|
Edward II's positive attributes as a king |
Edwards
negative attributes |
| *Tall *Good looks *Strong physique *Boisterous sense of humour *He could be loyal *Congenial & good conversationalist *Articulate and could be witty. *Enjoyed practical jokes & horseplay. *Liked horses, hounds, hunting, wrestling, swimming digging ditches, thatching roofs and other physical pursuits *A skilled horseman who bred and trained his own hounds and horses. *Owned a pet lion often travelling with him in a cart with a silver chain with its keeper. *He kept a camel at the King's Langley stables. *Literate, he wrote many letters, knew Latin & spoke Norman-French *A loving father. *Genuinely pious and generous to the church, particularly the Dominican Order. |
*Vain. *Weak leader. *Lazy, particularly when he was a youth he was idle and frivolous. Enjoyed languishing in bed in the A.M. *Quick and unpredictable speech. *Indecisive *Self indulgent *Extravagant *Petulant *Lacked empathy *Vindictive *Vicious & cruel if provoked *Savage Plantagenet temper. *Flaunted his homosexuality9 *Held grudges for years *Lacked judgement *Not very intelligent *Wayward and difficult *Enjoyed good food and wine, often drank too much became loquatious, the wine acting as a truth drug and making him quarrelsome. *Disliked knighthood and its discipline and lacked knightly dignity. *Promoted unsuitable advisors. *Disliked military campaigning. *A gambler, lost large sums at dice etc. *A hedonist, always seeking some new pleasure. *Enjoyed fine, expensive but elegant, showy, bizarre clothes & jewellry *Liked acting or 'theatricals' *Patron of writers and players *Enjoyed poetry and wrote some. *Played kettle drums, loved music & had a troupe of Genoese musicians [2 trumpeters, harpist, horn player and a drummer.] *With Gaveston he enjoyed jesters, jugglers, actors and singers. *Collected books on French romances and legends. |
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The Lords Ordainers Eight Earls: Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke. Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln. Thomas Plantagenet, Earl of Lancaster.'The Martyr'. Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford. Guy de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick. Edmund Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel. John of Brittany, Earl of Richmond. Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester. Seven Bishops: Robert Winchelsea, Archbishop of Canterbury. John Langton, Bishop of Chichester. Ralph Baldock, Bishop of London. Simon of Ghent, Bishop of Salisbury. David Martin, Bishop of St.David's. John of Monmouth, Bishop of Llandaff. John Salmon, Bishop of Norwich. Six barons: John Grey, Baron Grey de Wilton. Hugh de Courtenay, Baron Courtenay. Hugh de Vere, Baron of Swanscombe. Robert Clifford, Baron Clifford. William Marshal, Baron Marshal. William Martin, Baron Martin. |
The young King Edward married Queen
Isabella who despite bearing Edward four children, became disaffected
by the treatment of her by Edward's favourites. The most
prominent of these was Gaveston who gained the Earldom of Cornwall.
and after Gaveston's murder, the Despensers (de Spencers later
Spencers). Alison Weir has recently tried to salvage,
somewhat, the tainted image of Isabella, the "She-Wolf"
of France, but a great amount of momentum will need to be provided
to shift the notion that she was somehow to blame for much of the
turmoil of Edward's reign. Perhaps in a paternalistic society
someone had to become the butt of the disappointment.
Roger de Mortimer who by now was her lover.
They landed in Suffolk and were greeted by the people who
had grown tired of Edward's ways. Only about half the population
were supporters of the king. Edward was overthrown and finally
imprisoned in Berkeley Castle, Gloucester in 1327 where
he was murdered, tradition says in a very cruel manner.
Queen Isabella as a widow10
A Yorkshire time line for Edward II's reign:
Yorkshire's welfare was directly related to the wars between
Scotland and England during the reigns of the three Edwards'.
1307 Edward ascended at the age of 23.
He granted Knaresborough to Gaveston which stung
the barons of the North.
1308 Isabelle of France [17 y.o.] is
married to Edward II [24 y.o.]
