A Great and Glorious Adventure

by Gordon Corrigan

  Young Edward was now betrothed to Philippa, daughter of the count of Hainault, with a dowry of men, money and ships to be placed at Isabella’s disposal immediately, and troops raised by Mortimer and those provided by Hainault began to gather at the assembly port of Dordrecht, south-east of Rotterdam. There were no French troops involved: Charles IV was fully engaged campaigning in Aquitaine, and Isabella and Mortimer both knew that the way to make their support in England evaporate overnight would be for a single French soldier to land on English shores. Edward II was well aware of what was being planned, and on 2 September he ordered the earl of Norfolk to raise 2,000 troops from East Anglia to defend the port of Orwell in Suffolk. We do not know whether Edward’s intelligence service, such as it was, had discovered that port to be the intended landing area or he concluded that an invasion mounted from the port of Dordrecht would probably make for Orwell, but in any event the troops were never raised and the earl, the king’s half-brother, went over to Isabella. Edward himself does not seem to have checked that his orders were being obeyed.

  At Dordrecht, Isabella, Mortimer and her army embarked on ninety-five ships and put to sea on 22 September 1326. The army was a mix of Flemish, German and Bohemian soldiers, mainly mercenaries but with some unpaid volunteers hopeful of making their fortunes, and a gaggle of English exiles and emissaries sent by Edward II who had then sided with Isabella and stayed. Estimates of their numbers vary from a high of 2,757 (Walsingham) to a low of 500 (Chronicle of Meaux), but, given the capacity of the ships of the time and the need to transport horses and equipment, the force was probably around 1,500 strong. It was a tiny army with which to mount an invasion, even by medieval standards, but Isabella had good reason to expect indigenous support once she landed, and she and Mortimer had probably concluded a secret treaty with the Scots – one that was to come back and haunt them – to ensure that Robert Bruce, styled King Robert I, did not invade northern England while Isabella was dealing with Edward II. In the event, the campaign was even easier than Isabella and Mortimer could have hoped. After two days being tossed about in a storm, the invasion force landed somewhere near the mouth of the River Orwell on 24 September unopposed by the king’s ships, which were either not in the vicinity or had mutinied against the Despensers.

  Most of the nobility had now accepted that the influence of the Despensers was intolerable and that the king would not reform. The time had finally come to remove this ineffective and capricious monarch and replace him with his son. Many, perhaps most, of the queen’s contemporaries had some sympathy for her position and thought her more sinned against than sinning, and public opinion soon swung in her favour as more and more of the barons and their troops rallied to her. Edward’s support melted away, and he, the Despensers and what adherents they still had fled to Wales, where they no doubt hoped for support from the Despensers’ tenants there. It was not to be, and, when the garrison of Bristol surrendered on 26 October, Hugh the Elder was taken, tried for numerous offences, and executed the following day, with his head sent for public exhibition to Winchester.19 Then, on 16 November, the king and Hugh the Younger were captured at Llantrisant, near Caerphilly. Appropriately enough, their captor was Henry of Lancaster, brother of Thomas, who had been executed after Boroughbridge in 1322. Hugh Despenser was taken to Hereford, condemned to death as a traitor, a heretic and a sodomite, hanged from fifty-foot-high gallows, cut down while still alive, castrated, disembowelled and finally beheaded. The king was sent to Kenilworth and on 20 January 1327 was persuaded to abdicate in favour of his eldest son, who was duly crowned Edward III on 1 February.

