by Alison Weir
As far as his appearance was concerned, Isabella’s bridegroom was everything a young girl could dream of. Edward II was tall (about six feet) and muscular, “a fine figure of a handsome man”104 and “one of the strongest men in his realm.”105 He had “better advantages of birth and nature than any other king,” for “God had endowed him with every gift.”106 Even hostile chroniclers expressed admiration for his handsome looks, which he inherited from his father. He was well proportioned107 and had curly, fair, shoulder-length hair, with a mustache and beard. He was also well spoken—his mother tongue was Norman-French—and articulate, and he dressed elegantly, even lavishly. He cannot have failed to make a good impression on his young bride.
Almost as soon as he arrived in France, Edward paid homage to Philip IV for his lands in France, and the French King in turn handed over Isabella’s dowry of £18,000, which had been appropriated from the confiscated wealth of the Templars. On her marriage, Isabella was supposed to receive the lands customarily assigned to the queens of England, but as these were still in the possession of Edward I’s widow, Marguerite of France, and Isabella would only get the reversion of them on Marguerite’s death, King Edward undertook to dower her from his lands in France as well as giving her other lands in England.108 To mark the marriage, Philip gave Edward and Isabella costly gifts of jewelry, rings, chains, and fine warhorses.109
On Thursday, 25 January, Edward and Isabella were married in the cathedral church of Our Lady of Boulogne.110 Isabella was vibrantly dressed in a costly gown and overtunic of blue and gold, and a red mantle lined with yellow sindon,111 which she was to preserve for the rest of her life.112 On her head, she wore one of the crowns given her by her father, which glittered with precious stones. Her bridegroom was resplendent in a satin gardcorp (a sleeved cyclas) or surcoat and a cloak embroidered with jewels. Philip IV’s robe was rose-colored.113
The importance of this union was underlined by the magnificence of the ceremony and the fact that no fewer than eight kings and queens were present: the King of England; the King of France and his son, the King of Navarre; the French Dowager Queen, Marie of Brabant; Albert of Habsburg, King of the Romans, and his Queen, Elizabeth of Tyrol; Charles II, King of Sicily; and Edward II’s stepmother, Queen Marguerite,114 who was also the bride’s aunt and may have given her as a wedding gift a silver gilt casket bearing the arms of both Marguerite and Isabella in quatrefoils; it was presumably intended for use as a jewel casket or a receptacle for holy oils.115 Leopold I, Archduke of Austria, and King Edward’s brother-in-law, John II, Duke of Brabant, also attended the wedding, as well as a great throng of princes and nobles from all over Europe.116
After the ceremony, Edward and Isabella left for the lodgings that had been appointed for them near the cathedral; their retinues had to shiver in canvas tents, which had been set up in and around the town.117 Medieval custom demanded that the bride and groom be ceremonially put to bed together on the first night, but there is no record of that happening in this case. Given the tender age of the bride (twelve was the minimum age permitted by the Church for a girl to have marital sex), the fact that she did not become pregnant for another four years, and the probable sexual inclinations of the groom, it is unlikely that the marriage of Edward and Isabella was consummated at this time.
Eight days of celebrations and tournaments followed the nuptials, with a great feast taking place on the twenty-eighth. Two days later, Edward entertained Philip’s brothers, Louis of Evreux and Charles, Count of Valois, at a sumptuous dinner.118 The merrymaking was marred, however, when Philip presented Edward with a list of grievances concerning Gascony and warned him not to think of having his marriage annulled, as certain persons in England had advised, because Gascony had been restored to him only because of his union with Isabella “and the children that would be born to them.” Philip especially condemned those “who claim that the English King gains nothing by his marriage with the daughter of the King of France,” which was probably an oblique but pointed reference to Gaveston. Edward retaliated by pettishly sending Philip’s wedding gifts to Gaveston in England.119 Furthermore, some of the English lords who had traveled to France with the King were already secretly scheming to get rid of Gaveston; at Boulogne, ten of them drew up a declaration of their intent to protect the honor of the King and the rights and privileges of the Crown.120
The festivities came to an end on 2 February,121 which was none too soon, given the growing tensions, and the next day, accompanied by Isabella’s uncles, the Counts of Evreux and Valois, the King of England and his new Queen bade their farewells and traveled along the coast to Wissant, whence they took ship and “returned joyfully” to England.122
CHAPTER TWO
The King Is Lovesick for His Minion
In 1308, England was increasingly prosperous and had an expanding population. Society was still predominantly feudal and agrarian, yet the towns and cities were growing fast due to trade and mercantile enterprise. In the two and a half centuries since the Norman Conquest of 1066, Normans and English had learned to live together, although Norman-French was still the language of the court and the aristocracy, and Middle English the language of the commons. The kingdom was predominantly a land of great forests, green fields, quiet villages, and numerous churches, so numerous, in fact, that it was called “the ringing isle.”
