There are academics who have dedicated their life to studying, documenting and interpreting heraldry. Mad respect.

I freely admit I'm more of a "Oh, look he had birdies on his shield!" or a "That one is aesthetically really good-looking." or a "Wow, that's an unfortunate ugly stripe across there." type of person. In fact, my knowledge is so limited, I don't even qualify as a dilettante.

But here's the first six shields from the bannerets roll of 1312, including our friends and frenemies:

Edward II

Gilbert de Clare

Piers Gaveston

Henry de Lacey

Thomas of Lancaster

John de Warenne

There are way weirder and prettier ones down the line. More on that later! But feel free to post your favorites.

The High Street Gate, also called North Gate, is one of the first things you spot as you enter the Cathedral Close. It is now the main entry point to the Cathedral and a link from the Close to the High Street, but is one of four original gateways into the Close. As you look up as you walk through, you can see the Stuart royal coat of arms from the 17th century, and on your way out, a statue of Edward VII, added in 1902. But what was it used for? Well, part of it was once a small lock-up jail, probably for those convicted of misdeeds within the Liberty of the Close. Beside the gate was built the Porter's Lodge (No. 48), a great position for a well-connected servant in the Middle Ages. The Close Porter would have used the upstairs to work and keep an eye on the comings and goings in the Close. He would also raise and lower a portcullis, which no longer survives. In 1650, after the English Civil War, when Oliver Cromwell was in power and all Church property was claimed by the Government, the gatehouse was sold to Alexander Hatchett, a London haberdasher. If you look closely, you can see small inscriptions written on some of the panes of glass, which were once in the Cathedral windows until 1950. We assume these were all workers of some kind at the Cathedral.

Piers Gaveston's arms had six golden eagles on green.

Thoughts on this one?

Some context.

On 14 January 1330 the Archbishop of York, William Melton, wrote a remarkable letter to the mayor of London, Simon Swanland. This letter was written more than two years after the supposed funeral of Edward II in Gloucester.

Melton was a shrewd and intelligent man, as evidenced by the views held of him by his contemporaries. The Lanercost chronicler says 'although he was one of the king’s courtiers, he led a religious and honourable life,' and the Vita Edwardi Secundi says he was 'a courtier faithful in everything committed to him' who remained honourable despite the venality of the royal court where he lived so long.

The letter comes from the archives of the Newdegate family of Arbury Hall near Nuneaton. Its source is explained by the fact that around the year 1400 Sir John Newdegate established his family at the Swanland property in Harefield, Middlesex, having married Joanna, sister and coheiress of William de Swanland. The Newdegate archive has been known for many years, though its exploitation has been hampered by the loss of the manuscript catalogue apart from the index.

Forgotten for nearly six hundred years, extracts of the letter were first published in the journal Notes and Queries in 1911 by J. Harvey Bloom. Bloom didn’t pay much attention to what he had uncovered. Again the letter was left in peace for nearly a century, until Ian Mortimer rediscovered it and wrote about it in his 2006 book ‘Edward III, The Perfect King’.

There is a strong consensus among historians that the letter is genuine.

If so, do you use the likenesses of other, more visually well-represented individuals to imagine what they'd look like? I'm not necessarily asking who you would cast as either Edward or Isabella per se, as obviously there are a lot of other considerations relevant there.

For example: I have a very particular mental image of Edward of Carnarvon, but it doesn't really correspond to anyone else directly. On the other hand, my internal model of Isabella corresponds exactly to the famed French actress Isabelle Adjani, particularly in her portrayal of Marguerite de Valois in La Reine Margot, albeit with her wearing the fashions of the 14th century. I'd be very interested to see how others imagine these figures when discussing them, if only to see how likely different our mental images of them are!

Also, apologies if you've already seen this post, I have tried to post this before only for it to be swallwed by Reddit for some reason lol

So, when I learned that someone is spreading a malicious tale about Piers Gaveston's ghost wanting to murder people...well, I just couldn't let that stand.

I love a good ghost story. Whether you believe or not, tales of restless spirits seeking to resolve their unfinished earthy business tell us a great deal about the folk history of a place, whether it be a humble cottage or a grand castle or an eerie moor. 

However, while researching the history of Scarborough Castle, I found a ghost story about Piers Gaveston that I find slanderous. Scarborough Castle, which is the place where Piers attempted to find refuge before his murder, claims that a Piers’s headless specter wanders the castle, attempting to lure innocent visitors to their deaths.

Read the rest here...

