by Alison Weir
Many writers140 have condemned Isabella for what they see as this final act of hypocrisy, yet it was probably another act of reparation, like being buried in her wedding cloak. Entering a religious order as a penitent suggests that she was more preoccupied with remorse, absolution, and redemption than with memories of the wrongs that Edward had done her or of sharing the pleasures of the flesh with Mortimer. And, who knows, the hermit at Cecima might well have extended his forgiveness to her before his death.
Edward III saw that Isabella’s servants were rewarded after her death.141 Later, when the great middle window of the church in which she lay blew in, he paid for it to be replaced “for the repose of the soul of the most illustrious Queen Isabella.”142 Every year until his own passing in 1377, the King solemnly observed the anniversary of her death with prayers and intercessions.143 In accordance with her instructions, for she had planned her own memorial, he also raised a beautiful marble tomb and alabaster effigy over her remains. The tomb was, unusually, the work of a female sculptor, Agnes de Ramsey, who had taken over her father’s workshop. A craftsman, Nicholas of Louth, also worked on it, along with masons, smiths, and painters. The monument was evidently finished within a year, for in 1359, Andrew the Ironsmith was paid £110 for making decorative iron railings to surround it. Five years later, a painted canopy was erected over the tomb.144
In 1362, Isabella’s daughter Joan died and, at her own request, was buried near her mother in the Grey Friars.145 Twenty years later, the body of Isabella’s granddaughter and namesake was also laid to rest there. Two of Isabella’s confessors and one of her damsels were buried in the church.
Alas, Isabella’s monument, along with all the rest, is irrevocably lost to us. It was damaged and defaced when the convent of the Grey Friars was dissolved during the Reformation of the 1530s. Then, before 1566, when the friars’ former place of worship was made the local parish church in the reign of Elizabeth I, Sir Martin Bowes, Lord Mayor of London, sold it off with nine other tombs of royal personages and several gravestones for £50.146 Nothing is known of what became of them.
The church in which they had stood was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666 and afterward rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren as Christ Church. It was Wren’s church that was devastated during the Blitz and whose few ruins we see today. The site of the convent is now occupied by a small park, a building owned by the Post Office, and a busy main road. Somewhere, below the ground, lies the dust of a long-dead queen.
History has been unkind to Isabella. For centuries, she has been condemned, mostly by male historians, for her adultery, her violation of marital conventions, her cruelty, her misgovernment, and her connivance in a murder that probably never took place. She is the femme fatale of the English monarchy.
Yet Isabella is deserving of great pity for the impossible situation in which she found herself and also of admiration for the way in which she dealt with it. The deposition of Edward II had become a political imperative, and she successfully led a revolution to achieve it. In so doing, she brought about the first constitutional deposition by Parliament of an English king, setting a precedent for the depositions of Richard II in 1399, Henry VI in 1461 and 1471, Edward IV in 1470, Edward V in 1483, and Charles I in 1648. Thus, Isabella’s importance in the history of Britain cannot be overestimated, for the process instigated by her in France and Hainault in 1326–27 set in motion a political trend that would lead directly to the decline of monarchical power itself and the emergence of democracy, a development that she herself, the daughter of Philip IV, would doubtless have been horrified to contemplate.
Isabella’s dynastic importance cannot be overstated either, for she not only transmitted her claim to France to her son but also actively encouraged him to pursue it, thus instituting a war that was famously to last for more than a hundred years. Again, though, the long-term effects were disastrous, for England ended up losing nearly all its continental territories, and the political unrest generated by defeat was one of the causes of the Wars of the Roses, another dynastic catastrophe.
For these reasons, Isabella was one of the most important figures of the early fourteenth century, despite being in the political spotlight for only five years.
