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

by Alison Weir

  April saw the four-year-old Prince Edward’s first public appearance. Very little is known about the Prince’s childhood, apart from the fact that he spent much of it at Eltham with his brother John in “the Princes’ tower,”143 and that one of his noble companions was a Griffin of Wales, but we do know something about his education. He was taught by royal clerks, the most celebrated of whom was Richard de Bury, who was made Bishop of Durham by his former pupil in 1333. Bury was a great bibliophile and scholar, and in his time served as an ambassador to France, Hainault, and Germany. Under his auspices, the Prince learned to read and write—his is the first surviving autograph of an English king—and became fluent in Norman-French, French, Latin, and English. He also developed a working knowledge of German and Flemish. There is abundant evidence that he acquired proficiency in the admired aristocratic skills of riding, swordsmanship, jousting, hunting, hawking, coursing, dancing, singing, and shooting with a longbow. He was brought up to be articulate, courteous, and affable with all. No king could have asked for a more promising son and heir.

  Parliament met at Westminster on 15 April. On the same date, £20 was paid to one Brother Richard de Brumfield “for three days’ entertainment for the Lord the King, the Lady the Queen and the Lord Edward, their son.”144 On 22 April, Edward granted Isabella the manors of Wallingford, which had belonged to Gaveston, and Saint Valery.

  Then scandal erupted. In May, Lancaster’s Countess, Alice de Lacy, eloped with her lover, Eubulo Lestraunge, a squire in the service of the Earl of Surrey, Lancaster’s enemy, whose knight, Sir Richard de Saint Martin, had “abducted” her from her unfaithful and unprepossessing husband. Alice immediately claimed Surrey’s protection, while Lestraunge lost no time in proclaiming to the world that he had slept with her before her marriage and in so doing severely compromised her reputation. There had been bad blood between Lancaster and Surrey for years, but the abduction of Lancaster’s wife, who was irrevocably and publicly shamed, was a deadly insult that the Earl was determined to avenge, and he now entered into a destructive and futile struggle with his rival to retrieve his wife and his lost honor. He began by ravaging and plundering Surrey’s lands and castles in Yorkshire, in the process plunging them both into a bloody and disruptive private war.145

  To make matters worse, Lancaster suspected that the King and Queen had actually encouraged his wife to leave him and that they had plotted her abduction at the council held at Clarendon in February. Edward feebly forbade Lancaster to resort to violence and advised him to “seek a remedy in law only,”146 but this made no difference whatsoever, even though the Earl was warned that, if he persisted in his private war, “the King would either have his head or consign him to prison.”147 Lancaster, in turn, declared that he would not come to court because he feared treachery. It now seemed unlikely that Edward and his cousin would ever be reconciled.

  At Whitsun, as was customary, the King and Queen held court at Westminster, but as they were feasting, a mysterious woman “adorned with a theatrical dress” entered the hall “on a fine horse” and, “after the manner of players, made a circuit round the tables” before approaching the dais and presenting the King with a letter. Before he could respond, she bowed, turned her horse, and left the hall. Thinking this was some kind of courtly game, Edward commanded that the letter be opened and read aloud for the amusement of the company. But he was mortified and embarrassed when it proved to be a damning indictment of his rule. The woman was quickly arrested and revealed that a certain knight had set her up to deliver the letter; when questioned, this knight insisted that he had acted in the interests of the King’s honor and in the sincere hope that his sovereign would heed “the complaints of his subjects”; however, he emphasized that he had meant the letter to be read in private. Edward was impressed with the man’s sincerity and integrity; he rewarded him “with abundant gifts” and set the woman free.148 But he paid little or no attention to their grievances.

  On 7 July, Edward II effectively founded what later became known as King’s Hall at Cambridge, which was refounded by Henry VIII as Trinity College in 1546. Edward’s foundation was for the education of twelve scholars, who he probably hoped would become loyal servants of the Crown. In 1318, the Pope granted King’s Hall the status of a university college.

