The Plantagenets: History of a Dynasty

by J. S. Hamilton

  Although it probably had little actual monetary impact, faith in the crown and its financial stability must have been shaken, at least symbolically, by the robbery of the royal treasure that took place in 1303. An earlier attempt at gaining access to the royal treasure housed in the crypt beneath the Chapter House at Westminster Abbey in 1296 had led to the imprisonment of a number of monks, including the cellarer, but had been quickly hushed up. So too had been the misappropriation of £100 in silver coins provided to the abbey in support of masses for the soul of Queen Eleanor. In 1303, however, a fairly large and well-organized gang led by an Oxfordshire merchant by the name of Richard Puddlicott succeeded in making off with some £100,000 in plate, jewels and foreign coins. Emboldened by an earlier theft of silver plate from the refectory at Westminster Abbey – clearly with the connivance of some members of the monastic community – in early 1303, Puddlicott and his associates chiselled their way into the crypt, which held the treasure of the royal wardrobe. Over a period of 3 days at the beginning of May, they made off with a massive quantity of treasure. The quantity and the quality of the stolen goods were too great to remain a secret, however, and as these goods made their way onto the London market, suspicions were duly aroused.

  The king learned of the robbery by early June while at Linlithgow, and he immediately commissioned an investigation to be conducted by one of his most trusted clerks, John Droxford, keeper of the royal wardrobe and future bishop of Bath and Wells. The commissioners soon uncovered the extent of the conspiracy to rob the treasury. Puddlicott had been aided and abetted by the Sacristan of Westminster, Adam de Warfeld, as well as the sub-prior, Alexander de Pershore, along with a number of monks and their servants. Another key figure in the gang was William Palmer, also known as William of the Palace, who served as deputy keeper of the nearby Westminster Palace, as well as of Fleet Prison. Other accomplices included a mason named John of St Albans, and a goldsmith (significantly, not a London goldsmith) named John of Newmarket. Very likely, one of the sheriffs of London, Hugh Pourte, also had some knowledge of and interest in the robbery, even if he may not have been a direct participant. The audacity of this assault on the royal treasure is shocking, and seems to indicate a disregard for the king that would have been unthinkable earlier in the reign. But with an ageing, and largely absent, ruler, the thieves took their chance. Unfortunately for them, they underestimated the king’s continued vigour. Arrests were quickly made, much of the treasure soon recovered, and punishments duly meted out.

  Five of the malefactors, including William of the Palace, were hanged at the elms at Smithfield in March 1304, while ten Westminster monks languished in the Tower for the better part of a year. Puddlicott, too, was finally executed, once his claim to benefit of clergy had been dismissed, in November 1305. Although the king could not punish the monks of Westminster or the citizens of London as fully as he would have liked, he did have some measure of revenge in 1304 when the former sheriff, Hugh Pourte, was among those appointed to collect the highly unpopular New Customs in London.

  The great king’s final years were troubled, not only by the theft of his treasure and the recalcitrance of the Scots, but also by other instances of insubordination and disregard for his mandates. In June 1305, the king and the Prince of Wales had a falling out, apparently over a conflict between the young Edward and the treasurer Walter Langton. The king’s response was to banish his son from his presence and to cut off his access to provisions of all kinds. It took some 6 weeks and the queen’s intercession to achieve a reconciliation. Worse, however, was soon to follow. In the autumn of 1306, the famous royal temper was once again on view when some 26 young knights deserted from Scotland in order to tourney in France. Edward railed against all those ‘deserting the king and his son in those parts in contempt of the king and to the retarding of the king’s business there’, ordering their arrest and imprisonment in the Tower along with confiscation of all their goods. The king planned to deal with them at the parliament scheduled for January 1307 at Carlisle, but this was never held. Instead, in response to the queen’s intercession, he issued pardons to the deserters from Lanercost, but the incident left a sour taste in the mouths of both the king and his nobility.

