Chapter 12

AFTERLIVES

WAS EDWARD II REALLY DEAD IN 1330?

It has recently been argued that Thomas de Berkeley lied about the death of Edward II; that the body buried as that of Edward II was that of some other unidentified individual; and that the former king was secretly kept at Corfe, under the control of Roger Mortimer and his most trusted followers.¹ Could this be true?

Certainly there are problems with the evidence relating to Edward II's death and burial in 1327. Because of the press of other business, there was no opportunity for the king or anyone close to him to view the body before it was disembowelled and embalmed by the unnamed woman who later visited Isabella at Worcester.² According to Adam Murimuth, the only people who saw the body were the abbots, priors, knights and burgesses from Bristol and Gloucester who were summoned to view it but could do so only superficially.³ Some of them may however have seen the former king in life, on his various visits to those parts, and have been able to recognize him.⁴ Although Edward II's tomb was briefly opened in October 1855, the inner coffin containing the body was not opened,⁵ unlike the treatment accorded to the body of Edward I when his tomb was opened for one hour in 1774 and a learned antiquarian had to be prevented from making off with a royal finger bone.⁶ If it were possible to investigate the tombs of Edward I and Edward II, and perhaps Edward III for good measure, and to perform DNA tests upon the remains, it might be proved whether the body now at Gloucester really is that of Edward II. But even if Edward II's presence in the tomb could be proved definitively, this would still leave the possibility that someone else had been buried there in 1327 and that the body of Edward II had been placed there subsequently.⁷ In any case it is improbable in the extreme that permission would ever be given for such an invasion of royal tombs, even using non-intrusive methods.⁸

The chronicle evidence relating to Edward II's death is also, as already indicated, problematic, with a wide variety of explanations being offered, from that of natural death to murder in various forms. It is also evident that the stories surrounding Edward's alleged murder were elaborated in the telling and as one writer borrowed from another. This is certainly the case with the story of the red-hot iron, with the strong possibility that this account was given weight by writers with the contradictory aims of blackening Edward's reputation or of laying the groundwork for possible canonization.⁹

Thomas de Berkeley's role in the events of 1327 is another problem. Ian Mortimer has argued that he lied when he ‘claimed in 1330 not to have heard of the ex-king's death in his custody’.¹⁰ The short answer to this is that he almost certainly did lie, but not in the way suggested. The Berkeley family historian, John Smyth of Nibley, who was writing in the seventeenth century, thought that Thomas was economical with the truth. He observed that if Thomas really was at Bradley and so sick that he had no memory of events, it would have been surprising if he were able to send Thomas Gurney to Edward III and Isabella with letters announcing the former king's death.¹¹ John Smyth also noted that the Berkeley household accounts for that period showed that Thomas did not arrive at Bradley until 28 September, seven days after the presumed death of Edward II, and implies that he was either at or very near to Berkeley itself.¹² Smyth also speculated that Gurney was sent to announce Edward's death in order ‘to take him from the earth, for telling of tales in the world’,¹³ presumably on the principle of ‘shoot the messenger’ who might otherwise be able to reveal information inconvenient to its sender. Berkeley allegedly kept Edward's death a secret until 1 November, ‘by which time and longe before hee had so well recovered his health, as hee attended the kings body to Gloucester, and spent many of the intervenient days in huntings hawkings and other sports of the field’.¹⁴ Finally, Smyth claims that Thomas concealed Gurney until after his trial in parliament and then gave him money and other things to enable him to flee, in return for a transfer of lands. Smyth certainly considered Thomas de Berkeley to be devious and self-serving and to have ‘shuffled his cards’ with great art but at the last he also defended him from ‘the treason of murdering his kinge, Edward the second’.¹⁵

Berkeley emerges as a liar, but did he lie about the king's death because, as Ian Mortimer has suggested, he knew that the king was in fact still alive,¹⁶ or did he know perfectly well that the king was dead and instead lie about the extent of his knowledge of the crime? The key lies in the interpretation of Berkeley's statement during the November 1330 parliament that he did not know about Edward II's death until the present parliament (‘nec unquam scivit de morte sua usque in presenti parliamento isto’).¹⁷ Is ‘the most obvious meaning’ that Berkeley was claiming ‘that he had not at any time heard of the death’,¹⁸ or does it mean that he did not know about the circumstances of the death until 1330? The latter meaning is more consistent with the language employed, especially when taken in conjunction with the immediately preceding statement that ‘he was never an accomplice, a helper or a procurer in his death’ (‘ipse nuncquam fuit consentiens, auxilians, seu procurans, ad mortem suam’):¹⁹ this can only mean that Berkeley knew that the death had occurred but that he claimed he had no part in it.

It is highly significant that neither of the men who were supposed to be guarding Edward II at Berkeley was ever charged with his murder. As already noted, John Maltravers was charged instead with the entrapment of the earl of Kent. This must suggest either that it was already known for certain that Maltravers was not present when Edward was killed or that the authorities had a better chance of making the second charge ‘stick’. In the case of Thomas de Berkeley, there was room for doubt. Far from Edward III consciously allowing Berkeley ‘to lie his way out of trouble’,²⁰ the king was clearly suspicious. Even the favourable opinion of the jury of knights in January 1331 was not enough, and it was another four years before Thomas de Berkeley was cleared, and a further two years before he was fully pardoned, not of suspected murder but of having neglected his royal charge. The information received from John Maltravers in 1335 and Thomas Gurney's death in 1333 was probably sufficient to convince Edward III and his advisers that there was no point in pursuing the matter further. In any case by 1337 the king was concentrating on rewarding friends and pardoning former enemies so that he could turn his attention to the looming conflict with France.

The arguments that Roger Mortimer deliberately arranged for false reports of Edward II's death, staged an elaborate and very public funeral for the corpse of some other person, kept the former Edward II in secret custody after 1327 to prevent any further attempts at rescue and to use as ‘a potent threat to the young Edward III’, and that he also informed Edward III of his father's survival shortly after the funeral²¹ are puzzling. It is hard to see what advantage would have been gained by such a tactic. Given the number of people with an interest in Edward II's fate, it was questionable whether any secret imprisonment would have remained secret for long. If Edward II had really been alive and had been released, it is very unlikely that ‘Edward III would … have had to contest with his father as to his right to be king’:²² Edward II had ceased to be king in January 1327; he was now once more ‘Edward of Caernarfon’ or ‘Edward, the king's father’. However questionable the means by which that end had been achieved, Edward III was king and fully recognized as such. To adapt a familiar line, to lose one anointed and crowned monarch might just be acceptable; to lose two in swift succession would be more than carelessness. It is equally implausible to imagine that Mortimer could have revealed to Edward III that the funeral in December 1327 had been completely fraudulent without dire consequences for himself. The affront to the royal dignity would have been such that the king and the growing number of Mortimer's opponents would have combined to see that he was sent to a ‘gallows even higher than the one on which he was eventually hanged in 1330’.²³

So what did happen in September 1327? We shall never know the whole truth, but the simplest explanation is surely the best one: that Edward II did die at Berkeley on 21 September and that he was murdered or helped on his way to death, either from a pre-existing illness or from physical decline and depression. The story told after Mortimer's fall by Hywel ap Gruffudd in his accusation against William de Shaldeford in 1331²⁴ probably holds the key, even allowing for the enmity which existed between the Welsh and the Mortimers and all their followers. Roger Mortimer may simply have wanted William Ogle and Thomas Gurney to take greater care of the imprisoned king rather than risk his release from Berkeley by the latest group of conspirators; or he may have intended Edward to be murdered but carefully refrained from saying so specifically in writing, relying on an oral message to convey his wishes; or Ogle and Gurney may have panicked and exceeded their orders, in which case Mortimer was not after all directly responsible for Edward's death.²⁵ As for Thomas de Berkeley and John Maltravers, it is possible, if Adam Murimuth's statement that they took turns to have custody of the former king is correct, that Maltravers was absent from Berkeley when Edward died and therefore guiltless of direct involvement in the crime.²⁶ Thomas de Berkeley was clearly close to the scene, but was either negligent or given a hint that he should stay out of the way.²⁷

EDWARDUS REDIVIVUS²⁸

Edward II died in September 1327 and was buried in Gloucester abbey in the following December. But that was not the end of stories about his survival,²⁹ since there are two separate pieces of evidence which show that in the mid- to late 1330s someone claiming to be Edward II was travelling around Europe. Although the two are at first sight unrelated, they are in fact very closely connected. The first is contained in the records of the royal household which report that in September 1338 a man named William le Galeys or le Waleys was ‘arrested’ at Cologne in Germany after apparently declaring that he was Edward II, and was then escorted to Koblenz where Edward III was meeting the emperor, Ludwig IV.³⁰

The other evidence is an undated letter addressed to Edward III by a papal notary named Manuel Fieschi. In the letter Fieschi tells of a meeting with a man who had identified himself as Edward II, and who had then made a confession in which he told Fieschi a long and circumstantial tale. According to this, Edward II had escaped from Berkeley castle with a servant, after killing a sleeping doorkeeper whose body was later buried as if it were his; Edward had gone to Corfe and with his servant had then crossed to Ireland, where he had spent nine months. We are not told what Edward did in Ireland, where he went or if he met anyone. Then, fearing that he would be recognized, he took the habit of a hermit and returned to England, where he arrived at the port of Sandwich. Still dressed as a hermit, he crossed to Sluys in Flanders. From there he went to Normandy, and then to many other places. Having travelled through the Languedoc, he came to Avignon, where he gave a florin to one of the pope's servants to take a letter to Pope John XXII. The pope summoned him and kept him honourably and in secret at Avignon for fifteen days. Finally, ‘after various discussions, and all things considered’, the pope gave Edward permission to leave. Edward then went to Paris, from there to the duchy of Brabant in the Low Countries, and to Cologne, where he visited the shrine of the Three Kings ‘for the purposes of devotion’. He crossed Germany to Milan in Lombardy and entered a hermitage belonging to the castle of ‘Milasco’, where he stayed for two and half years. When this castle was overrun by war, Edward moved to another hermitage, in or connected with the castle of Cecima in the diocese of Pavia in Lombardy, and was in this hermitage for about two more years, ‘always the recluse, doing penance’, and praying to God for Edward III and other sinners.³¹

A distinguished French scholar, Alexandre Germain, who was a pupil of Michelet in Paris, found the letter in the 1870s. In 1838 he was appointed as the first professor of history in the newly created faculty of letters at the university of Montpellier; became dean of the faculty in 1861 and remained so until his retirement in 1881. Germain published many works based on the extensive medieval records preserved in the Archives départementales de l'Hérault and in the municipal archives at Montpellier.³² In the 1870s he was examining a mid-fourteenth-century register of documents belonging to the diocese of Maguelone, of which Montpellier formed a part, when he found the letter from Manuel Fieschi to Edward III. The document is preserved in the middle of an unrelated collection of charters concerning the bishop's property rights in the small town of Cournonterral, to the south-west of Montpellier.³³ Just how the document, which is otherwise entirely unknown, had reached Maguelone is uncertain.³⁴ The clerk who was compiling the register was evidently intrigued by the extraordinary story told in the letter and copied it along with more routine material. However, the clerk later added the single word, ‘vacat’ (‘it is vacant’; i.e. ‘it is cancelled’), in the top right hand corner of the transcript, and the contemporary index volume to the registers of the diocese of Maguelone omits the Fieschi letter altogether.³⁵

Alexandre Germain communicated his discovery to the Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres in Paris on 21 September 1877 (by coincidence or perhaps design, the 550^th anniversary of Edward II's death), and published it in Montpellier in the following year.³⁶ The document first became known in England in 1880 and has been republished and discussed on a number of occasions since.³⁷ Until the spring of 2003, the latest treatments of the letter were the papers published by George Cuttino and Thomas P. Lyman in 1978 and by Roy Haines in 1997, and a short book by Haines published in 2001. However, a large amount of new material on Edward II and his fate has recently appeared, in the books by Paul Doherty on Queen Isabella and by Ian Mortimer on Roger Mortimer and Edward III, as well as in Roy Haines's detailed study of Edward II.³⁸

