THREE
THE DEATH OF a member of the royal family is an unsettling event even in modern times; the death of a medieval monarch was much more so. When that monarch had reigned for most people’s lifetime, and had become, for each and every one, a crucial part of how society operated, in terms of justice, law, security and religious observance, the effect was traumatic. So it was with Edward I. Most people could not remember the death of the previous king, thirty-five years earlier. Of the lords, knights and prelates who could, very few were old enough to have been at court at the time. Thus, as the country struggled to come to terms with the fact that the only king they had ever known or served was dead, they did the only thing which they were sure was right: they welcomed his son to the throne with open arms, and conferred on him all the powers of his father.
The realisation of his freedom burst on Edward like a ray of light. Immediately he recalled Gaveston from exile, and within a month the two men were again laughing together as they had done in the early days of their friendship. No more, it seemed, could old kings and proud earls challenge their relationship. And neither could they prevent Edward advancing Gaveston to the front rank of power. On 6 August 1306 at Dumfries, still a day short of a month since his father had died, he endowed Gaveston with one of the richest earldoms in the country, that of Cornwall, worth approximately £4,000 a year. The earldom had been intended for the late king’s second son, Thomas of Brotherton, but Edward disregarded his young half-brother’s interest. Even more alarming to the lords, who were just recovering from the shock of losing their old king, Edward proposed making Gaveston a member of the royal family. He planned to do this by allowing him to marry his niece, Margaret de Clare, sister of Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, and daughter of his own sister, Joan. For the great lords it was like seeing a servant taken up from the kitchen and sat at the king’s high table.
Gilbert de Clare, the sixteen-year-old Earl of Gloucester, was one of the few who saw no problem in the king’s raising Gaveston to high rank. He had grown up with the king and Gaveston, and understood their friendship. Roger Mortimer, who had been at court for at least the last four years, similarly saw Gaveston’s promotion as breaking new ground for the new generation. Now twenty years old, and firmly at the heart of the new administration, Roger stood to benefit from the change of monarch. Other men, like Hugh Audley, Roger Damory and John de Charlton had no doubt that their interests lay in supporting the king. Only slightly more distant were older royal advisers, such as Bartholomew de Badlesmere, Lord Mortimer of Chirk, and the elder Hugh Despenser, men whom Edward valued for their counsel and their loyalty. For all these lords opportunities beckoned, as long as they remained on the right side of Gaveston.
This was the sticking point for many of the older men, especially those who were not friends of the prince. Remaining on the right side of Gaveston was very difficult. He was not just an entertainer, he was ambitious and manipulative too. He took full advantage of his relationship with Edward, seeking opportunities for preferment for his tenants and dependants, and wilfully controlling the lords’ access to Edward.1 The great earls saw no reason why they should play second fiddle to the wishes of a Gascon commoner, and several of them soon wished they had not been so hasty in confirming his advancement to an earldom. To them and many others it was clear that their ancient lineage and noble titles – so hard won by their ancestors – counted for little when marks of profound dignity and distinction could be showered on Gaveston, who had yet to prove himself of benefit to anyone but the king.
Roger Mortimer was firmly in the king’s camp, and as one of the king’s young knights he was enjoying his new-found association with power. With the summer of 1307 drifting past aimlessly, the campaign in Scotland was called off, and Roger accompanied the rest of the court back to Westminster. There they spent a month preparing for the burial of Edward I and the marriage of Gaveston to Margaret de Clare. The funeral took place in Westminster Abbey on 22 October, fifteen weeks after the king’s death.2 After seeing his father safely into his tomb, Edward set out for Berkhamsted, the manor of his widowed stepmother, Queen Margaret, where Gaveston’s wedding was to take place.
For Edward and Gaveston and their friends, the gathering of the court was little more than an excuse to drink, feast, joust, hunt and be merry. After a stay at Berkhamsted they moved on to the manor of Kings Langley in Hertfordshire where they spent most of November. The king’s cousin Thomas of Lancaster was with them, by far the most powerful man in the country after the king, with four earldoms and a colossal income.3 The Earl of Pembroke (Aymer de Valence had recently been confirmed in succession to this earldom) and the Earl of Gloucester were also in the royal party, as well as the Mortimers. On 26 November Roger’s name appears next to that of Gaveston’s in a small group of witnesses of a grant to the king by John FitzReginald.4 At the end of the month they set out again, this time for Wallingford.
The tournament held in honour of Gaveston by the king on 2 December 1307 was a turning point in the reign. For a start, Wallingford had previously been a royal residence and so the two hundred or so assembled knights all saw for themselves how splendid was the gift Edward had given his dear Perrot. But that was nothing besides the tournament itself. Gaveston, a renowned champion fighter, led the knights on one side, while those on the other were led by the Earls of Warenne, Hereford, and Arundel. To the fury of the earls, and to the delight of the king and Gaveston, the young talented knights on Gaveston’s side, with the benefit of their youth and strength, ran rings around the older earls’ men. The earls were unceremoniously defeated and humiliated. Earl Warenne bitterly turned against Gaveston from that moment, and never forgave him. His violent declaration against the king’s favourite only slightly exceeded the anger and frustration of the other two earls. This upstart had not only been raised above them, he could defeat them in battle too. Worst of all he publicly crowed over their fallen status, laughing at their humbling as they tumbled from their horses into the Berkshire mud. To the frustration of the earls, the king laughed also.
