Queen Isabella

by Alison Weir

  Given at Nottingham, the 10th day of October.

  If Isabella had been in any way responsible for the death of Edward II, she would hardly have confessed to being “in great trouble of heart” to Edward’s own nephew. Anyone with a modicum of sensitivity would have realized that a queen who had led a rebellion against her husband and overthrown him, then kept him a prisoner and deprived him of her company and that of their children, however sound her motives, would have had good cause to suffer “great trouble of heart” on hearing of his death. Moreover, there is reason to believe, as we will discover, that Isabella had her own suspicions about Edward’s fate and her lover’s possible involvement in it. No wonder she was troubled.

  Her letter reveals also her concern for her son, who was apparently grieving deeply for his father and had asked his cousin John to come to him. Isabella, well aware of the “necessity” of keeping up the boy’s spirits and diverting him with good company, was virtually pleading with Bohun to attend her son, knowing that, although Bohun was well-meaning, he was also headstrong and not entirely reliable, having recently defied a royal ban on holding tournaments. Hence her pleas to him to come not only for the King’s sake but for his own honor.

  Several abbeys in the vicinity of Berkeley—notably, Saint Augustine’s at Bristol, Saint Mary’s at Kingswood, and Saint Aldhelm’s at Malmesbury—refused to receive the body at Berkeley for burial, “for fear of Roger Mortimer and Queen Isabella and their accomplices,”176 which suggests that monastic heads were fearful of receiving the corpse in case it was thought that they were still loyal to the former regime. Nor was the Queen willing to grant the petition of the monks of Westminster for Edward to be laid to rest with his forefathers in Westminster Abbey because he had not deserved it, having made too many errors as a ruler.177 More to the point, perhaps, Westminster was too near London, London was still simmering with unrest, and the funeral would be too high-profile and excite too much interest. In the end, Mortimer’s kinsman, Abbot Thoky of the Benedictine abbey of Saint Peter in Gloucester (now Gloucester Cathedral), which had been founded in 1070, offered to bury the King’s body in his church.178 According to local tradition, Edward had expressed a wish to be laid to rest here. Isabella was adamant that this was the best solution; in her view, Edward did not deserve to be buried at Westminster, and his interment at faraway Gloucester would serve to underline the fact that he had renounced his throne.179

  On 21 October, Berkeley and Maltravers released the body to the Abbot of Gloucester, who came that day with his brethren to collect it. The corpse had been dressed in the late King’s coronation robes, including his shirt, coif, and gloves,180 and presumably encased in its two coffins. The monks covered the top coffin with a rich pall, then they placed it on a chariot lined with black canvas and conveyed it in solemn procession to Gloucester. The official escort was headed by a royal clerk, Hugh de Glanville,181 and Berkeley, Maltravers, and members of their household rode behind the chariot, which was received at the city gates by the Mayor and burghers, who escorted it to the high altar of the abbey.182 Here, the body was laid in state, and from now on, it would be guarded not just by William Beaukaire but also by four “knights of honour,” the late King’s chaplains and sergeants at arms, Andrew his candlemaker, and John de Eaglescliffe, Bishop of Llandaff.183 The latter had been chosen by Isabella because he belonged to the Dominican order that Edward had so greatly favored, a kind gesture that, along with her gifts to Edward and her refusal to involve the Franciscans in his abdication, shows that she still retained some vestiges of affection for her husband.

  On 21 October, Hugh de Glanville joined the knights who were watching over the bier; he would remain with them until 20 December. Glanville had been given responsibility for paying those staying with the corpse and also the funeral expenses; among his purchases were palls of expensive Turkey cloth and cloth of gold embroidered with the leopards of England, which were draped across the coffin.184

  On 10 November, instructions were issued for the funeral of the late King, who was to be buried with full honors and ostentatious pageantry. A great deal of care and planning went into his funeral, and Isabella must have been fully involved. On the tenth, the court left Nottingham for Coventry.185