Isabella’s downfall lay in her involvement with the rapacious Mortimer, for while she was undoubtedly an able and competent stateswoman, and was capable of launching the sole successful invasion of England since the Norman Conquest, her talents were ultimately wasted on policies that were calculated only to ensure the survival of an unpopular and tyrannical regime. Had Mortimer never come into her life, and had she ruled alone, with the help of Lancaster, after Edward’s abdication, the outcome would have been very different, not only in historical terms but in terms of her reputation, which has suffered largely because of her perceived immorality with Mortimer. Nowadays, society is inclined to view a relationship such as theirs with far greater tolerance and understanding, so it is at last possible to take a kinder view of Isabella than in the past, when she was condemned largely because she was a woman who dared to violate the mores of the world in which she lived.
If there are ghosts in Newgate and at Castle Rising, they are surely not those of a mad and demented queen lamenting the brutal murder of her husband. Nor could it be claimed with any truth that Isabella of France deserves to be remembered by the epithet “She-Wolf.”
Genealogical Tables
Abbreviations Used in the Notes and References
PRINTED CALENDARS OF DOCUMENTS
CCR
Calendar of the Close Rolls
CFR
Calendar of the Fine Rolls
CPR
Calendar of the Patent Rolls
COLLECTIONS OF DOCUMENTS IN THE PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Chancery
C.47
Miscellanea
C.49
Parliament and Council Proceedings
C.53
Carter Rolls
C.61
Gascon Rolls
C.62
Liberate Rolls
C.81
Chancery Warrants
Duchy of Lancaster
D.L.10
Royal Charters
D.L.28
Accounts Various
D.L.41
Miscellanea
D.L.42
Miscellaneous Books
Exchequer
E.30
Diplomatic Documents
E.41
Ancient Deeds
E.101
King’s Remembrancer, Wardrobe Accounts: Accounts Various
E.159
King’s Remembrancer: Memoranda Rolls
E.163
Miscellanea
E.199
Sheriffs’ Accounts
E.370
Miscellaneous Rolls, Including Pipe Rolls
E.403
Issue Rolls
E.404
Writs and Warrants for Issue
Special Collections
S.C.1
Ancient Correspondence
S.C.6
Ministers’ Accounts
S.C.8
Ancient Petitions
Miscellaneous
CP
Complete Peerage
DNB
Dictionary of National Biography
All of the other sources listed can be identified by the author’s name or an abbreviated title. All titles are given in full in the bibliography.
Notes and References
CHAPTER ONE The Fair Maiden
1. For the betrothal, see Rishanger.
2. Foedera; Archives Nationales.
3. Foedera; Cotton MSS, Julius.
4. Foedera.
5. Ibid.
6. Cotton MSS, Julius.
7. Archives Nationales.
8. Acta Imperii.
9. Foedera; E.30.
10. Fawtier; Doherty, thesis.
11. Annales Monastici.
12. Foedera; Doherty, “Date of the Birth of
Isabella.”
13. Foedera.
14. Letters of Edward, Prince of Wales.
15. Foedera.
16. Knighton; Doherty, Isabella.
17. Bernard Sasset, Bishop of Pamiers, cited in The Plantagenet Encyclopaedia.
18. Froissart.
19. The title “Dauphin” was not used for the French King’s eldest son until the middle of the fourteenth century.
20. The surname Capet, originally borne by Hugh Capet, founder of the dynasty, was not in fact used by any of the Capetian kings. It was revived by French revolutionaries in the late eighteenth century as a derisory surname for the deposed Louis XVI and his family (whose true surname was Bourbon) and was thereafter used by historians to describe the dynasty that ruled France from 987 to 1328.
21. A few grants to her are recorded in Les Journaux de Trésor de Philippe le Bel and in Receuil des Historiens de France.
22. The earliest surviving signature of an English queen is that of Joan of Navarre, wife of Henry IV (reigned 1399–1413).
