THIRTEEN
THE BERKELEY CASTLE plot is without doubt one of the most remarkable events in European history, made more so for the fact that it has remained secret for nearly seven centuries. No other event compares with it. Kings were occasionally deposed, or murdered, and new monarchs took their thrones; but at no other time did a subject dethrone a king, feign his death and burial, and secretly keep him alive in order to influence his successor.
The origins of the plot lie in Roger recognising the importance of the custody of Edward II. This occurred many months beforehand, as shown by his seizure of the ex-king in early April. Taking possession of the ex-king was not just a means of reducing the chances of Edward’s escape, or lessening the chance that the Earl of Lancaster would use him as a political weapon; it was also a way for Roger to control Edward III. Since Edward II had been forced to abdicate, the ex-king posed a danger to Edward III as well as to Roger and Isabella. If he were to be rescued, he would have claimed that he had been forced to resign the throne illegally. If powerful men had sought his restoration the young king would have had to choose between opposing his father on the battlefield and resigning the throne himself. The latter was not an option, as he would thereby undoubtedly have sentenced his mother to death along with Roger and many other men who had joined them in France.1 Thus, with Edward II in Roger’s custody, the young king was dependent on Roger for the security of his throne and his mother’s life.
There was another strong reason for keeping Edward alive in 1327: Isabella did not want her husband killed. As shown by her sending presents to him in prison, and the tempestuous moment in France when she had suggested that she might return to him, she still felt some affection towards him. It was also an unholy act to murder a man, and doubly so for a wife to murder her husband. Such an act would invite divine retribution. Thus on personal and religious grounds Isabella wanted the same as Roger: to keep the king alive. As an intelligent woman she could also forsee that her husband’s continued survival would help to bind her son to Roger. But if the opposite were to happen – if the ex-king were to be murdered – a gulf would open up between herself and Roger and the king. She and Roger would have blood on their hands, and the murdered man’s son would doubtless wish to be avenged.
This was what Roger had on his mind after leaving court at the beginning of September: if he kept control of Edward II he and Isabella were safe. But it would not be an easy matter to arrange. Four things in particular were necessary for the plot to work. Firstly, all details had to be restricted to as small and as faithful a group of people as possible. Secondly, the mechanisms of state had to be employed to convince Edward II’s supporters and the country at large that the man was dead. Thirdly, a royal funeral had to take place with just as much show as if the man really was dead, and this included exhibiting the corpse. And finally, after the announcement of the supposed death, the ex-king himself had to be kept in the strictest security and secrecy.
By about 18 September, when Roger received de Shalford’s letter from Anglesey, everything was ready. He gave the letter to William de Ockley to go to Berkeley Castle to affect the ‘suitable remedy’. De Ockley was probably accompanied by Thomas Gurney, Berkeley’s retainer,2 William Beaukaire, and Roger’s henchman, Simon Bereford.3 They arrived at Berkeley on 20 or 21 September, by which time Roger was well on his way back to Lincoln. On 21 September Thomas Gurney was sent with letters to inform the king, Isabella and Roger that Edward II had died that day. Roger and Isabella, of course, knew that the letters were false; but for Edward III it was a shock. As far as he knew, his father was dead.4 Writing to his cousin late at night on 23 September, Edward remarked sadly that his father had been ‘commanded to God’.5
Now came the critical part of the plot: to persuade the country that the king was indeed dead. It was crucial that no one should inspect the supposed corpse of the king before it was embalmed. Roger instructed Gurney to return to Berkeley with orders that news of the death should be kept secret locally until 1 November.6 He persuaded the king not to announce the death until the end of the session of Parliament (28 September). On that day the court went into a period of mourning befitting a man who had been a feckless but characterful king, and the process of preparing for the funeral got underway.
There were two distinct parts to the funeral: the public and the private. The private aspects had been in progress from before the announcement of the death. A corpse was acquired, eviscerated, embalmed and covered in cerecloth. The heart was removed and placed in a silver vase for presentation to Isabella, probably in line with her own request, in order to reinforce the notion that Edward II really was dead.7
The public part of the funeral was altogether more ostentatious. Although a plea by the monks of Westminster for Edward II to be buried alongside his royal father and grandfather in the abbey was turned down, a display appropriate for a deposed king was organised. The royal clerk in charge of the funeral, Hugh de Glanville, was ordered to oversee the carrying of the corpse to St Peter’s, Gloucester, the nearest suitable large abbey.8 It was dressed in royal robes, covered in expensive Eastern rugs and placed inside a lead coffin, which in turn was placed inside a wooden one. The abbot’s own carriage was draped in black canvas and used to take the body from Berkeley Castle to Gloucester. Lord Berkeley, the mayor, and many of the townsfolk processed in front of the cortege as it approached the town and passed through the gates of the abbey into the church and up to the hearse in front of the altar.
The hearse was the centrepiece of the show. Specially constructed in London, it bore the gilt images of the lions of England on its sides, each lion bearing a painted mantle emblazoned with the royal arms. At its four corners stood figures of the four evangelists, looking over the body. Around the hearse were eight figures of angels covered in gold leaf carrying censers from which incense wafted. At the centre of all this, on the hearse itself, beneath the gold canopy, lay a figure of the king carved in wood, wearing cloth-of-gold and a gilt crown. This made a fine sight; people travelled long distances to view this rare royal spectacle. So many arrived that four large oak barriers had to be erected around it, so that it was not damaged and the figures and the hundreds of candles on and around it were not knocked over.9
Roger may well have attended to some of these arrangements himself. He was one of the few lords who could remember the previous king’s funeral, twenty years earlier. His last known appearance at court was on 22 October, the same day that Hugh de Glanville was charged with paying all the bills and keeping an account of the funeral arrangements. He does not appear in the records again until 7 December, when he witnessed two royal charters at Leicester, an interval of six weeks.
On 19 December the court arrived at Gloucester to witness the interment. Only a handful of those present – Roger, Isabella and a few trusted men like Berkeley and Maltravers – knew that the whole spectacle was a charade. For the vast majority it was the genuine burial of the ex-king. Roger himself played his part scrupulously, wearing a black tunic made specially for the occasion.10 After hearing mass, he and Isabella stayed one more night at Gloucester and then left.