  Baker claims that Isabella and Orleton planned to make Maltravers and Gurney scapegoats for the assassination of Edward II, so that they themselves would appear innocent. He says that the jailers, fearing this, produced Orleton’s ambiguous letter, protesting that they had acted on his instructions. The Bishop, however, insisted that the letter had been “perfectly innocent and loyal in its meaning,” and “it was the keepers who had misinterpreted it.” He seems to have conveniently forgotten the other incriminating letters that Baker says had been sent at the same time. In fact, “he so terrified them with his threats that they fled.” Maltravers, Gurney, and Ockle did not flee the country until Mortimer had been overthrown but were well rewarded for their services at Berkeley, probably at Mortimer’s instigation. The Queen made a grant to Maltravers specifically for his services to her,186 and it was at her request that Gurney was appointed Constable of Bristol Castle,187 while Ockle became a squire in the young King’s household.188 Isabella later submitted a petition on Ockle’s behalf, in an attempt to ward off his creditors.189 It might be inferred from this that Isabella was now aware of the fate of Edward II and was eager to reward his assassins, but there is no proof that Mortimer had divulged to her that he had been murdered, and these rewards, which are not excessive by any means, could simply have been for good service to the deposed King.

  On 16 November, Archbishop Reynolds died, “of grief and horror of mind,” it was said, for having abandoned the cause of Edward II and helped to depose him.190 This may be a fantasy, for in his will, the Archbishop left gifts to the Queen and John of Eltham.191 Isabella and Mortimer now put forward to the Pope their loyal supporter Henry Burghersh, who had succeeded Hotham as Chancellor in July, as their candidate for the vacant primacy, but Lancaster and his faction were wary of the Queen and her lover controlling Canterbury as well as everything else and practiced on the cathedral chapter to choose the weak and undistinguished Simon Meopham. To the Queen’s chagrin, Meopham was elected on 11 December.192 The rigging of this election is the first sign of a growing rift between Lancaster and Isabella and Mortimer, and it had probably been sparked by the ignominious defeat in Weardale and the Queen’s determination to make peace with the Scots. There is no evidence that, at this time, there was widespread outrage at the supposed murder of Edward II and that Lancaster shared it.

  On 20 November, Bartholemew, Lord Burghersh, and William, Lord Clinton, who had recently been rewarded for his services to Queen Isabella,193 were commissioned to escort Philippa of Hainault to England; they left for the Low Countries on the twenty-eighth.194 On 22 November, Mortimer received yet another grant, of the manor of Church Stretton in Shropshire, “in consideration of his services to Queen Isabella and the King, here and beyond seas.”195

  The court was still at Coventry on 10 December, when writs were issued for Parliament to meet at York on 7 February,196 and arrived at Gloucester on 19 December for the late King’s funeral.197

  On 20 December, the body believed to be that of Edward II was buried in Saint Peter’s Abbey, Gloucester, with such pomp and circumstance that it would have been easy to forget the King had been overthrown. The true purpose of this royal and extremely public funeral was probably to underline how very properly Isabella and Mortimer had behaved toward the deposed King, to help restore the status of the monarchy, and to preempt the claims of any would-be pretenders, and possibly one pretender in particular.

  The body was carried through the streets of Gloucester on a magnificent hearse drawn by horses displaying the royal arms of England. The canopied hearse, which had been specially made in London, bore a carved and painted wooden effigy of the King in his royal robes and a copper-gilt crown, the first such effigy ever to have been recorded at a royal funeral. This was a
n innovation, because prior to 1327, it was the embalmed body, rather than an effigy, that was borne on the bier,198 which in itself suggests that something was now amiss. The conveyance rested on the backs of gilded wooden lions and was decorated with carved images of the four Evangelists and eight angels, all painted with gold leaf. Edward III and Queen Isabella followed the coffin as chief mourners, Isabella making, it was said, an excessive show of widowhood. Mortimer also walked in the procession, wearing a black tunic he had ordered for the occasion.199 The streets were packed with crowds, which had been anticipated, for solid oak barriers had been erected to hold them back. Before and after the committal in the north aisle by the high altar in the abbey, the funeral and requiem Masses were respectively celebrated.200

  By now, the whole country knew of the death of Edward II, yet not one voice had publicly challenged the official claim that he had died of natural causes nor protested about the treatment meted out to him since his abdication. He had been deeply unpopular, and his few supporters had either been neutralized or gone to ground.

