by Alison Weir
121. Baker.
122. Foedera.
123. Murimuth; Annales Paulini; Robert of Reading; Walsingham; Baker.
124. Annales Paulini; The Brut; Kentish Chronicle; CPR; Foedera; Ormrod, “Edward II at Neath”; Knighton. A ruined tower is all that remains of Llantrissant Castle.
125. Chartulary of Winchester Cathedral.
126. CPR.
127. Annales Paulini; Murimuth.
128. Annales Paulini. Knighton says he was hanged and his body divided.
129. Murimuth; Chroniques de London.
130. Froissart.
131. Doherty, thesis; Knighton; Kentish Chronicle.
132. Foedera.
133. The Brut.
134. Ibid.
135. For the Younger Despenser’s trial, see Gesta Edwardi; Holmes, “Judgement”; Taylor, “Judgement”; Robert of Reading.
136. Froissart.
137. For the charges against Despenser, see Annales Paulini; Robert of Reading.
138. The Brut; Leland; Fryde, Tyranny; Holmes, “Judgement.” A manuscript illustration of Isabella (wearing armor) and Mortimer with their army at Hereford shows Despenser’s execution taking place in the background (BL Royal MS 15 EIV f31bv).
139. Michelet.
140. For Despenser’s execution, see Froissart; Annales Paulini; Kentish Chronicle; Walsingham; Knighton. A graphic manuscript illustration of the execution is in a version of Froissart’s Chronicles in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.
141. The Brut.
142. CCR.
143. CCR; CP.
144. Froissart.
145. Knighton.
146. Froissart.
147. CCR; Annales Paulini.
148. CPR.
149. Ibid.; Foedera; CCR.
150. Baker.
151. See, for example, Johnstone, “Isabella.”
152. Annales Paulini.
153. Cf. Mortimer.
154. Doherty, thesis.
155. Froissart.
156. Ibid.
157. CCR.
158. Ibid.
159. CPR.
160. CCR.
161. CPR.
162. Ibid.; C.62.
163. For their itinerary between 26 November and 21 December, see E.101.
164. CFR.
165. Parliamentary Writs.
166. Annales Paulini.
167. Thynne. He was finally interred on 28 March 1327, and a beautiful tomb was later raised to his memory by the high altar, which can still be seen today.
168. Foedera.
169. Baker.
170. Foedera.
171. CCR; CFR.
172. CCR.
173. Froissart.
174. Dene.
175. Literae Cantuarienses.
176. Chroniques de London; Historical Manuscripts Commission, Various Collections, I.
177. Chartulary of Winchester Cathedral.
178. Froissart; Chartulary of Winchester Cathedral.
179. The Brut.
180. Chartulary of Winchester Cathedral.
181. E.101; Froissart; Kentish Chronicle.
182. Society of Antiquaries MS 122.
183. E.101; CFR.
184. Calendar of Plea and Memoranda Rolls.
185. E.101; Froissart; Kentish Chronicle; Cotton MSS, Nero; Baker; Annales Paulini; Rotuli Parliamentorum.
186. Froissart; Rotuli Parliamentorum.
187. Chronicle of Lanercost.
188. Literae Cantuarienses; The Brut.
189. Pipewell Chronicle; Clarke, “Committees of Estates”; Literae Cantuarienses; Rotuli Parliamentorum; Chronicle of Lanercost.
190. Dene.
191. Higden; Lichfield Chronicle; Pipewell Chronicle; Chronicle of Lanercost. The sources for this Parliament are contradictory and confusing. See Doherty, thesis; Fryde, Tyranny; Clarke, “Committees of Estates”; Valente.
192. Rotuli Parliamentorum.
193. CCR.
194. CPR.
195. Chronicle of Lanercost.
196. Bodleian MS 956; Kentish Chronicle.
197. Dene.
198. Calendar of Plea and Memoranda Rolls; Annales Paulini.
199. Calendar of Plea and Memoranda Rolls; Annales Paulini; Dene.
200. Literae Cantuarienses.
201. Walsingham.
202. Bodleian MS 956; Kentish Chronicle.
203. Kentish Chronicle.
204. Dene; Chronicle of Lanercost; Kentish Chronicle.
205. Chronicle of Lanercost.
206. Dene.
207. Dene; Chronicle of Lanercost; Kentish Chronicle.
208. Dene.
209. Chronicle of Lanercost.
210. Kentish Chronicle.
211. Dene.
212. Dene; Chronicle of Lanercost; Kentish Chronicle.
213. Kentish Chronicle.
214. Chronicle of Lanercost.
215. Chartulary of Winchester Cathedral.
216. The Articles of Deposition are in Select Documents of English Constitutional History. See also Foedera; Chartulary of Winchester Cathedral; Annales Paulini; The Brut; Historiae Anglicana Decem Scriptores.