  In July, the King and Queen set out for Nottingham. They spent some days at Saint Albans Abbey, where Edward blessed and touched twenty-two scrofulous persons suffering from “the King’s Evil,” in the hope of curing them, a royal duty that would be faithfully carried out by every future sovereign until the time of Queen Anne. After this, the King and Queen moved on to Bedford, then to the royal manor of King’s Cliffe in Northamptonshire.149

  Parliament met at Nottingham on 18 July. On the twenty-fifth, the King granted Isabella Gaveston’s old county of Cornwall.150 Later in the year, in November, the Queen would also be assigned revenues from London.

  In September, after visiting Lincoln, the royal couple stayed at Tickhill Castle in Yorkshire.151 On the tenth, at Isabella’s request, the King confirmed charters that had been granted to the Order of Premontré at Blanchelande in the Côtentin in Normandy.152 Then it was on to York, where the royal couple stayed once more with the Franciscans.153

  There now arose a property dispute that was to have an immense bearing not only on Isabella’s future but also on national politics and the lives of the King’s subjects.

  When Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, had been killed in 1314 at Bannockburn, he had left no child to succeed him, and hence, the great and ancient earldom of Gloucester looked set to be divided up among the Earl’s coheirs, his three sisters. However, his Countess immediately announced that she was pregnant, so the matter was left in abeyance until such time as she should bear her child. Three years later, even she had to concede that there would be no baby, and in November 1317, the earldom was divided up among the Earl’s sisters, all of whom were now married to men high in the King’s favor.

  The eldest sister, Eleanor, now twenty-five, was married to Hugh le Despenser the Younger, a fine figure of a man154 who was at least three years younger than the King and had been a member of his household when he was Prince of Wales. He had fought at Bannockburn in 1314, had been first summoned to Parliament in 1315, and had again served in Scotland in 1317. While his father had been a consistently loyal supporter of the King, the younger Despenser had aligned himself with the baronial party, which had long been hostile to the elder Hugh. He was proud, cunning, aggressively acquisitive and self-serving, and extremely capable. He could be brutal when provoked: in 1315, he had illegally seized Tonbridge Castle, thinking that it belonged to Gloucester’s widow, and then had to give it back when it transpired that it was actually held by the Archbishop of Canterbury; and in 1316, for reasons that are not clear, he physically attacked one of the lords at the Lincoln Parliament.155

  The royal Wardrobe accounts show that Despenser’s wife, Eleanor de Clare, was clearly a favorite of her uncle, the King, who paid her living expenses throughout his reign,156 a privilege not extended to her two sisters.

  The second sister, Margaret de Clare, aged twenty-four, had been married to Piers Gaveston but was now the wife of Hugh de Audley, one of the King’s household knights. The third sister, Elizabeth, aged twenty-two, had just married her third husband, Roger d’Amory, another household knight, who had served with distinction at Bannockburn.

  Normally, where there was more than one heiress, an estate was divided into equal shares, but in November 1317, Hugh le Despenser was allowed to claim Glamorgan, the largest and richest share of the Clare inheritance, ostensibly because he was married to the eldest sister. The truth was that he was already embarked on a meteoric rise to royal favor, thanks no doubt to the influence of his wife, and was rapidly becoming skilled at manipulating the King. Audley had to be content with Newport and Netherwent, and d’Amory got Usk.

  But Despenser was not satisfied with his share. He meant to have the rest of the Gloucester in
heritance, and he now set out to get it, by fair means or foul. In 1317, he attempted unsuccessfully to seize from Audley the lordship of Glennllwg, which had once been part of Glamorgan. He “set traps for his co-heirs; thus, if he could manage it, each would lose his share through false accusations, and he alone would obtain the whole earldom.”157

  For nearly four years now, Lancaster had been in the ascendant, and he and the King had wrangled and struggled for power, with barons siding behind one or the other—mostly, to begin with, behind Lancaster. But Lancaster had proved that he was no more capable than Edward of good government. Meanwhile, the King had been steadily building up his own court party, which included d’Amory, Audley, Surrey, the Despensers, and William de Montacute, another loyal household knight. Lancaster would certainly have regarded Isabella as being affiliated to this court party, since she had recently extended her patronage to several men who were dependents of Edward’s principal supporters.158