23. Receuil des Historiens des Gaules.
24. Letters of Edward, Prince of Wales.
25. S.C.1.
26. Archives Nationales.
27. Ibid.; Foedera.
28. Bibliothèque Nationale, Collection Brienne, 7007.
29. Piers of Langtoft; Walter of Guisborough.
30. Vitae Paparum.
31. Chronicle of Lanercost.
32. Additional MSS; E.101.
33. E.101; CCR.
34. Doherty, thesis.
35. Annales Monastici; Walsingham; Rapin-Thoyras.
36. E.101; Additional MSS.
37. Foedera.
38. CCR; Foedera; Additional MSS.
39. CPR.
40. “Chronicle of the Civil Wars.”
41. Chaplais, Gaveston; Foedera.
42. Lizerand.
43. Receuil des Historiens de France.
44. For the wedding preparations, see CCR and Les Journaux de Trésor de Philippe le Bel.
45. Foedera.
46. Johnstone, Edward of Caernarvon.
47. Trevet.
48. E.101; Harleian MSS.
49. Vita Edwardi Secundi.
50. Trokelowe.
51. Baker.
52. Annales Paulini; Walter of Guisborough.
53. “Chronicle of the Civil Wars.”
54. Chronicle of Lanercost.
55. See, for example, Vita Edwardi Secundi and Higden.
56. Vita Edwardi Secundi.
57. Annales Paulini.
58. Trokelowe.
59. The Brut.
60. Patroclus was the dearest friend of Achilles, and when he was killed by King Hector of Troy, Achilles was stricken by grief. Seeking revenge, he slew Hector, then staged a magnificent funeral for Patroclus. The author of the Vita Edwardi Secundi was of course writing with the benefit of hindsight.
61. Stowe MSS.
62. Vita Edwardi Secundi; Chronicle of Meaux.
63. Additional MSS; CPR.
64. CFR.
65. Annales Londonienses.
66. Walter of Guisborough; “Chronicle of the Civil Wars.”
67. Some chroniclers refer to “divers accusations” (Eulogium Historiarum; Trevet; Walsingham); Murimuth says Gaveston was exiled because he gave “evil counsel” to Edward.
68. Foedera; CCR.
69. Foedera.
70. Additional MSS; E.101.
71. CCR.
72. Walter of Guisborough.
73. Robert of Reading.
74. Vita Edwardi Secundi.
75. Ibid.
76. E.101.
77. Foedera; C.53; CCR; CPR. It was commonly believed that Edward I had intended to bestow this earldom on one of his sons by Marguerite of France, Thomas of Brotherton or Edmund of Woodstock.
78. Vita Edwardi Secundi; Walter of Guisborough; Trokelowe.
79. Vita Edwardi Secundi; cf. Walter of Guisborough, Trokelowe, and Walsingham.
80. Vita Edwardi Secundi.
81. Annales Paulini; Walter of Guisborough. The Chronicle of Lanercost attests to the enmity between Gaveston and Langton.
82. Murimuth; Vita Edwardi Secundi.
83. Walter of Guisborough; Annales Paulini; Foedera.
84. Literae Cantuarienses.
85. Froissart.
86. E.101.
87. Vita Edwardi Secundi.
88. Ibid.; Annales Paulini; Trokelowe; Walsingham.
89. Vita Edwardi Secundi.
90. Foedera; Parliamentary Writs; CPR.
91. Trokelowe; Vita Edwardi Secundi; Walsingham.
92. Silk woven with gold.
93. That means that they were made of a rich silk (“marbrinus”) woven to look like veins of marble.
94. At that time, “scarlet” was a richer-quality silk than normal.
95. For Isabella’s trousseau, see E.101.
96. E.101; Foedera.
97. Murimuth.
98. Studer.
99. Geoffrey de Paris.
100. Latin MSS.
101. Now in the British Library.
102. In support of this theory, it should be noted that the head of Edward II on the Oxenbridge tomb bears a very close resemblance to that on his tomb effigy in Gloucester Cathedral.
103. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich.
