Queen Isabella: Treachery, Adultery, and Murder in Medieval England

by Alison Weir

  Parliament was in a bullish mood when it met at Westminster on 20 March; it confirmed the Ordinances and demanded the dismissal of several more of the King’s supporters, including the Elder Despenser and Henry de Beaumont.97 On 23 February, the day before Beaumont left the King’s household, Isabella defiantly demonstrated her solidarity with her husband by including Henry de Beaumont among the guests at a feast she gave, at which several other leading royalists, including the Earls of Richmond and Norfolk, were present. Isabella de Vesci was also ejected from the court at this time, but Isabella kept in touch with her regularly by letter or messenger.98 During this period, there is no record of Isabella’s communicating with Lancaster or his supporters.99

  In April, the King himself hosted a great banquet at Westminster for the Archbishop of Canterbury and the nobility, but it was to be the last for a long time. Not only was the hall damaged by fire soon afterward, but there was also, that spring, more torrential rain and widespread flooding across Europe, which would continue unceasing until the autumn and lead to another failed harvest and the worst recorded famine in European history.

  To add to Edward’s troubles, there were rumors of a Scottish invasion of Ireland; at the end of April, he sent Roger Mortimer back there as Lieutenant,100 and not a moment too soon, for in May, in the interests of building up a Celtic alliance against England, Robert Bruce sent his brother Edward to free the Irish from English rule. In June, Dundalk fell to Edward Bruce, and in September, he took Ulster.

  Between June 5 and 23, Edward and Isabella visited the new town of Winchelsea in Sussex, which had been built by Edward I on a grid plan, much like his continental bastides, to replace the old town that had been swept away into the sea during a storm; the royal couple perhaps stayed at the newly founded Franciscan priory. There was no sign of famine here, for the town was prosperous, and the King and Queen were plied with food and wines. Isabella attended Mass in the parish church, which was dedicated to Thomas à Becket, and her chaplain made offerings in her name. Then she and Edward moved south to Hastings, where they stayed in the castle and made gifts to the chapel there, in which they were entertained by two harpists and a fiddler.101 The royal couple then made yet another pilgrimage to Canterbury, before returning to Westminster, where they stayed until at least 7 July.102

  By now, the dread famine held England in its grip.103 The price of grain had soared to an unprecedented level, and it was reported that, on 9 August, Saint Laurence’s Eve, even the King and Queen found it hard to obtain bread when they passed through Saint Albans.104 Because of the scarcity of food, the council ordered that no one below the rank of earl was to have more than two dishes at each meal, but this only resulted in lords’ reducing their households and casting out unneeded servants to starve. Because there was so little fodder for cattle, disease spread, and herds had to be culled; it was not uncommon to see the bodies of animals lying dead and rotting in the flooded fields. This led to further shortages of meat and dairy products and “misery such as our age has never seen”105 for many of the King’s subjects; “in Northumbria, dogs and horses and other unclean things were eaten,”106 and there were reports of desperate people committing murder to get food, and even of instances of cannibalism. The evidence suggests that, in some parts, the death rate from starvation was as high as 10 percent. In the towns, trade suffered and many people lost their livelihoods. Edward passed statutes to lower the price of provisions, but he could do nothing to relieve the serious dearth that was now affecting the land.

  On 12 August, Warwick died, greatly lamented. His friends claimed he had been poisoned, probably in an attempt to discredit the King. Warwick’s passing left Lancaster in a position of unchallenged supremacy. Only four days earlier, on 8 August, Edward had appointed him King’s Lieutenant in the North. Lancaster had now replaced most of the royal officials and sheriffs with his own men and was enjoying widespread support as the self-proclaimed champion of the Ordinances. He controlled the administration, issued orders and pardons, granted petitions, and made appointments. Before the King acted, he was obliged to seek Lancaster’s advice, but as Lancaster preferred to hold himself aloof from the council, Edward was forced to treat with him almost as another sovereign prince, sending envoys to him at Kenilworth or Donnington.107 Isabella, the daughter of the autocratic Philip IV, cannot have relished seeing her husband’s royal authority thus subverted.

