confessed that he had been walking in Christchurch Meadows in Oxford when the devil had appeared to him in the form of a cat, which he produced in court as evidence. The devil had instructed him to go in front of the royal Justices, tell his story and all would be well. The judges listened attentively then, tired of the situation, had the Pretender hanged on the town gallows with the cat suffering the same fate alongside him.
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The story illustrates Edward’s lack of popular support and a growing realization of his failure to act like a king. Isabella decided the continuous decline of her husband’s fortunes had to be stopped. Robert the Bruce was an opponent they could do little about. During 1316–17 England was ravaged by a great famine and Edward lacked the men, resources and will to defend the Scottish March. Lancaster was a different matter and Isabella gleefully opposed him at every opportunity. When the powerful bishopric of Durham became vacant in 1316, on the death of Anthony Bec, Isabella successfully backed the candidature of Lancaster’s enemy, Louis de Beaumont, brother of Henry and Isabella’s close friend, Isabella de Vescy. Isabella promised her husband that Louis would
‘be a stone wall’ against the Scots and a powerful ally in the north. She had her way and Lancaster was frustrated.
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Isabella had now acquired the same privileges that Gaveston had enjoyed: she attended council meetings, patronized court knights and, when Dowager Queen Margaret died in 1318, was rewarded with a generous portion of her landed inheritance.
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On 18 June 1318 Isabella gave birth to their third child, a girl, Eleanor, and Edward was present with her at Woodstock for the lying-in and birth.
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By 1319 Isabella’s pre-eminence had also attracted the attention of Robert the Bruce. Scottish forces had driven the English out of Scotland and were busy ravaging the northern shires. Edward and Lancaster decided to bury their differences and concentrate on trying to recapture the powerful northern fortress of Berwick, which dominated vital routes into Scotland. During the summer campaign of 1319, Isabella remained at a manor near York. She thought she was safe, but in fact she was now the real object of Scottish military strategy. James Douglas, Bruce’s war leader and a skilful guerrilla chief, had decided to capture her. This would not only humiliate Edward throughout Europe but be a powerful negotiating counter in forcing both England and France to recognize Scottish sovereignty. Douglas gathered a highly mobile force, outflanked the English army gathering around Berwick and, at the beginning of August 1319, penetrated deep into Yorkshire. He was nearly successful but the Queen was alerted and fled to the security of Nottingham Castle. Douglas had to content himself with harrying the countryside and defeating a hastily assembled English force at Mytton on 12 September 1319. Douglas would have continued his audacious foray south but England’s northern levies
now rallied. They threatened to block his route back to Scotland so Douglas had no alternative but to retreat.

Douglas’s campaign to seize Isabella illustrates how the Scots, like Lancaster, had realized the Queen’s standing with Edward II: she was the mother of his three healthy children, a Queen who loyally supported him and had done good work for the Crown in its tangled negotiations with France. Her capture would have been a national disaster and a personal humiliation for Edward. More importantly, and rather ironically, Isabella would have, once again, been used as a powerful counter in diplomacy. Kings and princes of the fourteenth century were accustomed to using royal captives to negotiate favourable terms – Philip IV of France himself had seized the Count of Flanders’s daughter. Later in the century, Isabella’s war-like heir would use the imprisoned kings of both France and Scotland to gain favourable terms, especially rich ransoms and concessions of territory. If successful, Bruce would have done the same: demanding heavy compensation for the ravages by English forces and Edward’s approval of territorial concessions, even Scottish sovereignty itself.

Accordingly, Douglas’s raid to seize the Queen must have been carefully planned. The Scottish war leader must have gained vital information about the movement of English forces along the north-east coast and, more importantly, that the English Queen was not protected behind the fortifications of York but residing in a ‘parva villa iuxta’ – ‘a small manor house nearby’.
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Treachery was suspected and Lancaster was accused. The real villain of the piece was most probably a Yorkshire knight, Edmund Darel. Darel was a member of the King’s household and closely involved in royal decisions: as a northerner he was
also known to the Scots. Moreover, although he had been pardoned with the rest, Darel was under suspicion of being a turn-coat, of having a hand in Gaveston’s capture and death in 1312. Darel was an argumentative, war-like man, involved in brawls with his neighbours, quick to pick up the sword and often tried to achieve his ends by force. Like many northern knights, he had been impoverished by the Scottish raids and susceptible to the large bribes the Scots offered to facilitate Douglas’s raid to capture the Queen.
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Darel was arrested for betraying the Queen but the prosecution had little evidence. Nevertheless, he lost his place in the King’s household and was summarily deprived of the royal manor of Westcliff in Yorkshire. Due to the courage of the Archbishop of York and the fighting qualities of the northern levies, Isabella escaped this attack on her freedom and honour but it was an incident remembered by others. Edward was both horrified and embarrassed by his Queen’s plight and gave Isabella jewels and other presents as some consolation for the indignities she had suffered.
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Isabella returned to London with Edward in January 1320 and stayed with him for most of that year. She then accompanied him to France to meet her brother Charles IV. The meeting with the new French King had two agendas. Ostensibly, they went to discuss the usual problem of English possessions in France. Secretly, Edward was now determined to crush the baronial opposition and, once again, was looking for French assistance.