  In the meantime, the king’s health was failing. Edward had made his way north, arriving at Lanercost Priory on Michaelmas 1306. His stay here was meant to be brief, followed by a move on to Holm Cultram; it soon became apparent, however, that he could not travel. On 4 October, a servant of Master Peter, the king’s surgeon, was sent to nearby Carlisle to buy medicinal herbs, while on 1 November the surgeon himself travelled to York in order to obtain needed medicaments. Meanwhile, more, and quite expensive, medicines were obtained from London through the agency of the royal apothecary, Richard of Montpellier, on the orders of the royal physicians. An unguent with aloes was purchased for the legs of the king, as well as balsam and various other aromatic herbs and spices. There is every indication that much of this was purchased in anticipation of embalming the king’s corpse, but he survived the winter and continued to prepare for another Scottish campaign.

  According to the chronicler Walter of Guisborough, the king and Prince Edward had one final, explosive, confrontation in the spring of 1307. Guisborough recounts that Walter Langton was sent to the king by Prince Edward with the following request: “My lord king, I am sent on behalf of my lord the prince your son, though as God lives unwillingly, to seek in his name your licence to promote his knight Piers Gaveston to the rank of count of Ponthieu.” The irate king replied, “Who are you who dares to ask such things? As God lives, if not for fear of the Lord and because you said at the outset that you undertook this business unwillingly, you would not escape my grasp. Now, however, I shall see what he who sent you has to say, and you shall not withdraw.” Having been called, the king said to the prince, “On what business did you send this man?” He replied, “That with your assent I might be able to give the county of Ponthieu to lord Piers Gaveston.”

  And the king said, “You ill-begotten whoreson, do you want to give lands away now, you who have never gained any? As God lives, if not for fear of breaking up the kingdom, you should never enjoy your inheritance.” And grabbing the prince’s hair in both hands, he tore out as much as he could until finally, exhausted, he threw him out.21

  These are the circumstances under which the aged king made his way north one final time in the summer of 1307. Unable to ride, he had to be carried in a litter. Finally, he could not go any farther. Edward I died on the morning of 7 July 1307 at Burgh-by-Sands, as his attendants lifted him from his bed. He was 68 years old. Several later traditions developed concerning Edward’s final wishes on his deathbed. In one account, he is reputed to have wanted his heart carried to the Holy Land in the company of 80 knights, while another says that the king ordered the flesh to be boiled away from his bones so that these bones could be carried north whenever an English army took the field against the Scots.

  Finally, the most widely repeated tradition states that Edward called the earls of Lincoln and Warwick to his deathbed and entrusted oversight of Prince Edward to them, specifically enjoining them to prevent the return of Piers Gaveston from exile. There is little reason to believe this account, and considerable evidence to contradict it, yet it has become engrained in historical tradition.

  There was considerable delay in publicly announcing the death of the king, at least in part for fear of encouraging the Scots. The king’s journal continued on for another 10 days without mention of his passing, and writs continued to be sealed with the great seal of Edward I until as late as mid-August. Meanwhile, the body of the king slowly travelled south to Waltham, where it remained until 18 October. It was then moved to London and the Church of Holy Trinity, on to St Paul’s, and finally to Westminster, where his burial took place on 27 October.

  It was fittingly the bishop of Durham, Antony Bek, who presided at this service, a man whom Edward had favoured greatly and advanced, but with whom he had later fallen
out over questions of royal prerogative. Like his father, Edward I was buried in a red silk tunic. His right hand held a sceptre with a cross, the right another sceptre with a dove. He wore an open crown, regal even in death. His tomb, a simple block of Purbeck marble is entirely fitting, as is the inscription later added to the tomb: Edwardus Primus Scotorum Malleus hic est, 1308, Pactum Serva: ‘Here lies Edward the First, Hammer of the Scots, 1308, Keep Faith.’