A tide of hatred against Gaveston swept across the country in the wake of the tournament, but those who had sided with the king and his beloved Perrot reaped their rewards. Among them were Roger and his uncle. The Justiciar of Ireland was ordered to restore all Roger’s lands there due to him, and letters of protection were drawn up for him to accompany the king to France for his marriage to Princess Isabella.5 Geoffrey de Geneville, Joan’s octogenarian grandfather, was given permission to pass to Roger and Joan all the lands and estates in Ireland which they stood to inherit on his death. At the same time it seems that Roger was proposed for the position of Seneschal of Gascony, which would have made him governor of the Duchy of Aquitaine.6 Shortly afterwards, Roger’s uncle was made Justiciar of Wales, with enormous powers across the principality. For some reason Roger did not take up his position in Gascony; perhaps on account of his youth the earls persuaded Edward that it was a premature appointment. But whatever the reason, it is clear that the Mortimers both stood high in the king’s favour as they accompanied him down the coast road to Dover in January 1308.7
While the appointment of Lord Mortimer of Chirk as Justiciar of Wales seems to have been considered entirely suitable by the earls and barons, Edward’s appointment of Gaveston as sole Regent of England during his forthcoming absence from the realm shocked them profoundly. Edward clearly saw no difference between his adopted brother and a real brother. His real half-brothers – young though they were – would have both been considered acceptable, but again he ignored them. In putting Gaveston in nominal control of the country he was showing exactly how sincere he was in his wish to share power with his brother-in-arms. This was an act more outrageous than anything Gaveston himself had ever done or said. Ironically, it is through this very appointment that one can see how reliant Gaveston was on the king’s wholehearted support. Left to rule the country for two weeks he did nothing controversial.8 Indeed, one suspects he found himself somewhat out of his depth. It is true that he adopted a proud bearing towards those who came into his presence, and it is said that he forced the earls to kneel before him.9 But in this one can see Gaveston brazening out his awkward position as head of the administration. The man was sweating in his king’s absence, merely keeping up appearances. It seems that Gaveston needed the reassurance of Edward’s distinguished lineage as much as Edward needed the reassurance of Gaveston’s friendship. Between them they made up for aspects of character which each of them lacked.
For Roger, the importance of this extraordinary promotion of Gaveston was that, rightly or wrongly, he and his uncle had pledged themselves to the support of a partnership which was heading for confrontation, if not disaster. Even in France the earls with the king perceived that the king’s affection for Gaveston was dangerously out of control. He was mixing his personal life and his public role so closely that the country was threatened. The antidote to this potentially lethal cocktail was to separate the two sides of kingship, to distinguish the king from the Crown.
It was at Boulogne, in the two weeks that Gaveston was ruler of England, that the Earls of Lincoln, Surrey, Pembroke and Hereford, together with the Bishop of Durham and five barons, drew up a declaration that they would act to protect the honour of the king and the rights of the Crown.10The idea quickly spread: that a lord’s oath of fealty necessitated his loyalty to the Crown, but if the king himself was disloyal, then the lords’ loyalty was due to the Crown, not to the king. Over the coming months this idea developed further. Men became convinced that, if the king did not act in the interests of the nation, those loyal to the Crown would be obliged to correct him. And since the king was personally above the law, there would be only one way to effect this correction: force.
Roger did not apply his seal to the Boulogne declaration. Two things may have motivated him: friendship for Edward and Gaveston, and personal ambition. With regard to the latter, Roger would have been aware of men like Bartholomew de Badlesmere, who had risen dramatically over the years through devoted, obsequious, service. And he realised that if he opposed the king in the name of justice he might only open the way for great earls like Lancaster to increase their power. A principled stand would not help lesser lords such as Roger. On the other hand, if he remained completely loyal to the king – and that was no crime in anybody’s eyes – he stood to be richly rewarded.
On 25 January 1308 Edward was married to Isabella the Fair, the only daughter of King Philip of France, in Boulogne. If Roger was at the ceremony, as is believed, he would have seen the future queen of England for the first time at about the same moment as Edward himself. She was still very young, only twelve years old, but already noted for her good looks. And she was clever too. Writers in later centuries may have given her the title of ‘She-wolf’, especially referring to their disapproval of her immoral behaviour in the last years of her husband’s reign, but contemporaries repeatedly focus on the same two qualities when describing her: beauty and wisdom. While most royal brides across the ages have been described as beautiful, there seems undoubtedly to have been something special about Isabella. Geoffrey of Paris carefully stated that, at that time, Isabella was the ‘beauty of beauties … in the kingdom if not in all Europe’. With reference to her intelligence, to describe free-thinking females, even royal ones, as ‘very wise’ (sapientissima) was far from conventional.11 Then, of course, there is the matter of heredity: her father was not known as Philip the Fair on account of his equitable nature but for his extraordinary good looks, which Isabella and her brother Charles seem to have inherited. As for her clothes, the preservation of her wedding dress – a ‘tunic with a mantle of red, lined with yellow sindon’ – until the day she died, indicates its fineness.12 Thus on his wedding day Edward set his eyes on a girl who had every desirable attribute, and for whose face every man in England would have launched at least one ship, if not the full thousand.