1309 The barons are disturbed by the king's
reliance on Gaveston and his influence upon the king.
1310 Many of the English Templar Properties
were concentrated in Yorkshire, between 1310 and 1322
Edward II seized many of them or gave them to the Hospitallers3.
1311- William de Miggeley
is known to have been
a practising Lawyer and Justice of Common Pleas in Yorkshire.
1312 Between January and April Edward
II was resident at York and received Gaveston after Edward
I had banished him from court. The Earl of Lancaster,
with a private army, marched on York. Edward II and Gaveston
fled to Newcastle-upon- Tyne where they escaped to Tynemouth. From here
they took ship to Scarborough. Edward II left Gaveston in
charge as the governor of the strongly fortified Scarborough
castle whilst he returned to York then London.
| The
Barons' Army at the Siege of Scarborough 1312
* Aymer Valence, Earl
of Pembroke+ + = went over to Edward II
after Gaveston was murdered. |
The Death of King Edward
II's Favourite- Piers Gaveston
After Edward's return
to York, the barons army, after a number of repulsions
managed to capture Piers Gaveston at Scarborough and he was
taken to Castle Deddington near Banbury Oxon. Gaveston was seized
using a force of 140 men under Guy De Beauchamp, the Earl of Warwick,
one of the foremost 'Ordainers'. This was probably done with
the connivance of Aymer De Valence, Earl of Pembroke at Deddington
castle and then Gaveston was taken to Warwick Castle. Gaveston
may have prayed at the chantry situated at what is now called Guy's
Cliff on the banks of the River Avon before being taken to Blacklow
Hill which lies between Kenilworth and Warwick. The barons who engineered
the execution were led by Thomas Earl of Lancaster.
Here at Blacklow, prophetically already known
as Gaverswich, Gaveston was beheaded whilst others say run
through with a sword, stabbed and even felled with a battle-axe on
the grass where he lay, by two Welshmen. [19th June 1312].
Either way this was an enormously important act for it showed the
populace, who were as gleeful at his death as any, that the
Lord's Ordainers and the Earl of Lancaster were a force to be reckoned
with, particularly in the North of England. Homophobia was alive
and well even at this time but we must recognise that
this Gascon, Gaveston, had incurred the wrath of the barons by his insults
and more particularly by being granted estates they felt were rightfully
theirs.
Piers Gavaston
Earl of Cornwall:
|
|
| Drawings from Gaveston's charter of 6th August 1307
made at Cumnock, Scotland now at the British Museum.[TNA E1/460] Decorated
with Cornish choughs and Gaveston's heraldic eagles. The letter 'E' for Edward
encloses the arms of England with those of half of Gaveston's and half of
the de Clare arms [Margaret de Clare was later his wife] Note the two
bat bodies with a single head - an allusion to Edward and Gaveston being of
one mind. |
This drawing depicts one of Gaveston's heraldic
eagles with centrally, the arms of England, dextrally the arms of Gaveston
[mistakenly shown as five eagles but should be six] and sinistrally the De
Clare arms again. Edward was making quite sure that Gavaston was part of the
landed nobility in England despite being a Gascon commoner.13 |
|
|
| Heraldic
arms of Piers Gaveston |
Gaveston's head presented by
an adherent to the earls Warrene, Lancaster and Hereford |
. 
Photograph of the monument to Piers
Gaveston ca. 1899
| In the hollow of this
Rock Was beheaded, On the 17th day of July, 1312,* By Barons lawless as himself, PIERS GAVESTON, Earl of Cornwall, The Minion of a hateful King, In life and Death A memorable Instance Misrule. |
* Now considered
to be 19th June 1312.