It was at Worcester, two days later, that Edward III finally learnt the truth from his mother.11 One can only guess at his shock. The whole country believed his father was dead as a result of his solemn proclamations. He himself had believed it for the last three months. But now, it turned out, his mother’s lover was secretly holding his father prisoner. And there was nothing he could do. If he issued a proclamation stating that his father was still alive, Roger would have denied it and called him a fool. If he issued such a proclamation and people believed him, he would make an enemy of his mother and risk starting a civil war. At fifteen, Edward was not strong enough to stand up to his mother and Roger, so he did the only thing he could: he demanded proof that his father was alive. Isabella summoned the woman who had performed the embalming of the corpse. Although we cannot know for certain what was said, we may imagine that he was fully informed about the implications of his father’s continued existence: that his throne and his mother’s life – not to mention his father’s – were dependent on his not revealing to anyone that Edward II was still alive, and not doing anything to threaten his mother’s lover. From now on, both he and Isabella were dependent on Roger for their political lives.
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The success of the Berkeley Castle plot changed everything for Roger. He could now afford to exercise authority openly. More than a year had passed since he and Isabella had received the royal seals, but only now did he dare to use them against Henry of Lancaster. On 23 December, three days after the funeral at Gloucester, Robert de Holand, the prime enemy of the entire Lancastrian faction, was restored to his lands.12 The alliance which had toppled the Despensers and Edward II had come to an end.
Roger did not break from the Lancastrians simply out of dislike for Lancaster or revenge for being deserted in 1322. The split was a result of the conciliatory policy which he wished to pursue with regard to Scotland. He wanted a permanent settlement which would guarantee borders and save the expense of further wars. To this end he sent a delegation to Bruce in October offering to recognise Scottish independence. Bruce offered the sum of £20,000 in return for Scottish sovereignty. Most of his terms were acceptable to the English, namely that the borders should be restored, that Bruce’s son David should marry Isabella’s daughter, Joan, that a mutual defence alliance should bind the two countries, and that the English should drop proceedings against Scotland at the papal court.13But he made one stipulation which would never be acceptable to the northern English lords: Bruce demanded that they should renounce their rights over their Scottish estates. He wanted to make a clear distinction between peers of the realm of Scotland and those of England.
This was a real problem. From the English point of view, an English lord could have territories in France, and so be both a French lord as well as an English one. Bruce’s opposite point of view was born out of bitter experience. If English lords were also Scottish lords, to whom did they owe their allegiance in time of war? They would side with their more powerful English monarch, naturally. Thus he insisted that Henry of Lancaster, Henry Percy and Thomas Wake, among others, had to give up their claims to lost Scottish estates. The northerners were outraged, but Roger refused to listen to them. Bruce’s agreement was vitally important to the question of peace with Scotland, the northerners’ less so.
After Christmas at Worcester, Roger and Isabella made their way north to York to attend the king’s marriage to Philippa of Hainault. Philippa had been accompanied to England by her father, Count William of Hainault, now struggling with gout, and her uncle, Sir John. On Friday 30 January, the fifteen-year-old king married his sixteen-year-old bride in the minster under the auspices of the Archbishop of York and Bishop Hothum. It was an occasion for celebration by all. Isabella and Roger were happy to cement the tie with Hainault, and the Hainaulters were happy to see their count’s daughter married to the king. For a few days there was feasting, music, dancing and jousting, and the full medieval chivalric ideal was lived out to the full. Then it was back to politics.
Parliament met at York on 7 February with Scotland the only important subject on its agenda. There were a few other items besides, such as why Adam of Orleton had presented himself at the papal court as a candidate for the recently vacated see of Worcester, against Roger’s wishes, and the continued imprisonment of the widow of Hugh Despenser, Eleanor de Clare, who was ordered to be released from the Tower, along with her children and chattels;14 but these were minor issues by comparison. The disinherited northern lords bitterly refused to give up their Scottish claims. Their protests divided the council between supporters of Henry of Lancaster on the one hand and of Roger and Isabella on the other. The debate raged for a whole month, but ultimately there was only going to be one conclusion: the king would support Roger’s policy, and Scottish independence would become reality with or without the agreement of the Lancastrians.15 The shallowness of Henry of Lancaster’s authority was exposed.
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Roger’s newly won power did not tempt him to award himself huge grants of land and authority straightaway. He was still wary of appearing the sole dictator of royal policy. Unlike Despenser, he had no need directly to control manors, towns and men in order to affect government. His grants to himself were largely made with his family in mind. On 2 September 1327 he requested a small grant to Isabella Mortimer, and on the following day a more significant one, that of the right of marrying the widow of the late Earl of Pembroke to his second son, Roger.16 In the next six months he himself accepted just one administrative office – that of the chief keepership of the peace in Herefordshire, Shropshire and Worcestershire – one personal gift, of the manor of Church Stretton, at the request of the Earl of Kent, and one wardship: the heir to the earldom of Pembroke.17Although this last lucrative grant suggests that Roger had designs on the Pembroke estates in the way that Despenser had coveted the earldom of Gloucester, there was no possibility of his becoming earl himself, and his relationship with the family suggests that he sought a future political association rather than personal territorial gain. Evidence of his authority lies not so much in grants to him as an individual but in his exercise of patronage and his appointments to government offices.
In the six months after the king’s death Roger directly requested a number of royal grants be made. There was nothing new in this, and indeed Roger had exercised such a right since 1308. But now the numbers began to increase, modestly at first, and then in greater number and value. In October 1327 he requested that John Wyard, his man-at-arms, be granted a licence to crenellate the manor of Stanton Harcourt, which Roger had given him. In December he requested that the prior and convent of Wormsley be allowed to dispose of certain lands. Having unofficially appointed himself the right to adjudicate who had suffered arrest unfairly under Hugh Despenser, he put forward hundreds of names of less important men whom he requested be pardoned outstanding fines. In the same month he requested that Master Thomas de Chandlos be allowed to receive the manor of Lugwardine. In January he requested that a grant should be made to Richard le Gayte, custodian of the Conway ferryboat, and that Richard de Hawkeslowe should receive the office of Chirographer of the King’s Bench, and that the people of Evesham should be allowed to exact a toll for three years to pave their streets, and that his man John Wyard should be granted the right of free warren on his estates. In February 1328 he requested the same right be granted to Thomas Gurney, that a grant of land be made to John Mauvas, that Hugh Morvill be appointed forester of Inglewood Forest, that William de Ayte be appointed forester of Galtres Forest, that Gerard d’Alspaye be allowed to keep the £40 annual income Roger had granted him for helping him escape from the Tower, and that Richard de Cleobury, the old cook of Edward I and Edward II, who had also helped Roger escape from the Tower, should be given a pension. In March he requested that the townsmen of Montford should be granted the right to levy a murage toll for five years, and that a grant be made to Thomas de Vere, his distant kinsman, and that a grant be made to the monks of Buildwas Abbey (where he may well have had family or retired household retainers living). This type of patronage, which was always of small amounts, secured for Roger a large number of supporters, and through it he satisfied the claims of existing supporters, and fostered relationships with newcomers.
