NINE
THE KING WAS thrown into a fury on hearing of Roger’s escape. For the last eighteen months he had governed England with little or no check on his power. Suddenly he was thrown back to the days of the opposition of Thomas of Lancaster, except that Lancaster had been neither a clever man nor a difficult man to track down. Roger, on the other hand, was a sophisticated strategist and, more worryingly for Edward, he was nowhere to be found.
Edward was at Kirkham when he was told the news. From there he sent messengers to all the sheriffs and all the keepers of the peace in England to proclaim that ‘all and singular who are in the king’s peace shall pursue with hue and cry Roger Mortimer of Wigmore, the king’s rebel …, and that they shall arrest him alive or dead …’. The king also declared that any who were contrary or slow in their pursuit should be punished as abettors. He ordered spies to watch all the ports and to inquire whether Roger had yet crossed the sea, and, if so, who had taken him, and whither he had gone. Letters were sent to the constables of eighty castles, instructing them to ensure that all their prisoners were kept securely and that their garrisons were on the highest alert. The king also sent orders to the Justiciar of Wales to prepare all the Welsh castles for war, and he wrote to Sir John de Bermingham in Ireland for the castles there to be secured against Roger. All tournaments throughout the country were banned. Finally, Edward ordered the Bishop of Exeter, Walter de Stapeldon, to go to the Tower of London and take over from Stephen de Segrave. Edward was so unsure of his authority in the city that he ordered the bishop to go in his capacity as Treasurer, and only after entering was he to show his commission to take control of the castle.1
Throughout August the desperate commands continued, each one naming Roger as ‘the king’s rebel’ or ‘the king’s enemy’, but none betraying any knowledge of his whereabouts. By the 26th the king seems to have become convinced that Roger had left the country and was sailing to Ireland, as on that day he ordered the Earl of Kent to seize three Irish ships off the coast of Dover. He was still convinced that Roger was in Ireland two days later, when he sent letters to all the principal Irish lords, including several of Roger’s own vassals, ordering them to pursue him. Mayors of ports were ordered to search every item coming into and going out of the country for letters to or from Roger. The court was in complete panic. Edward fully expected Roger immediately to gather an army from his lands in Ireland, Wales and the Marches, and to come to do battle. But Roger was not so foolish as to attempt a confrontation without due preparation.
By the end of September the king’s spy network had established that Roger was in Picardy, in France, staying with his uncle and cousin, John and Robert de Fiennes. The king wrote to the elder de Fiennes that he was ‘astonished’ at his harbouring Roger, since John held lands in England and was Edward’s vassal, and because Edward had favoured him in the past. Both John and Robert were ordered to arrest Roger. Needless to say, they ignored the command.
One can understand the king’s fear of imminent attack. Everything was going Roger’s way. He had not only escaped the Tower, he had succeeded in getting out of the country and finding safe refuge beyond the king’s reach. He had eluded Edward so effectively that for a long time the king did not know where he was, or where he was heading. Even now the king had only the slightest grasp of Roger’s location, and no intelligence regarding his plans. Because of this, and because of the hatred of the Despensers, support for Roger was gathering at home, and various demonstrations in his favour took place, normally in the form of attacks on the manors of the Despensers. But Roger’s luck did not end there. His third son, Geoffrey, was also in France, and Geoffrey was the sole heir to the estates of his grandmother, Joan’s mother, which included a portion of the de Lusignan inheritance. Just before Roger escaped from the Tower, old age conveniently carried her off.2 By the end of 1323 Geoffrey had inherited her estates, had sworn fealty to the French king, and was thus able to help support his father.
Even this was not the limit of his luck. War now seemed likely between England and France. Tension had been high between the two countries for the past few years, owing to problems arising from Edward’s lordship of Gascony. For this Edward was required to do homage to the King of France in person, a humbling act he had hitherto avoided. Now King Charles had every legal right to confiscate the lordship. Furthermore, the duchy had seen several conflicts which Edward had failed to subdue, and in such circumstances it was incumbent upon the King of France to resolve matters, using a French army to suppress the rebellious Gascon lords, if necessary. This was a highly contentious issue, and one which threatened to flare up into war in the autumn of 1323. Arriving at precisely the right time, Roger was welcomed as an ally and treated with great honour by Charles IV. Edward was naturally infuriated by this, but there was little he could do, for in a final piece of amazing good fortune for Roger, in mid-October 1323 a French attempt to build a fortified town at Saint Sardos was met with resistance from a Gascon lord, Raymond Bernard. Bernard was felt to be acting with the connivance of the Seneschal of Gascony, Sir Ralph Basset, and Basset did not help matters by taking no action against Bernard, despite the murder of a French royal official. When Edward also refused to act to bring the offenders to justice, and refused again to do homage for Gascony (on the advice of Hugh Despenser), the French king confiscated the duchy and sent a royal army to take possession. Thus it is not surprising that Roger was welcomed by Charles: they had a common enemy in King Edward.
