The Greatest Traitor
Page 37
A closer examination of the Fieschi letter shows that it can be divided into several parts. Firstly there is information of a kind which Edward III would have already known, details of the capture of Edward II, included in order to demonstrate the authenticity of the letter at the outset. Then there follows a description of events at Berkeley Castle expressed by the supposed Edward II as an attempt to explain what happened: specifically, whose body was in Gloucester, how he ‘escaped’, how Isabella came by ‘his’ heart, and the reactions of the guards. This included information presumed by, or imparted to, the supposed Edward II after his escape, and during his later incarceration at Corfe. It is written from the point of view of one explaining not how he escaped incarceration but how he escaped death, being secretly transferred to Corfe. It is noticeable that Fieschi states Edward’s keeper was with him all this time: in other words, he did not ‘escape’ as claimed but was transferred secretly under the pretence of an escape. The letter then moves on to explain what happened to him after his removal from Corfe. It is written in the past tense entirely, but nowhere does it refer to Edward being dead. Although the translation above has been taken verbatim from that given in Cuttino’s article, it should be pointed out that the last passage of evidence – ‘he was in this last hermitage for two years or thereabouts’ – could also be read as ‘he has been in this last hermitage for two years or thereabouts’. The implication that Edward was in Lombardy, and that his identity could be verified, gives the letter a potent political force, and indicates it was written not just for Edward II’s benefit but primarily to further Genoese interests.
Given the political implications of a letter such as this coming from Genoa in the 1330s or early 1340s, and the motive for forging such a document, a systematic analysis of its reliability is necessary. Here it is significant that the surviving text is in a bishop’s register, and thus is a copy. Moreover it is probably a copy of a copy, if the original manuscript was sent to Edward. There are five possibilities:
i. that there was no original letter, and the copy in the register is a forgery;
ii. that the original was not by Fieschi, and that it was made in bad faith, and his seal applied with or without his knowledge, and thus that the register copy is from a forgery;
iii. that the original was by Fieschi in good faith but upon the evidence of an imposter, and thus that the register copy is not a forgery but contains no information derived from Edward II;
iv. that the original was by Fieschi but was fraudulently compiled for political purposes from received information, and thus that the register copy is not a forgery but contains no information derived from Edward II;
v. that the original was by Fieschi in good faith based on evidence derived from Edward II directly or indirectly (for example, through a confessor).
The first of these possibilities can be dismissed immediately. According to Haines, the letter is in a singularly different style from any of the other entries in the register, and in an altogether more Italian form.36 In addition, the register was compiled no earlier than 1337 (the date of the last document) and no later than 1368, probably before 1352.37 Thus we can be confident that the entry is a contemporary copy of a document that once existed. Access to a bishop’s register was very limited indeed, and thus this was a poor place to forge a text. This is why the text was unknown to the rest of the world for so many centuries.
With regard to the second option, that the original was a forgery: forged medieval documents are plentiful, but there are reasons for doubting this is one of them. Fieschi’s seal, as a papal notary, would have been very carefully guarded. One could imagine that it might have been temporarily stolen to authenticate the document, but this theory requires an individual or group to have stood to benefit from such a fraudulent document being created. If the document was to be used by a state or political force to effect a policy change, it would have been worthless stealing Fieschi’s seal on account of the risk of his denying the document’s veracity to his kinsman, Edward III. Thus, if the document was a forgery, it was the work of a small group, or an individual.
The motive of an English lord or knight wishing to clear his name of the murder of Edward II can be dealt with fairly briefly as there were very few candidates. Gurney was dead by the time the letter was written, as on internal evidence it cannot be dated before 1335. De Ockley had successfully disappeared by this stage, but even if alive it is difficult to see how he could have gained access to Fieschi’s seal to forge the document. Also it is doubtful whether de Ockley had all the detailed information supplied in the letter. Maltravers, of course, almost certainly had custody of the deposed king at Corfe, but he had relayed his information to Edward in 1334 via Montagu, before this letter could have been written. The only individual who had the status, knowledge, contacts and motive to forge this letter was Lord Berkeley. But since he did not leave England, it is doubtful that he ever met Fieschi, who seems rarely, if ever, to have visited England. It is very unlikely indeed that he knew about Genoese castles and hermitages or the sequence of towns and pilgrim routes on the Continent. Finally one can rule Berkeley out on the grounds that, by his own testimony to Parliament, he knew that Edward II was alive, and thus there was a high risk his information would clash with genuine information given secretly to the king, and incur further displeasure.