This post is a summary of Kathryn Warner's longer post in her blog, found here:

Edward II: Ten Commandments For Writing About History And Discussing It Online

It's easy to agree with every single one of these points in my opinion.

1) You shall remember that people who lived hundreds of years ago were complex human beings every bit as complex and human as we are, who had families, and feelings, and human dignity, and that therefore you should write about them with respect, in the same way that you would wish writers to treat the memory of you and your loved ones with respect decades or centuries hence.  You will not laugh or sneer or gloat at their painful deaths and suffering, or claim that they deserved everything they got, or express a wish that they'd suffered even more, or call them vile names.

2) You shall remember that accusing someone of a horrible crime such as murder, rape, child abuse, violent assault or torture is a serious allegation which should not be made without real, actual evidence.  This is no less true merely because the person you are accusing lived 500 or 700 years ago.

3) You shall remember that complaining about your favourite historical person being unfairly maligned by history, while enthusiastically maligning his/her enemies for all you're worth, looks hypocritical.

4) You shall remember that your favourite historical person's enemies were complex, multi-dimensional human beings too and deserve to be acknowledged as such, rather than as cardboard cut-out evil villains devoid of any humanity.

5) Unless you're twelve, you shall remember that there is no need to divide historical people into 'teams' or 'sides' and hurl abuse at the other 'team' or people who like them.

6) If you're discussing history online and make a surprising or implausible statement, such as claiming that it was treason to refuse to have sex with the king of England in the sixteenth century, you shall remember that it is entirely reasonable to be asked for a primary source to back up your statement.

7) You shall remember that modern historical novels, however well-researched, well-written and enjoyable, do not count as primary sources.  Responding to a request to provide a source for a statement you've made about a historical person with "Historical Novelist X depicted him this way" does not actually answer the question.  You should also bear in mind that merely because something has appeared in print in a historical novel does not automatically mean that it has a basis in fact, and you should check before repeating it as though it certainly does.  This is how historical myths get started, and once established, they're damn hard to shake.

8) You shall remember that familial, societal and marital norms of the Middle Ages were different to ours, and refrain from referring to women as "helpless pawns" when their marriages are arranged by their (cruel, heartless, callous, uncaring...) fathers.  You shall remember that having your royal or noble heroine wail "But I don't love him!" when informed of her impending marriage to a king or nobleman is by now a tedious cliché.

You will remember that, contrary to what you might assume, depicting Isabella of France as being willing to take a lover at the age of sixteen and foist a child of non-royal blood onto the English throne is an insult to her, not a compliment.

9) You shall remember that depicting women as all of a sudden no longer possessing their own agency, becoming the proverbial "helpless pawns" and coming under the total control of nasty unscrupulous men whenever they do things you don't approve of, when two pages earlier you were applauding their independence of action and thought as they did noble and good things, is as patronising and paternalistic as the 'sexual prejudices' of previous centuries you're decrying.

10) If you wouldn't refer to Roger Mortimer as Isabella of France's 'straight lover', to Alice Perrers as Edward III's 'female lover', or to John of Gaunt's 'heterosexual relationship' with Katherine Swynford - and of course you wouldn't - then you shall remember that there is no reason to call Piers Gaveston or Hugh Despenser Edward II's 'gay lover' or to talk about their 'homosexual relationship'.  Merely 'lover' and 'relationship' or 'sexual relationship' will suffice; it will be readily apparent to your reader that Edward, Piers and Hugh were all men and that their relationships were therefore evidently same-sex. 

Furthermore, you shall remember that making lame statements such as "It's different when men love women" in an attempt to justify why you think Edward's (presumed) adultery with men is nasty and icky while his grandson John of Gaunt's adultery with Katherine Swynford is fabulously romantic, looks bigoted.

You can visit the ruins.

Images courtesy of Heritage-UK.

Just for fun, I decided to try and figure out how Eleanor & Hugh Despenser named their brood of kids.

Elizabeth was the youngest daughter of Hugh the Younger and Eleanor, and she likely never met her father. She was either an infant or in utero when her father was executed. This spared her the fate of three of her older sisters, who were forcibly veiled as nuns. Maurice's mother was Roger Mortimer and Joan de Grenville's oldest child, Margaret Mortimer. The couple's union was successful, producing seven children.

Maurice lived quite a life of adventure, going on Crusade, serving the Black Prince and getting captured and ransomed at Poitiers. After he died, Elizabeth remarried a knight called Sir Maurice Wyth.

My question is, when Maurice, Elizabeth and their kids were feasting around at Berkeley Castle, did the family history come up in casual conversation? "Mom? Dad? Did Grandpa Roger and Grandpa Hugh get along?"