With Roger in France, all Edward could do to control him was to keep his spies on the lookout. On 6 December the seneschal wrote to Edward to report that Roger and his companions were travelling towards Germany.3 A week later Edward’s envoys to Paris sent news that ‘the Mortimer’ (as Edward now referred to him) and the other rebels with him were being entertained by the Count of Boulogne, who was then on his way to Toulouse.4 It seems that Roger and his French friends were leading the English spies a merry dance. The panic felt at the English court did not diminish. News of the arrival of German ships in the Channel, or a Hainault invasion fleet, or Genoese armed ships, swept the country regularly. Fears of a foreign invasion led by Roger abounded and were widely believed.
The only action left open to Edward was the persecution of anyone in England who supported Roger, such as John de Gisors and Ralph de Bocton, who were accused of helping Roger to escape. De Bocton lost his lands and possessions. So too did John le Mercer of London. So too did William de Boarhunt and his wife Alice, who lost their lands on the Isle of Wight. The English lands of the de Fiennes family were confiscated. Edward even accused King Charles of France of complicity in Roger’s plot.5 The Bishop of Hereford was again questioned, and found guilty of providing arms and horses to help Roger escape, in an irregular – and probably illegal – court, with a jury specially selected by the king for the purpose.6 The Bishop of Lincoln was also accused.7 Finally, and most importantly, the king and Despenser took steps against Queen Isabella. Whether she was suspected of complicity in Roger’s escape is not known, and with no evidence on which to work the king did not dare accuse her directly, but when she declared herself to be in favour of the accused bishops she incurred the full wrath of the king.
In April 1324 Edward ordered Isabella to write to Charles to try to end the dispute over Saint Sardos. She was the obvious person to make peace: the wife of one king and the sister of the other. But Edward’s motive was not just to buy time. He ordered the queen to state in her letter that peace between England and France was the very reason for her marriage to Edward, as the marriage had originally been arranged by Edward I in order to settle a dispute between the two countries. It followed that if war broke out the marriage had failed. In the summer the Pope also suggested that she mediate, but in person, not by letter. Edward would not let her leave the country. He suspected she would meet Roger and form an alliance with him. His preference was to keep her under strict control. He ordered that his debts to her should not be repaid. At the same time, Isabella was aware that she was being spied upon by Hugh Despenser’s wife, who was even reading her letters. In September 1324, when Despenser heard rumours that Roger might invade from Hainault,8 Edward confiscated all her lands and property. It was said that Despenser had sent men to the Pope to request a divorce between Isabella and Edward. The following month the queen’s personal living expenses were reduced to a fraction of their former level, to be paid not by her but directly by the Exchequer. All Frenchmen in England were arrested. Twenty-seven of Isabella’s household retainers, including her clerks and her doctor, were imprisoned, and she was expressly forbidden to help them. Her income, including the money owed to her by the king, was appropriated for the king’s use. Lastly her children were removed from her and placed in the keeping of Hugh Despenser’s wife.9 The woman who had come to England as an innocent and beautiful twelve-year-old bride, who had put up with her husband’s affection for Gaveston, who had endured the petty squabbles with the Earl of Lancaster, who had dutifully given birth to four children, who had been abandoned to the Scots at Tynemouth, and who had steadfastly supported her husband despite everything, had now lost her husband’s love, her position, her status, her income, her friends, her companions in faith, and her children.
Isabella was just one of the many who were suffering. Bishop Orleton was sent for trial. Assize courts were held in many counties, so that anyone who had helped Roger escape, or who was suspected of having dealings with him in the recent past, or who had sided with the Mortimers and the rest of the Marchers in the rebellion against Despenser in 1321 was to be tried. No matter how great or small, all were judged, and many were imprisoned or hanged. Even Henry of Lancaster was accused. Roger’s relatives fared particularly badly. His sons in England were imprisoned. In April 1324 his wife was removed from her lodging in Hampshire, where she was under house arrest, and imprisoned in the royal castle of Skipton-in-Craven in Yorkshire. The men of her household were removed, although she was still allowed a damsel, an esquire, a laundress, a groom and a page; but she was permitted only one mark per day to keep and feed herself and them. Her daughters fared worse. Margaret, married to Thomas de Berkeley, was shut up in Shouldham Priory, with 15d weekly for her expenses – a smaller allowance than the criminals in the Tower were allowed. Her younger sisters fared even worse. Joan, who was twelve or thirteen, was sent to Sempringham Priory by herself, and received only 12d a week to feed her and one mark a year for her clothes. Her young sister, Isabella, suffered a similar fate, being incarcerated at Chicksands Priory.
