Chapter 8

FROM SETTLEMENT TO CIVIL WAR, 1318–1322

PART ONE

TAKING STOCK

Nebuchadnezzar, that most powerful king of the Assyrians, before the twelfth year of his reign did, we are told, nothing memorable, but in that twelfth year of his reign he began to flourish and to conquer nations and kingdoms … Neither has our King Edward who has reigned eleven years and more, done anything that ought to be preached in the marketplace or from the rooftops. Would that, following the example of King Nebuchadnezzar, he would now at least try to attack his enemies, so that he might repair the damage and disgrace which he has borne so long…

Great hope has latterly grown up among us, because God has gladdened king and people with many signs of prosperity.

In the first place, it turned out happily for the English king and people that the lord pope, whose business it is to settle quarrels, imposed upon the Scots and their leaders a two years' truce, so that in the meanwhile he might devise a way to bring harmony, and a form of peace….

Secondly, God gave us victory over our enemies in Ireland, Edward Bruce and his knights, who now for two years had usurped lordship there, approaching Dundalk to take the town, came up against our army; but when battle was joined Edward fell before our men that day, and five hundred stout-hearted men-at-arms with him.

Thirdly, the dearth that had so long plagued us ceased, and England became fruitful with a lavish profusion of all good things. A bushel of wheat, which the year before was sold for forty pence, today is freely offered to the buyer for sixpence…

Fourthly, our king became reconciled with his barons. For putting aside trifles, he listens to the barons' advice, and there is no longer anyone to incite the king to do wrong, because his close supporters who were hostile to the barons have now left the court…¹

Such was the assessment of the author of the Vita Edwardi Secundi of the situation in England in the autumn of 1318.

On the whole it was an accurate and shrewd assessment. As the Vita also observed, Robert Bruce had ignored the papal truce and had continued his attacks on the north of England. The most significant of these led to the loss of the town of Berwick on the night of 1 to 2 April 1318, when it was betrayed from within. This came after years of Scottish naval blockade and attempts on the town and castle, which had been in English hands since 1296, and were a crucial element in the English defence of the north and in any future campaign in Scotland. The inhabitants of the town (many of whom were still Scottish) and the members of the garrison alike had suffered desperately from a lack of food supplies and money. The castle itself held out for a further eleven weeks, finally surrendering at the end of June. The loss of Berwick was a humiliation for Edward II but also provided an added incentive for reaching agreement with Lancaster. It was certain that as soon as peace was made in England a campaign against the Scots would again be high on the agenda.²

The defeat and death of Edward Bruce at Faughart near Dundalk on 14 October 1318 was however a major English victory, which to some degree made up for the loss of Berwick.³ The people of the lordship of Ireland had suffered greatly since 1315 from the devastation caused by the opposing armies, as well as from the extreme weather conditions and the resulting famine and disease. The government of the lordship had been weakened both for the present and the future by the war, while there was still the risk that at some future date Robert Bruce might renew the attack.⁴ For the Scots however the defeat was a disaster. The war in Ireland had diverted experienced manpower and other resources which might have been used to greater effect nearer home: the northern counties of England might not have appreciated this but their suffering would probably have been much worse. Everything had instead been thrown away in a failed attempt to conquer Ireland. ‘The Anglo-Irish inflicted on the Scots a reverse the like of which they were not to suffer at the hands of the English until Halidon Hill [1333]: King Robert lost his brother and only male heir; the tide of Scottish expansion, which had flowed strongly since Bannockburn, was stemmed; and Edward II did not completely miss the opportunity that was given him to recover the initiative in the west.’⁵

The author of the Vita was broadly correct in his remarks about the end of the time of famine and high prices. Grain prices fell in 1318 to a lower level than in any year since 1288. Although a severe epidemic among cattle was to occur in 1319 and the harvest failed again in 1321, the worst distress was over by the autumn of 1318, with the exception of the northern counties of England which still experienced Scottish raids.⁶

At first sight the political settlement reached in the summer and autumn of 1318 also showed signs of hope both for the present and for the future. The Treaty of Leake of 9 August was in itself however only a preliminary agreement which had been made after the outlines of a settlement had been sufficiently established to permit Edward and Lancaster to meet and to make their personal peace with each other. The details remained to be worked out at the parliament which was summoned on 25 August to meet at York on 20 October.⁷

THE YORK PARLIAMENT

When the parliament began, the Treaty of Leake was first of all confirmed in its entirety.⁸ On 22 October Lancaster and forty-three named followers were pardoned for all their offences up to 7 August.⁹ The device of a standing royal council of eight bishops, four earls and four barons, each serving for three months at a time,¹⁰ and with a single banneret to represent Lancaster's views, which was a central feature of the treaty, was also confirmed. It was however modified by the addition of the bishops of Coventry & Lichfield and of Winchester, Hugh Despenser the Younger, Bartholomew de Badlesmere, John de Somery, John Giffard, John Botetourt, Roger Mortimer of Chirk and William Martin.¹¹ A commission consisting of the earl of Hereford, Badlesmere, Roger Mortimer of Chirk, John de Somery, Walter de Norwich, the archbishop of York, and the bishops of Norwich and Ely was also appointed to conduct a reform of the royal household.¹²

Following the confirmation of the Ordinances as had been promised at Leake,¹³ a review was undertaken of grants which Edward had made contrary to them and which had been revoked the previous June in the course of the negotiations with Lancaster. It is possible that part at least of this review was carried out in the course of some further negotiations with Lancaster after the making of the agreement at Leake, since on 10 September the restoration of grants made to Hugh Audley the Younger was ordered with the consent of the earl of Pembroke and other magnates who are said to have been recently at Tutbury.¹⁴ The review continued during the York parliament itself, when formal approval was given to grants which had been made to Hereford, Badlesmere, Montacute, the Younger Despenser, Roger Damory and others but with some reductions and modifications in their substance. Lancaster's demand for the complete revocation of all such grants had therefore been effectively side-stepped.¹⁵

All the major offices under the crown were reviewed during the parliament. The bishop of Ely John de Hothum was confirmed as chancellor and his predecessor, John Sandal the bishop of Winchester, was appointed as treasurer. Badlesmere was advanced to the stewardship of the household in place of William de Montacute, and Hugh Despenser the Younger was confirmed as chamberlain.¹⁶ New sheriffs were also appointed throughout England, except for the northern counties, on 29 November.¹⁷ As to the favourites whose removal Lancaster had been so persistently demanding, a compromise was achieved. Montacute was compensated for his loss of office by his appointment on 20 November as seneschal of Gascony, a move which also conveniently took him away from court.¹⁸ Roger Damory and Hugh Audley the Younger apparently also left court after they and Montacute had made their peace with Lancaster on 23 November by agreeing to pay compensation totalling just over £1,700 for their past hostility to him.¹⁹

On 6 December, three days before the end of the parliament, the very detailed Household Ordinance of York was issued.²⁰ A statute was also approved, containing six clauses relating to such matters as novel disseisin, inquests, justices of nisi prius, liberties, and the assize of wine and victuals. Although the statute may have been the result of petitions submitted during the parliament, it is not possible to associate the individual clauses with any commune or private petitions recorded or listed in the surviving records of the parliament.²¹

No subsidy was requested or granted by the parliament, but a tax was levied in Wales in aid of the Scottish war on 22 November 1318 or earlier (probably between June and November). On 25 November the king also ordered the convocation of the clergy of the Canterbury province to grant a subsidy in aid of the coming campaign against the Scots, which it had been decided should begin at Newcastle on 10 June 1319.²² It was also decided that the next parliament should be held at either York or Lincoln on 6 May 1319.²³

Apart from the confirmation and amplification of the settlement reached at Leake, the parliament roll records large numbers of petitions. Because of the political uncertainty which had existed since the end of the Lincoln parliament of 1316 this was the first opportunity to submit petitions in parliament and there was therefore a great deal of pent-up grievance to be dealt with. Three bishops, three barons and seven royal judges and clerks were appointed to hear and to answer the bills and petitions from England, Ireland and Wales received during the parliament; and three bishops and one clerk for petitions from Gascony.²⁴

Among the petitions was one from Walter Langton, the bishop of Coventry & Lichfield, the former treasurer under Edward I whose arrest and disgrace had been one of the first acts of Edward II when he became king and who had since gradually worked his way back into some degree of favour. Langton now complained bitterly about his imprisonment, bad treatment, and the losses he had allegedly suffered. However, there was no sympathy for him among his fellow bishops and the magnates, and the petition was referred to Edward, who no doubt had vivid memories of his famous dispute with Langton in 1305: with the advice of his council, Edward dismissed Langton's plea.²⁵

Edward could be well satisfied with the work of the parliament. None of the members of the standing council was personally objectionable to him, and many of them, men such as the bishops of Norwich, Ely and Winchester, the earls of Pembroke and Hereford, Bartholomew de Badlesmere and Hugh Despenser the Younger, were men with whom he was used to working and could trust. The appointments to the major offices of chancellor and treasurer, steward and chamberlain were equally satisfactory. The grants that he had made to his followers had been substantially confirmed; his household had undergone review but this was essentially a matter of detailed revision of structures that already existed in order to improve their efficiency rather than a revolutionary programme of reform. It was highly significant that the commission appointed at the beginning of the parliament to carry out this duty was content to depute the task to the leading officers of the royal household, Badlesmere the steward, Despenser the chamberlain, Roger de Northburgh the treasurer, and Gilbert de Wigton the controller.²⁶

In principle, the earl of Lancaster had got most of what he wanted in relation to royal grants and in the composition of the new standing council, on which one of his bannerets would serve to represent his views and in effect to act as a spy within the government. He also had the satisfaction of being allowed to settle his dispute with the earl of Surrey outside the terms of the Leake treaty. On 29–30 November the earl of Surrey released to him all his lands at Conisbrough, Sandal and other places in Yorkshire and the lordships of Bromfield and Yale and the castle of Holt in North Wales, and pledged to pay Lancaster the vast sum of £50,000 by 25 December. Surrey was first of all held prisoner at Pontefract and threatened with death if he did not give way.²⁷ Such ruthless behaviour goes far to explain why Lancaster had no real friends and why during the negotiations of 1318 his fellow earls were unwilling to see him claim superiority over them.²⁸

With regard to the king's favourites, Lancaster had apparently achieved their removal from court, semi-permanently in the case of Montacute, and at least temporarily in the case of Damory and Audley. He did not however succeed in obtaining the removal of his old enemy, Hugh Despenser the Elder, although Despenser apparently stayed away from parliament and early in the new year, 1319, went to Spain, ostensibly on pilgrimage to Santiago but probably on a diplomatic mission to the court of Castile.²⁹

During the parliament itself Lancaster and several of his bannerets, knights (Robert de Holland, Stephen de Segrave, Fulk Lestrange, John de Clavering and William Latimer) and clerks (Michael de Meldon and Roger Belers) were members of the committee of over fifty archbishops, bishops, earls, barons, knights and clerks who met to decide the order of business.³⁰ Other than this it is difficult to establish what role he actually played, with the exception of two petitions which he lodged on his own behalf. One concerned his claim to the manor of Levisham in Yorkshire and does not seem to have been of any great significance.³¹ The other related to the office of steward of England, which had been held by both Simon de Montfort and Lancaster's own father Edmund as a perquisite of the earldom of Leicester, and to which Edward II had appointed Thomas of Lancaster in May 1308. Lancaster asked that his duties as steward should be clarified for the future. ³² This was deliberately disingenuous on Lancaster's part, since he had already sought in the autumn of 1317 to use the office of steward in order to infiuence royal policy. On that occasion he had claimed that if the king wished to take up arms against anyone, he had first to notify the steward. At the time this claim had served to justify Lancaster's refusal to co-operate in a campaign against the Scots.³³ Lancaster's petition therefore raised important issues which, if conceded, might allow him a right of interference in the business of the kingdom far greater than he would achieve from the presence of a single banneret on the council. As a foretaste of what might happen, he objected to the appointment of Badlesmere as steward of the household, before finally giving way.³⁴ No immediate answer was made to Lancaster's petition. Instead orders were given to make a search of the records of the exchequer and household for any information on the duties and powers of the steward of England and for a report to be delivered in the chancery on 22 April 1319.³⁵

One other petition of note was lodged at York, on behalf of Hugh Audley the Younger, who claimed the earldom of Cornwall in right of his wife Margaret, Gaveston's widow. Since Audley was one of the three notorious royal favourites and had already acquired a share of the vast estates of the Gloucester earldom, this was both an audacious and a politically dangerous move. For the moment Audley was persuaded to withdraw his claim in return for lands worth 2,000 marks a year, but was authorized to renew it at the next parliament if a satisfactory agreement had not been reached in the meantime.³⁶

The Treaty of Leake and the York parliament had brought about a political settlement and created a framework of government for the future. Both Edward and Lancaster had some reason for satisfaction with the compromise. Neither had won outright, but neither had been humiliated.³⁷ The settlement had been brought about by the mediation of the archbishops and bishops, the papal envoys,³⁸ and the determination of moderate baronial figures such as Pembroke, Hereford and Badlesmere. But it had also been achieved by the king's stubbornness and his skill in mobilizing support for himself among the barons and by the fact that Lancaster was increasingly seen by his fellow magnates as unreasonable and self-aggrandizing. Another important factor in producing a settlement was the war with the Scots. Their invasion of Ireland had ended in failure but the loss of Berwick-upon-Tweed was a warning that only active co-operation between the king and Lancaster offered any realistic hope of defeating them. The two men had exchanged a kiss of peace and fair words, but whether their reconciliation would last was another question entirely. In the unresolved claims by Lancaster and Audley the settlement had left two more primed and ticking time bombs. This was now the moment when a new figure advanced and proceeded to take centre stage: Hugh Despenser the Younger.³⁹ Ironically, in his hostility to the elder Hugh Despenser, Lancaster had failed to notice the far greater danger that was developing right under his nose and apparently raised no objections to the appointment of the Younger Despenser as chamberlain. Lancaster, and others too, would soon have cause for regret.⁴⁰

THE WORKING OF THE SETTLEMENT

In some ways the years 1318 to 1321 were a repeat performance of 1317 and 1318. Once again there can be found the rise of a new royal favourite, leading once more to a deterioration in the relations between Edward II and Lancaster. But this time there was no eleventh-hour avoidance of civil war through the mediation of well-intentioned prelates and magnates. By 1321 Lancaster was again bitterly hostile to Edward and, even more sinister than this, a large number of the magnates who had rallied to the king in 1317 and who had helped to make peace in 1318 were now openly ranged against him.⁴¹ Once this point was reached, only violence could resolve the situation.

The central feature of the scheme of government agreed at Leake and confirmed at York was the standing royal council of magnates and prelates. It is very difficult to give a clear description of the working of this council, because of the lack of evidence and the ambiguity of much of what is available.⁴² It is not always possible, for example, to say whether an individual prelate or magnate was present at court because it was his turn to serve on the council or whether he happened to be there for entirely different reasons. Important royal officials, such as John de Hothum bishop of Ely and chancellor, John de Sandal bishop of Winchester and treasurer, Bartholomew de Badlesmere the steward of the royal household, and Hugh Despenser the Younger the household chamberlain, werelikely to be at court because of their offices. Nor apparently was there any rule or understanding that any prelate or magnate would be required to leave court as soon as his three-month term of office was over.⁴³

The only certain information on the serving members of the standing council is that the four councillors deputed to remain with the king during the parliament at York were the bishops of Ely and Worcester, the earl of Pembroke and John de Segrave.⁴⁴ The earl of Lancaster's banneret is not named but may have been John de Clavering.⁴⁵ It is probable that one of the first two prelates to serve on the council after the parliament was John Salmon, the bishop of Norwich, who wrote on 25 November that he expected to stay with the king at least until the start of Lent. This period fits roughly into the stipulation that each councillor should stay in turn for three months. Salmon's witnessing of charters and details given in his register appear to confirm that he did stay as intended.⁴⁶His colleague was probably Roger Mortival, bishop of Salisbury, whose presence can also be traced until early February. Their two successors may have been the bishops of Chichester and Carlisle, John Langton and John Halton, who both appear as witnesses to royal charters from late February until May.⁴⁷ John de Bretagne the earl of Richmond may have been the first earl to serve after the parliament, since he was a regular witness in the early part of 1319; and he was perhaps succeeded by Humphrey de Bohun the earl of Hereford, who starts to appear in early April.⁴⁸ The baronial representative on the council is much harder to identify. Hugh Despenser the Younger and Badlesmere were present in February and March, but could have been there in their official capacities, while Roger Mortimer of Wigmore and John Botetourt also appear in mid-March. The most intriguing question is the identity of Lancaster's representative. The only person with recognizable Lancastrian links to appear in early 1319was his brother Henry. But his name is recorded only on 4 February⁴⁹ and the evidence is therefore inconclusive.⁵⁰

It is probably safe to assume that the standing council established in 1318 was still functioning at the time of the parliament which met as previously agreed at York between 6 and 25 May 1319,⁵¹ and was in many respects a continuation of the York parliament of October 1318. The petition lodged in the previous parliament by Hugh Audley and his wife Margaret, in which they claimed the earldom of Cornwall as Margaret's inheritance, was again considered. ‘After a careful discussion of that petition in full parliament, and because record was borne there, both by the prelates and by the earls, barons and the whole community of the realm’, it was decided that the request could not be granted since all grants made by the king to Gaveston had been revoked.⁵² Audley did not make his claim again,⁵³ but its rejection must have rankled and was one of the reasons for his change of allegiance in 1321–2.

Lancaster's claim to authority in his capacity as steward of England was also revisited. It had been agreed at the previous parliament that a search was to be made of the records to establish the functions of the steward. It is clear however that nothing had been done, on the specious grounds that Lancaster had not actually sued out the writs necessary to start the search. During the earlier parliament Lancaster had tried to use his position to claim the right to approve the appointment of Badlesmere as steward of the royal household. Now in 1319 he went a stage further and claimed that the office belonged to him by right.⁵⁴ Lancaster was in attendance at York with many of his retainers, but whether this was meant to be a show of force is not clear.⁵⁵ If the stewardship had been conceded, Lancaster would have gained a position of control and influence over many of the king's actions.⁵⁶ It is possible that he could even have claimed that the office of steward of England gave him the right to control royal castles, which Edward could not possibly have conceded.⁵⁷ Again he was invited to apply for a search of the records, and there for the moment at least matters rested. Lancaster did not however forget his claim and by 1321 a tract on the office of steward of England had been drawn up on his behalf. This time bomb also continued to tick.⁵⁸

During the parliament the settlement between Lancaster and the earl of Surrey was confirmed. Lancaster was induced to agree to a life tenure of Surrey's lands in Yorkshire and North Wales in place of outright annexation, but this did little to mask the brutality of Surrey's treatment or to conceal the fact that Lancaster was now a major power in the Welsh March, where he already held the lordship of Denbigh, and had greatly strengthened his position in the West Riding of Yorkshire, in the vicinity of his powerbase at Pontefract.⁵⁹

THE HOLY OIL AGAIN

The disappointment of Hugh Audley the Younger and the unresolved demands of the earl of Lancaster are indications that by the summer of 1319 serious tensions were starting to re-emerge. Another, unrelated, cause of disturbance was the serious falling out between two of Edward II's most valuable and experienced advisers, the earl of Pembroke and Antonio Pessagno, the royal financier and former seneschal of Gascony. In earlier years the two men had worked closely together, but in January 1319 Edward wrote to the pope complaining that Pessagno had made false accusations against Pembroke during a recent visit to the papal curia; and a few days later ordered the new seneschal of Gascony, William de Montacute, to send Pessagno (who had apparently not been told of his replacement) back to England at once, if necessary by force.⁶⁰ It is not clear why he and Pembroke had quarrelled but it probably had something to do with Pessagno's treatment of a leading Gascon magnate, Jourdain de l'Isle, on whose behalf the pope had asked Pembroke to intercede in 1318.⁶¹ Pessagno did return to England, appearing at the exchequer on 26 April, and was apparently back in favour by the following August.⁶² It is not known whether he repaired his relations with Pembroke, but by April 1320 Pessagno had left England for Paris,⁶³ and played no further direct role in the affairs of England until the reign of Edward III.⁶⁴ With Pessagno's departure Edward II lost access to the expertise which in earlier years had found him the financial resources for the Bannockburn campaign, the defence of the north of England and the successful war against the Scots in Ireland.⁶⁵ However, Pessagno was already yesterday's financier, since by 1319 he was being replaced by the Florentine banking company the Bardi.⁶⁶

Edward II had cause for bitter personal disappointment in the early summer of 1319, for this was when the saga of the Holy Oil of St Thomas of Canterbury reached its final ignominious conclusion. The Dominican friar, Nicholas of Wisbech, who had told Edward II the story of the Holy Oil and had urged him to undergo a ceremony of reanointing as a way of escaping his political troubles, returned to Edward at York in late January or early February 1319, bearing with him very unwelcome news, since he had to admit that he had not succeeded in persuading the pope to agree to the proposal. He was then closely interrogated by the chancellor the bishop of Ely and the bishops of Norwich and Salisbury, who wrote down his answers in letters under their seals.⁶⁷ On 6 February Edward wrote to the pope, to announce Nicholas of Wisbech's return to England and to say that he was sending the bishop of Hereford and other envoys to Avignon on important business, but without specifying its nature.⁶⁸ The bishop left England at the end of February and was in Avignon in early May, when he delivered the letters of the bishops of Ely, Norwich and Salisbury and awaited the pope's⁶⁹ reply. He remained abroad on this and other business until February 1320, but John XXII's letter containing his final word on the subject of the Holy Oil was certainly written in May 1319 and reached Edward II at York in early June.⁷⁰ The pope recorded that he and the cardinal bishop of Sabina had discussed the matter carefully, having read the letters and interviewed Nicholas, and had concluded: first of all that the Holy Oil was quite different in nature from the oil with which Edward was anointed at his coronation and that it was therefore of no importance one way or another; and secondly that if Edward were to be anointed with the Holy Oil it should be done in secret to avoid public amazement and scandal, and it should not be performed by a bishop. The pope concluded by reminding Edward that neither anointing nor anything else would be of profit to him unless he was well disposed towards God. He earnestly exhorted Edward, as he had often done elsewhere, to obey the divine decrees by leading a virtuous life and cultivating justice in himself and his subjects.⁷¹

Bitterly disillusioned and no doubt also feeling humiliated, on 8 June 1319 Edward II wrote to the pope asking him to dismiss Nicholas from his office as a papal penitentiary, since he had proved to be unworthy, and to replace him with a fellow Dominican, John de Wrotham.⁷² Nicholas was briefly imprisoned, escaped and then disappears from the records. As for Edward II, he was moved in July or August 1319 to send an extraordinary letter to the pope in which he admitted that through his own ‘weakness’(imbellicitatem) he had allowed the unscrupulous friar to take advantage of his ‘dovelike simplicity’.⁷³

THE BERWICK CAMPAIGN

All of this was going on against the background of preparations for war. It was implicit in the various agreements reached with Lancaster that he would co-operate in a new military campaign against the Scots. This would be the first since the disastrous campaign of 1314 and, since the fall of Berwick, the need for one had become extremely urgent. There is no reason to suppose that Edward II and his advisers were unaware of this or to suggest that lethargy on the part of Edward was responsible for the long delay in launching a full-scale attack on the Scots.⁷⁴ This was quite simply the first occasion during his reign when Edward and the baronage, and most importantly Lancaster, had been united in agreeing on and participating in a campaign.⁷⁵

The two cardinals, Gaucelin d'Eauze and Luke Fieschi, had begun the process on 3 September 1318, in their last official act before leaving England for Avignon, when they published papal bulls excommunicating Robert Bruce and his supporters from the pulpit of St Paul's in London.⁷⁶ Orders for a campaign in Scotland to start on 10 June 1319 were issued in November 1318, but on 22 May 1319, three days before the end of parliament, the date was postponed until 22 July, to allow more time for preparations.⁷⁷ On 12 May John de Bermingham, the victor over the Scottish army in Ireland in October 1318, was created earl of Louth, as much perhaps pour encourager les autres as to reward him for his past services.⁷⁸ Orders were issued for the distraint of knighthood and for the levying of £20 fines on all those who did not serve.⁷⁹ Purveyance on a large scale was organized in twenty-six English counties and included the collection of grain supplies, which the magnates had agreed at York to loan to the king in aid of the war.⁸⁰ The exchequer was also moved from Westminster to York.⁸¹

Great efforts were made to raise as much money as possible for the coming campaign. After Edward II promised to hear the grievances of the city of London against the government, its citizens gave him a loan of 2,000 marks. On 24 March the earl of Pembroke, the king's half-brother Thomas of Brotherton earl of Norfolk, and the treasurer John Sandal bishop of Winchester came to the chapter-house of St Paul's to enquire further and were deluged with complaints against the mayor, John Wengrave. During the York parliament Edward II confirmed all the existing liberties of the city of London in return for another 1,000 marks and granted London a new charter, which was proclaimed on 20 June. This ended a major constitutional crisis by widening the franchise for the elections of aldermen, mayors and sheriffs, and for the moment at least ensured the future loyalty of the city to the crown.⁸² The earls of Pembroke and Norfolk performed another valuable service for the king in late April, shortly before the York parliament, when they and Bartholomew de Badlesmere, the steward of the king's household, attended the Canterbury provincial council at St Paul's in London to ask the clergy to grant a subsidy in aid of the war.⁸³ By the spring of 1320 this source had supplied Edward II's exchequer with £16,366. Before the end of the parliament a grant of taxation for the forthcoming campaign was made by the laity. It took the form of an eighteenth of the value of moveable goods in townships, excluding the clergy but including their villeins; and a twelfth to be levied on moveable goods in cities and boroughs. The assessment of the eighteenth was to be made by men who had not previously done so, because of complaints that earlier assessors and their clerks had embezzled much of the money collected.⁸⁴These subsidies raised the substantial sum of £36,696.⁸⁵ A scutage was also ordered on 28 May in aid of the Scottish campaign.⁸⁶ On 8 June the king borrowed 6,000 marks from the Bardi to meet the immediate costs of the war and to maintain his household.⁸⁷ As in the case of the Bannockburn campaign in 1314, if the king and his army were to fail, it would not be for lack of money.

The army was intended to be a large one. Over 23,000 foot soldiers were summoned, although only a little over 8,000 appeared; and even this figure seems to be too high.⁸⁸ In addition there were about a thousand lightly armed horsemen or hobelars; and a heavy cavalry force of about 1,400 knights and men-at-arms.⁸⁹ The king had fifty-nine household knights at the siege of Berwick,⁹⁰ but some of these, such as John Giffard, John de Somery and John Cromwell, were also in command of substantial retinues of their own.⁹¹Edward knighted his half-brother the earl of Norfolk, whose first experience of war this was to be, and others on 11 July.⁹² The earl of Lancaster obtained letters of protection for twenty-eight knights and men-at-arms before the start of the campaign but may have had a following of as many as 140 knights and 350 men-at-arms.⁹³ The earl of Pembroke had at least seventy-eight knights and men-arms as well as sixty archers;⁹⁴ while the earl of Arundel had sixty-one men, Badlesmere ninety-six, Hugh Despenser the Younger ninety-eight, Roger Damory eighty-two, and Hugh Audley the Younger seventy-four.⁹⁵ In total the army may have numbered about 10,000,⁹⁶ less than in 1314 but still a substantial force. To this should be added a very large naval contingent of seventy-seven ships, commanded by Simon Driby, which was intended both to carry supplies for the advancing army and to break the Scottish blockade.⁹⁷

Edward II clearly harboured ambitions of a major invasion of Scotland, on the lines of his father's great campaigns, since according to the Vita Edwardi Secundi, ‘the lord king sent envoys to Scotland to claim the kingdom, offer peace and allow safety in life and limb to Robert Bruce. For it is fitting for a king to act thus, and to attack his enemies when peace is refused.’⁹⁸ Again according to the Vita, Berwick was not the immediate objective of the campaign but was attacked simply because Edward ‘came first to Berwick with his whole army, and decided on advice that this should be the first place to be besieged, both because it had withdrawn from his authority, and so that they should not expose themselves to danger by leaving an unconquered enemy in their rear’.⁹⁹This may explain why the army was supplied with prefabricated parts for the construction of two wooden peel towers as the army advanced into Scotland,¹⁰⁰ but lacked siege engines and diggers at the start of the siege.¹⁰¹ The Anonimalle Chronicle, which was written at St Mary's Abbey in York and is very well informed on events in the north, says essentially the same as the Vita but with a slightly different emphasis which makes the English plans seem more carefully thought out. In this version of events, Edward II and the magnates held a council at Newcastle before the army set out, and decided that because Berwick was so strongly held by the Scots it should be besieged and taken before the English force advanced further into Scotland. This would also allow them a place of refuge if anything went wrong and they were forced to retreat.¹⁰²

The army reached Berwick on 7 September¹⁰³ and launched a determined assault on 8 September both from the landward side and from the sea.¹⁰⁴ There was hard fighting between the English and the Scots before the attackers withdrew. Five days later, on 13 September, the English renewed the assault after the arrival of siege equipment from Northampton and Bamburgh.¹⁰⁵ Again there was fierce fighting: the Scots destroyed one of the English siege engines, a device called a sow,¹⁰⁶ and repelled an attack launched from one of the English ships, but by the end of the day the Scottish garrison was exhausted.¹⁰⁷ Another such attack might have been successful, but while Edward II and his commanders were taking stock and preparing to renew the assault events elsewhere intervened and threw the whole campaign into disarray. On the morning of 14 September news reached Edward of the defeat by the Scots on 12 September of another English force at Myton near Boroughbridge in Yorkshire, and that the city of York itself was under threat.¹⁰⁸ The result was confusion and an orgy of suspicion and recrimination which led to the breaking off of the siege and the reopening of all the old wounds in Edward and Lancaster's relationship.

A PLOT TO CAPTURE THE QUEEN

In late August or early September a Scottish force led by Thomas Randolph the earl of Moray and Sir James Douglas, two experienced commanders, entered England by way of Carlisle and moved east via Northumberland and Durham before entering Yorkshire.¹⁰⁹The main intention of the Scots was probably to draw English attention away from the siege of Berwick. Although the Scottish movement began before the siege started, Robert Bruce certainly knew the English were planning a major campaign and could readily conclude that Berwick was likely to be one of its objectives. As John Barbour, author of The Bruce, remarked, Bruce would not take the risk of meeting the king of England in open battle around the walls of Berwick.¹¹⁰ He had been lucky once, at Bannockburn five years before, but there was no guarantee that the English would make the same mistakes twice.

