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

by Alison Weir

  Whoever they were, Rhys ap Gruffydd’s conspirators must have been finalizing their plans in late August and early September, but on 7 September, they were betrayed to Mortimer’s lieutenant in south Wales, William de Shalford.126

  Mortimer had left court by then and was on his way back to Wales. He was with Isabella at Nottingham on 31 August and also on 3 September, when the court arrived at Lincoln.127 The next day, he was ordered to resume his duties as Justice of Wales and inquire into conspiracies there and apparently left court that very day for south Wales.128 Since he did not yet know of Rhys ap Gruffydd’s conspiracy, it is reasonable to assume that his mission was connected with the government’s hitherto unsuccessful attempts to apprehend Stephen Dunheved and the remaining members of his gang, as well as those persons who were causing unrest in the Marches. On the eighth, instructions were sent after him to arrest all those breaking the peace in Wales.129 On the thirteenth, Mortimer was granted lands worth £1,000 per annum, including Denbigh Castle, which had formerly been held by the Elder Despenser, Oswestry Castle, and all Arundel’s forfeited manors.130

  Mortimer was at Abergavenny in 14 September when William de Shalford wrote from Rhosfair in Anglesey to inform him of Rhys ap Gruffydd’s conspiracy to free Edward II. Shalford “also made clear in the letter that, if the Lord Edward was freed, that Lord Roger Mortimer and all his people would die a terrible death by force and would be utterly destroyed, on account of which Shalford counselled the said Roger that he ordain such a remedy in such a way that no one in England or Wales would ever think of effecting such deliverance.” Shalford’s original letter does not survive, but its contents were revealed in 1331, when Hywel ap Gruffydd accused Shalford of being a party to Edward II’s murder, and Shalford challenged him to a duel. Hywel refused to take up the challenge and took his complaint to the Court of King’s Bench, citing many witnesses, but he conveniently fell ill—or was intimidated—and failed to appear on the appointed day, so the case was dismissed.131

  According to the Meaux chronicler and the Annales Monastici, the discovery of this third plot sealed Edward II’s fate. The former King had now been the focus of three conspiracies to liberate and restore him, and clearly, he was a dangerous threat to the new government, to Isabella, and to Mortimer in particular, as Shalford had pointed out. The safest and most expedient course would therefore be to have him quietly disposed of. But in 1327, there was no precedent for murdering a deposed king.

  Hywel ap Gruffydd claimed that Mortimer’s response to Shalford’s communication was to show it to William Ockle (or Ockley), a trusted retainer who had been in the household of Mortimer’s wife during her captivity. He “commanded him to take the said letter and to show it to those who were guarding Edward. And Mortimer charged him to tell them to take counsel on the points contained in the letter and to quickly remedy the situation in order to avoid great peril.”132

  Ockle carried out Mortimer’s orders. Berkeley was later to protest that he had had nothing to do with any plot to murder the former King, and indeed, he may well not have been at Berkeley when Ockle arrived. But Maltravers and Gurney were apparently left in no doubt that Edward was to be disposed of in any way they thought fit. This chain of events makes it clear that any orders for the murder of Edward II came from Mortimer acting on his own initiative and not from Isabella, who, more than 130 miles away in Lincoln, could have had no knowledge of Rhys ap Gruffydd’s plot or its consequences and could not have been an accessory before the fact to the murder of her husband. Even in the unlikely event of Mortimer’s sending a messenger with a letter informing her of his intentions, she would not have had time to respond.

  In the meantime, Mortimer’s soldiers were sent to round up Rhys ap Gruffydd and his compatriots. Rhys and some of his men sought refuge in Scotland,133 but thirteen others were caught and imprisoned at Caernarvon.

  Baker ignores the rescue plots entirely and asserts that it was Isabella and Orleton who plotted Edward’s murder. His account suggests that, because of Isabella’s fears that she might have to return to Edward, Orleton had the former King ill-treated by his jailers on the way to Berkeley in the hope that he might die. But this had been in April, and the King had survived. Indeed, since then, Baker says, Edward’s jailers “had been too lenient with him and fed him delicacies,” an assertion that is corroborated by other evidence.