This behaviour was exactly what was expected of a great magnate, and although Roger was operating on a grander scale than he had done in Edward II’s reign, it was nevertheless calculated not to cause envy or offence. In some acts he jointly requested a gift along with other barons and earls, including the Earl of Surrey, John de Cromwell and Gilbert Talbot, companions of long standing. But these official requests were only a minor aspect of his power. Much more significant were the gifts made to his friends, allies and supporters through his influence over Isabella and, more specifically, his power over the king. It is noticeable that all the grants to Roger’s friends and allies, whether ecclesiastical or secular, were made on the authority of the privy seal (the king’s private seal).18There is insufficient space here to enumerate all the various people who benefited, but a few examples are particularly worthy of mention. John de Hothum, Bishop of Ely, was forgiven all his debts in Ireland in January 1328. John de Fiennes, Roger’s French cousin who had sheltered him in 1323, was licensed to sell his manorial holdings in England in February. The same month John Wyard, Roger’s man-at-arms, was granted safe passage to go abroad on pilgrimage. And in March the Earl of Kent received a large grant of manors which had belonged to Hugh Despenser. This last grant is interesting in that Roger seems to have appointed himself the sole arbiter of all ex-Despenser lands and rights, and probably established what Kent (his cousin’s husband) was to receive. Some of these privy seal grants were significant and important; others were minor and merely administrative. But since they were all made supposedly by the king, in none of them does Roger’s name appear as patron. In other words, his patronage went right to the heart of the administration, and he was exercising authority not only in his personal capacity as a magnate but also in an executive capacity comparable to that of a monarch.
Roger’s unofficial royal power extended also to the appointments of the great offices of state. In January 1327 John de Hothum was appointed Chancellor, and in the same month Roger’s fellow rebel in 1322, Bishop Orleton, was appointed Treasurer. Hothum’s successor as Chancellor in July 1328 was another close friend of Roger: Henry de Burghersh, Bishop of Lincoln, whose niece had married Roger’s son and heir. When Orleton was replaced as Treasurer after his departure for Avignon in March 1327, the office was filled first by Henry de Burghersh, and, when Burghersh became Chancellor, by Thomas de Charlton, brother of Roger’s long-time ally John de Charlton, and uncle to Roger’s son-in-law. It is noticeable that all these men were members of the coterie of prelates which Roger had gathered around him in his earlier career, and that he had had personal or official links with all of them since at least 1319, and with de Hothum since at least 1309.
The above appointments are interesting, for they demonstrate that Roger held the upper hand in government appointments even before the Berkeley Castle plot. The only major office which seems not to have been held by Roger’s appointee was that of the Keeper of the Privy Seal. The holder of this office from 26 October 1326, Robert Wyvill (later Bishop of Salisbury), was Isabella’s own clerk. It seems that initially Isabella had a policy of allowing Roger to appoint government ministers while she maintained control of the king’s privy seal. In this way she passed much of the responsibility for government to Roger while maintaining a veto, in her own interests and those of her son. However, this situation did not last. Wyvill was replaced on 1 March 1327 by Richard Ayrmin. The post changed hands again on 24 April 1328, when Adam Lymbergh took the seal. Neither of these two men is known to have had strong personal ties to Isabella.
With regard to the lesser positions of power Roger exercised as much if not more influence over appointments than Isabella. It was probably owing to his early policy of appeasement towards Henry of Lancaster that the appointment of John de Ros as Steward of the Royal Household can be attributed. In March 1328, two months after the successful completion of the Berkeley Castle plot, de Ros was dismissed and John Maltravers was appointed, albeit temporarily. Such a promotion was designed not just to reward Maltravers for his part in the Berkeley Castle plot but to restrict Lancastrian access to Edward III. Another key appointment in the royal household made by Roger was that of Gilbert Talbot, who became King’s Chamberlain in August 1327.19 Additionally Roger controlled keeperships of the peace, the appointment of sheriffs, and custodians of castles. In April 1328 he requested openly that his man be appointed Sheriff of Anglesey. A good example of how he exercised authority anonymously in the appointment of custodians of castles is the appointment in November 1327 of Sir Hugh de Turpington to the keepership of Newcastle Emlyn in Carmarthenshire, a key fortress for the control of South Wales (of which Roger was Justiciar) and the protection of the lands of the earldom of Pembroke (in Roger’s guardianship). From the very top of the hierarchy of royal service to very nearly the bottom, the majority of government offices were filled by men appointed by Roger.
The consequence of this series of high-profile appointments and this power structure of personal loyalties was that Roger was able to administer the realm without the widespread series of territorial grants which Despenser and Gaveston had received, and without repeatedly having to use his trump card, the possession of the ex-king. That he granted himself relatively little land and few positions of authority in local government was immaterial. In terms of power his authority was every bit as wide-ranging as that of a monarch. The only difference was that it was largely unofficial.
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Now, completely unexpectedly, one of those deaths occurred which caused medieval society to lurch suddenly in a new direction. It was that of King Charles of France, and he left no heir. All three of Isabella’s brothers had become king in turn, and had died young before their wives had given birth to a son. Unless Isabella herself acted to secure the throne of France for Edward, her father’s ruling line was dead, and it would be Philip, the heir of Charles de Valois, who would inherit. Isabella and Roger were now confronted with one of the most far-reaching political questions of the fourteenth century. It would eventually end in the Hundred Years War.
News of the death probably reached the court on 1 March. Two days later Roger and Isabella left the court quietly together. We do not know where they went. They gave instructions for Parliament to be summoned to Northampton for 26 April, and disappeared for more than a month. It is likely that they took with them a large amount of money, for Roger now claimed the outstanding portion of the 6,000 marks which he was owed for his service in Ireland, of which he had received only a fraction.20 None of the contemporary chronicles records their whereabouts, and so it appears that their departure – the first time that Isabella had left her son since the invasion – was a private affair. They seem to have rejoined the court in mid-April, in time to enter the lion’s den of an angry Parliament.