However, several sources claim that the real objective of the Scots was the capture of Queen Isabella who was staying near York.¹¹¹ If successful, this would have changed the whole complexion of the war. As the author of the Vita Edwardi Secundi remarked, ‘Indeed if the queen had at that time been captured, I believe that Scotland would have bought peace for herself.’¹¹² The Flores also claimed that the Scots hoped to seize the royal administration and all its records which had been moved from Westminster to York, allegedly on the bad advice of John de Hothum, bishop of Ely.¹¹³ According to the Vita, a spy captured in York revealed the plot to William Melton the archbishop of York and the chancellor John de Hothum and the leading men of York, claiming that James Douglas would ‘come there secretly with his chosen band, to abduct the queen’ and giving details of when and where the Scots would hide and lie in wait. Hardly anyone believed the story, since Edward II was already beginning to lay waste to Scotland and it made more sense for the Scots to keep their army closer to home,¹¹⁴ but as a precaution the queen was brought back into York and taken by water to the safety of Nottingham castle.¹¹⁵ Whether there really was such a plot, or whether the Scots were simply seeking to take advantage of an opportunity to capture the queen if one should occur, cannot be proved but, given the Scottish expertise at taking well-garrisoned castles and towns by stealth,¹¹⁶ it should not be ruled out. The Anonimalle Chronicle, has no mention of a plot to capture the queen but does emphasize that the Scots hid by day in woods and marshes, moving only at night, so that their movements would not be detected. There is also some evidence that the Scots were guided in their advance by Edmund Darel, a royal household knight from Yorkshire.¹¹⁷

THE ‘CHAPTER’ OF MYTON

It was unfortunate that the local infantry force which would otherwise have been available to defend York had already been ordered to join the army besieging Berwick. York castle was kept garrisoned between 4 and 13 September and the vicars choral of York Minster defended their section of the city wall.¹¹⁸ This time there was no opportunity for John de Hothum to organize a defensive force as he had done so successfully in Ireland in 1316.¹¹⁹ The archbishop of York and the bishop of Ely were left to take action against the Scots as best they could, and improvised a force composed of citizens of York, including their mayor Nicholas Fleming, local peasantry, clergy and members of the royal administration. No knights or men-at-arms with experience of war were available to stiffen their ranks.¹²⁰

Hoping to take the Scots by surprise, Melton and Hothum led their men out of the city on 12 September and towards the Scots who were encamped on the banks of the River Swale at Myton, about ten miles from York. The Scots were however forewarned and caused confusion among the English by setting fire to bundles of hay.¹²¹ In the resulting smokescreen, the English force lost what little order it possessed and began to flee. Many were killed, including the mayor of York, while others drowned in the Swale or were taken prisoner.¹²² The latter included the experienced exchequer clerk William Airmyn and Andrew de Tange, one of the notaries responsible for keeping the records of Anglo-Scottish relations.¹²³ So many clergy were killed or captured that the Scots named the encounter ‘the chapter of Myton’.¹²⁴ Melton and Hothum and the other survivors escaped back to York, closed the gates and awaited a siege which never came.¹²⁵ Instead the Scots turned around and made their way back to Scotland, causing devastation as they went.¹²⁶ Melton and Hothum could scarcely be blamed for the débâcle. They had been placed in an impossible position, resulting from the over-confidence of Edward II and his advisers who yet again fatally underestimated the ingenuity of their opponents.¹²⁷ In all of Edward's previous campaigns against the Scots, including the Bannockburn campaign in 1314, his forces had already held strongpoints deep inside Scottish territory. By 1319, with the loss of Berwick and other fortresses, the Scots were right on the English doorstep and capable of counterattacking with ease.

THE END OF THE SIEGE OF BERWICK: DIVISIONS AND DISSENSION

For Edward II and his men who had first arrived at Berwick, ‘with trumpets blowing and spent the night in great joy and pleasure [and] music in contempt of their Scottish enemies’,¹²⁸ the arrival on 14 September of news of the battle of Myton was devastating.¹²⁹Some reports of the Scottish raid into the north of England must already have reached Berwick on 9 or 10 September, since a force of 1,200 hobelars and archers commanded by Sir Andrew Harclay was detached from the besieging army, probably being sent in the direction of Carlisle to cut off the Scottish retreat from Yorkshire.¹³⁰

There were already serious tensions within the senior ranks of the besieging army.¹³¹ If the chroniclers are to be believed, malicious gossip was deliberately spread, causing discord between Edward and Lancaster, and mutual distrust between the king and other magnates.¹³² Edward is alleged to have disgusted Lancaster by promising, ‘with his usual foolishness’ (fatuitate solita), that Hugh Despenser the Younger would be made constable of the castle and Roger Damory keeper of the town of Berwick when they were captured.¹³³ The Flores Historiarum also records that Edward made promises of reward to various unworthy men, but without naming any of them, and that he even had two books of blank charters for this purpose. Even worse, Edward began to threaten that if he was victorious, he would avenge the death of Gaveston.¹³⁴ Robert of Reading, the author of the Flores, was bitterly hostile to Edward II and all his works, but the Vita Edwardi Secundi has a very similar report and probably gives a fair picture: ‘“When this wretched business is over, we will turn our hands to other matters. For I have not yet forgotten the wrong that was done to my brother Piers”. And this remark did not escape the earl; for this reason without doubt he took a less active part at Berwick.’¹³⁵

The news of Myton and the possible threat to the queen's safety made matters worse. The Bruce can hardly be described as an impartial account of English affairs but its statement that the king's council was deeply divided over what to do next, the king and the southerners wanting to continue the siege until Berwick was taken while Lancaster and the other northerners were concerned about their lands, carries conviction. Lancaster took offence at this and withdrew himself and his men from the siege.¹³⁶ The Lanercost chronicler adds that Edward suggested dividing the army, one part to continue the siege while the remainder pursued the Scots; but that the magnates strongly advised that this would be too risky.¹³⁷ This general picture is confirmed by a Canterbury chronicler who speaks of trouble breaking out between Lancaster and the council, leading to his departure.¹³⁸

Lancaster was still at Berwick on 16 September, but may have left on that day or the next.¹³⁹ Once he had gone there was no practical possibility of continuing the siege, whatever Edward and the southern magnates may have preferred, and on 17 September Edward and the rest of the army began the return journey to Newcastle,¹⁴⁰ which Edward reached on about 21 September.¹⁴¹ Edward left on 28 September and was back at York on 5 October.¹⁴² Here he was to remain until the end of January 1320.

THE BLAME GAME

No sooner had the siege been abandoned than the search for a scapegoat began. The story of Edmund Darel's treachery, though never clearly proved, was one small part of what followed. It was even rumoured that Hugh Despenser the Younger had betrayed the queen to the Scots and had then passed the blame on to Lancaster.¹⁴³ This report was probably written in hindsight with knowledge of much later events, but Despenser is likely to have been responsible for some of the enmity towards Lancaster. In a letter written to his sheriff in the county of Glamorgan on 21 September Despenser claimed that the Scottish invasion of England during the siege had been carried out at Lancaster's instigation and with his assistance, and that Lancaster's behaviour was responsible for the abandonment of the siege.¹⁴⁴ Despenser was very much an interested party, since the siege of Berwick and its aftermath mark an important stage in his growing power at court. His ambitions and influence over royal patronage were soon to turn not just Lancaster but most of the other leading magnates against both him and the king.¹⁴⁵

However, the most serious accusations came from the author of the Vita Edwardi Secundi, normally unsparing in his criticism of Edward II and his failings, who now turned his ire against Thomas of Lancaster. Having reported that Lancaster was blamed for the raising of the siege, for the plot to seize the queen, and for the Scots' ability to return home unscathed, he added that ‘some evidence of treachery was openly spoken of, from which the reputation of the earl and his followers was seriously damaged. For it was commonly said that the earl received 40,000 pounds from Robert Bruce to help him and his men secretly, and that at the siege, while everyone was attacking the wall, none of the earl's retinue assaulted it, and that the town of Berwick would have surrendered if the earl's scheming had not hindered this, and that James Douglas on his way back to Scotland passed through the earl's lines, and that the earl went unarmed through the midst of the Scots.’¹⁴⁶ The author then proceeded to a jeremiad on the themes of treachery, the vices of the rich, and the prospering of the wicked:¹⁴⁷ ‘Oh! Earl of Lancaster, whose riches are so great, why for such a sum of money have you lost your reputation and your name for constancy? … Oh! What paeans of praise you had while you were constantly upholding the Ordinances! The good will of the people is turned to hatred, and your fame is changed to infamy. Oh! Noble earl, why do you not recall to mind the “chosen generation”, your royal family which you disgrace! Why do you not take thought, distinguished earl, how great a charge is the crime of broken faith!…’¹⁴⁸

It was not the first time that rumours of treachery surrounded the earl of Lancaster, and it was not to be the last, but even the author of the Vita admitted that there was no evidence to prove his guilt. Lancaster is said to have protested his innocence to the king and to have offered to prove it by ordeal if necessary. In the end he was allowed to purge himself on oath.¹⁴⁹ An open breach between Edward II and Lancaster may have been averted in the autumn of 1319, but there was no possibility of a further settlement between the two men. Whether or not either man really understood it, the final chapter in their relations had been opened and would reach its violent conclusion in the spring of 1322.¹⁵⁰

A TRUCE WITH THE SCOTS

Once again Edward II had engaged in a major campaign against the Scots, and once again it had ended, if not in actual defeat on the battlefield, certainly in humiliation. Another campaign was out of the question: the best that could be done was to secure the defences of the north. Badlesmere and other household officers were left behind at Newcastle to see to the munitioning of the towns and castles on the Scottish March; 600 men-at-arms were to stay at York to protect the king, while local levies were raised in Yorkshire.¹⁵¹ But this could do nothing to prevent the Scots under Sir James Douglas from carrying out ‘the most savage raid yet seen on the west side of the Pennines’: cruelly they waited until after the harvest and on about 1 November destroyed the corn and seized great numbers of men and animals in Gilsland and Westmorland.¹⁵² Since there was no possibility of renewing the Scottish campaign and in order to save the north from further attacks, Edward had no choice but to make a truce with the Scots, even though some of the magnates were annoyed because they felt that it would add further to the king's humiliation.¹⁵³

On 24 October twelve Scots envoys were given safe conducts to come to Newcastle to discuss either a truce or peace, and on 11 November Robert Baldock left London to go to Berwick with other royal envoys for the same purpose.¹⁵⁴ On 1 December full powers to negotiate a truce were given to the earl of Pembroke, the chancellor the bishop of Ely, Hugh Despenser the Younger, Badlesmere, Henry le Scrope, Robert Baldock, William Airmyn, William Herle and Geoffrey le Scrope. The Scottish and English versions variously date the making of the truce that was eventually agreed to 22 and 24 December.¹⁵⁵ The truce was to last for two years from 29 December 1319, during which time the Scots were to build no new castles in the sheriffdoms of Berwick, Roxburgh and Dumfries, while the English were to garrison Harbottle castle in Northumberland, and later either deliver it to the Scots or destroy it.¹⁵⁶ On 24 January 1320 the chancellor, Pembroke, Badlesmere and Despenser were appointed to perform the terms relating to Harbottle, which they had already put into the custody of one of Badlesmere's retainers John de Penrith on 28 December, and keepers of the truce were nominated on the same day.¹⁵⁷

AN IMPORTANT MEETING AT YORK

On 20 January 1320 a new parliament assembled at York.¹⁵⁸ Its purpose was to confirm the details of the truce with Scotland and to discuss relations with France and the situation in the duchy of Aquitaine, which had been neglected during the Scottish campaign and needed urgent attention. All this business was for the moment however overshadowed by the latest twist in the relations between Edward and Lancaster, who was nearby at his castle of Pontefract¹⁵⁹ but refused to attend because he alleged that the parliament was being held in secret (in cameris).¹⁶⁰ This was nonsense; the real reason, as the Vita observed, was probably because ‘he regarded the king and his supporters as suspect, and he declared, no longer privately but publicly, that they were his enemies’.¹⁶¹ The tensions raised at Berwick were evidently still very powerful. Another explanation, offered in the unpublished chronicle attributed to Nicholas Trivet, is that Lancaster objected to the truce with the Scots.¹⁶² Perhaps Lancaster was trying to counteract the rumours about his behaviour at Berwick by appearing more bellicose than the king and his fellow magnates. It is possible that Lancaster was induced to attend during the last few days before the parliament ended on 28 or 29 January,¹⁶³ but the damage was done. The system of conciliar government established at York at the end of 1318 was clearly at an end. Edward was now able to make his own appointments to important offices without reference to Lancaster. John de Hothum (probably in need of a rest after Myton) was replaced as chancellor by John Salmon the bishop of Norwich; Walter Stapeldon the bishop of Exeter became treasurer in place of John Sandal the bishop of Winchester, who had died in early November 1319; Robert Baldock archdeacon of Middlesex became keeper of the privy seal; and Badlesmere and Hugh Despenser the Younger were confirmed as steward and chamberlain respectively.¹⁶⁴ It was also decided that the exchequer and the lawcourts should return from York to London.¹⁶⁵

PREPARATIONS FOR FRANCE

Since the end of 1316 Philip V of France had been putting increasing pressure on Edward II to come to France to perform his homage for Aquitaine,¹⁶⁶ both in letters directed to Edward in England and also through communications with his officials in the duchy. In November 1317, for example, two French clerks bearing letters summoning the king-duke to do his homage had been forced to tour the duchy in search of the seneschal, Gilbert Pecche, who was preoccupied by the private war between two Gascon nobles, Jourdain de l'Isle and Alexandre de Caumont. They eventually tracked him down to La Réole near Bordeaux on 20 November and there they formally read out the letters before the seneschal and Edward II's council in Gascony.¹⁶⁷

Edward II had consistently put off the date of his homage on the grounds either that the political situation in England was too delicate or that the war with Scotland had to take priority, but it could not be delayed any longer.¹⁶⁸ Apart from the act of homage itself, the usual host of problems in Anglo-French relations, which could best be dealt with by a meeting between the two kings, had been steadily accumulating since Edward's last visit to France in 1313,¹⁶⁹ while conditions within the duchy of Aquitaine had also been deteriorating.¹⁷⁰ Edward had formally recognized that he owed homage on 24 May 1319,¹⁷¹ but nothing further took place because of the imminent Scottish campaign. A visit to France by Edward II was however being considered by the king and his council at York in late November 1319. A royal clerk, Master Richard de Burton, and a knight, Sir John Abel, were sent to visit the king of France, while another clerk, Master John de Hildesle, was sent to Aquitaine. On 30 November Master William de Maldon was sent to London to obtain transcripts of key diplomatic documents in advance of Edward's journey.¹⁷² During the parliament Edward told the assembled magnates that he planned to meet Philip V of France at Amiens on 9 March 1320, in order to perform his homage for the duchy of Aquitaine and the counties of Ponthieu and Montreuil. For this reason the parliament was cut short, with the assent of the magnates, but with the intention of holding another one on 1 June to continue its business.¹⁷³ During the king's absence the earl of Pembroke was to act as keeper of the realm.¹⁷⁴ In March the king's half-brother, Edmund of Woodstock, Hugh Despenser the Elder, Bartholomew de Badlesmere and the bishop of Hereford left for France.¹⁷⁵ They first went to Paris where they helped to complete the arrangements for Edward's visit, and then to Avignon;¹⁷⁶ Despenser and Badlesmere were then to go on to Gascony to look into allegations of misconduct by royal officials and to try to restore order.¹⁷⁷

After the end of the parliament at York Edward and Isabella left for Westminster. As they passed Pontefract they were greeted with cries of abuse from Lancaster's retainers.¹⁷⁸ Nothing could have shown better the depth of distrust which again existed between the king and his first cousin. On 16 February the king and queen reached London, where they were met at Kilburn by the mayor Hamo de Chigwell, the sheriffs and aldermen.¹⁷⁹ Almost two weeks later, on 28 February, they rode through the city of London at the beginning of their journey and then spent two weeks waiting at Canterbury for letters of safe conduct from France. Although the letters were issued on 25 March, they did not arrive in time and Edward and Isabella were forced to return to Westminster, which they reached on 7 April.¹⁸⁰

EDWARD IN FRANCE

On 19 June Edward and Isabella crossed to France in the company of Hugh Despenser the Younger, Roger Damory, the bishops of Norwich and Exeter, the countess of Pembroke, and the earl of Pembroke's nephew John de Hastings,¹⁸¹ the earl of Pembroke himself having been reappointed as keeper of the realm.¹⁸² The royal party reached Amiens on 28 June and two days later Edward performed homage for Aquitaine and Ponthieu in the cathedral.¹⁸³ A few days later Philip V issued pardons to those of Edward's subjects who were considered to have committed offences against the French crown.¹⁸⁴

Edward left Amiens on 9 July, first making his way to Abbeville, the administrative centre of the county of Ponthieu. As far back as February 1317 Isabella had been complaining about the neglect of the government of the county by her seneschal, Jean de Fiennes.¹⁸⁵ The exact issues are not clear but were connected with the opposition within France to Philip V's accession as king in 1316, in which prominent people from Ponthieu including Jean de Fiennes and his brother were involved.¹⁸⁶ This was the probable explanation of Jean de Fiennes's astonishing proposal in January 1317 that Edward II should lay claim to a share of the kingdom of France in right of his wife. The suggestion was discussed at the time by Edward II's council, which was well aware that Fiennes was trying to play politics for his own advantage and did not take any further action.¹⁸⁷ During their meetings at Amiens in 1320 Edward and Philip must have discussed the situation in Ponthieu and Edward was given a free hand to restore order. Several citizens of Abbeville were arrested for disloyalty and taken back to England.¹⁸⁸

From Abbeville Edward moved to Boulogne, the scene of his marriage to Isabella in 1308, and here he attended the consecration of Bartholomew de Badlesmere's nephew, Henry de Burghersh, as bishop of Lincoln.¹⁸⁹ Edward returned to England on 22 July and reached London on 2 August, where he was given a splendid welcome by the mayor and members of the guilds.¹⁹⁰

PARLIAMENT

Shortly after Edward's return to Westminster a new parliament was summoned to make up for the brevity of the assembly held at York in January and the impossibility of holding a meeting on 1 July as previously promised. All was intended to be sweetness and light. In the speech delivered at the opening of parliament it was stated on Edward's behalf that, ‘in his great desire and wish to do all the things which concern a good lord for the benefit of his realm and of his people’, the king had arranged to hold his parliament at Westminster on the octave of Michaelmas (6 October 1320), ‘for the greatest convenience of his people and at the most suitable time for his people after the season of August’.¹⁹¹

It proved to be a businesslike meeting. On the opening day the king, with the assistance of the archbishop of Canterbury, the bishop of Norwich the chancellor, the bishop of Exeter the treasurer, the bishops of London, Ely, and Coventry & Lichfield, the earls of Pembroke, Edmund of Woodstock the king's half-brother, and several other unnamed magnates, made arrangements for the receipt and answering of petitions from England and Wales, and from Gascony, Ireland and the Channel Islands. One hundred and forty-one petitions with answers are recorded on the Parliament Roll.¹⁹² Several of the items of business (such as the dispute between the abbot and convent of Abingdon, the process between the monks of St Martin's, Dover, and the prior of Christ Church, Canterbury, and the dispute between the abbot of Ramsey and the bishop of Ely) involved a lengthy search of the records and take up much space on the roll;¹⁹³ there were two petitions concerning the city of London; and several from Ireland. There was also a complaint from the entire community of the realm concerning trespasses and felonies perpetrated in the realm.¹⁹⁴ This petition was presented by the knights, citizens and burgesses present on behalf of the counties, cities and boroughs of the realm. The Statute of Westminster the Fourth, which consists of only two chapters concerning the acquittance of sheriffs and juries of twenty-four, may have been the result of commune or private petitions presented during the parliament.¹⁹⁵

EDWARD

The parliament was to be the last occasion during the reign of Edward II when the business of receiving and answering petitions was dealt with on such a scale. It was also noteworthy for the extent of Edward II's involvement. In a well-known letter to the pope, Thomas Cobham the bishop of Worcester remarked that the king was rising unusually early and was contributing to the discussions of parliamentary business.¹⁹⁶ The unpublished chronicle attributed to Nicholas Trivet adds that Edward ‘showed prudence in answering the petitions of the poor, and clemency as much as severity in judicial matters, to the amazement of many who were there’.¹⁹⁷

This was not the only occasion in 1320 when Edward conspicuously exerted himself. He may have addressed the York parliament in January on the subject of his homage for Aquitaine;¹⁹⁸ and he most certainly acted with great vigour during his visit to Amiens to perform homage in June–July 1320. Having done so on 30 June, all was at first amicable. On 1 July the two kings dined together and on the 3rd Edward held a festum generale with Philip V and other magnates.¹⁹⁹ However, on either 3 or 4 July, when the two kings met to renew the alliance of perpetual friendship concluded between Edward I and Philip IV in 1303, things started to go wrong. A French councillor suggested that in addition to performing homage Edward should also swear fealty to Philip. This extra bond of personal allegiance would have indicated that Edward was inferior in status to Philip, and was firmly rejected by Edward in a recorded speech which clearly represents his own views. Without first consulting his advisers, Edward addressed Philip V and his councillors:

We well remember that the homage which we performed at Boulogne [in 1308] was done according to the form of the peace treaties made between our ancestors, after the manner in which they did it. Your father [Philip IV] agreed to it, for we have his letters confirming this, and we have performed it already in the same fashion; no one can reasonably ask us to do otherwise; and we certainly do not intend to do so. As to the fealty we are certain that we should not swear it; nor was it ever asked of us at that time.²⁰⁰

The eyewitness account added that Edward II was visibly angered by the unexpected demand made of him and that the French council reacted with stunned silence. The silence was broken by the councillor who had made the suggestion, now proposing that the two kings should simply swear to maintain the perpetual alliance and agree not to harbour enemies or those banished from either kingdom. Edward agreed to this ‘with an amiable countenance’. The necessary promises were then made by Hugh Despenser the Elder on behalf of Edward II and the French king's marshal on behalf of Philip.²⁰¹ The incident was an indication that Edward II could be roused to determined action when his majesty as king was under threat; but it was also a warning that Anglo-French relations might be about to enter a more stormy phase.

There was another matter which Edward II considered diminished his royal majesty: the Ordinances. Ever since the Ordinances had been first issued in 1311, he had been trying to evade them or to have them annulled by the pope. They had last been confirmed at the York parliament in the autumn of 1318 as part of the political settlement with the earl of Lancaster. Now that in 1320 the settlement had become a dead letter, Edward may have believed that his promise to uphold the Ordinances was redundant. Ostensibly the purpose of the visit to Avignon by the bishop of Hereford, Edmund of Woodstock, the Elder Despenser and Badlesmere in the spring of 1320 was to obtain papal approval for Henry de Burghersh's appointment as bishop of Lincoln, as well as countering the activities of the Scots.²⁰² But according to the chronicle attributed to Nicholas Trivet the embassy was also intended to seek absolution for Edward from his oath to uphold the Ordinances.²⁰³ It is likely that the royal supporters who had suffered loss when the Ordinances were last enforced in the autumn of 1318 would have been glad to see Edward succeed. An undated papal letter which seems to relate to this mission informed Edward that his petitions had been granted, as his envoys would tell him viva voce.²⁰⁴Although the chronicler Adam Murimuth, who was very well informed on political matters, remarked of this mission that, despite the alleged expenditure of £15,000, nothing was achieved apart from Burghersh's promotion, it seems likely that Edward did gain absolution from his oath.²⁰⁵

SIGNS AND PORTENTS

In the autumn of 1320 there were indications both of a degree of stability and of growing disturbance. On the positive side the king could be reasonably pleased with the outcome of his visit to France. A number of his closest advisers and supporters could also be satisfied with the royal patronage which had come their way. The steward Bartholomew de Badlesmere had seen his nephew consecrated as bishop of the largest diocese in England, while Badlesmere himself was appointed to the key office of constable of Dover; Hugh Despenser the Younger was at the same time made constable of Bristol;²⁰⁶ the earl of Pembroke's influence had been recognized in his appointment as keeper of the realm during the king's absence in France and by his confirmation in October as keeper of the forest south of the Trent;²⁰⁷ and in September Roger Damory had been respited payment of his debts to the crown.²⁰⁸

But there were signs of strain both among the baronage themselves and between supporters of the crown. Some of these signs were relatively minor in themselves; others were more serious, but collectively they added up to the makings of a new and graver political crisis than anything that had yet been seen.

The earl of Pembroke's nephew, John Hastings the lord of Abergavenny in the Welsh March, was at odds with the earl of Arundel Edmund Fitz Alan, the lord of Clun and Oswestry, also in the March, over possession of some tenements in Surrey. It was a trivial enough cause of dispute but both Hastings and Arundel had threatened to bring armed retainers to a hearing of the case in April 1320, while the king also took a personal interest in the case. The outcome is unknown but ill feeling is likely to have persisted.²⁰⁹

Pembroke was also at odds with Maurice de Berkeley, one of his long-standing retainers, whose followers had attacked Pembroke's manor of Painswick in Gloucestershire in July 1318 and then resisted all attempts to bring them to justice. Pembroke was eventually reduced in 1320 to obtaining compensation by a series of agreements with individuals.²¹⁰ It was a significant set of events, since it suggests that the influence of Pembroke was perceived to be waning, and also since Maurice de Berkeley switched his allegiance to what he hoped was a rising political star, Roger Mortimer of Wigmore. Maurice took with him his own retainers: his sons Thomas and Maurice, Thomas de Gurney and John de Maltravers. By a supreme irony three of these men were to be associated in the custody and death of Edward II at Berkeley castle in 1327.²¹¹

To make matters worse, Pembroke's ability to influence events was affected by the financial problems arising from his imprisonment and holding to ransom by Jean de Lamouilly in 1317. In 1319 and 1320 he was borrowing heavily from the Bardi and other Florentine merchants, as well as from the king. It is probable that he was still in debt when he died in 1324.²¹² His personal life was further affected by the death in September 1320 of his wife, Beatrice de Clermont-Nesle, the daughter of the constable of France, to whom he had been married since 1295. He then became involved in complicated legal proceedings with Beatrice's family in France. Since he had no legitimate male heir, he quickly began the search for a new wife. Soon after 20 November he left England for France, ostensibly to arrange for his remarriage, but probably also because he could not accept the growing power of the Despensers. Apart from a brief visit to England in March to May 1321, he played little direct part in the developing crisis until his return in August, when his role was to be crucial in securing the king's agreement to exile the Despensers.²¹³ An experienced and trusted royal councillor and a force for moderation had been removed from the scene at a critical time.

Meanwhile the earl of Lancaster's hostility to the king and his followers continued unabated. Lancaster failed to attend parliament in October, although he did send Nicholas de Segrave and others to represent him at Westminster.²¹⁴ Those attending parliament were aware of the dangers if Lancaster was not placated in some way and persuaded to resume co-operation with the king. This may explain the order on 14 November for the careful observance of the Ordinances.²¹⁵ It was also decided to send the bishops of London and Winchester to visit Lancaster. By 16 November these two had reached St Albans where they were joined by the bishops of Ely and Rochester. Although delayed at Northampton by the bishop of London's illness, the mission continued, the bishop of London returning to Westminster on 6 February 1321.²¹⁶ This mission may have represented another attempt at mediation by the prelates, as in 1318, but it is clear that it achieved nothing, and by the time the bishop of London returned events were moving too swiftly for such an intervention to have much hope of success. Against these conciliatory moves in Lancaster's direction it is possible to set the order of 5 November requiring Lancaster to answer for the relief for the lands he had inherited from the earl of Lincoln in 1311. This could only be regarded as provocative, especially since on 20 December Hugh Despenser the Younger was respited payment of the relief for his share of the lands of the earldom of Gloucester.²¹⁷

PART TWO

THE RISE AND RISE OF A NEW FAVOURITE

The Younger Despenser was not a new figure on the political scene. The prominence of his father, Hugh Despenser the Elder, among the councillors of both Edward I and Edward II²¹⁸ had brought him marriage in 1306 to Eleanor de Clare, one of the sisters of the earl of Gloucester,²¹⁹ the right to a share in the lands of the earldom after the earl's death at Bannockburn, and a summons to parliament among the magnates in 1314.²²⁰ Ironically, it seems that initially at least Edward II may have disliked and even hated Despenser.²²¹ There is however considerable evidence that his wife was a particular favourite of Edward II, and this may have been of great advantage to him in first gaining and then maintaining his influence over the king.²²² In May 1315, at the time when he was trying to hasten delivery of Eleanor's portion of the inheritance, Despenser seized Tonbridge castle from its custodian, the archbishop of Canterbury, and for a month refused to surrender it.²²³ Despenser's violent assault on John de Roos in Lincoln cathedral during the parliament of January 1316 may have been another early indication of his future conduct.²²⁴ Although Lancaster regarded Despenser's father as one of his chief opponents and spent a great deal of time and energy in trying to have him removed from the king's council, he does not at first appear to have regarded the Younger Despenser with the same degree of hostility, reserving his venom for other royal favourites, Audley, Damory and Montacute. But the Younger Despenser's power was increasing. One significant moment was the delivery in November 1317 of his wife's portion of the Gloucester lands; another was his appointment as chamberlain of the king's household in 1318, the same office that had been held by Piers Gaveston, giving him ready access to the king. Lancaster had however already concluded that Despenser was a possible threat to him by April 1318, when he suggested during the negotiations at Leicester that the two Despensers should agree to become his retainers for life.²²⁵ This was clearly designed to bring them under his personal control rather than simply augment his military resources.²²⁶ Despenser's role in fostering enmity between Edward II and the earl of Lancaster during the siege of Berwick in September 1319 suggested that Lancaster's judgement was right and was another indication of Despenser's growing power and influence.