  CHAPTER 3: EDWARD II (1307 – 1327)

  Edward II is undoubtedly the least well-regarded Plantagenet king. He came to the throne in the shadow of a colossus, and he could not match the expectations aroused by his father. Not all of Edward II’s failures were, however, of his own making. He inherited a bankrupt treasury and a complex international situation. The ‘Hammer of the Scots’ had not, in the end, settled Scotland, and relations with Philip the Fair of France continued to be strained, particularly over the nature of English lordship in the duchy of Aquitaine. Neither in war nor diplomacy was Edward II a match for his adversaries. Yet even nature appeared to conspire against him as England suffered the ravages of the Great Famine in the middle years of the reign, exacerbating the political, military and economic crises that already faced the realm.

  The future Edward II was born at Caernarfon on 25 April 1284, the fourth son and the last of 14 children born to Edward I and Eleanor of Castile. There appears to be no truth to the legend that the wily Edward I immediately presented the infant to his Welsh subjects, a native-born prince speaking no word of English.

  Indeed, Edward of Caernarfon did not become Prince of Wales until he was nearly 17 years old, on 7 February 1301, nor did he set foot in the principality again between 1284 and 1301. Nevertheless, by the summer of his first year, following the death of his 10-year-old brother Alphonso, he was the heir to his father’s throne. The infant soon travelled east toward Chester and Bristol, with his first wet nurse, Mary Maunsel, who fell ill at Rhuddlan. Although Mary received a considerable pension of 100 s per annum in 1312, it was Edward’s second wet nurse, Alice de Leygrave, with whom he formed a lasting bond of affection. She remained in his service until his marriage in 1308 and thereafter entered the household of the queen: he later referred to Alice with genuine tenderness as ‘our mother, who suckled us in our youth’.

  It is not surprising that Edward should have developed such feeling for his nurse, as from infancy he was ensconced in his own household, with his sisters, and would have seen little of his parents. In July 1289, for instance, the 5-year-old prince was taken from King’s Langley to Dover to greet his parents, who had been out of the country for 3 years. Edward’s mother, Eleanor of Castile, died in the following year when he was just 6 years old, while his paternal grandmother, Eleanor of Provence, to whom he might have turned for affection, died 10 months later in September 1291. One by one he also lost the companionship of his five surviving sisters. Mary was sent to become a nun at Amesbury when she was only 5 years old in 1285, while Joan, the most headstrong of the brood, married Gilbert de Clare, earl of Gloucester, on 30 April 1290, and thereafter left the court circle. The eldest of the siblings, Eleanor, married Henry, count of Bar, in 1293; Margaret had earlier married John, son of the duke of Brabant in 1291, although she did not join her husband in the Low Countries until 1297. By then, the youngest sister, Elizabeth, had also married, becoming wife to John I, count of Holland. She returned to England following his death and married the earl of Hereford. Edward’s letters as prince in 1304–1305 indicate that he remained close to his sisters – particularly Elizabeth, Mary and Joan – but his direct contact with them would have become less frequent, and his greatest intimacy would have been shared with those who continued to live in his household.

  Little is known about Edward’s education, which seems to have been entrusted to the elder Guy Ferre, who had served for many years as a knight, and later steward, in the household of the queen mother, Eleanor of Provence. From at least 1295 until his death in 1303, Ferre served as magister to the royal heir. What and how much the prince learned from his tutor is difficult to say. By 1300, he was said to be a skilled horseman, although his later lack of martial skill or interest has been often remarked upon and makes one wonder about his aptitude and appetite for chivalric training. He was in possession of a small but varied collection of books, including a primer, a romance that had once belonged to his grandmother Eleanor of Provence, and a book ‘ de gestis regum Anglie’, which was very likely a version of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s history of the kings of Britain. In 1302, he purchased an illustrated account of the life of his grandfather’s beloved patron, Edward the Confessor, in French. Although the king was probably more comfortable in French than Latin – a suggestion further reinforced by such well-known instances as the translation in 1317 of a papal bull from Latin into French by Archbishop Reynolds in order to facilitate the king’s better understanding of the document – his frequent characterization as rex illiteratus seems to have been overstated and to be founded upon no firm evidence.