Piers Gaveston's seal GUY BEAUCHAMP [Right], Earl of Warwick. In his right hand he holds the Priory of Westacre, co. Norfolk, to which he was a benefactor, and where he built the Gate -house; in his left, a Banner of the Arms of Baliol, having received a gift from the King of the Honour and Castle of Barnard, forfeited by John Baliol, King of Scotland. At his feet lies Piers Gaveston, upon whose shield of Vert, 6 eagles displayed. Or, he tramples ; the Earl had seized him out of the custody of the Earl of Pembroke, carried him to Warwick Castle, and caused his head to be struck off, on Blacklow Hill. Arms. Quarterly of 7 :— 1. Gules, a sesle between 6 cross croslets Or, Beauchamp; 2. Sir Guy 3. Fitz-Piers 4. Newburgh 5. Abitot [Tibetot] 6. Mauduit 7. Fitz-John : impaling. Quarterly 1st & 4th Argent, a maunch Gules, Tony [Toeni*] ; 2 & 3 Argent, a Lion Rampant, Azure, & Chief Gules,—Waltheof.11 * Guy de Beauchamp had married Alice de Toeni just before his death. It is interesting to see that his claim was to a descendancy from Waltheof, the last true English earl. |
|
| . |
Guy de Beauchamp triumphant over Piers Gaveston Painting by John Rous ca. 1480 |
.
The site of Piers
Gaveston's tomb at the church of the Dominican priory of Friars Preachers, King's Langley.
Little
has been excavated here to determine the exact location of this church.
Aerial Photograph Source:
Google Earth 2009.
SPECULATION
After Gaveston's death, Isabella, the Queen, grew
closer to the homosocial king Edward II and the future Edward
III was born a year later on the
13th November at Windsor Castle. Some doubt could be raised as to whether King Edward
II was the genetic father of Prince Edward, for the young and largely
ignored Isabella was fraternising with the rebel barons on her way
north to meet her husband and Gaveston at York in 1312 where she was
found to be pregnant in March. This was about fourteen years before
her amorous adventures with Roger de Mortimer who was in Ireland
at the time anyway. This speculation might explain Edward's abandonment
of his queen at York and also in Northumberland when, incredibly
and inexplicably, he took ship to Scarborough with his 'brother Perot',
not Isabella, who was carrying King Edward's heir, the future king. Edward
II did produce subsequent legitimate
children and he is believed to have
fathered an illegitimate son, Adam, and had a possible affair with
Margaret de Clare, Hugh Despenser's wife. However, none of this
negates the Supposed effigy of Queen Isabella as speculation which
is worthy of much greater investigation. It was the Despensers
who soon a roof
boss in Malmesbury Abbey.
replaced Gaveston as Edward II's favorites, incurring once again,
the jealousy of both
Isabella and the barons.
1313 - As a result of the instability in the English
crown the Scottish under Robert de Bruce began to make
serious incursions into Northumberland and Yorkshire, burning
and pillaging as they went.
Bannockburn 24th June
1314.
A
diastrous English defeat. Edmund
FitzAlan, the Earl of Arundel along with John 8th Earl
de Warrene, Thomas Earl of Lancaster and Guy De Beauchamp, Earl
Warwick had not joined Edward's army at Bannockburn.
A huge army moved
North from England in an attempt to defeat the Scots and prevent
further northern incursions. The army crossed the Tweed
River, traditionally the disputed border with Scotland,
composed of archers from Wales, baggage trains, and footsoldiers
from the Midlands and the North West. All told, some 25,000
men, men at arms and at least 3000 armoured English knights. The
Scots under Robert de Bruis numbered less than half the English
army, composed mostly of spearmen. De Bruis positioned his men
and knights between two woodlands to protect their flanks and the
army dug pits or "pottes" in front of their lines covered with sticks
and turf to bring down the horses of the opposing knights5.
The English army was routed, Bannock Burn ran red with English blood
to the Forth and Edward escaped hurriedly, embarking at Dunbar for
England.
1315 By this time the country was experiencing
the 'worst famine in living memory' caused by
heavy rainfall. Later this period was described
as 'The Great Famine'. Edward II made peace with his barons
in order to help protect the Northern Marches against Scottish
invaders.
1316 The Great Famine continued into
this year, when a harvest was obtained in October. In this year John Warrene 8th Earl Warrene was
excommunicated by the Church of Rome.This was probably
achieved with the assistance of Edward II.