The base of Despenser's territorial power lay in the Welsh March. In the partition of 1317 he had acquired the lordship of Glamorgan, valued at almost £1,300 a year and the most important of all the Clare lands. It included several castles, at Cardiff the centre of the lordship, Llantrisant, and the great fortress of Caerphilly, one of the most powerful castles in Britain.²²⁷ In 1326 Llantrisant and Caerphilly were both to play a leading part in the final days of Edward II's reign. The lordship of Gwynllwg, which had previously been dependent on Glamorgan, formed part of Hugh Audley's share of the inheritance and was in future to be organized as a separate lordship. Roger Damory's interests in Wales consisted only of part of the manor of Llangwm in the lordship of Usk, which was held in dower by the widowed countess of Gloucester.²²⁸ Despenser had shown his intentions when he took the homage and fealty of Audley's tenants in Gwynllwg before Audley had a chance to take possession. Although he was ordered to give up control in March 1318 he never did so, and in December 1318 Audley and his wife made a disadvantageous bargain with Despenser by which they surrendered the lordship of Gwynllwg (valued at £458) for six manors in England which were worth considerably less.²²⁹ In November 1318 Edward II had already granted Despenser and his wife all the regalities, liberties and free customs which the de Clares had held in the lordship of Glamorgan. The exchange with Audley meant that after December 1318 Despenser enjoyed as full an authority in the lordship as any of his wife's ancestors.²³⁰ Despenser had also begun to extend his power to the west of Glamorgan in November 1317 when he was granted the castle and town of Dryslwyn and the Cantref Mawr for life.²³¹ This brought him into contact and into conflict with the tenants of John Giffard of Brimpsfield in Gloucestershire, who held the adjoining Cantref Bychan.²³² In March 1319 one of Despenser's men, John Iweyn, was appointed as sheriff of the neighbouring royal county of Carmarthen, displacing one of Pembroke's men.²³³ Despenser was also believed to have his eyes on the castles of Blaenllyfni and Dinas in the lordship of Brecon, which had been granted to Roger Mortimer of Chirk in 1316.²³⁴

The climax of the Younger Despenser's rise to power in the March appears to have come in the summer and autumn of 1320 as a result of two events, the death of Maud de Clare the dowager countess of Gloucester on 2 July and his acquisition of the lordship of Gower in November. Although the distribution of Maud's share of the de Clare lands did not bring Despenser any more lands in the Welsh March, it did give him a substantial part of the honour of Gloucester including the manor and town of Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire and the castle and manor of Hanley in Worcestershire, as well as lands elsewhere in England. It also brought to Roger Damory the now unified lordship of Usk, making him an uncomfortably near neighbour to Despenser's lordship of Gwynllwg.²³⁵While the partition of the earldom meant in theory that Despenser could never become earl of Gloucester, his intention seems to have been to obtain as much control as possible over the marcher lordships of South Wales and turn them into a virtual earldom²³⁶independent of all but the ultimate authority of the king himself.

There was one important piece missing between Despenser's lordships in Gwynllwg and Glamorgan and his interests in West Wales: the lordship of Gower, with its administrative centre at Swansea. In 1320 this was held by William de Braose, who had no male heir and had settled the succession upon John de Mowbray, the husband of his elder daughter Alicia. De Braose however kept changing his mind and in effect offered Gower to the highest bidder. Among those who became involved were Humphrey de Bohun, the earl of Hereford and lord of Brecon, and hitherto a reliable supporter of the crown; and Roger Mortimer of Wigmore, nephew of Roger Mortimer of Chirk the justice of Wales, a former royal lieutenant in Ireland and an ambitious man in his own right. By the autumn of 1319 Despenser was also negotiating for the purchase of Gower and seemed likely to be the winner; in order to prevent this in 1320 John de Mowbray took possession of the lordship. Since De Braose had allegedly alienated the lordship to Mowbray without royal licence, on 26 October 1320, at the very end of the Westminster parliament, Edward II ordered Gower to be taken into royal hands.²³⁷ This was regarded by the marcher lords as a direct challenge to the law and customs of the March and they saw the appointment of Despenser as keeper of the lordship on or about 20 November as the prelude to its being granted to him by the king. The attempts by royal officers to enter Gower were resisted and it was not until mid-December that the lordship was under royal control.²³⁸

THE ROAD TO WAR

By December 1320 the ambitions of Hugh Despenser the Younger in the Welsh March had won him a great deal of valuable territory but with it the enmity of some of the most powerful of the marcher lords, the earl of Hereford,²³⁹ the two Roger Mortimers, of Wigmore and Chirk, and John Giffard, as well as Hugh Audley and Roger Damory, and Roger de Clifford.²⁴⁰ He was also cordially hated by the earl of Lancaster²⁴¹ and was probably one of the reasons for the earl of Pembroke's temporary withdrawal from England.²⁴² The Mortimers had a special cause to hate and to fear him since Despenser threatened to avenge the death of his grandfather, an earlier Hugh Despenser, at the battle of Evesham in 1265, in which their ancestors had fought on opposite sides.²⁴³

Despenser was also becoming the object of a more general hatred because of the influence that he and his father were perceived to have over the king. An even greater degree of hatred had probably been focused on Gaveston in his day, but then there had been more exaggeration than substance.²⁴⁴ Now, even allowing for some measure of hindsight in the knowledge of the Despensers' excesses after 1322, there was real substance. ‘No baron could approach the king without their [the Despensers, father and son] consent; and then a bribe was usually necessary; they answered petitions as they wished; they removed household officials without consulting the baronage; and any who displeased them or whose lands they coveted they threw into prison. The king would take advice from none but them.’²⁴⁵ In a very revealing letter written in January 1321 to John Inge, his sheriff in Glamorgan, Despenser remarked that the times changed from one day to another; envy was growing against him, and especially among the magnates, because the king treated him better than any other; therefore it was necessary, while times were good, that his affairs should go well, and that they should be wisely guarded for his honour and good. Therefore Despenser commanded Inge so to watch his affairs that ‘we may be rich and may attain our ends’.²⁴⁶

Edward clearly trusted the Elder Despenser whom he had known and with whom he had worked for many years; the Younger Despenser he probably came to rely on, if not actually to trust. While it is impossible to know the true nature of the relationship between Edward II and the Despensers, it seems as if the king became ensnared by them, especially by the Younger Despenser who was possibly aided by his wife Eleanor de Clare. Edward had, for example, tried at first to prevent Despenser's intrigues against Hugh Audley in Gwynllwg, but proved powerless to stop them.²⁴⁷ There is also some evidence that the king was personally prepared to allow John de Mowbray to keep possession of Gower and that it was only through Despenser's machinations that this did not happen.²⁴⁸ Once Despenser got his way, whether it was in Gwynllwg or Gower, or in a host of other matters, Edward had no choice but to follow and to defend him. Little by little the favourite came to dominate his royal master and the fates of both men were to be intertwined. As the unknown author of the Anonimalle Chronicle remarked: ‘The king loved him dearly with all his heart and mind, above all others, so that there was not in the land any great lord who, against sir Hugh's will, dared to do or say the things he would have liked to have done’.²⁴⁹ The ultimate disaster of Edward II's reign was still six years away, but its seeds were very firmly planted by the autumn of 1320.

Some attempts were made to reduce the mutual suspicions and avert the slide into civil war. On 5 November Edward II confirmed his father's re-grant of the Gloucester lands in 1290 to Gilbert de Clare and his heirs by his second marriage to Edward I's daughter, Joan of Acre. This was done at the request of Despenser, Damory and Audley, and was probably meant as a guarantee that Despenser would not usurp any more of their rights in their respective shares of the earldom or even claim the title of earl.²⁵⁰ On 14 November Roger Damory was pardoned the whole of a fine of 2,300 marks which he had agreed to pay in return for the re-grant of certain wardships which had been resumed under the terms of the Ordinances; and on 26 December payment of his debts to the king was respited.²⁵¹ It was already too late. When the earl of Hereford and John de Mowbray had protested to the king that the seizure of Gower was a breach of the law of the March, they were outraged when their protest was rejected. Despenser even accused them and anyone who thought like them of treason.²⁵² England, so often threatened with civil war since the accession of Edward II and so often saved by a last-minute compromise, was on the verge of disaster.

SCOTLAND AGAIN

To the most sincere prince, the Lord Edward, by God's grace illustrious king of England, Robert by the same grace king of Scots, sends greetings in Him by whom the thrones of rulers are governed.

Since while agreeable peace prevails the minds of the faithful are at rest, the Christian way of life is furthered, and all the affairs of holy mother church and of all kingdoms are everywhere carried on more prosperously, we in our humility have judged it right to entreat of your highness most earnestly that, having before your eyes the righteousness you owe to God and to the people, you desist from persecuting us and disturbing the people of our realm, so that there may be an end of slaughter and shedding of Christian blood. Everything that we ourselves and our people by their bodily service and contributions of wealth can do, we are now, and shall be, prepared to do sincerely and honourably for the sake of good peace and to earn perpetual peace for our souls. If it should be agreeable to your will to hold negotiations with us upon these matters, let your royal will be communicated to us in a letter by the hands of the bearer of this present letter.²⁵³

This letter in high-flown Latin, addressed by Robert Bruce to Edward II, was probably sent in April–May 1320, and indicated Bruce's desire for a final peace between Scotland and England. But the letter was also designed for the eyes of the pope and a copy of it probably accompanied another skilfully composed letter this time addressed directly to the pope and drawn up in April by a body of eight Scottish earls and thirty barons. This document is known today as the Declaration of Arbroath. Pledging their undying loyalty to ‘our valiant prince, king and lord, the lord Robert, who that his people might be delivered out of the hands of enemies, bore cheerfully toil and fatigue, hunger and danger, like another Maccabeus or Joshua’, the Scottish nobles added that ‘for as long as a hundred of us remain alive, we will never on any condition be subjected to the lordship of the English. For we fight not for glory nor riches nor honours, but for freedom alone, which no good man gives up except with his life.’²⁵⁴

Both documents were part of a diplomatic offensive by Robert Bruce and may have been composed by the same hand.²⁵⁵ Bruce was attempting to counter the bulls of excommunication which had been issued against him since 1317 and to answer the papal demands for peace by suggesting that Edward II and England were the only barriers to a settlement, and also to demonstrate Scottish unity in the face of English aggression. While the pope knew perfectly well that Scotland was not as united as Bruce wished him to believe,²⁵⁶ and did not accept the Scottish case for independence, he did go so far as to refer to Bruce in subsequent correspondence as ‘Robert, illustrious king of Scotland’.²⁵⁷ The English were in principle prepared to discuss peace, but any document which described Robert Bruce in this way, whether emanating from the Scottish chancery or from the papal curia, was unacceptable.

In practice they were, at first, more concerned with a continuation of the two-year truce which had been made in December 1319 and would expire in 1321. But Edward II and his advisers now had to allow for the twin possibilities that the pope would weaken his hostility to Bruce even further and that France would lend support to the Scots, either directly or in the guise of mediation. It was known in England in March 1320 that Scottish envoys were present at Avignon and that the pope had cited Robert Bruce to appear before him on 1 May;²⁵⁸ Edward II and his council were therefore anxious that nothing concerning Scotland should be discussed at Avignon before English envoys had a chance to get there.²⁵⁹ Had Edward also known of the existence of the Declaration of Arbroath and its imminent arrival at Avignon, his anxiety would have been all the greater.²⁶⁰

The English government also became aware that the Scots were being assisted at the papal curia by Odard de Maubuisson, a French lord with long experience of activities against England. This could only have been happening with the approval of Philip V²⁶¹and may help to explain the sending of Master William de Maldon to Paris in May, in advance of Edward II's visit, to ensure that the papal bulls of excommunication against Robert Bruce were properly promulgated.²⁶² It is very likely that Scotland was discussed while Edward II and his councillors were at Amiens, and that a French offer to send envoys to England was made at this time.²⁶³ For his part the pope wrote to Edward on 10 August urging him to engage in peace talks with the Scots and again on 18 August to tell him of his meetings with Robert Bruce's envoys.²⁶⁴ The idea of the appointment of a papal envoy probably originated then.²⁶⁵ Edward was therefore under growing pressure to negotiate seriously with the Scots from both the pope and the king of France. He may not have welcomed their involvement initially but he could not afford to reject it.²⁶⁶ It was yet another complication to add to the already complicated and tense political situation in England.

The negotiations with the Scots were originally scheduled to begin at Carlisle some time in August and were to be undertaken by three of Edward II's closest advisers: the earl of Pembroke, Bartholomew de Badlesmere and the Younger Despenser. However, on 14 August messengers were sent to Bruce asking for a postponement of the meeting.²⁶⁷ No reasons were given, but the delay was probably connected with developments in France and at the papal curia. After further contacts with the Scots at Carlisle in September and October a large and impressive English delegation was appointed on 19 January 1321: the archbishop of York, the bishops of Carlisle, Worcester and Winchester, the earls of Pembroke and Hereford, Badlesmere, Robert Baldock the keeper of the privy seal, William Airmyn, and four others, who were to meet Bruce's envoys at Newcastle either to make a final peace treaty or to prolong the existing truce. The French and papal envoys were also expected to participate.²⁶⁸ Significantly, the four others were all men with Lancastrian connections: Stephen and Nicholas de Segrave, Fulk Lestrange and John de Clavering.²⁶⁹ Had Edward and his council succeeded in regaining Lancaster's co-operation;²⁷⁰ had they heard rumours that he might be colluding with the Scots for his own purposes and were trying to discuss his true intentions; or were they hoping against hope that negotiating with the Scots might also help to preserve internal peace? Whatever the intentions, no satisfactory negotiations took place.²⁷¹ On 17 February Edward wrote to Badlesmere and his colleagues telling them that the earl of Pembroke had not yet returned from France and to postpone their meeting with the Scots for two or three weeks.²⁷² On 23 February Edward wrote to them again: Pembroke was still engaged on his private affairs in France and the earl of Hereford had not appeared ‘for certain reasons’; on 1 March he reported that Pembroke was still in France.²⁷³ The earl of Richmond was appointed to replace the two absent earls, and then hastened north, taking with him a copy of the records bearing on England's claim to superiority over Scotland.²⁷⁴ On 26 March an unsatisfactory meeting was held with the Scottish envoys at Bamburgh, at which the Scots spoke a lot about their desire for peace, but did nothing to bring it about; rather the contrary. All they were prepared to accept was a long truce, of twenty-six years. It was agreed that another meeting would take place on 1 September when Edward II and Robert Bruce would be able to announce their intentions.²⁷⁵ There the negotiations ended. On 5 May the earl of Richmond returned the records to the exchequer.²⁷⁶ English and Scottish envoys were not to meet again for another two years, after a bitter civil war in England and another disastrous English campaign in Scotland.²⁷⁷

THE ATTACKS ON THE DESPENSERS

The Scottish negotiations, such as they were, took place against the background of a rapidly deteriorating situation within England. One of the first indications came on 6 January 1321 when Edward informed the chancellor that, allegedly because of illness which prevented him from riding, Lancaster would not be attending the session of the London eyre due to be held on 14 January.²⁷⁸ In late January and in February the earl of Hereford, Roger Mortimer of Wigmore and other Marchers withdrew to their Welsh lands to gather their forces. In the meantime the king and Despenser were kept well informed of the developing events in the north by Robert Baldock, a member of the delegation based at Newcastle for the Scottish negotiations; by William de Aune, the constable of the royal castle at Tickhill in Yorkshire; and in Wales by John Inge, Despenser's sheriff in Glamorgan.²⁷⁹ As early as 18 January Despenser told Inge to see that his castles were well garrisoned.²⁸⁰ In late February and early March warnings came from both Baldock and Inge that an attack on Despenser's lands in Wales was imminent.²⁸¹

Lancaster's involvement was apparent at a very early stage. On 22 February he held a meeting with other, unnamed, magnates at Pontefract, at which it was decided to attack Despenser.²⁸² It is likely that Lancaster's plans for such a meeting explain Edward's order on 30 January to the earls of Hereford, Arundel and Surrey, John de Mowbray, Henry de Beaumont and twenty-five others not to join armed assemblies or to make secret treaties.²⁸³ With the exception of Hereford, almost all those named could be described as northerners rather than lords of the Welsh March.²⁸⁴ Whether Hereford himself attended the gathering is unknown,²⁸⁵ but it is likely that there was some representation from the March.²⁸⁶ Lancaster's efforts to stage manage the events of 1321, while staying at Pontefract well clear of any danger, were already apparent.²⁸⁷

By 6 March the Younger Despenser had received news that Hereford was gathering troops in Brecon ready to invade Despenser's lands in Wales, and he again ordered John Inge to see that all his castles were well defended;²⁸⁸ and on 16 March orders were given for Hereford's castle of Builth to be taken back into royal hands, following a last-minute effort by the king's half-brother, the earl of Norfolk, to parley with him.²⁸⁹ On 21 March Despenser wrote again to Inge from Cirencester, saying that it was no wonder that the earl of Hereford was more than usually gloomy and pensive since he was disloyal to the king who had given him so many goods and honours.²⁹⁰ Despenser was no doubt right in his assessment. The earl of Hereford, despite all the reasons he had to distrust and to hate Despenser, was about to sever a long-standing personal alliance and even friendship between himself and his brother-in-law the king. Once the tie was broken there would be no going back.

Two other marcher lords with good reason to consider their position were the Mortimers. Roger Mortimer of Wigmore had returned from Ireland in the autumn of 1320 and arrived at court just after the crisis over Gower erupted.²⁹¹ His reaction to these events is unknown, but can be guessed from his subsequent behaviour. By 11 February he had retired to his stronghold at Wigmore, having been replaced on 1 February as justice of Ireland by one of Despenser's knights, Sir Ralph de Gorges.²⁹² The attitude of Roger's uncle, Roger Mortimer of Chirk, was not yet clear. He had been justice of Wales for much of the reign and had seen to it that Wales remained secure when there was a threat of revolt at the time of the Scottish campaign in Ireland. On 8 March 1321 he was told to inspect and put in order the royal castles in Wales, perhaps as much as a test of his loyalty as as a defensive measure.²⁹³

In their turn, Edward and Despenser reacted swiftly, leaving Windsor for the danger area on 6 March and reaching Gloucester on the 27th.²⁹⁴ On the way Edward seized the castle of St Briavel's in Gloucestershire from Roger Damory and ordered the confiscation of Hugh Audley's lands, including the castle of Montgomery which he held for the crown, because he had broken the terms of his contract with the king.²⁹⁵ Edward's summons on 28 March to the earl of Hereford, the Mortimers and others to attend a council at Gloucester on 6 April to discuss the gathering of armed men in the Welsh March²⁹⁶ was firmly rebuffed. Hereford informed Edward via two royal knights, John de Somery and Robert de Kendale, that he would not come while Hugh Despenser the Younger was in the king's company. Hereford then sent the abbot of Dore to Edward with the proposal that Despenser should be put in the custody of the earl of Lancaster and permitted to answer the charges against him in parliament.²⁹⁷ According to the Vita Edwardi Secundi, the barons went even further and threatened to withdraw their allegiance from Edward altogether.²⁹⁸ Edward sent a cleverly argued reply in which he refused to do as Hereford asked, on the grounds that Despenser had never been accused of any crime, and took his stand upon Magna Carta, the Ordinances, the common law and his coronation oath. Edward ended with another clever move by summoning Hereford and Roger Mortimer of Wigmore to Oxford on 10 May to discuss the date for a parliament.²⁹⁹ Since this was what they wanted, they could not refuse to attend.

Edward may have hoped that the reappearance at Gloucester on about 28 March of the earl of Pembroke, newly returned from France, might help matters.³⁰⁰ His reliance on Pembroke's experience and moderation was already apparent in the role he had expected Pembroke to play in the negotiations with the Scots and in Edward's evident disappointment when Pembroke stayed abroad. On 29 March Edward wrote to the pope, seeking a dispensation for Pembroke's intended marriage to the French noble-woman, Marie de St Pol, perhaps hoping in this way to ensure his loyalty and aid in dealing with the Marchers.³⁰¹ The Marchers may also have been bidding for his support, since on 19 April he received a letter brought by the abbot of Dore.³⁰² It is likely that Pembroke was wavering since the usually well informed observer, Adam Murimuth, recorded that Pembroke secretly supported the enemies of the Despensers.³⁰³ Whatever the truth, Pembroke's presence made no difference to the rapidly developing crisis; he was probably glad to have the excuse of his impending marriage to allow him to leave the country again, which he did at the end of May.³⁰⁴

By this time it was already far too late for negotiations. The orders to Hereford and the Marchers on 13 April to keep the peace in their own lordships were ignored;³⁰⁵ while the instructions not to believe false rumours which were issued to over seventy earls and barons on 21 April were little more than fatuous.³⁰⁶ On 1 May Edward postponed the date of his proposed meeting with the Marchers until 17 May at Westminster.³⁰⁷ Three days later the earl of Hereford, the Mortimers and other Marchers began their attacks on the Welsh lands of the Younger Despenser. Newport was attacked on 4 May, followed by the capture of Cardiff on 9 May and Swansea on about 13 May.³⁰⁸ Despenser's lands in Wales were wasted and plundered by the invaders, causing damage estimated afterwards at £14,000.³⁰⁹ In an attempt to protect his possessions, Despenser surrendered custody of his castles to the king, but with no effect: Glamorgan remained in the hands of Roger Damory, while Hugh Audley recovered Gwynllwg and John de Mowbray regained Gower.³¹⁰ Meanwhile Roger Mortimer of Wigmore seized the lands of Despenser's ally, the earl of Arundel, at Clun and elsewhere in the Welsh March.³¹¹ Having finished their work in Wales, the Marchers attempted unsuccessfully to take control of Bristol,³¹²before turning their attention in June to the English lands of both Despensers.³¹³

LANCASTER TRIES TO TAKE CHARGE

Although Lancaster had had no direct part in the attacks on the Despensers, except for the meeting with some northern magnates and with representatives of the Marchers at Pontefract in February, it was clear to everyone that his was a consenting mind if not the guiding hand.³¹⁴ However, once violence had broken out he tried to play a more direct role. On 24 May Lancaster met a group of fifteen northern magnates at Pontefract to discuss the current disturbances and their threat to the peace of the kingdom. If Lancaster was trying to put himself at the head of a northern alliance, he was unsuccessful and all he was able to obtain was a pact for mutual defence.³¹⁵

The next, and critical, stage came on 28 June when Lancaster held a meeting at Sherburn-in-Elmet in Yorkshire with the earl of Hereford, the Mortimers, Roger Damory and Hugh Audley, and the other marcher lords who had attacked the Despensers. The assembly was also attended by northern magnates, by the archbishop of York and the bishops of Durham and Carlisle, and by a large number of Lancaster's own retainers.³¹⁶ A document containing a list of seven articles or grievances was read out in French by Sir John Bek, one of Lancaster's knights.³¹⁷ Royal officers, such as the chancellor and treasurer, chamberlain and keeper of the privy seal, the justices, escheators and chamberlains had taken office without the approval of parliament and contrary to the Ordinances; those who purchased lands held in chief from the king by accustomed services were being deprived of these lands and suffering forfeiture through the actions of certain evil councillors, while peers of the realm were being prejudged and disinherited, contrary to the law of the land and Magna Carta;³¹⁸ the same evil councillors appointed their followers to commissions of trailbaston in various counties, in order to indict both great and lesser men and disinherit them, contrary to common law;³¹⁹ they were responsible for the holding of the eyre in London, by which men were deprived of their franchises;³²⁰ the evil councillors deprived those pleading cases before the court of Common Pleas or elsewhere of access to counsel to assist them in their cases, by encouraging the king to retain the services of the best lawyers;³²¹ the evil councillors had encouraged aliens to come into the country, to the destruction of Holy Church and of all the people; and they had also forced merchants to sell their wool abroad at the staple of Saint-Omer.³²²

An indenture was drawn up at the meeting, which first recorded that, in the presence of the archbishop of York, the bishops of Durham and Carlisle, and the earls of Lancaster and Angus, it had been claimed that the Despensers had ill advised and guided the king, to the dishonour and damage of the king and his kingdom. Having heard the arguments put forward by the earl of Hereford, the Mortimers, and the other Marchers present,³²³ it seemed to the earls of Lancaster and Angus and to thirty-three other named individuals³²⁴ that the actions of Hereford and the Marchers had, as they claimed, been undertaken for the honour of God and for the honour and profit of the king and his kingdom. It seemed to ³²⁵ that the oppressions committed by the Despensers were increasing daily and could not be stopped without force (reddour); and it was agreed by all that the quarrel with the Despensers was maintained for the honour of God and of Holy Church, and the profit of the king and his kingdom and the king's children, and for the salvation of the crown and the people;³²⁶ the earl of Lancaster and the other great men who had begun the quarrel would maintain the earl of Angus and the twenty-seven others named with all their power; and whenever the earl of Lancaster and the other great men ended their quarrel, the others could also do so without challenge. Finally the earl of Angus and the others named after him had attached their seals.

The Sherburn meeting and the indenture which it produced have been the subject of a great deal of discussion in the past. Both Tout and Davies interpreted the agreement as placing Lancaster at the head of a united coalition of Marchers and northern magnates.³²⁷Wilkinson, who did most to make the indenture and its variant versions available to scholars, however argued that the indenture was the result of prolonged bargaining, that it was never in fact sealed, and that Lancaster was unsuccessful in trying to unite the Marchers and the northerners.³²⁸ On one point at least the latter interpretation is incorrect, since a copy of the indenture found in Lancaster's muniments in 1322 bore the seals of twenty-five persons.³²⁹ However, since the two versions of the indenture record the presence of forty-eight and thirty-four persons respectively, it is evident that many of those present for some reason either did not or were not prepared to put their seals to it.³³⁰ The prelates are not named at all in the indenture and can certainly be listed among those who did not seal it: William Melton, the archbishop of York, for example, remained a loyal supporter of the crown despite any misgivings he may have had about the Despensers. The Bridlington chronicler explains that the clergy were prepared to give support in resisting the Scots but that all other matters should wait for the holding of the next parliament.³³¹ It is also apparent that, apart from the Marchers, all of those whose names appear in the Sherburn indenture were retainers of the earl of Lancaster.³³²

This was not, however, the full significance of the meeting at Sherburn.

THE STEWARD OF ENGLAND

In the autumn of 1317 the earl of Lancaster had used his alleged authority as steward of England to block the king from direct access to the city of York;³³³ during the York parliament in October 1318 he demanded that a search be made of royal records to establish his powers as steward and he attempted to prevent Bartholomew de Badlesmere's appointment as steward of the king's household without his approval;³³⁴ during the York parliament of May 1319 Lancaster had returned to the attack, claiming that the office of steward of the household was his by right.³³⁵ The matter was left unresolved for the time being, but at some point between then and 1321 a treatise was composed in which it was asserted that it was the steward's duty

‘to supervise and regulate, under and immediately after the king, the whole realm of England and all the officers of laws within the said kingdom in times of peace and war’. He was to determine all cases in which the plaintiff had been unable to obtain a remedy in parliament, or in which there had been a miscarriage of justice. If the law was in doubt, the matter should be decided by a committee of twenty-five, drawn from the nobility and commons and nominated by the Steward and Constable. If the officers of the law were corrupt, the Steward should admonish or remove them. Finally, it was the Steward's special duty to intervene against the King's evil counsellors. Associating with himself the Constable and representatives of the magnates and commons, he should ask such a counsellor to leave the court, and if this was refused, then he should appeal to the King himself and demand the man's expulsion. If this too failed, the Steward, Constable and other magnates, acting for the good of the kingdom, would be justified in taking that counsellor, holding him until the next parliament, and in the meantime confiscating his lands and goods. The tract concluded by citing a series of precedents, ending with Gaveston's execution, to support this argument.³³⁶

It has generally been assumed that the treatise on the office of the steward played a prominent part in the events of 1321.³³⁷ Yet at first sight it is curiously absent from the surviving records of those events. It might be expected that Lancaster's supposed authority as steward would be referred to in the articles read to the assembly at Sherburn by Lancaster's knight, John de Bek. But there is apparently no direct mention of it. It has also been suggested that the document which was drawn up by the magnates on their way to parliament in 1321 might have been the treatise on the steward.³³⁸ But there is no obvious reference to the powers of the steward of England in the proceedings which led to the exile of the Despensers in August 1321;³³⁹ nor is the treatise on the steward included in the unofficial collections of documents on the events of 1321 which are preserved at Canterbury and at Lambeth.³⁴⁰ Indeed, Lancaster himself was neither present at nor named as a party to those proceedings.³⁴¹

However, a closer examination of the events at Sherburn suggests a different picture. The French text of the articles read at Sherburn by John de Bek is not a single document but is in two parts. In the first part Bek asked those present at Sherburn on behalf of his lord (i.e. Lancaster) if they knew of any grievances damaging and dishonouring the crown or of any ways in which evil councillors had badly advised the king, and if so they should declare them before Lancaster and the other peers present. The form of the charge echoes the description of the powers and duties of the steward of England in the treatise on the steward and suggests both that composition of the tract was already complete before the Sherburn meeting and that Lancaster had summoned the assembly in his capacity as steward. The articles proper then began with the word, Sire, which can only be addressed to Lancaster, suggesting that the articles that follow were the assembly's answers to Lancaster's request.³⁴²

Both Lancaster and the Marchers were therefore each playing a part in a carefully orchestrated set of events. Lancaster used his powers as steward of England, while Hereford and the Marchers accepted his authority and that it provided them with legitimacy for their actions both in the past and in the future. The earl of Hereford's status as constable of England was additionally significant both at Sherburn and in the weeks that followed because of the role assigned to the holder of this office in the treatise on the steward.³⁴³Another feature of the Sherburn assembly which may also be important is that the indenture was sealed by twenty-five persons: this may be no more than coincidence but it is possible that there is a connection with the committee of twenty-five mentioned in the treatise.³⁴⁴

The reluctance of other northern barons to involve themselves in any offensive action, which had already been apparent at the meeting at Pontefract in May, was probably confirmed at Sherburn in June;³⁴⁵ the northern prelates were also unwilling to join Lancaster and the Marchers. Lancaster did not have political control over the north of England,³⁴⁶ but this was not of vital importance for the moment.³⁴⁷ The immediate significance of the Sherburn assembly was that the Marchers had been provided with a legal framework to justify their opposition to the Despensers and to the king. It now remained to be seen how they would develop this framework in the weeks and months to come. Lancaster in the meantime could afford to sit securely in his castle at Pontefract and await events in the south.

