Queen Isabella: Treachery, Adultery, and Murder in Medieval England
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On 8 April, the Queen arrived at Peterborough Abbey (now the cathedral), where she probably stayed either in the King’s Lodging by the gateway or in the Abbot’s palatial house, with its luxurious hall, chamber, and chapel. Here, at Peterborough, Edward III formally ratified the new peace treaty with France.72 On the eleventh, the royal family celebrated Easter in the abbey, and they were still there on the fourteenth, but had arrived at Stamford in Lincolnshire two days later. Much to the Abbot’s dismay, Isabella left her younger children at Peterborough for eight weeks, at his expense, which proved a severe strain on the abbey’s finances.
At Stamford, during a council meeting held by the Queen on 19 April, the sensitive subject of Isabella’s relations with Edward II was discussed. Her letters and gifts were probably mentioned, and the possibility of her joining him was again brought up by some of the bishops, whose consciences were exercised over her illicit relationship with Mortimer.73 As we have seen, the Queen was reluctant to go back to her husband,74 but as she did not wish to incur public censure, she left the decision as to what she should do to the council. Mortimer, however, was well aware of her fears and violently opposed to her returning to Edward, and after he had done some hard talking behind the scenes, Orleton reminded the council that it had already forbidden the Queen ever to return to Edward, “owing to his cruelty.” At this, the matter was quietly dropped, but it must have left Isabella feeling somewhat perturbed.75
The government was still doing its best, without any success, to track down the conspirators who had tried to free the former King, and on 23 April, the council ordered the arrest of William Aylmer, on the pretext that he had been an ally of Despenser, which was nonsense, since Parliament had pardoned the favorite’s more important adherents back in March.76 In fact, the council was reluctant to publicize the fact that there had been a conspiracy to free Edward II, in case other malcontents had the same idea.
The court left Stamford on 25 April. The next day, Isabella was granted further arrears of revenues due to her from her dower lands.
On 28 April, Lancaster asked for a warrant to be issued for the arrest of another Dominican friar, John Stoke. Although he was not listed with the rest of Dunheved’s gang, the fact that he was based in Warwickshire suggests that he was connected with their conspiracy. The order for his arrest was issued on 1 May; it contained the unusual instruction that, if found, he was to be brought immediately before the King.77
The court arrived at Nottingham on 29 April. Although Isabella had commissioned new peace talks with the Scots on 23 April,78 the outlook for a settlement now seemed dismal, and war appeared inevitable. In anticipation of an invasion by Bruce, a general evacuation of the northern shires was ordered, and, at Isabella’s behest, the young King sent a “most affectionate” request to Hainault for Sir John to return with his mercenaries79 (he had gone back to Hainault after the coronation, loaded with gifts from the Queen and an annuity of 400 marks from her son).80 Henry Eastry criticized Isabella for hiring foreigners to fight the Scots, prophetically foreseeing trouble ahead.81
On 4 May, a warrant was issued for the apprehension of Stephen Dunheved, who was to be conveyed to the Queen’s castle at Wallingford.82 But Dunheved, like Stoke, proved elusive.
The next day, “with the assent of Queen Isabella,” Edward III granted privileges to the inhabitants of her city of Winchester, which he had assigned to her for life.83
The question of the Queen’s return to her husband was still unresolved, at least in the mind of the Pope, who, on 9 May, wrote urging that every effort be made to bring about a reconciliation between Edward and Isabella.84 The timing of this letter suggests that it was written in response to an appeal from one or more of those who had attended the council meeting at Stamford, perhaps one of the ecclesiastics who were privately scandalized at Isabella’s liaison with Mortimer. It has been suggested also that the Pope’s letter was solicited as a ploy, by those who felt she had too much influence, to neutralize Isabella,85 but this was unlikely, as it would not have accounted for opposition on the part of Mortimer, who, as we have seen, would not have countenanced Isabella’s returning to her husband.