  Soon afterward, there came news from France that Marguerite of Burgundy had died in her prison on 14 August. Rumor had it that she had been strangled, smothered, or starved to death, and rumor may not have lied, for it was imperative that King Louis have an heir, and on 19 August, only five days after his wife’s demise, he married his distant cousin, Clemence of Hungary, who rivaled Isabella in being reputed the most beautiful princess in Europe. She was crowned with him ten days later at Rheims.

  September found Edward and Isabella at the twelfth-century Augustinian priory at Barnwell in Northamptonshire, which boasted an important royal hospice. Later that month, they visited Lincoln and in October were at Clipstone, the royal hunting lodge in Sherwood Forest. In December, Isabella stayed behind while Edward went to meet his barons at Doncaster.108 They were also apart at Christmas, which the King spent “rowing in the Cambridge Fens with a great concourse of simple people, to refresh his spirit” and even swimming with this “silly company” in the cold weather, which only aroused the derision of the barons, who openly expressed their scorn for such “childish frivolities.”109

  That December of 1315, there was dire news from Ireland: Mortimer had been utterly defeated by Edward Bruce at the Battle of Kells in Meath. English rule had now virtually collapsed in Dublin, and Mortimer came hurrying back to England to obtain reinforcements, arriving at court by 17 January.110 But the King, needing his support against Lancaster, kept him in England.

  Mortimer was therefore present111 when Parliament assembled at Lincoln late in January, but Lancaster did not deign immediately to grace it with his presence, despite pressing concerns over the famine and the Scots; instead, he arrived three weeks late, on 12 February. Nevertheless, a compliant Parliament appointed him chief councillor to the King—much against Edward’s will—for the lords had agreed that “the King should undertake no important matter without the consent of the council.”112 At this time, Edward and Isabella were staying at Somerton Castle at Navenby, eight miles south of Lincoln. The castle had been built in 1281–82 and had been visited by the King before his accession. While staying there, Edward granted £50 and lands in Ponthieu to Isabella’s nurse, Théophania de St. Pierre, perhaps on her retirement.113 He also rewarded his own nurse, Alice de Leygrave, for her good service to Isabella.114 Around this time, Lancaster also gave £92 in gifts to Théophania and the Queen’s French servants.115

  By February, Isabella knew herself to be pregnant again. On 27 March, a new litter was delivered to her so that she could travel in comfort, for breeding women were not supposed to ride.

  In April, Parliament met again, at Westminster, but soon afterward, Lancaster withdrew from the King’s council. From now on, he would spend most of his time on his estates in the north, keeping state like a king but doing very little to maintain effective government. He was proving to be a reluctant, indecisive, and not particularly able ruler and was losing support, thanks to his own inertia and incompetence, and Edward’s relentless intrigues. It did not help that the famine was still raging, the Scots were still raiding the North with impunity, the Welsh were rebelling, and the kingdom was generally in a ferment of unrest, with private wars breaking out among the barons. But Lancaster repeatedly neglected state business in order to attend to his own interests. He had muzzled his king but had failed to offer a credible alternative; the principles he had claimed to uphold had been seemingly cast aside, and his sole purpose, it now appeared, was to control and humiliate the King.

  Mortimer, who had crushed the rebellion in Wales, which had been led by a patriot called Llywelyn Bren,116 had returne
d to court by 21 April but was back in the West between May and August. Then came the unwelcome news that Edward Bruce had had himself crowned High King of Ireland on 1 May.

  There were more bad tidings when Isabella’s brother, King Louis, died on 5 June at Vincennes of pleurisy or pneumonia, contracted through drinking iced wine after getting overheated playing tennis. He left his widow, Queen Clemence, pregnant. Until her child was born, France would be without a king, the first time this had occurred since 987, when the Capetian dynasty was founded; hence, Isabella’s second brother, Philip, Count of Poitou, was appointed Governor of France during the gestation and minority of the future sovereign. By 20 June, Isabella had heard of Louis’s passing and retired to Mortlake in Surrey to nurse her grief.117

  With Lancaster out of the way, and public discontent with his misrule mounting, the King was beginning to reassert himself. In June, he began to restore the victims of the Lancastrian purge, including the Elder Despenser, who now returned to court, and on 1 July, he replenished Isabella’s income, confirming all grants of land made to her since 1314118 and increasing the allowances he made for her household.