  This apparently went on throughout the summer, then suddenly, Baker says, “Isabella was angered that [Edward’s] life, which had become most hateful to her, should be so prolonged. She asked advice of the Bishop of Hereford, pretending that she had had a dreadful dream, from which she feared, if it was true, that her husband would at some time be restored to his former dignity, and would condemn her as a traitress, to be burned or given into perpetual slavery. The Bishop of Hereford feared greatly for himself, just as Isabella did, conscious that, if this should come to pass, he was guilty of treason.” The fact that Orleton had been out of the country since April does not seem to have registered with Baker, and it is highly improbable that Isabella would have committed such a sensitive matter to paper or to a messenger in order to communicate with Orleton at the papal court.

  Baker says that letters were duly sent to Edward’s keepers, censuring them for their lenience and hinting that their prisoner’s death would cause “no great displeasure, whether it were natural or violent,” and that Orleton sent the jailers a Latin message that, thanks to the omission of a comma, could be read in two ways: either

  Edwardum occidere nolite, timere bonum est.

  Kill not Edward, it is good to fear the deed.

  Edwardum occidere nolite timere, bonum est.

  Fear not to kill Edward, it is a good deed.

  Of course, the jailers were meant to interpret it in the latter way. It was a clever story, but an utter fabrication, since Orleton was at this time far away in Avignon. Furthermore, Baker plagiarized the tale from the pages of the great thirteenth-century chronicler Matthew Paris, where it appeared in relation to the murder of a queen of Hungary in 1252.134 In 1334, Orleton issued an “Apologia” insisting that he was not a party to, and had had no hand in, Edward II’s death,135 and indeed, he was never formally charged with it. Moreover, Baker’s whole tale is clearly a fiction, since it takes no account of the real circumstances in which the instructions for Edward’s murder were given, nor of the role of Mortimer, the real culprit, who is barely mentioned, even though his guilt was public knowledge at the time Baker was writing.

  Parliament met in the chapter house of Lincoln Cathedral on 15 September.

  Edward II is said to have been murdered at Berkeley Castle on 21 September. There are various versions of how he met his end, hardly any of which are strictly contemporary or based on firsthand knowledge. Most come from monastic chronicles, the writers of which relied on information and gossip brought by travelers or in other chronicles.

  The author of the contemporary Annales Paulini, writing in London probably in 1328, states simply that “King Edward died at Berkeley Castle, where he was held prisoner.”

  Another contemporary, Adam Murimuth, also a canon of Saint Paul’s, and a royal councillor who was very well informed through his connections with the court and the higher clergy, and who was based in Exeter at the time of Edward’s death, wrote his account of events around 1337, basing them on notes he made at the time.136 He claims that “it was commonly said” that the King had been “killed as a precaution” on Mortimer’s orders and that he had been suffocated by Maltravers and Gurney, who had put him to death in this way so that no one would suspect foul play. Murimuth adds that many people adhered to this view.

  In his life of Edward II, written between 1327 and 1340, the anonymous canon of Bridlington in Yorkshire wrote that the King “died in Berkeley Castle, where he was held in custody.” Then he adds, “Of his death, various explanations are commonly suggested, but I do not care for such things as now are written. I myself prefer to say no more about the matter, for sometimes, a
s the poet says, lies are for the advantage of many, and to tell the whole truth does harm.” This reads as if the canon discounted most of the tales he had heard as distasteful fabrications and gave them little credence, but we may infer that sensational and far-fetched rumors as to how Edward met his end were now gaining currency. The canon seems to be implying that writing what he believes to be the truth might get him into trouble and that many people were being protected by the tissue of lies that shrouded the real circumstances of Edward II’s murder.