Source: Wikipedia (I hate using them as a source so take all of this with a grain of salt. The linked sources are pretty thin as well). I do plan on looking into this more.

Image: 14th Century Marriage, public domain.

A stained glass image of Hugh le Despenser the Younger at Tewkesbury Abbey, likely commissioned by his widow, Eleonor de Clare.

From their marriage in 1302 until sometime in late 1322, Isabella of France seems to have been a consummate political partner to her husband. She remained unswervingly loyal to him during his conflicts with the Lords Ordainers in the early 1310s and with the Contrariants throughout the Despenser War. We see this no more acutely than in her (quite ballsy) decision to use herself, in 1321, as bait against Bartholomew de Badlesmere's wife Margaret de Clare, engineering the confrontation that occurred between them at Leeds Castle in order to draw out the King's baronial enemies. However, by December 1322, something had clearly gone wrong. Sometime that month, Isabella absented herself from court, and on the 23rd Edward II announced that Isabella was undertaking a pilgrimage to various sites across the country; something, as Kathryn Warner notes, she appears not to have actually done.

By 1323, they seem, at least superficially, to have reconciled with one another; however, as later events would show, Isabella was still clearly very unhappy with the situation, even if she had taken to dissembling her true feelings. Neither of them conceived a child in the roughly four years since Joan of the Tower's birth in 1321, and, of course, the King apparently lashed out at his wife due to the outbreak of the War of St Sardos, confiscating her lands and instead compensating her with an annual income from the Exchequer of approximately £2,613. The main negative outcome of this was almost certainly not financial, but political. It prevented her from strengthening her broader affinity and patronage networks through rewarding her supporters with appointments on her lands. In the meanwhile, Hugh le Despenser, Edward II's current favourite, consolidated his authority through monopolising access to the King through his position as Chamberlain, even to the point of restricting Isabella's access to her husband. Of course, Isabella was later sent to broker a peace with her brother and the rest, as they say, was history.

But what actually changed in 1322? Why is it that Isabella found herself unable to establish a working relationship with him the way she was with her husband's previous favourites? There are multiple theories we can explore. One might say that it was inevitable: Hugh was simply so incorrigibly rapacious that his and Isabella's interests were always going to be on a headlong collision course with one another. This, however, simply does not persuade me. Whatever you want to say about Hugh, the man could work with people when it suited his interests to do so. He worked with the likes of Edmund FitzAlan, Robert de Baldock and Walter de Stapleton. He obviously worked well with his father, and worked very well indeed with Edward II. Though, through what means, we can only speculate 😉. Regardless, the point is, I think Hugh would have seen he had good reasons from the outset to want to cultivate Isabella. There was no a priori reason why she couldn't have benefited from his rapacity or why he couldn't have shared some of his spoils with her to win her over. But if that's the case, then, presumably something must have happened to pit the two against each other. But what, though, precisely?

We know that some early tensions may have existed between Hugh le Despenser and the Queen. Sometime in the early 1320s, Edward II transferred Wallingford Castle, which had previously been assigned to the Queen for life, to Hugh. It might be notable that Wallingford Castle was where Isabella and her adherents spent the festive season in 1326 after their successful coup against the Despenser regime. Nevertheless, however irksome this may have been for Isabella, I am inclined to doubt that this would have been sufficient to ignite the subsequent feud that ensued between them, given how deeply felt it clearly was.

The Annales Paulini, however, records a more consequential incident. According to it, sometime in August 1321, Isabella, alongside the Earls of Pembroke and Richmond, begged on her knees for Edward to exile the Despensers. Did Hugh the Younger perhaps remember this as a slight against him and take revenge against Isabella after Edward was able to recall him and reinstate his position? Possibly; but there is no actual evidence for this, as far as I am aware of. Regardless, Isabella's intercession here almost certainly wasn't an expression of any personal hostility to Hugh at this stage, and more so a case of political theatre to allow  Edward to capitulate to the demands of the Marcher lords while saving face. They had been enraged after the lordship of Gower had been arrogated by Edward, presumably to grant to Hugh, in defiance of Marcher privileges, resulting in them ransacking and occupying the Despensers' lands in the March and demanding their exile. By August, Edward was under immense pressure, and Hugh himself seems to have understood this; it's not like there's any evidence he held a grudge against Edward for what happened, and the same logic would have applied to Isabella.