  The deposed Edward was now transferred to Berkeley Castle, and there were a number of plots to rescue him, some real, many more imagined. Then, during a parliamentary session at Lincoln, it was announced that Edward had died on 21 September 1327. Whether or not he did die then and, if he did, the cause and manner of his death have intrigued historians ever since. All the reliable evidence would seem to point to the fact of his death at Berkeley Castle in the autumn of 1327. At the time, it was stated to be from ‘natural causes’, but, as Edward was only forty-three, this seems unlikely. A lurid account – written thirty years later but probably circulating orally shortly after the king’s death, and sniggered over by schoolboys ever since – says that he was killed by having a red-hot poker or spit shoved up his bottom. This too seems unlikely and was more probably intended as a cautionary tale against homosexuality (Edward was reckoned by contemporaries to be the buggeree in his relationships). But in any case, why bother? The body of a dead king would have to be put on public display to avoid claims that he had been spirited away and was in hiding (and such tales of Edward II did arise), and charred flesh in the nether regions would surely be noticed during the removal of organs as part of the embalming process. It seems much more likely that the wretched Edward was smothered, a means of dispatch which would have left no marks on the body. In any case, the body was displayed in Gloucester from 22 October and buried there in the presence of Isabella and the new king shortly afterwards.20

  On 30 January 1328, Edward III married Philippa of Hainault, daughter of the count of Hainault. She was now sixteen years old and described by the chronicler Froissart as being ‘full feminine’ – past puberty. It was to be a genuinely happy marriage, despite Edward’s later womanizing, but at this early stage there was to be little time for domestic bliss, for the new regime faced difficulties enough.

  The Battle of Sluys, 1340. In many ways the most important battle of the whole war, as it finally destroyed any French ability to invade England. The illustration, from the Chronicles of Jean Froissart, shows how the English (on the left) were able to fight a land battle on ships, rather than a sea battle which they might well have lost.

  2

  STATING THE CLAIM

  The first problem facing the new regime in England and the one most in need of a conclusion was the ever-present running sore of the Scots. Robert Bruce had adhered to his promise not to raid England during Isabella’s invasion and subsequent campaign, but now, with the deposition of Edward II, his assurances no longer held, and bands of ferocious Scots were raiding the northern English counties. It seemed that a short and successful war would cement the popularity of the new dynasty, so Edward, his mother and Mortimer began to gather an army in York. The assembly was marred by an argument between English archers and the servants of Flemish men-at-arms sent from Hainault. Fuelled by the endemic English dislike of foreigners, the argument turned to a fight and then to a slaughter, with the archers shooting indiscriminately at anyone who appeared alien. When order was restored, there were three hundred dead in the streets of York, mainly Hainaulters. It was perhaps an omen for the campaign, which began with the English army floundering about over an inhospitable terrain where it mostly poured with rain, trying to find the Scots, who had no intention of fighting an open battle; and ended with an exhausted English army withdrawing. Edward was furious and was said to have wept in frustration.

  Now it was increasingly clear to Isabella and to Mortimer that this was an unwinnable war. Even in the glory days of Edward I’s Scottish wars, the Scots had always eventually returned to the fray, and the incessant border raids and the consequent punitive expeditions were a drain on resources and funds that England could ill afford. English emissaries began to negotiate with the Scots, and the result was the Treaty of Northampton, ratified by Edward III in May 1328. The treaty acknowledged Scottish independence and the position of Robert Bruce as king; gave up English overlordship of Scotland (claimed by English kings ever since the Conquest); agreed to the return of various relics, including the Black Rood (a sliver of wood that the Scots believed was from the cross on which Christ was crucified), the Ragman (a parchment admitting submission to Edward I, with the seals of most of the great men of Scotland affixed to it), and the Stone of Scone; and agreed the marriage of Robert Bruce’s four-year-old son, David, to Isabella’s seven-year-old daughter, Joan. In return, Robert Bruce agreed to pay
an indemnity of £20,000, or £1.65 million in today’s money (silver standard), for Scottish raids into England and to support England against any enemy except the French. As there was no other likely enemy, this was a rather hollow promise.