To answer the question whether Fieschi could have been fooled by an imposter it is necessary to ascertain the reliability of the evidence in the document. For a start it contains at least two factual errors and one important lacuna. The first factual error, as Haines noted, is that the period of time between Edward II’s supposed death and the execution of the Earl of Kent, at which time he supposedly left Corfe, was two and a half years, not one and a half as stated by Fieschi. The second error is that the name of John Deveril does not appear, but instead the name ‘Thomas’ is given as the name of the castellan. The surprising lacuna is the fact that the abduction of Edward in July 1327 is not noted, a detail which would give the letter real strength, as very few people knew this secret information. The chronological error was probably a simple mistake, as this information would have been relatively easy for even a forger to get right, and it has to be noted that the testimony is not directly that of the supposed Edward II but his confession written at one or two stages removed.38 With regard to ‘Thomas’ being the castellan, not John Deveril, one could offer the simple explanation that Deveril did not tell the captive his real name, a fact made more likely by the absence of a surname. The failure to note the abduction in July 1327 is harder to account for, but the most likely explanation is that, if this information was genuinely derived from Edward II, this secret escape might be presumed not to have been known to Edward III, and therefore be valueless or negative evidence of its authenticity. Alternatively the letter might only preserve the bare bones of the king’s more complete testimony or confession, a possibility strengthened by the spelling mistakes of the names.
In this context it is remarkable that the letter contains a lot of accurate information. No single extant chronicle written before 1343 (the date that Fieschi became Bishop of Vercelli and thus the last possible date for the letter to have been written) includes all these details. Significantly, no surviving chronicle states that Edward took ship at Chepstow, a fact which has to be verified by recourse to the chamber account now in the possession of the Society of Antiquaries.39 This also confirms that he landed in Glamorgan, at Cardiff. Every subsequent verifiable fact is correct with the exception of the detail that the castellan at Corfe was not ‘Thomas’, as mentioned above.40 There is also the interesting but hitherto unnoticed fact that, if Edward II was moved from Berkeley Castle to Ireland at the time of the arrest of the Earl of Kent, or just before, his period in Ireland (where Roger had very extensive powers and estates) ended just after the November 1330 trials and execution of Roger. It must also be noted that his departure from Ireland at that point is the first time that Fieschi states the deposed king went
anywhere without his keeper. The presence of the keeper with the supposed Edward II until December 1330 tallies very well with the probability that he remained in custody, probably under Maltravers’ orders, until Roger’s death. Putting these facts together we can safely say that if Fieschi was dealing with an imposter, the imposter would have had to be not only well informed about Lombardy and continental geography but also better informed than any contemporary chronicler about Edward II’s movements in South Wales, and in particular familiar with his fateful attempt to sail from Chepstow, at a time when Edward II had only a few dozen men with him. Finally the supposed imposter would have had to make his impersonation in the Genoa region, and also to convince Manuele de Fieschi himself who, as Cuttino noted, was a distant relative of the English royal family. It is far more likely that Fieschi spoke to the real Edward II, who had all this information, rather than to an imposter.
This leaves us with just two options: that the letter was fraudulently compiled by Fieschi on behalf of his countrymen for political purposes from received information, and that it contains no information derived from Edward II himself, or that it is a genuine account of the latter days of the later life of Edward II. On account of the details of Edward’s arrest, and in particular the detail about Chepstow, the former can be discounted. Since the continued existence of the king was still such a secret in 1335–43 that no chronicler in England mentioned it, we can discount the theory that Genoa could have used this information against England with any force if it was not predominantly true. If Edward II really was in Italy at the time the letter was written, however, this would make the letter very powerful material for the Genoese.
Working on the theory that the letter is a genuine statement by Fieschi that Edward found his way to Lombardy, we can build a historical model of events. The letter must date from between 1335 and 1343, as noted above. The last dated document in the register is 1337, so it is likely that the document was written at the beginning of this period rather than towards the end. Furthermore, given the systematic accounting for periods of time in the letter (albeit with one mistake noted above), it is probable that only time spent travelling has not been accounted for, and thus the letter was written in the 1335–7 period. Since Fieschi does not express any context for the letter, and in particular does not express any hesitation over the identification of the hermit, it seems the context was to be provided by the bearer of the letter, who thus must have been someone trusted, and of high status.41 Looking through published calendars of records, the date of 4 July 1336 stands out as the prime candidate for the model. On that day Edward III wrote to the community of Genoa granting it 8,000 marks (£5,333) in compensation for an act of piracy by Hugh Despenser in 1321, although he (Edward) denied any responsibility for the deed.42 It is quite extraordinary that, after fifteen years, this money was granted, especially as the Genoese had previously sought compensation and been turned down.43 The possibility that Edward paid up such a large sum in the summer of 1336 partly on the strength of the letter from Manuele de Fieschi is suggested by the fact that the new envoy who made the claim was noted to have brought certain letters with him from Genoa. The new envoy’s name was Nicholinus de Fieschi, a kinsman of Manuele.44
If we take as the basis of our model the late spring/early summer of 1336 for the receipt of the letter, certain other details fall into place. Lord Berkeley was completely acquitted of all charges against him in the next parliament following the Genoese embassy, on 16 March 1337. Two days later, at the same parliament, William de Shalford was rewarded, despite his part in writing the letter to Roger which was later sent to Berkeley Castle. Maltravers was employed in the king’s service in Flanders in 1339, as mentioned above, effectively being exonerated of any crime deserving of outlawry by then. Isabella’s income was considerably increased in 1337; from that date she received half as much again as she had previously.45 One might suggest that the Genoese envoy announced at the English court that his kinsmen had custody of the ex-king in such a way that Edward had no choice but to drop all actions against those he had held responsible for the Berkeley Castle plot. No one else was pardoned for charges against them, with the possible exception of Joan, Roger’s widow;46 but this is what one would have expected as Gurney was dead and de Ockley, if he was still alive, was not sufficiently well-connected to the English court to be let in on the news from Genoa.
