by Penny Lawne
Within six months of Gaveston’s murder, Queen Isabella gave birth to a son and heir on 12 November 1312. This could have been a turning point in Edward II’s relationship with the nobility, as the event was heralded with national joy and brought with it a wave of loyalty. The new baby, Prince Edward, was created Earl of Chester and granted the counties of Chester and Flint within a few days of his birth.22 However, Edward II failed to take full advantage of the goodwill engendered by his heir’s birth, and his lack of forethought was abundantly apparent in his treatment of his brothers. Probably recognising that the grants to his son made his brothers’ lack of endowment blatantly obvious, a month later, on 16 December, Edward II created his twelve-year-old brother Thomas Earl of Norfolk. As the earldom brought with it an annual income from its estates of 6,000 marks a year, this substantially fulfilled Edward I’s charter promise to Thomas.23 Yet the king failed to make similar provision for Edmund. This was curious, as Gaveston’s execution, with no male heir, had left the earldom of Cornwall providentially vacant. It is possible that Edward II intended awarding the earldom to Edmund, just as their father had intended, but he did not. Since Gaveston’s murder he had been conspicuously preoccupied with planning and spending lavishly on the funeral and future interment, and had granted Margaret de Clare, Gaveston’s widow, lands with an annual income of 2,000 marks.24 The problem was that months, and then years, passed, and the king continued to do nothing for Edmund. It is hard to excuse his delay. It may be that Edward II’s deep affection for Gaveston left him with a sentimental attachment to the Cornwall earldom, but not even his friend’s eventual interment at his favourite manor of King’s Langley in January 1315 prompted him to grant the title to Edmund. Although in practical terms it may not have seemed important (as Thomas and Edmund were barely teenagers and remained together in the same household), it was a potentially damaging and provocative omission which could have alienated the young Edmund from the king. It was certainly unfair, and when, in October 1315, Edward II at last made a grant to Edmund, it amounted to no more than a small income of less than £450 a year, hardly an adequate provision for the brother of the king.25 It is difficult to understand why he was not more generous or to discern a convincing reason why Edward II failed to make better provision for Edmund. When he created Thomas Earl Marshal in February 1316, and provided no equivalent honour for Edmund, his younger brother must have wondered if he had offended the king in some way.26
The king’s attention was undoubtedly elsewhere. The acrimony of many of the nobility towards him had hardly abated after Gaveston’s execution, and Edward II continued to struggle for support. Affairs went disastrously in Scotland, with the English army under the king’s personal command suffering complete humiliation in a crushing defeat at Bannockburn in 1314. Desperate to exert his authority, Edward II slowly flouted the restrictions imposed on him by the ordinances and tried to build up support to counter the opposition towards him. He found an able and sympathetic friend in Hugh Despenser the Younger, who gradually replaced Gaveston in the king’s affections. It was perhaps inevitable that it was only when they were of an age to provide him with support that Edward II showed a more direct interest in his brothers. He summoned Thomas to serve in a new Scottish campaign in 1317, nominating him as joint commander with his older and more experienced cousin Thomas, Earl of Lancaster.27 When Queen Margaret died in February 1318, appointing her sons as her executors and beneficiaries (Edmund received two manors), Edward II appears to have realised that Edmund was now also of an age to be useful to him, and almost immediately he took advantage of this to appoint him custodian of the strategically important Gloucester Castle and later Knaresborough Castle, both part of the disputed Gloucester inheritance.28 These were nominal appointments intended as interim measures, as Edward II did not seriously contemplate his seventeen-year-old brother having sole command, but Edmund’s promotion marked his emergence into his brother’s world. When the series of negotiations intended to mend the serious rift between the king and the Earl of Lancaster culminated in an agreement which forced Edward II to agree to give up his closest counsellors and accept an advisory council of nobles and churchmen, Edmund was a signatory to the treaty confirming this, signed at Leake on 9 August 1318. Now clearly identified as his supporter, Edward II enhanced Edmund’s status by making grants to him in November 1319 which would bring his annual income to nearly £2,000.29 But although this was a significant award, it was limited, being restricted to Edmund’s lifetime, and considerably less than that envisaged by their father, with no accompanying title to boost Edmund’s prestige. In March 1320 Edward II boosted his brother’s career by sending him on a diplomatic mission to Paris, in advance of Edward II’s planned visit to their cousin Charles IV, with Bartholomew Badlesmere, an experienced diplomat, and Edmund also accompanied Badlesmere on a further visit to the Pope in Avignon.30 On his return in August 1320, Edmund was summoned to Parliament for the first time, styled Edmund of Woodstock.31