*
There is little evidence as to where Roger was and what he was doing while on the Continent. Traditionally this has been seen as a period in which he was wholly opportunistic: that he was waiting, with no distinct plan in mind, until Isabella traded her son’s marriage for an army. This ignores the fact that Isabella, while known for her intelligence, was not a military leader; her attempts to use force in the past had ended in failure, and it is unlikely she sought military help without first establishing military leadership. It also presumes that, because Isabella maintained the higher profile throughout the later campaign, Roger was dependent on her for direction. It is far more likely that when Roger arrived in France, and was welcomed with ‘great honour’ by Charles, the seeds of a future attack on England were then sown. This is not to say that Charles and Roger planned the following two years’ events at the end of 1323; but it is unrealistic to suggest two men at war with the King of England idled away their time together in jousting and falconry. They almost certainly discussed the possibilities open to them, and probably established a framework for future action. This limited the need for direct communication, and what need there was could be satisfied by Charles’s personal messengers. The fact that such a framework was possible was due to one factor which Edward did not understand: Gascony.
Charles and Roger knew that, sooner or later, Edward would have to do homage for Gascony. Edward would have to leave England, and, when he did so, he would have to leave Hugh Despenser behind. As Charles implied in a firm statement about exiles in a letter of 29 December 1323, Despenser was no more welcome in France than Roger was in England.10 Edward would of course have ignored Charles’s request that Despenser be ousted from England in return for Roger being asked to leave France, but there was little doubt that, if Edward came to France, he would be cut off from Despenser in the same way that he had been cut off from Gaveston in 1312. On that earlier occasion Thomas of Lancaster had astutely moved between the two parties and taken Gaveston prisoner. Roger hoped that, with Edward held in France under the watchful eye of the French king, an English lord, perhaps Henry of Lancaster, could move against Despenser. Henry was no friend of the Despensers and very wary of Edward. He had received none of his brother’s vast estates, which had all been confiscated by the king on the execution of Earl Thomas. Moreover, when he had supported the Bishop of Hereford, Edward had prosecuted him, and only his extremely able defence in court had saved his life. He was also of royal blood, so he was the obvious candidate for leading the disaffected English lords against the favourite. As it happened, this course of events did not occur, but the clear potential for Despenser to be isolated by a known and predictable event allowed Roger and Charles to discuss possible strategies.
*
It was particularly foolish of Edward to allow Despenser to counsel him to antagonise the French over Gascony. All his experiences in Scotland had proved that he was an incompetent military leader and a poor judge of military commanders. For Gascony he chose to send his young and inexperienced brother, the Earl of Kent. This was equally foolish; not long after arriving Kent greatly angered the people of Agen by trying to extract large sums of money from them and abducting a young girl from the town.11 Nor were his military engagements any more successful. When Charles de Valois, uncle of King Charles, moved against him in August 1324 his defences crumpled. After losing several key towns, he fell back to the castle of La Réole and was forced to sue for peace. King Charles readily agreed to a six-month truce, but he kept possession of the lands his uncle had conquered.
The truce gave Edward a chance to relieve the army in Gascony, and also a good excuse not to leave England, thus threatening Roger’s hopes of separating the king from Despenser. But fortunately for Roger, Edward adopted Despenser’s inappropriate bullying tactics. A contemporary account of his attempt to lift the siege of La Réole is to be found in the pages of the Vita Edwardi Secundi:
Then the king ordered all the infantry to board their ships and stand out at sea, until the time should come for crossing to Gascony; and he put in command the Earl Warenne, John de St John, and other great men of the land, who likewise went on board not daring to resist. The king also sent letters to every county commanding and ordering that all who had returned from the army to their homes without leave should be arrested and hanged forthwith without trials. The harshness of the king has today increased so much that no one however great and wise dares to cross his will. Thus parliaments, colloquies, and councils decide nothing these days. For the nobles of the realm, terrified by threats and the penalties inflicted on others, let the king’s will have free play.12
With this sort of motivation and poor organisation there was no chance of La Réole being relieved. Hugh Despenser’s policy of gathering as much money as he could in his treasury and spending as little as possible meant that the fleet did not carry enough cash to pay the footsoldiers. There was insufficient food even to feed the men who did go. The army rioted. Part of the fleet did not set out at all, as Hugh Despenser was panicked into commandeering the eastern fleet to defend the coast against Roger. At the beginning of October 1324 Despenser wrote to John de Sturmy, the admiral of the eastern ships, that a great fleet was being amassed in Holland which was expected to arrive shortly in East Anglia with a great number of armed men under the command of Roger Mortimer and other banished men.13 It seemed Roger only had to remain outside England in order to strike terror into the hearts of Edward and Despenser.