Opinions on the Fieschi letter have varied. Neither Stubbs nor Tout was convinced by the story of Edward II's survival but neither offered any definitive explanation of the letter's purpose and significance. Cuttino was impressed by the evidence, as he saw it, that Edward II did not die in 1327 and was not buried at Gloucester, while also expressing strong reservations about many of the Italian aspects of the story.³⁹ Doherty and Mortimer also argue that Edward II escaped death in 1327. Mortimer believes that the story told in the letter was genuine, and that the Genoese used the letter as a means of forcing the English crown to pay outstanding debts; while Doherty thinks it was a clever forgery put together by Manuel Fieschi, with the intention of embarrassing or even blackmailing Edward III. On the other hand Haines does not believe that Edward II survived after 1327. He suggests that the letter was a forgery, to which the name of Manuel Fieschi was attached to give it plausibility, that its purpose was to foster a reputation of sanctity on behalf of the former king, and that Edward III, to whom the letter was nominally addressed, never received it.⁴⁰

The Fieschi letter took longer to become known in Italy. The first reference to it in print was in a paper published in April 1901 by Count Costantino Nigra, a former diplomat of the kingdom of Savoy and a member of the Italian Senate, who had spent a considerable part of his service in Paris.⁴¹ This probably explains how he came to know of Germain's publication of the document in 1878.⁴² While not dismissing the authenticity of the Fieschi letter out of hand, and drawing attention to the political importance and connections of the Fieschi family, he was nonetheless sceptical. Nigra however added to Germain's research by proposing an identification of the two castles in which the supposed Edward II had stayed as Melazzo (near Acqui Terme, north of Genoa) and Cecima south of Voghera in the diocese of Tortona,⁴³ although more recent research has suggested that the Fieschi letter's ‘Milasco’ may be better identified with Mulazzo near Pontremoli in Liguria.⁴⁴ In the same year in which Nigra's paper appeared, a priest of the cathedral of Tortona, Canon Vincenzo Lege, published a history of the abbey of Sant' Alberto di Butrio, a short distance from Cecima, in which he also referred to the Fieschi letter and tentatively suggested that Edward II's second place of refuge was this abbey rather than Cecima.⁴⁵ In his history of Cecima, published in 1906, Count Antonio Cavagna Sangiuliani accepted this identification of Sant' Alberto.⁴⁶ The work of Nigra and Lege was then developed by another Italian scholar, Anna Benedetti, who published a paper in 1924 in which she sought to prove not only that the exiled Edward II had been at the abbey of Sant' Alberto di Butrio, but that he had also been buried there, before finally being transferred to his resting place at Gloucester.⁴⁷ Since the publication of the conclusions of Benedetti it has become accepted historical fact in Italy that Edward II was indeed in the country. There is a plaque in the main entrance hall of the castello at Melazzo recording his ‘presence’ there from 1330 to 1333;⁴⁸ while Sant’ Alberto di Butrio displays an empty medieval tomb as that of the English king.⁴⁹

The evidence for Edward II's presence at Melazzo, and at Cecima or Sant' Alberto, is however questionable. Much of the material that Benedetti put forward to prove her thesis in relation to the tomb at Sant' Alberto was shown by Cuttino and Lynam to be entirely wrong. ‘Neither the cloister sculpture nor any other sculpture at Sant’ Alberto di Butrio can be dated on the basis of style or in relation to archaeological evidence of the building sequence much beyond the twelfth century, and could not therefore have been designed with Edward in mind. The sepulchre itself appears to be even older than the sculpture and probably contemporaneous with Sant' Alberto's own funerary chapel built by his successor, Benedict, shortly after 1073. Only common decency, of course, would prevent appropriating the tomb of a former abbot for a prestigious visitor.’⁵⁰ Nor has a pair of thirteenth-century Limoges candlesticks, supposedly presented to the abbey in memory of Edward II and now in the civic museum in Turin, anything to do with the English king.⁵¹

The available evidence suggests that the tradition that Edward II was at Sant' Alberto goes back no further than the decade between 1890, when Costantino Nigra visited the castle of Melazzo, and 1901, when he published his findings and when the alleged tomb of Edward II was first examined. Don Domenico Sparpaglione's conversation in 1958 with an eighty-eight-year-old man, Zerba Stefano, whose grandfather allegedly ‘well before 1900, had spoken of an English king who had taken refuge in the hermitage’, does not carry conviction.⁵² Sparpaglione himself asks whether there was any local tradition of an English king having been buried at Sant' Alberto di Butrio and concludes emphatically that no document written before 1901 and the publication of Nigra's paper drawing attention to the Fieschi letter makes any such reference.⁵³ The history of the abbey of Sant' Alberto, which was published in 1865 by Count Antonio Cavagni Sangiuliani, before Alexandre Germain revealed the Fieschi letter, has no mention of Edward II. Neither is there any reference in the second edition of Sangiuliani's book, published in 1890.⁵⁴ If there were any medieval tradition of an exiled king or of an unusual holy man living and perhaps dying at Sant' Alberto di Butrio, some trace of it should appear in the history of the abbey. At the very least, one would expect the fourteenth-century monks of Sant' Alberto to have turned a healthy profit from pilgrims, if they possessed the body or other relics of such a distinguished stranger.⁵⁵ One may go even further and argue that, while it is possible to accept the identification of Melazzo/Mulazzo and Cecima with the places named in the Fieschi letter, the modern introduction of Sant' Alberto di Butrio into the story is ill-founded and best discarded altogether.

So what about the letter itself? The story it tells is superficially plausible, but ultimately unbelievable. It is plausible in that the author of the letter, Manuel Fieschi, was a member of an important family, prominent in the politics of Genoa and with territorial interests in Lombardy, Piedmont and Liguria.⁵⁶ The Fieschi were especially prominent in the Church, providing two thirteenth-century popes (Innocent IV and Adrian V), numerous cardinals and a great many bishops.⁵⁷ Manuel himself was a papal notary at Avignon from 1329 to 1343; a collector of papal taxes in Lombardy, in the same area as Melazzo (although not of Mulazzo)⁵⁸ and Cecima; and bishop of Vercelli from 1343 until his death in 1348.⁵⁹ In the 1330s a relative of his, Percival Fieschi, was bishop of Tortona, the diocese in which Cecima and Sant' Alberto were situated;⁶⁰ and his uncle, Cardinal Luke Fieschi, had been a papal envoy in England in 1317–18.⁶¹ Manuel Fieschi held a number of benefices in the English Church between 1329 and 1343 (exactly the period for which he was a papal notary); ⁶² and he was also distantly related to the English royal house.⁶³ Another of his close relatives, Nicolino Fieschi, was a confidential agent of Edward III in his dealings with the city of Genoa and with the papacy, and was also a member of Edward's council from April 1336.⁶⁴ So important was he, that on 13 April 1340 the French sent a small force across the Rhône to Avignon, captured Nicolino and one of his sons in their lodgings, and held them in French territory until the following June.⁶⁵ The episode caused a major scandal, which is referred to in a second Fieschi-related document in the register of the diocese of Maguelone, dated 14 May 1340.⁶⁶

The story in the Fieschi letter is also plausible in that many of the circumstantial details of Edward II's capture and imprisonment in 1326–7 (which are omitted from the summary above) can be confirmed from other sources; and in that several genuine plots to free Edward II from captivity did take place, so that one more might appear a distinct possibility. Yet the story as told by Fieschi has obvious flaws. The earl of Arundel, for example, was no longer with Edward II when he reached Wales, as claimed in the letter. The two knights sent to Berkeley to kill Edward are named as Thomas Gurney (which corresponds with the role ascribed to him in other sources) and Simon Bereford (which does not).⁶⁷ Edward II's alleged escape from Berkeley past a doorkeeper, who is conveniently asleep and whom he kills at the very time when the two knights have just arrived to kill him, also defies credibility. It is very reminiscent of the stories told in the Acts of the Apostles of the miraculous release from prison of St Paul and Silas, and of St Peter; and, more specifically, of the chronicler Robert of Reading's account of the escape of Roger Mortimer of Wigmore from the Tower of London in August 1323, which uses the same literary device.⁶⁸ There are also close parallels with the escape of Sir Robert Walkefare from Corfe castle in 1326 after killing a porter and with Thomas Dunheved's attempted escape from Pontefract in 1327.⁶⁹ One might also ask how the real Edward II would have travelled to places like Paris, Avignon and Brabant where he would have been in danger of being recognized, and then revealed himself only to the pope at the moment he chose; and where a poor travelling hermit would get a gold florin with which to tip the pope's servant; and so on.

Despite such objections, the Fieschi letter itself is almost certainly genuine. Manuel Fieschi almost certainly did meet someone who either claimed to be or thought he was Edward II. One explanation is that Fieschi could have encountered ‘Edward II’ by chance while in Italy on official business. Although he had links with England and with Edward himself, it is unlikely that Fieschi had any first-hand knowledge of the former king's true appearance, since he had probably never been in England and would never have met the real Edward II.⁷⁰ Manuel Fieschi could have written down the confession of the alleged Edward II and sent it to Edward III with a covering letter, saying in effect ‘I think you had better know the following story.’ ⁷¹ Edward III already knew that his father had been murdered in 1327 and by whom, but would have been curious to know more and replied, again saying in effect, ‘I should like to meet the impostor; send him to me by return. By the way, I shall be in Germany, so send him there.’

This is one explanation of the origins of the Fieschi letter, but there is another more likely answer, one which involves the papal curia, Luke, Manuel and Nicolino Fieschi, as well as Edward III himself. Assuming that the impostor really did visit Avignon on his travels, as recorded in the letter, the conclusion that he was not the real Edward II could have been reached very quickly. There were too many people at the papal curia or in its vicinity who had been papal envoys to England and had known Edward II personally, and would readily have determined whether the traveller was genuine or not. These included Manuel Fieschi's uncle, Cardinal Luke Fieschi, who was alive at Avignon until 1336; Cardinal Gaucelin d’Eauze, the other envoy to England in 1317–18, who was alive until 1348;⁷² Guillaume de Laudun, OP, archbishop of Vienne (1321–7) and later archbishop of Toulouse (1327–45); and possibly Hugh, the bishop of Orange, who together with Guillaume had made several visits to England between late 1324 and January 1327 in a last desperate attempt at mediation.⁷³ Since the pope had already stated in his letters to Edward III and Isabella in September 1330 that he did not believe Edward II was still alive, he would have needed little persuading that his strange visitor was an impostor, and so have sent him on his way. However by the time the impostor's wanderings brought him to northern Italy his claims had became so embarrassing both to the Church and potentially to the legitimacy of Edward III as king of England,⁷⁴ that he was sent for safe custody first to Melazzo/Mulazzo and then to Cecima. Both places were under the control of the local bishop and within an area of influence of the Fieschi family, who were connected both with the papal curia and with the English royal house, and whose discretion could therefore be relied upon. ⁷⁵

However discreetly the pope and his agents attempted to deal with the situation, at some stage Edward III would have to be informed. It is likely that Manuel Fieschi was directed to go to Italy from Avignon in order to receive the ‘confession’ of the impostor and to put the information into a document which could then be sent to Edward III. Nicolino Fieschi, Manuel's close relative, could have played a key role in these proceedings.⁷⁶ Nicolino had been in direct personal contact with Edward III as early as July 1336, when he brought a letter from Genoa to Edward at Perth in Scotland. Fieschi's official role on this occasion was to seek compensation from the English crown for Hugh Despenser the Younger's seizure and plundering of a Genoese cargo vessel in the English Channel in 1321. This was a long-running dispute, which Edward III wisely settled by the payment of 8,000 marks in order to ensure future access to Genoese naval resources. Edward III was impressed by Nicolino, whom he described in his reply to the Genoese as vir eloquens et industrius.⁷⁷ However, Nicolino was working for Edward III before this: he was made a member of the royal council on 15 April 1336, which in turn implies that he had already come to the notice of Edward III. Nicolino also acted as Edward III's proctor at the papal curia from 24 June 1336 until 12 July 1338. Although Nicolino was not personally present at Avignon throughout this period, it is likely that at some point he became directly aware of reports circulating in Avignon of ‘Edward II's’ wanderings. It is even possible that he was personally involved in the choice of Melazzo/Mulazzo and later Cecima as places of detention for the impostor, and that he had a direct role both in Manuel Fieschi's composition of his letter and in its onward transmission to Edward III.⁷⁸ This would place the date of the Fieschi letter somewhere between the summer of 1336 at one extreme and the summer of 1338 at the other. If the Fieschi letter had some kind of official status as a document produced with the knowledge and approval of the pope, this would also help to explain how a copy of it came to be preserved in Register A of the diocese of Maguelone.

