by Alison Weir
The next day, Sir William Trussell, “on behalf of the whole kingdom,” formally renounced the nation’s homage to the deposed monarch. Then Sir Thomas Blount, the steward of the royal household, symbolically broke his staff of office to signify the termination of the household’s service. The former King was advised that, from henceforth, “ye shall be held a singular man of the people” and known as “the Lord Edward, sometime King of England.” The deputation then hastened back to Westminster, bearing with them the crown and the royal regalia.227
In the fourteenth-century Holkham Bible in the British Library, there is a picture of a queen turning a wheel of fortune. At the top appears a crowned king with a scepter; to the left, a figure hands him a crown. But to the right, the king is shown falling headlong, losing his crown, and dropping the scepter; and at the bottom, he is lying bareheaded and naked, covered only by a cloak, and ruefully gazing up at his former self. Almost certainly, the queen shown turning the wheel is meant to represent Isabella, and the picture is a comment on the fall of Edward II. Rarely in the annals of British royalty have the political consequences of a broken marriage been so clearly manifested.
By 24 January, Isabella had taken up residence in the Tower. On the morning of that day, when she rode through the City toward Westminster, members of the guilds, wearing their best hats and cloaks, hastened to greet her. That evening, when she returned, the heralds were out in the streets, proclaiming “Sir Edward’s” abdication and the new King’s peace.228 Soon, Isabella was surrounded by crowds of cheering, rejoicing citizens.
Edward III’s reign officially began the following day, 25 January 1327.229 Of course, as the King was a minor, the real rulers of England were Isabella and Mortimer.
CHAPTER NINE
Plots and Stratagems
Late January 1327 found Isabella and Mortimer busily establishing their new government. The Great Seal of England was delivered into Edward III’s hands on 28 January, and that same day, Hotham was appointed Chancellor and Orleton, Treasurer. On the twenty-ninth, the new King formally announced his father’s abdication, and new justices and barons of the Exchequer were appointed. At this time, Isabella settled half her debts to the Bardi.1
Edward III was crowned in Westminster Abbey on 1 February 1327 by Archbishop Reynolds; Bishops Stratford and Segrave assisted, while Burghersh, Hethe, and Airmyn sang the litanies. Before the ceremony began, the fourteen-year-old King was knighted by Lancaster, the senior male member of the royal House. The crown of Saint Edward the Confessor “was of vast size and a great weight,” but Edward III “bore it like a man.”2 Isabella wept throughout the long ritual of crowning,3 but Walsingham says that, although she had the face and bearing of a sorrowful widow, this was just a pretense. He was probably right, for she had every reason to rejoice, having accomplished all that she had set out to achieve. Sharing in her triumph was her lover Mortimer, a prominent presence at the coronation, during which three of his sons were knighted by the new King.4 After the ceremony, gold coins depicting a child’s hand reaching out to save a falling crown were scattered among the people—a pretty piece of propaganda.
It appears that Isabella also had a say in the design of Edward III’s Great Seal, which shows him seated on a throne carved in the Decorated style. Two fleurs-de-lis are prominently displayed, which signify his connection to the royal House of France through Isabella, and historians have noticed similarities with the seal of her brother, Louis X.5
On his coronation day, King Edward returned Isabella’s dower to her, with substantial additions, so that, instead of the £4,400 per annum she had formerly been assigned, she was now to receive the unprecedented sum of £13,333,6 which would make her one of the greatest landowners in the kingdom. Murimuth and Baker both assert that her dower amounted to about two-thirds of the royal income, so that Edward III was left with only one-third of his revenues to live on, but this is a gross exaggeration. No one at the time complained of the size of the award, which is understandable in view of her popularity both as the destroyer of the Despensers and the mother of the young King. One chronicler enthusiastically refers to her as “Mother Isabella, our royal, noble, prudent, beautiful and excellent star,”7 a view echoed by the Pope himself,8 while Parliament was at pains to acknowledge the country’s debt to Isabella and to emphasize that she was to continue to reign all her life in consideration of the great labors she had undertaken and the anguish she had suffered.9
Isabella may have been acquisitive and materialistic, yet the securing of such a great landed interest was probably due less to mere greed than to her need to exercise extensive patronage in the interests of consolidating her position and that of the regime she had established, which she was aware had been founded on a shaky constitutional basis. Both she and Mortimer recognized the wisdom of rewarding their supporters with grants, offices, and perquisites. Another reason for Isabella’s apparent greed was undoubtedly the desire to be compensated for what she had lost, in terms of both money and status, and the determination that she should never again suffer the financial insecurity and humiliation that had been imposed on her by the Despensers.