  In hindsight, the treaty was a piece of pragmatic common sense. If the Scots could not be brought to heel, then give them what they wanted in exchange for perpetual peace and join the two crowns by a marriage deal. Additionally, security in the north would mean that Edward could pursue a French war without constantly having to look over his shoulder. Unfortunately, that was not how it was seen in England. The ‘Shameful Peace’ had given away a princess, acknowledged the success of treason, given up the English crown’s hereditary privileges over Scotland and, crucially, failed to address the rights of English lords who held lands in Scotland. As by the treaty they now had no rights there, these lords styled themselves the ‘Disinherited’. The young Edward made no secret of the fact that he disapproved of the treaty, saying that it was all his mother’s and Mortimer’s doing, and that he frowned on the wedding of his sister and would not attend the ceremony. No doubt some of this was a swift adoption of sloping shoulders once he realized the extent of public opinion, and in any case the London mob prevented the abbot of Westminster from releasing the Stone of Scone. Almost overnight, Isabella’s popularity began to wane, and by extension that of Mortimer.

  Hot on the heels of the conclusion of the Scottish war came the news of the death of Charles IV, the last of the Capetian kings who had ruled France for over three hundred years. All three sons of Philip IV, the Fair, had ruled in succession after him and none had produced sons that survived infancy. The next-born child of Philip was Isabella, and she was swift to send emissaries to Paris to register her claim. The stage was set for the Hundred Years War.

  When Charles was on his death bed, his wife was pregnant. The king was said to have decreed that, if the child was a boy, then he would succeed, and, if not, the crown of France should pass to the thirty-five-year-old Philip of Valois, count of Anjou and Maine, the son of Charles of Valois, who was a brother of Philip IV. When, two months later, in May 1328, the child was still-born, Philip summoned a carefully chosen assembly of the nobility of France to decide the succession. His own claim was based on his being the grandson of one king and the cousin of three others, whereas Edward III’s mother Isabella was the daughter of a king and the sister of three others; thus, if the succession was to be decided by consanguinity, her claim was the stronger. The so-called Salic Law, which was supposedly part of the legal code of the ancient Merovingian Franks and which forbade descent through the female line, was not trotted out and relied upon until very much later, but it is true that there had never been a queen regnant of France, and when the question had last arisen, in 1316, the girl’s guardian had conveniently withdrawn her claim. Isabella’s emissaries, Bishops Orleton and Northburgh, argued that there was no legal justification for excluding her. They pointed out that the greatest duchies, such as Aquitaine, could be and had been inherited by females, and that other kingdoms – Hungary, Bohemia – had been ruled by females of cadet branches of the Capets. Furthermore, they argued, even if there was justification for excluding a woman, this argument could not be extended to Isabella’s son, who was the closest male descendant of Philip the Fair. This was a sensible shift – claiming the throne for Edward rather than for his mother – for, if the latter’s claim was pressed, then in logic her dead brother’s daughters would also have a claim.

  Whatever the legal arguments might have been, the French were determined not to have Isabella on their throne, nor to accept her fifteen-year-old son. Not only was Edward of England a foreigner (although he would not have considered himself such) but he was a mere boy and would simply be the figurehead for his mother and her very dubious (in French eyes) lover, Mortimer. Philip of Valois, on the other hand, was a vigorous adult and a member of one of the greatest families of France. Accordingly, Isabella’s representatives found little support for her claim. Philip of Valois was proclaimed king of France as Philip VI, and the burgomaster of Bruges, who was unwise enough to voice his countrymen’s support for Edward, was mutilated and hanged as a warning to others.