Charles now gave Edward four options. All except one involved the loss of Agen and other lands in Gascony. The one exception was that Edward would receive all his lands back as long as Isabella and her son, the prince and heir to the throne, were both sent to France to negotiate. This, clearly, was a trap.14 The twelve-year-old prince was a suitable alternative figurehead to Edward II, and, in his mother’s company, was an eligible candidate for a diplomatic marriage. To remove him from Despenser’s control was equally desirable, as Isabella would not be able wholly to take action against her husband while her son was a potential hostage. No doubt Charles also wanted to see Isabella rescued from her English ordeal, if only out of fraternal compassion. But what was so clever about this trap was that, despite the obvious dangers, this option was the most attractive to Edward. At a stroke he could end the war and regain all he had lost at little or no cost. Cautious of the dangers, he reworked Charles’s offer, suggesting he would send the queen first, with the promise that his son would follow, as further concessions were made. He also proposed that Isabella should be returned to England if she did not gain a peace settlement satisfactory to Edward by a certain date. An interesting stipulation was that ‘the Mortimer’ and the other English rebels with him had to leave France in advance of the queen’s visit, ‘on account of the perils and dishonours’ which might befall her.15 The Pope too was in favour of Isabella acting as a negotiator, and his envoys told Edward that Isabella’s presence in France would guarantee the return of Gascony in its entirety. This ‘guarantee’ convinced Edward: he decided to send Isabella to France in the spring.
Edward was not sufficiently imaginative to see the more subtle and dangerous aspects of the trap. Reassured that Isabella would not disobey his orders in France and relying heavily on Despenser’s control of the barons at home, he saw only the diplomatic aspects of the issues confronting him, not their strategic implications. In not sending his son to France he had avoided the most dangerous move he could have made, but he could not see how international diplomacy was so different from domestic political control. At home it was possible for him, or rather Despenser, to terrorise the lords and people into submission, and to keep them there through threats and fines, through the hierarchy of the law. No such control was possible on an international scale; the resources and independence of France, Spain and the Low Countries ensured that a measure of compromise was necessary for an English king trying to keep his foreign possessions. Thus his policy in Gascony should have been one of collaboration with France, not the bellicose stance forced on him by Hugh Despenser.
Unfortunately the one man who would have been able to guide Edward through the process of international compromise, the Earl of Pembroke, had died six months earlier. At the end of June 1324, on his way to Paris, he collapsed after dinner at one of his houses near Boulogne. He died almost instantly, probably suffering from an apoplectic fit, but possibly poisoned. His passing was much lamented by all factions in England. He had personally taken a part in defusing every major crisis of Edward’s reign. From now on there were no more arbiters of peace to settle Edward’s disputes with his barons.
In March 1325 Isabella set out for her homeland with a company of retainers selected for her by her husband and Despenser. Everyone who went with her was, in effect, a spy or a chaperone. Her ladies were women whose husbands were loyal to Edward, and her male retainers, none of whom was French, were all ardent royalists. Nevertheless she was delighted to leave England. ‘The queen departed very joyfully’, wrote the author of Vita Edwardi Secundi at the time of her leaving, adding that she was ‘happy with a two-fold joy; pleased to visit her native land and her relatives, and delighted to leave the company of some whom she did not like’.16 Had he known of the intrigue which was to unfold, the chronicler could have called it a three-fold pleasure, adding the prospect of plotting revenge.
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For Isabella, returning to France was an immense relief. She toured the country in no particular hurry, happy just to be away from England. While Edward was worried that she would form a political intrigue with Roger – and indeed a number of French and English chroniclers who wrote about the events in retrospect presumed that her sole purpose in leaving England was to see Roger – this was not overtly the case. Roger was in Hainault, supposedly ‘banished’ by the French king, in accordance with Edward’s instructions. The queen also behaved in total compliance with her husband’s directions. After landing she proceeded to Paris via Boulogne and Beauvois with her entourage, dining with the Queen of France at Pontoise before meeting her brother at Poissy. She did not meet Roger, nor did they directly contact one another. For the moment, whatever their secret desires, their relationship was merely a political understanding channelled through Charles IV.
Isabella was under no illusions about what would happen if she thoughtlessly squandered the freedom she had gained from Edward. In the spring of 1314, at the age of eighteen, she had visited Paris and met her father, Philip the Fair. She had unburdened herself of the terrible knowledge that all three of her brothers’ wives were having adulterous affairs with two knights in the Tour de Nesles. Philip had the two men watched, and apprehended them. They died cruel deaths: broken on the wheel at Montfaucon. More importantly for Isabella, the women too were severely punished: divorced from their husbands and imprisoned for life.17
Gascony also served to keep Isabella on the straight and narrow. The negotiations with her brother were not easy. Although she had had some experience of diplomacy in 1313, when she had been sent to France as an English ambassadress, the principal French negotiator had been her doting father, to whom she had simply presented a petition and waited as he granted almost all her wishes.18 Now she was negotiating with her clever and careful brother, Charles IV. His principal aim was to extract as much as he could from the situation in Gascony without actually provoking a larger war. He argued forcefully, and, in view of the events leading to the war, he held the upper hand throughout the negotiations. After the initial stages had gone badly for Isabella, she wrote to Edward saying that she had considered returning to England. This was probably a rhetorical device, to encourage his confidence in her, for she also offered to remain in France to see the negotiations through, if he agreed. Edward clearly accepted her letter at face value, as he sent her some money shortly afterwards.19
Isabella returned to Paris. By evening she dined with her family and advisers, and entertained distinguished visitors. By day she spent her time visiting churches. She was a devout Catholic, and a keen observer of holy relics, but she now spent more time than usual in contemplation. Her mind was preoccupied, possibly with thoughts of Roger.20 She must also have been concerned that, as soon as the treaty was signed, Edward would order her to return. He would come to France to perform homage, and Despenser might be arrested; but how would Edward treat her after that? She realised she would have to betray her husband, whom she had sworn holy oaths to obey, and to whom she had sworn to remain faithful. And what if the plot eventually failed? What if Despenser escaped arrest until the king returned? There was no doubt that, in her husband’s kingdom, royal status was no guarantee of immunity from prosecution for treason, especially in the case of an undesired woman.