  In 1331, Hywel ap Gruffydd’s testimony against William de Shalford asserts that Edward II “was feloniously and traitorously slain by murder” but gives no details of the method used. He accuses “William Ockle and others who were guarding the Lord Edward” of killing him.137

  Two versions of The Brut chronicle were written in the 1330s. The one that was probably compiled in London says merely that soon after Edward II was moved to Berkeley Castle, he “became ill there and died on the day of St. Matthew the Apostle.”138 The other version, which may have been partially written in the North, and was certainly penned by a Lancastrian adherent, accuses Berkeley, Maltravers, and Gurney of being the murderers, and states, “Roger Mortimer sent orders as to how and in what manner the King should be killed. And when the aforesaid Thomas and John had seen the letter and the order, they were friendly towards King Edward at supper-time, so that the King knew nothing of their treachery. And when he had gone to bed and was asleep, the traitors, against their homage and fealty [which had in fact been renounced], went quietly into his chamber and laid a large table on his stomach, and with other men’s help pressed him down.” At this point, Edward woke up and managed to turn over—no mean feat when a heavy table is being pressed down on one on all four corners. But there was no escaping his tormenters, who spread his legs and inserted “a long horn into his fundament as deep as they might, and took a spit of burning copper, and put it through the horn into his body, and ofttimes rolled therewith his bowels, and so they killed their lord, and nothing was perceived.” This is the earliest account of Edward’s being murdered in this revolting and sadistic manner, and it may be one of the stories to which the canon of Bridlington was referring.

  In the far North, the Lanercost chronicler, writing around 1346, either had not heard the colorful rumors or was skeptical about them, recording only that “the deposed King died either by a natural death, or by the violence of another.” But another northern chronicle, the Historia Aurea, also dating from around 1346, asserts that Edward II “was killed by the introduction of a hot iron through the middle of a horn inserted into his bottom.”139

  Ranulph Higden, the monk of Chester who wrote his highly successful (and highly unoriginal) Polychronicon in the North around 1347, echoes the northern Brut, asserting that Edward was “ignominiously slain with a red-hot rod piercing his anus.”

  But the French Chronicle of London, which derives from the London Brut and can be dated to the 1340s, says nothing of this and asserts only that Berkeley and Maltravers, “abetted by certain persons, falsely and traitorously murdered [Edward].” No details of the method used are given.

  The most detailed account of Edward II’s murder, and the one most often quoted, is that of Geoffrey le Baker, which was written between circa 1350 and 1358. But it is seriously flawed. To begin with, it is said to be based on the accounts of witnesses, one of whom was William Bishop, yet we have no idea who the others were. By the time Baker wrote his account, Mortimer and Gurney were dead, Maltravers had been living in Europe for several years, and Ockle had long since disappeared, probably having fled abroad. William Bishop was apparently a guard at Berkeley Castle, but since the information he gave Baker about Edward’s journey there is patently suspect, we should not place too much reliance on his credibility as a witness.

  According to Baker, when Ockle arrived with Shalford’s letter and Mortimer’s instructions, Berkeley felt his authority was being undermined and, complaining that he was no longer master in his own house, took his leave of the King and went to stay elsewhere. We know, from Berkeley’s own testimony, that he was not at Berkeley on 21 September but was staying at one of his manors.140 Baker says that, once he had gone, Maltravers, Gurney, and Ockle first tried employing various cruelties in an attempt to bring about Edward’s death by natural causes. These included starving him of food, depriving him of light and sleep, and placing him “for many days” in close proximity to a pit in which the stinking corpses of animals had been left to rot, so that he nearly suffocated from the stench. Nowadays, it is claimed that this was the pit that was once in the corner of “the King’s Gallery.” But since Edward was only forty-three, his constitution was so strong that he survived this ill-treatment. Apart from the fact that Baker was much given to lurid fabrication, and that there is no evidence to corroborate these allegations, it would surely have been unrealistic for Edward’s jailers to have expected him to have succumbed to starvation and stench within five days, which was the longest time that could have elapsed between Ockle’s arriving at Berkeley and the date on which the King is said to have been put to death.