Nicolino's involvement in English affairs probably did not end there. Edward III's wardrobe book for 1338–40 records in September 1338 that William le Galeys, ‘who asserts that he is the father of the lord king’ and who was recently ‘arrested’ (arestati) at Cologne, was taken to meet Edward III at Koblenz by Francis the Lombard, a king's sergeant. On 18 October a sum of 13s 6d was paid at Antwerp to Francekino Forcet (almost certainly the same man) for three weeks' expenses in ‘December’, during which he had custody of William le Galeys ‘because he named himself as king of England and the father of the present king’.⁷⁹ It is most unlikely that William le Galeys had turned up in Cologne by coincidence at a time when Edward III happened to be in the vicinity, and then proceeded to make a public demonstration which led to his arrest.⁸⁰ The word ‘arrested’ in the wardrobe book record should probably be understood as meaning ‘confined’ or ‘in custody’.⁸¹ The most likely explanation is that William le Galeys was none other than the pious hermit whose confession was contained in the letter of Manuel Fieschi to Edward III, that he had been brought from Italy specifically in order to meet Edward III and that he had been in the custody all the time of Francis the Lombard, probably acting on the orders of Nicolino Fieschi who is known to have been with Edward III at Koblenz.⁸² William could have been brought overland from northern Italy, but the fact that he first appeared at Cologne and then had to be taken south to Koblenz tells against this argument and suggests that he may have come by sea, most probably in one of the Genoese galleys which Nicolino Fieschi was engaged in hiring for Edward III. Nicolino's kinsman, Nicholas Blank de Fieschi, who was a master of galleys and had recently been sent to Edward III in England, had evidently caught up with the king instead in the Low Countries. At Koblenz on 6 September 1338 Nicholas was given licence to return home and was freed from all obligations that he had made to Nicolino at Marseilles. Some of those obligations were certainly to do with the hire of shipping, but it is possible that one of them had been to transport William le Galeys by sea from Marseilles to England and then on to Antwerp. From there it would have been a short journey overland first to Cologne and then to Koblenz.⁸³ This is all of course hypothetical, but it seems very probable that the appearance of the man claiming to be Edward II at Cologne in September 1338 was not a surprise to Edward III. It is also significant that there is nothing in the English records to suggest that the impostor was tried and summarily executed, as one might have expected.⁸⁴ It is known that he was escorted to Antwerp by Francekino Forcet and perhaps taken back in Nicholas Blank's galley from there to Italy, to end his days.⁸⁵ At Antwerp on 6 January 1339 Nicolino Fieschi was reappointed a member of Edward III's council at an annual fee of £20, which would continue to be paid to his sons Gabriel and Anthony after his death. The letters patent state that the appointment had been made because of the purity of his affection for Edward III and his royal house and the circumspection with which he had carried out royal business.⁸⁶ It is hard to resist the conclusion that Nicolino's services to the English crown did not consist only of the hiring of Genoese galleys, however important these were to the English war effort, and that he was centrally involved in the events which led both to the writing and delivery of the Fieschi letter and to the custody and delivery of William le Galeys.⁸⁷

There remains the question: who was William le Galeys? Ian Mortimer suggests that William was no less than Edward II himself, while Paul Doherty argues for William Ockley or Ogle, one of the men accused of Edward II's murder who had fled England in 1330.⁸⁸ Edward II was certainly dead, while there is no evidence relating to Ockley one way or the other. It is however worth searching for someone named le Galeys who might fit the known evidence, even though ‘le Galeys’ or ‘le Waleys’, or in its various other forms, such as ‘Wallace’ or ‘Walsh, was a common enough name, meaning simply ‘the Welshman’.⁸⁹

By coincidence one of the armigeri of Queen Isabella's household was named William le Galeys and was eventually buried in the church of the Grey Friars in London, where Isabella herself was buried in 1358. In 1347 William founded a chantry at Cheylesmore near Coventry for the repose of the souls of Isabella and others, including interestingly enough Edward II. By a further coincidence Cheylesmore is only a few miles from Dunsmore and Dunchurch, the home of the Dunheveds who were so active in trying to free Edward II from prison while he still lived.⁹⁰ But there is nothing more. If this William had been the wandering hermit of the Fieschi letter in the 1330s, then he made an extraordinary change of career later in life. So he can be ruled out of any further consideration.

There is one other candidate who fits some of the requirements of the wanderer, while at the same time falling short in at least one crucial aspect. This is William le Walsh, son of William le Walsh (d. 1303) and stepson of Andrew de Beauchamp, who held the manor of Woolstrop in Quedgeley just outside Gloucester from the earldom of Pembroke.⁹¹ William was a partisan of Roger Damory against the Despensers in the civil war of 1321–2; he appears to have had some connections with Edward II's wife Queen Isabella;⁹² and possibly also with the Berkeley family, whose castle nearby was the prison and place of death of Edward II.⁹³ While not of great importance in himself, William was the head of one of those locally well connected gentry families who were on the verge of knighthood and performed many of the functions of that rank.⁹⁴ Anyone living in Gloucester and its vicinity in and around 1327 would certainly have heard the stories and rumours both about the manner of Edward II's death and about his supposed escape from captivity. William le Walsh would have been no exception, and perhaps better informed than most. But to transform William's role from that of an interested observer of events to that of a wanderer claiming to be Edward II is another matter entirely. Here there is no direct evidence; only speculation is possible. If William le Walsh of Woolstrop really was the William le Galeys who appeared at Cologne in 1338, it is possible that he was so affected by the events of 1327 that he took to religion in a big way and abandoned his possessions for a life of wandering and prayer; or that he was simply deranged and suffered from delusions; or that he was a confidence trickster who knew enough to create a plausible story and hoped that his real identity would not be discovered. One small clue is that he also held two manors in south-east Wales, just across the Bristol Channel from Berkeley and close to Gloucester: the manor of Dynan (Dinham) held from the earl marshal's lordship of Chepstow, and the manor of Llanwern near Newport, the site of the present-day steelworks, which was held from the Pembroke lordship of Goodrich.⁹⁵ Llanwern was next door to Goldcliff priory, a daughter house of the famous abbey of Bec in Normandy.⁹⁶ There is ample evidence that William le Walsh was closely interested in Goldcliff, and through this he had contacts with Bec.⁹⁷ This might perhaps be an explanation for the statement in the Fieschi letter that the alleged Edward II spent some time in Normandy during his travels.

Unfortunately there is one fundamental problem with this chain of speculation: William le Walsh of Woolstrop and Llanwern apparently died in 1329 and was succeeded not by another William, but by his son Andrew. But did William really die in 1329⁹⁸ or was he only dead in the eyes of the law, and free to go where he wished?⁹⁹ This is surely one speculation too many.

SURVIVAL LEGENDS

Kings who lost their throne or who died mysteriously were often rumoured to be alive somewhere or other, perhaps living as hermits to do penance for their sins or waiting for the moment when they could return as the saviour of their people; the burial of a substitute body and the appearance of impostors also often formed part of such legends.¹⁰⁰ They were attached, for example, to Harold the last Anglo-Saxon king of England,¹⁰¹ to the Holy Roman Emperors Henry V in the twelfth century and Frederick II in the thirteenth;¹⁰² and to the emperor Baldwin of Constantinople in the 1220s.¹⁰³ Similar rumours of survival were also to be associated with Edward II's great-grandson Richard II after his deposition in 1399.¹⁰⁴ Another fourteenth-century example is John I, king of France, and the posthumously born son of Louis X, who lived for a few days in 1316. Forty years later, after the defeat of his namesake, John II, at the battle of Poitiers, a certain Giannino Baglioni of Siena in Italy was astonished to be told that he was none other than the lost John I and that he should vindicate his claim by invading France.¹⁰⁵

Given the atmosphere of intrigue and conspiracy which surrounded the last days of Edward II, and which was really the culmination of the intrigues and conspiracies that had been rife in the kingdom of England ever since 1322, it is hardly surprising that after his death Edward II should become the focus of fresh rumours; it would have been more surprising if he had not.

‘SAINT’ EDWARD

It was not uncommon for the deaths of great men to be followed by moves for their canonization, sometimes popular, sometimes politically inspired. This had happened, for example, after the death of Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester in the battle of Evesham in 1265.¹⁰⁶ It happened again after the execution in 1322 of Simon's self-styled political heir, Thomas of Lancaster, when ‘miracles’ were reported both at his tomb in Pontefract and around the plaque he had set up in St Paul's cathedral in London to mark the publication of the Ordinances. Edward II and his advisers had been forced into taking swift action before events got out of hand.¹⁰⁷ Edward II's deposition in January 1327 was followed by a move for the canonization both of Thomas of Lancaster and of another of Edward's former opponents, Robert Winchelsey, archbishop of Canterbury who had died in 1313.¹⁰⁸ On 15 February Henry of Lancaster wrote from London asking William Melton the archbishop of York to request the pope to begin an inquiry into the miracles attributed to Thomas of Lancaster. On 24 February the archbishop duly obliged, sending the pope a very flattering estimate of Thomas's character and claims to sanctity.¹⁰⁹ Although no formal canonization process was ever ordered by the pope, the cult of ‘St Thomas of Lancaster’ flourished in England and even on the continent and has left many traces.¹¹⁰ A miniature in the copy of the Sarum Hours made for use in the diocese of Lincoln between about 1325 and 1330 depicts Thomas of Lancaster facing St George;¹¹¹the Luttrell Psalter, made somewhere between 1320 and 1340, has a marginal illustration of Lancaster's execution;¹¹² in the church of South Newington in Oxfordshire there is a wall painting of Lancaster's ‘martyrdom’, dated to before 1340 and shown in conjunction with the martyrdom of St Thomas of Canterbury;¹¹³ a Latin office composed late in the reign of Edward II or early in that of Edward III also treats Thomas of Lancaster as imitating the sacrifice made by St Thomas;¹¹⁴ the Liber de Reliquiis produced in Durham in 1383 includes a pair of bedys of ‘St Thomas of Lancaster’;¹¹⁵ the British Museum possesses a number of pilgrims' badges depicting scenes from Lancaster's life and death;¹¹⁶ and an anonymous life of ‘St Thomas’ is preserved in two late fifteenth-century continental manuscripts.¹¹⁷

Any attempt to present Edward II as a martyr and as worthy of canonization therefore had to compete with a substantial amount of support for the cause of his first cousin Thomas of Lancaster. Yet there is considerable evidence to show that Edward II was so presented. He had certain advantages over his cousin in that he had been a king and not just an earl, however powerful. Another advantage was the cult of the royal saint, Edward the Confessor (canonized in 1162 during the reign of Henry II), which had been consciously developed by the English monarchy in the years before 1307, and which was given significant emphasis in Edward II's coronation in 1308.¹¹⁸ The cult of Edward the Confessor also helped to inspire the otherwise unknown Adam Davy to write his English poem, Five Dreams of Edward II, with its hints of future martyrdom, at about the time of Edward II's coronation in March 1308.¹¹⁹ Edward's fondness in life for the company of monks and friars, especially the members of the Dominican order,¹²⁰ had sometimes led him into trouble, as in the case of Nicholas of Wisbech and his promotion of the virtues of the Holy Oil of St Thomas,¹²¹ but it also won him their enduring loyalty. Many of the individuals who sought to free him from captivity in 1327 or who believed in 1330 that he was still alive in Corfe castle were drawn from these groups.¹²²