  Roger d’Amory, who was naturally anxious to receive his proper share of the de Clare inheritance, was gaining rapidly in favor with the King and became especially close to Edward at this time. But again, Edward displayed poor judgment in allowing such a man to influence him. In September 1317, thanks to the efforts of two emissaries from the Pope, Lancaster had grudgingly agreed to return to court. But the King, egged on by d’Amory, who had been ousted from the constableship of two royal castles by Lancaster, had raised an army at York and marched provocatively in full battle order past the Earl’s castle at Pontefract. Although Lancaster ignored the challenge, the King’s action effectively scuppered any chance of a reconciliation between them. In fact, civil war appeared to be a very real possibility.

  Pembroke, remembering Gaveston, now realized the necessity for controlling d’Amory, and on 24 November, he entered into a compact with the new favorite, and with an influential baron, Bartholemew, Lord Badlesmere, with all agreeing that they would support and consult one another when advising the King.159 Their alliance has been erroneously described as a “Middle Party,” but it was more of a damage-limitation exercise; nevertheless, it did moderate the King and provided an alternative to Lancaster’s misrule. And d’Amory’s influence ensured that, by the spring of 1318, Pembroke and Badlesmere had gained greater credit with Edward. By then, others—including Arundel, Hereford, Surrey, the Mortimers, and Archbishop Reynolds—had tired of Lancaster’s complacency and aligned themselves with Pembroke.

  The King and Queen kept the Christmas of 1317 at Westminster. Isabella was once again pregnant.

  There was more sad news for the Queen in the new year of 1318, for on 14 February, her aunt, Queen Marguerite, died at Marlborough Castle.160 Isabella was probably present with the King at her funeral later that month;161 wrapped in a Franciscan habit, Marguerite was buried before the high altar in the unfinished choir of the Grey Friars in Newgate, London, the church she had herself partially rebuilt, enlarged, and endowed, and in which the heart of Eleanor of Provence, Edward’s grandmother, had been interred in 1291. A beautiful tomb would be raised to the memory of Queen Marguerite, but it was defaced and then lost after the Reformation.

  Isabella, too, had a special affection for this church, and not just because of her affinity with the Franciscan Order. It seems that Marguerite had asked for the new building to be modeled on the lines and scale of the Franciscan Church of the Cordeliers in Paris, which had been founded by Saint Louis around 1250, and in which Isabella’s own mother, Jeanne of Navarre, had been laid to rest. It is no coincidence that there was a chapel dedicated to Saint Louis at Newgate. It was Isabella who would pay handsomely toward the completion of the London church, which, when finished in 1348, would measure a grand three hundred feet long by eighty-nine feet wide by sixty-four feet high, making it second only to Saint Paul’s in size. It was a beautiful light and spacious building, having fifteen bays with two clerestory windows in each, and several chapels leading off the aisles, which had slender piers with octagonal bases supporting a tall arcade of pointed arches.162 Isabella herself paid for the glazing of the window at the east end, behind the altar; in all, she spent about £70 on Grey Friars. Thanks to the patronage of Isabella, Marguerite, and other royal ladies, Grey Friars at Newgate remained the most prestigious Franciscan house in England, and the most fashionable church in London, for the next two centuries, and many notable persons chose to be buried there.

  The death of Marguerite at last released the dower lands and manors of the queens of England, which now reverted to Isabella. On 23 February, the King commanded the Exchequer to list all the late Queen’s properties,163 and that same day, Isabella surrendered all her holdings to the Crown pending the new settlement. On 5 March, thanks to the efficiency of William de Montacute, she was granted her permanent dower lands,164 and on the sixth, Ponthieu and Montreuil were restored to her, but she would have to wait until 30 October to receive back the county of Cornwall.165 On 20 March, when the royal couple were at Clarendon, the King arranged for the arrears of the Queen’s income to be paid to her and ordered the Bardi to cover her expenses in the interim.166 Her Treasurer was ordered to keep close watch on the expenditure of her servants from now on. Edward also made a grant to the priory of Ivychurch at Isabella’s instance.