EDWARD'S RESPONSE

Edward and the Despensers had arrived back at Westminster from Gloucester in early May, just as the attacks on the Despensers were beginning. On 1 May a meeting of the council was called for the 17th,³⁴⁸ and at this Edward's response to the Marchers and Lancaster was hotly debated. According to the Vita Edwardi Secundi, some of Edward's councillors wanted him to attack the Marchers; and Edward would have done so willingly if there had been sufficient support. Other, wiser heads warned that this would lead to a general war, which would destroy the country and ruin the kingdom. They advised Edward to summon the magnates to a parliament where he could hear and settle their complaints according to law.³⁴⁹

Three things appear to have emerged from this meeting of the council. First of all Edward followed the moderate advice and on 15 May parliament was summoned to meet at Westminster on 15 July.³⁵⁰ Secondly, at the end of May preparations were made to send the Younger Despenser to France on royal business: the intention may have been to gain sympathy and perhaps help from the French court, while also keeping Despenser out of the way of the Marchers.³⁵¹ Edward accompanied his favourite to the Channel coast at Minster-in-Thanet, which he reached on 12 or 13 June. From here it would have been only a short crossing to France. Minster-in-Thanet was also close to the abbey of Langdon, whose abbot William was a personal friend of Edward II.³⁵² This gives some plausibility to the statement by a Canterbury chronicler that Despenser went to France disguised in the habit of a monk of Langdon.³⁵³ However, these plans did not work out as intended. The earl of Pembroke, who was supposed to accompany Despenser on the same errand, was in any case returning to France for purposes of his own, his marriage to Marie de St Pol, and by this time his personal opinion of Despenser was almost certainly hostile. According to the same Canterbury chronicler, Despenser went as far as Paris, but left soon after and returned to England for fear of the earl of Pembroke and the information that the latter was spreading about him at the French court.³⁵⁴ If Despenser was in France at all, it was for a very brief time and it is more likely, as the Vitarecords, that he went first to Dover and then remained at sea in the Channel after the king had put him under the protection of the sailors of the Cinque Ports.³⁵⁵ During this time he earned himself even greater notoriety by attacking and seizing two Genoese trading vessels and their valuable cargoes.³⁵⁶

The third development at the Westminster council was a decision to send Bartholomew de Badlesmere the steward of the household and Walter Reynolds the archbishop of Canterbury, two of Edward II's most experienced and trusted advisers, to Sherburn to appeal to the magnates to call off their attacks on the Despensers and instead to lay their complaints before parliament. While at Sherburn Badlesmere abruptly and dramatically changed sides.³⁵⁷ This action was undoubtedly a great surprise at the time: Edward was shocked and deeply angered when the archbishop returned to Westminster with the news.³⁵⁸ It has also caused difficulty for historians searching for an explanation for Badlesmere's behaviour. It is most unlikely that he was seeking to join Lancaster, who had been hostile to him since his appointment as steward of the household in 1318, and who was waiting for an opportunity to destroy him.³⁵⁹ Badlesmere's action was probably the result of anger at the Younger Despenser's arrogance and monopoly of royal patronage: while Despenser was gathering lordships in South Wales, Badlesmere had hoped for promotion to the earldom of Kent in his native county where his lands were concentrated,³⁶⁰ and was bitterly disappointed when Edward II's half-brother Edmund of Woodstock was granted the earldom.³⁶¹ Badlesmere's replacement by Edmund as constable of Dover on 16 June was probably an additional cause of grievance.³⁶² His last recorded action as steward was on 18 June, presumably just before his departure for Sherburn.³⁶³ By the time he reached Yorkshire Badlesmere was probably thoroughly disaffected and open to persuasion, not from Lancaster but from Hereford, whom he knew well, and from Roger Mortimer of Wigmore, whose eldest son had married Badlesmere's daughter in June 1316.³⁶⁴ Badlesmere was unfortunate in the time and place of his change of allegiance, but as events turned out he was to play a critical role in the drama which led to the exile of the Despensers in August 1321.

THE MARCHERS DEMAND THE EXILE OF THE DESPENSERS

After the meeting at Sherburn, the earl of Hereford and the other marcher lords came south, unaccompanied by Lancaster, in order to present their demands in the parliament which had begun at Westminster on 15 July.³⁶⁵ They reached St Albans on about 22 July, and there is evidence that during their stay there and in the days that followed there were attempts by bishops of the Canterbury province to mediate between them and the king, as they had done in 1318. The bishops of London, Salisbury, Ely, Hereford and Chichester went to St Albans to try to make peace but achieved no success and had to return to London with the news that the magnates were demanding the exile of the Despensers.³⁶⁶

Following this the magnates moved to Waltham, where they spent four days, and on 29 July reached London.³⁶⁷ This could have been a very dangerous moment for Edward II. Fortunately he had already acted to ensure the city's loyalty. In return for a pledge from the citizens to hold London against his enemies, on 4 July the eyre, which had caused such unrest, was formally closed.³⁶⁸ The Marchers nonetheless tried to win over the Londoners. On 29 July the earl of Hereford met delegates from the city at Lancaster's Inn in Holborn, where he spoke softly and emphasized the Younger Despenser's responsibility for the recent eyre. The delegates then informed the king of what had happened. Edward's ambiguous reply, in which he promised to punish all enemies, allowed the mayor, Hamo de Chigwell, to assure the Marchers on 1 August of London's goodwill and indifference to Despenser's fate.³⁶⁹

This was sufficient for the Marchers. Instead of trying to enter the city they divided their forces, allegedly numbering about 5,000,³⁷⁰ into three parts and established themselves at various points outside London. Roger Mortimer stayed at Clerkenwell with his followers; the earl of Hereford in Lancaster's Inn; Roger Damory at the New Temple; and Hugh Audley in the priory of St Bartholomew's in Smithfield. The rest of the magnates found lodgings in Smithfield, Holborn and Fleet Street and in neighbouring places; and they all remained peacefully and without causing any disturbance.³⁷¹ Further attempts at mediation now took place. On several occasions the archbishop of Canterbury and the bishops of London, Ely, Salisbury, Lincoln, Hereford, Exeter, Bath & Wells, Chichester and Rochester, and others attending parliament, met the magnates at the New Temple and at the house of the Carmelites to try to make a settlement. But the magnates continued to demand the exile of the Despensers, while the king resolutely refused to make any concessions or even to meet his opponents.³⁷²

The return of the earl of Pembroke from France in late July appears to have helped break the deadlock. Both the king and the Marchers hoped that they could induce Pembroke to give them his support. On 1 August the king wrote to Pembroke asking him to come to Westminster the next day to give his advice on the situation, requesting Pembroke to come via Lambeth so that a boat might be sent for him.³⁷³ According to one apparently well-informed source, the magnates made contact with Pembroke and with three other earls who had so far remained loyal to the king, Richmond, Arundel and Surrey, and put pressure on them to join their ranks, however unwillingly;³⁷⁴ while the Vita Edwardi Secundi suggests that all four took an oath to uphold the magnates' demands.³⁷⁵ After their meeting with the magnates, Pembroke and the other earls returned to the king in the guise of mediators, bringing with them the baronial ultimatum that, unless the Despensers were removed, the king himself would be deposed. Pembroke told the king to take note of the power of the magnates and not to risk losing his kingdom for the sake of his favourites. He added that the barons had attacked the Despensers for the common good, which the king had sworn to uphold at his coronation. Pembroke concluded with the ominous statement that, if the king refused the magnates' demands, even his loyalty would be lost because of the oath he had taken.³⁷⁶

THE ‘HISTORIA ROFFENSIS’ ACCOUNT

This is a very bare outline of the drama which took place during the parliament of July–August 1322. However, the Historia Roffensis, possibly composed by William de Dene, a clerk in the service of Hamo de Hethe, the bishop of Rochester, adds very significant details to this account of events. It records that the four earls met the opposition magnates at Clerkenwell on 27 July and, as in the Vita Edwardi Secundi account, agreed to support them.³⁷⁷ Again like the Vita, it stresses the role played by the earl of Pembroke in the final stages of the crisis in persuading Edward to accept the magnates' demands, making it clear that he acted on the side of the barons, since he ‘made all his speeches in their interest and against that of the king’. When Pembroke moved that the Despensers should be sent into exile and their heirs disinherited, Edward replied that it was unjust and contrary to his oath that anyone should be disinherited without a hearing, and that it would be better if they went to Ireland for a time until the magnates' anger had cooled. Edward accepted that they had behaved badly towards the magnates but he did not consider them traitors. Pembroke replied that Edward must choose between war with his people or the exile of the Despensers.³⁷⁸

The Historia Roffensis also records that a number of bishops were present as mediators at the Clerkenwell meeting on 27 July and therefore refused to take the oath to support the barons. The barons then sent the earls and prelates to the king, together with two knights who carried the magnates' petition. The petition, which is not recorded elsewhere, stated: ‘Sire, our masters tell you that they hold both Lord Hugh Despenser, and his son, enemies and traitors to you and to the kingdom, and for this they wish them to be removed from here. And because of this they ask you that you have them brought before parliament to answer, and to restore by award of the peers that which they have destroyed. Ensure that they come, and that they are exiled out of the land for all time and they and their heirs are disinherited as false and traitorous criminals and spies.’ Edward refused to accept the petition since the knights did not have written authority for their mission.³⁷⁹

In an extraordinary passage, which is not matched in any of the other sources, the Historia Roffensis records that the prelates and barons then reassembled at the house of the Carmelites. Here Bartholomew de Badlesmere took the lead in denouncing Hugh Despenser the Younger as a traitor. Badlesmere claimed that he had conspired against the king and produced as evidence a copy of the ‘Homage et serment’ declaration distinguishing between the authority of the crown and the person of the king, which had originally been composed in 1308 in order to justify the baronial attack on Gaveston. Despenser was alleged to have used the document in his own interest, showing the declaration to two barons, Sir Richard Grey and Sir John Giffard, and a knight, Sir Robert de Shirland, who were now presented as witnesses. Having questioned Grey, the bishop of Rochester concluded that Badlesmere was lying and that he and the magnates were attempting to lay false evidence against Despenser and detested them from that time on.³⁸⁰

THE CHARGES AGAINST THE DESPENSERS

Five versions of the charges against the Despensers are now known to exist, all of them in French except for a Latin version in the Bridlington chronicle.³⁸¹ The other four are preserved in the archives of the Dean and Chapter at Durham;³⁸² in manuscripts at Canterbury and at Lambeth,³⁸³ and in the final official version enrolled both on the Parliament Roll³⁸⁴ and on the Close Roll.³⁸⁵ The versions probably reflect an initial document drawn up at the Sherburn assembly at the end of June, in the wake of the articles read out by Sir John Bek,³⁸⁶ and others drawn up in London as negotiations proceeded between the king and his opponents. One important difference between the Canterbury and Bridlington versions and the final indictment of the Despensers is that the barons initially wanted the charges against them and their sentence of exile to be contained in a statute, which required royal consent, and could not be imposed upon the king against his will.³⁸⁷ This form of the magnates' demands may have been communicated to the king while the barons were still at St Albans and before their arrival in London,³⁸⁸ or drawn up during the session of parliament in late July or early August.³⁸⁹ Edward flatly refused to accept a statute and the indictment was eventually presented to parliament in the form of an award by the peers of the realm which did not require royal assent.³⁹⁰ The award was consequently recorded on the Parliament Roll and the Close Roll but not on the Statute Roll.³⁹¹ The Despensers were given no opportunity to defend themselves. The precedent set by the attack on Gaveston in 1308 had been repeated.³⁹²

There are other differences between the early drafts of the indictment against the Despensers and the final version. In the Durham version the Younger Despenser was accused of disinheriting peers of the land in order to become earl of Gloucester, whereas in the final document he was charged with trying to obtain the entire earldom of Gloucester but not the title:³⁹³ a small but significant difference which suggests that the magnates had second thoughts and that however ruthless the Younger Despenser was this was one charge which could not be made to stick.

The major difference between the early versions and the final indictment is in their treatment of the ‘Homage et serment’ document. In 1321 this was an obvious starting-point and justification for the magnates' actions against the Despensers and for opposing Edward II's support of them without at the same time opposing the crown as an institution. It might therefore be expected that the declaration would be used once more, as it had been in 1308, and it is very likely that this was in the minds of the earl of Lancaster and the other magnates who joined him at Sherburn in late June 1321.³⁹⁴ It is also interesting to note that the Bridlington chronicler who recorded the articles in French which were drawn up at Sherburn included a Latin translation of the ‘Homage et serment’ declaration immediately before entering his version, also in Latin, of the articles against the Despensers.³⁹⁵ However, there is evidence that the ‘Homage et serment’ declaration was not made use of in the earliest version of the articles, since it does not appear either in the text preserved at Durham or in the Canterbury version.³⁹⁶ If the suggestion made earlier that the proceedings at Sherburn were undertaken using the treatise on the steward to justify baronial action is correct, then the declaration became surplus to baronial requirements and there was consequently no need to include it in the draft articles against the Despensers.

It is clear however that the declaration re-emerged in the course of the debates after the magnates reached London at the end of July. The statement in the Historia Roffensis that Badlesmere produced a copy of it and alleged that it had been used against the king by the Younger Despenser is apparently inexplicable. One is tempted to agree either with the bishop of Rochester that Badlesmere was engaged in a blatant falsehood or with Wilkinson's argument that because of Edward II's stubborn refusal to accept the barons' demands the opposition magnates were forced to humiliate themselves publicly not only by dropping the declaration but implicitly condemning it by imputing its use to Despenser.³⁹⁷ However, Badlesmere's charge against Despenser is so bizarre that it is unlikely to have been made up. His action reflected recent power struggles within the royal circle between himself in his role as steward of the royal household and would-be earl of Kent on the one hand and Hugh Despenser the Younger as royal favourite, chamberlain of the household and would-be controller of the earldom of Gloucester on the other. Badlesmere's accusation against Despenser may have seemed to lend support to the general allegation against the Despensers of usurping royal power, with which the articles against them began, but it is conceivable that a man of such arrogance and ambition as Despenser may also have thought that he knew better than the king where the king's best interests lay and so have been attracted by the arguments in the ‘Homage et serment’. Since the declaration was no longer required to justify the magnates' own position it could now in effect be recycled and used against Despenser.

The final version of the indictment first of all noted that in the York parliament of October 1318 the Younger Despenser was confirmed as chamberlain and that ‘it was also agreed that certain prelates and other great men of the realm were to remain close to the king season by season, to better counsel our lord the king, without whom no important matter of business ought to be conducted’. Despenser was accused of having drawn ‘over to his cause Sir Hugh his father, whose remaining close to the king in this way had not been assented to or agreed to in parliament, and between them usurping to themselves royal power from the king, his ministers and the government of his realm, to the dishonour of the king, the impairment of the crown, and the destruction of the realm, and of the great men and the people, and they committed the misdeeds written below, plotting to distance the affection of our lord the king from the peers of the land, to have sole government of the realm between the two of them’. There then followed the ‘Homage et serment’ declaration. Despenser was now alleged to have used the declaration in his own interest, because he ‘was angry with the king, and because of this anger made a bill, with the which bill he wished to make an alliance with Sir John Giffard of Brimpsfield, and Sir Richard de Grey, and others, to lead the king to do his will by duress, with the result that he did not forgive him when he did not do it’. ‘And also, by their scheming and misdeeds, they led and badly counselled our lord the king, so that his presence, which it is his duty to show to the great men and to his people, and to the graces and right which they might ask him to answer, was not shown by him at all, except at the will and at the bidding of the said Sir Hugh and Sir Hugh, which ousted the king from his duty, against his oath, and the affection of the great men and people from their liege lord’. ‘Also, the same men by their false scheming did not allow the great men of the realm, or the good counsellors of the king, to speak with or approach the king, to counsel him well, nor the king to speak with them, except in the presence and hearing of the said Sir Hugh and Sir Hugh, or of one of them, and at their will and bidding and as they chose, alienating the great men and the good counsellors of the king from their good will towards their liege lord, and usurping royal power, mastery and sovereignty over the king's person for themselves, to the great dishonour and peril of the king, of the crown, and of his realm. And also, they wrongly counselled our lord the king to take into his hand the lands and chattels of Sir Hugh Audley the son, and they forejudged him of his lands without due process, according to the law of the land, through the desire to accroach these lands to the said Hugh Despenser the son; and by other false schemes they plotted to have the lands of Sir Roger Damory, to obtain by such false schemes the entire earldom of Gloucester, to the disinheritance of the peers of the land.’ The Despensers were also charged that ‘they falsely and wickedly counselled our lord the king to go with horses and arms to the region of Gloucester, and they caused him to ride out, and his men to go armed in those parts, to attack his good people, against the terms of the Great Charter, and the judgment of the peers of the land: and thus by their false and wicked counsel they preferred to have war in the land, to the destruction of holy church and of the people, for their own cause’. A number of other charges followed,³⁹⁸ before the indictment reached its conclusion and the Despensers were sentenced to be exiled.³⁹⁹

EDWARD CORNERED

Under intense pressure and in fear that he might even lose his throne if he did not give way, on 14 August Edward came into Westminster Hall, flanked by the earls of Pembroke and Richmond.⁴⁰⁰ The earls and barons then declared that if the law of the land did not provide for the exile of the Despensers, ‘they had the power, since they were peers of the realm, to promulgate and establish a new law in full parliament in accordance with the custom of the realm, following which custom they immediately afterward determined and decreed that the said Hugh and Hugh should be exiled by due process without hope of returning and with their heirs being disinherited for all time’. The baronial award was then read out by the earl of Hereford, and the Despensers were sentenced to leave England via the port of Dover no later than 29 August, never to return except with the agreement of the king, prelates and magnates in parliament. If they returned without permission they would be treated as enemies of the king and the kingdom.⁴⁰¹Afterwards the king, ‘anxious and sad, went to his chamber having said farewell to the bishops’, who had stayed in the large chamber during the proceedings in Westminster Hall.⁴⁰² The magnates then petitioned the king for pardon for their attacks on the Despensers;⁴⁰³ and on 20 August 1321 the pardon was issued in the form of a statute assented to and agreed by the king, prelates, earls and barons.⁴⁰⁴

If Edward had believed that in summoning parliament he might save the Despensers from further attack, he was entirely disappointed. The meeting had instead turned out to be the gravest crisis of his reign to date. The earl of Pembroke, one of Edward's most experienced and trusted councillors had turned against him; even his own wife, Isabella, had allegedly gone down on her knees and urged him to give way for the sake of his throne.⁴⁰⁵ Edward's only cause for joy in the summer of 1321 was the birth of his and Isabella's fourth and last child, Joan, at the Tower of London on 5 July.⁴⁰⁶ Isabella's own joy at the event was tempered by a leaky roof and the rain which allegedly fell upon her bed while she was in labour.⁴⁰⁷

Edward was determined to avenge his personal humiliation at the earliest opportunity. On 16 August, he whispered to the bishop of Rochester while at dinner, complaining that the Despensers had been condemned unjustly. When the bishop replied that he could totally overcome the defeat, Edward said ‘that he would within half a year make such an amend that the whole world would hear of it and tremble’.⁴⁰⁸ And so it proved.

PART THREE

THE ROAD TO CIVIL WAR

Edward II was always at his ‘best’ and most active when faced with a challenge to his personal dignity and that of his crown. As in the case of Gaveston at the beginning of his reign, Edward's one ambition from August 1321 was the return of the Despensers from exile, and there is every indication that he deliberately sought and planned for a clash with the opposition magnates.

Both Despensers had already left England before their sentence of exile was pronounced. The Elder Despenser may have gone to Poitou,⁴⁰⁹ while the Younger Despenser remained at sea in the English Channel, under the protection of the men of the Cinque Ports.⁴¹⁰ Edward II's itinerary shows that he was on the isle of Sheppey on 31 August, at Minster-in-Thanet between about 5 and 8 September and finally at Harwich between about 12 and 20 September. Edward and the Younger Despenser could have communicated at any of these places, but it is likely that they met at Minster-in-Thanet and that they went by sea to Harwich where they planned their revenge on the magnates.⁴¹¹ By 25 September Edward was back at Westminster ready to put his plans into effect.

The magnates in the meantime had withdrawn from London only as far as Oxford, from where they could exert pressure on the king if he tried to recall the Despensers. They kept their military skills polished by holding a tournament at Witney in late August or early September, in which the earl of Pembroke and his men took part against Hereford and Badlesmere.⁴¹² Edward was alarmed that Pembroke might remain with the other magnates and sent a messenger to him on 31 August.⁴¹³ He need not have worried. However much Pembroke disapproved of the Despensers and their behaviour, he had no option but to rejoin the king, partly because of his past loyalty but also because Lancaster distrusted him and warned the barons that they should not accept his help.⁴¹⁴Pembroke was with the king at Harwich on 19 September and became heavily involved in what followed.⁴¹⁵

Hereford and the other magnates were in a difficult position. The treatise on the steward had given them a legal framework justifying their pursuit of the Despensers and the demands for their exile. They had been careful to display banners showing the arms of the king alongside their own when they attacked the Despensers, so as not to incur the charges of rebellion and treason.⁴¹⁶ They had hoped to obtain the king's approval of the charges against the Despensers in the form of a statute; and their case had been presented by the earl of Hereford, the constable of England, possibly representing in that capacity the absent steward of England, the earl of Lancaster.⁴¹⁷ But the king's intransigence meant they had to be satisfied with an award against the Despensers rather than a statute. Intheir petition for pardon they had also been forced to admit that they had made alliances without the permission of the king, and had ridden with banners unfurled, and seized and occupied castles, lands and goods, and imprisoned, held to ransom and killed people of the king's allegiance and of others, and committed various other acts while attacking the Despensers and their allies in England, in Wales and in the March, some of which could be called trespasses, and some felonies.⁴¹⁸ Although the pardon they received from the king took the form of a statute,⁴¹⁹ they could not know whether Edward would keep his promise and so remained vulnerable to a royal counterattack. They also had no way of knowing whether Thomas of Lancaster would intervene to help them if the king resorted to force or whether he would again try to guide events from afar while remaining safely behind the walls of his castle at Pontefract.

There were other weaknesses too. Some of the bishops, who had so often played the role of mediators in the past, were unsympathetic to the magnates and in some cases, such as the bishop of Rochester, openly hostile.⁴²⁰ Several of the prelates, such as the two archbishops, the chancellor the bishop of Norwich, and the treasurer the bishop of Exeter, were actively involved on the king's side. Among the senior magnates Edward could rely upon the support of his two half-brothers, Thomas of Brotherton earl of Norfolk and Edmund of Woodstock the newly created earl of Kent; the earls of Pembroke and Richmond; and probably the earls of Arundel and Surrey. Edward could also call on the services of a relatively small but experienced body of household knights: these were to play a key role in the coming civil war.⁴²¹

THE SIEGE OF LEEDS CASTLE

In September the earl of Hereford, Hugh Audley and Roger Damory were ordered to hand over to royal keepers the Despenser lands which they had occupied. The orders were predictably ignored and were probably designed to provide a casus belli.⁴²² Edward first chose to attack Bartholomew of Badlesmere, both because he regarded Badlesmere's treachery in joining the Marchers as unpardonable and because Lancaster's hostility towards Badlesmere meant there was a good chance of destroying him without baronial intervention.⁴²³ On 26 September Edward ordered Badlesmere to give up custody of Tonbridge castle. Badlesmere reacted by crossing into Kent from Tilbury, putting his castles at Chilham and Leeds into a state of defence, and then rejoining the Marchers at Oxford.⁴²⁴ In early October Edward and Isabella left Westminster, ostensibly on pilgrimage to Canterbury,⁴²⁵ but with other things in mind. Instead Isabella went to Leeds to request hospitality from Badlesmere's wife in the hope that she would not admit her and that Badlesmere could then be justifiably attacked. Badlesmere had meanwhile heard of Edward's intentions and rose to the bait.⁴²⁶ On 3 October Isabella was refused admission, as expected, and several of her followers were killed.⁴²⁷

Edward received the news at Witley in Surrey where he was waiting⁴²⁸ and reacted swiftly but deliberately. He immediately went to rejoin the Younger Despenser, probably at Portchester between Portsmouth and Southampton,⁴²⁹ and over the next few days they laid their plans. On 16 October Edward announced that he would begin to besiege Leeds on 23 October, sending the earls of Pembroke, Norfolk and Richmond as an advance guard.⁴³⁰ Badlesmere persuaded Hereford and the Mortimers to go to the relief of Leeds,⁴³¹ but the baronial army moved only as far as Kingston upon Thames, where it stopped on 27 October. Its leaders then entered into tentative negotiations with the archbishop of Canterbury, the bishop of London and the earl of Pembroke who promised that if the magnates retreated they would try to mediate with the king. The magnates replied that if Edward raised the siege of Leeds they would surrender the castle after the next parliament. Any chance of success was ended by Lancaster, who wrote from his safe retreat at Pontefract, persuading the magnates to do nothing to help Badlesmere.⁴³² Hereford and his allies withdrew northwards, accompanied by Badlesmere, and on 31 October Leeds castle surrendered.⁴³³ The following day Walter Culpeper the commander of the garrison and twelve others were executed. Badlesmere's wife and children, his nephew Bartholomew de Burghersh (brother of the bishop of Lincoln) and others were sent to the Tower of London.⁴³⁴ Since Edward was at Leeds from 25 October until after the end of the siege,⁴³⁵ there can be no doubt that he was personally responsible for these actions. The battle lines were drawn: those who had already opposed the king were irredeemably his enemies;⁴³⁶ those who might have wavered had no choice but to follow Edward come what may. This was to be a war to the death.

Both sides now prepared for open conflict. Before 11 November Warwick castle had been seized by royal opponents in the Midlands,⁴³⁷ while there were fears that, despite its contribution of 500 men to the siege of Leeds, London might be harbouring enemies of the king. Shortly before 17 November Pembroke was sent there to ensure the city's loyalty in the coming struggle. He met with mixed success: an angry exchange of letters between Edward and the mayor Hamo de Chigwell ensued. Although the mayor eventually promised a force of 500 men, Edward commented that the citizens ‘took the king's affairs less to heart than they were accustomed’. For the moment harmony was restored but the omens were bad, should the king prove victorious and try to impose his will upon the Londoners.⁴³⁸

THE STEWARD OF ENGLAND'S LAST THROW

In the north Lancaster was again stirring. On 18 October, acting in his capacity as steward of England, he summoned a meeting of the Marchers and other magnates at Doncaster on 29 November.⁴³⁹ Although there was once some doubt as to whether the meeting ever took place, it is now clear that a gathering was held.⁴⁴⁰ The document which was drawn up, generally known as the Doncaster Petition, began with a justification of the actions of Lancaster and his fellow magnates which clearly draws on the treatise on the steward.⁴⁴¹ After referring to Magna Carta, which had been confirmed by the king, and to the Ordinances which he had granted and which Lancaster and the barons were sworn to maintain,⁴⁴² the petition went on to accuse the Younger Despenser of encouraging the king to attack the peers of the realm and to seize their lands, contrary to Magna Carta. Edward was charged with maintaining Despenser, despite his sentence of exile, and of encouraging him in his career of piracy.⁴⁴³ The document was then sent to the king in the names of the earl of Lancaster, steward of England, the earl of Hereford, Roger Mortimer of Wigmore, and ‘other good men of the land, in order to maintain the state of the Crown’.⁴⁴⁴ Edward was asked to answer the petition by 20 December.⁴⁴⁵ His only response was to comment that in making such demands Lancaster was treating him as if he were the earl's subject.⁴⁴⁶

THE RECALL OF THE DESPENSERS

Throughout 1321 Lancaster and the Marchers had followed the forms of legality, and had protested their loyalty to the crown, but they were living increasingly in a world of legal fantasy. It was not at all clear what they proposed to do when, as was now inevitable, the king refused to accept their demands. Violence was the only likely outcome.