Among the chroniclers Ranulf Higden, the author of the Polychronicon, remarked that some people thought that Edward II should be placed among the saints, while countering this view with an account of Edward's vices and the failure of his government.¹²³The author of the Annals of Osney commented shrewdly that no one should be considered a saint on the grounds of the squalor of his imprisonment and the vileness of his death, unless these were matched by the holiness of his life.¹²⁴ In contrast, Geoffrey le Baker's account of Edward II's death, written in the 1340s, seems positively designed to prepare the way for a cult of royal sanctity. The literary device of the bishop of Hereford's ambiguous message is followed by the terrible details of Edward's murder, by a comparison of his sufferings with those of Christ and a description of him as a glorious martyr.¹²⁵ Geoffrey also asserted that at the time of his deposition Edward was prepared to end his life for Christ, knowing that a good shepherd should place his soul at the service of his sheep.¹²⁶ When he was imprisoned in Berkeley castle the ‘ministers of Belial’ attempted to end the life of ‘the servant of God’ by poison, but failed, either because of Edward's natural strength or, which Geoffrey believed was the truth, because ‘the Most High reserved his confessor for a more manifest martyrdom’.¹²⁷ Geoffrey also claimed that Edward had escaped from the disaster at Bannockburn in 1314 through the intervention of the Mother of God.¹²⁸

Another writer who tried to promote Edward's cause was the Dominican scholar Thomas Ringstead, who was bishop of Bangor between 1357 and 1366, but who had taught in Cambridge in the 1340s. In her study of Ringstead's lectures on the Book of Proverbs, Dr Beryl Smalley found an intriguing story about Prince Edward of Caernarfon and his father Edward I, which must have had its roots in their famous quarrel in 1305: Edward I ‘had cast him offunder the influence of evil counsellors. He bore the injury patiently and came to his father's help on a winter's night, when the king was riding along a muddy, dangerous road. Fearing for his safety, Prince Edward took the horse's bridle and walked beside him until the danger was over. The king did not know who had come to his rescue.’ And so, according to Ringstead, Talis filius fuit Christus.¹²⁹

The magnificent tomb erected in memory of Edward II in Gloucester abbey, the pilgrims it attracted and the miracles which were enacted around it no doubt contributed to his reputation for sanctity but there is no evidence of any attempt, whether by Dominican enthusiasts or by royal authority, to start a formal process for the canonization of Edward II¹³⁰ until the reign of Richard II, who had his own dynastic and political reasons for wanting a royal saint in the family.¹³¹ Richard's interest in Edward II and his canonization may have begun in October 1378 when he visited Edward's tomb during a parliament held in the abbey of St Peter's, Gloucester, leaving his personal badge of the white hart painted on the adjoining pillars as a mark of his visit.¹³² In 1383 he exempted the abbots of Gloucester from attending parliament in person, in return for the celebration of mass for Edward II's soul on the anniversary of his death.¹³³ So far this was little more than the recognition given to Edward II's place of burial by Edward III, but in 1385 Richard sent a delegation to the curia to press Urban VI for his great-grand-father's canonization;¹³⁴ and two years later he sent William Brut, a monk of Gloucester abbey, to ask Urban VI for an inquiry into Edward's miracles.¹³⁵ Richard's work bore fruit on 4 December 1389 when the newly elected pope Boniface IX ordered the archbishop of Canterbury to examine the life, merits and miracles of Edward II.¹³⁶ In October or November 1390 Richard II went to Gloucester in company with the archbishop and Richard Braybrooke, bishop of London, to supervise the beginning of this work.¹³⁷ The resulting book of miracles, together with a gold cup and a gold ring set with a ruby, was delivered to the pope in Florence by Peter Merk and James Monald early in 1395.¹³⁸Between then and 1399 Richard II pursued the process with determination through his agents, Master William Stortford the bishop of London's clerk, Richard Scrope bishop of Coventry & Lichfield, and the monk William Brut.¹³⁹ Nothing was achieved and Richard even appears to have fallen out with Brut.¹⁴⁰ Despite further English diplomatic pressure nothing had come of the attempted canonization when Richard II was deposed in 1399, and the new king Henry IV had no interest in the matter.¹⁴¹

Although there was certainly a devotion to Edward II in Gloucester, expressed through the gifts of visitors and the occasional miracle, there is no material evidence of the kind associated with Thomas of Lancaster's cult: no pilgrims' badges, no office of the ‘saint’. It is hard to resist the conclusion that Edward II's cult flourished only in Gloucester and in the mind of Richard II. The report in 1389 by the St Albans chronicler, Thomas Walsingham, that Lancaster had been canonized may have been wishful thinking, but was probably intended to counter Richard II's efforts on behalf of Edward II.¹⁴² Ironically, the cult of Thomas of Lancaster continued to flourish until the Reformation,¹⁴³ while that of Edward II disappeared from sight.

But Edward II has had the last word, if not the last laugh. While Thomas of Lancaster is now mainly the subject of specialized academic interest, Edward II has in a sense experienced a series of afterlives which have lasted down to the present.¹⁴⁴ For good or ill, there is probably as much interest in him today as a deeply flawed and tragic personality as there was in him as king in his own time.

¹ Mortimer, ‘The death of Edward II’, esp. 1175–6, 1193–4; and Mortimer, The Perfect King, App. 2, ‘The fake death of Edward II’.

² Moore, ‘Documents’, 226. Edward II's personal physician Pancius da Controne left his service in March 1327, was not with him at Berkeley and could not have testified to the cause of death. Controne however transferred his services to Edward III, and was to be one of the conspirators involved in Mortimer's overthrow in 1330: CCR, 1327–30, 446, 448, 485; CChR, 1327–41, 190; Shenton, ‘Edward III’, 13–34.

³ Murimuth, 53–4.

⁴ He visited Gloucester in 1321, 1322, 1324, and in May and Oct. 1326; and Bristol in 1308 and 1321. Much would depend on whether or not the face was covered with cerecloth. Mortimer makes much of this possibility in ‘The death of Edward II’, 1182–3.

⁵ The occasion was recorded by the sub-sacrist of the cathedral, Marshall Allen: ‘King Edward's Tomb: On the second day of October, 1855, in the presence of Dr Jeune, Canon in Residence, Mr Waller, architect, Marshall Allen, sub-sacrist, and Henry Clifford, the master mason. The tomb of King Edward the Second, in the Cathedral, was opened by removing the floor on the south side of the tomb, and excavating about two feet, then working under the tomb; and only just below the flooring immediately under the tomb we came first to a wood coffin, quite sound, and after removing a portion of this, we came to a leaden one, containing the remains of the King; the wood, although light as cork, was still very perfect, and the lead one quite entire, and made with a very thick sheet of lead, its shape very peculiar, being square at bottom, and rising on each side like an arch, and so turned over the body in an oval or arched form, and seemed to have been made to set nearly close upon the body. The tomb was never known to have been opened before this. It remained open but the space of two hours, and was then closed again, without the slightest injury being done to the tomb, – the fact of his interment being now 528 years since, it was considered to be in a wonderful state of preservation.

Oct. 3^rd, 1855, Marshall Allen,

Cathedral, Gloucester Sub-sacrist’

:‘Account Book of Marshall Allen, Subsacrist, 1835–1858’, Gloucester Cathedral Ms. 55, ff. 82v–81v (the book was the wrong way up when the account was entered, which explains the odd foliation). A transcript is published in David Welander, History, 150.

⁶ J. Ayloffe, ‘An account of the body of King Edward the First, as it appeared on opening his tomb in the year 1774’, Archaeologia, iii (1786), 376–413; J. Steane, The Archaeology of the Medieval English Monarchy (London, 1993), 55.

⁷ Mortimer believes that Edward did not die until the autumn of 1341 and that his burial at Gloucester would have followed: Mortimer, The Perfect King, App. 3, ‘A note on the later life of Edward II’, 417.

⁸ Techniques, analogous to those used in keyhole surgery, might now be available.

⁹ Mortimer, ‘Sermons of sodomy’, 53–6; Le Baker, 9, 27, 30, 33–4.

¹⁰ Mortimer, ‘The death of Edward II’, 1175.

¹¹ Berkeley Castle Muniments, Select Roll 39; Jeayes, Descriptive Catalogue, 274; Smyth, Lives of the Berkeleys, i, 293, 296–7. Since Berkeley never denied having sent the letters to the king, there is no possibility of someone else having written in his name or using his seal.

¹² Smyth, Lives of the Berkeleys, i, 296. The relevant roll for 1 Ed. III (Jan. 1327–Jan. 1328) is no longer extant. Berkeley Castle Muniments, Select Roll 60, Household Accounts, 2 Ed. III, has no information.

¹³ Smyth, Lives of the Berkeleys, i, 296–7.

¹⁴ Ibid., 297. This does not make sense since the body was moved to Gloucester on 21 Oct.

¹⁵ Ibid.

¹⁶ Mortimer, ‘The death of Edward II’, 1186–7.

¹⁷ PROME, Parliament of Nov. 1330, C 65/2, item 16.

¹⁸ Mortimer, ‘The death of Edward II’, 1186. Although this corresponds with my translation in my edn of the 1330 Parliament Roll in PROME (‘nor did he ever know of his death until this present parliament’), my intention there was to avoid over-interpretation of the text, since I was aware that it was open to different meanings.

¹⁹ PROME, Parliament of Nov. 1330, C 65/2, item 16.

²⁰ Mortimer, ‘The death of Edward II’, 1186.

²¹ Ibid., 1188–9, 1193–4.

²² Ibid., 1193.

²³ Quoted from ‘What happened to Edward II?’, David Carpenter's review of Mortimer's book, The Perfect King, in the London Review of Books, 7 June 2007.

²⁴ Select Cases, ed. Sayles, v, 58–63.

²⁵ Although the judgment against Roger Mortimer in Nov. 1330 was annulled in the parliament of 1354, this was done because the procedure adopted in 1330 was defective in that Mortimer ‘was put to death and disinherited without any accusation and without being brought to judgment or to answer’. Nothing was said as to the veracity of the charge of murdering Edward II. The 1326 judgment against the earl of Arundel was annulled on the same grounds: see PROME, Parliament of 1354, C 65/18, items 8–14, and the Introduction to the same parliament.

²⁶ Murimuth, 52. There is some evidence that Thomas de Berkeley sent letters to Maltravers at Corfe at the relevant time: Mortimer, ‘The death of Edward II’, 1190, citing Berkeley Castle Muniments, Select Roll 39. I missed this detail when I examined the roll at Berkeley in 1998: the roll is however badly faded and difficult to read.

²⁷ Although I disagree with the conclusions reached by Mortimer, the issues he raises needed to be addressed.

²⁸ I have borrowed from the title of Haines's excellent paper, ‘Edwardus redivivus’, 65–86.

²⁹ What follows draws heavily on my paper, ‘“Edward II” in Italy’.

³⁰ Cuttino & Lyman, ‘Where is Edward II?’, 530, n. 43, citing refs in the Wardrobe book for 1338–40, E 36/203, ff. 178, 179. This source is available in print as The Wardrobe Book of William de Norwell, ed. Lyon et al. For the refs to William le Waleys see 212, 214. These refs were originally discovered by Dr P. Chaplais. For the meetings between Edward III and the emperor see Vitae Paparum Avenionensium, ed. E. Baluze, new edn, ed. G. Mollat, ii, 303–6; Knighton's Chronicle, 1337–1396, ed. G.H. Martin (Oxford, 1995), 9–10.

³¹ Archives départementales de l'Hérault, Series G 1123, f. 86r (Cartulaire de Maguelone, Register A) (the text of the letter is given in Cuttino & Lyman, ‘Where is Edward II?’, App. i, 537, where the reference is wrongly given as GM 23). The extremes of possible dating are 1329 and 1343 when Fieschi gave up his post at the papal curia and became bishop of Vercelli in north-eastern Italy. As will be argued below, a date between about 1336 and 1338 seems more likely.