Every man in England, that is, except Edward. The king had thoughts only for Gaveston. As soon as he landed back in Dover, he singled out Gaveston among the lords assembled there and ran to him and flung his arms around him, repeatedly kissing him while the onlookers shifted uncomfortably. London had been bedecked with decorations, banners and flags to welcome Isabella to England, and the crowds turned out in their thousands to catch a glimpse of the young queen; but it was clear that this poor girl was not receiving the attention she deserved from the one man who mattered – her new husband – and that her future happiness was anything but assured.
King Philip had not let his daughter travel to England alone. With her came her two uncles, Charles de Valois and Louis d’Evreux, and most importantly, the youngest of her three brothers, Prince Charles, the future Charles IV of France. A number of continental dukes and lords came too. Also there were the French ladies at court who were married to English lords, one such being Joan, Roger’s wife, and another Margaret, his mother.13 But nevertheless it must have been with great trepidation that Isabella prepared to take part in her first official function: her husband’s coronation.
The coronation had been planned for 18 February, and invitations had been sent out on 18 January bearing this date. The event was delayed by a week, possibly owing to a dispute over protocol with the Archbishop of Canterbury, but more probably because of a disagreement over the role Gaveston was to perform at the ceremony. Edward’s affection for his friend was now more intense than ever. He was not blind to the fact that he was angering a number of the nobles through his favouritism, but their anger only strengthened his resolve, for he was convinced they had no right to question his authority. He was absolutely determined that England should see him and his adoptive brother as partners in government. In this he was as bloody-minded as his father had been in subduing Scotland.
The previous October the king had ordered tapestries bearing his coat of arms and Gaveston’s to be prepared for the coronation.14 Now he demanded that Gaveston be allowed to carry the crown of St Edward the Confessor in procession before him: the most important secular role in the ceremony apart from that of the king himself. The earls, in conjunction with the outraged French princes, protested. On the day of the intended coronation they gave Edward an ultimatum: either banish Gaveston or face the consequences. Edward disparagingly opted for the latter, and thus a week passed with all the tension of a dozen knives being silently drawn around the king. Before the earls would consent to the ceremony going ahead with Gaveston carrying the crown, they insisted that Edward agree to sanction whatever policies the forthcoming parliament introduced. In addition, he had to add a fourth clause to the traditional coronation oaths, to ‘uphold and defend the laws and righteous customs which the community of the realm shall determine’. Uncrowned, and with so many powerful men ranged against him, Edward had no choice but to acquiesce on the political matter. On the subject of Gaveston, however, he refused to give in. The earls, confident that they could remove Gaveston at a later date, let the ceremony go ahead.
On 25 February 1308 Edward II was crowned King of England, Wales and Ireland before the great altar of Westminster Abbey by the Bishop of Winchester. So many Londoners turned out to watch the spectacle that a wall collapsed along the route taken by the guests, and a knight was crushed to death. Edward himself avoided the crowds, being steered into the abbey through a back door. In the ceremonial procession, William Marshal, a descendant of the famous warrior-statesman, carried the great gilt spurs, followed by the Earl of Hereford carrying the sceptre, who was in turn followed by Henry of Lancaster, brother of the Earl of Lancaster, carrying the royal staff. These men were followed by the Earls of Lancaster, Lincoln and Warwick carrying the three swords of state, the one carried by Lancaster being Curtana, the sword of St Edward the Confessor. These three earls had been selected on account of their status, rather than how close they were personally to Edward, but the next group, none of whom was an earl, were clearly present because of personal association with the king. Hugh Despenser, Thomas de Vere, Edmund FitzAlan and Roger carried between them a large, fine chequered cloth on which lay the royal robes. All four of these men had spent at least part of their youth at court, and it seems reasonable to suppose they formed an outer ring of Edward’s close friends. Two were cousins of Roger’s (de Vere and FitzAlan). After this group came the two great officers of state: the Treasurer and the Chancellor. The last figure to enter the abbey before the king, and thus the most important, was Gaveston, carrying the crown.
The ceremony itself passed without incident. The banquet afterwards in Westminster Hall did not.
As an earl, Gaveston had the right to wear cloth-of-gold in the king’s presence. To the dismay of all, he appeared wearing imperial purple trimmed with pearls. He sought to show off as much as he could, and the king enthusiastically encouraged him. Edward ignored his young bride, despite the fact that her uncles and brothers were official guests at the coronation. Rather than sit next to her, he sat next to Gaveston. Together they laughed, ate, joked, and paid no attention to anyone else. It was revealed that Edward had given all the gold and jewellery he had received as wedding presents, including those from the King of France, to Gaveston.15 Outraged and insulted, the French princes stood up, shouted their disgust, and left the hall there and then, to the embarrassment of all but the king.
Two days later, at a parliament held in the same hall, the old Earl of Lincoln sternly demanded that the king should confirm in a charter what he had promised before the coronation, that is to assent to the will of the lords in Parliament, whether he agreed with them or not. Only one earl openly defended the king’s rights: his cousin, Thomas of Lancaster. With the help of Hugh Despenser he managed to persuade the Earl of Lincoln to delay his demand, but no sooner had they left the hall than the lords began to prepare for a possible conflict. It was clearly the only way of controlling royal authority. The king himself was alert to the danger, and replaced any custodians of royal castles connected with his opponents with men loyal to himself. If it took a civil war to show his determination to rule as his own man, Edward was ready.