Edward had already decided to use force by 15 November, when he announced that he was going to various parts of the realm to deal with the activities of malefactors, although he was careful to deny that he was going to make war. On 28 November Roger Damory and Hugh Audley were again ordered to give up the Despenser lands they had occupied, and Roger Mortimer of Chirk, who was still officially the justice of Wales, was told to join the king at Cirencester in Gloucestershire on 13 December to report on the situation in Wales. On 30 November Edward gave orders for an army to join him at Cirencester on 13 December, a week before the deadline given in the Doncaster petition.⁴⁴⁷

On 14 November the archbishop of Canterbury summoned a provincial council to meet at St Paul's on 1 December, because, as he put it, the realm which had once rejoiced in the beauty of peace was now in danger of shipwreck through civil war.⁴⁴⁸ It is likely however that the meeting was intended to set the stage for the return of the Despensers, since on 30 November, the day before the council met, the Younger Despenser delivered to the king a petition outlining the legal fiaws in the process of his exile and appealing for its annulment, after which he surrendered himself to the king's custody. Either then or a little later the Elder Despenser followed the same course.⁴⁴⁹ On the same day the king announced that he was sending the earls of Richmond and Arundel and Robert Baldock the keeper of the privy seal to deliver a message, presumably the Younger Despenser's petition, to the council.⁴⁵⁰ The council was not fully representative of the Canterbury province, since apart from Walter Reynolds the archbishop, who was an old friend and ally of Edward, only the bishops of London, Ely, Salisbury and Rochester were present. These were presumably among the bishops who had disagreed with the Despensers' exile in the first place.⁴⁵¹ Ten bishops did not appear, some of them at least, like Adam Orleton the bishop of Hereford and Badlesmere's nephew Henry Burghersh the bishop of Lincoln, because they sympathized with the magnate contrariants.⁴⁵² Despenser's petition was read before the prelates, who gave their opinion that the sentence against him was invalid and should be annulled. The petition and this reply were then read again in the presence of the bishops and of the earls of Pembroke, Kent, Richmond and Arundel, all of whom gave the same answer. Pembroke, Richmond and Arundel added, with some truth, that they had consented to the award against Despenser through fear of the other magnates and begged pardon for doing so. Afterwards the royal justices and other members of the king's council gave their opinions to the same effect.⁴⁵³ In this way the king secured the widest possible consent for Despenser's return. The earls of Pembroke and Richmond, who had been foremost in persuading Edward to accept the exiles of the Despensers, were now bound more closely than ever to the king, no matter what their reservations about the Despensers may have been. So too were the earls of Surrey and Arundel.⁴⁵⁴ On 8 December the Younger Despenser was granted a safe conduct, which was renewed, with letters of protection, on 9 January; while the Elder Despenser received a safe conduct on 25 December.⁴⁵⁵ On 1 January 1322 the archbishop of Canterbury publicly announced in St Paul's that the process against the Despensers was unlawful, and on 7 January Edward had the Younger Despenser's return to the king's peace proclaimed to the citizens of London. To complete the Despensers' rehabilitation the bishop of Winchester set off for the papal curia on 13 January.⁴⁵⁶

THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE CONTRARIANTS

Edward and his supporters left London on 8 December to join the rest of his army⁴⁵⁷ at Cirencester for the start of the campaign against Hereford and his allies, who had seized Gloucester at about this time.⁴⁵⁸ Edward reached Cirencester on 20 December and remained there over Christmas. While he was there he was rejoined by the earl of Pembroke, who had stayed behind in London on business connected with the recall of the Despensers. Pembroke at once took action to see that his castle of Goodrich in Herefordshire would be able to hold off any marcher attack.⁴⁵⁹ Edward was also joined by Pembroke's nephew, John Hastings lord of Abergavenny, the first of the Marchers to make his peace. Hastings had probably been swept into the movement against the Despensers in the summer of 1321: his offence was evidently regarded as slight since he was later sent to take control of Glamorgan for the king.⁴⁶⁰ Edward took his first direct action against one of the Marchers when he sent a force to take and destroy the castle of John Giffard of Brimpsfield in Gloucestershire, in retaliation for his attack on some royal supply wagons.⁴⁶¹

On 27 December the royal army left Cirencester for Worcester, which was reached on 31 December.⁴⁶² Because the crossing of the River Severn there was held by the Marchers, a royal advance guard of cavalry and infantry, led by Fulk Fitz Warin, Oliver Ingham, John Pecche and Robert le Ewer, was sent to seize and hold the crossing at Bridgnorth. However, on the night of 5 January Bridgnorth castle was attacked by the men of the earl of Hereford and the Mortimers, shouting ‘Wassail’ (Wesseheil) in English as they did so. The bridge was burned and the royal garrison forced to withdraw to Worcester.⁴⁶³ Still unable to cross the Severn, Edward left Worcester on 8 January, heading for the next possible crossing-place at Shrewsbury, where he arrived on 14 January 1322.⁴⁶⁴

THE MORTIMERS SURRENDER

So far the Marchers had done well. They had already taken Gloucester and Bridgnorth, and were to add Worcester on 14 January,⁴⁶⁵ and had forced Edward into a long detour before he could cross the Severn. However, events now took a sharp turn in the king's favour. The first break in the Marchers' ranks came just as Edward was approaching Shrewsbury. On 13 January at Newport in Shropshire a safe conduct until the night of 17 January was issued for Roger Mortimer of Wigmore and twenty of his companions to come to Betton Lestrange near Shrewsbury to treat with the earls of Pembroke, Richmond, Arundel and Surrey. The safe conduct was granted at the request of these four earls and the king's half-brothers, the earls of Kent and Norfolk. The conduct was renewed at Shrewsbury on 17 January until 20 January to allow for further meetings with the royalist earls at Betton, and was again extended on 21 January until the following day.⁴⁶⁶ Badlesmere was specifically excluded from all of these guarantees because of Edward's implacable hatred of him. Since Lancaster was also implacably opposed to Badlesmere and refused to offer any assistance to the Marchers while he remained in their company, the former steward of the royal household was in total isolation.⁴⁶⁷

On 22 January both Roger Mortimer of Wigmore and his uncle, Roger Mortimer of Chirk, came in to Shrewsbury and submitted themselves to Edward's will.⁴⁶⁸ Some chroniclers argued that Pembroke and the other royalist earls had negotiated in bad faith with the Mortimers, since they had come to make peace but they were imprisoned rather than being pardoned as they had been promised.⁴⁶⁹ The initiative for negotiations with the king had however certainly come from them since a Welsh force led by Sir Gruffydd Llwyd had captured the Mortimer-controlled castles of Welshpool, Chirk and Clun, and Lancaster's castle at Holt, on behalf of the king.⁴⁷⁰ Both Mortimers were deeply loathed by their Welsh tenants,⁴⁷¹ so much so that later in 1322 the communities of North andSouth Wales warned the king that if the Mortimers were restored to royal favour they would be forced to flee their lands.⁴⁷² The Welsh attack on the Mortimers in 1322 was no accident. There is evidence that Edward had been in communication with Gruffydd Llwyd, who was sheriff of Merioneth in North Wales, since November 1321 and had ordered him to raise an army to suppress rebellion.⁴⁷³ Gruffydd also devastated the earl of Hereford's lands in Brecon, while his nephew did likewise in Cantref Bychan, Gower, Narberth and Builth.⁴⁷⁴ Some of the other Marchers were apparently prepared to confront the royal army at Shrewsbury, but the Mortimers refused to do so both because of the Welsh attacks and because their own men were starting to desert. The Mortimers therefore had ample reasons for throwing themselves on the king's mercy, and with their departure others were also ready to surrender.⁴⁷⁵

In a skilfully managed and determined campaign, Edward wasted no time in pursuing his remaining enemies. Edward left Shrewsbury on 24 January, travelling via Ludlow and Hereford⁴⁷⁶ before arriving at Gloucester on 6 February.⁴⁷⁷ Here Maurice de Berkeley and Hugh Audley the Elder surrendered, and at the request of Pembroke and others safe conducts were issued for those who might wish to follow their example.⁴⁷⁸ Edward's ruthlessness now began to show itself once more. Although Maurice de Berkeley was received into the king's grace, he was arrested and his castle of Berkeley was confiscated; the Mortimers were sent to the Tower of London, in case they changed their minds and returned to their baronial allies.⁴⁷⁹ Ironically Edward was to end his days as a prisoner in Berkeley castle and as a victim of Roger Mortimer of Wigmore. Three knights, who had ridden with the barons, possibly including a former sheriff of Herefordshire, were hanged at Gloucester.⁴⁸⁰

THE FLIGHT OF THE MARCHERS

The earl of Hereford was apparently also tempted to surrender but changed his mind when he heard that the Mortimers had been imprisoned. After first returning to Gloucester,⁴⁸¹ he fled with Hugh Audley the Younger and Roger Damory to join Lancaster at Pontefract.⁴⁸² It is not clear whether any plans for joint action existed by this time or whether this was no more than an act of desperation. Lancaster had however already entered the fray by 10 January when he began the siege of the royal castle at Tickhill near Doncaster, whose constable William de Aune had been the eyes and ears of the crown since September 1320.⁴⁸³ News of the siege gave Edward the perfect excuse to move against Lancaster but on 8 February he gave his cousin one final chance when he wrote telling him of the rebellion of the Marchers and ordering him on pain of forfeiture not to receive or assist them. Lancaster's response – no doubt he was still trying to draw on his supposed authority as steward of England – was to claim that he knew of no rebels but if he saw any he would kill them or expel them from the kingdom.⁴⁸⁴

Edward now had to move swiftly, both in order to catch Lancaster and the Marchers before they could organize their resistance but also because the Scots had appeared on the scene when they raided the lands of the bishopric of Durham in January, after the expiry of the truce made in 1319.⁴⁸⁵ The Scots might simply have been taking advantage of the disturbances in England but Edward also feared, and soon had good reason to believe, that they were coming to the aid of Lancaster and the Marchers.⁴⁸⁶ According to the Vita Edwardi Secundi Edward was visited at Gloucester by Sir Andrew de Harclay, the sheriff of Cumberland, who warned him of the danger from the Scots.⁴⁸⁷ Whether this is literally true or not, Edward was certainly in contact with Harclay, who was authorized on 9 February to make a truce with the Scots.⁴⁸⁸ Instead of fighting the Scots, Harclay raised a force of hobelars that, just over a month later on 16 March, turned the scale of battle and brought about the defeat and death of many of the king's opponents.⁴⁸⁹

On 11 February Edward issued safe conducts for the Despensers and their men;⁴⁹⁰ and on the 14th ordered the mustering of a substantial force of over 12,000 infantry from Wales and several thousand more from adjoining English counties at Coventry on 5 March.⁴⁹¹ He even sought military assistance from his subjects in the duchy of Gascony, and wrote to the king of France and the pope informing them of what was taking place.⁴⁹² Edward left Gloucester on 18 February, captured Lancaster's castle of Kenilworth on 26 February and arrived at Coventry to join his gathering army on the following day.⁴⁹³

On 1 March the ground was further cut from under Lancaster by the publication of treasonable correspondence exchanged since January 1321 between Lancaster and the Scottish magnates Sir James Douglas and the earl of Moray in which Lancaster was referred to as ‘King Arthur’.⁴⁹⁴ Copies of the letters had come into the hands of William Melton, the archbishop of York and a loyal ally of Edward, and had been sent by him to the king.⁴⁹⁵ The archbishops, bishops and sheriffs were all ordered to have the letters read publicly. They could not have been more damning of Lancaster and his cause and served to confirm the rumours of collusion which had long been circulating.⁴⁹⁶ Although Robert Bruce is said to have remarked, ‘How will a man who cannot keep faith with his own lord keep faith with me?’⁴⁹⁷ an indenture found on the body of the earl of Hereford after the battle of Boroughbridge recorded an agreement between Lancaster, Hereford and Bruce in which the Scots promised to help the magnates in their quarrel anywhere in England, Wales and Ireland, without claiming any rights of conquest. In return the magnates would not serve Edward II in any future campaign against the Scots and would do everything they could to make peace between England and Scotland.⁴⁹⁸

LANCASTER'S DEFEAT

On 3 March Edward arrived at Lichfield where he was met by the Despensers and a large force of troops.⁴⁹⁹ Hearing of the king's advance, Lancaster's forces broke off the siege of Tickhill; he and Hereford left Pontefract and took up defensive positions on 1 March at the river-crossing at Burton-on-Trent near Lancaster's castle at Tutbury.⁵⁰⁰ After three days' unsuccessful fighting around the bridge and fords at Burton,⁵⁰¹ Edward decided to try to outflank the rebel army. On 10 March the earl of Surrey was sent to cross the river by a bridge three miles further downstream, while Pembroke and Richmond with 300 men crossed by a ford discovered at Walton, followed by the main body of the army. Robert le Ewer meanwhile kept the contrariants busy by an attack on the bridge at Burton itself.⁵⁰² At first Lancaster was prepared to give battle and unfurled his banners, a fatal move which effectively declared open rebellion against the king. He and Hereford changed their minds when they saw the scale of the forces ranged against them, and fied to Pontefract, leaving Tutbury to be captured by Edward.⁵⁰³ The mortally wounded Roger Damory was also captured, but this did not save him from Edward's vengeance. On 13 March he was tried and, without any opportunity to defend himself, was declared to be a traitor; he was however spared the sentence of execution because of the king's former affection for him and because he was married to Edward's niece; shortly afterwards he died at the neighbouring abbey.⁵⁰⁴

On 11 March the fate of Lancaster, Hereford and the rest was sealed: with the advice and consent of the earls of Pembroke, Kent, Richmond, Arundel, Surrey and Atholl, Edward formally declared Lancaster and his allies to be traitors and ordered his half-brother the earl of Kent and the earl of Surrey to take Pontefract.⁵⁰⁵ In the meantime a desperate debate took place there among the remaining contrariants. Some wanted to go to Lancaster's castle of Dunstanburgh in Northumberland, and stay there until the king's anger cooled; others wanted to throw themselves on the king's mercy; Lancaster, still clinging to the belief that as steward of England he had acted against the Despensers and not against his cousin the king, also thought that his close kinship to Edward would save him from harm.⁵⁰⁶ He argued that if they went to Northumberland they would appear to be seeking help from the Scots, and eventually agreed to leave Pontefract only after Roger de Clifford threatened him with a sword.⁵⁰⁷

The magnates got no farther than Boroughbridge in Yorkshire. On 16 March they were met and defeated by Andrew Harclay's northern army of about 4,000 men.⁵⁰⁸ Hereford was killed when a Welsh infantryman lying in wait under the bridge stabbed him with a spear; had he lived he had planned to seek refuge in Hainault in the Low Countries.⁵⁰⁹ Lancaster was captured the next day, while trying to escape on foot, and taken to York where he was placed under guard in the tower of York castle.⁵¹⁰ On 18 or 19 March Edward, accompanied by the Despensers and Pembroke, reached Pontefract and received its surrender.⁵¹¹ All the leading fugitives from the battle were captured, including the wretched Badlesmere, who was taken a few days later at Stow Park in Lincolnshire.⁵¹²

THE DEATH OF LANCASTER

On 21 March Lancaster was taken to Pontefract, ‘a place the earl loved more than any other town in the land’. There he was met by the Younger Despenser and by Edward who ‘contemptuously insulted him to his face with malicious and arrogant words’.⁵¹³Lancaster was then shut up for the night in a new tower which he had had built as a prison for Edward if he ever laid hands on him.⁵¹⁴ The following day, 22 March, Lancaster was brought before Edward, the Despensers and the earls of Pembroke, Kent, Richmond, Surrey, Arundel, Atholl and Angus,⁵¹⁵ and one of the king's justices, Robert Mablethorp.⁵¹⁶ A lengthy indictment was read out against him, listing every cause of offence against the king from his seizure of the king's jewels and horses at Newcastle in 1312, and his bringing armed men to parliaments, to the recent capture of Gloucester and Bridgnorth, the siege of Tickhill, and the treasonable correspondence with the Scots.⁵¹⁷ Lancaster, who was not allowed to say anything in his defence, was declared guilty of treason and sentenced to be hanged, drawn and beheaded. Because of his royal blood the first two stages of the sentence were remitted, possibly following a plea from Isabella.⁵¹⁸ Without delay Lancaster was taken outside his castle and beheaded by the executioner with two or three blows.⁵¹⁹ Gaveston was not mentioned by name in the indictment, but it was clear to everyone that Edward had at last avenged himself on Lancaster: ‘the earl of Lancaster once cut off Piers Gaveston's head, and now by the king's command the earl of Lancaster has lost his head’.⁵²⁰

¹ Vita, 152–7.

² Bruce, 617–27. On the situation at Berwick between 1312 and 1318 see McNamee, 216–19. On the north of England more generally in 1318 see Lanercost, 235–6; Kershaw, ‘Scottish raids’.

³ Lanercost, 225–6; McNamee, 185–6. Bruce's head was sent to Edward II and presumably arrived during the York parliament which began on 20 Oct.: Lydon, ‘The impact of the Bruce invasion’ 293–4.

⁴ Bruce did return to Ulster briefly on two occasions, in 1327 and 1328: R. Frame, English Lordship in Ireland, 1318–1361 (Oxford, 1982), 140–2.

⁵ Ibid., 133. English control over Ulster was recovered after 1318; Edward II also resumed his earlier practice of courting potential allies in south-west Scotland, within Robert Bruce's own kingdom; and in 1322 Edward was again able to draw on Irish manpower for a campaign in Scotland: ibid., 132–5.

⁶ Kershaw, ‘Great Famine’, 13–15.

⁷ PW, II, ii, 182–95; Phillips, 171. The details of the parliament, which were previously available in Documents Illustrative of English History in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, ed. H. Cole (London, 1844), can now be found in PROME, Parliament of Oct. 1318. The Parliament Roll, SC 9/21, edited by Cole, now contains one additional membrane added from unsorted miscellanea in 1958 and not previously edited; the material from E 175/11/20, E 175/1/22, and BL, Add. Ms. 41612/f. 53 (the ‘Liber Eliensis’) was previously edited in Rotuli Parliamentorum Hactenus Inediti, ed. Richardson & Sayles, 66–80.

⁸ PROME, Parliament of Oct. 1318, SC 9/21, item 1; Documents, ed. Cole, 1–2; Phillips, 171; Maddicott, 229.

⁹ Foedera, II, i, 373–4.

¹⁰ The bishops of Norwich, Chichester, Ely, Salisbury, St David's, Carlisle, Hereford and Worcester; the earls of Pembroke, Richmond, Hereford, and Arundel; and Hugh de Courtenay, Roger Mortimer, John de Segrave and John de Grey: PROME, Parliament of Oct. 1318, SC 9/21, items 57–9; Documents, ed. Cole, 12; Phillips, 172.

¹¹ PROME, Parliament of Oct. 1318, SC 9/21, items 57–9; Phillips, 172; Maddicott, 231–2.

¹² PROME, Parliament of Oct. 1318, SC 9/21, items 2, 60–1; Documents, ed. Cole, 3, 12; Phillips, 173.

¹³ PROME, Parliament of Oct. 1318, SC 9/21, items 1, 54; Documents, ed. Cole, 3, 12; Phillips, 173. Magna Carta was also confirmed and was read out before the clergy, earls and barons. The Ordinances were apparently taken as read.

¹⁴ CFR, 1307–19, 374; Phillips, 173.

¹⁵ PROME, Parliament of Oct. 1318, SC 9/21, items 37–51; Documents, ed. Cole, 9–10; Phillips, 173; Maddicott, 230–1. For example, the grant to Despenser of lands worth 600 marks was reduced to 300 marks.

¹⁶ PROME, Parliament of Oct. 1318, SC 9/21, items 6, 12; Documents, ed. Cole, 3–4; Phillips, 174; Maddicott, 229–30. Hothum and Despenser had been appointed to their offices in June and July respectively.

¹⁷ PROME, Parliament of Oct. 1318, SC 9/21, item 28; Documents, ed. Cole, 6–7; CFR, 1307–19, 381–3; Maddicott, 230.

¹⁸ Foedera, II, i, 377; Phillips, 174. Montacute died in Gascony at the end of Oct. 1319.

¹⁹ Vita, 156–7; CCR, 1318–23, 109–10; Phillips, 174; Maddicott, 233. Damory recognized a debt of 906 marks 7s 4d; Audley one of 1,229 marks 6s 6d; and Montacute a debt of 413 marks 4s. Damory's debt was certainly paid and in Feb. 1319 an acquittance was sent to Montacute: CCR, 1318–23, 109–10; DL 28/1/13, m.1; Maddicott, 233.

²⁰ See Tout, Place of the Reign, 118–19 & App. I, A, 241–81.

²¹ SR, i, 177–8. The statute was also to be sent to Ireland for promulgation there.

²² Lay Taxes, 34; PW, II, ii, 196; PROME, Parliament of Oct. 1318, SC 9/21, item 17; Documents, ed. Cole, 4.

²³ PROME, Parliament of Oct. 1318, SC 9/21, item 18; Documents, ed. Cole, 4. The next parliament was duly summoned on 20 March 1319 to meet at York on the agreed date of 6 May 1319: CCR, 1318–23, 131.

²⁴ PROME, Parliament of Oct. 1318, SC 9/21, items 63, 64; Documents, ed. Cole, 13. After the major political business of the parliament, most of the remainder of the roll consists entirely of petitions, items 19–36, 65–293 (items 267–93 are contained in the recently added membrane 12 which was not available to Cole); Documents, ed. Cole, 4–9, 13–46.

Many more petitions appear in E 175/1/22, mm.2, 3, which lists petitions presented in the parliament of Oct. 1318: PROME, Parliament of Oct. 1318; also printed in Rotuli Parliamentorum Hactenus Inediti, ed. Richardson & Sayles, 70–80. This document contains lists of petitions in different categories: those for the great council, those for the personal consideration of the king, those concerning the king's debts, those not fully expedited because of various difficulties, and finally petitions that have been expedited. With few exceptions, no petitions save those in the last category can be identified on the Parliament Roll, SC 9/21, but a large number of those expedited correspond with the petitions entered on that roll: Rotuli Parliamentorum Hactenus Inediti; 65–6. Over 40 of the petitions listed in E 175/1/22 can be identified with surviving petitions in SC 8/319/E 356–E 417. Another of the sources for the 1318 parliament, E 175/11/20, contains the proceedings on a petition of Hugh de Courtenay, while a fourth source, BL, Add. Ms. 41612/f. 53, is a transcript of a petition from the bishop of Ely, who had been chancellor since 11 June 1318.

²⁵ PROME, Parliament of Oct. 1318, SC 9/21, item 19; Documents, ed. Cole, 4–5.

²⁶ Cf. Tout, Place of the Reign, 118; Maddicott, 231. The king had also been permitted to add the archbishop of York and the bishops of Ely and Norwich, all of them close allies of long standing, to the reform commission: PROME, Parliament of Oct. 1318, SC 9/21, item 61; Documents, ed. Cole, 12.

²⁷ Vita, 158–61. The details are given in Phillips, 171, 183; Maddicott, 234–7. In Jan. 1319, probably as a result of pressure from the king, the grants of lands in Wales and Yorkshire were modified to allow Lancaster to hold them only for Surrey's life: Maddicott, 235–6.

²⁸ ‘sovereinete a li accrocher vers les autres’: C 49/4/26 (June 1318); Phillips, 162.

²⁹ Vita, 160–1, & 160, n. 113.

³⁰ PROME, Parliament of Oct. 1318, SC 9/21, item 53; Documents, ed. Cole, 1; Foedera, II, i, 373–4; Maddicott, 232–3. Lancaster was at the parliament from about 26 Oct. to 22 Nov., after which he withdrew to Pontefract. Roger Belers then acted as his agent and kept him informed of what occurred: Maddicott, 229; DL 28/1/15, mm.1, 6. In contrast, Edward II was at York throughout the time of the parliament, before moving to Beverley just after Christmas.

³¹ PROME, Parliament of Oct. 1318, SC 9/21, item 35; Documents, ed. Cole, 8.

³² PROME, Parliament of Oct. 1318, SC 9/21, item 34; Documents, ed. Cole, 8. Edward II's charter of 9 May, 1 Edward II, was cited in the petition. On 22 Nov. Lancaster wrote, using his titles of earl of Lancaster and Leicester and steward of England, to the chancellor concerning pardons to be issued to some of his retainers: SC 1/35/189.

³³ Trivet (Cont.), 23; Vita, 140–1; Phillips, 125; Maddicott, 208. On Lancaster's use of the stewardship to advance his claims to authority within the kingdom see Vita, 140, n. 273; Maddicott, 76–7, 241–3.

³⁴ PROME, Parliament of October 1318, SC 9/21, item 6; Documents, ed. Cole, 3. This section of the roll is in very poor condition.

³⁵ PROME, Parliament of Oct. 1318, SC 9/21, item 34; Documents, ed. Cole, 8.

³⁶ PROME, Parliament of Oct. 1318, SC 9/21, item 42; Documents, ed. Cole, 9.

³⁷ The 1318 settlement was certainly not a humiliation for the king, as Tout argued: Place of the Reign, 118. Davies on the other hand realized that the members of the standing council were ‘nearly all personally acceptable to the King’: Baronial Opposition, 463, 468; Phillips, 176–7.

³⁸ Cardinals Luke and Gaucelin left London at the end of their mission on 11 Sept., and returned to Avignon on 5 Nov. 1318: Ann. Paul., 283; Wright, The Church and the English Crown, 290. A seventeenth-century transcript of a report on their mission to England and Scotland in 1317–18 by the two cardinals is contained in Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Barberini Ms. 2366. There is a copy of this document in TNA in PRO 31/8/158. Unfortunately, unlike the report of earlier papal envoys (ASV, Instrumenta Miscellanea, 5947) which is so valuable for working out the negotiations of 1312–13, this report consists mainly of copies of papal bulls and throws no light on the politics and negotiations of 1317–18.

³⁹ See Phillips, 174–6; and Maddicott, 237–9, for a more sympathetic view of Lancaster.

⁴⁰ It is possible, as Dr Maddicott suggests, that Lancaster had objected to Despenser's appointment and (as in the case of the stewardship of the household) had been overruled, but this is not at all certain. Despenser was confirmed as chamberlain ‘par consail et a la requeste des grantz’: PROME, Parliament of Oct. 1318, SC 9/21, item 12;Documents, ed. Cole, 4.

⁴¹ Phillips, 178–9.

⁴² The witness lists of royal charters (C 53) are a good guide to those who were at court. For details see The Royal Charter Witness Lists of Edward II (1307–1326) from the Charter Rolls in the Public Record Office [TNA], ed. Jeffrey S. Hamilton (Kew, 2001), 288; Hamilton, ‘Charter witness lists for the reign of Edward II’, in Fourteenth Century England, i, ed. N. Saul (Woodbridge, Suffolk & Rochester, NY, 2000), 1–20.

⁴³ Phillips, 179.

⁴⁴ PROME, Parliament of Oct. 1318, SC 9/21, item 62; Documents, ed. Cole, 13.

⁴⁵ Maddicott, 231.

⁴⁶ HMC, First Report, Documents of the Dean and Chapter of Norwich, 88; Phillips, 179. He last witnessed a charter on 4 Feb.: C 53/105, m.9. His register shows that he was at York or Beverley between 15 Nov. 1318 and 21 Jan. 1319 and was back at Norwich on 22 Feb.: Norfolk and Norwich Record Office, Reg. John Salmon, ff. 77v, 78.

⁴⁷ C 53/105, mm.9–5. Carlisle was with the king by 4 Feb.: E 101/377/3, m.6.

⁴⁸ C 53/105, m.6. Hereford had been in Hainault in the Low Countries from Jan. to March, probably for business connected with Edward II's project for a marriage between his son Edward, the future Edward III, and Margaret the daughter of William, count of Hainault and Holland. Hereford's wife Elizabeth (d. 1316) had previously been countess of Hainault and Holland. Margaret was the sister of Philippa of Hainault, the eventual wife of Edward III: E 404/484/2/1; Foedera, II, i, 381. The bishop of Exeter, who accompanied Hereford to Hainault in 1319, included in his register a description of Edward's intended bride, which is often taken to refer to Philippa but seems more likely to be Margaret (my comment): see Buck, 126; article by J. Vale on Philippa of Hainault in the Oxford DNB. After his term of service on the council the earl of Pembroke had gone to look after various items of official and personal business in the south and east of England: Phillips, 180–3.

⁴⁹ C 53/105, mm.9–6; Phillips, 180.

⁵⁰ Phillips, 180. During the early months of 1319 Edward was at York or in its immediate vicinity, while Lancaster was at his castle of Pontefract: Maddicott, 240. Communications between them should have been straightforward, with or without the presence of a formal Lancastrian representative on the council.

⁵¹ Although the holding of a parliament on 6 May 1319 had been agreed during the previous parliament, the summonses for the 1319 assembly were not issued until 20 March: PW, II, ii, 197–214. For the records of the parliament see PROME, Parliament of May 1319.

⁵² PROME, Parliament of May 1319, SC 9/ 22, item 7; Maddicott, 240.

⁵³ To make sure that he could not do so, the judgment was ordered to be entered on the parliament roll and sent to the chancery, exchequer, and the courts of King's Bench and Common Pleas for enrolment there.

⁵⁴ PROME, Parliament of May 1319, SC 9/ 22, item 3; Documents, ed. Cole, 48; Maddicott, 233. This probably meant he had the right to make the appointment rather than marking a desire to hold the office himself. There was an obvious analogy with the rights of the earls of Warwick and Hereford, as hereditary chamberlains and constables respectively, to appoint deputies to represent them at the exchequer: Maddicott, 242. It was no coincidence that in the autumn of 1319 a search of the records was made, at the request of the earl of Hereford, to establish the fees due to the constable. The search went as far back as the Constitutio Domus Regis from the reign of Henry I: E 159/93, m.70.

⁵⁵ E 368/93, m.12; Phillips, 183; Maddicott, 241.

⁵⁶ Dr Maddicott suggests that Lancaster's aim was to curb royal extravagance by ensuring the enforcement of the Ordinances and the reform of the royal household: Maddicott, 237–8, 241–2. Although he also argues that ‘the events of 1317–18had shown Lancaster in the best and worst of lights’, such a high-minded view of Lancaster is at odds with his behaviour when he had any of his opponents, such as the earl of Surrey, at his mercy. It is far more likely that Lancaster wished to exercise power for his own ends.

⁵⁷ Maddicott, 241–2, citing the precedent of 1268 when the Lord Edward (the future Edward I) had been granted the stewardship and control of the castles. There is no evidence that Lancaster made such a claim on this occasion.

⁵⁸ Phillips, 183; Maddicott, 242–3.

⁵⁹ Phillips, 183; Maddicott, 235–6.

⁶⁰ C 70/4, m.9; SC 1/49/46; C 61/32, mm.3d, 5; Phillips, 181–2.

⁶¹ CPL, 1305–42, 421; Phillips, 182. Pessagno had been sent to Gascony as seneschal in 1317 in order to recover control of the duchy's revenues which had been pledged to the pope in 1314. Pessagno's term of office as seneschal of Gascony had also been marked by his clumsy attempts to resolve a private war between Jourdain de l'Isle and another local lord, Alexander de Caumont. This and suspicions of peculation and forgery were among the reasons for Pessagno's replacement as seneschal and his recall to England in disgrace in Nov. 1318. Instead he first of all went to Avignon, with the results already mentioned: Vale, 134–6; Phillips, 181–2; E.B. Fryde, article on Pessagno in the Oxford DNB.

⁶² E 159/92, Recorda, Easter 12 Edward II; BL, Add. Ms. 17362, f. 13; Foedera, II, i, 403 (letters recommending Pessagno to the pope and to Cardinal Luke Fieschi); Phillips, 182.

⁶³ In March 1320 Edward II sent letters of recommendation to the king of France, the pope and the cardinals: Foedera, II, i, 420, 429–30; Vale, 155–6. Pessagno had apparently not fallen out personally with the king. The Oxford DNB article on Pessagno suggests that he had quarrelled with the Despensers but does not supply any evidence for this.

⁶⁴ Once in France, Pessagno offered his services to, for example, Louis count of Clermont and lord of Bourbon: Titres de la maison ducale de Bourbon,no.1604 (Sept. 1321), ed. H. Bréholles (Paris, 1867–82). Later in the 1320s he turned against Edward II and in 1325 was rumoured to be encouraging his brother, Manuel, who was the admiral of Portugal, to send an invasion fleet to England: Tout, Place of the Reign; C 61/37, m.12d; Fryde, Oxford DNB.

⁶⁵ Between April 1312 and Jan. 1319 Pessagno loaned Edward II almost £144,000: Fryde, Oxford DNB.

⁶⁶ The Bardi had done business with the English crown since 1294 but had increased in importance after the expulsion from England of the Frescobaldi in 1311: Prestwich, War, Politics and Finance, 212; Fryde, ‘Deposits of Hugh Despenser the Younger,’ item III, 347. In Aug. 1319 the Bardi were given two gold crowns to keep until Edward had repaid 5,000 marks he owed them and £500 which they had paid to Pessagno out of the king's debts to him: E 159/93, m.77. The crowns were redeemed on 22 Feb. 1320. In Jan. 1320 the Bardi paid Pessagno a further £1,850 on behalf of the king, but it appears that Edward II did not know whether he actually owed Pessagno this much since he had not fully accounted for the time he had been involved in royal affairs (qil sad medlez de noz busoignes): E 159/93, m.29d.

⁶⁷ These details are all stated in or can be inferred from the pope's letter to Edward II containing an account of Nicholas of Wisbech's story: ASV, Vatican Register 110 (Secreta, i to iv, John XXII), ff. 136r–137v; Coronation Records, ed. Wickham Legg, 69–72 (Latin text), 72–6 (trans.); CPL, 1305–42, 436–7; Foedera, II, i, 383. On the date of the letter, see the discussion in the previous chapter and in Phillips, ‘Edward II and the prophets’, 196–7. The bishops of Norwich and Salisbury were then on duty as members of the standing council.

⁶⁸ Foedera, II, i, 383, 387; Phillips, 198.

⁶⁹ Haines, The Church and Politics, 20–2, where Orleton's mission is associated with the canonization of one of his predecessors, Thomas de Cantilupe. It is clear that the Holy Oil was also part of Orleton's business.

⁷⁰ Foedera, II, i, 399.

⁷¹ Paraphrase of the Wickham Legg translation.

⁷² Foedera, II, i, 399, 424; Phillips, 198. The king's letter of 8 June also provides a terminus ante quem for the date of the pope's own letter.