³² Born in Paris, 14 Dec 1809; died at Montpellier, 26 Jan. 1887. For his career and publications see M. Prévost et al., eds, Dictionnaire de biographie française, v (Paris, 1982), cols 1307–8. It is important to emphasize Germain's importance as a scholar since one modern commentator has described him rather dismissively simply as ‘an archivist named Germain’: Fryde, 203, 295.

³³ The register covers six vols, A to F: Series G, 1123–8, followed by a contemporary index volume, Register G (Series G, 1129). Register A is a large bound parchment volume, written clearly in a consistent hand or hands. According to the Répertoire numérique des archives départementales antérieures à 1790, Herault, archives ecclésiastiques, series G, clergé séculier, ed. M. Gouron (Montpellier, 1970), Register A was begun by Bishop Jean de Verdale of Maguelone (1339–52) and finished by Bishop Gaucelm de Deaux (1367–73). The Inventaire of the records of the diocese of Maguelone says that the cartulary was started under Bishop Jean de Verdale and finished in six ‘recueils’ under Bishop Gaucelm de Deaux. It could be then that the whole of Register A was composed under Verdale, since the latest document is one from the 1350s (1359: doc. 247, is the latest date); there is one from 1351 and possibly one from 1352). The document from 1387 at the end of the volume is a later addition. All the others come from earlier and few are from the 1340s. The first document in the volume (f. 1r) is dated 1293 and is headed Libertates Ville Nove. On f. 3 there is some material written in a seventeenth- or eighteenth-century hand. On f. 4r are written some apparent dedications: ‘A Monseigneur le Marquis de Louvoys ministre et secretaire d'Estat; A Monseigneur; Monseigneur Lafon premier duc et pair de France A La Cour.’ The register proper begins on what would have been f. 5, but the foliation starts again from f. 1. The previous four folios were evidently blank and were therefore filled in by various persons at a later date.

F. 1 is headed as follows: In isto cartulario continetur recogniciones recepte per reverendum in Christo patrem dominum A. dei gratia Episcopum Magalon a personis et nobilibus infrascriptis suis et Ecclesie predicte vassallis. The documents which follow all appear to be recognitions of obligations or grants of property by lay vassals of the bishops of Maguelone. Throughout the volume documents are dated both by the year of grace and by the name of the French king then reigning (the range of French kings noted is from Louis VII to John II (one example)); sometimes in the fourteenth century the name of the reigning pope is also given.

The seat of the diocese was at Maguelone, on a sand-spit overlooking the Mediterranean in one direction and a large freshwater lagoon in the other. Here it was reasonably secure from outside attack. During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries Maguelone was coming under increasing pressure from the French monarchy, through its seneschals at Beaucaire and Nîmes; the important trading centre of Montpellier, some miles from Maguelone, was under the control of the kingdom of Aragon from 1204 until its acquisition by France in 1349. When the seat of the diocese moved to Montpellier in 1536, the 12th-century basilica of Maguelone ceased to be a cathedral and is now an intact but empty shell.

³⁴ Copies of the letter could have been circulating at the papal curia at Avignon, which was near Maguelone and with which its bishops had close connections. Pope Urban V's stay of two months in Maguelone, starting on 9 Jan. 1367, at the time when the newly appointed bishop, Gaucelm de Deaux (who was also papal treasurer), was overseeing the completion of Register A, offers one possible explanation of the Fieschi letter's appearance in Maguelone: A. Germain, Maguelone sous ses évêques et ses chanoines (Montpellier, 1869), 139.

³⁵ There is a photograph of the document in Mortimer, The Greatest Traitor, between 188 and 189. The photograph does not show the entire width of the folio, thereby omitting ‘vacat’. The text of the Fieschi letter is written in its entirety on one side of G 1123, Register A, f. 86r. The hand is no different from that of the documents entered before and after. There is nothing to suggest the document was added after the completion of the register in a previously blank space, or that it could be a clever modern forgery. Blank folios are very rare in the register. The ink is pale brown and may have faded slightly over time. The folio containing the letter has a fold in it where the folio has clearly been bent over at some past time. There is nothing in the immediate appearance of the document to draw attention to it, apart from the lack of a date, which is usually the case in this register only with very early documents. The fourteenth-century documents always have date of incarnation and the name of the ruling king of France (though not the year of his reign). The document is not part of any chronological sequence which would help to date it; it has nothing to do with the documents before and after; it is the only document in the register (really a cartulary) which has nothing to do with the secular business of the diocese of Maguelone. There is none of the business one would expect in a bishop's register of the usual kind.

The Fieschi letter, doc. 120 on f. 86r, is preceded and followed by documents relating to Cournonterral: 119 (1264), 121 (1299), 122 (1317), 124 (1286), 125 (1315). These are all entirely typical of the kind of material elsewhere in the cartulary. No. 120 is entirely untypical (except for being in Latin), since it is a document of outside origin, it is undated, and there is no indication of where it was drawn up.

The original documents which were transcribed into the six volumes of the register are no longer extant, removing the possibility that the Fieschi letter in the form in which it reached Maguelone might still be available for study. Large-scale destruction of ecclesiastical archives occurred at Montpellier in 1566 and later, and again in 1621 and 1623:Répertoire numérique, ed. Gouron, 1.

³⁶ The document was published by the local learned society, the Société Archéologique de Montpellier in 1878: A. Germain, ‘Lettre de Manuel Fiesque concernant les dernières années du roi d'Angleterre Édouard II’, repr. in Mémoires de la Société Archéologique de Montpellier, vii (1881), 109–27. For a transcription of the Latin text of the letter and a good translation see Cuttino & Lyman, ‘Where is Edward II?’ 537–8 and 526–7.

³⁷ J. T. Best, ‘Where did Edward the Second die?’, Macmillan's Magazine, xli (March 1880), 393–4; Best, ‘Where did Edward II die?’, with a reply by J.H. Cooke, Notes and Queries, lxii (13 and 20 Nov., 18 Dec. 1880), 381–3, 401–3, 489–90. The document was discussed by William Stubbs in Chronicles of the Reigns of Edward I and Edward II, Rolls Series, ii (London, 1883), cvi–cviii, and Tout in ‘Captivity and death’, 179.

³⁸ The most recent discussions of the Fieschi letter can be found in Haines, ‘Edwardus redivivus’, Death of a King, and King Edward II, 219–38; Doherty, Isabella, 183–215, Mortimer, The Greatest Traitor, 251–61; and again in Mortimer, The Perfect King, App. 3, ‘A note on the later life of Edward II’.

³⁹ Cuttino & Lyman ‘Where is Edward II?’, 522–43. For a summary of the views of Stubbs and Tout see ibid., 527–8.

⁴⁰ Mortimer, The Greatest Traitor, 251–63 (esp. 259–63), 301–3; Doherty (D.Phil.), 185–215 (esp. 207–13); Haines, ‘Edwardus redivivus’, 63–86, esp. 65, 79–80; idem, King Edward II, 220–38.

⁴¹ C. Nigra, ‘Uno degli Edoardi in Italia’, Nuova Antologia: Rivista Lettere Scienze, xcii, ser. 4, fascicle for 1 April 1901, 403–25.

⁴² Costantino Nigra (1828–1907) was first a soldier and then a prominent diplomat in the service of the kingdom of Savoy. He played a very important role in Franco-Italian relations from 1855 and was in Paris continuously from 1861 until the end of 1876, when he was moved to St Petersburg. He would not therefore have been in Paris when Germain first publicly announced his discovery of the Fieschi letter in 1877. However, he was also a considerable scholar in his own right (including published work in the field of Celtic studies), and so was probably familiar with the cultural scene in Paris during and after his time in France: A. Horne, The Fall of Paris (London, 1965), 57;Enciclopedia Italiana (repr. of the 1934 edn, Rome, 1951), xxiv, 818–19.

⁴³ Nigra, ‘Uno degli Edoardi in Italia’, 413–15, 419–25. The castle of Melazzo still exists as a private residence. The castle of Cecima no longer exists, apart from the street name, Via Castello, and some overgrown ruins on the top of the hill on which Cecima stands. There was however a castle there in the fourteenth century. Cecima came under the secular lordship of the diocese of Pavia and the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the diocese of Tortona: A. C. Sangiuliani, Cecima (Milan, 1906), 37, 39; idem, Dell' Abazia S. Alberto di Butrio (Milan, 1865), 245–6.

⁴⁴ Mortimer, The Perfect King, 414. Pontremoli had associations with the Fieschi family, which Melazzo did not. In his will, dated at Avignon on 31 Jan. 1336, Cardinal Luke Fieschi asked for prayers in memory of the emperor Henry VII who had given the castle and town of Pontremoli to Federico Fieschi: ASV, Avignon Register 49, f. 440v.

⁴⁵ V. Lege, Sant' Alberto Abate e il suo culto, repr. from Atti dell'Accademia Tortonese Leone, xiii (Tortona, 1901), 83–6. Lege however makes it clear that his source was Nigra's paper ‘Uno degli Edoardi in Italia’, and not any local tradition. Nigra's work came to his notice while his own was in the press. It appears then that in the late nineteenth century Germain's paper was beginning to become known in the areas of northern Italy associated with the Edward II story.

The abbey of Sant' Alberto was founded in the eleventh century and had a continuous existence until its suppression in the early nineteenth century. Since the beginning of the twentieth century a religious community has again occupied the monastery, which is visited for Sunday mass by large numbers of people from the nearby town of Pontenizza. There is a short history of the abbey by a member of the present community, Domenico Sparpaglione, FDP, Una Gemma d'Oltrepo (4th edn, Tortona, 1990).

⁴⁶ Sangiuliani, Cecima, 36–8.

⁴⁷ A. Benedetti, Edoardo II d'Inghilterra all'Abbazia di S. Alberto di Butrio (Palermo, 1924). She had visited the abbey in 1919. She also published a study of the French poem supposedly composed by Edward II after his deposition: ‘Una canzone francese di Edoardo II d'Inghilterra’.

⁴⁸ Nigra noted in his 1901 article, ‘Uno degli Edoardi in Italia’, that the owners of Melazzo had recently erected two plaques recording the supposed stay of Edward II in the castle, but remarked that there was no local tradition of such a stay and that the evidence was derived from Germain's paper on the Fieschi letter: 413, n. 1. Nigra had visited Melazzo in 1890 in the course of his researches and had presumably told the owners about Germain's paper: Nigra, 414. The short history of the castle refers to the Fieschi letter and contains a photograph of the memorial plaque: C. Violono, Melazzo nella storia (Melazzo, 1995), 70–2. In the first half of the fourteenth century the castle may have been in the possession of the bishops of Acqui: Violono, 22. But, as already indicated, Mulazzo may be a better identification.

⁴⁹ For details of the treatment of the ‘Edward II’ story in modern works on the abbey see Sparpaglione, Una Gemma d'Oltrepo, 57–65, 82–3 (Cuttino & Lyman, ‘Where is Edward II?’, 531–2, cited the 3rd edn, 1973). There is also an earlier and longer edition with the same title, published in Tortona (n.d.). In this version the material relating to ‘Edward II’ appears on 131–54, 186–7. The text is substantially the same as that in the later editions, but does not, for example, include a reference to Sparpaglione's 1958 conversation with the eighty-eight-year-old man, Zerba Stefano. The text on the plaque above the tomb of ‘Edward II’ and a photograph of the tomb appear in Cuttino & Lyman, 531 and fig. 3. The most recent book about the abbey of Sant’ Alberto is F. Bernini, La Badia di S. Alberto di Butrio tra Storia, Arte e Fede (Pontenizza, 1993): the section dealing with Edward II appears between 165 and 176. Bernini's account adds nothing of significance, except that the tomb now displayed as that of Edward II was opened in 1900 by a local parish priest, Paolo Cassola, when only a portion of a cranium was found: Bernini, 169 (citing Benedetti, Edoardo II, 23–4). If the date is correct, this was another consequence of the growing knowledge locally of the Fieschi letter at that time. Benedetti met Cassola when she visited Butrio in 1919; Cassola wrote to her in May 1923 about the opening of the tomb, without seemingly giving a date for when this occurred: Benedetti, Edoardo II, 23–4. The investigation of the tomb evidently took place at or about the same time as the opening of that of the abbey's founder, Sant' Alberto, on 9 July 1900. This was also the time when the revival of the abbey as a religious house was being seriously proposed: Sparpaglione (3rd & 4th edns), 67–8.