Roger was still in Hainault, at the court of Count William of Hainault, living off the money his son had acquired by mortgaging his recently inherited lordships in France to Charles IV.21 From there he was able easily to send messages both to France and to magnates in England, who were now collectively turning against Despenser. Hainault also kept him at a safe enough distance from Isabella for Edward not to suspect them of collusion. But even more importantly, Hainault offered an enormous diplomatic opportunity. Some years earlier a proposal had been made to marry one of the five daughters of William of Hainault to Edward’s son, Prince Edward. Nothing had come of it; but Roger knew that, if the count was still willing, and if the boy could be procured and married to one of the daughters, the financial and military weight of Hainault would be at Isabella’s disposal. Such a plan depended on King Edward sending his son to France. That was not impossible, especially while the question of homage for Gascony remained unsettled. If Edward did not come in person to do homage, then the only alternative Charles would accept was the homage of the prince.
On 31 May 1325 Isabella ratified the terms of the peace treaty between England and France. The terms were heavily in France’s favour. Far from the whole of Gascony being granted to Edward, it was first to be surrendered wholly to Charles and then partially regranted. A French official was to ratify Edward’s appointments there, and he was not able to raise an army from the land. He kept control of the castles and the military infrastructure, but the area around Agen was to be submitted to a judicial review; if it was judged that Edward had a claim to the title, he was to be liable for the costs incurred by the French army which had invaded it. It was a treaty humiliating and economically depressing, arising not out of Isabella’s poor handling but out of an impossible situation.
Edward ratified the treaty on 13 June. He had no choice: he was not in a position to hold out for a better settlement. But there remained the question of who was going to perform homage. Edward insisted that he should go in person, to prevent his son falling into Isabella’s hands. Hugh Despenser desperately sought members of the council to prevent the king from leaving England, but failed. The deciding voice was that of Henry of Lancaster. He strongly urged the king to go. Despenser, knowing his own life would be in danger, tried equally hard to dissuade him. It seemed the anti-Despenser faction was about to get its first opportunity to overthrow the favourite. Only later, when Despenser was able to speak to the king privately, was he able to impress upon Edward how vulnerable he would be in the king’s absence. Remembering Gaveston’s fate, Edward changed his mind and, feigning illness, at the last moment refused to leave England. Henry of Lancaster and the Earl of Norfolk, two men who might have been waiting to act against Despenser, had to bide their time.22 Instead of going to France himself the king sent the Bishop of Winchester to negotiate an alternative arrangement.
As Charles, Isabella and Roger all knew, there was only one acceptable alternative to the king’s attendance, and that was the visit of Prince Edward. Isabella dined with the Bishop of Winchester on 2 September, and suggested then that her son be sent to perform homage for Gascony. The bishop agreed to present this proposal formally to Edward. But just when Isabella might have thought that Edward was playing into her hands, the bishop sprung a surprise upon her. He carried Edward’s order for her to return to England forthwith.23 And to ensure that she complied, her funding was cut off with immediate effect.
This presented Isabella with a dire problem. If she had to return to England, she could not possibly hope to get control of her son. She managed to delay while the bishop returned to Edward with Charles’s formal permission that Prince Edward could be invested with Gascony and perform homage. Now it was Edward who was under pressure. He decided that he would invest Prince Edward with the title of Duke of Aquitaine, and send him with a strong party to demand Isabella’s immediate return. Prince Edward accordingly set out for Paris in the company of Henry de Beaumont and the Bishops of Winchester and Exeter, arriving there on 22 September. Isabella and her son were reunited, and overjoyed to see one another. Isabella was less pleased to see the Bishop of Exeter, Walter de Stapeldon. It had been on his advice that she had had her estates confiscated the previous year.24 She refused to dine with him, and attempted to ignore him. But de Stapeldon was not easily ignored. At some point shortly after the prince had performed homage to Charles, the bishop laid before her Edward’s demand that she return home immediately, and he did so in public, in front of the king and the court. Edward would not tolerate any excuse, he declared in the hearing of all assembled. He went on to say that he had money to pay her expenses in France, but he would not do so unless she returned to England with him, as she was legally and morally obliged to do. This was the final word, he declared; she had no choice in the matter.25
The bishop was wrong. Isabella did have a choice. Now that the matter of homage for Gascony had been resolved, and Prince Edward was with her, there was no longer any point in continuing the charade. Moreover, she felt humiliated by this public demand made on her by the bishop. ‘I feel that marriage is a joining together of man and woman, maintaining the undivided habit of life,’ she replied in a loud voice, ‘and that someone has come between my husband and myself trying to break this bond. I protest that I will not return until this intruder is removed, but, discarding my marriage garment, shall assume the robes of widowhood and mourning until I am avenged of this pharisee.’