The Pope’s injunction was conveniently ignored. Isabella and Mortimer and their associates were too preoccupied with the imminent confrontation with the Scots. On 23 May, Isabella and the young King reached York,86 where a large army was gathering. There, they took up lodgings in the house of the Black Friars (Dominicans), “keeping their households separate: the King with his knights, [who were] lodged in the hall and cloisters, and the Queen with her ladies, of whom there were a great number.”87 The friary, which had been founded by Henry III in 1228, stood in King’s Tofts, between Tanner Row and the city walls.88
On 27 May, Sir John of Hainault arrived with five hundred Flemish mercenaries, “and they were splendidly feasted by the King and his mother and all the barons. They were given the best quarters in the city, and Sir John was given the abbey of Whitefriars as his headquarters.”89 Unfortunately, this cordial welcome was to be marred by the appalling events of Trinity Sunday.
On that day, 7 June, Isabella hosted a banquet in the house of the Black Friars, where
the young King held court. The King had six hundred knights, and he created fifteen new ones. The Queen held her court in the dormitory, where at least sixty ladies sat at her table, whom she had assembled to entertain Sir John and the other knights. A large number of nobles were seen there, well served with many ingenious dishes, so disguised that no one could tell what they were. And the ladies were superbly dressed, with rich jewels, taking their ease.
But there was to be no continuation of the feast, or dancing, for immediately after dinner, a violent quarrel broke out between the servants of the army of Hainault and the English archers, who were lodged with them. When these servants began fighting with the English, all the other archers who were in the same quarters as the Hainaulters assembled together, with their bows strung. A cry of alarm went up, and they started shooting at the Hainaulters. Most of the knights and their masters were still at court and knew nothing of the matter, but as soon as they heard of this affray, they hurried back to their quarters. Those who were left outside were in great danger, for the archers, who were at least two thousand in number, were quite beyond control, and were shooting indiscriminately at masters and servants alike.
Some people were of the opinion that this had all been planned as an act of revenge by friends of the Despensers, but in fact, the English archers were merely expressing their usual xenophobic hatred of foreigners. During the riot, many Hainaulters were wounded, and the violence was only curbed when three knights “took great oak staves from the house of a carter and dealt such fierce blows that nobody dared approach,” knocking down sixty men. In the end, Isabella made the King and Lord Wake mount their horses and ride through the streets, proclaiming that anyone caught attacking the Hainaulters would be instantly beheaded. At this, the archers retreated, leaving three hundred dead bodies in and around the Blackfriars. Even now, the Hainaulters were not completely safe and were warned of violent reprisals, “for the surviving archers hated them more than the Scots, who all this time were burning their country!” None of the foreigners dared leave their lodgings for the next four weeks, “except to join the lords who went to see the King and Queen and their council.”90
In the King’s name, on 14 June, an inquiry into the riot was ordered. Ultimately, it blamed the English archers, which only exacerbated the bad feeling against the Hainaulters and made the latter feel even more threatened.91
On 8 June, the day after the riot, Mortimer’s judicial jurisdiction was extended to cover the counties of Hereford, Stafford, and Worcester, which suggests that the government was still disturbed about the activities of dissidents in those parts. On the twelfth, Roger received the lavish grant of the Despenser lands in Glamorgan, which he was to hold “during pleasure.”92 By now, so much of the property of the former favorites had been appropriated or reassig
ned by Isabella that their descendants complained to Froissart that she had been “an evil queen who took everything from them.” By contrast, Mortimer, through her influence, was now a very wealthy man.
On 10 June, negotiations with the Scots again broke down,93 and on the fifteenth, Bruce sent new raiding parties across the border. Norfolk and Kent were now appointed to captain the royal army, with Lancaster in overall command, and more levies were summoned.94
Edward III marched north from York, at the head of his army, on 1 July.95 After he had left, the Queen vacated the Blackfriars monastery for the greater security of York Castle, where she remained with her younger children; £28 was spent on fitting out a tower for her.96 She kept in touch with the King by letter and deployed measures to ensure that York was adequately defended against the Scots.97
In the middle of July, as the English envoys were leaving Hainault for Avignon after receiving Count William’s formal consent to the proposed marriage, Bruce launched an attack across the border. The King’s train reached Durham by the fifteenth,98 when Mortimer joined it.