⁵⁰ Cuttino & Lyman, ‘Where is Edward II?’, 537, and more generally, 531–7.

⁵¹ Ibid., 532, citing Benedetti, Edoardo II, 24.

⁵² Cuttino & Lyman, ‘Where is Edward II?’, 531, citing Sparpaglione, Una Gemma d'Oltrepo (3rd & 4th edns), 62. ‘Well before 1900’ could apply just as easily to the knowledge of Germain's article that was beginning to circulate from 1890.

⁵³ Sparpaglione, Una Gemma d'Oltrepo (3rd & 4th edns), 62–3.

⁵⁴ Sangiuliani, Dell' Abazia S. Alberto di Butrio. Sangiuliani knew of the Edward II legend and of the suggested connection with Sant' Alberto by 1906 when he published his history of Cecima, but only through his reading of Nigra's 1901 paper and Lege's 1901 history of the abbey: Sangiuliani, Cecima, 32–8.

⁵⁵ If a portion of a cranium really were discovered when the tomb ascribed to Edward II was opened in 1900, this would also tell against the belief that Edward II had ever lain in the tomb. A piece of bone would scarcely have been left behind when the body was later transferred to Gloucester abbey: Benedetti, Edoardo II, 23–4 (cited by Bernini,La Badia, 169).

⁵⁶ The Fieschi were counts of Lavagna in Liguria; they also appear to have had influence or control over places such as Voghera and Vercelli, both of which figure in the story of the Fieschi letter. On the history of the Fieschi family see F. Federici, Della Famiglia Fiesca Trattato (Genoa, 1645), 7–9; G. P. Balbi, I ‘Conti’ e la ‘Contea’ di Lavagna(Genoa, 1984); B. Bernabo, ‘I Fieschi e la Val di Vara’, and M. Macconi, ‘I Fieschi e l'Impero nel XIV e XV secolo’, in D. Calcagno, ed., I Fieschi tra medioeve ed età moderna (Genoa, 1999). Manuel Fieschi was the son of Andrea, count of Lavagna, and nephew of Cardinal Luke Fieschi: Haines, ‘Edwardus redivivus’, 68. He was also an executor of Cardinal Luke's will (made at Avignon on 31 Jan. 1336) and was present in Avignon on 4 Aug. 1336 when the performance of the terms of the will was recorded: ASV, Avignon Register 49, f. 439v. Nicolino Fieschi (discussed below) was the brother of Francesco, count of Lavagna, which probably also made him the brother of Manuel: Sumption, Trial by Battle, 163.

⁵⁷ Federici, Della Famiglia, 49–52; Nigra, ‘Uno degli Edoardi in Italia’, 418–20. Bernabo, ‘I Fieschi e la Val di Vara’, passim.

⁵⁸ Mulazzo is not in Lombardy but it was in an area of interest to the Fieschi as a family.

⁵⁹ For Manuel Fieschi's career and family connections see Cuttino & Lyman, ‘Where is Edward II?’, 529–30, 540–2; Germain, ‘Lettre de Manuel Fiesque’, 10–11, 13; Nigra, ‘Uno degli Edoardi in Italia’, 418–20; B. Guillemain, La Cour pontificale d'Avignon (1309–1376) (Paris, 1962), 314; Haines, ‘Edwardus redivivus’, 68. The diocese of Vercelli appears to have been a Fieschi preserve for much of the 14th century: Federici, Della Famiglia, 52. Manuel's successor was Giovanni Fieschi who was bishop from 1349 until his death in Rome in 1380: Libro delle investiture del vescovo di Vercelli Giovanni Fieschi (1349–50) (Turin, 1934), ed. D. Arnaldi, 249–51. Several other members of Giovanni's family are mentioned in this volume: see 254–62.

⁶⁰ Bernini, La Badia, 167–8.

⁶¹ Phillips, esp. chs 4 & 5. On Luke's career see Federici, Della Famiglia, 38–9; Guillemain, La Cour pontificale, 185, 212, 219; and esp. the detailed account in Z. Hledková, Raccolta Praghese di Scritti di Luca Fieschi (Charles University, Prague, 1985).

⁶² For details see Cuttino & Lyman, ‘Where is Edward II?’, 529–30, 539–42.

⁶³ Ibid., 529, 544. Manuel was Edward II's third cousin once removed.

⁶⁴ There is a lot of information on Nicolino, who, although he was married and had two sons, Gabriel and Anthony, was commonly known as ‘the cardinal of Genoa’, even in papal records: e.g. Codex Vaticanus Latinus 10883, f. 221, Avignon, 13 Jan. 1331, at the start of the arbitration by the pope between Genoa and the king of Cyprus, in which Nicolino was a proctor on behalf of Genoa. Officially Nicolino's duties on behalf of Edward III involved such matters as the hiring of shipping to assist Edward in transporting and defending his forces in the Low Countries in the late 1330s. He was active from at least Oct. 1336 in this role, which also involved preventing the French from gaining access to the same resources to use against England's interests. It is clear from the way he is described in the English records that Nicolino's real role was often that of a royal agent dealing with extremely delicate affairs of state: CPR, 1334–38, 247; Foedera, II, ii, 941, 946–8, 1058, 1066, 1068, 1104, 1107. There is some interesting material on Nicolino in Sumption, Trial by Battle, 163, 249, 319–20, 437-8, 444. Nicolino is also discussed in Mortimer, The Greatest Traitor, 261, 263, 303, where he is however wrongly described as a cardinal, and in Haines, ‘Edwardus redivivus’, 68–9.

Nicolino was not the first member of his family to be a member of the royal council in England. In Aug. 1315 his relative Charles Fieschi had been appointed by Edward II: Foedera, II, ii, 274. It is not clear what services Edward II expected from his ‘cousin’. Genoa however provided invaluable financial services to the English crown for much of Edward II's reign through the activities of the merchant and banker Antonio Pessagno: see N. Fryde, ‘Antonio Pessagno of Genoa, king's merchant of Edward II of England’, in Studi in Memoria di Federigo Melis, ii (Naples, 1978).

⁶⁵ See Sumption, Trial by Battle, 319–20; Vitae Paparum Avenionensium, ed. Baluze, i, 205–6, 213–14.

⁶⁶ Pope Benedict XII was particularly angry because the incident occurred on the night of Maundy Thursday, and on 17 April issued a bull against those who had captured Nicolino and thrown him into prison: Vitae Paparum Avenionensium, ed. Baluze, iii (Documents), 483–6. The document, which is preserved in the second volume of the register containing Manuel Fieschi's letter, records the reaction at Montpellier to the seizure of Nicolino: Archives départementales de l'Hérault, ser. G 1124, Cartulaire de Maguelone, Register B, no. 429, ff. 54v–55r. Germain noted the existence of this additional Fieschi document in his paper on the Fieschi letter: Germain ‘Lettre de Manuel Fiesque’, 11, n. 2.

⁶⁷ Simon Bereford was one of Roger Mortimer's leading followers and was executed as such in Nov. 1330, but he was not directly accused of having murdered Edward II.

⁶⁸ Acts, 16: 22–8 (St Paul and Silas: who did not take advantage of the opportunity to escape); Acts, 12: 6–11 (St Peter). Robert of Reading used the story of the escape of St Peter from Herod's prison (the words in italics are quoted from Acts): ‘The king sent his detestable cruel officials to the Tower of London, intending to bring forth the younger Roger after a few days to the people and condemn him to a violent death. And when the king would have brought him forth, behold on the night of St Peter ad Vincula, the Holy Ghost came … and touching Roger's heart raised him up, saying, “Arise up quickly and follow me”And Roger, leaving, followed him, which was done byChrist; thus it was not that he thought he saw a vision. When they were past the first and second ward they came to the river Thames’: Gransden, ii, 20, citing Flores, 217.

⁶⁹ CPR, 1327–30, 42, 125; Ann. Paul., 337; Haines, ‘Edwardus redivivus’, 72; idem, Stratford, 208, n. 9.

⁷⁰ The benefices he was given in England did not involve the ‘cure of souls’ and in practice could be held in absentia. The letters of attorney he was granted from time to time by the English crown (e.g. 8June 1335, CPR, 1333–38, 116) probably imply that he was already out of England rather than that he was about to leave the country.

⁷¹ Some kind of covering letter would have been necessary, since the ‘Fieschi letter’ is not strictly a letter in itself but more in the nature of a notarial instrument (although not, strictly speaking, that either). Any covering letter would presumably have been dated.

⁷² Guillemain, La Cour pontificale, 219 (Fieschi), 214, n. 72 (d'Eauze). There is a short account of Gaucelin d'Eauze's career by G. Mollat in R. Aubert, ed., Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géeographie ecclésiastiques, xx (Paris, 1984), 18. Although Luke Fieschi had been in England in 1317–18, he was not there in May 1325, as suggested in Mortimer,The Perfect King, 416. The letters of protection issued to him in his capacity as the absentee parson of the church of Tiryngton (probably Tirrington, near Peterborough) were simply a formality to protect him from legal actions in his absence and do not imply that he was in the country: CPR, 1324–27, 119.

⁷³ For their missions in England see the Index below and Haines, Stratford, 151, 153, 155, 157, 160, 168, 170, 177. On Guillaume de Laudun's later career as archbishop of Toulouse see La Papauté d'Avignon et le Languedoc (1316–1342), Cahiers de Fanjeaux, xxvi (Toulouse, 1991), 152, 212, 219. It is not clear whether the bishop of Orange might still have been alive in the 1330s.

⁷⁴ If the impostor and his story had become public knowledge, they could have reflected on Edward III's legitimacy as king of England and so provided the French monarchy with an excellent propaganda weapon just as England and France were going to war over the rights of succession to the French monarchy. Although, as Stubbs suggested, the story in the Fieschi letter could conceivably have been a French plot, there is no evidence to suggest that France was in any way involved either in the production of the letter or in its aftermath.

⁷⁵ For ecclesastical purposes Cecima was in the diocese of Tortona, of which Percival Fieschi was bishop in the 1330s, while it came under the secular lordship of the bishop of Pavia: Bernini, La Badia, 167–8; Sangiuliani, Cecima, 37, 39. It is possible, though not certain, that the castle of Melazzo was under the jurisdiction of the bishop of Acqui: Violono, Melazzo nella storia, 22.

⁷⁶ Here I am in agreement with Ian Mortimer: The Greatest Traitor, 261, 263, 303; The Perfect King, 413–17.

⁷⁷ Foedera, II, ii, 941; Fryde, 49, 243; Mortimer, The Greatest Traitor, 259–60.

⁷⁸ CPR, 1334–38, 247. Nicolino's account as king's proctor in the papal curia, for 747 days from 24 June, 10 Ed. III (1336) to 12 July, 12 Ed. III (1338), for expediting the king's affairs at the curia and elsewhere overseas, is preserved in E 372/184, m.48 (13 Ed. III). He was owed £44 4s but received only £13 6s 8d at York in Nov.: 10 Ed. III (1336).

It is possible, as Ian Mortimer suggests, that Nicolino brought with him Manuel Fieschi's letter as early as July 1336: Mortimer, The Greatest Traitor, 259–60. Nicolino was again (or still) in England on 30 Oct. 1336, when he came into the chancery at York to confirm his letters patent of 16 Oct. in which he stated that he was acting as a special envoy of the city of Genoa in its dealings with Edward III. Earlier, on 6 Oct., Edward III had appointed him as his proctor and envoy to arrange for the hire of galleys and men-at-arms: Foedera, II, ii, 947–8. These were his official functions, but there was plenty of room left for him to engage in more sensitive and highly confidential activities.

⁷⁹ The Wardrobe Book of William de Norwell, ed. Lyon et al., 212, 214. The reference to Dec. in the second entry is surely a mistake for Sept.: three weeks' expenses would scarcely be paid in Oct. for a date two months ahead. The meeting between Edward III and the emperor took place at Koblenz on 3, 4 Sept.: Vitae Paparum Avenionensium, ed. Baluze, ii, 304.