  After 1330, Edward III ordered a magnificent tomb of Purbeck marble carved in the Decorated style to be built in memory of his father. On it was laid a beautiful effigy of precious alabaster that was perhaps modeled on the wooden effigy carried at the funeral and that may be a stylized attempt at an actual portrait, for the sculptor was almost certainly the same man who was responsible for John of Eltham’s tomb in Westminster Abbey, and both effigies have a protruding lower lip. The use of the same sculptor for father and son suggests that it was the Queen who ordered both effigies. Edward II’s, which depicts him wearing his crown and holding a scepter, was almost certainly intended to emulate the French royal gisants at Saint-Denis, and in this also we can perhaps detect Isabella’s influence, for she would certainly have been familiar with them. Above the tomb was raised a pinnacled double canopy of ogee arches, the first one ever raised above an English royal tomb.

  As with Thomas of Lancaster, Edward II’s reputation was gradually rehabilitated after, and perhaps because of, his supposed death; during the abbacy of John de Wigmore, who was elected in 1329, there began to be reports of miracles being performed at Edward’s tomb and calls for this distinctly unsaintly man to be made a saint.201 The Meaux chronicler observed tartly that no amount of visitors to the tomb, or miracles performed there, could make Edward a saint because of the wickedness of his life.

  Nevertheless, with the numbers of visitors increasing, Edward’s tomb was designed primarily as a shrine, and niches were provided for praying pilgrims. Multitudes flocked there, and so much money was raised through offerings that the Abbot was able to rebuild the south transept in the new Perpendicular style.202 In 1343, Edward III and Philippa of Hainault visited the tomb as pilgrims,203 and their grandson, Richard II, whose white hart badge appears on Edward II’s tomb, petitioned the Pope several times for Edward II’s cannonization. He was unsuccessful, but the cult of the “murdered King” persisted for more than two centuries and was only suppressed at the Reformation.

  Photo Insert 2

  ISABELLA AND HER ARMY BEFORE HEREFORD, 1326.

  IN THE BACKGROUND CAN BE SEEN THE EXECUTION OF HUGH LE DESPENSER.

  At Hereford, the Queen was received “most respectfully and joyfully,” and the town was to be the scene of her triumph.

  THE EXECUTION OF HUGH LE DESPENSER, 1326

  Despenser at first suffered with great patience, but then a ghastly, inhuman howl broke from him.

  EDWARD II ABDICATES IN FAVOR OF HIS SON, 1327

  “As piteous and heavy as the sight was, it failed to excite the compassion of any of the Queen’s ministers.”

  THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE

  Almost certainly the queen turning the wheel is meant to represent Isabella. Rarely have the political consequences of a broken royal marriage been so clearly manifested.

  THE CORONATION OF EDWARD III, 1327

  Isabella wept throughout the long ritual of crowning.

  BERKELEY CASTLE

  Edward II was allegedly murdered here in 1327.

  THE CELL AT BERKELEY CASTLE IN WHICH EDWARD II IS SAID TO HAVE BEEN IMPRISONED

  A well shaft that was originally in this cell is the subject of one of the more lurid chroniclers’ tales.

  ISABELLA WITH HER SON, EDWARD III

  The Queen “practised on the King in his minority” and ruled in his name with Mortimer as unofficial regents.

  A QUEEN AT PRAYER

  It has been suggested that Isabella commissioned the Taymouth Hours as a wedding gift for her daughter, Joan of the Tower, in 1328. If so, the Queen in these miniatures may represent either Isabella or Joan.

  THE VIRGIN PRESENTING A QUEEN TO THE ENTHRONED CHRIST

  A KING AND A QUEEN KNEELING

  CASTLE RISING, NORFOLK

  Here, during her retirement, Isabella maintained a considerable degree of state. The castle is the setting for many legends about her.