⁷³ C 70/ 4, m.6d: ‘Hac denique callididate nuper nostram imbellicitatem aggrediens sub columbina simplicitate nostra N. de G. [Guisbech: i.e. Wisbech] sue malicie et nequicie tegens sermentum, quedam nobis superstitiosa et Christiane religioni adversa persuasit’. This letter also refers to Nicholas's escape from custody. The letter is undated but probably belongs to July or Aug. 1319 (the preceding and following letters on the roll belong to these months). There is no suggestion of course that Edward actually wrote the letter, but it is unlikely that anyone else would have used such revealing language if it had not represented the king's own views.

⁷⁴ Maddicott, 240.

⁷⁵ Ibid., 244.

⁷⁶ Ann. Paul., 283.

⁷⁷ PROME, Parliament of Oct. 1318, SC 9/21, item 17; Documents, ed. Cole, 4; CCR, 1318–23, 141.

⁷⁸ Foedera, II, i, 393. On Irish earldoms see Frame, English Lordship, 14–16.

⁷⁹ CCR, 1318–23, 79, 202–3; Phillips, 184.

⁸⁰ BL, Add. Ms. 17362, f. 14; E 101/378, ff. 4, 6, 8, 10; Phillips, 184.

⁸¹ E 159/92, m.49; Maddicott, 243.

⁸² Ann. Paul., 285–6; Williams, Medieval London, 281–2.

⁸³ Registrum Radulphi Baldock, etc., Bishops of London, ed. R.C. Fowler, Canterbury & York Series, vii (London, 1911), 207–8; Phillips, 183. The bishops of the province of York had agreed to a subsidy earlier. The Canterbury province preferred not to agree until they were required to do so by the pope, which happened at the end of May. Having learned that it was easier to obtain taxation from the clergy by papal mandate than by clerical grant, in future (from 1320) Edward went directly to the pope when he desired a similar tax in aid of the defence of the kingdom: Lunt, ‘Clerical tenths’, 173–5.

⁸⁴ Lay Taxes, 34–5.

⁸⁵ J.F. Willard, Parliamentary Taxes on Personal Property, 1290 to 1334 (Cambridge, Mass., 1934), 344.

⁸⁶ Lay Taxes, 34–5. Six scutages (one of them double) were now being collected simultaneously, without any agreement between the king and magnates on the basis of collection. There was much resistance, which continued until Edward III finally pardoned arrears of all scutages in 1340.

⁸⁷ E 159/92, Brevia Baronibus. Edward also promised to pay the Bardi a further 2,000 marks to cover the late repayment of other sums he owed them and their ‘losses’ (i.e. interest), giving them a 33% return on their investment. The loan was to be repaid out of the receipts of both clerical and lay taxation. Repayment was completed in 1320: E 403/189, m.7. Other details of the repayment can be found in E 403/187 and 189. The largest single amounts they had previously loaned the king were almost £7,800 in Jan. 1317 to meet the costs of the Avignon mission, and 10,000 marks in Nov. 1317, for which they were to receive in return a total of 13,000 marks, repayable from clerical taxation: E 159/91, m.40d; Phillips, 109.

⁸⁸ PW, II, i, 517–20; Maddicott, 244. Dr Maddicott's calculation (citing CDS, ii, nos 663–5, 668) of the number of foot soldiers, including archers and crossbowmen, is about 10,000. My own estimate, using the information in E 101/378/4, ff. 19–37v, was about 11,500: Phillips, 184. Professor Duncan has used another source, E 101/15/27 (calendared in CDS, iii, no. 668), which suggests that, although 8,080 men (1,040 hobelars and the rest infantry) mustered at Newcastle, the number of infantry actually paid for from 10 Sep., early in the siege, was only about 5,500, including 456 hobelars: Bruce, 630–1, note to ll. 283–4; Maddicott, 245–6.

⁸⁹ E 101/378/4, ff.19–37v; Phillips, 184. Dr Maddicott and I are in agreement on the number of hobelars, but his figure for heavy cavalry is only about 500: Maddicott, 244. The figures I cite below for the size of individual retinues suggest that this is a considerable underestimate.

⁹⁰ Tebbit, ‘Household knights’ (Ph.D.), 26–7; Phillips, 149, 312–13.

⁹¹ Phillips, 149, 312–13.

⁹² Ann. Paul., 286.

⁹³ C 71/10, m.4; Phillips, 184; Maddicott, 245.

⁹⁴ C 71/10, mm.5, 2; C 81/1736/60; E 101/378/4, f. 36v; Phillips, 185. These are figures for the start of the campaign; other men may have joined him later.

⁹⁵ E 101/378/4, ff. 20, 19v, 20v, 29v; Phillips, 185. These are all maximum numbers reached during the campaign.

⁹⁶ This figure takes into account the men led by the earl of Lancaster, whose number is unknown but who were not in receipt of pay from the king. The Vita Edwardi Secundi, 162–3, notes the presence of the earls and barons, and adds that the infantry and sailors had been encouraged to serve with the promise of the right to plunder in Scotland, without having to make any restitution if there were to be a truce. My previous estimate of about 14,000 (Phillips, 184) was clearly too high.

⁹⁷ McNamee, 218, 231. It was ironic that Edward II and his government were able to use naval power in the Irish Sea to great effect: this played a major part in the defeat of the Scots in Ireland. But they were unable to do the same in the North Sea. This was perhaps the result of a lack of resources for a ‘two-sea’ war and of the proximity of the North Sea to the bases of Scottish allies in Flanders. See McNamee, ch. 6, ‘The North Sea theatre of war and the towns’. The Flemish commander John Crabbe was the particular bane of the English: McNamee, 209–11, 213–14, 218–19; H.S. Lucas, ‘John Crabbe, Flemish pirate, merchant and adventurer’, Speculum, xx (1945), 334–50.

⁹⁸ Vita, 160–1. It is not known when these envoys were sent to Scotland but on 8 March Edward II wrote to the pope asking for permission to treat with the excommunicated Scots: Vita, 161, n. 317; Foedera, II, i, 381.

⁹⁹ Vita, 162–3.

¹⁰⁰ Bruce, 630, fn., citing BL, Add. Ms. 17362, ff. 25–7. The building materials were carried in eight ships which returned south after the campaign without ever being unloaded.

¹⁰¹ CDS, iii, no. 663; Maddicott, 246–7.

¹⁰² Anonimalle, 94–7.

¹⁰³ E 101/378/3, m.3; Phillips, 185; Maddicott, 247.

¹⁰⁴ Bruce, 632–3; Phillips, 185; Maddicott, 247; McNamee, 219.

¹⁰⁵ Bruce, 632–40; Anonimalle, 96–7; Phillips, 185; Maddicott, 247; McNamee, 219. This suggests that the siege was begun prematurely in the hope of a quick victory. Both chronicles are in error in stating that the siege began on 15 Aug. (the feast of the Assumption) instead of 8 Sept. (the feast of the Nativity): Bruce, 634, note.

¹⁰⁶ This provided cover for the miners.

¹⁰⁷ Bruce, 646–56, and footnotes; Anonimalle, 96–7; McNamee, 219; Maddicott, 248.

¹⁰⁸ Bruce, 658, and notes to ll. 828 and 858.

¹⁰⁹ Bruce, 641–3; Scalacronica, 86–7; Anonimalle, 96–7; McNamee, 90–1. For a map showing details of the Scottish raid in 1319 see McNamee, 92–3.

¹¹⁰ Bruce, 640–2. Professor Duncan however suggests that the Scots may originally have intended to capture the queen by a clandestine approach to York and that they began to devastate the countryside only after they could no longer move secretly: Bruce, 642, note to l. 509.

¹¹¹ Vita, 162–3; Flores, 189; Trokelowe, 103; McNamee, 91.

¹¹² Vita, 162–5.

¹¹³ Flores, 189.

¹¹⁴ Vita, 164–5.

¹¹⁵ Vita, 164–5; Flores, 189; Ann. Paul., 287.

¹¹⁶ E.g., Perth, Linlithgow, Roxburgh and Edinburgh in 1313–14: McNamee, 59–60; Barrow, 193–5.

¹¹⁷ Flores, 189; McNamee, 91. Although Darel was a royal household knight from 1315 to 1318, he was one of the many northern knights recruited at a time of serious danger from the Scots, who had no previous connection with the king and whose loyalty was questionable. (The behaviour of Gilbert de Middleton and John de Lilburne in 1317–18 provides other examples.) Darel had earlier been connected with Henry Percy and in 1313 was arrested and briefly held in Tickhill castle. He was apparently arrested at York in Feb. 1320, accused of betraying the queen and taken to London, but was released for lack of evidence. He fought against the king in 1322 and was then imprisoned in the Tower of London for two years: Ann. Paul., 287–8; Phillips, 54–5; Prestwich, ‘The unreliability of royal household knights’, 8–9.

¹¹⁸ CDS, iii, no. 664; McNamee, 94, 118.

¹¹⁹ Phillips, ‘Mission of John de Hothum’. Thomas Randolph was one of the Scottish commanders Hothum had encountered in Ireland.

¹²⁰ Vita, 164–7; CDS, iii, no. 665 (18 Sept., a bit late in the day); McNamee, 94. At least one knight was present, Sir John de Pabenham, one of the earl of Pembroke's retainers, who was taken prisoner. There may have been one or two others: Phillips, 185.

¹²¹ Vita, 164–7; McNamee, 94.

¹²² Vita, 166–7; Anonimalle, 98–9; Gesta Edwardi, 57–8.

¹²³ Anonimalle, 98–9; McNamee, 94.

¹²⁴ Bruce, 646; Barrow, 239–40.

¹²⁵ Vita, 164–7; Anonimalle, 98–9; McNamee, 94.

¹²⁶ Secrecy no longer being necessary: Bruce, 642, note to l. 509.

¹²⁷ While I would not accept Hugo Schwyzer's assessment that neither Hothum nor Melton had any previous experience of military command or of organizing a defence, it is clear that they had little chance of success on this occasion: ‘Northern bishops and the Anglo-Scottish war in the reign of Edward II’, in Thirteenth-century England, vii, ed. M. Prestwich, R. Britnell & R. Frame (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1999), 249–50.

¹²⁸ Anonimalle, 96–7.

¹²⁹ Bruce, 658, and notes to ll. 828 and 858; Maddicott, 248.

¹³⁰ Bruce, 61, note to ll. 283–4.

¹³¹ Maddicott, 247; Phillips, 185–6.

¹³² Gesta Edwardi, 57; Melsa, 336; Phillips, 186; Maddicott, 247.

¹³³ Historia Anglicana, 155; Phillips, 186; Maddicott, 247.

¹³⁴ Flores, 188; Maddicott, 247.

¹³⁵ Vita, 176–9; Phillips, 186; Maddicott, 247.

¹³⁶ Bruce, 658.

¹³⁷ Lanercost, 239; Maddicott, 249.

¹³⁸ Trinity College Cambridge Ms. R.5.41, ff. 113v–114; Phillips, 186.

¹³⁹ C 53/106, m.8 (the last time he witnessed a royal charter during the siege); Maddicott, 249.

¹⁴⁰ E 101/378/3, m.3; Bruce, 660, note; Phillips, 185; Maddicott, 249. It is possible, as Professor Duncan suggests (Bruce, 658–60, note to l. 858) that Lancaster left only after the king had decided to break off the siege; but it was really a chicken and egg situation; once it was clear that there was insufficient agreement for the siege to be continued, it did not really matter who made the first move.

¹⁴¹ Itinerary, ed. Hallam.

¹⁴² BL, Add. Ms. 17362, ff. 9, 9d, 14d; Phillips, 187; Maddicott, 251.

¹⁴³ Haskins, ‘A chronicle’, 177; Maddicott, 249–50.

¹⁴⁴ BL, Cotton Ms. Vespasian F.VII, f. 6 (printed in Cartae et Alia Munimenta de Glamorgan, iii ed. G.L. Clark (Cardiff, 1910), 1064); Phillips, 186; Maddicott, 249.

¹⁴⁵ Phillips, 186–7.

¹⁴⁶ Vita, 166–7; Phillips, 197; Maddicott, 249–50.

¹⁴⁷ Literally so, since he quotes extensively from the Book of Jeremiah (12: 1–2 and 3) and other Old Testament sources: Vita, 172–5, nn. 347–8. His outburst covers pp. 166–75 in the latest edition of the Vita.

¹⁴⁸ Vita, 168–9. There had been rumours, almost certainly malicious, in 1317 at the time of the attack on the cardinals.

¹⁴⁹ Vita, 174–5. There is no other evidence that such an event actually took place, but there was certainly an opportunity for Lancaster to communicate with Edward while the latter was still at York.

¹⁵⁰ Phillips, 186–7; Maddicott, 253.

¹⁵¹ BL, Add. Ms. 17362, ff. 9, 9d, 14d; Phillips, 187; Maddicott, 251–2.

¹⁵² Barrow, 240, and map on 234–5; McNamee, 95.

¹⁵³ Vita, 174–7; Maddicott, 252. The author of the Vita was fully in sympathy with Edward's decision and added that the people of the March had suffered more from the oppressions of the men sent to guard them than they had from the Scots.

¹⁵⁴ BL, Add. Ms. 17362, f. 9v; Foedera, II, i, 404; Phillips, 187; Maddicott, 252.

¹⁵⁵ C 47/22/12/29, 30, 45; CPR, 1317–21, 414; CDS, iii, 681; Phillips, 187; Maddicott, 252. The envoys were a roll call of Edward II's leading councillors and legal advisers, which is enough to indicate the seriousness of the negotiations. If William Airmyn was taken prisoner at Myton, he had evidently been freed by this time.

¹⁵⁶ CDS, iii, 681; CPR, 1317–21, 416; Phillips, 187; Maddicott, 252. The full terms of the truce are given in CDS, v, no. 657 (from C 47/22/13(6)) and in Regesta Regum Scottorum, 433–7, no. 162.

¹⁵⁷ E 101/378/4, f. 21v; CPR, 1317–21, 416; Phillips, 187–8; Maddicott, 252.

¹⁵⁸ It had been summoned on 6 Nov. 1319: PW, II, ii, 215–16.

¹⁵⁹ DL 42/12, f. 22v; E 368/93, m.12; CPR, 1317–21, 431; Phillips, 188.

¹⁶⁰ Vita, 176–7; Phillips, 188; Maddicott, 253. The numbers attending would have been smaller than usual, since representatives of the knights, burgesses and lower clergy were not summoned, but still substantial. Altogether the 2 archbishops, 16 bishops, 32 abbots and priors, 9 earls, 73 barons, and 25 royal judges and clerks were summoned. It is not known where they met but it was probably at St Mary's abbey in York. See PROME, Parliament of Jan. 1320.

¹⁶¹ Vita, 176–7; Maddicott, 254.

¹⁶² BL, Cotton Ms. Nero D.X, f. 110v (this has valuable material on the events of 1320–3); Maddicott, 253.

¹⁶³ Maddicott, 254.

¹⁶⁴ Flores, 191; Maddicott, 254.

¹⁶⁵ CCR, 1318–23, 175; Phillips, 188.

¹⁶⁶ SC 1/35/128, 128A (Nov. 1316); Foedera, II, i, 311–12 (Jan. 1317), 360 (April 1318), 390 (March 1319); P. Chaplais, ‘Le Duché-pairie de Guyenne’, item IV, 149–53.

¹⁶⁷ AN, J 633, nos 36, 37. Cf. Vale, 134.

¹⁶⁸ Foedera, II, i, 311–12 (Jan. 1317), 365 (June 1318), 371 (Aug. 1318), 390 (March 1319), 395 (May 1319). There was also of course an element of deliberate delay, since no king of England liked doing homage to the king of France.

¹⁶⁹ See, for example, Foedera, II, i, passim.

¹⁷⁰ The problems faced by Antonio Pessagno are an indication of the situation: Vale, 134–6.

¹⁷¹ Foedera, II, i, 395. The matter was clearly discussed during the York parliament.

¹⁷² BL, Add. Ms. 17362, ff. 10v, 13.

¹⁷³ There is no Parliament Roll for the Jan. 1320 assembly; no parliament was held on 1 June because Edward was then preparing to go to France. These details are provided in the speech which was delivered at the opening of the next parliament. See PROME, Parliament of Oct. 1320, C 49/43/20. Edward II wrote to Philip V giving details of his plans on 19 Feb.: Foedera, II, ii, 417.

¹⁷⁴ He was appointed by the council on 24 Feb.: CPR, 1317–21, 425; Phillips, 189.

¹⁷⁵ They left on 19 March: BL, Add. Ms. 17362, f. 11; Phillips, 188; Maddicott, 255.

¹⁷⁶ Haines, The Church and Politics, 23–4.

¹⁷⁷ Foedera, II, i, 418. On 28 Feb. Edward wrote to the consuls of the town of Castillon near Bordeaux (and probably to other communities as well) asking them to assist his envoys in their work of reform: SC 1/32/84. The appointment on the same date of the greatly experienced Maurice de Berkeley as seneschal of Gascony was another indication that the government wanted to get a grip on the situation there: Foedera, II, i, 418. The dispatch to Bordeaux of a royal clerk John de Hildesle in Nov. 1319 was part of the preparation for their visit. He was sent to collect and bring back to England the registers of documents relating to Gascony which had been put together hurriedly and often inaccurately between Nov. 1318 and March 1319 from original documents stored in the wardrobe treasury in the Tower of London. The registers had been taken to Gascony by William de Montacute when he took up office as seneschal. They were never fully revised, if at all, and never returned to Gascony, depriving its governors of valuable information. Their contents were inventoried in the Gascon calendar compiled in 1322: Gascon Register A xiv–xvi; Gascon Calendar, ed. Cuttino, vii–ix. Despenser and Badlesmere had access to a collection of memoranda and other documents concerning Gascony which were taken by Master Henry of Canterbury: BL, Add. Ms. 17362, f. 12.

¹⁷⁸ Trinity College Cambridge Ms. R.5.41, ff. 113v–114; Phillips, 189.

¹⁷⁹ Ann. Paul., 288; Phillips, 189. No doubt showing gratitude for royal support in the recent revolution in London politics.

¹⁸⁰ E 101/378/3, mm.7, 8;E 159/93, m.84; Foedera, II, ii, 421; Ann. Paul., 288; Phillips, 189. The letters of safe conduct were renewed by Philip V on 11 June: Foedera, II, ii, 426.

¹⁸¹ BL, Add. Ms. 17362, ff. 11, 17v; CCR, 1318–23, 238; Ann. Paul., 289; Phillips, 192. Others, notably Edmund of Woodstock, Hugh Despenser the Elder, Bartholomew de Badlesmere and the bishop of Hereford, joined the king at Amiens on 28 June having completed their mission to Avignon: BL, Add. Ms. 17362, f. 11. It is not clear from the chronology of their movements whether Despenser and Badlesmere had also been to Gascony as intended.

¹⁸² Pembroke had been reappointed on 4 June: E 159/93, m.92; CPR, 1317–21, 454; Phillips, 191. Edward left Westminster on 5 June. Writs were issued under the testimony of the king until 19 June, the day he left England.

¹⁸³ Chartulary of Winchester Cathedral, ed. Goodman, 63.

¹⁸⁴ Registres du Trésor de Chartes, ii, 509, 731. The details of these alleged offences are not recorded. The records of Anglo-French treaties and of the processes concerning Aquitaine, held at Montreuil in 1306 and Périgueux in 1311, were brought over to France by Master Elias de Jonestone, the keeper of the processes, and were available to aid the discussions: BL, Add. Ms. 17362, f. 13.

¹⁸⁵ CCW, 482–3.

¹⁸⁶ Vale, 70–1, 286 (map of Ponthieu).

¹⁸⁷ SC 8/325/E 372; CCW, 460–1; P. Chaplais, ‘Un message de Jean de Fiennes à Édouard II’ repr. in Chaplais, Essays in Medieval Diplomacy, item X.

¹⁸⁸ Ann. Paul., 289. The citizens had written to Philip V claiming that they would prefer to be his subjects than under English rule. Edward II wrote to Philip on the matter on 8 May 1320: Foedera, II, ii, 425.

¹⁸⁹ Ann. Paul., 289. The bishops of Norwich, Exeter and Hereford were also present.

¹⁹⁰ E 101/378/10, m.1; CCR, 1318–23, 317; Ann. Paul., 290; Phillips, 193; Williams, Medieval London, 285.

¹⁹¹ PW, II, ii, 219–30; C 49/43/20: PROME, Parliament of Oct. 1320. It is not known by whom the speech was delivered, but it was probably the chancellor.

¹⁹² SC 9/23, PROME, Parliament of Oct. 1320. This Parliament Roll was unknown to the editors of Rotuli Parliamentorum (who worked from a differently arranged record in the Vetus Codex, C 153/1, ff. 78r–93v) and was edited for the first time for PROME. See the Introduction to the Parliament of Oct. 1320.

¹⁹³ SC 9/23, items 4, 5, 14.

¹⁹⁴ SC 9/23, items 6, 7, 9–13, 8.

¹⁹⁵ SR, i, 180–1. There is however no trace of such petitions among the records of the parliament.

¹⁹⁶ Register of Thomas de Cobham, Bishop of Worcester, 1317–27, ed. E.H. Pearce (Worcester, 1930), 97–8; Maddicott, 257. Cobham was probably right in suggesting that Edward was more active than was his wont, but he also had an axe to grind since in 1313 he had been passed over for appointment as archbishop of Canterbury in favour of the king's close friend and ally Walter Reynolds.

¹⁹⁷ BL, Cotton Ms. Nero D. X, f. 110v.

¹⁹⁸ The speech which opened the parliament of Oct. 1320 implies, though it does not say so directly, that Edward had addressed the earlier assembly: C 49/43/20: PROME, Parliament of Oct. 1320.

¹⁹⁹ E 101/378/3.

²⁰⁰ Vale, 51 (the translation is Dr Vale's). The text is taken from C 47/29/9, no. 25, a copy of the original made in 1325. The document was first published in E. Pole-Stuart, ‘Interview between Philip V and Edward II at Amiens in 1320’, EHR, xli (1926), 414–15; and more recently in Chaplais, Diplomatic Practice, i, 359–60 (no. 199). See also the record of the five acts of homage performed by English kings between 1259 and 1320 in Chartulary of Winchester Cathedral, ed. Goodman, 62–5 (no. 127). Philip V had also come primed with a record of past homages. On 16 June he had a copy made of the homage done by Henry III of England to Louis IX in Dec. 1259: Chaplais, ‘Le Duché-pairie de Guyenne’, 153.

²⁰¹ Vale, 51–2; Chaplais, Diplomatic Practice, 360.

²⁰² Haines, The Church and Politics, 23–5. The bull providing Burghersh to Lincoln was issued on 27 May: SC 7/56/11. His uncle, Bartholomew de Badlesmere had earlier seized the opportunity of the vacancy in the choice see of Winchester to advance the claims of his nephew. Badlesmere's letter to Edward II on 7 Nov. 1319, only five days after Sandal's death, still survives: SC 1/33/10. The pope however got in first and on 26 Nov. provided a papal tax collector, Rigaud d'Assier, as bishop. Edward II was greatly annoyed but Burghersh's appointment to the see of Lincoln, in place of Anthony Bek who had been elected in early Feb., was still a considerable coup.

²⁰³ BL, Cotton Mss, Nero. D.X, f. 110v; Maddicott, 255–6; Haines, The Church and Politics, 24. On 28 Feb. Edward II wrote to five cardinals indicating that the business of the mission was of special concern to him (nos specialiter tangencia): SC 1/32/78–82.

²⁰⁴ CPL, 1305–42, 445; Haines, The Church and Politics, 24.

²⁰⁵ Murimuth, 31; Haines, The Church and Politics, 24. One of the purposes of the mission to Avignon in 1322–3 by Rigaud d'Assier the bishop of Winchester and John Stratford was to secure papal absolution of the prelates and magnates from their oaths to uphold the Ordinances. No mention was made of his own oath, which strongly suggests that it had indeed been set aside in 1320: Foedera, II, i, 542–3; Haines, Stratford, 143; G.O. Sayles, ‘The formal judgements on the traitors of 1322’, Speculum, xvi (1941), 62–3.

²⁰⁶ CFR, 1319–27, 37–8; CPR, 1317–21, 514; Phillips, 198.

²⁰⁷ CFR, 1319–27, 23; PW, II, ii, 247; Phillips, 191, 198.

²⁰⁸ E 159/94, m.7; Phillips, 199.

²⁰⁹ CCR, 1318–23, 227; Phillips, 190. In a letter to Pembroke the king even offered to attend the next hearing in person: SC 1/49/48.

²¹⁰ For an account of this episode see Phillips, 193–4, 261–7. The basic reason seems to have been Berkeley's displeasure that Pembroke did not support him in a claim to a share in the lands of the earldom of Gloucester through his wife, Isabel de Clare, the half-sister of Gilbert de Clare who had died at Bannockburn.

²¹¹ Maurice's son Thomas married Mortimer's daughter Margaret in May 1319; Maurice and his retainers were already in Mortimer's own retinue in 1318 and joined him in the civil war of 1321–2: Phillips, 266–7.

²¹² For the details of his borrowings see Phillips, 194–7. Edward II gave Pembroke £2,500 in 1317; advanced 2,000 marks in payment of his future wages for military service in July 1319; and loaned him £2,000 in Oct. 1319.

²¹³ Phillips, 5–6, 190–1, 200–1. Beatrice was buried in the church of the Benedictine priory at Stratford-le-Bow in London.

²¹⁴ Ann. Paul., 290; Phillips, 198; Maddicott, 257. On 5 Oct. he was still at Pontefract: E 159/95, m.125.

²¹⁵ E 159/94, m.22; Phillips, 198. The pope's apparent annulment earlier in 1320 of Edward II's oath to uphold the Ordinances did not annul the Ordinances themselves: BL, Cotton Ms. Nero.D.X, f. 110v.

²¹⁶ Ann. Paul., 290; Trokelowe, 106; Phillips, 198. The nominal purpose of the mission was to deliver a papal bull to Lancaster.

²¹⁷ E 368/91, m.127; E 159/94, m.27; Phillips, 198–9.

²¹⁸ See M. Lawrence, ‘Rise of a royal favourite’, in The Reign of Edward II, ed. G. Dodd & A. Musson (Woodbridge, Suffolk & Rochester, NY, 2006), 205–19; the article by J.S. Hamilton in the Oxford DNB; and Fryde, ch. 3, ‘The rise of the Despensers’.

²¹⁹ The marriage was an acknowledgement of the value of the Elder Despenser's past service and of the Younger Despenser's suitability as a husband for Edward I's granddaughter, Eleanor de Clare, rather than an indication of the Younger Despenser's personal importance at the time. In June 1306 Edward I had paid £2,000 for the right to arrange the marriage: T.B. Pugh, ‘The marcher lords of Glamorgan and Morgannwg, 1317–1485’, in Glamorgan County History, iii, The Middle Ages, ed. T.B. Pugh (Cardiff, 1971), 168.

²²⁰ On his career see the article by J.S. Hamilton in the Oxford DNB; Fryde, ch. 3. Natalie Fryde is incorrect in stating (p. 36) that in the summons to a council at Northampton in July 1318 the two Despensers led the list of magnates below the rank of earl for the first time. In the list of magnates summoned to the York parliament of Sept. 1314 the Younger Despenser received a personal summons for the first time, appearing with his father immediately after Henry de Percy at the beginning of the list of barons summoned: RDP, iii, 241. They appeared at the head of the list of barons summoned to the Westminster parliament of Jan. 1315 (Percy had died in the meantime); again for the Lincoln parliament of Jan. 1316, for the proposed Lincoln parliament of Jan. 1318 (not held), and the York parliament of Oct. 1318: RDP, iii, 244, 253, 274, 288.

²²¹ ‘Rex antea nedum minime dilexit immo odivit’: Le Baker, 6. This refers to the period before Despenser's appointment as chamberlain, which is incorrectly given by this chronicler as occurring in 1313 and not in 1318. Le Baker was admittedly writing after 1341, many years after the event, and may have been wrong in his chronology while correct in his general view of Edward and Despenser.

²²² Natalie Fryde cites several instances between 1309 and 1312 of Eleanor obtaining financial and other favours from the king: Fryde, 31; 241, n. 16. Michael Prestwich has found several other examples, including in 1319–20 when medicines costing £5 12s 4d were bought ‘for the king and Eleanor le Despenser his niece, when ill’, and later gifts of caged goldfinches, of sugar to make sweets for her, and a sum of 100 marks: Prestwich, Plantagenet England, 214. During the period of Despenser's ascendancy after 1322 Eleanor appears to have been particularly close to her uncle Edward II. The Leicester chronicler, Henry Knighton, reported that while Isabella was absent in France during 1325–6, Eleanor was treated as if she were queen and spoke slanderously of Isabella, while a Hainault chronicler, who recorded events in England in the 1320s in great detail, even claimed that she was Edward II's mistress and that, after her husband was executed in 1326 she was kept under surveillance in case she might be pregnant by the king:Knighton, i, 434; Willelmi Capellani, ed. Pijnacker Hordijk, 177. Despenser's influence over Edward II may therefore have had a sexual element to it but not of the kind often assumed in the case of other favourites such as Gaveston.

²²³ CIPM, v, 351–2; Altschul, Baronial Family, 166.

²²⁴ See ch. 6 of this book and PROME, Parliament of Jan. 1316, SC 9/20, item 5.

²²⁵ Gesta Edwardi, 54–5; Phillips, 155–6; Maddicott, 216.

²²⁶ Lancaster was no doubt aware of the contracts for military service that the Younger Despenser and others had been making with the king.

²²⁷ See D. Renn, Caerphilly Castle (Cardiff, 1997).

²²⁸ Altschul, Baronial Family, 170; Pugh, Marcher Lords, 167–9.

²²⁹ CCR, 1313–18, 531–2; Pugh, ‘marcher lords’, 169.

²³⁰ Pugh, ‘marcher lords’, 169–70. The exchange was finally confirmed in May 1320: CPR, 1317–21, 60, 103, 415, 456.

²³¹ Pugh, ‘marcher lords’, 168. For a map of the lordships and other territorial divisions of South Wales see Pugh, 705; Davies, Conquest, 393.

²³² SC 1/37/6 (printed in Calendar … concerning Wales, 184); Pugh, ‘marcher lords’, 170.

²³³ CFR, 1307–19, 394; Phillips, 199. In Sept. 1320 Iweyn was also appointed as Despenser's constable of Newport, the administrative centre of Gwynllwg: E 163/21/7/1; E 163/4/9. On the use made by both Despensers of clients such as Iweyn and John Inge to advance their ambitions see S. L. Waugh, ‘For king, country and patron’, Journal of British Studies, xxii (1983), esp. 27–32.

²³⁴ Vita, 184–5, and n. 376.