217. Dene.
218. Ibid.
219. Walsingham.
220. Harding, “Isabella and Mortimer”; E.101.
221. Walsingham.
222. Knighton; Baker. Baker’s account of the deputation’s mission was based on information given him by his patron, Sir Thomas de la More, who was one of its members and an eyewitness to these events.
223. Chronicle of Lanercost.
224. Clarke, “Committees of Estates”; Baker.
225. Walsingham.
226. Ibid.
227. For Edward’s abdication, see Baker; Clarke, “Committees of Estates”; Higden; Lichfield Chronicle; Pipewell Chronicle; Kentish Chronicle; Chronicle of Lanercost; Doherty, thesis; Fryde, Tyranny.
228. CCR.
229. Baker.
CHAPTER NINE Plots and Stratagems
1. C.62.
2. Baker.
3. Cuttino and Lyman.
4. For Edward III’s coronation, see Annales Paulini; Dene; E.101; Walsingham; Murimuth; Baker.
5. Edward III’s seal of 1327 is now the property of Durham Cathedral.
6. CPR.
7. Political Poems and Songs.
8. Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers; Doherty, thesis.
9. Pipewell Chronicle.
10. In 1359–66, Edward III converted Sheen Manor into a sumptuous palace. It was demolished by a grieving Richard II in 1395, after his queen, Anne of Bohemia, had died of plague there. Henry V rebuilt it, but it was again burned down in 1497. A few years later, Henry VII raised it anew as Richmond Palace.
11. CPR.
12. History of the King’s Works. Since Isabella’s time, Leeds has been extensively renovated, but her apartments largely survive, much altered. Two of these rooms have been furnished in the manner they would have been in the time of Henry V’s queen, Katherine of Valois (d. 1437).
13. History of the King’s Works; CPR; CCR; CFR.
14. Doherty, thesis.
15. Victoria County History: Hertfordshire; History of the King’s Works.
16. E.101.
17. Calendar of Plea and Memoranda Rolls.
18. Rotuli Parliamentorum; Chroniques de London.
19. For the regency council, see The Brut; Chronicle of Meaux; Rotuli Parliamentorum; Knighton.
20. Doherty, thesis.
21. Robert of Avesbury.
22. Doherty, thesis.
23. Froissart; Walsingham; Baker.
24. This treatise is in Christ Church College, Oxford (MS 92, f.4v).
25. Dene.
26. CPR.
27. Chronicle of Meaux.
28. Calendar of Plea and Memoranda Rolls; Foedera; Somerville; CP.
29. Rotuli Parliamentorum.
30. Rotuli Parliamentorum; Strickland; Rapin-Thoyras; Foedera; The Brut.
31. Statutes of the Realm.
32. E.101.
33. C.53; Syllabus of Documents Relating to England; Nicholson.
34. CPR.
35. Ibid.
36. Ibid.
37. Calendar of Plea and Memoranda Rolls; CFR.
38. C.53; CPR.
39. Foedera.
40. CCR; CPR; CFR; Foedera; C.62.
41. CFR.
42. CPR.
43. Murimuth; Walsingham; Annales Paulini; Historiae Anglicana Decem Scriptores; Gesta Edwardi; Froissart.
44. Historiae Anglicana Decem Scriptores; Chartulary of Winchester Cathedral.
45. Foedera; Chronicle of Lanercost.
46. Foedera.
47. Ibid.
48. Ibid.
49. Murimuth; Walsingham; Baker; Rapin-Thoyras.
50. The Brut.
51. Gransden.
52. The Latin poem is printed in Fabyan’s New Chronicles. There are various different versions of these poems. Fabyan gives the verses in Latin, but the Norman-French original is in a manuscript at Longleat (Historical Manuscripts Commission). Studer accepts these poems as authentic, while Galbraith is skeptical.