Roger Mortimer was also ready, and he was prepared to defend the king. The very fact that he remained at court at this time, when so many were preparing for conflict, is evidence of his loyalty.16 On 17 March he went a step further and made a clear statement of his friendship for Gaveston, when he jointly made a request with him for a gift of land to John de Boltesham.17 Before this, no secular lord had ever acted publicly in conjunction with Gaveston. To associate himself openly with him at this juncture reveals the extent of Roger’s royalist sympathies, and his friendship with both the king and Gaveston.
By the end of March the mood was tense. Castles were fortified, men were summoned and equipped, messengers were despatched around the country, hastily coordinating plans. King Philip of France sent money to the earls to help rid England of Gaveston. The days passed. Only the Earls of Lancaster and Richmond declared they would defend the king in battle. Even the Earl of Gloucester would not commit himself. Few other lords besides the Mortimers remained faithful.18 The Earl of Lincoln was determinedly for war, and behind him were Pembroke, Arundel, Warwick, Surrey and the majority of the country. The situation for the king and his favourite looked bleak.
Temporary respite came in the form of a parliament, held at Westminster at the end of April. The rebel lords came armed with their retinues. As a show of force it was persuasive, and their demands were just as emphatic. The Earl of Lincoln announced their purpose. Firstly he repeated the well-rehearsed argument that the king was not synonymous with the Crown, to which each lord owed a higher allegiance. Secondly, Gaveston should be banished, for his treason to the Crown, which took the form of appropriating Crown lands to himself. Thirdly, that the people, whose will the king had sworn to accept, had already judged Gaveston, and found him guilty. The only thing remaining to be discussed was whether the king also stood to be accused.
Edward could not defend himself, but he tried to defend Gaveston. Incredibly, for three weeks he refused to accept the lords’ demands. But the situation was too serious and the lords did not back down. On 18 May Edward finally agreed to Gaveston’s banishment. Distraught at the prospect of once more being separated from his beloved Perrot, and furious at such pressure being brought to bear upon him by the earls, he searched for a way to spite them. The appointment of a new Lieutenant in Ireland gave him an idea. By making Gaveston Lord Lieutenant of Ireland he could offer him considerable authority, much dignity, and a good deal of honour. He could also kick sand in the earls’ faces. It was an excellent strategy: if he had to lose Perrot, he would give him Ireland.
By this time Roger seems to have left court. He probably departed soon after Parliament broke up, as his name is not among those who witnessed various letters in favour of Gaveston in mid-June.19 Probably he accompanied his wife and mother back to Wigmore, or another of their demesne manors. It marks the end of the first period of his attendance at Edward II’s court, which had probably lasted the whole year, and in which he had shown himself, like his uncle, unswervingly loyal to the king.
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The following autumn Roger and Joan followed Gaveston and his wife to Ireland. Their main reasons for going were to meet Joan’s grandfather, to take possession of Meath and to attend a court to answer a case concerning their manor of Duleek, over a dispute about tolls exacted on their behalf which had rumbled on in their absence since January 1306.20 It is quite possible that Roger also wanted to meet Gaveston, and the evidence touching upon his stay in Ireland certainly tallies with this. Perhaps Roger would have sailed with Gaveston but for the fact that on 21 June a summons was issued for him to muster his forces for a campaign in Scotland. Although this campaign did not go ahead, it may well have delayed him.
Ireland was nominally under English rule, but English rule amounted to very little rule in practice. The country was a land of communities living in dire poverty, with an empty treasury, and a great absence of major lords, none of whom wished to risk their lives in such a lawless and impoverished place. And that accounted only for the parts conquered by the English. Considerably more than half the island was still ruled by continually warring native Irish clans. The English lords were constantly defending themselves against the Irish, and attacking them, and fighting amongst each other. Indeed, over the last century the English lords had become partly Irish themselves, so it is more accurate to say that part-English and part-Irish warlords ruled nearly the whole country. War, with all its terror, had swallowed Ireland whole and was spitting out the bodies.
Some measure of how cruel the land was, and the bloodiness of daily life, even to the point of brothers attacking and killing each other, can be gleaned from the Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland, the principal chronicle of the native Irish, written in Gaelic.21Almost every entry relates to some small band of warriors attacking another: Irish attacking Irish, Irish attacking English, and English attacking Irish in a swirling mass of Gaelic and Anglo-Norman names and fire, destruction and bloodshed. The English perspective, given in a series of annals written in Latin in a Dublin monastery, is equally horrific.22 Every year there are multiple references to villages being burnt, and the English defeating – or being defeated by – gangs of Irish warriors. Thus whichever point of view you take, the country to which Roger and Joan had come was a bloody one. By implication, the position which Edward had conferred on Gaveston was no sinecure. The land most closely resembled the Marcher lordships of the twelfth century, with the wars between Gaelic-speaking clans and Englishmen, with groups of men murdering wayfarers, burning villages, killing their enemies’ cattle, ambushing messengers. For men like Roger and Gaveston, with everything to prove and eager for military experience, this meant Ireland was not a place to avoid but a land of opportunity.