1317 Further calamity beset the north
when cattle murain and sheep disease followed. In this year Sandal castle
was put under siege by the Earl of Lancaster, a neighbourhood
disagreement ostensibly over the death of Gaveston,
had developed between Warrene and Lancaster. This is
the turning point for Warrene who had sided with Edward II.
Sandal Magna castle was subseqently burnt to the ground by Lancaster.
As a result of his favouritism
of Gaveston and the severe loss at Bannockburn, famine
and cattle diseases, Edward II became very unpopular, everything
it could be concluded was as a result of Edward's poor
rule. Thomas Plantagenet, the Duke of Lancaster became for
a time, more popular than Edward, especially in the North
of England for Yorkshire folk were looking forward to a leader
who could take the battle once again to the Scots or at least
treaty with them.. But eventually the 'Ordainers' tired of his
power seeking and treachery and joined the Royalists to remove him
from power.
1318 An aborted campaign at Berwick leads to
division again between the king and many of his nobility.
1319 In this year as Lancaster
became more powerful, John Earl Warrene was forced to grant the
manor of Wakefield and other Yorkshire lands to Thomas Earl of Lancaster.
Thomas already held the neighbouring lands of the honour of Pontefract.
Thus for about five years, from 1317 until 1322, the Pontefract lands
and the manor of Wakefield were held under one baron. It is likely
that the landed knights such as de Thornhill and de Midgley of the
honour of Pontefract were unwilling parties to this aggregation. Lancaster
was their lord and demanded their services, de Warrene however was the
owner of the nearest castle, a haven of safety in troublesome times but
it had been garnered by the earl's men in September 1317. Any not pledging
alleigance to the lord could have been dispossessed.
1320 Earl Lancaster completed rebuiling Sandal Magna castle in stone.
1321 A year of rebellion in the Welsh Marches
against the Depensers who were grabbing Marcher lands here.
The Marcher rebels expected Earl Thomas to assist them but he stayed
resolutely at Pontefract,. The rebels, led by the Mortimers had
to surrender to the king.
THE BATTLE OF BOROUGHBRIDGE
1322 - From 1315 the Earl of Lancaster,
Thomas Plantagenet had been unchallenged. However, during
this time there had been three years of torrential rain
throughout Europe, cannibalism was recorded and people murdered
for food. Prices rose by eight times in one year and families fought
each other.5. Thomas' wife had
left him in 1316 [others say she was 'abducted' but probably
did not resist] and hid with another earl, John De Warrene at
Reigate who held estates in Sussex and at Conisboro'
in Yorkshire. This started a war with Warrene's manors and
castles in Yorkshire which may still have been continuing in the 1350's.
Gradually, Lancaster had been gathering
support in an attempt to overthrow Edward II. From 1315
he built Dunstanburgh castle in Northumberland
where he entreated the Scots to join him. On the 16th
March 1322 the barons' army, led by the Earl of Lancaster,
whose seat was at Pontefract, engaged in a battle with the
kings's army at Boroughbridge, Yorkshire.
THE BATTLE OF BOROUGHBRIDGE
| THE BARONIAL ARMY | EDWARD II's ARMY |
| * The Earl of
Lancaster- Thomas Plantagenet, the king's
cousin. * Sir Robert de Holand, originally Lancaster's butler and favourite, who defected to the king's army before Boroughbridge. * Humphrey De Bohun 4th Earl of Hereford & Essex# * Aymer De Valence-Earl of Pembroke * Edmund Plantagenet-Earl of Kent, brother to Ed. II. * John de Brittany-Earl of Richmond * Sir Robert Malmthorpe * John De Mowbray of Kirklinton, 2nd baron, Governor of the City of York and Scarborough Castle, Sheriff of York, hanged later at York, 1322. # killed by a Welshman under the Boroughbridge. |
*Sir Andrew
de Harcla, Governor of Carlisle and the
Western Marches who had previously been given
his knighthood by Lancaster. *Sir Simon Ward [Sheriff of Yorkshire 1315-1321] *William Lord Latimer [Governor of the city of York] * Henry De Faucumberg and the Yorkshire Array. |
Lancaster was taken to Pontefract castle where
he was confined to one of the towers, perhaps the Gascoigne Tower. The expected Scots assistance never materialised
and the baronial army was cut down by the withering
hail of arrows from Harcla's archers. Lancaster was
arrested whilst praying in Boroughbridge church and taken
to York. Here he was mocked by the crowd, from there he er in which Richard II is supposed to have
been held. Edward II arrived shortly after Lancaster's incarceration
and Lancaster was arraigned before the king in the Great Hall of Pontefract.
