The Perfect King

by Ian Mortimer

  Philippa lingered for a few days. Edward suspended the invasion of France while he waited with her. Then on 15 August she died. Edward and their youngest son Thomas of Woodstock were with her at the end. England had lost one of its great treasures, a woman whose spirit was strong and yet never domineering, who managed to keep the peace between her ambitious sons, and who had smoothed Edward's brow as he struggled with his own demons, from the dark figure of the tyrant Mortimer in his early days to the fears and loneliness of his age. She was his oldest and closest companion.

  Three months later Edward learnt that another dear friend, Sir Robert Ufford, earl of Suffolk, had died on 4 November. Outside the rain-spattered windows, across the grey cloud-frowned land of England, it had been the worst harvest for half a century. Reports were coming to him that the plague had returned for a third time. On 13 November, the day of his fifty-seventh birthday, plague killed his old friend the earl of Warwick. Edward had outlived almost all his friends and companions in arms. All six of the earls created so joyously and proudly in 1337 were dead. His mother, father, sisters and brother were all dead. His daughters Mary, Margaret and Joan were dead, and his son Lionel. He had buried three other children in infancy. All those who had wished him a long life had unwittingly wished on him this most cruel of fates: to be a man who lived his entire life in the company of friends, children and great men, and watched them die.

  Edward prepared for Philippa's funeral with loving care. He could not face leading an army himself, and sent his own retinue across to Calais to join John. But John was more worried about his father than the French, and was back in England by mid-December, intending to spend Christmas with him. John gave precise instructions for a present of thirty fresh rabbits to be presented to his father on Christmas Eve. Edward and John spent Christmas together at King's Langley before being rowed down the river to the Tower of London at the end of the month. Philippa's embalmed body followed from Windsor on 3 January. Edward had ordered that the solemnities were to last six days. But he must have suspected that for him they would never end.

  SIXTEEN

  A Tattered Coat Upon a Stick

  By 1370 many of the joys in Edward's life had died, and all his glories were memories. The nation demanded the same high duty, enterprise and success as he had shown in the 1340s but he was an old, sick man. He appeared a feeble shadow of what he had been in 1346. To Edward, obsessed with his physical appearance, this mattered. And it mattered to him that he was no longer surrounded by his entourage of famous knights. Most of his true friends were dead, and more were shortly to follow them to the grave. As he waited sadly at the Tower for Philippa's body to be rowed down the Thames, Sir John Chandos, one of the founder members of the Order of the Garter, had a sword plunged into his face in a skirmish in Gascony and bled to death. Now only eight of the twenty-five knights who had jousted with him in the Garter tournament of 1349 were still alive, and five of those would die before Edward.'

  Edward's reaction to the deaths and despondency was to cut himself off further from society. There were no new mass-creations of earls, like those of 1337 and 1351, to replace those who had died. No earls were created at all. Edward withdrew from court, spending time alone with his few intimate companions, issuing instructions through a private secretary. The centre of government was at Westminster, the household was almost permanently settled at Windsor, but Edward remained at Havering, Sheen and Eltham, only attending Westminster when he had to. Much regnal business simply was not done. Whereas in the first ten years of his reign he had granted an average of seventy charters every year, and sometimes more than a hundred, in 1370 he granted just three. In this way he became distant from the court, and unapproachable. He no longer heard what men said, or what rumours were circulating. There was no one left of sufficient stature to speak plainly to him. Only his sons, the prince and John of Gaunt, could talk to him with impunity, but the prince was in Gascony and John was circumspect, mindful of his delicate position as the next eldest son and probable guardian of the realm if his elder brother should die.

  It was in this atmosphere of unnaturally silent vast palaces and empty council chambers, that Edward's friendship and devotion came to fix itself on his mistress, Alice Perrers. The sexual satisfaction she gave him was matched by Edward's increasing dependence on her. Devoid of information about public opinion, she became his principal adviser. Of course, she advised him carefully, telling him what she thought he wanted to hear. She also took care to put in a good word for her growing circle of ambitious friends. Men she knew and liked received lucrative commissions and positions. As time went by she grew in Edward's estimation, and he trusted her more. She grew bolder. So their relationship became the subject of gossip at Westminster and Windsor: gossip which Edward feared and avoided.