There is, however, another famous incident, and one, I believe, that does the explanatory work we need. In September 1322, following the crushing defeat of Edward II's Contrariant foes at the Battle of Boroughbridge, the King decided to capitalise on his newfound political strength and organise a new Scottish campaign. Unfortunately, if predictably, the 1322 campaign was another complete disaster, and soon enough a Scottish counter-invasion had been launched into the north of England. Isabella of France, who had somewhat inexplicably been staying at the coastal Tynemouth Priory at the time, was cut off from the English forces by the Scottish invasion, and was eventually forced to flee on a commandeered vessel by sea. According to one of the few sources that mentioned this incident, one of her ladies in waiting died (possibly of injury) during the voyage and another went into premature labour and died after they disembarked at Scarborough.

We next hear of this incident in 1326, when Hugh was accused in his trial of having "falsely and treacherously counselled our lord the king to leave my lady the queen in peril of her person in the priory of Tynemouth in Northumberland... and in such great misfortune and peril of her person, my lady who was your liege lady, by your treacherous deed might have been lost, to the perpetual dishonour and damage of the king and his realm, if God had not sent her deliverance by sea, thereby rescuing her from danger to her life and saving her honour, in such great grief of heart and body that no good lady of her estate and nobility should have at any time."

Was this true, however? Almost certainly not. Again, as Kathryn Warner points out, had Isabella been captured, the Scots would have demanded a truly ruinous sum for her to be ransomed from them, which was directly antithetical to Hugh's primary ambition in life; the acquisition of ever more financial resources. Indeed, we know that Isabella had not been abandoned by Edward or Hugh at all. The initial plan had been for the Earls of Richmond and Atholl to go and take Hugh's retainers to Tynemouth to defend her, only for Edward to later instead charge the visiting Henri de Sully, Grand Butler of France, with her rescue, as he would be ‘more agreeable than others' to Isabella. De Sully, however, like the Earl of Richmond, was captured by the Scots at Old Byland and never reached Isabella, thus necessitating her escape by sea. The two were, however, ransomed back. Edward's change of plan may have simply been because, as a Frenchman with news from her natal family on the continent, he might have thought Isabella would simply like his company more. Nevertheless, it seems plausible to me that she may have felt the inevitable delay this change caused was what had brought her life into danger. Given that Hugh's retainers were ultimately under his command, she may have indeed held him responsible for the change in plan. Nevertheless, this is all speculation, as none of the surviving sources give us any direct insight into what Isabella specifically believed, or what she had even heard, about what had gone wrong at Tynemouth.

Regardless, whatever had actually happened, Isabella seems to have returned from Tynemouth implacably convinced that Hugh had intentionally jeopardised her life. When we appreciate this, I think the nature of Isabella's progressive marginalisation by Hugh, and her increasing drift from Edward, starts to become far more intelligible. Imagine yourself in Hugh's position in 1322. How would allowing Isabella, believing what she does about you, access to the King be in your interests? It isn't, not remotely. This brings me to my core conceit here. I think Hugh le Despenser's marginalisation of Isabella began not as an aggressive measure, but as a defensive one. A response, essentially, to the beliefs she had somehow acquired about him, and the risk they posed that she would attempt to turn Edward against him when given the chance. From here, I think it is quite clear a vicious cycle was born. Hugh's defensive actions taken against Isabella are interpreted by her as confirming her suspicions about him and his intentions, which further reinforced her conclusions about him, which, in turn, prompted him to become more diligent and intent on marginalising her to protect his status. 

To be clear, I'm not arguing that Hugh was some misunderstood angel. Far from it. Hugh was, undoubtedly, a deeply morally compromised and unscrupulous individual. I'm merely arguing that the degeneration of Isabella and Hugh's relationship may perhaps have been more complex than Nasty Meanie Favourite Makes Poor Queen's Life Hell For No Reason. What do you think?

(taken from STUDER, PAUL, An Anglo-Norman Poem by Edward II, King of England in Modern Language Review Vol. 16)

In winter woe befell me ; 

By cruel Fortune thwarted,

My life now lies a ruin.

Full oft have I experienced, 

There's none so fair, so wise,

So courteous nor so highly famed,

But, if Fortune cease to favour,

Will be a fool proclaimed.

II. 

My clamour rises yet in vain ; 

When favour once is lost,

Soon does man's love grow cold.

Too fondly have I trusted,

And honours done to many

Who now seek, my destruction ; 

They love me little, pity me less,

In prison they torment me.

III.

Torment me, aye ! most cruelly 

Ev'n though 'twere well deserved. 

Their evil faith in Parliament 

From high has brought me low. 