104. Vita Edwardi Secundi.
105. Grey, Scalacronica.
106. Vita Edwardi Secundi.
107. Roll of Arms.
108. Archives Nationales; Registre du Trésor des Chartres.
109. Additional MSS.
110. This church was destroyed during the French Revolution, and only the crypt remains. The present cathedral was built between 1827 and 1866. For Isabella’s wedding, see Annales Londonienses and Annales Paulini. A manuscript illumination of the wedding, dating from circa 1470–71, appears in Jean de Waurin’s Chronique d’Angleterre in the British Library.
111. “Sindon” was either satin or very fine linen.
112. Blackley, “Isabella…and the…Cult of the Dead”; Costain.
113. Costain.
114. CCR.
115. Now in the British Museum.
116. l’Arsenal de Paris MSS, 3346; Receuil des Historiens de France; Annales Paulini.
117. E.101.
118. Ibid.
119. Cotton MSS, Nero; C.47; Additional MSS.
120. Phillips, Aymer; Maddicott; Mortimer. Among the ten were the Earls of Lincoln, Surrey, Pembroke, and Hereford and the Bishop of Durham; the other five were barons.
121. E.101.
122. Vita Edwardi Secundi.
CHAPTER TWO The King Is Lovesick for His Minion
1. Foedera; Parliamentary Writs.
2. Trokelowe; Foedera.
3. Foedera; E.101.
4. CCR.
5. Foedera.
6. Trokelowe.
7. Archives Nationales, MS J655; Doherty, thesis.
8. Annales Paulini; Rhodes; Maddicott. The jewelry that Isabella brought from France is included in a list of her effects in the French Archives Nationales.
9. Trokelowe; Walsingham; Foedera.
10. Annales Paulini; Gesta Edwardi; Maddicott; E.403; Foedera; Parliamentary Writs; CCR.
11. E.101.
12. Henry III’s palace was demolished in the seventeenth century by Charles II. The medieval royal apartments in Saint Thomas’s Tower and the Wakefield Tower were partially restored in 1993. The Chapel of Saint Peter ad Vincula was rebuilt by Henry VIII. Only the foundations of the Coldharbour Gate remain today. In 1828, the royal menagerie became the basis of the new London Zoo.
13. Under Henry VIII, York Place became Whitehall Palace and replaced Westminster Palace as the seat of government.
14. History of the King’s Works; Gee. Nothing survives of Edward the Confessor’s palace. Richard II heightened Westminster Hall and built the magnificent hammerbeam roof that survives today. Of Saint Stephen’s Chapel, only the fourteenth-century cry
pt now remains; it was heavily restored after 1834. Much of the medieval Palace of Westminster was destroyed by a fire in 1512, which ended its use as a royal residence. What remained, including the Painted Chamber, was nearly all destroyed in another fire in 1834. The Houses of Parliament, completed by 1860, now occupy the site.
15. For the coronation, see the eyewitness account in the Annales Paulini; Vita Edwardi Secundi; Gesta Edwardi.
16. Annales Paulini; Walsingham; Parliamentary Writs.
17. Foedera.
18. Annales Paulini; Robert of Reading; Walsingham.
19. Robert of Reading.
20. Annales Paulini.
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid.
24. Select Documents of English Constitutional History; Foedera.
25. This crown has long since disappeared. The only English medieval crown to survive is the tin burial crown of Edward I, which was found in his tomb in 1774 (Steane).
26. Annales Paulini; Walsingham; Annales Londonienses.
27. Annales Paulini.
28. Annales Paulini; Walsingham.
29. Foedera.
30. E.101.
31. Annales Paulini.
32. Vita Edwardi Secundi.
33. Chronicle of Lanercost; Cotton MSS, Nero.
34. Vita Edwardi Secundi.
35. Higden.
36. Higden; Robert of Reading; Knighton; Vita Edwardi Secundi.
37. Fabyan; Studer.
38. Annales Paulini; Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers.
39. Letters of Edward, Prince of Wales.
40. Johnstone, Edward of Caernarvon.
41. Higden.
42. Vita Edwardi Secundi.
43. Johnstone, Edward of Caernarvon.
44. Antiquarian Repertory.
45. Strickland.