  For the moment, however, Edward's priority was the renewal of the war in France. Exercising his mind on this may well have proved cathartic in the wake of Philippa's death. Three months after her funeral, in April 1370, he ordered John of Gaunt to take an army to Gascony to reinforce the prince's position. At the same time, Sir Robert Knolles was ordered to attack from Calais. It was the classic English strategy which Edward had used with such great effect on so many occasions since 1343: a double attack, from the north and the south. Edward saw no reason why it should not work again, if it could be reinforced with treaties with the Low Countries, Germany and Genoa, whose support he now tried to enlist, with varying degrees of success.

  Knolles landed at Calais in July with more than four thousand men and set out on a grand destructive campaign at the end of the month. Once again the fires burnt across France, from Saint-Omer to Arras and Noyon. Sir John Seton, a Scotsman fighting for the English, walked unaccompanied into Noyon with his sword drawn and harangued the garrison until they attacked him. He continued fighting alone until his page shouted to him that the army was passing by the town, and he had better stop fighting now if he wanted to catch up with them. Acknowledging his thanks for the sport, Sir John left the corpse-strewn scene and, taking the reins of his horse from his page, rode off to catch up with Knolles. On went the English, burning, looting and generally doing all they could to encourage attack. But King Charles knew better now than to rise to the bait. The English would have to move on, so he ordered his men not to stand in their way. Instead he would sacrifice the villages and let the villagers look out for themselves. By avoiding conflict he not only avoided defeat, he encouraged the English army to collapse in recriminations and dissent. Other English knights blamed Knolles for failing to bring the French to battle. After all, they complained, what did Knolles know about command? He was just a knight, a brigand, a privateer, a commoner. Most English armies were commanded by earls. Knolles had been promoted above his station, they said. The attack in the north moved into Brittany, away from Paris, and broke up into smaller and smaller forces, each to withdraw or to be attacked separately.

  The campaign in the south fared differently. John of Gaunt arrived in Gascony at the end of July and met up with the prince. Although he knew his brother was ill, he did not realise quite how grave his condition was. He was shocked to find him bedridden. But the prince was not dead yet. The French army was in the region of Limoges, and the bishop of Limoges had defected to their cause. This roused the prince to fury. He had liked and trusted the bishop so much that he had made him godfather to his eldest son, and he angrily prepared to make his first journey out of Bordeaux for two years. He was carried in a Utter at the head of the army to Limoges, where he set about the attack of the city. On 19 September, having dug tunnels beneath the walls, the pit props were fired and the walls crashed down. The English troops poured into the city. The attack was decisive. The bishop of Limoges and the other leading men of the town were brought to the prince in chains, and the city was looted and burnt to the ground. Taking a leaf from his father's book, the prince sentenced the bishop to death and then waited for the pope to beg for mercy, allowing him to appear magnanimous as well as victori
ous. But soon everything turned bitter for the prince. Weakened by the journey, his poor health made it impossible for him to carry on. He had to return to Bordeaux, defeated by his own sickness. There he learnt that his son and heir, Edward of Angouleme, had died. Distraught, he made preparations to return to England with his wife and remaining son, Richard of Bordeaux, leaving the chaotic administration of what was left of the principality, including the funeral of his son, in the hands of John of Gaunt.

  It is difficult to hold Edward responsible for the lack of achievement in 1370. Perhaps he could have appointed a more able lieutenant in Gascony to take over from the prince. Perhaps he should have foreseen the distrust in Knolles and appointed an earl to lead the northern attack. But there was a limit to how far he could undermine the prince's position in Aquitaine, and earls with both military experience and physical strength were rare in 1370. The real reason for the failures was far deeper, and tackling it went beyond Edward's experience. The English were, for the first time, on the defensive. If Gascony was truly a part of Edward's kingdom then he could only fail with regard to the most important strand of his strategy, which was to keep the war on foreign territory. From now on, unless he continued his war of aggression, pushing further and further into France, the fighting would only be on his lands. The likelihood of his losing was all the greater when he himself was unable to inspire or lead his men, and his principal commanders were all aged and decrepit. So it was that, even though the prince had been successful at Limoges, most of Gascony was overrun and reclaimed for France in the space of a few months. It was no coincidence that Edward failed to achieve the widespread support of European kingdoms in 1370-71, only Juliers and Genoa actively engaging to help him.2