Trim, at the heart of the de Geneville estates, was the first place to which Roger and Joan went, to meet Lord Geoffrey de Geneville, now aged eighty-two. Having resided at Trim Castle since 1254, he could remember most of the history of the English in Ireland: who were his most loyal retainers, which English family had married into which Irish tribe, and who had killed whom and burnt what. For three years in the 1270s he had governed Ireland, holding the position of Justiciar. As for the castle, it had stood like a bastion of English rule throughout. It was the largest and probably the strongest castle in Ireland, with its colossal Norman keep and high stone curtain walls, further defended on the north side by the River Boyne. But once it had been at the centre of a peaceful palatinate; now it was a frontier castle again.
We do not know a great deal about the role played by Gaveston in Ireland, and even less about that played by Roger. Clearly the most marked aspect of their stay was military activity and, unfortunately, soldiers in the field very rarely leave written evidence of their deeds. We cannot even be sure that Roger and Gaveston were acting together. However, there is some evidence that they were. They were in the same small part of Ireland at the same time, and their previous close alliance in England has already been noted. A further strong indicator is the number of friends they had in common in Ireland. One of the men who had sailed with Gaveston was John de Charlton, a yeoman of Gaveston’s household and a friend of both the king and Roger.23 Another man present was Walter de Thornbury, Roger’s guardian, who was appointed Chancellor of Ireland on Gaveston’s recommendation.24 A third common companion – and probably the closest to both men – was John de Hothum, who, having left Ireland at the time Gaveston arrived, returned early in 1309 and was, with Gaveston’s help, made Chancellor of the Irish Exchequer, a post previously held by Walter de Thornbury.25 A fourth close mutual companion was John de Sapy, who served in both Roger’s household and Gaveston’s.26 Thus, with at least four of Roger’s closest associates being among Gaveston’s closest associates, one may safely say that the companionship hinted at by Roger’s defection from the royal army with Gaveston in October 1306 had not weakened, and may well have grown stronger.
Roger and Gaveston were certainly both together in Dublin in April 1309,27 and in the light of this fact there is every reason to suppose Roger assisted Gaveston in his spring campaign. This took the form of an expedition through Leinster, defeating the rebel Irish and Anglo-Irish, and once more securing the region under English control. The Wicklow Mountains south of Dublin, centred on Castle Kevin, were exactly where Geoffrey de Geneville had been defeated by the native Irish forty years earlier. Roger may have learnt from his grandfather-in-law, or men then in his employment, how difficult it was to fight a traditional pitched battle with mounted knights in those parts. One had to use guerrilla tactics, as used in the mountains of Wales, and to centralise forces on a strong, defendable castle: in this case Castle Kevin. These were the tactics employed now by Gaveston. Whether or not there was any direct link between de Geneville’s experiences in the 1270s and Gaveston’s strategy is of course entirely conjectural; either way, it was probably in this part of Ireland, under Gaveston’s command, that Roger had his first experiences of helping to form military strategy.
By the summer of 1309 Gaveston had gained a reputation as a sound military administrator in Ireland. Not only had the English forces under his orders achieved the destruction of Dermot O’Dempsey, a rebellious Irish lord, he had secured Leinster, defeated the equally rebellious O’Byrne clan, and refortified key strongholds such as Newcastle McKynegan and Castle Kevin. He had built a road leading through the mountains from Castle Kevin to Glendalough to secure these achievements. All this work strengthened the capital, Dublin, and provided a firm base for the English to rule more effectively. If the way was cleared for him to return to England, he could hold his head high.
Back in England, ever since Gaveston’s departure King Edward had been doing all in his power to pave the way for his beloved’s return. In order to gain the approval of the earls he offered each of them grants of land and persuaded them, one by one, to return to the fold of loyalty. Once he had convinced the most sympathetic lords, he despatched them to Avignon to consult the Pope, and subsequently presented the pontiff with jewellery. He bribed the Pope also by making grants of lands to his family in Gascony. In addition he persuaded the King of France to drop his opposition by making large grants to Isabella for her maintenance. By the spring of 1309 he was ready to demand that Gaveston be allowed to return.
Edward had shown himself to be a shrewd manipulator in his dealings over Gaveston. Exactly how shrewd was shown even more clearly over the next two months. At the Westminster parliament in late April and early May, Edward had requested that he be granted leave to levy a tax and that Gaveston be allowed back into England. He was granted the tax on certain conditions, but Gaveston’s return was flatly refused. Edward’s next move was cunning: he offered to accept all the conditions attached to the tax in return for Gaveston’s return. In this he was eventually successful, playing off the earls against each other. Although not formally summoned, Gaveston left Ireland on or just before 23 June,28 returning to England surreptitiously, by way of Tintagel Castle in Cornwall, and appearing openly beside the king at the parliament held at Stamford in late July.
Roger returned to England at about the same time. Given his Arthurian interests, from his ancestry and his later chivalric displays, it is tempting to speculate that he was with Gaveston at Tintagel Castle, and saw the low ruins of the legendary birthplace of the ancient British king. One might also speculate that the reason why Gaveston was able to travel across England without arousing suspicion was that he was travelling in Roger’s company. By 20 July Roger had reached the court, as on that day the king favoured him by issuing a mandate to the Justiciar of Ireland to restore to him rights formerly enjoyed by his predecessors in Trim. It is thus possible that Gaveston was secretly with Edward from this point onwards. Roger subsequently attended the Stamford parliament at which Gaveston made a surprise public appearance, and at which Edward renewed his grant of the earldom of Cornwall on his favourite. The days of Roger’s closeness with Gaveston were, however, numbered.