Isabella’s words amazed and delighted the French court. The bishop had spoken in Charles’s presence in the belief that Isabella would not be able to defy him. Now she had made herself plain. De Stapeldon fully expected Charles to rebuke his rebellious sister for her treason. But Charles had played a very clever tactical game for the last two years, and he was not going to let an English bishop jeopardise his plans. ‘The queen came of her own free will, and may freely return if she so wishes. But if she prefers to remain in these parts, she is my sister, and I refuse to expel her.’
With the utterance of these words, Roger’s and Isabella’s lives changed for ever. Isabella had openly defied her husband, and the King of France had supported her. She had declared herself against Hugh Despenser and against her husband the king. She had effectively joined Roger’s rebellion.
Now it was the bishop’s turn to be alarmed. Isabella was not the only one to detest him. In his time as Treasurer he had made himself rich through extortion. He was universally loathed, and was one of four Englishmen (along with the two Despensers and Robert Baldock, the Chancellor), of whom it was said that, if they were ever found in France, they would be tortured.26 Within days, fearing for his life, he fled from Paris. Some said he fled disguised as a pilgrim. The men of his household hurried after him and returned with him to England, and went straight to the king to report the news. De Stapeldon told Edward that the men who had threatened his life were ‘certain of the king’s banished enemies’. From earlier intelligence reports sent back to England, the English exiles seem to have moved about the Continent with Roger as a body. This indicates that now, with the prince safely in the queen’s custody, Roger had returned to France.
Over the subsequent days, Isabella’s companions realised the implications of her stance. Most of them had been picked because of their loyalty to Edward and Despenser, and most of them refused to accept that they would not be returning home with the queen. The queen did indeed dress as a widow, and played the part of a woman in mourning.27 For those who remained loyal to Edward, the knowledge that the queen was in communication with Roger, and that he was in France despite his exile, was too much. Isabella gave them an ultimatum: if their loyalty lay with the king then they should return to England. If, however, they were loyal to her, they should stay. Rather than defy the king and Despenser, most returned.
This turning point did not come as a shock to Isabella. She had been preparing for it since the beginning of September, when the Bishop of Winchester had demanded that she return. Her reply on that occasion had been that she would not return ‘for danger and doubt of Hugh Despenser’. Edward referred to this earlier refusal when he wrote back to her again at the start of December. He stated that he did not believe that she disliked Despenser, and that:
The king knows for truth and she knows that Hugh has always procured her all the honour with the king that he could; and no evil or villainy was done to her after her marriage by any abatement and procurement, unless peradventure sometimes the king addressed to her in secret words of reproof, by her own fault, if she will remember, as was befitting …28
Isabella must have been infuriated by this reply. Why should she have to be grateful that Despenser was supposed to have helped advance her? She was the queen, and he a mere baron’s son! She should not need his approval. But the king’s complete lack of respect for his wife is discernible not in his pretence that Despenser had helped her, nor in his implication that Despenser was her superior, but in his refusal even to listen to her. Her will was something he sought to tame and control. Having sent this letter he made another crass attempt to control her through the bishops. Knowing she would accept the order to return more readily if it came from a clergyman, he ordered all the bishops in England to write to her, telling her that it was her duty to come home. As if that were not enough, he dictated to all of them exactly the text they should send, as if they were all her ‘fathers’ beseeching their ‘dear daughter’ to return.
Isabella did not care that members of her household were leaving her. As far as she was concerned, the more disloyal men and women who left her service the better. She had no use for spies. Especially not when, in December, Roger came openly to court. There is no evidence that she had seen him since she left him in the Tower, nearly four years earlier,29 and we cannot be certain what her feelings had been for him over those years. But now she made no secret of her love, and neither did he. Roger was with her: not the defeated, humiliated and half-starved lord he had been in the Tower but the champion of free England, and the man she loved more passionately than any other in her life.
The relationship between Roger and Isabella is one of the great romances of the Middle Ages. To see them as they were in December 1325, openly defying Edward, is to see two people bound to each other against all the law and authority in the secular and spiritual world. Yet their affection for each other is rarely commented on by historians. In essence it was a relationship formed in adversity. Adultery, especially on the part of a woman, was a terrible sin in the fourteenth century, and doubly so for a queen, for whom it also carried the stain of treason. Isabella’s religious fervour made her feel this intensely: breaking solemn vows of fidelity was not something lightly done. Nor was it easy for Roger. Joan, his wife of twenty-five years’ standing, was suffering. He was betraying her in her darkest hour, while she was in her cell in Skipton Castle. But their attraction to each other was irresistible, and their affection for each other unshakeable.