After the trial, at which Lancaster
was not permitted to offer a defence, he was paraded on an
old horse through the streets of Pontefract with a friar's
hood on his head and given many insults. Initially he was to
be hanged, drawn and quartered, a method originally devised for
William Wallace [Le Waleys] by Edward I, but this was reduced to
beheading because of Lancaster's royal blood [A Plantagenet]. At his execution he was made
to kneel towards Scotland before being beheaded, a symbolic way
for a traitor to pay burlesque homage to the Northern enemy. The
remnants of Lancaster's army were declared Contrariants
a special type of fugitive [outlaw] many escaping to the protection
of the local area of which one was probably the Barnsdale district.
see Robin
Hood
Ninety five barons and knights
were made prisoners at Pontefract and tried for high
treason. One of the judges was John 8th Earl Warrene. Some
were executed here at the same time whilst others were taken
to York and executed later. Robert de Clifford of Skipton was
hung in chains at York castle, now 'Clifford's Tower', his body
rotting for three years before the friars of York took away his remains
and cremated them.. After the
execution, Edward II held a parliament at York, reversing
sentences that hadpreviously been passed by rebel barons against
the Despensers. Sometime after the battle
of Boroughbridge Edward II gave back John 8th Earl Warrene
Earl of Surrey, the manor of Wakefield.
< The so-called Clifford's
Tower, the keep of York Castle where in 1322 Roger de Clifford
was hung in chains.
After the Battle of Boroughbridge,
in the year 1322,the clergy granted fourpence
in the mark to Edward II to carry on the war against Scotland.
Edward accompanied by Isabella marched to Edinburgh but
had to retreat due to a scarcity of provisions. The army was followed
by Robert de Bruce, when the English were surprised by his
army at Byland Abbey. The army fled, Edward escaping from the
Scots for a second time, on a fleet-footed horse, and thence by a rough
sea passage. Isabella fled to Tynemouth priory where she too took
rough passage. John de Brittany, Earl of Richmond, was captured
and held for a long period of time for ransom. Andrew de Harcla [Anglicised
to Hartley or Harclay] was accused of treachery for not opposing
the Scots and was summararily executed at Carlisle.
Following this series of downward spirals,
Edward II signed a treaty with the Scots at Bishopthorpe, near
York, so named from the Archbishop of Yorks palace being located
here.|
The Kyng came to Notynghame, With knyghtes in grete araye, For to take that gentyll knyght, And robyn Hode, yf he may. A Mery Geste of Robyn Hoode -the F text. |
1324 -24th March to 22nd
November a "Robyn Hode" was employed by Edward II
as a porter of the King's Chamber. In the 1320's Queen Isabella became Edward II,
her husband's. Meanwhile the
the lover of Edward's, Queen Isabella, Roger de Mortimer escaped
from the White Tower to France.
1325- In March the king and the two Despensers
sent Queen Isabella to France as an envoy and she then lured prince Edward [later Ed. III] to France
to pay homage for Gascony. From
this year, with the young English prince in her grasp, Isabella
organised Edward II's betrayal and destruction. For this she
was to win the opprobrium of English chroniclers, for although
she was the English Queen, she was also fiendishly French. Ostensibly
Isabella was to negotiate a treaty with her brother Charles
IV of France for war had broken out between England and France in
1324. She announced she would not return to England unless
the Despensers [later Spencers] were dismissed. With her lover
Roger Mortimer, Earl of Wigmore she rallied support under the protection
of the Flemish, Count of Hainault. This family of Hainaulters later
provided both a daughter in marriage for Edward III [Philippa] and
another, Elizabeth, for Robert de Holand, 2nd baron Holland.