Roger anticipated hostility. He stipulated in advance that no retinues of men-at-arms were to be brought, and no proctors would be allowed to stand in for their lords. All tournaments were banned, so no opposition forces could be gathered in that guise. Roger also planned to choreograph proceedings: a strategy towards France was already in place. He would attempt to unite northerners and southerners against Philip de Valois rather than dividing them against Robert Bruce. In requiring full attendance of all the lords in person, and by offering unavailable French lordships in compensation for unavailable Scottish ones, Roger was trying for one last time to placate the Lancastrians who had objected so vehemently to his policy at the previous Parliament.
All Roger’s attempts to coerce the northerners failed. He declared that the treaty with Scotland should be ratified since they could not afford to fight a war with both France and Scotland, and that the king, as rightful heir of the French Crown, now had a responsibility to protect his interests there. The Lancastrians accepted that a deputation should be sent to claim the throne of France, but they did not accept that it was necessary to relinquish all claim on lordships in Scotland. Roger realised that no amount of discussion would persuade them. Accordingly he announced that he would not reveal the wording of the charter for Scottish independence.21 Outraged, the Lancastrians declared the whole matter treason, decided between Black Douglas, Roger and Isabella. Roger replied that the terms of the peace had already been agreed, and had been announced in London, seven days before Parliament had met. He seems to have been utterly indifferent to his peers’ and the king’s opinion, but he then went even further: he stated that this was the king’s will. This was a lie, and Edward was furious, but he was unable to overrule him. The Earl of Lancaster protested that this ‘shameful peace’ was none of his will. Only the Bishop of Ely, John de Hothum, seems to have spoken in favour of Roger’s strategy. On 8 May Roger forced the young king to ratify the treaty with Scotland, against his own judgement, as he bitterly but belatedly complained.
The confirmation of the treaty with Scotland was only one of many issues discussed at Northampton. In addition a number of judicial points and law-enforcement measures were discussed and passed. These included restrictions on the issuing of pardons and the use of the privy seal, the prevention of men riding while armed, the prohibition of groups of armed men attending fairs and, most significantly, the extension of the powers of the assize judges who travelled from county to county to sit in judgement on the most important cases. Some of these points, especially the restrictions on pardons and the use of the privy seal, were aimed at reducing Roger’s authority. But, as with his negotiations in Scotland, Roger was prepared to give a lot of ground in order to achieve what he wanted. Now what he most desired was an extension of central government authority, which he, of course, could control. In increasing the powers of the central administration, he was attempting to reduce the power of the crowd to act as a political force. Nowhere would this have worked so much to his advantage as in London, where riots had accompanied his assumption of power and threatened the stability of the administration. Riots had also broken out at Abingdon and other places in the south. Through the central courts and local law-enforcement measures he sought to control the people as efficiently as he controlled the king and the peers.
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Following the parliament of Northampton, which ended on 15 May, Roger and Isabella made their way to Hereford, where a double wedding was to take place. Roger had had the rights of marriage of several important young men for a number of years, two of whom were now of an age to marry. He also had a large number of unmarried daughters. Although the details are confused by Adam Murimuth, the only chronicler to mention the event, it seems that on 31 May 1328 his daughter Joan was married to his ward James Audley, the fifteen-year-old lord of Heleigh.22 Probably at the same time, his daughter Catherine was married to another of his wards, Thomas de Beauchamp, the fourteen-year-old Earl of Warwick. After the event the wedding party made its way north, to Ludlow, for feasting and entertainment in the ancient castle of the de Geneville family, now Roger’s most spectacular residence.
Herein lay a problem. Ludlow Castle was Joan’s inheritance, and taking the royal party there raised the question of how to bring Isabella and Joan face to face without one or the other losing dignity. Under the laws of hospitality and precedence, when the queen came to Ludlow, Joan would have been expected to give up her position as lady of the castle. Normally there would be no problem in this, but when the queen was her husband’s mistress, the situation was potentially fraught. But Roger had anticipated the problem and had constructed a solution.
On entering the inner ward of Ludlow Castle, Isabella and members of the court would have found a newly completed but unfamiliar arrangement of buildings. The centre of a great building was always the great hall, and one could expect normally to find the private, solar accommodation (where the lord and his family mainly lived), at one end of this hall, and the kitchens, buttery and other catering and storage rooms at the other. At Ludlow, Joan’s father and mother had rebuilt the great hall and solar about forty years earlier. Recently, Roger had added a new top storey to the de Geneville solar block, and had built an entirely new complex of solar buildings at the other end of the hall. The kitchens were moved across to the other side of the courtyard. In effect the castle had two splendid and luxurious solars: one for Joan, and one for Isabella. Roger’s solution to the problem of housing both his wife and mistress under one roof, without his wife having to cede precedence to his mistress in her own castle, was an architectural masterpiece, two semi-detached medieval palaces. Joan presumably remained in the extended de Geneville building while Isabella, Edward and Philippa stayed in the new solar, surrounded by the sculptures of kings and queens which formed part of the decoration. History does not relate which wing Roger himself retired to that night, or whether discretion proved the better part of valour and he slept in the gatehouse.