²³⁵ Altschul, Baronial Family, 170–1. Tewkesbury was a particularly significant acquisition since the abbey held the tombs of the earls of Gloucester: R. Morris, ‘Tewkesbury abbey’, Trans. Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Soc., xciii (Gloucester, 1974), 142–55; M. Lawrence, ‘Secular patronage and religious devotion’, in Fourteenth Century England, v, ed. N. Saul (Woodbridge, Suffolk & Rochester, NY, 2008), 78–93.

²³⁶ His rival Hugh Audley had already tried unsuccessfully in 1318–19 to gain the earldom of Cornwall.

²³⁷ CCR, 1318–23, 268. For details of the Gower dispute and its connection with the Despenser war of 1321 see Pugh, ‘marcher lords’, 170, 604; and J.C. Davies, ‘The Despenser war in Glamorgan’, TRHS, 3rd ser., ix (1915), 21–64, esp. 33–42. The events in Gower were seen as especially important by the author of the Vita Edwardi Secundi, who wrote a long account of them: Vita, 182–5.

²³⁸ CPR, 1317–21, 547; CFR, 1319–27, 41, 43; Pugh, ‘marcher lords’, 170. On 20 Nov. the Elder Despenser and Bartholomew de Badlesmere were ordered to inquire into the resistance: CPR, 1317–21, 547.

²³⁹ The earl of Hereford had a special grievance over Gower since William de Braose had assigned Gower to Mowbray and his wife, with reversion to Hereford. The king had apparently agreed to this: Ann. Paul., 293; Davies, ‘Despenser war’, 36–7.

²⁴⁰ Vita, 186–7. Clifford, the son of the Robert de Clifford killed at Bannockburn, was not a marcher lord but had a grievance over Despenser's interference in an inheritance claimed by his mother: Davies, ‘Despenser war’, 43.

²⁴¹ See Maddicott, 262.

²⁴² See Phillips, 200–1, 209–10.

²⁴³ Vita, 186–7 and n. 382.

²⁴⁴ See above, Ch. 4 of this book and Hamilton, 38, 139–40; Chaplais, 99–104.

²⁴⁵ Le Baker, 11; Murimuth, 33; Historia Anglicana, 159; SR, i, 182; Brut, 212; Anonimalle, 92–3; Melsa, 337–8; Ann. Paul., 292; Maddicott, 261. Murimuth, for example, claimed that if any of the magnates was allowed to talk to the king, Despenser would listen to the conversation and reply freely on his account. These are all generalized comments, but the newly consecrated bishop of Rochester, Hamo Hethe, recorded that in Dec. 1319 he had to pay the Younger Despenser, in his capacity as chamberlain, a fee of £10 for the restitution of his temporalities, which he rightly regarded as extortion: Anglia Sacra, ed. H. Wharton, i (London, 1691), 360–1; Maddicott, 262–3. This story comes from the Historia Roffensis, BL, Cotton Ms. Faustina B.V, an important source for the events of the closing years of the reign of Edward II. Hamo Hethe's experience was minor: much worse was to come.

²⁴⁶ SC 1/49/143; Calender … concerning Wales, 219–20.

²⁴⁷ CPR, 1317–21, 60, 103, 120–1; Pugh, ‘marcher lords’, 169; Davies, ‘Despenser war’, 29–30.

²⁴⁸ Ann. Paul., 37; Davies, ‘Despenser war’, 36–7.

²⁴⁹ Anonimalle, 92–3.

²⁵⁰ CPR, 1317–21, 531; Phillips, 199–200. The surrender and re-grant took place on the occasion of Joan's marriage to Gilbert. The confirmation in 1320 would also have had the effect of ruling out once and for all any possible claim by Maurice de Berkeley and Isabel de Clare: Phillips, 263–4.

²⁵¹ E 159/94, mm.7, 39d; C 81/113/5509; Phillips, 199. The respite of payment of his debts on 26 Dec. repeated an earlier order on 20 Sept., but it appears that the amount pardoned was now to be only 1,000 marks: CPR, 1317–21, 519.

²⁵² Vita, 184–5; Davies, ‘Despenser war’, 38–9. In addition to his personal interest in Gower, the earl of Hereford was well aware of an earlier occasion when the crown had broken the custom of the March, Edward I's intervention in 1290 in a dispute in the lordship of Brecon between the earl of Hereford's father and Gilbert de Clare earl of Gloucester: Prestwich, Plantagenet England, 136. A further cause for Hereford's hatred of Despenser was the latter's execution in 1318 of Llywelyn Bren, the Glamorgan rebel of 1316, who had been promised safety when he surrendered by both the Mortimers and Hereford. One outcome was that in 1321–2 Llywelyn's seven sons fought for the lord of Brecon: R.R. Davies, Lordship and Society in the March of Wales, 1282–1400 (Oxford, 1978), 290–1.

²⁵³ Barrow, 314 (Professor Barrow's translation). The Latin text of this undated letter can be found in Liber Epistolaris of Richard of Bury, ed. N. Denholm-Young, 325–5, no. 463; and in Regesta Regum Scottorum, 698–9. no. 569.

²⁵⁴ The Declaration of Arbroath was delivered at Avignon by Scottish envoys in June 1320: Barrow, 303–11. For the text of the Declaration see A.A.M. Duncan, The Nation of Scots and the Declaration of Arbroath (London, 1970); or Bruce, 779–82. In its appeal to mythical history the Declaration bears some resemblance to the Irish Remonstance of 1317: Phillips, ‘Irish remonstrance of 1317’, 121–4.

²⁵⁵ Regesta Regum Scottorum, no. 569.

²⁵⁶ Within months the Declaration of Arbroath was followed by the conspiracy against Bruce of William de Soules, which was supported by several of those who had put their seals to the Declaration, and indicated the continuing recognition in Scotland of the Balliol family's claim to the throne: Barrow, 309–10.

²⁵⁷ Ibid., 305–6.

²⁵⁸ Foedera, II, i, 390; Haines, The Church and Politics, 22.

²⁵⁹ Liber Epistolaris of Richard of Bury, ed. N. Denholm-Young, 96, no. 209 (before March 1320). The pope's request for letters of safe conduct through England to be issued for Bruce and the bishop of St Andrews was discussed inconclusively by the council in London in April 1320: Letters from Northern Registers, 296–8, 302–3. The pope wished to give the impression that the idea of summoning Bruce had come from Edward II and his council, which was not acceptable: Haines, The Church and Politics, 22–3.

²⁶⁰ The Declaration and a copy of Bruce's letter to Edward II probably arrived at Avignon in late June: Barrow, 304–5.

²⁶¹ Ibid.

²⁶² BL, Add. Ms. 17352, f. 13; Foedera, II, i, 392. Edward was especially concerned that the bulls should be published in the county of Flanders, which was nominally under the suzerainty of the French crown and was also the home of John Crabbe and other Flemings in the service of the Scots. Edward also wrote to his nephew, John duke of Brabant, asking him not to receive the Scots in his territory. The bulls had been brought to England in Feb. 1320 by the bishop of Hereford: Haines, The Church and Politics, 22.

²⁶³ The French representatives, who were already in England in early Oct. 1320, were Bertrand Boniface, John lord of Varens, and William bishop of Mende: SC 1/45/197; Foedera, II, i, 435, 442, 450.

²⁶⁴ Foedera, II, i, 431–2. The pope also made a point of telling Edward of the involvement of Odard de Maubuisson in these talks.

²⁶⁵ The papal envoy was to be William de Laudun, OP, archbishop of Vienne, who arrived in England in Feb. 1321: SC 1/45/197; BL, Add. Ms. 9951, f. 21.

²⁶⁶ On 6 Oct. Edward wrote to Philip V to report the arrival of his envoys but argued that it was not opportune for them to go to Scotland just yet: Foedera, II, i, 435.

²⁶⁷ BL, Add. Ms. 9951, f. 10; Phillips, 203. The messengers included two of Pembroke's retainers, Sir John Darcy, sheriff of Northumberland (not Nottingham as in Phillips, 203) and Percival Simeon; and Sir Andrew Harclay the keeper of Carlisle.

²⁶⁸ BL, Add. Ms. 9951, f. 6v; CPR, 1317–21, 504, 554; Foedera, II, i, 441; Phillips, 203.

²⁶⁹ Foedera, II, i, 441; Maddicott, 232–3. Nicholas de Segrave had been Lancaster's representative at parliament in Oct. 1320: Maddicott, 257.

²⁷⁰ This may explain the mission of the bishops of London and Winchester to Lancaster in Nov. 1320: Ann. Paul., 290; Trokelowe, 106; Phillips, 198.

²⁷¹ The actual negotiators on the English side who can be identified from the surviving correspondence between them and the king were the bishops of Worcester and Carlisle, the earl of Richmond, Bartholomew de Badlesmere, Robert Baldock, and William Airmyn. There is nothing to suggest that Lancaster's representatives were in any way involved.

²⁷² SC 1/45/197; Phillips, 203. On 19 Feb. renewed safe conducts were issued at Roxburgh in the names of all the English envoys, including the absent earls of Pembroke and Hereford: C 47/22/12/31. On 17 and 19 Feb. Edward wrote to his negotiators that the French and papal envoys were in London and would soon be arriving in the north; both sets of envoys were given safe conducts to go to the north on 11 & 16 Feb.: SC 1/45/197, 198 (printed in Anglo-Scottish Relations, 1174–1328, ed. E.L.G. Stones (Oxford, 1970), 46–7); Foedera, II, i, 442. There is nothing however to suggest that the French and papal envoys played any direct part in the negotiations. On 14 May Edward wrote to the pope explaining that the papal letters addressed to Robert Bruce and carried by the papal envoys were not shown to the Scots because of certain words they contained, i.e. describing Bruce as king, which were not acceptable to the English: Foedera, II, i, 450.

²⁷³ SC 1/32/87; SC 1/45, 200, 201.

²⁷⁴ SC 1/32/87; E 159/93, m.77 (Anglo-Scottish Relations, ed. Stones 149). These were the records copied by Andrew de Tange between 1315 and 1318: Edward I and the Throne of Scotland, ed. Stones & Simpson, i, 45–7, 81–2; ii, 378–80.

²⁷⁵ ‘Et des Escotz avons oi moltz des paroles qil ont dit, qil desiront la pees sur tote rien, mes en fait mostront il rien qui touché a la pees eintz la contraire’: report of the envoys on 8 April: SC 1/21/164 (Anglo-Scottish Relations, ed. Stones, 152); Barrow, 241. It appears that by this stage Edward II's initial preference for a truce had changed to one for a peace treaty, presumably as a way of reducing the number of his enemies.

²⁷⁶ E 159/93, m.77 (Anglo-Scottish Relations, ed. Stones, 152).

²⁷⁷ Because of the failure to make peace by the deadline of 29 Sep. 1321, on 25 Aug. orders were given to destroy Harbottle castle in Northumberland, under the terms of the truce of Dec. 1319: CPR, 1321–24, 21.

²⁷⁸ C 81/113/5551; CPR, 1317–21, 562; Williams, Medieval London, 286–7, 290–9; Phillips, 201.

²⁷⁹ For example, on 27 Feb. Baldock wrote separate letters to Edward and Despenser, which they received at Windsor: SC 1/35/8; C 81/114/5602. Despenser also received and replied to letters from Inge on 6 and 21 March: SC 1/58/10 (printed in Calendar … concerning Wales, 259–60); BL, Cotton Ms. Nero C. III, f. 181 (published by W.H. Stevenson as ‘A letter of the Younger Despenser on the eve of the barons' rebellion, 21 March 1321’, EHR, xii (1897), 755–61); Phillips, 201.

²⁸⁰ SC 1/49/143 (printed in Calendar … concerning Wales, 219–20). Despenser wrote to Inge again on 16 Feb.: SC 1/49/144 (Calendar … 220–1). A file exists of 20 letters under the privy and secret seals from Edward II to William de Aune and covering the period 14 Sep. 1320 to 11 March 1322. Edward regularly asked Aune for news of local events, but Aune's replies have not survived: Maddicott, 264, 306: the copies of these letters are preserved in Sheffield City Library, Jackson Collection, Ms. 1086.

²⁸¹ SC 1/35/8; SC 1/58/10 (Calendar … concerning Wales, 259–60); Phillips, 201.

²⁸² SC 1/35/8; C 81/114/5602.

²⁸³ CCR, 1318–23, 355; Phillips, 201.

²⁸⁴ Maddicott, 262–3. Although Mowbray, for example, had a close interest in the fate of Gower, his principal land holdings were in Lincolnshire, at Axholme. The earl of Surrey was virtually at the command of Lancaster since the enforced surrender of his Yorkshire and Welsh lands in 1318–19. Arundel was Surrey's brother-in-law and heir and might have been influenced by his behaviour. Henry de Beaumont's inclusion is strange since he had been loyal personally to Edward II and Isabella and hostile to Lancaster. The names look as if they were an invitation list drawn up by Lancaster of men who were already his allies or who might be induced to join him through hatred of Despenser.

²⁸⁵ On 22 Feb. Edward wrote to William de Aune, asking him to keep a close watch over what happened at Pontefract and to let him know if Hereford was there: Maddicott, 264; Sheffield City Library, Jackson Collection, Ms. 1086, no. 5.

²⁸⁶ The king received news of this gathering and the intention to attack Despenser in a letter sent by Robert Baldock from Newcastle on 27 Feb. Baldock mentioned that he had spoken to Sir John Clavering, a Lancastrian retainer and one of those forbidden on 30 Jan. to attend assemblies, who was probably therefore a source of information on Lancaster's plans: SC 1/35/8; C 81/114/5602; Phillips, 201; Maddicott, 264. William de Aune probably also provided information from Tickhill, which was quite close to Pontefract.

²⁸⁷ It is possible that Lancaster was also intriguing with the Scots, who might then choose to intervene directly in England in the event of trouble between the king and the magnates.

²⁸⁸ SC 1/58/10 (Calendar … concerning Wales, 259–60); Phillips, 201; Maddicott, 264–5.

²⁸⁹ CCW, 519; Phillips, 201; Maddicott, 265.

²⁹⁰ ‘De ce que vous avez entendu que le counte de Herford est mornes et pensifs plus qu'il ne le soleit, nest mye mervaille s'il est, qar il se ad si portez en contenances devers son lige seignour, q[ui] mult de biens et de honurs luy ad fait, qu'il en deit bien avoir grant pensee’: BL, Cotton Ms. Nero C. III, f. 181, printed in Stevenson, ‘A letter’ 755–61. Despenser also reported that Hugh Audley was threatening his men at Thornbury in Gloucestershire but was not strong enough to do anything.

²⁹¹ I. Mortimer, The Greatest Traitor (London, 2003), 98, 100–1.

²⁹² CCR, 1318–23, 360; CPR, 1317–21, 558; Phillips, 201. Gorges soon became caught up in the attack on the Despensers and never took up office in Ireland.

²⁹³ CCR, 1318–23, 290; Phillips, 201.

²⁹⁴ E 101/378/10, mm.6, 7; Phillips, 201–2; Maddicott, 264. The king's intention to gather an armed force around him is clearly indicated in a letter to the chancellor and treasurer of 6 March: CCW, 518.

²⁹⁵ Vita, 188–9; CPR, 1317–21, 575. The text of Audley's contract is given in full on the original Patent Roll (C 66/154, m.17) and states clearly that if Audley did not observe its terms his lands would be forfeited to the crown. This was the first occasion on which a magnate suffered because of a contract with the king. Badlesmere and Pembroke were both to suffer for the same reason in 1322.

²⁹⁶ CCR, 1318–23, 363–4; Phillips, 204; Maddicott, 265. The others included Roger Damory, John Hastings, John Giffard, John Charlton, and Thomas and Maurice de Berkeley. Despenser himself was also summoned to attend.

²⁹⁷ CCR, 1318–23, 364; Phillips, 204; Maddicott, 265–6.

²⁹⁸ Vita, 186–7.

²⁹⁹ CCR, 1318–23, 367–8; Phillips, 204; Maddicott, 266.

³⁰⁰ C 53/107, m.2; Phillips, 204.

³⁰¹ Foedera, II, i, 446. On 8 Feb., while Pembroke was still in France, Edward had attended a mass celebrated in the conventual church at Stratford, London, for the soul of Pembroke's late wife, Beatrice. On 14 Sept. 1320 Edward had placed five silk cloths on her body while it was awaiting burial: BL, Add. Ms. 9951, ff. 2v, 45v; Phillips, 190–1.

³⁰² BL, Add. Ms. 9951, f. 36; Phillips, 205. The letter has not survived.

³⁰³ Murimuth, 33; Phillips, 205; Maddicott, 267. Murimuth's opinion was cited by several other chroniclers: Phillips, 204–5, n. 6.

³⁰⁴ Phillips, 206. He was at Boulogne by 2 June: C 81/1750/21; C 66/154, m.4; CPR, 1317–21, 589–91, 596.

³⁰⁵ CCR, 1318–23, 366.

³⁰⁶ Foedera, II, i, 447–8; CCR, 1318–23, 369.

³⁰⁷ CCR, 1318–23, 367–8. Edward was now at Wallingford, having left Gloucester to return to Westminster on about 12 April.

³⁰⁸ Flores, 344–5; BL, Add. Ms. 9951, f. 7v; Phillips, 205; Davies, ‘Despenser war’, 53–4. An undated letter of about this time and probably addressed to the Younger Despenser by John Inge suggests that Despenser's castles in Glamorgan were less well prepared against attack than he had intended: SC 1/63/185. Apart from Hereford and the Mortimers, the marcher lords who took part in the attacks can be identified as Hugh Audley the Younger and his father, John de Mowbray, Roger de Clifford, John Giffard, Maurice de Berkeley, and others: Davies, ‘Despenser war’, 53.

³⁰⁹ CCR, 1318–23, 541–2; Davies, ‘Despenser war’, 57; Pugh, ‘marcher lords’, 170–1. Details of the campaign against the Despensers and of the destruction caused can be found in CCR, 1318–23, 541–3; and in PROME, Parliament of 1397, C 65/58, items 56–61. This material forms part of the petition of Hugh Despenser the Younger in Nov. 1321, asking for the annulment of the process against him in July 1321 (CCR, 1318–23, 544–6). The petition was recited in the course of the annulment of the processes against the Despensers at the time of the creation of Thomas, lord Despenser, as earl of Gloucester in Sept. 1397.

³¹⁰ Davies, ‘Despenser war’, 56; Pugh, ‘marcher lords’, 171.

³¹¹ Bod., Laud Misc. Ms. 529, f. 106 (this source is closely related to Murimuth but has much local information on the Welsh March); Univ. of Chicago Ms. 224, f. 55v (chronicle of Wigmore abbey); Phillips, 205. Arundel had made his allegiances clear when his son married Despenser's daughter on 9 Feb.: BL, Add. Ms. 9951, f. 45v.

³¹² On 25 May a message from Hereford, the Mortimers and others was delivered to the mayor of Bristol by a friar, Brother Maurice de Pencoyt. The mayor immediately informed Edward and promised his loyalty and that of his town: SC 1/33/58, 59; Foedera, II, i, 459. The magnates probably hoped that the earlier dispute between the king and Bristol could be turned to their advantage.

³¹³ Vita, 190–1. The Elder Despenser's manor of La Fasterne in Wiltshire, for example, was attacked on 11 June, and other manors at about the same time: CCR, 1318–23, 541–3; PROME, Parliament of 1397, C 65/58, item 59. The estimated cost of the damage inflicted was £38,000: Davies, ‘Despenser war’, 56. See also S.L. Waugh, ‘The profits of violence’, Speculum, lii (1977), 848.

³¹⁴ See Maddicott, 267. Some of Lancaster's retainers were later pardoned for their role in the attacks, while the prisoners taken were sent to Lancaster for safekeeping.

³¹⁵ Gesta Edwardi, 61–2; Phillips, 205, 207; Maddicott, 269; B. Wilkinson, ‘The Sherburn indenture and the attack on the Despensers, 1321’, EHR, lxiii (1948), 6–7. A proposal for a further meeting to be attended by the northern bishops and other magnates was also agreed to: Wilkinson, 20.

³¹⁶ Gesta Edwardi, 62; Flores, 197; Phillips, 206–7; Maddicott, 274–5. The most detailed discussions of the Sherburn meeting and its significance are those in Wilkinson, ‘The Sherburn indenture’, 1–28, and Maddicott, 268–78.

³¹⁷ Wilkinson, ‘The Sherburn indenture’, Appendix II, 19–21, citing Christ Church, Canterbury, Register I (Wilkinson's Ms. A); Maddicott, 276–7. The Latin version of the articles which is recorded in Gesta Edwardi, 62–4, gives Bek's name as the presenter. Maddicott suggests that the document was prepared in advance by Lancaster.

³¹⁸ Despenser's acquisitions of Gower and Gwynllwg were probably among the cases in mind.

³¹⁹ For example, John Inge, one of the Younger Despenser's men, appears to have influenced an inquest held at Exeter in March 1321 which allowed Herbert de Marisco to regain possession of the island of Lundy in the Bristol Channel. In 1322 Despenser acquired the island in his turn: Stevenson, ‘A letter’, 760.

³²⁰ The eyre, supposedly held to inquire into illegal confederacies, became an inquiry into the franchises of the city of London. On 20 Feb. 1321 the city was taken into royal hands and Robert de Kendale appointed as keeper. It is likely that the eyre was the brainchild of the Younger Despenser but, far from removing possible sources of opposition within London, it had the effect of turning the city against both Edward and Despenser. The consequences were to be very significant in 1326–7 after the invasion of Isabella and Mortimer: CPR, 1317–21, 562; Williams, Medieval London, 286–7, 290–9.

³²¹ However, as G.O. Sayles remarked, as far as the King's Bench is concerned, there is no evidence to support Tout's claim that Despenser had packed the courts with his dependants before 1321: Select Cases in the Court of King's Bench under Edward II, ed. G.O. Sayles, iv, Selden Soci., lxxiv (London, 1957), xiii, n. 13; Tout, Place of the Reign, 130.

³²² The issue of the staple had been discussed in 1319 at two assemblies of merchants summoned by the king. It was considered whether to move the staple from Saint-Omer, in territory obedient to the French crown, where it had been established since 1314, to Bruges in the county of Flanders, which was hostile to France. Bruges would have suited the interests of the merchants better than Saint-Omer, but the interests of good relations between England and France won the day and the staple remained where it was. An alternative suggestion was for the creation of a staple town or towns in England itself. But opinion among the merchants was apparently divided and no general resolution was reached. It was clearly still a live issue in 1321: Tout, Place of the Reign, 226–33.

³²³ The other Marchers are named as Hugh Audley the Elder and the Younger, Roger Damory, John de Mowbray, Maurice de Berkeley, Roger de Clifford, Henry le Tyeys, John Giffard, Thomas Mauduit, Gilbert Talbot, and ‘others of the March’.

³²⁴ Significantly these did not include any of the prelates.

³²⁵ ‘Et semblait a tous’, i.e. to those named, but, again significantly, not to all present.

³²⁶ These arguments are very like those put forward in the famous ‘Homage et serment’ document first composed in 1308 to justify opposition to Gaveston while not opposing the monarchy as such. Since this document was about to make a spectacular reappearance, it is likely that it was very much in the minds of the magnates in 1321.

³²⁷ Tout, Place of the Reign, 128–9; Davies, Baronial Opposition, 478–9; Phillips, 206.

³²⁸ Wilkinson, ‘The Sherburn indenture’, 4, 6; Phillips, 206. No original of the indenture has survived. Its text is known principally from two fourteenth-century copies, one in Canterbury, Register I (Wikinson's Ms. A) and the other in Lambeth Ms. 1213, f. 285 (Wilkinson's Ms. B). The Canterbury version is published with variants from the Lambeth text in Wilkinson, App. III, 21–2. There are also two sixteenth-century summaries derived from the Lambeth version: Wilkinson, 1–2, 22.

³²⁹ DL 41/1/37, m.7; Phillips, 207; Maddicott, 273–4. The names of those who sealed it are not given.

³³⁰ Phillips, 207; Maddicott, 275–6. The names of those who appear are given in Wilkinson, ‘The Sherburn indenture’ 28.

³³¹ Gesta Edwardi, 64.

³³² These included Robert de Umfraville the exiled Scottish earl of Angus, Robert de Holland, Fulk Lestrange and John d'Eure: Phillips, 207. For the full list see Maddicott, 274, where 27 people are named.

³³³ Trivet (Cont.), 23; Vita, 140–1; Phillips, 125; Maddicott, 208.

³³⁴ PROME, Parliament of Oct. 1318, SC 9/21, items 6, 42; Documents, ed. Cole, 3, 9.

³³⁵ PROME, Parliament of May 1319, SC 9/22, item 3 Documents, ed. Cole, 48.

³³⁶ This summary of the treatise is in the words of Dr Maddicott: Maddicott, 242–3. For the Latin text and a translation of the treatise see L.W. Vernon Harcourt, His Grace the Steward and the Trial of Peers (London, 1907), 164–7, 148–51.

³³⁷ Maddicott, 242.

³³⁸ Maddicott, 242, n. 3; Ann. Paul., 293, which refers to ‘quidam tractatus ex antiqua consuetudine ordinatus et approbatus’. Dr Maddicott speculates that the treatise could also have been the Modus tenendi Parliamentum or ‘some other document’.

³³⁹ CCR, 1318–23, 492–4; PROME, Parliament of 1321, SC 9/24, item 2. The possibility of the steward acting in association with the constable, which is included in the treatise on the steward, might be held to cover the situation in 1321 when the earl of Hereford was the constable; but one would expect some mention of this in the articles against the Despensers.

³⁴⁰ These are Canterbury, Register I, f. 376, et seq., and Lambeth Ms. 1213, ff. 285–93, which are also the source of the two texts of the Sherburn indenture. For the details of the documents contained in the two manuscripts see Wilkinson, ‘The Sherburn indenture’, 19. The famous treatise on the holding of parliament, the Modus tenendi Parliamentum, which some writers believe is connected with the events of 1321 and specifically with the earl of Lancaster, is also conspicuous by its absence: cf. Maddicott, 289–92.

³⁴¹ I have radically altered the views on the treatise on the steward which I expressed in my Introduction to the 1321 parliament in PROME.

³⁴² The articles were presumably therefore composed at the assembly and not in advance by Lancaster: cf. Maddicott, 270.

³⁴³ Maddicott, 242–4. It is possible that this role was a last-minute addition to the treatise to reflect the earl of Hereford's recent change of sides.

³⁴⁴ However, Michael Prestwich has suggested that the copy of the Sherburn indenture with 25 seals in Lancaster's archive was probably the half sealed by the marcher lords, who would have retained the other half sealed by Lancaster's men: Prestwich, ‘The charges against the Despensers, 1321’, BIHR, lviii (1985), 96, n. 9. Cf. Maddicott, 276, where it is noted that the Lambeth version of the indenture implies that the Marchers did seal it. This also implies that far more than 25 persons sealed the indenture and that my suggestion of a link with the committee of 25 is probably a red herring.

³⁴⁵ All but three of the northerners who had been at Pontefract were also at Sherburn: Maddicott, 274, where the names of the northerners are given.

³⁴⁶ Wilkinson, ‘The Sherburn indenture’, 4; Phillips, 207; Maddicott, 268, 273–5.

³⁴⁷ The consequences of Lancaster's lack of support in the north were to become all too evident in the early months of 1322 when a northern army, led by Andrew de Harclay of Carlisle, was to bring about his downfall at Boroughbridge.

³⁴⁸ CCR, 1318–23, 367–8; PW, II, ii, 159. This was the meeting to which Edward also summoned the Marchers, who did not of course attend. The government was so preoccupied with the situation in England that when the bishop of Hereford returned from Gascony in mid-April he was unable for several weeks to obtain answers to urgent questions sent by the seneschal: SC 1/54/139; BL, Add. Ms. 9951, f. 9v; Phillips, 205–6.

³⁴⁹ Vita, 190–1.

³⁵⁰ PW, II, ii, 234–43.

³⁵¹ C 81/134/7572; CCW, 586. He was supposed to be accompanied by Robert Baldock and the earl of Pembroke. On 8 June the king also sent secret instructions, probably concerning Despenser, to the keepers of the Great Seal, with orders that they were not to be enrolled until after the coming parliament: CCW, 521.

³⁵² Haines, The Church and Politics, 137–8, 153 n. 95, 188 n. 51.

³⁵³ Trinity College Cambridge Ms. R.5.41, f. 114v; Phillips, 206.

³⁵⁴ Trinity College Cambridge Ms. R.5.41, f. 114v. Pembroke had crossed to Boulogne by 2 June and reached Paris by the 22nd: Phillips, 206.

³⁵⁵ This probably explains why Edward was at Dover between 17 and 23 June, and why he appointed his half-brother, Edmund of Woodstock, as constable of Dover on 16 June: CFR, 1319–27, 62; Phillips, 207–8.

³⁵⁶ Vita, 196–7, and note 402. In 1336 Edward III paid 8,000 marks' compensation for this attack to the Genoese: Phillips, ‘“Edward II” in Italy’, 221–2. There is no obvious motive for this attack, but one possibility is that Despenser had a grievance against Antonio Pessagno, the Genoese merchant and banker who had left English service in 1320, and may have seen this as a good way of punishing him.

³⁵⁷ Trinity College Cambridge Ms. R.5.41, f. 114; BL, Cotton Ms. Nero D.X, f. 111; Phillips, 208; Maddicott, 272–3.

³⁵⁸ Flores, 199; Maddicott, 293.

³⁵⁹ Vita, 198–9; Phillips, 208; Maddicott, 264, 272–3. When Badlesmere was in the north to negotiate with the Scots in Feb. 1321 he was warned that ambushes were being set for him, most likely by Lancaster: SC 1/35/8; C 81/114/5602.

³⁶⁰ Badlesmere's success in getting his nephew appointed as bishop of Lincoln evidently did not satisfy his own ambitions.

³⁶¹ Trinity College Cambridge Ms. R.5.41, f. 114; ‘A Rochester account concerning disputes during the parliament of 1321’, in Parliamentary Texts of the Later Middle Ages, ed. N. Pronay & J. Taylor (Oxford, 1980), 163, 168, from the Historia Roffensis, BL, Cotton Ms., Faustina B.V., f. 36. Edmund was not created earl until 28 July, after the beginning of parliament, and perhaps as a way of adding one more earl to the king's side of the equation. But it is likely that his promotion was being discussed earlier, perhaps at the Westminster council in May. The future status of Edmund, who was born in 1301, had been under consideration since Aug. 1320 when he came to Langley to discuss his marriage with the king and the earl of Pembroke. He was first summoned to parliament in Oct. 1320: SC 1/49/49; Phillips, 190–1; Maddicott, 294.

³⁶² CFR, 1319–27, 62; Phillips, 207–8; Maddicott, 293.