  The King was also planning to lead a new campaign against the Scots in October, and on 20 and 21 July, he arranged for the Bardi to pay the Queen’s expenses during his coming absence.119 In the hope of further reasserting his authority, he wrote to the Pope, asking if he might be crowned again with holy oil brought to England by Thomas à Becket; the Pope, a wiser man than Edward, could foresee how provocative such an act would be and refused.

  Late in July, Isabella went to Eltham to rest before her confinement, while the King went north to Lincoln for the next session of Parliament. He was now doing his best to woo Lancaster back to court, hoping to enlist his support for the coming Scottish campaign, but after Parliament had met at Lincoln on 29 July, he and Lancaster engaged in a furious quarrel over Scotland that scuppered all hopes of an invasion.120

  On 15 August, Isabella bore a second son, John, at Eltham. The King had resolved to make this happy event an occasion for reconciliation with Lancaster, and immediately after the birth, the Queen dispatched her valet, Goodwin Hawtayne, with letters to Lancaster and John Salmon, Bishop of Norwich, “requesting them to come to Eltham to stand sponsors for her son John.” The gesture had been made, but the response was an unforgivable snub, for there is no record of Lancaster’s turning up for the christening.

  The infant Prince was baptized on the twentieth in the Queen’s chapel at Eltham,121 where the font was specially draped with cloth of gold and a costly and rare piece of Turkey carpet. These cloths had been acquired by John de Fontenoy, the clerk to the Queen’s chapel, and came from the King’s Wardrobe, which also supplied the Queen’s tailor, Stephen Taloise, with five pieces of white velvet to make her a robe for her churching; Edward gave Isabella some jewelry and paid £40 for the ceremony.122

  The King rewarded Sir Eubulo de Montibus, Isabella’s steward, with £100 for riding to York and bringing him the joyful news of the “happy delivery” of John of Eltham, as the Prince would be known.123 He also rewarded Isabella, bestowing on her various grants of land and precious items supplied on credit by the Bardi,124 and arranged for prayers to be said for her and John in the house of the Dominicans in York. On 9 September, fearing an armed confrontation with Lancaster, the King ordered Isabella to join him in York with all speed.125 She left Eltham before 20 September, was at Buntingford in Hertfordshire on the twenty-second, and arrived in York just five days later. Edward, who had waited anxiously for news of her coming, rewarded the messenger who heralded her imminent arrival.126 The King and Queen stayed in York until October, when they returned south.127 By now, Edward’s trust in Isabella’s judgment was such that he allowed her to attend council meetings.

  On 9 October, the Bishop of Durham died, and both Edward and Isabella put forward their own candidates for the vacant see. Edward wanted Henry de Stanford, the Prior of Finchale, and Isabella, influenced by Henry de Beaumont and Isabella de Vesci, chose their brother, the “lavish” and “gleeful”128 Louis de Beaumont, a choice that seemed deliberately calculated to anger Lancaster.

  There were other contenders, too, nominated by Lancaster himself and Hereford, but on 19 October, the King commissioned Pembroke to ensure that either his own or the Queen’s man was appointed; Pembroke sent a number of barons to Durham Cathedral to ensure that the King’s wishes were complied with. But the Queen was angry to learn that, on 6 November, the monks of Durham had chosen Henry de Stanford, and, hastening to the King, she fell on her knees and begged him to secure the see for Louis de Beaumont, urging that Louis would “be a stone wall” against the Scots.129 Ignoring the protests of the Chapter of Durham that Louis was illiterate, Edward capitulated to his wife, refused to sanction the appointment of Stanford, and made a complaint to Avignon.130

  That autumn, the Mortimers, uncle and nephew, were riding high at court. At the beginning of October, Mortimer of Chirk had been reappointed Justiciar of North Wales, with almost sovereign powers, and in November, having persuaded Edward to allow him to deal with Edward Bruce, Roger Mortimer was made King’s Lieutenant of Ireland and began preparations to return there with an army.131

  There was more sad news from France. On 14 or 15 November, Queen Clemence had given birth to a son, King John I “the Posthumous,” but the precious infant died at the age of only seven or eight days and was buried near his father in the abbey of Saint-Denis. He was succeeded by his uncle, Isabella’s second brother, who now ascended the throne as Philip V.