The rebuilding of the interior of Ludlow was not undertaken simply out of duty; Roger enjoyed spending his money on building work. It was one of his pleasures, along with exotic clothes and fine textiles, jewellery, silverware, armour, wine and jousting. At the same time as working on Ludlow, he was continuing the rebuilding of Wigmore Castle, which was probably why he asked the king to give him all the lead then being stripped from the royal castle at Hanley.23 He was also having a chantry added to Leintwardine church, probably building an extension to the parish church at Wigmore for the use of the parishioners,24 and, in the outer ward of Ludlow Castle, he was having a chapel to St Peter built. Building chapels might appear a little out of character for Roger: by comparison with his contemporaries, and especially compared to Isabella, he was not an overtly religious man. He went on no pilgrimages – although he did once promise to go25 – and he made few grants to monastic institutions. Most of those he did make were on account of members of his family. It was only when extreme situations faced him that his mind turned to God. One such occasion had been in the Tower on the eve of his escape. Then he had promised that if St Peter would deliver him from the Tower he would build a chapel dedicated to the saint, hence the chapel under construction in the outer ward of Ludlow Castle. He also constructed a semi-circular tower adjacent to this chapel, now known as Mortimer’s Tower. Two priests, for whom the tower was probably built as a residence, were paid to sing masses in the chapel daily, to celebrate for eternity the miracle of his escape from the most daunting prison in the country.26
Roger was now at the height of his power. He could afford to relax and feast with the royal entourage, to go hawking with the young king, and to joust with his sons and members of the court. Perhaps he joined in the dancing, or listened to romances read aloud in the company of his wife and Isabella. He was surrounded by splendid embroideries and tapestries, exotic armour and silver and gold ornaments. Although the bedspreads and cushions and tapestries and luxurious fabrics and textiles mentioned in the inventories of Roger’s and Joan’s possessions in 1321–2 had all gone, a glimpse of the interior of the castle is possible from an inventory of Roger’s goods found at Wigmore and Ludlow in 1330. Roger’s personal travelling possessions and Joan’s personal items were not recorded, but there were several gilt silver-lidded cups, including one which, inside, was decorated with the figure of a baboon with a bow in his hand, and another which had a shield engraved at the bottom with the arms of England and France. There were several silver water vessels, and a great hall curtain illustrating historical scenes from Welsh history. Most suggestively, there was a set of silk bedclothes with a bedspread embroidered with a castle of love, with accompanying hangings of green silk with ray taffeta, and four matching green rugs covered with white and red roses. In addition there was a set of white linen bedcovers, decorated with butterflies, with an accompanying bedspread and four matching carpets, and a set of red woollen bedclothes with a matching bedspread and two carpets. There was a great arras tapestry for the hall, of eighteen pieces, in white, again decorated with butterflies. There were two tunics emblazoned with the arms of Roger’s uncle, Lord Mortimer of Chirk, one of velvet, the other of silk covered with yellow velvet and lined with red sindon (a fine linen), and a yellow padded tunic decorated with lilies and yellow roses.27 With regard to the possessions which travelled with him, a few silver items were recorded in a London goldsmith’s in 1330, and this short list reveals more of the splendour in which Roger now lived on a daily basis. He had a great silver dish weighing nineteen pounds; a large silver wine goblet, the lid and base of which were gilt and enamelled with his arms. There was a cup with a cover and tripod, all of silver, engraved with foliage, gilt and enamelled with the arms of Mortimer and de Geneville, and a silver wine jug enamelled with the various arms of Roger’s ancestors, with a matching water jug. There were four wine goblets of which one had a gilt interior and the others had bases enamelled with Roger’s arms. There was a great salt cellar with a silver cover weighing more than six pounds, and a cloth-of-silver table cover.28 There is no doubt that from the silk bedclothes to the silverware, Ludlow Castle in June 1328 was as opulent and luxurious as any palace in the kingdom.
Besides architecture and fine living, Roger’s principal entertainment was still the tournament. Although all his old armour had been sold by Edward II after his imprisonment in 1322, he had acquired more. At Ludlow and Wigmore he kept what was spare, including a pair of armour plates covered with gold cloth, and another pair covered with red sindon; a red velvet jousting suit with silver embroidery, an accompanying shield decorated with butterflies whose wings were the Mortimer coat of arms, and a matching banner of sindon; a set of green velvet horse trappings for jousting, two banners of the arms of Mortimer, one of sindon, the other old and battered; various pieces of metal armour for the shoulders, arms, hands and legs; three hardened leather thigh protectors; two pairs of shoes; ten coats of Welsh cloth quartered with one sleeve red; four tournament bascinets (close-fitting helmets), four jousting helmets (three of which were gilt); six iron corsets; three war helmets and various other odds and ends. The velvet suit for jousting sounds very similar to those given by Edward II to Piers Gaveston in 1307, and the quartered coats with one arm red are reminiscent of the green tunics quartered with one sleeve yellow which Roger’s men wore in the 1321 rebellion. This was more than mere nostalgia. This was his attempt to create his own knightly court: to promote himself in men’s estimations and to live up to the highest chivalric ideal.
Chivalry was an elusive concept even in 1328. King Edward still seethed with anger at being forced to surrender Scotland. It was, in his eyes, an appalling act, an act of cowardice. It belittled him as a king, and he wanted everyone to know exactly what he thought of it. While Roger had the honour of entertaining the king at Ludlow, the honour was greater than the pleasure. After two days the royal party with all its noise, servants, clerks, general bustle and scowling young monarch moved on, first to the nearby manor of Bromyard, and then to Worcester.
At Worcester, while the royal party waited to discuss the French war with Henry of Lancaster, the king agreed to give Roger the roof lead which he had requested. It seemed that the king’s anger was abating. Then Lancaster arrived, and, petulantly, he refused to discuss France. This council, he said, referring to Roger and his coterie of lords and prelates, was too small to discuss such a weighty issue.29 This was an open accusation: that Roger was appropriating power to himself. Edward agreed with the earl, again expressing his anger at how Scotland had been taken from him. Lancaster insisted Parliament be called in the north. Roger acquiesced, and ordered that such a meeting would take place at York six weeks later. The king protested that he did not want the treaty with Scotland to go ahead. It was too late, Isabella explained: the king’s own sister, Joan, was due to be married to David Bruce, the future King of Scotland, in a month. Edward declared defiantly that he would never recognise Scottish independence and that he would not attend the wedding. The end of the argument was its solution: if the king did not wish to attend, they would leave him behind. And they did.
*
Roger and Isabella went north with Henry de Burghersh and Isabella’s daughter, Joan, leaving the king in the Welsh Marches with Henry of Lancaster. It appears at first sight that they were taking a risk, placing the king in their enemy’s hands; but they had taken precautions. They had the great seal with them, in Burghersh’s keeping, and, although they had left the privy seal with the king, Edward knew better than to incur Roger’s anger. Ministers and spies kept watch on the king and what he ordered. As for Lancaster, he was powerless for, most importantly, Edward did not trust him.30 Furious and frustrated, Lancaster declared his enmity towards Roger and Isabella. The author of the Brut chronicle dated Roger and Isabella’s tyranny from this time onward.
As Isabella rode north to Berwick in early July, her feelings may be imagined. She was giving away her seven-year-old daughter to the Scots, the mortal enemies of England. For little Joan the journey must have held many terrors. At the age of four she had been separated from her mother when Isabella had gone to France. Now it was happening again, but this time it was for ever. The Scots did not help by calling her ‘Joan Makepeace’, as if that were her sole purpose. At Berwick, on 16 July, she was married to the five-year-old David Bruce and handed over to Thomas Randolph and Black Douglas. The English and Scots appeared to get on well – there was much feasting and celebration – but the emotions must have been burning in the hearts of both bride and bride’s mother.