The lands of Isabella’s enlarged dower were scattered throughout every English county except the four northernmost ones, and in parts of Wales. Among them were many important properties, including a number owned by Edward II, notably, his favorite house at Langley and the royal Thames-side manor of Sheen, which Isabella would hold until her death; it was a moated house dating from the twelfth century, with upper and lower courts, and had been used occasionally by Edward.10
Then there was Leeds Castle,11 the scene of the siege of 1321 and a property that had belonged to earlier queen consorts. Built in a stunning setting on two connected islands on a large and beautiful lake, the original Norman keep had been extensively altered by Edward I to form a luxurious fortified palace for his wives. A stone “gloriette” (Spanish for “pavilion”) enclosing a courtyard garden with a fountain had been raised on the smaller island for Eleanor of Castile and a second castle built on the larger island for Marguerite of France. A bridge connected the two. A chantry for Queen Eleanor had been established in the chapel. The chambers Isabella used were those built for Eleanor in the gloriette, and they included a bathroom.12
Other properties granted to Isabella included the royal manor of Havering-atte-Bower in Essex, which had been built by Edward the Confessor, remodeled in the thirteenth century, and then held by Eleanor of Provence and Marguerite of France; the royal castle and adjacent palace at Guildford in Surrey; other royal castles at Portchester in Hampshire, Saint Briavel’s, Gloucester, and Tickhill, Yorkshire; Odiham Castle in Hampshire, which had once belonged to Roger d’Amory; the royal manors of Byfleet in Surrey (another place favored by Edward II), Gravesend in Kent, Isleworth in Middlesex, and Burstwick and Cowick in Yorkshire; Hadleigh Castle in Essex; the castle of the Peak in Derbyshire; Rockingham Castle in Northamptonshire; Builth in Wales, which the Queen passed on to Mortimer; Bristol Castle; and Langley Marish in Buckinghamshire, an exceptionally attractive property that had been visited often by Edward II; Isabella’s chamber there opened onto a garden, and there were vines growing by the door of the great hall.13
The Queen also received much of the Lincoln inheritance, including Pontefract Castle, which had been appropriated by Despenser and should by rights have gone to Lancaster. This was probably the main reason why she arranged for her dower to be assigned before Parliament reassembled, for she dared not risk the grant’s being openly challenged by the powerful Lancastrian faction.14
In 1327, Isabella purchased Castle Rising in Norfolk, a house that was in the future to be indelibly associated with her, from Emma, the widow of Robert de Montalt, in exchange for an annuity. Montalt, who had been one of the first to join the Queen the previous autumn, had since died without heirs and left Isabella his manor of Framsden in Suffolk. Hertford Castle also came into Isabella’s hands in 1327, surrendered to her by Pembroke’s widow; it had been given to P
embroke by Queen Marguerite, but Isabella evidently felt it should revert to her.15
It was probably at this time also that Isabella acquired her London residence in Lombard Street. This street was thus named because, since the twelfth century, Lombard bankers had based their London operations there, but the house Isabella took was leased from the Benedictine priory of Saint Helen in Bishopsgate, one of the wealthiest religious houses in the City. When in London, Isabella stayed either here or at Westminster Palace; between 1327 and 1330, “by order of the Queen Mother,” various improvements were made to her apartments at Westminster.16
There can be no doubt that, during the period of her rule, Isabella lived more lavishly than any English queen before her. Not until the heyday of Henry VI’s wife, Margaret of Anjou, in the fifteenth century, did a consort again enjoy such wealth, luxury, and power.