Isabella’s first sight of the country of which she was now Queen was the white cliffs and Dover, where she and Edward landed on 7 February 1308.1 Gaveston was waiting to greet them at the dockside, and with no thought for his bride or his dignity, Edward impulsively ran to him and greeted him with an embarrassing display of affection, falling into his arms, “giving him kisses and repeated embraces,” and calling him “brother,” while Isabella and her uncles looked on, visibly dismayed and displeased.2 Even if the Queen knew nothing of the rumors about her husband and Gaveston, she was greatly offended by his publicly showing this man more affection than he had so far shown to her, his wife.
Gaveston had ordered the chief ladies of the Queen’s newly established household to assemble at Dover, ready to greet her and attend her on her progress to Westminster.3 Among them were Elizabeth, Countess of Hereford, the King’s sister, now twenty-six; Alicia d’Avesne, the Flemish wife of Roger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk; Joan de Genville, the wife of Roger Mortimer, a leading baron; Joan Wake, who was French by birth;4 and Isabella, the daughter of Louis de Brienne, Viscount de Beaumont. Isabella de Beaumont was married to John, Baron de Vesci, and she was to become as favored by the Queen as she already was by the King, who was related to her through his mother. Her two brothers, Henry and Louis, would also enjoy high favor with the royal couple. Henry was knighted in 1308; he received large grants of land from the King and was summoned to Parliament as Baron Beaumont. He was to serve Edward in a military capacity in Scotland and on diplomatic missions abroad and would be an enormously influential member of his household.
Edward and Isabella spent two nights at Dover, staying in the twelfth-century keep in the castle, where the royal apartments lay behind walls twenty feet thick. They probably held court in Arthur’s Hall, built by Henry III in 1240, and may well have worshipped in the tiny Romanesque chapel dedicated to Saint Thomas à Becket, Edward’s favorite saint. On 9 February, the King and Queen left Dover and traveled via Ospringe and Rochester to Eltham Palace, where they were to stay pending their state entry into London for their coronation.5
Eltham Palace, which lies some six miles southeast of London Bridge, and was originally a fortified manor built by the Clare family, had long been an important residence; both Henry III and Edward I had visited there, and in 1278, the latter granted it to the powerful baron John de Vesci. In 1295, his son William sold it to Anthony Bek, Bishop of Durham, who rebuilt it. Little is known about Bek’s house, but it was turreted and had a tower and a moat surrounded by a stone wall; access was gained via a timber drawbridge. The great hall was tiled, and there was a wine cellar. The Bishop had also created a hunting p
ark to the south of his palace. As will be seen, Eltham became one of Isabella’s favorite places. Bishop Bek had already granted the reversion of the house to the King on his death, and Edward may have promised it to Isabella during their stay.