  There were bound to be recriminations when parliament met at Westminster on 24 February 1371. They had not been summoned for twenty months. Edward might have pretended to those around him that by reckoning the new year from Lady Day (25 March), he had just lived up to his promise, but such a contrived explanation was not likely to wash with the representatives. Since they had last met they had hardly seen their king. Moreover, in the last parliament they had voted a substantial tax to be granted to the king for the prosecution of the war, and what had happened? The loss of almost all of Gascony, and the dispersal to no profit of the northern army. What stood between the French king and the shores of Britain? Were there not invasion plans afoot? Where was the English navy?

  The news got worse. Shortly after parliament opened, Edward heard that King David II had died. Edward now had few (if any) allies in Scotland. Every representative at that parliament must have considered this a sure sign that a new army would soon be needed in the north. Edward, huddled in his cloak of glorious victories, was not prepared for the angry onslaught which followed. Scapegoats had to be found. Since no one was prepared to accuse the king himself of poor judgement, his ministers bore the brunt. And what did they all have in common? They were all clergymen. The Chancellor, William of Wykeham, was the bishop of Winchester. The Treasurer, Thomas Brantingham, was the newly appointed bishop of Exeter. The keeper of the privy seal, Peter Lacy, was a canon of Lichfield. What did such men know about the prosecution of war? As ecclesiastics, it was not clear whether they could even be held accountable for their maladministration. The dismissal of the clergy became a demand so strong that Edward was forced to give in to the will of parliament. It dumbfounded him. For the first time since the Crisis of 1341, he wavered, lost confidence and immediately lost the political initiative. On 26 March 1371 he sacked all his trusted ecclesiastical officers and replaced them with younger laymen.

  Unknown to all concerned, this decision paved the way for further corruption in the royal household. The men whom Edward selected were the sons of men he had once trusted or the suggestions of his only trusted confidante, Alice. Nicholas Carew took over as keeper of the privy seal. Richard le Scrope took over as Treasurer. Robert Thorp became Chancellor. William Latimer, son of the William Latimer who had assisted Edward in 1330, became his chamberlain. These men were generally in their thirties, less well-educated and more unscrupulous than those they replaced. They saw a golden opportunity to make themselves rich and influential. Later that year John Neville, lord of Raby, stepped into Latimer's place as steward of the royal household. With that appointment, all was set for the net of the court clique to close in around Edward, and to stifle him from news of the war, his kingdom and his officers' lining of their own pockets.

  It would be wrong to say that all those appointed by Edward at this time were place-seekers and self-interested usurers. Richard le Scrope was the son of a Chief Justice under Edward; he had served as a member of parliament, had fought at Najera, and knew more than most about financing a war. But his problems were exacerbated by his fellow officers. Latimer stands out as the most corrupt. Although he was experienced in both war and the organisation of manpower, the lure of money was too much for him. He borrowed sums from the Treasury at no interest, then lent it back to Edward for the war effort at high rates, and having pocketed the proceeds, returned the original sum to the Treasury.3 He had the absolute say in who had access to the king, and had sufficient authority to prevent the earl of Pembroke, commander of one of Edward's armies, from seeing the king in the autumn of 1371. Pembroke had to content himself with an interview with Latimer instead. There were echoes of Hugh Despenser and Roger Mortimer in such behaviour. All it took was for the king to be ill and irresolute and the English government collapsed back into the quagmire of corruption which had characterised it in the years 1322-30.

  It was in April 1371, after parliament had broken up, that Edward finally met his son and heir again, after an absence of eight years. It must have been a poignant moment: both knew the other was seriously ill.* They had argued over the time apart. Edward had been greatly disappointed by his son's administration in Gascony, and had eventually countermanded his hearth tax in November 1369. The prince likewise had become convinced that his father had lost his diplomatic judgement when Edward sent him yet another treaty with Charles of Navarre, expecting him to seal it, despite the man's countless broken promises. But father and son loved each other deeply, through royalty, family, mutual respect and long-term devotion. They could now also sympathise with one another in their physical frustration, Edward shuffling around in his echoing halls, the prince carried from place to place, unable to walk. For Edward it was as if his last great friend had come home.