The problem was, once again, Gaveston’s lack of respect for the earls. He was unable to contain his spitefulness towards those who had forced his exile. He gave them all nicknames, which he used openly at court. He called the Earl of Warwick ‘the Black Hound of Arden’, and the Earl of Lancaster ‘the Fiddler’. Most importantly, he alienated the moderate Earl of Pembroke, whom he called ‘Joseph the Jew’. He regarded his enemies’ failure to keep him in exile as a sign of their weakness, and mocked them accordingly. He finally pushed his luck too far when he demanded the king dismiss one of the Earl of Lancaster’s retainers, which of course Edward did. The earl swore to destroy Gaveston, and there were many who would have gladly offered assistance.
Roger remained with the court for the remainder of 1309. In all probability he spent Christmas with the king and Gaveston. The gravity of the situation regarding Gaveston could not be ignored, however, and in February 1310 matters came to a head. The Earls of Lancaster, Hereford, Warwick, Oxford and Arundel demanded that he be banished for a second time. As a precaution, the king did as he had done in 1308: he appointed his faithful retainers to positions in charge of vital castles. Roger, for example, received the constableship of Builth Castle. But it was slight protection for the king against the combined wrath of the key military earls and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Only three of the earls remained loyal, and one of them, Surrey, was of dubious worth, having declared his everlasting hatred of Gaveston. As a safeguard, Gaveston was sent north. Edward was forced to accept the appointment of a committee of twenty-one Lords Ordainers drawn from the earls, barons and bishops, who would draw up a series of articles limiting royal power.
By this time, the king had become adept at elusive political manoeuvring. He decided to answer those of his critics who had complained about his neglect of Scotland by announcing a campaign, and his intention to shift the whole government to York. On 18 June a writ was issued summoning Roger to appear with the other lords and their retinues to march against the Scots, mustering at Berwick on 8 September. At the same time a second writ requested Roger to allow one hundred men to be raised from his lordship of Ewyas, held jointly with his kinsman, Theobald de Verdon, and a third writ requested that two hundred men be raised from three of his Welsh lordships.29 Roger himself, however, had obtained permission from the king to go to Ireland just two days earlier, and this remained steadfastly his intent.30 He returned to Wigmore to organise the despatch of the men from his Welsh lands to assist the king, and set out for Ireland through Wales.31 On 2 August a desperate last-minute call from the king was sent to Roger ‘earnestly requesting’ him to attend the muster at Berwick. It was in vain. Shortly after the appointed date of 8 September, Roger landed in Ireland.32
*
Lords with extensive land holdings, when travelling abroad, appointed lawyers to represent them in their absence. From the official enrolment of such appointments we know that among the English knights in Ireland with Roger in October 1310 were William de Adforton, John de Stratfield, Hugh de Croft, Hugh de Kynardsleigh, William de Thornbury, William de Cleobury and Hugh de Turpington. Of these, the last named would stand by Roger to his dying day. The others all came from Mortimer heart-lands, most of them from Mortimer-held manors within a few miles of Wigmore. Also with Roger was one Master John le Keu de la Rook, who, holding a degree and yet being of sufficient status to need to appoint attorneys in England, was possibly Roger’s chaplain and secretary. And last but by no means least of those who accompanied Roger on his expedition of 1310 was his wife, Joan.33
It might seem surprising that a military commander heading to a war zone and expecting to do battle should take his wife with him, but he had good reasons. Joan was herself an Irish heiress, and there may have been some legal technicality requiring her to go in person, to take possession of lands, for example, or to answer a case in court. More probably, travelling with Roger was simply her practice. Judging from the number of children they produced, Roger wanted his wife to be with him in Ireland (as in England) as a sexual companion, especially as he would be there for months if not years. But there is also the fact that the lady of a household was second in command after her lord. If anything should happen to Roger, Joan was the ideal person to hold the lines of feudal duty together and to take command, she being the heiress of Meath in her own right.
Upon landing Roger and Joan found that Meath, like most of Ireland, was in turmoil. The previous year John FitzThomas had gone to war with Roger’s vassals, the brothers Hugh and Walter de Lacy, and Roger had obtained pardons for manslaughters committed by those of his men who had resisted the attack.34 There is also evidence that the native Irish had attacked deep into West Meath in 1310, and had been repulsed. The Annals of Clonmacnoise record that in 1310 ‘Geoffrey O’Farell, with the forces of the Annaly, came to Donover, in Kyneleagh, to take the spoils and prey of that country, but the natives and inhabitants defended their country so well that they killed Donnell MacHugh Oge O’Farell, Hugh MacMoylissa and Geoffrey MacMortagh’.35 This ‘Donover’ probably relates to Donore in the barony of Moycashel, close to Roger’s lands. These enemies may have been politically unimportant in England, and had too few retainers to make a major impact upon Ireland as a whole, but it did not take many men to terrorise a neighbourhood, or to burn a granary, or to steal a few dozen head of cattle. Such acts could destroy a community, a manor, and accordingly destroy the income of the lord. The lands of absentee lords like Roger were especially at risk.