Roger too had reason to reflect. Although he had learnt by now that his eldest son’s wife was expecting his first grandchild, he had also heard that his second son, Roger, had died. In the summer of his glory, following the wedding of his daughters in the king’s presence, and after the honour of entertaining the king at Ludlow, Roger suffered the most humbling of blows. The aftermath of his triumphant summer was arranging for his son’s corpse to be taken to Wigmore Abbey for burial.
We know nothing of Roger’s emotional life, nor anything of the private lives of any of his family, thus it is very difficult to say what this loss meant to him. It seems he held his family in high esteem. A cynical explanation might be that he valued his children for their potential to make political alliances through marriage; but this would only be partly true, for interfamily marriages tended to be most meaningful when the individuals were close. Furthermore, rather than forging new alliances, marriages tended to cement existing ones. It is significant that Roger and Joan were not like previous generations of their families, marrying off the eldest son and the eldest daughters and putting the younger ones into the church. Instead all their children were given the opportunity of marriage and independence. The younger sons were all knighted and provided with lordships of their own. Edmund and Geoffrey spent time at court, and Geoffrey especially seems to have been favoured by both his parents.31 All the daughters who had been placed in nunneries by Edward II and Despenser were redeemed and allowed the greater luxury, and the relatively greater freedom, of an aristocratic married woman’s lifestyle. Only one daughter, Isabella, did not marry, but this may indicate merely that she did not live to receive a husband. Just as the number of children Roger and Joan had together indicates a greater than usual propensity to spend time with each other, so too his treatment of their children seems to reflect a loyalty deeper than that normally borne by power-obsessed magnates for their offspring.
As for Roger’s relationship with his wife, he obviously continued to see her, on occasion at least, and she may well have visited court in addition to the visits he made to her at Ludlow. His feelings towards her were respectful, as shown by his sending the present of books in 1327, his occasional small gifts to her sisters’ nunnery, Aconbury Priory, and his inclusion of her name in the list of those whose souls were to be the object of prayers in December 1328. There were no grants made to her which were not also to him, but this was due to the nature of medieval land tenure. In all legal matters touching Ireland and Ludlow her name is usually mentioned with his, but again this is only as one would expect. It is possible that the extended grants to them in Ireland benefited both of them, and certainly Joan was not left penniless. But it is perhaps in the strange arrangements of the solar wings at Ludlow Castle, and the silverware which bore their arms combined – which Roger still had with him in London two years later – that one can perhaps detect elements of their relationship lasting. Because of these hints of closeness with Joan and his children, one suspects that the death of his son Roger was a real blow, and perhaps one of the reasons why he started building the chantry at Leintwardine church.
*
Whatever Roger’s and Isabella’s personal feelings must have been on heading south from Berwick, they had to put them to one side and gather their resources for the meeting at the end of July at York. The Earl of Lancaster, disgruntled with Roger’s hold on power, had decided not to attend the York meeting which he himself had demanded, to the king’s ill-concealed disapproval. Thus Edward was at York on the appointed day to meet his mother and Roger, but Henry of Lancaster was not. Lancaster’s supporters, including Thomas Wake, were also absent. Of most concern, however, was the absence of the king’s two uncles, the Earls of Kent and Norfolk.
The court remained in York for most of August. Orders to attend a special parliament at Salisbury were despatched at the end of the month. The Controller of the King’s Wardrobe, Thomas de Garton, was sent on a special mission to Lancaster, presumably to try to persuade him to come to Salisbury.32 But Lancaster remained defiant. On 7 September he met Roger, Isabella and the king at Barlings Abbey near Lincoln. He had an army with him, and, shouting at Roger and Isabella in the king’s presence, he threatened to use it.
It was a foolish move. The king was genuinely shocked by the earl’s behaviour, and, faced with the reality of an aggressive vassal, Roger had no difficulty in persuading Edward of the merits of taking military precautions. The following week all armed followings were once again forbidden. He began to review positions of authority, removing any sheriffs or constables whom he did not trust, strengthening his hold on the country and the government. On hearing that in London, the Bishop of Winchester and Thomas Wake were negotiating with important London merchants on Lancaster’s behalf, Roger advised the king that a rebellion was underway, and sent Bishop Burghersh and Oliver Ingham to demand an explanation from the Londoners. They replied in the form of a letter sent by Hamo de Chigwell on 27 September which listed the grievances of the Earl of Lancaster.
The accusations were numerous. Lancaster demanded firstly that Isabella give up her huge estates and return to the level of income more traditionally allowed a queen, and secondly that Roger be banished from court and forced to live upon his own lands, since he had disinherited so many people in order to acquire them. Thirdly he demanded an official inquiry into the fiasco of the campaign against the Scots, to establish who had betrayed the king. Fourthly he demanded that an inquiry be held as to why the rule that the king should be controlled by a council of twelve men ordained at the coronation was being neglected. Fifthly he claimed that the deposed king had been
taken out of the castle of Kenilworth, where he was in ward, and through the influence of the Queen Isabella and of the Mortimer, without consent of any parliament, they took him and laid him there that none of his kindred could see him or speak to him again, and afterwards they traitorously took him and murdered him, for whose death a foul scandal arose throughout all Christendom when it was done.
Sixthly he claimed that Edward II’s treasure had been frittered away without the consent of the young king. Seventhly that through the advice of Roger and Isabella the king had given up the land of Scotland for which many men had died, ‘to the disinheritance of himself, his successors and his vassals and great reproof to all Englishmen forever more’. And finally, that Princess Joan had been married to the son of a traitor, on Roger and Isabella’s advice.33
The seriousness of the accusations underscored the seriousness of the rebellion. Lancaster did not see this as a move to reduce Roger and Isabella’s authority but entirely to destroy it. But he was not a great strategist. What did he offer in place of their rule? Only his own. This was a marked contrast to Roger’s revolution with Isabella at the fore: they had been seen to offer a preferable alternative to the existing government, untainted by corruption. Lancaster offered an alternative which was partisan and every bit as corruptible as Roger and Isabella’s rule. But most of all Lancaster was perceived not to have the subtlety to control public and noble opinion. Evidence of this was to be seen in his armed entourage confronting and challenging the king at Barlings Abbey. Proof of it came a few days later when he heard that the king was by himself in East Anglia, and took his army to capture him. Only a high-speed flight saved Edward. He forced the court to ride or march 120 miles to Salisbury from Cambridge in under four days, and, learning there that Roger and Isabella were at Gloucester, travelled the remaining sixty miles to meet them equally rapidly.