On the day after the coronation, the Queen made an overnight visit to Eltham.17 She returned on 3 February, when Parliament met again at Westminster,18 and her influence is plainly detectable in its proceedings, as is Lancaster’s. That first day, a regency council was formed, with Lancaster as its president and the King’s official guardian. Most sources agree that there were twelve members: the rest were Archbishops Reynolds and Melton; Bishops Stratford and Orleton; the Earls of Norfolk, Kent, and Surrey; Lords Wake and Percy; Sir Oliver de Ingham; and John de Ros, who was steward of the joint household of Edward III and Queen Isabella, and Lancaster’s son-in-law.19 No official roles were assigned to the Queen or Mortimer: the Rolls of Parliament are alone in stating that there were fourteen members of the council, but this may be an error, as they do not name the other two. Doherty20 thinks Mortimer was one of them, because Froissart refers to him as one of the great men who ruled the kingdom after the coronation, but Froissart does not specifically say that Mortimer was a member of the council, and if he had been, contemporary chroniclers would surely have included him in their lists.
Although the fiction was maintained that Edward III was in control of his government, Isabella effectively “practised on [him] in his minority” and ruled in his name with Mortimer as unofficial regents, while Mortimer’s interests were represented on the council by his friends Orleton and Ingham, and later by Hotham and Sir Simon Bereford. Isabella and Mortimer “entirely governed” both King and administration and dictated policy, and power was firmly in their hands.21 The Queen controlled the great offices of state through the men she had nominated to them, and the Chancellor, Treasurer, and Keeper of the Privy Seal accompanied her everywhere she went.22 She controlled access to the King, a state of affairs that before long would “inspire a great deal of envy.”23
There can be little doubt, however, that Isabella was motivated also by ambition for her son, whom she undoubtedly loved very dearly. It was fortunate that her ambitions for him coincided with those she cherished for herself and that she was able, quite legitimately, to identify the latter with those of the Crown. The relationship between mother and son was epitomized in an illuminated manuscript illustration in a treatise by Walter de Milemete, which was probably executed at this time and was presented to Edward III; it shows the young, beardless King enthroned beside his mother, both wearing their crowns.24
Baker claims that Orleton formed the third part of a triumvirate with Isabella and Mortimer, but this is grossly to overstate his role. In fact, he was abroad on a diplomatic mission for much of 1327, and when he did return, it was to find himself out of favor with Isabella and Mortimer for having accepted the bishopric of Worcester from the Pope to the detriment of their own candidate.
Since Isabella and Mortimer shared power, and exercised it unofficially, it is hard to determine whose was the dominant influence. Everything was done in the name of the King, or of the Queen and her son, and although it was said that “the Queen ruled,”25 many people believed that both Isabella and Edward were dominated by Mortimer. However, there is plenty of evidence that it was Isabella, rather than Mortimer, who was the real power behind the throne at this time. Nevertheless, she relied on Mortimer’s military strength and expertise, and there are examples of his taking the initiative in important matters without reference to her. It seems, therefore, that each trusted the other to act in a way they would approve of and that both exercised authority in different spheres.
Isabella’s power was founded upon the formidable bastions of her status as Queen Mother and her son’s affection and loyalty. She kept the boy with her as much as possible and exerted considerable influence over him. Mortimer’s power, however, was founded mainly upon his intimate relationship with the Queen, although he himself liked to stress his descent from King John, as several contemporary documents referring to him as “the King’s kinsman” bear witness.26 Yet many other lords could claim kinship to the King, and Mortimer’s present preeminence was due entirely to the fact that he was the Queen’s lover.27 Knighton claims they shared one lodging wherever they went, but in view of the golden opinions of Isabella voiced at this time by the Pope and others, it appears that the lovers were at pains to be discreet.