  There was good and bad news from beyond England’s borders. In Ireland, by March 1318, Roger Mortimer had stamped out most of the resistance to English rule; but on 26 March, Bruce delivered a crushing blow to the English by seizing the strategic fortress of Berwick, thus depriving his enemies of their traditional bridgehead into Scotland. The Scots followed up this triumph by impudently raiding as far south as Yorkshire. At this time, the King was in no position to attempt to recover Berwick, having insufficient money or men.

  It was at this perilous juncture that, thanks to Pembroke’s conciliatory influence, Edward reached a preliminary settlement with Lancaster. But it was to be systematically sabotaged by Edward’s new court favorites, d’Amory, Audley, and Montacute, who objected vehemently to Lancaster’s insistence that the Crown resume all grants and gifts made since 1310.167 Had the King agreed to this, it is likely that some of Isabella’s dependents would have been considerably worse off, for it is clear that Lancaster meant to stem the flow of gifts to her servants; therefore, it would be fair to assume that the Queen, who had already suffered financially at Lancaster’s hands and had since been most generously compensated by the King, was on the side of the court party;168 after all, she had no reason to love Lancaster and had been his enemy for at least four years now.

  Early in the summer, the King and Queen were guests of honor at weddings at Havering-atte-Bower in Essex, Windsor, and Woodstock. Edward’s household roll records the provision of coins that, at the King’s order, were thrown over the heads of the happy couples as they made their vows at the chapel doors.

  Isabella, whose confinement was approaching, retired to the royal manor of Woodstock in Oxfordshire before 11 June. Woodstock, which stood in Wychwood Forest and had been recently settled on the Queen as part of her dower,169 had been a royal retreat and hunting box since before the Conquest, but the present house, with its aisled hall, had originally been built by Henry I in the early twelfth century. The stone wall surrounding the hunting park extended for seven miles, and within its precincts was a royal menagerie that housed “strange beasts from far countries,” notably, lions, lynxes, leopards, and porcupines. Henry III had remodeled the royal apartments in the thirteenth century. Isabella’s chambers overlooked a garden with a maple tree by a pool, and she could take the air in open cloisters or walk to the spring at nearby Everswell, where there was a garden with a hundred pear trees.170

  On 13 June, the King visited Canterbury alone.171 Five days later, back at Woodstock, the Queen bore a daughter, who was christened Eleanor, after the King’s mother. Edward hastened to his wife’s side and paid out £333 for a feast given to celebrate her churching.172 After this, on 28 June, the royal couple traveled together to Northampton,173 where Parliament ass
embled in July.

  While they were there, Isabella became very disturbed about growing rumors that the King was a changeling. Considering the disasters of his reign and his inept rule, it is hardly surprising that people were beginning to believe such rumors.174

  They had started when a tanner’s son, John Deydras, also known as John of Powderham, who may have been mentally unbalanced, suddenly appeared at Beaumont Palace, the old royal residence in Oxford, and claimed possession of it, insisting that he was “the true heir of the realm, as the son of the illustrious King Edward, who had long been dead. He declared that my Lord Edward was not of the blood royal, nor had any right to the realm, which he offered to prove by combat with him.”175 Deydras was tall and fair, and uncannily resembled Edward, but he was missing an ear.

  He claimed that, when he was a baby, he had been mauled by a sow who had ripped off his ear, and that his nurse, too terrified to tell Edward I what had happened, had substituted a carter’s son in his place; he himself had been reared by the carter, and the changeling as the King’s son. As additional proof of Edward’s humble origins, Deydras cited his notorious love of rustic pursuits and “other vanities and frivolities” that were unbecoming in a king’s son. But he could offer no proof to support his tale.

  Edward had the imposter arrested and brought before him at Northampton. “Welcome, my brother,” he said, with some irony.

  But Deydras was in no mood to be trifled with. “Thou art no brother of mine,” he retorted, “but falsely thou claimest the kingdom for thyself. Thou hast not a drop of blood from the illustrious Edward, and that I am prepared to prove against thee.”