  It may well have been the prince's presence that gave Edward's self-confidence a boost in the spring of 1371. Maybe the prince pointed out to him how he was being manipulated. Reports of William Windsor's maladministration in Ireland certainly slipped through the courtiers' cordon, for Edward took action in the autumn of 1371 to warn Windsor of his dealings, rebuked him for his taxes and extortions, and eventually recalled him. And in June, at a council meeting in Winchester, Edward found the strength to tackle the petitions of the 1371 parliament in a direct, strong-minded manner. To the demand that he ban ecclesiastics from office, Edward responded only that he would take advice from his council. To almost every other petition, he replied only that 'he would be advised' (meaning nothing would be done in the foreseeable future), or that the existing statutes, customs and laws were sufficient, including his own prerogatives. Even quite reasonable requests, such as the repeal of the statutes prohibiting English merchants from buying wine in Gascony, were dismissed. The demand for the reform of the navy was the one petition to which he was inclined to agree. With his son at his side, Edward recovered his sense of authority, and maintaining it became his chief priority. In his view, parliament needed to be taught a lesson, that they should not presume to thrust policy on him.

  There were other reasons for Edward's recovery of his authority in early 1371. The new Chancellor - poorly educated by comparison with his ecclesiastical predecessors - was forced to admit to one of the biggest and most extraordinary mistakes in the history of accounting. The clerical subsidy of 22s 4d per parish would c
learly not raise £50,000 because there were only nine thousand parishes in England, not forty-five thousand. How such a gross error was made beggars belief. The request to reform the navy was made in the wake of rumours of a planned French invasion and a French landing at Portsmouth. As soon as there was a threat of war, it seemed parliament panicked, and sought Edward's advice and leadership. This not only flattered him, it gave him a sense of purpose. All these things, combined with Alice's continued attention, helped revitalise him. After attending the solemn commemoration of the anniversary of Philippa's death, he set about planning the next stage of the war.

  In several of the principal English chronicles there are large gaps at this point in time. Walsingham's English Chronicle records nothing between the return of the prince in 1371 and the Good Parliament in 1376. Henry Knighton's chronicle mentions nothing which happened between the death of Lionel in 1368 and Edward's own death. It is as if, with the benefit of hindsight, these writers wanted simply to pass over the last years of the reign. In the comprehensive work of Joshua Barnes the reason is neatly expressed. He describes the year 1372 as 'the first inauspicious year of our great Edward's reign ...' Inauspicious is the appropriate word. There were only two pieces of good news: John of Gaunt married Constanza, eldest daughter and heiress of the recently murdered Pedro of Castile, and Edmund of Langley married her younger sister, Isabella. Everything else was awful. In January the great warrior Sir Walter Manny — Lord Manny - died, and was buried at the Charterhouse which he had jointly founded in London. Later in the year the earls of Stafford and Hereford died. John of Gaunt - to whom Edward had delegated much routine business - gave rise to hostile gossip about his ambitious nature and his collusion with the self-seekers around the king. John's open and shameless adultery with his children's governess, Katherine Roet, incurred the most vicious criticism, especially when he acknowledged a son by her, John Beaufort. A diplomatic summit near Calais, proposed by the pope, failed to break the deadlock inherent in the combination of French military ascendancy in Aquitaine and Edward's insistence on the recognition of his sovereignty. The English continued to suffer strategic losses: Monmorillon, Chauvigny, Lussac, Montcontour, Poitiers, Saint-Severe, Soubise, Saint-Jean-d'Angely, Angouleme, Taillebourg and Saintes to mention just the most significant. In defending Soubise, the Captal de Buch - a hero of Poitiers and a Knight of the Garter - was captured. Worst of all, on 22 June, the English fleet - with all its treasure (the payroll for .the Gascon army), its archers, men-at-arms and horses - was utterly destroyed by a Castilian fleet off La Rochelle, on the coast of Gascony. The ships were torn to pieces by gunshot and fire, and the terrified horses in the holds stampeded in the smoke-filled darkness, breaking the smaller vessels apart. The commanders, including the earl of Pembroke, were all captured. It was the first major military defeat of Edward's reign.