The campaign was farcical. On 19 July, the English, who had no idea where the Scots really were, pushed south toward Stanhope in Weardale, hoping to force a confrontation. The Scots were waiting for them and preparing for battle, but the English thought they were about to flee and rushed away to cut off their retreat at the River Tyne. Of course, the Scots did not appear. Thereafter, they continually outmaneuvered the English and employed maddening evasion tactics. On 27 July, the exhausted English army was stranded between Haydon and Haltwhistle, and by the thirtieth, having failed repeatedly to engage the enemy, they had returned dejectedly to Stanhope. The next day, the Scots cunningly foiled an attempt to ambush them, and early in August, the Black Douglas daringly raided the King’s own camp in Stanhope Park before vanishing back to Scotland on the sixth. The young King felt so deeply humiliated by the failure of his first campaign that he burst into tears of frustration.99
It was probably in mid- to late June that a party of conspirators led by the Dominican friar Stephen Dunheved managed to free Edward II from Berkeley Castle. The whole episode is shrouded in secrecy because Isabella and Mortimer did not want it publicized,100 but it can be dated to this time thanks to a number of measures taken by the council.
As we have seen, the government had long regarded Stephen Dunheved as a very dangerous man and was anxious to apprehend him. These fears were justified, for while in hiding, he had continued plotting to restore Edward II and, to this end, had formed a band of outlaws. It included a murderer, a thief, a monk from Hailes Abbey in Gloucestershire, an Augustinian canon, and Stephen Dunheved’s own brother Thomas, lord of the manor of Dunchurch in Warwickshire. There must have been others and, indeed, a network of conspirators throughout the southwest, or the group would never have succeeded in their mission.
How they did it is not clear, but the Dunheved “brigands” successfully stormed Berkeley Castle, that supposedly secure fortress, ransacked and looted it, and, overcoming his guards, carried off the King. They possibly took advantage of the building work being carried out in the castle at the time or had accomplices among the workforce.101 It may have been now that Edward was taken to Corfe Castle in Dorset “and other secret places.”102 Berkeley and Maltravers were away from Berkeley at the time and had left a royal clerk, John Walwayn, as their deputy. Evidently, he was incompetent.
The news of the King’s escape was urgently transmitted to the council in York, 250 miles away, where it seems to have provoked near panic. The first indication that something was wrong may lie in an order issued to the Sheriff of Shropshire on 26 June, instructing him to arrest all troublemakers on the Welsh border. Then, on 1 July, a warrant was issued for the arrest of Stephen Dunheved.103 That same day, Berkeley and Maltravers were appointed commissioners of the peace for Dorset (where Corfe was situated), Somerset, Wiltshire, Hampshire, Herefordshire, Oxfordshire, and Berkshire, which gave them the authority to track down and deal with offenders; and on 3 July, Berkeley was excused from military service against the Scots and “charged with the special business of the King [Edward III].”104
Then the records are silent until 27 July, when a letter was sent from Berkeley Castle to the Chancellor, John Hotham; it was written probably by Lord Berkeley in his capacity as commissioner of the peace,105 although the sender could also have been John Walwayn, the royal clerk. Whoever it was reported that Dunheved and his accomplices had been indicted for forcing an entry into the castle, abducting “the father of our lord the King out of our guard, and feloniously plundering the said castle.”106 But there was little comfort for the council in this because none of the twenty-one conspirators listed in the letter had been seized, and Berkeley’s custodians were now begging for greater authority to pursue them. In response to this, on 1 August, Lord Berkeley was granted special powers for this very purpose.107
Although several theorists have argued otherwise, there can be little doubt that Edward II had been quickly recaptured and brought back to Berkeley by 27 July, for Lord Berkeley’s (or Walwayn’s) letter does not mention tracking down the King, only his abductors, and refers to fears of another plot to liberate him: “I understand, from a number of sources, that a great number of gentlemen in the county of Buckingham and in adjacent counties, have assembled for the same cause.”108 We may infer from this that Edward was back in custody. Had he not been, Berkeley would have been far more preoccupied with recapturing him than with catching those who had freed him. And even if Edward was still at liberty at this time, he was certainly back in prison by 7 September, when yet another attempt was made to free him.