As a result of Lancaster’s aggression, Roger obtained permission on 6 October to travel armed with his men. It was a sensible precaution. Shortly afterwards Lancaster’s retainer, Sir Thomas Wyther, ambushed Sir Robert de Holand in a wood in Hertfordshire, hacked off his head and sent it to the earl. There had been no pretence at a trial. Far from distancing himself from this murder, Lancaster condoned it, and took Wyther and his accomplices into his protection.34
Outright civil war now seemed inevitable. The Salisbury parliament was only five weeks away, and the two sides were bound to come armed. At Gloucester Roger was gathering a large army from Wales and the Marches, ready to put down Lancaster’s revolt and restore order. Lancaster was raising troops in London. The citizens had promised a force of six hundred men to support him. They had ousted Roger’s supporter, Richard de Bethune, from the mayoralty and replaced him with Hamo de Chigwell, one of those who had sentenced Roger to death. They had kidnapped the Abbot of Bury St Edmunds and looted his monastery. Lancaster moved his army to Winchester, ready to attack Roger on Salisbury Plain. Roger advanced to Salisbury, where he ordered that Parliament should sit, with or without the Earl of Lancaster.
Desperately the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had already given some encouragement to Lancaster, tried to intervene. He requested that, as a sign of his impartiality, Roger should swear upon the archbishop’s crozier that he intended no harm to the Earl of Lancaster, nor to his supporters. Roger did as requested. Slightly mollified, the archbishop proposed that the Bishops of London and Winchester should be sent to Lancaster, again asking him to attend Parliament. This was done. But Lancaster refused to come. He sent his list of grievances once more, stating he was prepared to come if his demands were met, and if he received guarantees of safe passage from those whom he thought were ‘determined to do him harm’.
Roger replied to his demands on the king’s behalf. With regard to the first of these, he said, the king was impoverished not by Isabella’s grants of land but by the present likelihood of war, although, he added with wry humour, ‘if any man knew how to make the king richer he would be made most welcome at court’. Quite simply the earl had no right to determine the level of the queen mother’s dowry. With regard to the fourth complaint, Roger explained that the reason the King’s Council did not more frequently advise the king was that Lancaster himself refused to attend, even when summoned. Lancaster could have letters of safe conduct if he should so require them, but if he took advantage of them he would have to abide by the terms of Magna Carta. This document held that he would be answerable in court if any man accused him of any crime, such as complicity in the murder of Sir Robert de Holand, or treason for riding against the king.35 There was no reference to the other matters raised by the earl and the citizens of London. Accusations such as murder, conspiracy with the Scots and of frittering away Edward II’s and Despenser’s fortune were best left unanswered, being on the one hand beneath contempt, and, on the other, justified.
Lancaster recognised that he had no option: he could not go to Salisbury. The threat of arrest loomed too large, since he would undoubtedly have been accused of both murder and treason. Moreover there was a real risk of his being assassinated himself. Bishop Stratford, who had now wholly adopted the earl’s cause, returned to Salisbury to attempt to win over more of the bishops gathered there for the parliament. He held secret meetings in his own house, but spies were at work in the town, and Roger’s men soon drove him out of the city. He took shelter in the nunnery at Wilton, but there he was informed that Roger intended to murder him, and, mindful of de Stapeldon’s fate, he fled across the fields by night.36
With the Earl of Lancaster and his supporters silenced, there was no need for Parliament to sit. But since it had gathered, Roger used the opportunity to recall the courts and the Exchequer from the north, safeguarding them from falling into Lancaster’s hands, and restoring to London some of the favour which he now realised was necessary to maintain his popularity there. The only other significant business of the parliament was transacted on the last day, 31 October, when the king created three earls. The first was his brother, Prince John of Eltham, to whom he gave the title Earl of Cornwall. The third was James Butler, son of Edmund Butler of Ireland, to whom the king gave the title Earl of Ormond. Between these two grants the king strapped the belt and sword on Roger himself. To him the king gave the title Earl of March.37 Roger’s greatest moment had arrived. To cap it all, eleven days later, at Ludlow, his eldest son’s wife gave birth to a son and heir.
Contemporaries were amazed by Roger’s new title. Normally earldoms were associated with specific counties or county towns. A more usual style would have been for Roger to call himself ‘Earl of Shrewsbury’ or ‘Earl of Radnor’, taking his title from the county town of one of the shires in which he held a significant lordship. Instead he chose March, referring to the Welsh March. This was for two reasons. Firstly it harked back to his wife’s ancestry, the French counts of La Marche, and drew attention to his connections with several of the ruling houses of Europe. Secondly it set him apart from all the other earls because it related to such a vast area. Despenser might have coveted the earldom of Gloucester, Roger himself might have controlled most of the earldom of Pembroke, but the earldom of March … Such a title implied supremacy over the existing earldoms of Pembroke, Hereford and Gloucester, and would naturally be far superior to those of Chester and Shrewsbury, if they were to be recreated. By comparison with such a magnificent title, what was an Earl of Lancaster?
Lancaster was furious when he heard of the title. Immediately he marched into Winchester and cut off the king’s approach to London. Roger sent the Sheriff of Hampshire to force Lancaster to withdraw. Thomas Wake came out from the city to meet the sheriff, and negotiations continued for several days before Roger’s army drew close. Desperately Wake tried to persuade Lancaster not to fight, suspecting that Roger would have little mercy on them. Only at the last minute did Lancaster relent. His soldiers were still leaving when Roger’s army marched into the city. Men from both sides skirmished with each other, jeering and shouting. The two armies scraped each other but they did not clash.
In London frantic negotiations were taking place as the Lancastrian supporters battled with the more moderate aldermen. Bitter recriminations were thrown across the Guildhall, as both factions realised the court was coming to London. In the end the neutral John de Grantham was elected, and he created a fiction that London had remained totally loyal to Roger. As the court entered the city in late November, both Roger and the Londoners had learnt a lesson: neither could afford to neglect the other.