Worryingly for the absentee Irish lords, these attacks were not isolated incidents. Throughout English-held Ireland incursions were being made into English rights. What was happening was more than just a rebellion: the entire existence of the English in Ireland was under threat from a move to reintroduce Gaelic law and customs to Ireland, to Gaelicise the country. English lords saw opportunities this way; they could become petty princes by marrying Irish heiresses and switching between Irish and English allegiances as they found fit. Indeed, some had done this from the mid-thirteenth century and spoke Irish as naturally as French, the language of the English aristocracy. Just as worrying for the English lords was the fact that the Irish Exchequer revenues had collapsed, and there was pitifully little money for raising troops now: between a third and a half of the revenue available in the reign of Edward I.36 And then there was the succession question. Certain lords, especially those who were part-Irish, from mixed marriages, held that Irish inheritance laws applied to their lordships. These varied from tribe to tribe, but in some cases women were altogether debarred from inheriting. If such laws were taken into account, Roger and Joan should not have inherited Meath through Joan’s grandmother, Maud de Lacy, and Roger should not have inherited his grandmother’s estate at Dunamase. It is thus important to see Roger’s ambitions in Ireland in this light: he had to fight to retain his lordships, and to retain the loyalty of his tenant lords, otherwise he would lose his lordships in Ireland altogether.
We know little of what direct action Roger took in Ireland over the course of the next year. In April and September 1311 he was firmly stationed at his great fortress of Trim, probably protecting his inheritance through force of arms and negotiation. Ironically, the most important thing about this period of his life is what he was not doing. He had so far supported Gaveston and the king completely. Now his powerful and respected kinsman, the Earl of Pembroke, had broken with the king and sided with the other earls. This altered things. Gaveston was clearly hell-bent on antagonising Lancaster and Warwick, and he would drag down with him many who supported him. Perhaps Pembroke warned Roger to keep clear of Gaveston. Roger’s Irish campaign was undertaken for military reasons, but it helped remove him from the company of Gaveston, and thus protected him from later events. Never again did Roger put himself in a position of risk for the sake of helping the king’s favourite.
*
While Roger was facing the turmoil of Ireland, Edward was struggling in Scotland. The campaign started badly when, of the ten earls besides Gaveston, only Gloucester and Surrey accompanied him on the expedition. In October they reached Linlithgow, but failed to meet Bruce in battle. Bruce was far too wise to risk venturing an attack on a better equipped army which would sooner or later retire to England, as it always did. Instead he hid battalions of men ready in defence. On one occasion, a number of Scotsmen hidden in a cave above a narrow valley road saw an opportunity too good to miss, and took advantage of the higher ground, massacring the English footsoldiers below them. By the time the English knights were on the scene, and able to rally the men and to order a systematic advance on the position, the Scots had disappeared, leaving three hundred dead and many wounded.37 Thus the English campaign failed in all its objectives, including its main one: to distract the English earls from the impeachment of Gaveston.
It was the summer of 1311 by the time Edward came south. He ordered Gaveston to remain in the safety of Bamburgh Castle, and summoned a parliament for 8 August. Roger was also summoned, but, in all probability, ignored the writ, as he habitually did when in Ireland. The rest of the lords came with a purpose: to present Edward with the Ordinances, and to force him to accept them all.
There were forty-one Ordinances. These included six which had been issued directly on the appointment of the Lords Ordainers the previous year, which included general statements about the rights of the Church, the keeping of the king’s peace throughout the realm, and the keeping of Magna Carta. The thirty-five new Ordinances touched upon such subjects as the king’s right to declare war without the consent of his lords (as Edward had recently done with regard to Scotland), and the removal of royal officials especially close to Gaveston, among them John de Charlton, John de Hothum and John de Sapy. Interestingly, the sixteenth Ordinance stressed that the lands of Ireland, Gascony and Scotland were at risk of being lost unless capable and efficient ministers could be appointed as their keepers. But Edward cared only about one Ordinance: the twentieth. This stated that Gaveston had to leave the realm by 1 November, for the crime of having misled and poorly advised the king. In case of any doubt, the lords stressed that by ‘the realm’ they meant England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, and all the other dominions of King Edward. There would be no new appointments for Gaveston.
Edward could do nothing. He offered to accept all the Ordinances except the twentieth, but he underestimated the gravity with which the Lords Ordainers viewed the situation. He delayed as long as he could, squirming under the attack on his authority. Eventually, in October, he agreed to all the Ordinances, and prepared to say goodbye to his beloved once more. The following month, Gaveston embarked on a ship at a London quayside, and sailed down the Thames and away from England.
*
The Lords Ordainers had observed that Gascony, Scotland and Ireland might be lost because of inefficient government, but they conspicuously did not mention Wales. There Lord Mortimer of Chirk was governing the principality with efficient ruthlessness. He had demonstrated this quality in his youth, and even now at the age of fifty-six he was just as uncompromising. By the beginning of 1312 he had successfully exercised the office of Justiciar for four years. When Edward had secured the Welsh royal castles by granting them out to his loyal retainers, Lord Mortimer of Chirk received the constableships of Blaenllyfni and Dinas, in addition to those already in his keeping, which included several of the most strategic Welsh castles. Numerous small grants came his way with regularity over the subsequent years. In effect he ruled Wales as a surrogate prince.