³⁶³ C 53/107, m.1; Phillips, 207–8; Maddicott 293 (who gives 14 June).

³⁶⁴ DL 27/LS 93; BL, Egerton Roll 8724, m.5; BL, Harleian Ms. 1240, f. 113v (the last two are records of Mortimer charters); Phillips, 208.

³⁶⁵ Flores, 197; Ann. Paul., 293; Phillips, 208–9. In the meantime some of Lancaster's retainers, led by Robert de Holland, attacked Despenser's lands in Leicestershire: Maddicott, 279.

³⁶⁶ Ann. Paul., 293; Trokelowe, 109; BL, Cotton Ms. Nero D. X, f. 111; Phillips, 209; Maddicott, 279.

³⁶⁷ Ann. Paul., 293–4; Phillips, 209.

³⁶⁸ Williams, Medieval London, 287–8.

³⁶⁹ Ann. Paul., 295–6; Williams, Medieval London, 288.

³⁷⁰ Their supporters wore ‘green tunics, of which a quarter part of the right arm was saffron coloured’: ‘A Rochester account’, in Parliamentary Texts, 161, 165–6. Cf. Trokelowe, 109. The significance of this choice of uniform is not clear.

³⁷¹ Ann. Paul., 293–4; Phillips, 209.

³⁷² Ann. Paul., 294–6; Vita, 190–3; Phillips, 209; Maddicott, 279–80.

³⁷³ SC 1/49/50; Phillips, 209. Pembroke had probably just come from Dover via his manors in Kent. His new wife, Marie de St Pol, reached Westminster on 8 Aug.: Ann. Paul., 292.

³⁷⁴ ‘In partem suam licet involuntarie attraxerunt’: BL, Cotton Ms., Nero D.X., f. 111; Phillips, 209–10.

³⁷⁵ Vita, 192–3.

³⁷⁶ Vita, 192–3; Melsa, 338; Phillips, 210; Maddicott, 280.

³⁷⁷ BL, Cotton Ms., Faustina B.V., f. 35v. For the text and a translation of the Historia Roffensis account see ‘A Rochester account’, in Parliamentary Texts, 155–73. For a discussion of the Historia Roffensis see Parliamentary Texts, 155–9; and Maddicott, 280–2; and for the career of Hamo de Hethe (Hythe) see the article by M.C. Buck in theOxford DNB. Although Hamo's election as bishop in 1317 had been hotly contested by Giovanni di Puzzuoli, Isabella's chaplain, for whom the pope had reserved the see, Hamo was sympathetic to Edward II in the crises of 1321 and at the end of the reign.

³⁷⁸ Parliamentary Texts, 164, 168.

³⁷⁹ Ibid., 162, 166.

³⁸⁰ Ibid., 162–3, 166–8.

³⁸¹ Gesta Edwardi, 65–9.

³⁸² Durham, Dean & Chapter Muniments, Locellus I, no. 61, published in Prestwich, ‘Charges’.

³⁸³ Canterbury, Register I, f. 376, et seq. (Wilkinson's Ms. A) published in Wilkinson, ‘The Sherburn indenture’, App. V, 23–7; Lambeth Ms. 1213, ff. 286–90 (Wilkinson's Ms. B), text compared with that in Canterbury in Wilkinson, App. V.

³⁸⁴ PROME, Parliament of July 1321, SC 9/24, item 2.

³⁸⁵ CCR, 1318–23, 492–4; SR, i, 181–4.

³⁸⁶ The St Albans chronicler, John Trokelowe, states that an initial set of articles against the Despensers was composed at Sherburn: Trokelowe, 107–8. The Durham text, which is the shortest of the texts, may as Prestwich, ‘Charges' 95–6, suggests, be a copy of the earliest version.

³⁸⁷ Maddicott, 283–4; Prestwich, ‘Charges’, 97. This prompts the further reflection that the famous additional fourth clause in Edward II's coronation oath of 1308 was, as argued in ch. 4 of this book, not intended to be revolutionary, since it assumed that the king would assent to future legislation not that he could be forced to accept it.

³⁸⁸ Maddicott, 283–4.

³⁸⁹ Prestwich, ‘Charges’, 97, who notes that the Canterbury and Bridlington texts both refer to a statute being made en ceo parlement. On the other hand, while a statute could only be made in parliament, the need for one could have been signalled in advance.

³⁹⁰ Maddicott, 284; Prestwich, ‘Charges’, 97.

³⁹¹ PROME, Parliament of July 1321, SC 9/24, item 2; CCR, 1318–23, 492–4. There is however considerable confusion on this matter, not helped by the fact that the text printed by the nineteenth-century editors of the Statutes of the Realm (SR, i, 181–4) relied on the Close Roll. The Vita Edwardi Secundi claims that a statute was enacted against the Despensers, while the Historia Roffensis speaks ambiguously about both an award and a statute, and the 1327 Parliament Roll records that the Despensers' exile had been brought about by statute in parliament. However, the contemporary official record in 1321 refers clearly to an award, while the magnates' petition in 1321 for pardon for their attack on the Despensers states specifically that the Despensers' misdeeds could not have been punished by process of law: Vita, 194–5; Parliamentary Texts, 164, 168; PROME, Parliament of 1327, C 65/1, item 1; PROME, Parliament of 1321, SC 9/24, item 3; CCR, 1318–23, 495; Wilkinson, ‘The Sherburn indenture’, 16; Maddicott, 283–4.

³⁹² Maddicott, 285–6. It might be added that the conviction of the Despensers by award provided a precedent for the trial and execution of the earl of Lancaster only a few months later in 1322 and of Roger Mortimer of Wigmore in 1330.

³⁹³ Prestwich, ‘Charges’, 99.

³⁹⁴ The original declaration was drawn up in 1308 not far from Sherburn at Pontefract, then one of the castles belonging to the earl of Lincoln and now in the hands of his son-in-law and successor Thomas of Lancaster.

³⁹⁵ Gesta Edwardi, 65. The same author also included a Latin version of the declaration in 1308: ibid., 33–4. The two Latin versions are not identical, which suggests that the author made a new translation in 1321, using a French copy of the declaration which was circulating at Sherburn.

³⁹⁶ Prestwich, ‘Charges’, 95; Maddicott, 284. In Canterbury Register I (Wilkinson's Ms. A) the declaration follows the Sherburn indenture and precedes the articles against the Despensers. In Lambeth Ms. 1213 (Wilkinson's Ms. B) and in the official record the declaration is an integral part of the articles: Wilkinson, ‘The Sherburn indenture’, 11.

³⁹⁷ Wilkinson, ‘The Sherburn indenture’, 18.

³⁹⁸ Including the appointment of justices who were not sufficiently qualified in the law, such as the Elder Despenser and Sir John Inge (the Younger Despenser's retainer), in order to deprive great men such as the earl of Hereford and Sir John Giffard of their lands; the execution of Llywelyn Bren, the leader of the revolt in Glamorgan in 1316, who had surrendered to the earl of Hereford and Roger Mortimer of Wigmore under guarantee of protection; the seizure of Gower from Sir John de Mowbray.

³⁹⁹ This is a summary of the indictment as recorded on the Parliament Roll: PROME, Parliament of 1321, SC 9/24, item 2.

⁴⁰⁰ Ann. Paul., 297; Vita, 191–7; French Chronicle of London, ed. G. J. Aungier, xxviii (London, 1844), 42; CCR, 1318–23, 494; Phillips, 210; Maddicott, 280.

⁴⁰¹ Parliamentary Texts, 163–4, 168–9, where the award is mistakenly described as a statute; Ann. Paul., 297; Vita, 191–7; French Chron., 42; CCR, 1318–23, 494; Phillips, 210; Maddicott, 280–2.

⁴⁰² Parliamentary Texts, 163–4, 168–9.

⁴⁰³ PROME, Parliament of July 1321, SC 9/24, item 3; CCR, 1318–23, 495.

⁴⁰⁴ PROME, Parliament of July 1321, SC 9/24/ item 4; SR, i, 185–7.

⁴⁰⁵ Ann. Paul., 297.

⁴⁰⁶ Ann. Paul., 291. Joan was probably conceived at the time of the Westminster parliament in Oct. 1320. He and Isabella were at Sheen (Richmond) at the beginning of that month. As noted above, Edward appears to have been in particularly good spirits at the time.

⁴⁰⁷ Munimenta Gildhallae Lond., ed. Riley, II, i, 409. This accident is given as the reason for John Cromwell's removal as constable of the Tower, but Edward had given Isabella custody of the Tower on 14 June; on 14 July he also gave her custody of the Great Seal: Doherty (D. Phil.), 82; BL, Add. Charter 26,684, CCR, 1318–23, 477. He probably hoped that the Marchers would desist from attacking her.

⁴⁰⁸ Parliamentary Texts, 164, 169.

⁴⁰⁹ ‘Pictaviam’: Flores, 198. The Vita Edwardi Secundi, 196–7, says simply that he went overseas. There is no evidence to confirm the statement in Fryde, 49, that he went to Bordeaux.

⁴¹⁰ Vita, 196–7; Phillips, 215; Maddicott, 292.

⁴¹¹ Murimuth, 33; Maddicott, 292. Murimuth says specifically that Edward met him and they reached Harwich by sea.

⁴¹² Trinity College Cambridge Ms. R.5.41, f. 115; Phillips, 215. Pembroke's manor of Bampton was nearby.

⁴¹³ SC 1/49/51; Phillips, 215. The contents of the message are unknown but its bearer, William de Cusaunce, was in the service of the Younger Despenser.

⁴¹⁴ Vita, 198–201; Phillips, 215; Maddicott, 326.

⁴¹⁵ C 53/108, m.8; Phillips, 215; Maddicott, 292.

⁴¹⁶ PROME, Parliament of July 1321, SC 9/24/ items 3, 4 (petition for pardon and the royal statute of pardon).

⁴¹⁷ It has been suggested that the treatise known as the Modus Tenendi Parliamentum was another significant document produced by Lancaster or in his circle in 1321 as part of the preparation for the July parliament. There are as Dr Maddicott has argued (Maddicott, 289–92) some echoes of the treatise on the steward: in, for example, the provision in article 17 that if disputes arise which threaten the peace of the land, the steward, constable and marshal, or any two of them, could appoint a committee of 25 to decide the matter. There are several other references in the Modus to the role to be played in parliament by the steward (articles 13, 14). However, the conclusions of recent scholarship suggest that Lancaster's association with the Modus is far from certain, and that it was probably a ‘procedural tract’ produced by a chancery or exchequer clerk around the early 1320s but without any specific connection to the 1321 parliament. Such a clerk might also have had legal training. Possible authors are men such as William Airmyn, keeper of the rolls of chancery from 1316 to 1324, and probably also clerk of the parliament, or an exchequer clerk such as William Maldon, one of the chamberlains of the exchequer who was in the circle of Walter Stapeldon, treasurer for much of the period between 1320 and 1325. ‘All we can say with certainty,’ argue Pronay and Taylor (Parliamentary Texts, 31), ‘is that the author was most likely a lawyer, and certainly a person well acquainted with the working of parliament.’ The author of the Modus considers that ‘parliament’ is an assembly which comprises the king, the lords, and the representatives of the various communities. He is emphatic that without the presence of these representatives there can be no ‘“parliament” … [and that] of all the possible forms of assemblies in which the king might choose to meet his subjects, “parliament” is the one in which all the representatives of the communities meet the king for such business as lies between them’. Thus many kinds of assembly were held during the first 40 years of the fourteenth century, some of them involving the knights, burgesses and lower clergy as representatives, and others not, and there is no reason to believe either that the author of the Modus Tenendi Parliamentum was describing any particular parliament or that he believed that a parliament was the only forum in which important business might be concluded. While it is possible that the author of the Modus had access to the treatise on the steward (in seven manuscripts the Modus is followed by the treatise: Maddicott, 289), there is nothing in the text of the Modus which links it in any obvious way with the political crisis of 1321. As a commentary on current controversy (assuming it was written in 1321) the Modus is a curiously silent document. For the text and translation of the Modus and a guide to the past debate on the subject see Parliamentary Texts, 65–114, and 1–63, esp. 25–31. See also the valuable discussion of the Modus in Prestwich, Plantagenet England, 224–6. We are in agreement that, while the Modus remains a mystery in many respects, it does not fit a Lancastrian agenda in 1321.

⁴¹⁸ PROME, Parliament of July 1321, SC 9/24/ item 3; CCR, 1318–23, 495.

⁴¹⁹ PROME, Parliament of July 1321, SC 9/24/ item 4; SR, i, 185–7.

⁴²⁰ Parliamentary Texts, Historia Roffensis, 162–4, 166–7, 169.

⁴²¹ Altogether 33 royal knights fought for him in 1321–2: Tebbit, ‘Royal patronage’, 197; idem, ‘Household knights and military service’, 88–91.

⁴²² CCR, 1318–23, 402, 408; Phillips, 216.

⁴²³ Trinity College Cambridge Ms. R.5.41, ff. 114, 114v; Vita, 198–9; CPR, 1321–24, 47–8; Phillips, 216; Maddicott, 293.

⁴²⁴ CFR, 1319–27, 71; Trinity College Cambridge Ms. R.5.41, ff. 114v, 115; Phillips, 216; Maddicott, 293.

⁴²⁵ Ann. Paul., 298.

⁴²⁶ Trinity College Cambridge Ms. R.5.41, f. 115: ‘ut negatus sit introitus in castellum’; BL, Cotton Ms. Nero D.X, f. 111; Phillips, 216; Maddicott, 293.

⁴²⁷ Trinity College Cambridge Ms. R.5.41, f. 115 (which gives the date as 3 Oct.); Ann. Paul., 298–9 (which gives the date as 13 Oct.); Phillips, 216; Maddicott, 293.

⁴²⁸ E 101/378/14, m.3.

⁴²⁹ Edward was there between 4 and 13 Oct.: E 101/378/14, m.3. This was easily reached from Witley and is far more likely than Thanet, which is usually given as their meeting place: cf. Phillips, 216.

⁴³⁰ CCR, 1318–23, 504; CPR, 1321–24, 29; Ann. Paul., 299; Phillips, 216–17; Maddicott, 293.

⁴³¹ Trinity College Cambridge Ms. R.5.41, f. 115; Phillips, 217; Maddicott, 293–4.

⁴³² Murimuth, 34; Melsa, 339; Vita, 196–9; Anonimalle, 102–3; Phillips, 217; Maddicott, 293–4.

⁴³³ Trinity College Cambridge Ms. R.5.41, f. 115v; Ann. Paul., 299; French Chron., 43; Phillips, 217; Maddicott, 294.

⁴³⁴ Ann. Paul., 299; Anonimalle, 102–3.

⁴³⁵ E 101/378/14, m.3.

⁴³⁶ After the fall of Leeds Edward ordered the seizure of lands belonging to the earl of Hereford, Audley and Damory: Vita, 198–9. Hereford, for example, held an important manor and castle at Pleshey in Essex, which was within easy reach of royal forces.

⁴³⁷ CCR, 1318–23, 503; Phillips, 217.

⁴³⁸ Ann. Paul., 299–301; Calendar of the Letter-Books: E, ed. Sharpe, 151–6; Williams, Medieval London, 289–90; Phillips, 217; Maddicott, 297–8.

⁴³⁹ G.L. Haskins, ‘The Doncaster petition of 1321’, EHR, liii (1938), 479, 483, citing BL, Cotton Ms. Cleopatra D. IX, f. 81v; Phillips, 217; Maddicott, 295, 297. Copies of the letter of summons to John d'Engayne, dated at Pontefract on 18 Oct., and of the letter addressed to the city of London, dated at Pontefract on 2 Dec., describe Lancaster as steward of England, and clearly show that the stewardship was the basis of his claims to action and authority throughout the events of 1321–2: Haskins, 483; Bod., Kent Rolls 6, f. On 12 Nov. the king wrote to 108 individuals, including the earl of Hereford, Roger Damory, the Audleys and the Mortimers, but significantly not including Badlesmere who was clearly considered to be a pariah by both sides: Foedera, II, ii, 459. It is likely that William de Aune, the constable of Tickhill (not far from both Doncaster and Pontefract), was again the source of information on Lancaster's activities.

⁴⁴⁰ Chroniques de Sempringham, 338; BL, Cotton Ms. Nero D.X, f. 111v; Bod., Kent Rolls 6, f; Phillips, 217–18; Maddicott, 297–8.

⁴⁴¹ It states that ‘various grievances have been shown to “us” (i.e. to Lancaster as steward) and to our other good peers of the land [“a nous e a nos autres bon piers de la tere”], blemishing the state of the realm and of the crown, which we are sworn to save and maintain according to our powers, by force of which oath we are charged to show these grievances to your lordship’.

⁴⁴² In a clear reference to clause 39 of Magna Carta, the petition goes on to say that kings had promised not to take, imprison or disinherit anyone of their franchises; not to outlaw or exile anyone, etc., except by judgment of their peers and the law of the land.

⁴⁴³ Phillips, 218; Maddicott, 300–1. For the full text of the Doncaster petition, see Haskins, ‘Doncaster petition’, 483–5. A mutilated text of the petition is contained in Bod., Kent Rolls 6, f.

⁴⁴⁴ See the text and translation of the letter, dated 2 Dec. at Pontefract, which was sent, with a copy of the petition, to the mayor and citizens of London, to inform them of current events and presumably also to try to win their support: Maddicott, 297–8; Bod., Kent Rolls 6, f.

⁴⁴⁵ Haskins, ‘Doncaster petition’, 485; Phillips, 218; Maddicott, 300–1.

⁴⁴⁶ BL, Cotton Ms. Nero D.X, f. 111v. It is not clear if Edward made any formal response.

⁴⁴⁷ CCR, 1318–23, 408, 506, 508; CPR, 1321–24, 38; Phillips, 218; Maddicott, 303–4.

⁴⁴⁸ Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae, ed. D. Wilkins (London, 1737), ii, 507–8; Cambridge Univ. Ms. Ee.v.31, f. 223v; Phillips, 219; Maddicott, 304.

⁴⁴⁹ CCR, 1318–23, 541–5; Phillips, 219. It is unlikely that the Despensers appeared in person.

⁴⁵⁰ CPR, 1321–24, 37; CCR, 1318–23, 410, 543; Phillips, 219.

⁴⁵¹ Parliamentary Texts, 164, 169.

⁴⁵² Ann. Paul., 300; CCR, 1318–23, 510–11; Phillips, 219.

⁴⁵³ CCR, 1318–23, 510–11, 543; Phillips, 219.

⁴⁵⁴ On 18 Nov. Pembroke received £500 from the king, repayable on demand, for which he gave Edward letters of obligation. This may have been to help Pembroke pay the residue of his ransom dating from 1317, but may also have been in effect a bond for his future loyalty: E 403/196, m.4; E 101/332/13; on 18 Nov. a sum of 1,000 marks was paid to the earl of Surrey as his annual fee, and 400 marks to the earl of Arundel on 9 Dec.: E 403/196, mm.3, 4; Vita, 198–201; Phillips, 219–20. The exiled Scottish earl of Atholl formally entered Edward II's service on 29 Nov. in return for a grant of Badlesmere's former castle of Chilham in Kent: CPR, 1321–24, 33; CCR, 1318–23, 509.

⁴⁵⁵ CPR, 1321–24, 45, 47; Phillips, 220.

⁴⁵⁶ Ann. Paul., 301; Foedera, II, ii, 463–4 (8 Dec.). Although the business of the bishop's mission was not spelled out, it was clearly connected with the annulment of the Despensers' exile.

⁴⁵⁷ It is difficult to estimate the size of the army but Edward had the services of six earls (Norfolk, Kent, Pembroke, Richmond, Arundel, Surrey) with their retainers, plus his own household knights. The Vita, 198–201, makes particular note of the part played in the king's army by Robert le Ewer, who was in command of the infantry, and Fulk Fitz Warin in command of the cavalry. The forces that joined the king at Cirencester were mainly infantry.

⁴⁵⁸ Bod., Laud Ms. Misc. 529, f. 106v (this chronicle, which is related to that of Adam Murimuth, has much valuable material on events in the Welsh March in 1321–2); Phillips, 220.

⁴⁵⁹ CCR, 1318–23, 620.

⁴⁶⁰ BL, Cotton Ms. Nero D.X, f. 111v; Bod., Laud Ms. Misc. 529, f. 106v; CFR, 1319–27, 115; Phillips, 220; Maddicott, 304. Hastings however had a family connection with the Despensers since his father, John Hastings senior (d. 1313), had been married to the Younger Despenser's sister Isabel: N. Saul, ‘The Despensers and the downfall of Edward II’, EHR, xcix (1984), 9–10.

⁴⁶¹ Trinity College Cambridge Ms. R.5.41, f. 116v; R. Butler, ‘The last of the Brimpsfield Giffards and the rising of 1321–22’, Trans. Bristol & Glos. Arch. Soc., lxxvi (1958 for 1957), 75–97; Phillips, 220; Maddicott, 304; Fryde, 53, 243. A valuable insight into the activities of Giffard and his followers can be found in Waugh, ‘The profits of violence’, 855–8.

⁴⁶² E 101/378/13, m.5; Phillips, 220; Maddicott, 304–5.

⁴⁶³ Bod., Laud Ms. Misc. 529, f. 107; Trinity College Cambridge Ms. R.5.41, ff. 116v, 117; Phillips, 220–1; Maddicott, 304–5.

⁴⁶⁴ E 101/378/13, m.5; Phillips, 221; Maddicott, 305.

⁴⁶⁵ Bod., Laud Ms. Misc. 529, f. 107; BL, Cotton Ms. D.X, f. 111v; Phillips, 222; Maddicott, 305–6.

⁴⁶⁶ CPR, 1321–24, 47–51; Phillips, 221.

⁴⁶⁷ Trinity College Cambridge Ms. R.5.41, ff. 116v; Phillips, 221.

⁴⁶⁸ Davies, Baronial Opposition, 561 (App. 35); E 159/95/ m.17d., E 368/92, m.49; Calendar of Letter-books: E, 150; Phillips, 221; Maddicott, 305.

⁴⁶⁹ Murimuth, 35; Melsa, 340; Anonimalle, 104–5; Phillips, 221.

⁴⁷⁰ BL, Cotton Ms. D.X, f. 111v; Phillips, 221. This was the same Gruffydd Llwyd who had been a loyal supporter of the crown in Wales until suspicions over his behaviour in 1317 after the Bruce invasion of Ireland had earned him a temporary period of imprisonment.

⁴⁷¹ On both Gruffydd Llwyd and the Mortimers see Davies, Conquest, 409–10.

⁴⁷² CCW, 556–7; Davies, Conquest, 410. This may partly explain why the Mortimers were imprisoned rather than pardoned.

⁴⁷³ J.G. Edwards, ‘Sir Gruffydd Llwyd’, EHR, xxx (1915), 593.

⁴⁷⁴ Fryde, 54, 244.

⁴⁷⁵ Vita, 202–3; Melsa, 340; Phillips, 222; Maddicott, 305–6.

⁴⁷⁶ While at Hereford Edward appears to have confronted the bishop of Hereford, Adam Orleton, who was an experienced royal diplomat, with his suspected sympathies with the Mortimers. Although no charges were brought against him until 1323, he was to prove a key member of the growing opposition to Edward II in the closing years of his reign: Vita, 202–3, and n. 420; Haines, The Church and Politics, 135–7.

⁴⁷⁷ Edward made his intentions plain in a letter written from Shrewsbury to his exchequer officials at Westminster on the day of the Mortimers' surrender, reporting this event and announcing that he was about to leave for Ludlow to bring justice and comfort to his people: Davies, Baronial Opposition, 561(App. 35); E 159/95/ m.17d, E 368/92/ m.48d.

⁴⁷⁸ Bod., Laud Ms. Misc. 529, f. 107; BL, Cotton Ms. D.X, f. 111v; Vita, 202–5; Phillips, 222; Maddicott, 306.

⁴⁷⁹ Vita, 202–3; Anonimalle, 104–5.

⁴⁸⁰ Vita, 202–5, and note 422; Flores, 203. The Mortimers were brought to the Tower on 13 Feb. by the earl of Surrey, Robert le Ewer and others: French Chron., 43.

⁴⁸¹ Bod., Laud Ms. Misc. 529, f. 107; BL, Cotton Ms. D.X, f. 111v; Phillips, 222; Maddicott, 305–6.

⁴⁸² Bod., Laud Ms. Misc. 529, f. 107; BL, Cotton Ms. D.X, f. 111v; Vita, 202–3; CPR, 1321–24, 70; Phillips, 222; Maddicott, 307.

⁴⁸³ CPR, 1321–24, 47; Maddicott, 306–7.

⁴⁸⁴ Foedera, II, ii, 472–3; Melsa, 341; Maddicott, 307.

⁴⁸⁵ Lanercost, 241; Gesta Edwardi, 73; Phillips, 222; McNamee, 96–7 (including a map of the raids).

⁴⁸⁶ McNamee, 96.

⁴⁸⁷ Vita, 204–5; Maddicott, 307–8.

⁴⁸⁸ Foedera, II, ii, 473; Phillips, 223. There is no evidence that any truce was made.

⁴⁸⁹ The queen is said to have written to the sheriff of Yorkshire and to Harclay asking them to intercept the rebels: Flores, 346; Maddicott, 311. It is implausible however that their army had not already been gathered.

⁴⁹⁰ Bod., Laud Ms. Misc. 529, f. 107; CPR, 1321–24, 64; Phillips, 222; Maddicott, 307.

⁴⁹¹ CPR, 1321–24, 73–4; Phillips, 222–3; Maddicott, 307.

⁴⁹² Foedera, II, ii, 475–6.

⁴⁹³ E 101/378/13, m.6; Bod., Laud Ms. Misc. 529, f. 107; Phillips, 223; Maddicott, 308.

⁴⁹⁴ Phillips, 223; Maddicott, 301–3. The texts were enrolled on the Close Roll and have been published in calendared form in CCR, 1318–23, 525–6 and in CDS, iii, no. 746 (pp. 139–40), and in full in Foedera, II, ii, 463, 472, 474. See also Regesta Regum Scottorum, ed. Duncan, no. 559(pp. 692–3).

⁴⁹⁵ This is stated in Edward's letter to the archbishop ordering him to publish the letters: CCR, 1318–23, 525. My earlier suggestion in Phillips, 223, that the letters might have been found at Kenilworth is clearly incorrect.

⁴⁹⁶ See Maddicott, 301–3.

⁴⁹⁷ Lanercost, 241–2; Barrow, 242.

⁴⁹⁸ Foedera, II, ii, 479; Gesta Edwardi, 78; Maddicott, 302–3.

⁴⁹⁹ Bod., Laud Ms. Misc. 529, f. 107; Phillips, 223.

⁵⁰⁰ Chroniques de Sempringham, 340; Melsa, 341; BL, Cotton Ms. Nero D.X, f. 112; Phillips, 223; Maddicott, 309.

⁵⁰¹ Gesta Edwardi, 74; Vita, 206–9; Phillips, 223; Maddicott, 309–10.

⁵⁰² BL, Cotton Ms. Nero D.X, f. 112; Bod., Laud Ms. Misc. 529, f. 107v; Chroniques de Sempringham, 340; Gesta Edwardi, 74; Vita, 206–9; Anonimalle, 104–5; Phillips, 223; Maddicott, 309–10.

⁵⁰³ CCR, 1318–23, 522; BL, Cotton Ms. Nero D.X, f. 112; Bod., Laud Ms. Misc. 529, f. 107v; Chroniques de Sempringham, 340; Melsa, 341–2; Gesta Edwardi, 74; Vita, 206–9; Anonimalle, 104–5; Phillips, 223; Maddicott, 309–10. Despenser is said to have dissuaded Edward from unfurling his own banners, which would have put the kingdom in a state of open war: p.645 Gesta Edwardi, 75; M. Keen, ‘Treason trials under the law of arms’, in M. Keen, Nobles, Knights and Men-at Arms in the Middle Ages (London, 1996), 156–7, 164–5.

⁵⁰⁴ PW, II, i, 284; Vita, 208–9, and n. 436.

⁵⁰⁵ Foedera, II, ii, 479; CCR, 1318–23, 522; Phillips, 224; Maddicott, 310.

⁵⁰⁶ Le Baker, 13; Phillips, 224; Maddicott, 310.

⁵⁰⁷ Brut, i, 217; BL, Cotton Ms. Nero D.X, f. 112; Phillips, 224; Maddicott, 311.

⁵⁰⁸ Ann. Paul., 302; Gesta Edwardi, 75–6; Melsa, 342; Flores, 205; Vita, 210–11; BL, Cotton Ms. Nero D.X, ff. 112–112v (this includes the text of Harclay's report on the battle to the king); Phillips, 224; Maddicott, 310.

⁵⁰⁹ DL 34/25; Le Baker, 13–14; Phillips, 224; Maddicott, 310. Hereford had contacts there through his late wife, Edward II's sister Elizabeth, who was previously married to the count of Hainault.

⁵¹⁰ Gesta Edwardi, 76; Flores, 347; Anonimalle, 106–7; Vita, 210–13; Haskins, ‘A chronicle’, 78; Phillips, 224; Maddicott, 311.

⁵¹¹ E 101/378/13, m.7; Chroniques de Sempringham, 342; Anonimalle, 106–7; Phillips, 224; Maddicott, 311.

⁵¹² BL, Cotton Ms. Nero D.X, f. 112v; BL, Cotton Ms. Cleopatra C.III, f. 296; Brut, i, 221; Phillips, 224.

⁵¹³ Anonimalle, 106–7; Gesta Edwardi, 76; Flores, 347; Phillips, 225; Maddicott, 311.

⁵¹⁴ Vita, 212–13. The author however adds, ‘this was the common story, but I have not heard witness to its truth’.

⁵¹⁵ Vita, 212–15; Anonimalle, 106–7; Gesta Edwardi, 76; Flores, 347; Foedera, II, i, 478–9; Phillips, 225; Maddicott, 311–12.

⁵¹⁶ He is not named in the official record of Lancaster's condemnation (Foedera, II, i, 478–9) but is mentioned by several chroniclers: e.g., Ann. Paul., 302; Melsa, 342; Brut, i, 222. Ironically, he was one of a number of future royal justices who had earlier received fees of retainer from Lancaster: Maddicott, 49.

⁵¹⁷ Foedera, II, i, 478–9; Maddicott, 311–12.

⁵¹⁸ Brut, i, 222–3.

⁵¹⁹ Foedera, II, i, 478–9, 493; Vita, 212–15; Gesta Edwardi, 76; Flores, 347; Phillips, 225; Maddicott, 312.

⁵²⁰ Vita, 214–15; cf. Anonimalle, 108–9.