Stephen Dunheved managed to elude capture,109 but his brother Thomas and most of their fellow conspirators were taken, Thomas being imprisoned on Isabella’s orders in Newgate, where he died of a fever soon afterward or was murdered.110 The rest were never heard of again, apart from William Aylmer, who was apprehended at Oxford the following month and charged with conspiring to free Edward II; but the Queen ordered him to be released on bail,111 and he was found innocent at a hearing in October and released. This is astonishing, given Aylmer’s links with Despenser and his having given judgment against some of Mortimer’s Welsh supporters in 1324–25, but Doherty plausibly suggests that he had turned King’s evidence and betrayed his fellow plotters, a role he appears to have undertaken in a murder case in 1329–30.112
At Stanhope, on 7 August, Edward III, devastated by the humiliation of the Weardale campaign, summoned Parliament to meet at Lincoln on 15 September to discuss the next moves against the Scots.113 The following day, he returned, very dejected, to Durham. He left for York on 10 August, and on the thirteenth, he was reunited there with Isabella, “who welcomed him with great joy, as did the ladies of the court and the burgesses of the city.”114 With the King were Sir John of Hainault, Roger Mortimer, and the other lords who had led the campaign. For the next week or so, Isabella was busy entertaining Sir John and his company.115
The English envoys had arrived at Avignon early in August, and on the fifth, they had put forward their request for a dispensation. But it was refused because John XXII was unhappy about the way Edward II had been treated. Hearing this, Edward III himself wrote to the Pope on 15 August, begging him not to delay granting his request. His letter prompted the Pontiff and his College of Cardinals to issue the dispensation “most benignantly” on 3 September without further prevarication.116 Philippa of Hainault is first named as Edward III’s future bride in this document. The young King had already expressed a strong preference for marrying Philippa, “for she and I accorded excellently well together, and she wept when I took leave of her.”117 After secretly observing her and her sisters at Valenciennes, Orleton, too, had thought Philippa “a young lady most worthy to be Queen of England.”118
The court was now moving south toward Lincoln and was at Doncaster on 26 August.119
The English army was finally disbanded on 27 August120 and the Hainaulters sent hom
e a few days later; when Sir John and his men took their leave, the King, the Queen, and all the lords “paid them great honour,” doubtless trying not to dwell on the huge bill for nearly £55,000 with which Sir John had just presented them.121 This money was raised from Exchequer funds, the pledging of the crown jewels, and loans from merchants. The Queen did not contribute a penny out of her vast revenues.122 Nor did she offer any financial assistance to the King, who was desperately short of money after the Weardale campaign, although she had at various times throughout the year implemented measures to raise funds for him.123
On 7 September, a third plot to liberate Edward II was uncovered. Its apparent leader was Mortimer’s avowed enemy, the Welsh knight Rhys ap Gruffydd, who had been with Edward at Neath in November and wanted to “forcibly deliver the said Lord Edward” and perhaps set him up as a champion of Welsh liberties. “Rhys ap Gruffydd and others of his coven had assembled their power in south Wales and in north Wales.” However, there were others involved, namely, “certain great lords of the land of England”;124 again, we might suspect the Earl of Kent, for the Fine Rolls show that Rhys ap Gruffydd was another who supported his later conspiracy. Another likely ally was Robert the Bruce’s nephew, Donald, Earl of Mar, an expatriate Scot who had been brought up with Edward II and had helped the Elder Despenser to hold Bristol Castle; after its fall, Mar had fled north to Scotland, but in June 1327, at Bruce’s behest, he was in the Welsh Marches, not far from Berkeley, trying to raise a force to rescue Edward and creating considerable disturbances in the process.125