At this stage there is no evidence that Edmund was unduly concerned about his lack of title or the considerable financial distinction which remained between him and Thomas. He was young, and eager to prove his worth to his brother. He also had other things on his mind, and arranged to see his brother at King’s Langley in Hertfordshire to discuss his marriage.32 It is not known who initiated the meeting but it is a reasonable supposition that it was at Edmund’s behest, as he needed the king’s permission to marry, and he had found his bride. Joan’s mother, Margaret Wake, was from a family of northern gentry. The Wakes held land in Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, Westmorland and Cumberland, and had a tradition of royal service; Margaret’s ancestor Baldwin Wake had been held hostage for payment of Richard I’s ransom, while Hugh Wake died on crusade in the Holy Land, although Margaret’s grandfather, Baldwin Wake, had supported Simon de Montfort against Henry III.33 Margaret’s father, John, served with Edward I in Gascony and Scotland, and was created 1st Baron Wake. He fought for Edward I, and died in 1300, leaving his widow Joan with three small children, Thomas, Margaret and John.34 Joan Wake could claim kinship with Eleanor of Castile through her father, Sir William de Fiennes, a connection recognised by Edward I, who described Lady Wake as his cousin and kinswoman.35 Joan was one of Queen Isabella’s newly established household when Isabella first came to England in February 1308, but had died by 1310, leaving Margaret and her two brothers orphans.36 They became royal wards and Edward II granted the Wake lands, and Thomas’ marriage, to Piers Gaveston, and after Gaveston’s death to Queen Isabella.37 After their mother’s death, Margaret presumably remained in Isabella’s household, while Thomas appears to have been taken into the household of Henry of Lancaster.38 Thomas Wake married Henry’s daughter Blanche in October 1316, when they were both under age and without the king’s permission. Henry was evidently fond of Thomas, as he persuaded the king to allow Thomas to inherit his family title and lands before he came of age, in June 1317.39 A marriage was arranged for Margaret with John Comyn of Badenoch but his death at Bannockburn in 1314 left Margaret a childless widow (they may never have lived together as a couple), and it is likely that she stayed in the queen’s household.40 Margaret had a small dowry as Comyn’s widow but was otherwise without expectations. As marriage to Margaret could not be considered an advantageous match for a man of his birth, Edmund’s choice seems to have been a matter of personal inclination; he had presumably fallen in love with her. The fact that their betrothal was not announced and that they did not marry until 1325 suggests that Edward II may have expressed some doubts and did not immediately give his brother permission.
Dissatisfaction with Edward II’s increasing subservience to his new favourite Hugh Despenser, and Despenser’s father, erupted into violence in May 1321 when the Marcher lords attacked lands held by the Despensers in Wales. This open attack swiftly precipitated a crisis. With the Earl of Lancaster still hostile towards him and sympathetic to the Marcher lords, Edward II needed all the assistance he could muster, and his young br
others were an obvious source of support. Edmund was an immediate beneficiary of the king’s changed attitude, being successively appointed constable of Dover Castle, warden of the Cinque ports, and constable of Tonbridge Castle.41 His loyalty, and competence, brought him the reward of the long-awaited title when Edward II created him Earl of Kent on 29 July 1321.42 Meanwhile the rebel Marcher barons advanced on the king in London to present their demands in Parliament, forcing Edward II to concede to their ultimatum to get rid of his favourites, and the Despensers fled into exile in August 1321. The king then sent his steward, Bartholomew Badlesmere, to mediate with the Marcher barons on his behalf, but instead of doing so he unexpectedly joined then. Like many others he had no doubt been alienated by the Despensers, and possibly too he was offended that the earldom he had hoped for had been given to Edmund. Enraged by Badlesmere’s treachery, deserted by most of his supporters and bereft of his favourites, Edward II took stock. With the rebels’ sphere of influence being in the north and west, the king decided to launch a counter attack in the south, and determined on targeting Badlesmere’s lands, as they were in Kent and therefore vulnerable. According to the Vita Edwardi Secundi, only six earls responded to the king’s request for aid, making Edmund and Thomas foremost among his supporters, as the Anonimalle Chronicle also noted.43 For a few months Edmund and Thomas became their brother’s chief advisers, and they revelled in their newfound importance, playing a prominent part in the successful attack on Badlesmere’s stronghold in Kent at Leeds Castle, which helped to re-establish the king’s authority.