Roger was satisfied for the time being, but he had not gone to London to make peace. He knew now for certain there would be war. There could be no return to the charade of Lancaster as head of a council. Only one of them could wield power. Thus his purpose in taking the court to London was to break the citizens’ support for Lancaster. The earl stationed himself at Higham Ferrers in Northamptonshire, and sent his messengers to the king with proposals for a meeting of the royal council. Roger sent them back angrily, stating that Lancaster should show more humility: that he should approach his king as a vassal and make an unconditional surrender. Roger listed the king’s grievances, including protests that the king had the right to surround himself with such advisers as he chose, and that Lancaster had stayed away from court when he had been summoned, and had appeared in arms before the king on the few occasions when they had met. While Roger awaited a response, he took measures to control the capital. He prohibited the carrying of arms in the city and reinforced law and order. Finally, confident that London would stand firm, he and the court withdrew from the city to Gloucester, to arm, plan and begin the war with Lancaster. Force of arms could determine which of them was loyal and which the traitor.
At moments of grave crisis, it seems, Roger turned to God. Now he made the endowment for his chapel at Leintwardine. On 15 December at Gloucester he granted lands and rent to the value of 100 marks (£67) per year for a college of nine chaplains to sing masses daily in the church of St Mary for the souls of King Edward and Queen Philippa, Queen Isabella, Bishop Burghersh, and himself, his wife, his children and their ancestors and successors.38 It had been a long time since he had fought a campaign, and he knew he would be fighting the combined forces of the Earls of Lancaster, Norfolk and Kent. He might not live much longer. His mind had grown a little colder, since the loss of another of his sons. Not long after the death of his second son, Roger, his youngest son, John, had been killed in a tournament at Shrewsbury.39 Besides the dead there were grandchildren being born whom he realised he might never see grow to adulthood, who would inherit the fruits of his labours and merely wonder at his name. Chantries and sepulchral monuments were one way for noblemen to communicate across the centuries with their descendants. And finally there was the matter of his wife and Isabella, with whom he could neither be together nor apart, being wrenched between them both. It was a strange extended family – a king, two queens, a wife, a mistress, the living and the dead – but these were the people for whom Roger cared most, and he wanted them to be together at peace, if only in the prayers of the chaplains of St Mary’s, Leintwardine.
There was one other reason for the timeliness of this foundation: Roger was not just going to war over his policy towards Scotland or Henry of Lancaster’s treason, he was fighting for his and Isabella’s lives. The Earl of Kent had learnt that Edward II was still alive. And he had told Lancaster.
We do not know how the Earl of Kent learnt about the ex-king’s continued existence. Perhaps the most likely explanation is that Edward III confided in him while Roger and Isabella were travelling to Berwick for the marriage between David and Joan in July 1328. This may explain why he and his brother, the Earl of Norfolk, refused to attend the meeting at York which was to take place on their return. In his later confession, Kent claimed that he had heard the news at Kensington from a Dominican friar of London who ‘had raised up the devil, which declared unto him for certain that Edward, his brother, sometime King of England, was alive’.40 This was almost certainly a means to cover up the identity of his true informant. It remains a possibility that friars of the Dominican order had learnt for themselves that Edward was alive, and informed the earl. Whichever was the true source of his information, if Kent informed Lancaster between July and September, then Lancaster’s accusation of murder in the autumn was an attempt to call Roger’s bluff, to force him to reveal the living ex-king. While this remains uncertain, it is highly likely that Lancaster had been informed by the end of October, as on 5 November he wrote to the Mayor of London stating that he would send some information by messenger he dared not have written down which he had heard from the Earl of Kent.41
The consequence of this information was further to alienate Edward II’s half-brothers from Roger. In December they issued a joint circular statement accusing their nephew the king of breaking the terms of his coronation oath and abusing Magna Carta.42 The latter was a tacit reference to Edward II’s custody, for which they held Edward III partly responsible, indicating that they were aware that he knew of his father’s survival.43 They called for a general gathering in London to discuss further action. It was sent to all those likely to be sympathetic to the Earl of Lancaster’s cause, as well as to the king. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of Winchester and the Bishop of London responded, as did Lancaster’s northern supporters. On 18 December the archbishop preached a sermon against the king at St Paul’s. Three days later a very full reply was received in the city and read aloud at the Guildhall. The archbishop, who by now had given up all pretence to impartiality, wrote back to the king and the court threatening him and them with excommunication. This outrageous letter, which implied the king was guilty as charged, coincided with the completion of Roger’s preparations for a military campaign. There was nothing left to do but fight.
On 29 December Roger declared war on Henry of Lancaster in the king’s name.44 A letter was sent to London stating that Edward intended to march to Leicester, via Warwick, and that those who surrendered before 7 January would be pardoned for their transgressions, with the exceptions of Henry de Beaumont, Thomas Roscelyn, Thomas Wyther and William Trussel, whose disloyalty could never be forgiven. The letter was read aloud on 1 January to Lancaster and the other leaders at St Paul’s, who even now thought they could mediate. But the royal army was already on the march. They left Warwick that same day and went to Kenilworth, where the king asked for access to the castle. Upon being refused, Roger decided to bring forward the deadline for action. He took the army to Leicester and began to sack the Earl of Lancaster’s manors. Then he ordered the town and all the earl’s property to be destroyed by sword and fire, including the property of his dependants. Over the years Roger’s men had grown experienced in the art of wanton destruction. They took the earl’s deer, cut down his woods, emptied his fish ponds, emptied his granaries, took his cattle and sheep, and destroyed his manor houses, barns, fences, sheds and cottages. The entire town and hinterland was devastated in a few days. The army was, however, restrained when it came to killing people: the majority of the fatalities arose from Henry Percy’s massacre of a crowd of peasants marching to serve Lancaster.
Hearing of the attack on his lands, Lancaster marched north. At Bedford he held a council with his fellow lords. He declared that they now had no choice: they would have to fight the king. At this the Earls of Norfolk and Kent recoiled. They refused to ride in arms against the royal banner, for the double risk of being presumed traitors by their nephew, who was obviously Roger’s pawn, and for fear of Roger himself, who seemed unbeatable with a royal army behind him. They grew angry, and denounced Lancaster, accusing him of sedition, of trying to destroy the king. They abandoned the earl and rode off to seek peace before it was too late.
Roger was at Northampton. When he heard that the Earls of Norfolk and Kent had deserted Lancaster, he ordered his troops to prepare for an immediate night attack. Even Isabella took part, dressed in armour and mounted on a war horse. Through the night he led them, for twenty-four miles, arriving within sight of Lancaster’s camp near Bedford at daybreak. Henry made no attempt to defend himself. He came out of his pavilion and walked slowly forward through the cold January morning, and knelt down, alone, in the mud. He waited there until Roger, Isabella and the king rode up. They watched him from their horses as he begged for forgiveness.