1326
- 24th September Mortimer and Isabella
invaded England, entering through
Orwell Haven, Suffolk, They were supported
by Henry the Earl of Lancaster and Edmund of Kent, and
welcomed by the Earl of Norfolk, Thomas de Brotherton and many
of the people of England. On November
16th King Edward II was captured near Neath by Henry Earl
of Leicester. In January 1327 Ed. II was deposed in favour
of his son Edward, later Edward III. Edward at this time was a mere 14 years old.
1326 - ISABELLA AND THE YOUNG
PRINCE EDWARD ARE GREETED AT ORWELL
Isabella as a young woman12
This landing is the only successful invasion of England
since 1066. Queen Isabella with prince Edward and Roger de Mortimer
landed at Orwell Haven in Suffolk and gathered the barons'
and peoples support. The location of the
'Mythical Town of Orwell' has confounded researchers6,
but it appears that it was never a town but a port which has now
been swept away by the notorious east coast sea erosion.7
Where it lay exactly is not obvious, but if the painting of 1455 by
Jean Fouquet nearly 130 years later is at all accurate, it shows a castle
in the foreground, presumably the fortified port of Orwell. Erosion
is already evident at the base of the tower. In the distance are plunging
cliffs as we see at Bull's Cliff today. These cliffs are composed of
unconsolidated boulder clays and silts which have a tendency to
slip in rotational shear. This was discovered during World War II when
a heavy gun battery was erected on Bull's Cliff, the first practice salvo
caused the engineers to rethink the location when part of the cliff
collapsed as a result. Where 'West Rocks' lies just 100 metres off
the Old Walton beach, South of Bull's Cliff, there is believed to
have been a Roman Saxon-shore fort which collapsed into the sea. From
dredgings taken in the late 1800's the 'rocks' appear to
have included building stone. This may be the remains of the Roman
'castle' [a Saxon shore fort], much embellished, shown perched on
the edge of the cliffs in the middle distance of the Fouquet painting,
which looks north [observe the shadow of the kneeling knight's leg].
COLD PLAY - VIVA LA VIDA - This song could have been
written for King Edward II of England!
|
"I used to rule the World listen as the crowd would sing Now the old king's dead, long live the king! One minute I held the key Next the World was closed on me And I discovered that my castles stand Upon pillars of salt, and pillars of sand I hear Jerusalem bells are ringing Roman Cavalry choirs are singing Be my mirror my sword and shield My missionaries in a foreign field For some reason I can't explain Once you know there was never, never an honest word That was when I ruled the World. It was the wicked and wild wind Blew down the doors to let me in. Shattered windows and the sound of drums People could not believe what I'd become Revolutionaries Wait For my head on a silver plate Just a puppet on a lonely string Oh who would ever want to be king? |
I hear Jerusalem bells are ringing Roman Cavalry choirs are singing Be my mirror my sword and shield My missionaries in a foreign field For some reason I can't explain I know Saint Peter won't call my name Never an honest word And that was when I ruled the world Hear Jerusalem bells are ringing Roman Cavalry choirs are singing Be my mirror my sword and shield My missionaries in a foreign field For some reason I can't explain I know Saint Peter will call my name Never an honest word But that was when I ruled the world." |
1327 Edward II was murdered at Berkeley
castle , his tomb however is not in Westminster
but at Gloucester
Cathedral, probably as a result of
Queen Isabella's directive. Later, on her death in 1358 Queen
Isabella, his wife, was buried in London but her heart was taken
to Gloucester Abbey where her husband had been buried4.
The Cathedral there has a huge Crecy window added later in Edward
III's time. Gloucester became a great attraction to pilgrims
who were saddened at the death of Edward II for about half the
people of England had supported him, the other half were essentially
those residing in Northern England.
< Berkeley Castle where Edward II met his end in the end!
Isabella and Mortimer with their supporters near
Bristol whilst Sir Hugh Despenser the elder is executed in the
town. >
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