In the eight years since Gaveston had died Edward had had the support of old colleagues like Walter Reynolds, Arcbhishop of Canterbury, a number of earls and, of
course, royal officials and clerks, and had worked hard to build up a court party loyal to him. However, he not only wanted revenge for Gaveston but needed to fill the emotional void created by the death of his favourite. Before long a new star emerged from the court party: a more sinister figure than Gaveston, the astute and rapacious Hugh de Spencer. De Spencer’s father, also called Hugh, had been an administrator, a King’s man in every sense of the word. He was the King’s constant companion and won Edward’s undying loyalty by being one of the few courtiers who had supported Gaveston. In doing so, however, he had incurred the implacable wrath of Lancaster and his clique. Naturally, the King rewarded him but it was de Spencer’s son, Hugh the Younger, who emerged as Edward’s personal favourite.

Hugh de Spencer the Younger was of similar age to Edward, and had been knighted on the same day. Although he had opposed Gaveston, Hugh eventually followed his father’s line, deserting the barons and becoming chamberlain to the royal household. He was quick to criticize Lancaster and, in the period 1318 to 1321, drew closer to the King. Edward, delighted by this, supported the de Spencers’ ambitions in South Wales where they were busy carving out a small empire for themselves. The Earl of Gloucester had died at Bannockburn in 1314 without a male heir, and his vast territories in South Wales and along the Welsh March fuelled a power struggle amongst the other great landowners in that region: de Spencer was one and his implacable opponents Roger Mortimer of Chirk and his war-like nephew, Mortimer of Wigmore. De Spencer’s territorial ambitions, not to mention his undoubted talents, also brought him into conflict with
many of Lancaster’s party who owned lands in Wales. He won royal support in the principality whilst his power was also felt at court, where he emerged as Edward’s closest councillor and confidant. While de Spencer used the King to further his own ambitions, Edward saw de Spencer as the means to destroy his enemies and avenge himself for the death of Gaveston.

De Spencer the Younger, however, was not a second Gaveston. Hugh was a war lord, a politician and administrator. He understood the machinations of Edward’s baronial opponents and was not frightened of championing the King’s cause against all comers. Isabella may have liked the father – the old de Spencer had been present at the baptism of her first child – but his son was quickly viewed as a rival. In 1321 Isabella was twenty-three years old, the King’s favourite and the mother of his three children. She did not take kindly to her husband’s attentions being distracted elsewhere. De Spencer’s rise was piecemeal but Isabella was at loggerheads with him from the start.

In 1320 the first signs of a rift between the Queen and the new favourite became apparent. De Spencer the Elder was supposed to pay her
£
100 per year from the profits of his manor at Lechlade, but failed to do so. The following year his son followed suit over
£
200 due from the profits of Bristol. They refused to pay the debts or to enter into any negotiations over these debts.
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Isabella retaliated and the court became involved in a petty feud between the Abbot of St Albans and William Somerton, Prior of the Abbey Cell at Binham in Norfolk. The Abbot appealed to de Spencer for help. He despatched some of his henchmen to arrest Somerton and hand him over to the Abbot who threw him into gaol. De Spencer’s enemies worked hard
to get Somerton released and enlisted the patronage of the Queen. The issue was petty but it masked deeper antagonisms, which were about to surface.
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By August 1321, the barons were alarmed at the de Spencers’ growing influence, both at court and in South Wales. Lancaster and his supporters retaliated by adopting the same tactics used against Gaveston and demanded their exile. Edward refused. The barons gathered their armed men and entered London. Edward was forced to concede, particularly when his Queen went down on her knees to beg for the expulsion of the favourites in order to avoid civil war, an empty political gesture by Isabella which allowed Edward to gracefully concede defeat.
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The eldest de Spencer went into hiding: the younger de Spencer travelled to the southern ports, hired men and ships, and assumed the life of a pirate in the English Channel: he was successful enough to capture a Genoese galley worth some
£
1000.

Edward, meanwhile, now finally emerged from the depression caused by Gaveston’s death. He had lost one favourite, he was determined not to lose another. Isabella had opposed de Spencer over the Somerton case and pleaded for their exile, but she was still the King’s favourite, the recipient of his generosity: moreover, she was pregnant with their fourth child, a daughter Johanna, who was born at the Tower in July 1321.
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Isabella disliked de Spencer but she also had no love for Lancaster and his coterie, and so co-operated with her husband’s secret schemes to bring the favourites back to court.

De Spencer had been exiled in August 1321. By October Edward had decided to fight back and the hand of the astute, scheming Hugh de Spencer can be seen in
Edward’s changed approach. This time Edward did not go wandering the lonely northern shires but stayed near London, plotting not only de Spencer’s return but the destruction of his enemies. In the previous summer both the Tower of London and the custody of the Great Seal, the King’s official signature to all charters and letters, had been entrusted to Isabella,
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who was now also drawn deeply into Edward’s plot to remove baronial opposition around London. The King selected his chosen victim prudently. One of Lancaster’s more reluctant lieutenants was Bartholomew Badlesmere, a great Kentish landowner. The county of Kent was of strategic importance: whoever controlled it would also control the entire south bank of the Thames, the coastline of south-east England, including its valuable ports stretching from the Medway to Romney, the perfect sanctuary for de Spencer playing pirate out in the narrow seas.

In September 1321, Edward despatched a number of knights to seize Dover Castle, thus gaining control over the most important southern port in England. If Hugh de Spencer the Younger was to return, Dover would provide a natural door into the kingdom. Badlesmere retaliated by placing all his castles in Kent on a war footing and moving through the county, banners displayed, in a show of strength, to Canterbury.
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Edward watched and waited. He and Isabella travelled to Thanet Island secretly to meet de Spencer, who had brought in his pirate fleet. The finer details of their plan were finalized. Edward was determined to seize Leeds Castle, Badlesmere’s principal stronghold, where he had placed both his treasure and his wife.
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The court gathered at Whitley in Surrey with the kingdom on the brink of civil war.