If he did, it was not enough to compensate for the discovery made by the dismayed young Queen that the income promised by her husband was showing no signs of materializing and that she had nothing to live on, since there was no money in the Treasury with which to dower her. Indignantly, she wrote to her father, complaining that she was expected to live in poverty.6
Philip responded by demanding that Edward state in writing exactly what financial provision he intended to make for Isabella and any children of the marriage. Edward replied that he had already drawn up such a statement for Isabella but that his advisers had counseled him not to put his seal to a copy for Philip in case it laid him open to further obligations in respect of their children if Isabella predeceased him.7
Then fuel was added to the fire when Isabella noticed Gaveston—“whose passion for finery was insatiable”—wearing not only the jewels and rings that Philip IV had given to the King but also some of the jewelry that she had brought from France as part of her dowry.8 Again, she wrote to her father, expressing her fury at the avarice of Piers and the favor shown to him by her husband, who was neglecting his duty toward her. She was, she asserted, “the most wretched of wives.”9
Isabella would have been comforted to know—and perhaps already did know—that the barons were determined to do something about Gaveston. The coronation was due to take place on 18 February, but they warned the King that, unless the favorite were banished, they would not take part in the ceremony, which was tantamount to refusing him their oaths of allegiance. At the same time, Isabella’s uncles were angrily threatening to boycott the ceremony unless Gaveston were banished. By the time Edward had won them all round with fulsome promises “to undertake whatever they sought in the next Parliament,” which was to meet in March, and agreed to a new clause in the coronation oath, the crowning had had to be postponed until 25 February.10
The King and Queen were magnificently received in the capital when they entered it in state on 19 February, the Lord Mayor and his aldermen and the members of the London guilds, all wearing new liveries, riding out to meet them and to ceremoniously surrender the keys to the City. Then the four-mile-long procession moved slowly through streets that were gaily decorated with banners and pennants, and thronged with thousands of people, who cheered their beautiful young Queen enthusiastically and took her to their hearts. Pageants were enacted in temporary castles of canvas or fairy bowers decked with artificial flowers, while free wine flowed in the City’s conduits.
London at this period was a flourishing city, by far the largest and most powerful in England. Ships from all over Europe sailed up the Thames to its port, and the City was a great center for mercantile enterprise; it also played an important role in influencing public affairs. London occupied only a square mile at this period and was surrounded by stone walls; within them, its teeming narrow streets were crammed with jettied buildings, and space was at a premium. London also boasted more than a hundred churches, the largest of which was Saint Paul’s Cathedral, built between 1251 and 1312 in the Gothic style. At 644 feet long, it was then the largest cathedral in England. The impressive stone bridge spanning the River Thames had been built in 1170, and its thoroughfare was lined with houses, shops, and a chapel. It linked the City to Southwark on the Surrey shore, where brothels plied their trade beyond the city boundaries. Two miles upriver lay Westminster, with its magnificent palace and abbey; this, the administrative and judicial hub of the kingdom, was beginning to be regarded as the central seat of government.
For the five nights following their arrival, Edward and Isabella lodged in the Tower of London,11 on the north bank of the Thames. The central keep of this mighty fortress—known as the White Tower since 1240, when Henry III had had it whitewashed—had been built by William the Conqueror in the period 1076 to 1087 to stand sentinel over London. Various kings had added to it: Richard I encircled the bailey with a vast curtain wall bisected by towers, and Henry III built more towers and constructed a palace with a great aisled hall between the keep and the river; but the most recent and impressive improvements were those made by Edward I, who had created a moat and built massive concentric defenses, including a new watergate (now known as Traitor’s Gate) and new royal apartments above it in Saint Thomas’s Tower.
The Tower now housed the King’s treasure, the Great Wardrobe—a repository for royal foodstuffs, furniture, jewels, and clothes—the state archives, the largest of the royal mints, and the greatest arsenal of weapons in the kingdom; consequently, it was one of the most important castles in England. It also contained a menagerie, created by Henry III in 1235 to house the animals that were sometimes given to monarchs as gifts. At various times, it held lions, bears, leopards, and even an elephant. In this period, the Tower had not gained its later notoriety as a state prison, although a few prominent persons had been held prisoner there over the centuries.