  At an early age, the future king would have accustomed himself to the peripatetic life of a medieval ruler. Throughout much of the year, his household was on the move, as for instance in 1293, when he departed from his winter quarters at King’s Langley in mid-April, beginning an odyssey that would see him change residence some 64 times before the end of the regnal year in November.

  Nevertheless, he did spend long periods at his favourite residences, especially King’s Langley in Hertfordshire, and particularly in winter. In 1292, considerable sums were spent on renovations and decorations at Langley, including the painting of four knights on their way to a tournament and 52 shields, perhaps for the prince’s edification. In spite of such martial decorations, however, it has been plausibly suggested that it may very well have been at Langley that Edward developed his love of ‘rustic arts’ – he is said to have been interested in thatching roofs, digging ditches and rowing – as well as his attachment to a small inner circle of trusted companions. This inner circle included clerks such as the future archbishop of Canterbury, Walter Reynolds, and the sons of noble houses, such as Gilbert de Clare. It also perhaps included the young Roger Mortimer of Wigmore, and a few foreigners too, most notably Piers Gaveston. King’s Langley continued to hold a place in his affections as both itineraries and building accounts from throughout his life, equally as prince and king, point to his fondness for the place.

  From 1295 on, the young Edward became more prominent in the affairs of the kingdom. He was clearly being groomed to rule, and in the last 10 years of his father’s life he was given increasing public exposure and responsibility.

  Unfortunately, these last 10 years also witnessed increasing strain between the king and his magnates, and sometimes between the king and his heir. The young prince played a role in the crisis of 1297 when his father planned a controversial expedition to Flanders. At Westminster on 14 July, the king sought support for his venture, but he also enjoined his people, should he not return, to crown his son as king. The chronicler Guisborough asserts that, following this address, ‘all the magnates there present did fealty to the king’s son at his father’s bidding, and he was acclaimed by all the people, their right hands upraised, as heir, future lord, and successor to the kingdom’. 1 When the king subsequently departed for Flanders, Prince Edward was left behind as titular regent, although he was advised by a council of elders comprised of bishops, earls and barons. The regency council functioned effectively in the highly charged political atmosphere that led the prince to reside in the relative safety of London. With Prince Edward’s announcement of the Confirmatio Cartarum on 10 October, however, the crisis was defused, and the rest of the regency was taken up with routine administrative business in which the prince probably played only a minor role.

  Edward I’s Flemish expedition in 1297 proved fruitless, and the king soon returned home to face the Scots who had been victorious under William Wallace at Stirling Bridge. Of greater consequence for the future Edward II than s
uccess or failure in Flanders or Scotland was the introduction of a new member into his household in the aftermath of the Flemish campaign. When Edward I returned from Flanders, he brought with him a Gascon squire, Piers Gaveston. Ironically, perhaps, there can be little doubt that Piers Gaveston had been introduced into the household of Edward of Caernarfon by the king himself. The young Gascon, probably a few years older than the prince, had already seen military service in Flanders in the company of his father Arnaud de Gabaston, and appears to have been attached to the king’s own household following the 1297 campaign. The senior Gabaston was a minor Béarnaise noble who had served the English crown long and well, having had direct dealings with Edward I as long ago as 1272, even before his coronation.

  Piers Gaveston is consistently described in contemporary chronicles as handsome, athletic and well mannered: in short, he appeared to be a suitable companion – indeed, perhaps a role model after whom Prince Edward, lacking elder brothers, might pattern himself. From 1300 until his execution in 1312, his fortunes were inseparably linked to Edward’s, and in general his wealth and status rose steadily, if not at first remarkably. According to the Chronicle of the Civil Wars of Edward II, looking at Gaveston for the first time, the son of the king immediately felt such love for him that he ‘tied himself to him against all mortals with an indissoluble bond of love’. 2 Prior to 1305, there is little evidence that such was the case.