Edmund may well have felt considerable satisfaction with his enhanced position in the autumn of 1321. Now an earl, with sufficient income to support the title, publicly recognised and associated with his brother as a principal supporter of the Crown, he could justifiably have felt that his future was assured. However, Edward II had behaved less than generously towards him. Having decided to grant Edmund an earldom, the obvious choice would have been the still vacant earldom of Cornwall. Instead, the king chose an empty title. The last Earl of Kent, Hubert de Burgh, had died in 1243 without an heir, and the estates and income had long since been sequestered elsewhere.44 Earls were expected to maintain a certain lifestyle and it had long been accepted that this required a minimal annual income of around £1,000. While the grants made to Edmund in 1315 and 1319 already ensured him an income of nearly twice this, the collection of manors and rentals which provided it were spread over a number of geographically diverse counties. There was no region of the country where Edmund was the main landowner, and although he was now Earl of Kent he had nothing apart from some rental income to connect him to the county, a deficiency which his appointment as constable of Tonbridge Castle did not disguise.45 Without a concentration of landholding in any specific area, Edmund’s authority as a landowner would be limited. More significantly, Edward II had made the 1315 and 1319 grants lifetime awards only and he had not chosen to change this. So apart from the title, Edmund had only the estates inherited from his mother which he could pass on to his heirs. These disadvantages placed Edmund in a much weaker position than most of his peers, and continued to differentiate him from Thomas of Brotherton, whose earldom of Norfolk, with its concentration of land and estates in Suffolk and Norfolk, brought him extensive local influence and financial independence from the Crown. Edward I had not intended such a distinction between his two youngest sons. Edward II was no fool, and his treatment of Edmund was quite deliberate. He chose not to award the earldom of Cornwall, with its attendant estates and income, to Edmund, while he significantly failed to convert the grants he had already made from being limited to Edmund’s lifetime.46 Although he increased Edmund’s income slightly in 1321, he specifically instructed his brother to repay part of this to the exchequer on the grounds that the income exceeded what the king ‘deemed fit to grant at present’.47 This was less than generous treatment, and it is an indication of Edmund’s devotion and loyalty that he does not appear to have objected.
Edward II continued to rely increasingly on his brothers. In January 1322 Edmund and Thomas led the negotiations which resulted in two Welsh barons, Roger Mortimer of Chirk, and his nephew, also called Roger Mortimer, surrendering to the king. Their success did little to enhance their reputations among their peers. The Anonimalle chronicler was dubious about the tactics used by Edmund and Thomas, describing them as ‘false brokers’ who ‘did so much by their cunning and conspiring’.48 The Mortimers were locked up in the Tower and sentenced to life imprisonment; Roger Mortimer of Chirk died there, but his nephew made his plans and achieved a spectacular escape in 1323. Roger Mortimer did not forget the part Edmund had played in his uncle’s death and his own downfall, and he would later take his revenge on Edmund. In March Edmund and Thomas joined the king as he waged war on his most implacable enemy, Thomas, Earl of Lancaster. The earl was captured after a convincing defeat at Boroughbridge. Triumphant, and intent on revenge, the king ruled that the earl be tried for treason. No one was in any doubt of the outcome the king wanted. Testing Edmund’s loyalty, Edward II appointed Edmund to be one of the judges, ensuring that his young brother was irretrievably associated with his revenge.49 Lancaster was duly convicted, and executed. His followers, and in particular his heir, his brother Henry, would not forget Edmund’s part in the earl’s downfall.