Edward and Isabella would have lodged in the sumptuous state apartments within Henry III’s palace and its adjacent towers, which were located around what was now known as the Inmost Ward and could be accessed only by the Coldharbour Gate by the White Tower or from the river. These apartments were brilliantly decorated in bright colors and adorned with gold stars, heraldic emblems, and Purbeck marble fittings. There were hooded fireplaces, garderobes (lavatories) in the main chambers, and large pointed-arched Gothic windows. Edward II initially used the King’s apartments in Saint Thomas’s Tower, although he later came to prefer Henry III’s suite, with its oratory and private watergate, in the nearby Hall Tower (now called the Wakefield Tower), so called because it gave access to the great hall.
Isabella’s apartments were probably those created for Eleanor of Provence, Henry III’s queen, and refurbished by Edward I for Marguerite of France; these lay at the west end of the great hall, beside the Hall Tower. The walls of the Queen’s chamber were wainscoted, whitewashed, and painted with roses and trompe l’oeil pointing that looked like cut stonework. Her chapel windows were glazed.
Within the Tower precincts, there were gardens, a vineyard, and an orchard; in the northwest corner lay the chapel of Saint Peter ad Vincula, rebuilt by Edward I, and in the White Tower was the Norman Chapel of Saint John the Evangelist, with its Romanesque arches and brightly painted walls.12
On 24 February, Edward and Isabella left the Tower and rode in procession through the City of London to the Palace of Westminster, the chief residence of the English kings, where Isabella was to spend much of her life during the coming years. The original palace that stood on the site had been built by the Saxon King and saint Edward the Confessor, around 1050, but it had been rebuilt and extended over the centuries, and there was nothing left of it by Isabella’s time. The palace site now occupied several acres along the north bank of the River Thames, and to the east lay Westminster Abbey, which had also been founded by Edward the Confessor but had been rebuilt by Henry III as a fittingly splendid setting for the Confessor’s shrine and a mausoleum for himself and his descendants.
In 1097, William II built a huge great hall beside the Confessor’s palace; measuring 240 feet by 67 feet, it was then probably the largest and grandest hall in Europe. Between 1154 and 1189, Henry II rebuilt the palace itself, extending the site to incorporate Old Palace Yard, a new “white” hall, a chapel dedicated to Saint Stephen, and a great chamber. He also instituted a sophisticated system of water supply, with fountains and conduits.
Around 1230, Henry III spent a fortune adding luxurious and brilliantly decorated royal apartments that would set a new and advanced standard for royal residences; he also rebuilt the great chamber as the famous Painted Chamber, so called because of its vast murals depicting events in the life of Saint Edward the Confessor and warlike scenes from the Bible. This room, with its great Gothic windows
, glazed tiled floor, and private oratory, served as the King’s bedchamber and was dominated by a large state bed with a gilded and painted carved wooden canopy and green curtains.
In 1237, Henry III built a new chamber for his Queen adjacent to the Painted Chamber, on the first floor overlooking the river; her Wardrobe was below it, and nearby was the “Maidens’ Hall,” which presumably was to house the Queen’s damsels, or waiting women. The Queen’s new chamber was wainscoted and had oriel windows with deep embrasures decorated with painted figures, and an allegorical figure of Winter painted on the wall over the fireplace hood; on the other walls were murals of the Four Evangelists. Beyond the Queen’s chamber was her private chapel, which had pilasters with capitals and crowned heads flanking the arched doorways and the deeply molded lancet windows, the latter being “superbly gilt and coloured”; there was also a marble altar font and a green altar cloth. The walls in these rooms were painted in blue and red, while the sculptured reliefs and paneling were highlighted in gold, green, and yellow. The whole effect must have been startlingly vibrant.
Edward I erected a new main gateway northwest of Westminster Hall and began rebuilding Saint Stephen’s Chapel, intending that it should rival the Sainte Chapelle in Paris, the private chapel of the kings of France. Edward II continued this project, but it was not finally completed until 1348.
There had, however, been disastrous fires at Westminster in 1263 and 1298. The latter destroyed the White Hall and rendered the Queen’s apartments uninhabitable. When Marguerite of France came to England in 1299, Edward I arranged for her to stay in temporary accommodation in York Place, the Archbishop of York’s palace that stood by the river between Westminster and Charing Cross.13