For Isabella’s part, the rush into Roger’s arms seems to have been a reaction against years of self-control and self-denial. All her suffering had resulted in nothing but a husband and who was trying to manipulate her and shame her. She was threatened. She needed someone she could trust, someone, moreover, who would share the risks she was taking. She needed a steadfast and mature adviser on whom she could rely. At thirty-eight, Roger fitted the bill perfectly.
Roger’s new companion was one of the most beautiful and intelligent women of the age. She was, furthermore, ten years younger than his wife, whom he had not seen for five years. Her status as the wife of the man who had sentenced him to death, and the chance publicly to cuckold him, added a certain piquancy. If their relationship ended with their executions at the command of the King of England, then so be it. They would go down fighting together.
For a few weeks they tried to keep their closeness a secret. Edward was probably not fully aware of the depth of their relationship until 23 December, when the members of Isabella’s household loyal to Edward returned to England. From that day on there was no further pretence. It was a sober Christmas at the English court. For Isabella and Roger, however, it was a Christmas like no other. Not only were they together, and free, they were able to plan the invasion of England. While they had to be careful, aware that Despenser had agents everywhere, and aware too of the dangers of the murderer in the night, or the poisoner in the kitchen, they were relatively safe in the palace of King Charles.
The events of 1323–6 must have been profoundly shocking to the misogynist King Edward. Never before had such an important prisoner escaped from the Tower, and never before had that prisoner been so favoured by heads of state and nobles on the Continent. But worse, far worse for Edward, was this new eclipse of his authority. He, the King of England, had been cuckolded by his enemy. The humiliation was extreme. It was made even worse by the threatened invasion, which Edward was now convinced would come from France. He could do nothing but wait, set up watch beacons, hide his treasure, order the ports watched, and threaten any potential rebels within the kingdom. Such was the personal slight to Edward that he decided he would seek revenge on members of Roger’s family. He sent soldiers to old Lady Mortimer, Roger’s mother, to accuse her of hosting seditious meetings. They were to take her, immediately, to Elstow Priory, where she was to remain at her own cost, for the rest of her life.30 When she could not be found, Edward sent more men to seek her out at Radnor and Worcester. A further order to the same effect in April 1326 indicates that she had, like her son, outwitted her would-be captors.
On 8 February 1326 Edward publicly admitted that the queen had turned against him. He sent letters to all the sheriffs in the country ordering them to proclaim that all men should be ready to take arms and protect England against the queen, because, he claimed, ‘the queen will not come to the king nor permit his son to return, and he understands that the queen is adopting the counsel of the Mortimer, the king’s notorious enemy and rebel’. Four days later an array for the purpose of defending the southeast was ordered. Letters similar to those to the sheriffs were sent to the admirals patrolling the coasts. Edward renewed his orders for searches for messages to be conducted at the ports. Despenser hid his treasure in Caerphilly Castle. All exports of gold were stopped out of fear that aggrieved English lords would help fund the invasion, and all letters leaving the realm were to be inspected for treasonable contents.
Edward had finally realised his blunder. While he might have dismissed his wife as a French irritation, he knew his son to be every bit as royal as himself. Edward took his own royalty very seriously indeed, and recognised that many Englishmen would willingly fight for their future king. When his son refused to obey his order to leave the queen, claiming that out of duty he should stay with her in her great unease of mind and unhappiness, he wrote back to him in the strongest terms, saying of the queen:
… if she had conducted herself towards the king as she ought to have done towards her lord, the king would be much harassed to learn of her grief or unhappiness, but as she feigns a reason to withdraw from the king by reason of his dear and faithful nephew Hugh Despenser, who has always served the king well and faithfully, Edward can see and everybody can see that she openly, notoriously, and knowingly contrary to her duty and the estate of the king’s crown, which she is bound to love and maintain, draws to her and retains in her company of her council the Mortimer, the king’s traitor and mortal enemy, approved, attainted and adjudged in full Parliament, and keeps his company within and without house, in despite of the king and of his crown and of the rights of his realm, which Mortimer the King of France had banished from his power as the king’s enemy at the king’s request at another time, and now she does worse, if possible, when she has delivered Edward to the company of the king’s said enemy, and makes him Edward’s councillor, and causes Edward to adhere to him openly and notoriously in the sight of everybody, to the great dishonour and villainy of the king and of Edward …31
At the same time he summoned back from France John de Cromwell and the Earl of Richmond, both of whom had stayed with the queen and Roger. The Earl of Kent, the king’s own half-brother, had also decided to stay, having married Roger’s cousin, Margaret Wake.32 Despairing that he was losing his authority, Edward further ordered his son not to enter any marriage contracts with anyone in his absence from England. As the king must have known, however, these matters were not in the prince’s hands. They were now entirely in the hands of Roger and Isabella.