Parliament proceeded to issue pardons, redress Lancastrian grievances, reinstate the contrariants in their lands, and reward those who had supported the Queen.28 Henry of Lancaster’s substantial contribution to the success of the Queen’s invasion was handsomely recognized. The sentence on Thomas of Lancaster was reversed, enabling his brother to succeed him formally,29 and soon afterward, Edward III, at the prompting of his mother, sent a request for Thomas’s canonization to the Pope, extolling his virtues,30 which she knew would earn her popularity and keep Lancaster loyal. John XXII was to refuse this request, and three more made in the name of Edward III, probably because he was aware that Thomas’s motives had been more self-interested than saintly.
Another popular move promoted by the Queen was the passing of an act limiting the areas in which the harsh forest laws could be enforced.31 Edward II’s proceedings against Orleton were annulled, and on 6 February, Airmyn at last received the temporalities of Norwich. At this time, the Queen was granted all seigneurial rights in her estates.32 On 15 February, at the request of his mother, Edward III granted two of Despenser’s manors to Henry de Beaumont and his wife.33
Isabella saw to it that Mortimer was lavishly rewarded “in consideration of his services to the Queen and the King, here and beyond seas.”34 On 15 February, the lucrative wardships of the heirs of Warwick and Audley were restored to him, and he was granted that of Lord Hastings (in October, he would also receive the wardship of Pembroke’s heir),35 and on 20 February, he was appointed Justiciar of the diocese of Llandaff. On the twenty-first, Parliament reversed the sentence on both Mortimer and Chirk, formally pardoned Mortimer for escaping from the Tower and for “other offences,” and restored his father’s estates to him. He was then appointed Justiciar of Wales for life, with jurisdiction over all the Crown lands there.36 The Queen also ensured that Mortimer received Chirk’s estate.37
In late February and early March, grants of lands, tenements, and revenues were made to Lancaster, Kent, Norfolk, Wake, Orleton, and Burghersh in consideration of their good service rendered to Edward III and Queen Isabella,38 while Sir John of Hainault was rewarded with a pension.39 Edward III confirmed the grants made to his mother during the Epiphany Parliament and granted her another 1,000 marks for provisions;40 in March, she finally took possession of her lands and chattels.41 By then, Isabella had set up her own household once more, which was from now on to be independent of that of the King.
Parliament also issued pardons to the City of London, which received a new charter of liberties, and to many of the Despensers’ former adherents. Isabella’s treasurer, William de Boudon,42 was promoted, while her clerk, Robert Wyville, was relieved of the Privy Seal and, through her influence, made a canon of Lichfield. Its long program of rewards and restorations completed, Parliament finally adjourned on 9 March.
Meanwhile, during February, a London mob had broken into Orleton’s London house and savage
ly assaulted Robert Baldock, who was still living there under house arrest. They dragged him off to Newgate prison and had him locked up, but his injuries were so serious that he died there soon afterward.43 Orleton was later to be accused of maltreating Baldock but successfully protested his innocence.44
It has been claimed that Isabella had no real policy apart from consolidating her position. She certainly made efforts to achieve the latter through rewarding her supporters, keeping the Lancastrian faction sweet, and compensating those who had suffered under the Despenser regime. To begin with, her overriding preoccupation was to redress the catastrophes and injustices of the previous reign and so maintain her popularity.
Yet she was also a realist who understood that popularity did not come at any price and that unpopular measures were sometimes necessary. She knew she faced daunting problems, especially concerning Scotland and France, which had eluded solutions for decades past. Her foreign policy with regard to these kingdoms would amply demonstrate her pragmatism and show that she recognized the limitations within which she had to operate and did not shrink from implementing commonsense policies that would bring long-term benefits rather than short-term glory and plaudits.