⁸⁰ This is the way in which both Chaplais and Cuttino & Lynam interpreted the event: Cuttino & Lyman, ‘Where is Edward II?’, 530, n. 43. Cuttino & Lyman did not however pursue the question of William le Galeys and his possible identity.

⁸¹ See R.E. Latham, Revised Medieval Latin Word-list (London, 1965), 31. The second wardrobe book reference does use the word ‘custody’. Mortimer also considers that William was not ‘arrested’ in the modern sense of the word: Mortimer, The Greatest Traitor, 260.

⁸² This is also Mortimer's opinion: The Greatest Traitor, 261, 303. Although Francis Forcet is described as a royal serjeant-at-arms and therefore technically a member of the royal household, this was probably, as Mortimer suggests, to give him status. Forcet may in fact have been an associate of Dino Forcetti, of the Florentine banking company the Bardi, who was also with Edward III at this time and was closely involved in Edward's credit operations in the Low Countries and Germany: Mortimer, The Greatest Traitor, 303; The Wardrobe Book of William de Norwell, ed. Lyon et al., lxxv, 216. Nicolino Fieschi was probably at Antwerp on 24 Sept. when he was authorized to obtain shipping for use by Edward III and at the same time to prevent others (i.e. France) from doing so: CPR, 1338–40, 190.

⁸³ Foedera, II, ii, 1058.

⁸⁴ One important clue to Edward III's opinion of William le Galeys is the fact that on 21 Sept. 1338 he attended mass at the conventual church of St Andrew in Antwerp for the soul of Edward II on the anniversary of his father's death. Masses in memory of Edward II were also celebrated on that date by the Dominicans of Antwerp and by the Carthusians just outside the city: The Wardrobe Book of William de Norwell, ed. Lyon et al., 207. Edward III would scarcely have done this if he had any doubt about the real identity of William le Galeys, unless he was being extraordinarily devious.

⁸⁵ Despite being given licence to depart on 6 Sept., Nicholas Blank was still in Antwerp on 29 Oct.: The Wardrobe Book of William de Norwell, ed. Lyon et al., lxv, 275.

⁸⁶ ‘Cum nuper attendentes affectionis puritatem, quam dilectus et fidelis noster, Nicholinus de Flisco, dictus cardinalis de Janua, ad nos et domum nostram regiam optinuit, necnon ipsius circumspectionem providam, quam nobis in agendis nostris fore credidimus oportunam’: Foedera, II, ii, 1066.

⁸⁷ Given Nicolino's value to the English crown, it is hardly surprising that the French went to the trouble of seizing him from Avignon in April 1340. There is nothing to suggest that this episode was in any way connected with William le Galeys.

⁸⁸ Mortimer, The Greatest Traitor, 260–2; Doherty, Isabella, 213–14.

⁸⁹ For example, the Waleys family of Glynde in Sussex and that of Henry le Waleys, alderman and mayor of London under Edward I: see N. Saul, Scenes from Provincial Life (Oxford, 1986); B. Breslow, ‘Henry le Waleys’, The Historian, Phi Alpha Theta (2009).

⁹⁰ The Grey Friars of London, ed. Kingsford, 100–1; CPR, 1345–48, 429.

⁹¹ William le Walsh was the stepson of Andrew de Beauchamp who had married William's mother: RP, i, 311. He was a commissioner of array in 1322 and 1324; in 1322 the sheriff of Gloucester included William Walsh in a list of ‘men-at-arms in his bailiwick aged between sixteen and sixty who were able in body and could wield arms’; in 1324 the sheriff returned that W. Walsh was one of 14 men holding lands in his bailiwick who were eligible to become knights (but Saul thinks that W. Walsh managed to evade actually taking up knighthood): N. Saul, Knights and Esquires (Oxford, 1981), 27, 31–2, 44–5.

Woolstrop in Quedgeley is now on the outskirts of the city of Gloucester. As heir of Robert Pont de l'Arche (d. 1246) and of his son William, William le Walsh held Woolstrop from Aymer de Valence, earl of Pembroke, whose own manors of Whaddon, Moreton Valence and Painswick were close at hand. In 1312 and again in 1315 William le Walsh, supported by the earl of Pembroke, petitioned in parliament over a disputed 10s a year service owed to the manor of the Barton, adjacent to Woolstrop and held by Queen Margaret, the widow of Edward I: RP, i, 311 (the original petition is SC8/145/7245). See also VCH, Gloucestershire, x, ed. C.R. Elrington (Glos., 1972). 218–19.

⁹² On his role in 1321–2 see CPR, 1321–24, 163–4. Queen Isabella had an interest in Woolstrop, which, as noted above, owed some service to the manor of the Barton, which formed part of Isabella's dower. William may have had other connections with the queen, since on 20 Feb. 1325 a certain William le Galeys was given letters of protection (with 29 others) for going overseas on the king's service with Queen Isabella: CPR, 1324–27. This may mean that William was with the queen in France and the Low Countries before her invasion of England in Sept. 1327. Although William opposed the Despensers in 1321–2, in 1324–5 he was acting as receiver of revenues from the lands of Thomas of Lancaster and other rebels in Wales: see List of Welsh Entries, ed. Fryde, 59, no. 495, citing E 368/96/m.108d (Hilary term, 18–19Ed. II).

⁹³ William le Walsh gave evidence at Gloucester at the proof of age of Thomas de Berkeley of Coberley, son of Giles de Berkeley in Feb. 1311: CIPM, v, no. 280, pp. 164–5. This does not prove that he was a close associate of the Berkeleys of Berkeley castle, but does place him in a general Berkeley orbit. The Berkeleys of Coberley, Glos., were a junior but important branch of the main Berkeley family: see B. and M. Gittos, ‘Motivation and choice’, in Heraldry, Pageantry and Social Display in Medieval England, ed. P. Coss & M. Keen (Woodbridge, Suffolk & Rochester, NY, 2002), 153–8. In 1335 Andrew le Walsh acquired land in Woolstrop from Thomas de Berkeley: VCH, Gloucestershire, x, 219. One of William le Walsh's immediate descendants (probably a younger son), Ralph le Walsh of Woolstrop (and of Llanwern and Dinham in South Wales) was certainly a ‘Berkeley man’. He was receiver of the Berkeleys in 1373–4; escheator in 1376–7; sheriff of Gloucestershire in 1379–80 and 1383–4; member of parliament for Gloucestershire in Oct. 1383: Saul, Knights and Esquires, 72, 117, 128, 138, 154, 288.

⁹⁴ Saul, Knights and Esquires, 226–7: table of manors held by Glos. knights and esquires in 1316.

⁹⁵ CIPM, vii, no. 207, p. 156, where he is named as William le Walsshe of ‘Wolvesthrop’, i.e. Woolstrop. There is a full translation of the inquisitions in The Index Library, v, 1302–1358, ed. E.A. Fry, The British Record Society, xl (London, 1910), 226–7. Transcripts of the original inquisitions are preserved in C 135/15. The inquisitions make it clear that the W. le Walsh who held Woolstrop was the same man who held Llanwern and Dynan. The editor of the CIPM, vii, 335, mistakenly identified Lanwaryn in Netherwent, as it appears in the inquisition, with the present-day Llanwarne in Hereford and Worcester, because of its connection with Goodrich castle in the same county. However the fact, as will appear below, that W. le Walsh of Lanwaryn was closely involved with the adjoining Goldcliff priory makes it certain that the identification should be with Llanwern.

⁹⁶ See R. Graham, ‘Four alien priories in Monmouthshire’, Journal of British Archaeological Association, 2nd ser., xxxv (London, 1927), 104–5, 108–9, 112–13, 115–19.

⁹⁷ In 1319 William held a water-mill from Goldcliff priory: CPR, 1317–21, 376. In May 1322 William and other former partisans of Roger Damory were accused of having tried to force the prior of Goldcliff to answer pleas in Roger Damory's court and not in a royal court; and in the same month he and others were accused of having supported the former prior, Ralph de Rounceville, in his refusal in 1318 to accept the appointment by the abbot of Bec of William de St Albin as prior: CPR, 1321–24, 157, 163–4. These matters are also described in two petitions from William de St Albin to the king and council: Calendar of Ancient Petitions relating to Wales, ed. Rees, 102–4 (SC 8/68/3360); and 118–19 (SC 8/83/4101). In 1319 the abbot of Bec, supported by the king of France, petitioned Edward II on behalf of the new prior: F.D. Logan, Runaway Religious in Medieval England, c.1240–1540(Cambridge, 1996), 104, n. 30 (citing CPR, 1317–21, 544–5, and Registrum Ade de Orleton, Bishop of Hereford, ed. A.T. Bannister, Canterbury & York Ser., V (London, 1908), 104). Ralph de Rounceville's arrest was ordered on 15 Jan. 1319: Logan, Runaway Religious, 187 (citing CPR, 1317–21, 268). William le Waleys was clearly in the thick of a long-running dispute over the prior of Goldcliff. Whether he would have received a welcome had he arrived at Bec as a wanderer is therefore debatable.

⁹⁸ CIPM, vii, no. 207, p. 156. Andrew, who was aged 24 years or more, was named after William's stepfather, Andrew de Beauchamp. Perhaps Andrew had an illegitimate brother named William, who could have been the wanderer, but there is no evidence to support this. There is no suggestion in the original material in The National Archives (C 135/15) that William le Walsh did not die in 1329. Each return says that he held the piece of land in question on the day that he died. No date of death is given. The Woolstrop inquest was held at Gloucester on 9 Nov., 3 Ed. III (1329), so that William would have died in the late summer or early autumn of 1329.

⁹⁹ If a man became ‘professed in religion’, his heir immediately inherited from him any land that he had, and, if he had made a will, it took effect at once as though he were naturally dead: Logan, Runaway Religious, 6, n. 108; F. Pollock and F.W. Maitland, The History of English Law before the Time of Edward I (2nd edn, Cambridge, 1968), i, 434. There is nothing to prove either that William le Walsh became a professed religious in 1329 and so passed on his lands to his heir, or that he decided to divest himself of his lands for some other reason, but it is not impossible. It is not clear whether, in either of these situations, an inquisition post mortem would have been held, as if he were really dead. But there must have been such situations. In the case of William le Walsh, the only lands he held in chief were a messuage and a carucate in the manor of Woolstrop, which were held from the king's barton in Gloucester, which was of the king's ancient demesne: CIPM, vii, no. 207, p. 156. The lords who would have been principally concerned in giving their assent were the heirs to the earl of Pembroke in the manors of Woolstrop and Llanwern and the earl marshal in the case of Dinham. There is one notable precedent, involving one of the most famous medieval persons, Peter Abelard. Both his parents retired to monasteries. ‘This form of retirement was a way of ensuring that the family property was passed on to the next generation under parental supervision, as well as giving husband and wife the chance to prepare for the next world … Although Abelard had already surrendered his interest in Le Pallet (his family home in Brittany), confirmation of this was probably required. Unsuccessful clerics like him, who had not irrevocably committed themselves to celibacy by becoming priests, might return home unexpectedly like the Prodigal Son and get the fatted calf’: M.T. Clanchy, Abelard (Oxford, 1997), 71.

¹⁰⁰ What follows is based on Evans, Death of Kings, ch. 6, ‘Once and future kings’; see also Tout, ‘Captivity and death’, 171–2.

¹⁰¹ Evans, Death of Kings, 147–8, 155, 157–9 (hermit).

¹⁰² Ibid., 152–3, 155 (Frederick II: penitent pilgrim, hermit, impostors), 157 (Henry V: hermit; impostors).

¹⁰³ Ibid., 155 (impostor).

¹⁰⁴ Saul, Richard II, 427. See also P. McNiven, ‘Rebellion, sedition and the legend of Richard II's survival in the reigns of Henry IV and Henry V’, in Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, lxxvi (1994), 93–117, esp. 94, 98; P. Strohm, ‘The trouble with Richard’, Speculum, lxxi (1996), 87–111, esp. 91–101.