Like Roger in Ireland, Lord Mortimer of Chirk avoided being drawn into the worsening situation surrounding Gaveston. While the rest of the country was nervously preparing for a conflict over the king’s favourite, the elder Mortimer prepared for an attack on Griffin de la Pole, the repercussions of which were to prove far-reaching. Three years earlier the heir to the lordship of Welshpool had died while a royal ward.38 Lord Mortimer of Chirk, as Justiciar of Wales, had been ordered to take custody of the lordship, which he had done. An inquiry had found that the rightful heir was the dead heir’s sister Hawise, who was married to John de Charlton, the King’s Chamberlain, and a friend of Roger and Gaveston. The lordship was accordingly delivered to John de Charlton. But Griffin de la Pole, the brother of the late lord and Hawise’s uncle, had complained, insisting that according to Welsh custom the inheritance was rightfully his. To further his claim, he sought a commission of inquiry to determine whether the lordship was held according to Welsh or English law. Edward had prohibited this from being held, hoping that the question would end there. It did not. Griffin de la Pole attacked John de Charlton in early 1312, besieging him and his wife in Welshpool Castle.
If Griffin de la Pole had been acting completely independently, the matter would have been over quickly and soon forgotten. But he had sought and obtained the support of the Earl of Lancaster, who, as the king’s cousin, had decided his role was to lead the opposition to Edward’s personal style of government and, in particular, his acts of favouritism. There is little doubt that Edward had not been fair in his appointment and suppression of the inquiry. As for the Earl of Lancaster, to take de la Pole under his wing only contributed further to his status. Now that he had inherited a fifth earldom – that of Lincoln, after the death of Henry de Lacy in 1311 – he lurked like a fat black spider at the centre of his huge web of estates in the north, pulling together the threads of feudal obligation, and international and national political disaffection. So great was his power, and so extensive his influence, that one did not go to war with an ally of his without good reason.
For Lord Mortimer of Chirk, the reason for war was simple: the king ordered him to break up the siege of Welshpool Castle by force.39 He raised an army, encamped near Welshpool, and waited. He offered de la Pole recourse to the law courts, but the man refused. The king wrote, offering to recompense de la Pole, sending the Steward of the Royal Household, John de Cromwell, to pacify him.40 But still de la Pole held out. It took several weeks to persuade him that the Earl of Lancaster was not going to ride to his rescue, and that his cause was best fought diplomatically. In the mean time de la Pole had found another supporter in the Earl of Arundel, a cousin of the Mortimers. Arundel gave shelter to de la Pole’s men as they ransacked the countryside. This was a personal betrayal, as well as treason. Lord Mortimer of Chirk eventually broke the siege, rescued John de Charlton and his wife, restored order, and arrested de la Pole. But in the eyes of the Earl of Lancaster, who was an impetuous and spoilt man, with little sense of duty and a commensurate inability to appreciate others’ dutifulness, he had sworn enmity. Early the following year, when Lord Mortimer of Chirk was appointed to sit on the commission to investigate the debacle, the Earl of Lancaster objected to his presence. An estrangement between the two men resulted, which would ultimately lead to the destruction of both of them. In the meantime it meant the breakdown of trust between the Earl of Lancaster and Roger too, for the two Mortimers invariably acted as one in political matters.
For the time being, however, Roger remained in Ireland. In April and May 1312 he was in Dublin. A distant kinsman, Robert de Verdon, had started a rebellion in Louth during Lent, and, as the younger brother of the heir to the de Verdon half of Meath, it had swept up a number of Mortimer and de Verdon followers in its fury.41 They rode over the baronies of Ferrard and Ardee, and so desecrated that of Louth that John Wogan, the Justiciar, was forced to take it into his own hands. Wogan then collected an army to put down the revolt, and, having sent men to Ardee to defend that barony, he marched to Drogheda. There the people asked that they might themselves defend their lands with an army commanded by another two of the de Verdon brothers, Miles and Nicholas. Rather than remain loyal to their elder brother, who was in England, they simply joined Robert. Under the guise of King Edward’s banner, the de Verdons together attacked the force at Ardee and defeated them. As the local lord and the brother-in-law of Theobald, Roger was bound to intervene, even before this last outrage became known. After Wogan had raised a second army, and had again been ‘miserably defeated’ by the de Verdons, Roger took control of the situation, and forced them to surrender and to appear in court in return for their lives.42 At the end of May 1312 he handed over forty of the ringleaders to the Justiciar to be imprisoned.
By the end of the summer of 1312, Roger had fully come of age. He was twenty-five years old, had witnessed political decision-making at the heart of government, and had spent the previous two years coming to terms with the brutal circumstances of Ireland. He had tackled armies composed of Irishmen and Englishmen, and rabbles of Anglo-Irish rioters. He had observed the inability of some administrators to deal with insurrection, and he had also seen the enormous prizes which could be won by those who remained loyal to King Edward. He had a well-connected and devoted wife, and a growing number of children. He was in a position to return to England and take a role at the front rank of English politics.
But then occurred one of those deaths which rocked society to its foundations. Gaveston, the Earl of Cornwall, had returned from exile in early 1312, and aroused such hostility that he was forced to give himself up to the Earl of Pembroke. The earl had sworn an oath to surrender his lands and titles to protect the man’s life. But the Earls of Lancaster, Arundel and Warwick did not care what the Earl of Pembroke had sworn or stood to lose. In June they kidnapped the king’s brother-in-arms while he was in the earl’s protection.
And they killed him.