A final reason for favouring a date of about 1336 for the receipt of the letter is that Edward III seems to have been aware that his father was under Lombard protection prior to October 1338. Although both Cuttino and Haines noted the source for this, neither scholar realised its significance.47 In September 1338 Edward went to Germany to be made Vicar of the Holy Roman Empire.48 At Koblenz, one William le Galeys – William the Welshman – was brought to him from Cologne by an Italian, Francisco Forcet.49 This William claimed he was Edward II. The records state he had been ‘arrested’ at Cologne. But the ‘arrest’ was patently a fiction, as he was brought to the king not by a local arresting officer or an officer of the English court but by an Italian, a Lombard, and he was brought to Koblenz – a distance of fifty-seven miles – at a cost of 25s 6d, and afterwards accompanied the royal party to Antwerp,50 where he stayed for three weeks in December. This was just after Queen Philippa had given birth to Edward III’s second son, Lionel, on 29 November.
This information has been dismissed as evidence for Edward II’s itinerary by several historians, but on very flimsy grounds, their scepticism normally rooted in a conviction that Edward II died in Berkeley Castle. Pierre Chaplais, who first discovered the entries, suggested William the Welshman’s claim was an early form of ‘demonstration during a royal visit’. This is not supportable, due to the preferred treatment of the supposed criminal. Royal imposters were normally punished severely; Edward II had once hanged a half-witted Exeter man who had claimed to be a son of Edward I. Not only was this William the Welshman not locked up locally in Cologne as a petty criminal and an imposter, he was not locked up at all. He was escorted first to the king at Koblenz and then to Antwerp. In the royal accounts which mention him, there are no pejorative references to his royal claim, such as that he ‘traitorously’ or ‘falsely’ claimed he was father of the King of England. The bottom line is that if Edward III had believed in 1338 his father had died in Berkeley in 1327, or subsequently, he would not have paid for an imposter to be brought fifty-seven miles to him at Koblenz, and then entertained him, and taken him back to Antwerp. He would have ordered him to be hanged in Cologne.51
The point about the Lombard escort, Francisco, or Francekino, Forcet, requires further comment, for it raises the possibility that William the Welshman was escorted to Edward III from Lombardy, the region in which Manuele de Fieschi claimed Edward was living. Indeed, the fact that Edward II was not free but in custody at this period is the key to understanding the Fieschi document. Just as the letter itself was written for political purposes, so Edward II was carefully guarded for political reasons. Once his identity was known in Lombardy, he was protected, but at a cost to his freedom. He did not ‘change himself’ from Melazzo to Cecima because he was frightened off by the war; far from it, the lord of Melazzo (the Bishop of Acqui) knew Edward’s political value, and moved him to the hermitage near Cecima to safeguard Genoan political interests. Thus, for probably the four and a half years prior to Manuele de Fieschi’s writing the letter to Edward III, the Lombard higher clergy had had custody of Edward II. Nicholinus de Fieschi himself was a cardinal, and Francisco Forcet was probably one of his or his kinsmen’s retainers. When William the Welshman appeared with Francisco Forcet before Edward III at Koblenz in September 1338, Nicholinus de Fieschi was also present. Furthermore Nicholinus de Fieschi returned to Antwerp with the king and William the Welshman (still in the custody of Francisco Forcet) afterwards, staying there until January 1339.52
In conclusion: in late 1338 a man who claimed with impunity to be the king’s father was brought to the king at Koblenz by a Lomba
rd, and was there in the company of a member of the same political Genoese family which had previously written a letter to Edward III concerning their custody of the ex-king in a Lombardy monastery. Given that we now know Edward II did not die in Berkeley Castle in 1327, and given that the man in question was not summarily dismissed but entertained at Koblenz and at Antwerp, there can be very little doubt that this William the Welshman was Edward II. Although questions must still remain about the accuracy of Manuele de Fieschi’s letter, which was written with specific political purposes in mind, and which was at best a copy of the ex-king’s verbal testimony recalled several years after his escape, there is no good reason to doubt that Edward II was still alive in 1338, and that the Fieschi letter broadly outlines the facts as Edward II understood them.
*
Finally, after 675 years, we can confront a much more coherent and historically useful narrative of the later life of Edward II. On Roger’s orders, Maltravers or Berkeley directed the ex-king’s gaoler to effect an artificial ‘escape’ from Berkeley Castle. The gaoler brought Edward II to Corfe Castle, where he maintained him under the auspices of one ‘Thomas’, who was probably John Deveril using an assumed name. There, believing he was now on the run, Edward was effectively still a captive. No one tried to free him, as everyone thought him dead. And there Maltravers kept him on Roger’s behalf, until Kent learnt of his whereabouts, possibly receiving this information from Edward III. When Roger realised that Kent was on the point of freeing Edward II, he was able to convince the king to order Kent’s execution. Edward III did it in order to save his throne, his mother’s life, and possibly even his own life.