With the removal of his most powerful enemy, Edward II was able to secure the return of his favourites from exile, and the Despensers were reinstated at the York parliament in May 1322. The king immediately found the means to give them generous financial rewards and he restored the strategically important geographical power bases on the Welsh borders to them, while making the elder Despenser Earl of Winchester.50 In comparison, Edmund’s rewards of the sheriffdom of Rutland and the town of Oakham were meagre.51 Both Despensers now enjoyed significantly larger incomes than Edmund (the younger Despenser’s annual income by 1326 has been assessed as being over £7,000, more than three times greater than Edmund’s). The return of the Despensers also relegated Thomas and Edmund to the sidelines. It would have been extraordinary if this blatant favouritism had not strained the brothers’ relationship with the king, while Edmund remained at a disadvantage compared to Thomas. Edmund could reasonably have expected better treatment from the king, but if he felt any resentment it was not apparent. In the face of Edward II’s grudging attitude towards him he continued to show remarkable devotion. Edmund accompanied him on a renewed Scottish campaign in the autumn, and was with the king when he was forced to flee ignominiously to Bridlington after being routed at Byland Abbey. Subsequently he worked willingly with the Despensers, even going to the aid of the Earl of Winchester in January 1323 when the latter was attacked and forced to take refuge in Windsor Castle, and then joining with him in recapturing Wallingford Castle from the rebels.
Despite Lancaster’s defeat at Boroughbridge there remained persistent political opposition to the king. Edmund’s unwavering loyalty was an unusual quality among the disaffected nobility, and a virtue that the king was forced to rely on. Edmund’s consistent reliability earned him successive military appointments, in February 1323 as lieutenant in the marches of Scotland and then commander, and in March as chief commissioner of array in Cumberland, Westmoreland, Lancashire and Craven, and lieutenant north of the Trent.52 Although the king showed no abatement in his preference for the Despensers, throughout the rest of that year Edmund’s increased attendance on the king suggests a growing attachment.53 On a personal level Edward II appears to have found Edmund the more congenial of his brothers, and it was easy to use Edmund’s abilities and rely on his dependability. Yet, despite the improved relationship the king did not take the opportunity to improve Edmund’s financial situation, nor did Edmund obtain permission to marry Margaret during this period of relative political calm. Edward II’s attitude towards his brother appears ungracious and he seems to have taken his goodwill for granted. It was almost certainly Edmund’s dependable allegiance which led the king to appoint his brot
her, rather than a nobleman with more experience, to undertake a delicate diplomatic embassy to France in 1324. On 30 March 1324 Edmund was appointed by Edward II to go to France with instructions to inquire into affairs in Gascony, reform its status and regime, and negotiate a marriage for Prince Edward.54 He was to be accompanied by two experienced diplomats, the Archbishop of Dublin and William Weston.
Gascony belonged to the English Crown, the last remaining vestige of Henry II’s great Angevin empire. Successive English kings had balked at the insistence of the French Crown on overlord suzerainty, and Edward II shared his father and grandfather’s reluctance to pay annual homage, doing everything he could to delay doing so. The French king did whatever he could to exert French authority in the region, and the local Gascon nobility used the dispute to their own advantage. In October 1323 the issue of sovereignty became critical when the French parlement held that the Benedictine priory in the village of Saint Sardos in the Agenais was exempt from English jurisdiction. The French sergeant sent to display the royal French arms was murdered, and on the initiative of the local Gascon lord, Raymond-Bernard de Montpezat, the village was burned. Delighted to have a legitimate excuse for reasserting French influence, Charles IV summoned local officials including Ralph Basset, the English seneschal in the region, to Paris to give an account of their actions. When they failed to respond Charles IV ordered the local French seneschals to take possession of de Montpezat’s castle. The questionable legality of his actions went to the heart of the sovereignty issue and Edward II could not ignore this open challenge to his authority. He ordered de Montpezat to defend the castle, and in March 1324 advised Charles IV that he was sending his ‘dear’ brother Edmund.55 Edmund probably set off for France with high hopes, as it was a prestigious appointment in keeping with his special status as the king’s brother, and he no doubt anticipated that a successful outcome would prompt his brother to be more generous in honouring the terms of their father’s charter. Although he was still unmarried, he would have felt it worth deferring his personal affairs until he returned.