  Philip V, nicknamed “the Tall” or “the Fair,” was another king such as his father had been, good-looking, intelligent, decisive, harsh, and ruthless. Predictably, there was talk that he had hastened his little nephew’s death, which may not have been without justification.

  At the beginning of December, the King ordered the Exchequer to pay Isabella a further £366 13s. 4d. (£366 67p.) a year, less the income from her English lands; however, the barons of Exchequer were tardy in making payments, and twice in January, the King and Queen had to chase them.132

  Christmas that year was spent at Clipstone. Roger Mortimer was present and stayed until after the Feast of the Epiphany.133 But it was a Christmas overshadowed by conflict, for Lancaster was making trouble, and England seemed once again to be on the verge of civil war.

  On 9 January 1317, Philip V was crowned with Jeanne of Burgundy at Rheims, but there were still those who asserted that his niece, the dispossessed Jeanne of Navarre, had a better title to the throne than he. The next month, therefore, he summoned an assembly of the three estates and invoked what he was pleased to call the Salic law (which allegedly dated from the time of the early Frankish kings), declaring that “a woman cannot succeed to the kingdom of France.” This law was of dubious legality and certainly contravened the normal feudal laws of inheritance; it was in time to have far-reaching implications for Isabella and her heirs. As for Jeanne, who was only six, Philip placated her supporters by agreeing that she could succeed her father as Queen of Navarre.134

  Robert Bruce himself landed in Ireland in January, and in February, he and his brother established themselves in Ulster. But when they pressed south and came within five miles of Dublin, Mortimer halted their advance.

  That same month, the King and Queen moved to the palatial royal hunting lodge at Clarendon, which stood on a hill in the midst of a forest near Salisbury and dated from the eleventh century. Like most of the other royal residences, it had been improved by Henry III. There were Gothic windows with gable heads in Isabella’s chambers, and one window sported a stained-glass depiction of the Virgin and Child. In the Queen’s Wardrobe, which was beneath her private chapel dedicated to Saint Catherine, there were murals showing Richard I fighting with Saladin and scenes from the history of Antioch. In the Queen’s hall, the marble-columned mantel was sculpted with a relief of the twelve months of the year.135

  Isabella attended the council meeting that took place at Clarend
on on 9 February,136 during which Edward and his supporters accused Lancaster of plotting with the Scots against him. Lancaster denied it, but there were many who had noticed that, during their repeated northern raids, the Scots had left his estates untouched and who openly speculated that he meant to enlist Robert Bruce’s help against Edward, which would have been treason of the first order.137

  On that same 9 February, in response to the Queen’s pleas, and also, it appears, some hefty bribes, including gifts worth £1,904 from the King and Queen, the accommodating Pope John provided Louis de Beaumont to the see of Durham, Louis having obligingly agreed to take reading lessons.138 Nevertheless, when he was enthroned on 26 March 1318, he was still barely able to understand the Latin.139

  Later that month, another bishopric, that of Rochester, became vacant, and again, Isabella involved herself in a contest to fill it, competing with the King in providing candidates. Edward wrote to Pope John in support of Hamo de Hethe, and Isabella made her plea to the Pontiff on behalf of her own confessor, John de Chisoye. She also enlisted the support of her brother, King Philip, and Pembroke. On hearing how she had set herself up in opposition to her husband, the Pope and his cardinals “marvelled” but put it down to Edward’s “inconsistency.” This time, however, Isabella did not get her own way, and on 18 March, Hamo de Hethe was elected Bishop of Rochester.140

  In April, the King and Queen visited Ramsey in Huntingdonshire,141 where they stayed in the abbey guesthouse dedicated to Saint Thomas of Canterbury, which had been built around 1180. The famine had now abated, and England was once more becoming “fruitful, with a manifold abundance of good things.”142 And there was encouraging news from Ireland, for that spring, Robert Bruce returned to Scotland, and soon afterward, Mortimer defeated his old enemies, the treacherous Lacys. He then set about rebuilding the English administration and persuading the King’s Irish subjects to return to their obedience.