¹⁰⁵ C.T. Wood, ‘Where is John the Posthumous?’, in Documenting the Past, ed. J.S. Hamilton & P.J. Bradley (Woodbridge, Suffolk & Wolfeboro, NH, 1989), 99–117.

¹⁰⁶ The manner of Simon de Montfort's death contributed to a popular movement for his canonization which made him a potential threat to the political stability of the kingdom. This movement has been studied by T.J. Heffernan: ‘Dangerous sympathies’, in The South English Legendary, ed. K.P. Jankofsky (Tübingen, 1992), 1–17, esp. 4; and ‘“God hath schewed for him many grete miracules”’, in Art and Context in Late Medieval English Narrative, ed. R.R. Edwards (Woodbridge Suffolk & Rochester, NY, 1994), 177–91. See also J.C. Russell, ‘The canonisation of opposition to the king in Angevin England’, in Haskins Anniversary Essays in Medieval History, ed. C.H. Taylor (Boston & New York, 1929), 279–90.

¹⁰⁷ E 163/4/11/16 (draft of privy seal letter, dated at Durham on 28 Sept. from the king to the archbishop of York); Foedera, II, i, 525–6; Flores, 213–14; Brut, i, 228–30; Anonimalle, 114–15. On political canonization and on concepts of sanctity see J.E. Bray, ‘Concepts of sainthood in fourteenth-century England’, Bulletin of John Rylands Library, lxvi (1983–4), 40–77; J.M. Theilmann, ‘Political canonization and political symbolism in medieval England’, Journal of British Studies, xxix (1990), 241–66; and M.A. Stouck, ‘Saints and rebels’, Medievalia et Humanistica, new ser., xxiv (1997), 75–94.

¹⁰⁸ PROME, Parliament of Jan. 1327, C 65/1, item 2 (Lancaster and Winchelsey).

¹⁰⁹ Letters from Northern Registers, ed. Raine, 339–42. The fact that Melton did so suggests that he had at last recognized the fact of the change of regime; while his composition of the document at Southwell in Nottinghamshire may imply that he was distancing himself from the business of the parliament still in progress at Westminster. For a much less flattering opinion of Lancaster see Polychronicon, viii, 313–15.

¹¹⁰ This is fully discussed in Echerd, ‘Canonization and politics’ (Ph.D.); J. Edwards, ‘The cult of “St” Thomas of Lancaster and its iconography’, Yorks. Arch. Journal, lxiv (1992), 103–22; and idem, ‘The cult of “St” Thomas of Lancaster and its iconography: a supplementary note’, Yorks. Arch. Journal, lxvii (1995), 187–91.

¹¹¹ Bod. Library, Douce Ms. 231, f. 1r; Edwards, ‘The cult of “St” Thomas’ (1992), 109–11 (incl. photograph). The bishop of Lincoln, Henry Burghersh, was an opponent of Edward II and might have been sympathetic to the cause of Lancaster.

¹¹² Edwards, ‘The cult of “St” Thomas’ (1992), 112–13; BL, Add. Ms. 42130, f. 56.

¹¹³ E.W. Tristram, English Wall Painting of the Fourteenth Century (London, 1955), 70, 72–3, 228–9, and plate 18; Edwards, ‘The cult of “St” Thomas’ (1992), 118–20 (incl. photograph).

¹¹⁴ Political Songs, ed. P. Coss, 268–72; Edwards, ‘The cult of “St” Thomas’ (1992), 118–19.

¹¹⁵ Extracts from the Account Rolls of the Abbey of Durham, ii, ed. J.T. Fowler (Durham 1899, for the year 1898), 427. The beads had presumably been sanctified by proximity to his tomb.

¹¹⁶ Edwards, ‘The cult of “St” Thomas’ (1992), 113–17 and plates 3 & 4.

¹¹⁷ The life is printed in Anecdota ex Codicibus Hagiographicis Iohannis Gielemans (Brussels, 1895), 80–100. The MSS are from the Charterhouse of St Barbara, Cologne, and the Augustinian abbey of Rouge-Cloître near Brussels, where Johann Gielemans was a canon: Echerd, ‘Canonization and politics’ (Ph.D.), 237, 174–5, 268–71.

¹¹⁸ This theme is more fully discussed in Chs 2 & 4. See Binski, Westminster Abbey; and two important unpublished papers by Parsons, ‘Saints' cults and kingship’, and ‘Rethinking English coronations’. I am grateful to Professor Parsons for allowing me to see these papers.

¹¹⁹ See Phillips, ‘Edward II and the prophets’, 191–4, and Ch. 1 of this book.

¹²⁰ See ch. 2 of this book.

¹²¹ Phillips, ‘Edward II and the prophets’, 196–201, and Chs 1 & 7 of this book.

¹²² It may be more than a coincidence in the formation of a story of martyrdom that Corfe was also associated with the life and death of an earlier murdered king and saint, Edward the Martyr, who was foully murdered there in the year 978: Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, 367–8; Fell, Edward, King and Martyr.

¹²³ Polychronicon, 300.

¹²⁴ Annals of Osney, ed. Luard, iv, 348.

¹²⁵ ‘Clamor ille expirantis multos de Berkeleya et quosdam de castro, ut ipsi asseruerunt, ad compassionem et oraciones pro sancta anima migrante evigilavit. Sic quem mundus odivit, suumque magistrum Iesum Christum prius odio habuit, primo preceptorem de regno Iudeorum reprobatum, deinde discipulum regno Anglorum spoliatum recepit celsitudo regni angelorum. Gloriose atque bone finis Edwardi proditorios ministros’ (i.e. Gurney and Maltravers). Le Baker then says that Edward of Windsor became king ‘postquam gloriosus rex Edwardus regni diadema, ut prescriptum est, suo primogenito, domino Edwardo de Wyndesore, resignaverat’: Le Baker, 30–4, esp. 33–4. This passage reads like the conclusion to a saint's life. In contrast the much shorter Chroniculum Galfridi le Baker says simply that Edward II died at Berkeley on 20 Sept. and was buried at Gloucester on 21 Dec.: in Le Baker, 172.

¹²⁶ ‘…paratior pro Christo vitam finire … sciens quod bonus pastor animam suam poneret pro ovibus suis’: Le Baker, 27; Vita et Mors, 313.

¹²⁷ ‘Venenum quampluries propinaverunt servo Dei ministry Belial, quod aut fortitudine naturali evacuavit, … aut, quod verius credo, manifestiori martirio, suum confessorem Altissimus reservavit’: Le Baker, 30. The language of martyrdom also appears in the chronicle of Walter of Guisborough: the account of the beginning of reign of Edward II is preceded by the rubric, ‘De coronacione regis Edwardi secundi et martiris’: Guisborough, 380. Even if this rubric was added much later, it still indicates someone's opinion of Edward II.

¹²⁸ Le Baker, 9; Vita et Mors, 300: Edward also later fulfilled his promise to found a house for 24 Carmelites to study theology at Oxford, in gratitude for his escape, despite the Younger Despenser's attempt to dissuade him because of the cost: Vita et Mors, 300.

¹²⁹ Smalley, English Friars, 211–15, 219, 338. As Dr Smalley points out, the story must be apocryphal since, although Edward did follow his father around in 1305, their quarrel and final reconciliation took place in the summer and autumn, not in winter.

¹³⁰ Although Edward III wrote to the pope on three occasions to request the canonization of Thomas of Lancaster, he never did so on behalf of his own father: see Given-Wilson, ‘Richard II’, 568.

¹³¹ The best and most detailed study of the reign is Saul, Richard II; see esp. ch. 13, ‘Piety and orthodoxy’. See also Given-Wilson, ‘Richard II’, 553–71; Saul, ‘Richard II and the vocabulary of kingship’, EHR, cx (1995), 854–77. The canonization of Edward II was just one of a number of strategies employed by Richard II to glorify his own kingship and to overcome his political opponents. The Wilton Diptych, made in the 1390s, shows Richard kneeling with St Edmund the Martyr (another royal saint), John the Baptist and St Edward the Confessor standing behind him. It has been suggested that St Edmund may represent Edward II; Richard may also have tried to make use of the Holy Oil of St Thomas, as Edward II had done: Theilmann, ‘Political canonization’, 257–61; Sandquist, ‘Holy Oil’, 337–8; Shelagh Mitchell, ‘Richard II’, in The Regal Image of Richard II and the Wilton Diptych, ed. D. Gordon, L. Monnas & C. Elam (London, 1997).

¹³² Welander, History … of Gloucester Cathedral, 148, 634.

¹³³ CPR, 1381–85, 273.

¹³⁴ Polychronicon, ix, App., 79 (from a continuation of the Polychronicon, made at Westminster); now re-edited as The Westminster Chronicle, 1381–1394, ed. L.C. Hector & B. F. Harvey (Oxford, 1982), 158–9; The Diplomatic Correspondence of Richard II, ed. E. Perroy, Camden, 3rd ser., xlviii (London, 1933), 62–3.

¹³⁵ Diplomatic Correspondence, ed. Perroy, 210. This was done at a time of political weakness when Richard needed all the support he could get in his struggle with his baronial opponents, the Appellants.

¹³⁶ ASV, Indice 320, f. 35v; L. E. Boyle, OP, A Survey of the Vatican Archives and of its Medieval Holdings (Toronto, 1972), 140–1 (where Edward is wrongly identified as Edward the Confessor).

¹³⁷ Polychronicon, ix, App., 237; The Westminster Chronicle, 436–9.

¹³⁸ Issues of the Exchequer, ed. F. Devon (London, 1837), 247–8, 259; Perroy, L'Angleterre, 342, n. 1. The envoys were paid their expenses on 24 April 1395, presumably after their return to England.

¹³⁹ Perroy, L'Angleterre, 342, n. 2.

¹⁴⁰ A.L. Brown, ‘The Latin letters in All Souls Ms. 182’, EHR, lxxxvii (1972), 571–3: in 1399, in a letter to the pope, Richard II accused Brut of forging royal letters on behalf of the archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Arundel, who had fled to the curia in 1398.

¹⁴¹ I have found no sign of the book of Edward II's miracles in the Vatican Archive, the Vatican Library, in the Italian National Library in Florence and other libraries in Florence, or in The National Archives, the British Library, and elsewhere in England. The medieval holdings of Gloucester Cathedral Library are very limited in scope and contain no trace of the book. It may yet turn up, perhaps in some very unlikely place, and throw light on 14th-century popular religion, the politics of sanctity, and the scale of devotion to Edward II. In contrast, the book of miracles ascribed to Henry VI has survived in BL, Royal Ms. 13 c. viii, while his cause was still active at Rome when Henry VIII broke with the papacy: The Miracles of King Henry VI, ed. R. Knox & S. Leslie (Cambridge, 1923).

¹⁴² Walsingham may also have been trying to counter the opinion in his own abbey that Edward II was especially blessed by God and deserved to be numbered among the saints: ‘Edwardus Karnerivan, cui Dominus nostris temporibus benedixit specialiter, ac inter sanctos merito numeretur’: Liber de Benefactoribus Monasterii Sancti Albani, inTrokelowe, 433. The Book of Benefactors was compiled at about the same time that Richard II was promoting the cause of Edward II's canonization. All royal benefactors, even King John (‘etsi suis exstitit minus bonus, Beato tamen Martyri devotus fuit’) were spoken of in glowing terms, although Edward II was the only one considered as a possible saint: xlii–xliii, 430–4. Edward II's gifts to the abbey consisted of a gold cross containing precious stones and relics of the saints; timber for the repair of the choir; and a large silver and gold cup for the refectory. See also Given-Wilson, ‘Richard II’, 569–70.

¹⁴³ For examples collected by Nicholas Rogers of the continuation of Lancaster's cult in the 15th century see Edwards, ‘The cult of “St” Thomas’ (1995), 189–91. Lancaster's hat and belt were still preserved at Pontefract on the eve of the Reformation as remedies respectively against headaches and the dangers of childbirth: Maddicott, 329.

¹⁴⁴ See ch. 1 of this book.