  Drawing heavily on the northern Brut, Baker asserts that, when “his tyrannous warders,” Maltravers and Gurney, realized that they could not kill him in this way, they decided to kill him in a way that would leave no discernible outward marks of violence. They “made the King in good cheer at his supper,” so that when he went to bed, “he fell soundly asleep.” Then, with four stout men, they crept into his chamber and, as he lay “sore afraid” and “grovelling,” they suffocated him with “cushions heavier than fifteen strong men could carry”—surely an exaggeration, this, especially as there were only six men present. Then they laid “a great table” across his belly, their four assistants holding it down firmly at the corners; they lifted the King’s legs, took a horn and pushed it into his rectum as far as possible, then they thrust up it “a plumber’s soldering iron, heated red hot,” driving it through “the privy parts of the bowel, and thus they burnt his innards and vital organs” and “in the end” murdered him “in such wise that, after his death, it could not be perceived how he came by his death.” Baker claims that later, it was said that, if the King’s body were to be opened up, burn marks would be found “in those parts in which he had been wont to take his vicious pleasure.” Thus, we are to infer that, as with Despenser, the mode of Edward II’s death was devised by vindictive men as a punishment for his homosexuality, which reflected a contemporary belief that he had been the passive partner in sexual acts.

  If we are to believe Baker, Edward was already dead when the red-hot iron was applied, for he had been suffocated first with those extraordinarily heavy cushions. But no, Baker would have us believe that, as “this brave knight was overcome, he shouted aloud, so that many heard his cry both within and without the castle, and knew it for a man who suffered a violent death. Many in both the town and castle of Berkeley were moved to pity for Edward, and to watch and pray for his spirit as it departed this world.”

  Would Mortimer and his henchmen have risked others’ hearing their prisoner screaming in agony? It is unlikely. And if those weighty pillows had been suffocating him, how could he have screamed out anyway? It would surely have been easier to poison Edward or just suffocate or strangle him.

  Baker’s embellishments of the account in the northern Brut render his story full of inconsistencies; like his tale about Orleton’s commaless message, much of what he wrote was undoubtedly fictitious. Modern medical opinion holds that, even if Edward did have a red-hot spit thrust into his rectum, he would probably have taken several days to die an agonizing death, because perforation and scorching of the rectum can lead to peritonitis and the gradual breakdown of other internal organs, such as the bladder.

  The Meaux Chronicle and the somewhat unreliable Leicester chronicler, John of Reading, both recount the red-hot-spit story given in the northern Brut, the latter claiming that Edward’s murderers had confessed to killing him in this way.


  In the 1380s, John Trevisa, who had been a child at Berkeley when Edward II was held there, and was now its vicar, wrote his translation, with additions, of Migden’s Polychronicon. In his version, the King was partially smothered, then killed “with a hot brush put through the secret place posterial,” but Trevisa makes no comment as to the veracity of this tale. Trevisa had been a chaplain to Thomas de Berkeley before the latter’s death in 1361, and it has been asserted141 that he therefore must surely have known the truth about Edward II’s fate, but this was not necessarily so, for if Berkeley had had anything to confess, he would have done it years before Trevisa appeared. In fact, as he later publicly stated, he was not at his castle on 21 September and knew nothing of the King’s death until he was told about it in 1330.142

  Froissart, who gleaned his information when he stayed as the guest of Despenser’s grandson Edward at Berkeley in 1366, says that “an ancient squire” told him that Edward II “had died within a year of coming to Berkeley, for someone cut his life short.” He does not mention the red-hot-spit story, but other later chroniclers, including Knighton and Walsingham, all report it as fact.

  We have now established that this notorious version of Edward’s end is not strictly contemporary. Nevertheless, it is repeated by several chroniclers and has long been accepted by several historians, so where, then, did it originate? It is noticeable that none of the London chroniclers mentions it, which suggests that the story may have originated in the North or the Midlands, and that its emergence in these areas reflects Lancastrian propaganda designed to discredit the regime of Isabella and Mortimer. The circumstances in which this propaganda may have been produced will be recounted in due course, when we come to look at the events of 1328–29, but there is a strong possibility that the red-hot-spit story emerged at this time and that its dramatic nature ensured its spread. In London and the South, however, there were less lurid theories as to what fate had befallen Edward II.143