53. CPR; Tout, “Captivity and Death”; Doherty, thesis.
54. CFR.
55. E.101; Dene.
56. E.101.
57. Knighton.
58. E.101; Knighton; Rotuli Parliamentorum.
59. Clarke, “Committees of Estates”; Foedera.
60. Ibid.
61. E.101; Foedera.
62. E.101.
63. CFR.
64. Foedera.
65. Ibid.
66. Fryde, Tyranny.
67. Baker; CPR; Mortimer; Berkeley Manuscripts.
68. “Documents Relating to Death and Burial”; Harleian MSS; Foedera.
69. Annales Paulini; Tout, “Captivity and Death”; Baker; Berkeley Manuscripts.
70. Berkeley Manuscripts.
71. Tout, “Captivity and Death”; Murimuth; Berkeley Manuscripts.
72. Annales Paulini; Foedera.
73. Baker.
74. Ibid.
75. Chartulary of Winchester Cathedral; Rotuli Parliamentorum; Baker; Historiae Anglicana Decem Scriptores.
76. CPR; Doherty, thesis.
77. S.C.1; CPR; Doherty, thesis.
78. Foedera.
79. E.101; Froissart.
80. Froissart.
81. Literae Cantuarienses.
82. S.C.1; CPR; Doherty, thesis.
83. C.53; CPR.
84. Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers.
85. Doherty, thesis.
86. E.101.
87. Froissart; The Brut.
88. It became a market garden in the eighteenth century and, in 1839, the site of York’s first railway station, which is now occupied by railway offices and a hotel.
89. Froissart; Walsingham; Baker.
90. Froissart; Walsingham; Baker; Murimuth; The Brut; Jean le Bel.
91. Foedera; The Brut.
92. CPR.
93. Foedera; The Brut.
94. Rotuli Scotiae.
95. E.101.
96. Foedera; E.370; History of the King’s Works.
97. E.101; Foedera.
98. E.101.
99. The Brut; Grey, Scalacronica.
100. Murimuth.
101. Berkeley Manuscripts; Doherty, Isabella.
102. Murimuth.
103. Tanquerery; Foedera.
104. CPR; Harding, “Isabella and Mortimer.”
105. Doherty, thesis.
106. Tanquerery; S.C.1.
107. CPR.
108. Tanquerery.
109. Ibid.
110. Annales Paulini; Tanquerery; Tout, “Captivity and Death”; The Brut.
111. Foedera.
112. CCR; King’s Bench Records; CPR; Doherty, Isabella.
113. Foedera.
114. CCR; Froissart.
115. Ibid.
116. Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers; Foedera.
117. Froissart.
118. Ibid.
119. C.53.
120. E.101.
121. Froissart; E.101; E.159.
122. E.101; Foedera; CPR; E.159.
123. Foedera; CPR; E.404; Calendar of Plea and Memoranda Rolls; Rotuli Scotiae; Rotuli Parliamentorum; Letters and Papers from Northern Registers; Knighton. For further details, see Doherty, thesis.
124. Tout, “Captivity and Death”; Edwards, “Sir Gruffydd Lloyd.”
125. CCR; Chronicle of Lanercost.
126. CPR.
127. E.101.
128. CCR; CPR.
129. Ibid.
130. CPR.
131. Tout, “Captivity and Death”; Doherty, Isabella.
132. For the full text of Hywel ap Gruffydd’s statement, which comes from the Coram Rege Rolls, 5, EdIII, see Tout, “Captivity and Death.”
133. CCR.
134. Tout, “Captivity and Death”; Murimuth; Berkeley Manuscripts; Doherty, thesis; Mortimer; Gransden.
135. Chartulary of Winchester Cathedral.
136. Gransden.
137. Tout, “Captivity and Death.”
138. The Brut; Taylor, “French Brut”; Anominalle Chronicle; Taylor, English Historical Literature.
139. Fryde, Tyranny.
140. Rotuli Parliamentorum.
141. Johnson, Edward III.
142. Rotuli Parliamentorum.
143. Taylor, “French Brut”; Mortimer.
144. A copy of this letter was discovered by a French archivist in the nineteenth century in the binding of an official register dated 1368, which had been the property of Gaucelm de Deaux, Bishop of Maguelonne and was preserved in the Archives Departementales d’Herault at Montpellier in southern France, where it still rests today (GM23, Carte de Maguelonne, Reg. A, fol. 86r [r]).
145. Cuttino and Lyman.
146. Haines, “Edwardus Redivivus”; Mortimer.
147. Now in the possession of the Society of Antiquaries.
148. Rotuli Parliamentorum.
149. See Mortimer.
150. Haines, “Edwardus Redivivus.”
151. Ibid.; Mortimer.
152. Cuttino and Lyman.
153. Doherty, Isabella; Cuttino and Lyman.
154. Ibid.
155. Haines, “Edwardus Redivivus.” A contemporary description of the opening of the tomb is in MS 55 in Gloucester Cathedral Library.
156. Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers.
157. For Manuele Fieschi, see Cuttino and Lyman; Mortimer; Doherty, Isabella; Doherty, thesis.
158. “Documents Relating to Death and Burial.”
159. Berkeley Manuscripts.
160. Doherty, Isabella; Berkeley Manuscripts.
161. Mortimer.
162. Rotuli Parliamentorum.
163. The Brut.
164. Hope.
165. D.L.10; Harding, “Isabella and Mortimer”; Berkeley Manuscripts; Haines, “Edwardus Redivivus”; Letters and Papers from Northern Registers. The Berkeley accounts show that Gurney arrived on 28 September with news of Edward’s death, and Doherty is of the opinion that an earlier messenger arrived on the twenty-third, but I think that there must be an error in the accounts and that we should read twenty-third for twenty-eighth.
166. D.L.10; Harding, “Isabella and Mortimer.”
167. Rotuli Parliamentorum.
168. Berkeley Manuscripts; Letters and Papers from Northern Registers.
169. Letters and Papers from Northern Registers.
170. “Documents Relating to Death and Burial.”
171. Letters and Papers from Northern Registers.
172. C.53.
173. Foedera; E.403.
174. Foedera.
175. Baker; Anglo-Scottish Relations.
176. Historia Sancti Petri Gloucestriae.
177. Knighton.
178. Tout, “Captivity and Death.”
179. Chronicle of Lanercost.
180. Rotuli Parliamento
rum.
181. Hunter, “Gurney.”
182. Berkeley Manuscripts.
183. Tout, “Captivity and Death”; “Documents Relating to Death and Burial”; E.101.
184. E.101; E.41.
185. E.101.
186. CPR.
187. CCR.
188. E.101.
189. S.C.1.
190. CPR.
191. Historical Manuscripts Commission, 5th Report.
192. Annales Paulini.
193. CPR.
194. Foedera; E.403.
195. CPR.
196. E.101; Foedera.
197. E.101.
198. Hallam, “Royal Burial.”
199. Murimuth.
200. For Edward II’s funeral, see Additional MSS; Doherty, thesis; Harding, “Isabella and Mortimer”; “Documents Relating to Death and Burial”; Haines, “Edwardus Redivivus”;E.101; Berkeley Manuscripts.
201. Walker.
202. Historia Sancti Petri Gloucestriae.
203. Murimuth.
CHAPTER TEN Now, Mortimer, Begins Our Tragedy
1. “Documents Relating to Death and Burial.”
2. Ely Place was demolished in 1772.
3. Hardyng; Froissart.
4. Annales Paulini.
5. C.53; CPR.
6. CPR.
7. Froissart.
8. The Brut; Froissart; Annales Paulini.
9. The Brut.
10. C.53; CPR.
11. Calendar of Plea and Memoranda Rolls.
12. Foedera.
13. Ibid.
14. C.53.
15. Doherty, thesis.
16. C.61.
17. E.101.
18. C.53; CPR; CFR.
19. C.53.
20. Annales Paulini; Foedera.
21. Foedera.
22. Nicholson; Robert of Avesbury; Walsingham.
23. Grey, Scalacronica.
24. Knighton.
25. Grey, Scalacronica; Baker; The Brut. Cf. Chronicle of Lanercost: “The peace was made through them and no others.”
26. The Brut.
27. Baker.
28. Rotuli Parliamentorum.
29. CPR; Rotuli Parliamentorum.
30. Doherty, thesis.
31. The Brut.
32. Doherty, thesis.
33. Rotuli Parliamentorum.
34. See, for example, S.C.8.
35. CPR.
36. Statutes of the Realm.
37. Doherty, thesis; CPR; Foedera; Calendar of Plea and Memoranda Rolls.
38. Foedera.
39. Ibid.
40. Froissart.
41. C.47; Foedera; C.61. The marriage negotiations were soon abandoned.
42. E.101; Calendar of Plea and Memoranda Rolls; Doherty, thesis.
43. Murimuth; Mortimer.
44. Mortimer.
45. CPR; Dugdale, Monasticon.
46. Foedera; Nicholson.
47. Calendar of Plea and Memoranda Rolls; Dignity of a Peer; Doherty, thesis.