  JOHN OF ELTHAM, EARL OF CORNWALL

  The loss of her son was deeply painful to Isabella and left her preoccupied with her own mortality.

  ISABELLA OF FRANCE

  Despite her enforced retirement, kings still had respect for Isabella’s undoubted political skills, and she came to be regarded as a kind of elder stateswoman.

  PHILIPPA OF HAINAULT

  The Pope commended Philippa for the sympathy and consolation she showed to Isabella in her tribulation.

  ISABELLA OF FRANCE (?) IN OLD AGE

  The year before she died, Isabella became a lay member of the Franciscan Order.

  THE FIESCHI LETTER

  No satisfactory explanation has ever been advanced to show how the writer came by some of his information, unless it was from the mouth of Edward II himself.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Now, Mortimer, Begins Our Tragedy

  Isabella did not linger long in Gloucester after the funeral. The court left the next day for Tewkesbury and spent Christmas at Worcester, staying there until at least 28 December. During the festive season, Isabella made over Wallingford Castle to Mortimer.

  According to the account he later submitted to the Exchequer, Hugh de Glanville remained at Gloucester for four days after the funeral, then traveled north to Worcester, arriving there on 26 December. With him was the woman who had embalmed the late King, whom he had secretly brought to Worcester on the Queen’s orders. Glanville stayed for one day only at Worcester, then went on to York. We know about this episode because the Exchequer clerks later queried why Glanville had taken as long as seven days to travel from Gloucester to York, at which point he had to tell them that he had gone via Worcester, and why.1

  Isabella’s desire to meet the embalmer suggests that there were doubts in her mind concerning the fate of Edward II and that she suspected that Mortimer had not told her the whole truth about it. An alternative theory, that she did know about the murder and was worried in case the woman knew too much and might talk, is less likely since Isabella also would have known that Maltravers, Gurney, and Ockle were in possession of the same sensitive information. Furthermore, they received rewards for their services—rewards, it should be pointed out, that were a matter of public knowledge, yet hardly generous enough to buy their silence. Of course, it is possible that Isabella wished to thank this woman in person for her discretion, and perhaps to intimidate her into keeping her mouth shut, but there is no record of her benefiting.

  Isabella probably summoned the woman because she had private doubts that her husband really had died a natural death and hoped to be reassured by the one person who would have had good reason to know. It was doubtless to avoid Mortimer’s finding out what she was doing that she ordered Glanville to bring the woman secretly to her. If the body she had embalmed had been the real Edward II, the likelihood is that he had been suffocated, which would have left hardly any mark. Yet the corpse could have been that of the unfortunate porter, and while we do not know how Edward is supposed to have killed him, it could well have
been by suffocation, to prevent him from crying out and thus bringing the guards running. It is highly unlikely that the embalmer would have found burn marks inside the body because the stories about the red-hot spit were almost certainly invented. Therefore, we may assume that, on all counts, the woman was able to reassure the Queen that the King had died naturally.

  Glanville also brought Isabella the silver casket containing what she believed to be her late husband’s heart. It was reported later that she received it with sorrow.

  Meanwhile, on 23 December, Philippa of Hainault had arrived in England and the next day made a state entry into London, where she was received with “great rejoicings” and “rich display,” and lodged at Ely Place, Bishop Hotham’s town residence in Holborn.2 The citizens were impressed with this “full feminine” thirteen-year-old girl,3 who represented a lucrative trade treaty with the prosperous Low Countries. For three days, they feasted her, danced, caroled, and jousted, then presented her with a gift of plate worth 300 marks, and the celebrations in London went on for three weeks after her departure on 28 December.4 Escorted by the King’s cousin, John de Bohun, Earl of Hereford and High Constable of England, Philippa began the long journey north, along roads deep in snow and mud, to meet up with her bridegroom. She was at Peterborough on 1 January 1328. Four days later, the court was at Nottingham. It then moved north via Rothwell and Knaresborough5 to York, arriving there on 20 January.6