  Isabella would never relinquish her and her son’s claim to the throne of France, but for the moment there was very little she could do about it. The unpopularity of the Scottish treaty, the arrival of a queen consort, and Mortimer’s acting in the very way that had persuaded him to oppose and eventually to rebel against Edward II were all conspiring to reduce her influence. The regency council of state ruled in Edward’s name, with neither Isabella nor Mortimer having any official role. As the queen mother, Isabella was of course entitled to make her views known and to be consulted, but, while Mortimer could no doubt have had himself appointed to the council, he seems to have preferred to remain in the background and to exercise power over the king through the boy’s mother, which did at least allow him to avoid blame for unpopular decisions. When the new king of France demanded homage for Aquitaine and Ponthieu on pain of invading Aquitaine, Isabella’s first reaction was to refuse, but, when Philip began to seize the incomes of the wine trade, Edward had no option but to cross to France in 1329 and pay homage in Amiens cathedral. Technically, the act of homage would negate any claim to the French throne, but later it was argued that Edward had not removed his spurs or his crown, nor had he knelt, so the act was meaningless. In any case, he had not done it freely but in the face of force majeure. For the moment, however, neither Edward nor his mother was in any position to press his claim.

  The rule of Isabella and Mortimer, at first greeted with acclaim as a relief from the unstable and increasingly oppressive reign of Edward II, was now beginning to be viewed with as much dread as Edward’s and the Despensers’ had been. It was obvious to all that Isabella controlled the young king, and Mortimer controlled Isabella. Isabella’s lands and incomes increased, largely at the expense of the new queen Philippa, who was yet to receive the queen’s dower still held by her mother-in-law, while Mortimer too acquired more land and riches and, by having himself created earl of March, set himself above all other Marcher Lords in precedence. As Isabella was intelligent enough to realize the opposition that such tyrannical behaviour had aroused during her late husband’s reign, one can only suppose that she was in such thrall to Mortimer that she could not or would not curb his ambitions. Even when Mortimer enticed Edmund, earl of Kent, into a bogus plot to rescue his half-brother Edward II – supposedly imprisoned rather than dead – and then had him executed as a traitor, Isabella failed to rein him in. But when rumours began to circulate about her being pregnant by Mortimer – which, if true, was a scandal of enormous proportions – the young king had had enough of being controlled by Mortimer through his mother.

  On 15 June 1330, with the court at Woodstock, Queen Philippa gave birth to a son, Edward of Woodstock, the future Black Prince. That same summer, the court moved to Nottingham, and Mortimer issued writs for a meeting of the great council of the realm, with nobles being warned that staying away would attract heavy penalties. Quite what Mortimer hoped to achieve at the council can only be a matter of speculation, but he was aware that he was unpopular, that the young friends of the king were urging him to assert his authority, and that, with the king approaching his majority and with a healthy heir apparent, the rule of Isabella and Mortimer was under threat unless they managed somehow to persuade or intimidate the council into extending it.

  The castle at Nottingham, built by William I and improved and extended by his successors, was a formidable structure, and when Mortimer offended the barons still further by informing them that only the king, Isabella, Mortimer and their personal guard were to be accommodated in the castle, with all others lodged in the town, he must have felt that he was quite secure – particularly when Isabella brought new locks for the gates and doors leading to the keep, where the royal family was quartered, and had the keys delivered to her personally each night when the doors ha
d been locked and sentries placed on them. Such tight security did not save them. On the evening of 19 October 1330, the magnates left the castle at the conclusion of the day’s business and the gates were duly locked. Later, a group of the king’s supporters, led by the governor of the castle, whose soldiers had been replaced by Mortimer’s men, entered the castle by way of a tunnel that ran from the town into the castle keep, where they were met by the king and taken to Isabella and Mortimer’s apartments. The king remained outside while his party burst in to find Mortimer in discussion with the chancellor, the bishop of Lincoln. In the ensuing scuffle two of Mortimer’s bodyguard were killed, and Mortimer and the bishop were seized and dragged out through the tunnel. Isabella, meanwhile, is said to have cried in French for her good son to have pity on dear Mortimer – although, as she is said to have called from an adjoining apartment, it is difficult to see how she could have known that the affair had been orchestrated by the king. Next morning, Mortimer’s associates were arrested and the party was taken to the Tower, while the king called a parliament to meet at Westminster and announced that henceforth he would rule fairly and with the advice of the great men of the kingdom. He was just eighteen years of age.