*
We have only one fact illustrating the nature of Roger and Isabella’s relationship at this time, and it can hardly be described as representative. At some point before June 1326 there was an emotional outburst between them in which Isabella, probably confused and frightened, suggested that she might return to her husband. Although the young prince and others were present, Roger angrily replied that, rather than let her go back to Edward, he would himself ‘kill her with his knife or some other way’.33 The prince was profoundly shocked by Roger’s threat, as were all those present, including Despenser’ spy. But it offers a tantalising glimpse into the relationship. On the strength of it one might say that, after the initial rush of passion, it seems Isabella had doubts about their joint course of action, and considered going back to Edward seriously enough to say so. Roger, on the other hand, did not have this option, and refused to countenance her idea. But that he did this in a way which was sufficiently public for the discussion to become more widely known suggests that his emotions got the better of him, and that his feelings for Isabella were stronger than his self-control. This is the only evidence we have of him being anything other than circumspect in his personal affairs. One last point we can make about this outburst: Isabella’s doubts proved only temporary. With Roger’s support thereafter she was resolute.
Isabella’s wavering might possibly explain why Roger’s attack from Hainault, planned initially for February 1326, was delayed. Intervention by the Pope, however, is a more likely explanation.34 In view of the international situation, Roger and Isabella – particularly Isabella – had to be seen to have exhausted all other options for resolving the dispute with Edward before invading. In February the Pope wrote to Hugh Despenser ordering him to prevent civil war by leaving court, as Isabella had requested. Despenser, lacking the vision to manipulate this intervention to his advantage, told the Pope’s legates that the queen had no right to demand his withdrawal. The real reason why she had not returned to England, he claimed, was that Roger was threatening to kill her if she did. Edward himself wrote to the Pope at this time admitting that his wife was sharing her living accommodation with Roger, with the obvious implication that she was also sharing her bed. Only then did the Pope realise that the hatred the English felt for Hugh Despenser, and the hatred Despenser and Edward felt for Roger and the queen, would not be dissipated except by force of arms.
Despenser was trying to find another, simpler solution to his difficulties. In May he despatched barrels of silver to France in an attempt to bribe Charles’s courtiers to murder the queen. The plot was discovered when a Hainault ship captured the vessel carrying Despenser’s treasure.35 Time now was clearly running out for Roger and Isabella. The longer their invasion was delayed, the more dangerous the situation. They attended the coronation of the Queen of France together in May, Roger bearing Edward’s robes on the occasion in a marked reference to his role at the coronation of Edward II eighteen years earlier. They were probably still in France in June, when the king wrote a final letter to his son, ordering him to ignore Roger’s influence and to shun his company.
In July the queen went to her county of Ponthieu to raise money and men for the invasion, and Roger went to Hainault to begin organising the assembly of the fleet. At last he was exercising the function of a commander again, just as he had done in 1317. This invasion fleet, however, was larger than his Irish flotilla. Count William of Hainault ordered one hundred and forty vessels to be assembled between Rotterdam and Dordrecht by 1 September, and ordered his harbour masters to assist Roger in every way. Eventually ninety-five ships were gathered: four warships, fifteen hulks, or transporters, twenty-nine other ships and forty-five fishing vessels.36 If one assumes that a warship and a hulk could each transport at least thirty men and the requísite horses and armour, besides the crew, and the average ship or fishing vessel large enough to be of use could take an average of six men, it would seem that Roger’s army was at least 1,100 men strong, despite some contemporaries’ claims that it was smaller.37 If more foot-soldiers were transported, it is quite possible that the higher estimates of 1,500 or 2,500 men were more accurate. Given the probability that only a fifth of the army, at the most, was mounted it would be reasonable to assume that Roger had an army of approximately 1,500 men at his disposal.
In September, the fleet was ready, and the invasion of England imminent. On the 7th Isabella arrived in Hainault, and from there went to Rotterdam, where Roger had been organising the fleet in conjunction with Sir John of Hainault, Count William’s younger brother, who was to command the Hainaulters on the expedition. Roger, Isabella, Sir John and the Hainault court then moved to the port of Brill, ready for the embarkation.38 On 20 September they feasted together for the last time and prepared themselves for departure.
In his career Roger had led a force which had successfully invaded Ireland; he had been part of an army which had successfully re-established Edward I’s control of Scotland, and he had put down a popular revolt in Wales. Now he was about to invade England. He and Isabella stood together on the threshold of either greatness or death. But if his nerve was wavering at this point it must have been made firm by the news which reached him just before sailing. His old uncle, Lord Mortimer of Chirk, was dead. He had died in his cell in the Tower on 3 of August. According to the coroner, the corpse showed no wound, lesion or bruise. But Roger may well have had his doubts.