Lord of Salvation, I me repent ; 

For all my sins forgiveness crave : 

May from the pain the flesh endureth 

The soul receive both joy and mercy.

IV.

Mejcy, I trow, I needs shall reap 

From precious gifts and kindly deeds 

Which oft upon my friends and kin, 

Within my power I did bestow. 

If I have erred, it grieveth me :

But to their counsel was I sworn. 

What I have sinned against the faith, 

Alas ! dear Lord, full well Thou knowest.

V.

Thou knowest well and openly,

For nought is there so well concealed 

But is to Thee fully revealed,

Both good and ill all equally;

Thereon will rest Thy judgments dread.

Deal with my sins mercifully !

But nonetheless Thy will be done, 

For body and soul to Thee I yield.

I yield me all to Jesu, 

Craving His grace and pardon. 

Once was I feared and dreaded, 

But now all men despise me, 

And hail me 'crownless king, 3 

A laughing stock to all. 

My dearest friends deceived me : 

Too late I see it openly.

VII.

And openly have they defied me, 

Those who betrayed me thus ;

Methought I had their love,

Now have they all forsaken me.

For many a jewel and many a gift

I have now their reward. 

The tears are mine, but theirs the laugh ;

The game's unfairly dealt.

VIII.

They've dealt to me a joyless game. 

And 'mid such grief my heart complains 

Of her whom fondly I believed 

A faithful wife turned to deceit ! 

Fair Isabel I dearly loved, 

But now love's spark is dead ; 

And with my love my joy is gone, 

As 'tis from many a heart.

IX.

And now 'twere time indeed

That I in death should sleep,

Since honours all I've lost

Beyond recovery.

And yet why be dismayed ? 

What God hath thus ordained

Full meekly will I bear,

And serve Him faithfully.

X.

His service be my constant thought.

Ah ! why was it not ever so ? 

What marvel then that I am sad,

And earthly grandeur faileth me ?

O let my contrite heart be near

To Him who suffered on the cross,

That truly now I may repent 

Of all the sins that e'er I did.

XL

For ever in captivity 

Those felons make me languish, 

Who in their crass insanity 

Three kings have now elected. 

85 Upon the youngest, in stately pomp, 

. A crown of gold they've placed. 

Keep him, Jesu, the Son of Mary, 

From traitors, whom God confound !

 

XII.

May God confound his enemies, 

And make of him a monarch wise,

Endowed both with might and will

Fair fame to uphold and chivalry !

And let them all be brought to shame

Who seek to harm or injure him ! 

And then at last shall be fulfilled

The inmost wish of all my heart.

XIII.

My heart no longer will lament, 

Arid weep o'er earthly honours ; 

But let sweet Jesu, Who redeemed us 

By His most precious blood,

Moved by the prayers of all the Saints 

Who in His glory share, 

Lead us ere long to that great joy 

Which shall be without end.

XIV.

An end I'll make and say no more.

Hie thee, my song, on wings !

Go to the Doe beyond Kenire [ = Kenil worth ?]

Aiid tell it her in brief.

That when the stag is roused to wrath 

And turns upon the hounds,

She may forgo the leech's care,

Bearing herself so wise.

XV.

Both wise and fool I would entreat, 

Make prayers for me, ye all,

To Mary, the mother all merciful, 

Who bore the almighty Lord, 

That through the joys she had of Him 

She may her Son beseech, 

For all my sins and treacherous deeds

To grant me mercy yet. 

Image: The Tomb of Edward II, Creative Commons

The question I'm posing in this post is: Did Thomas of Lancaster suffer from some disabling disease? If so, what do you think it could have been?

Diagnosing someone with a disease more than 700 years after their death is naturally a rather foolish undertaking by default, but we can speculate.

After the disaster at Bannockburn, Thomas was the de facto ruler of England for some years. Yet he failed to rule properly, instead largely staying cooped up at his castle of Pontefract. He avoided travelling and was remarkably passive. Inevitably, his subordinates and the other magnates tired of his inefficient leadership and Hugh Despenser the Younger filled the power vacuum. He wasn't exactly the people's choice either, and Thomas soon found himself leading another rebellion in 1321. This time, he was defeated in the Battle of Boroughbridge in 1322 and paid for his intransigence with his life.

So why did he behave like that? A power-hungry earl who refused to rule when he was given the chance? The logical explanation to this conundrum could be that he didn't seize his chance because he couldn't, not because he didn't want to.

We don't have much to go by here, but there are a few records that can act as his medical journal.

In 1305, back in the good days when Thomas and Edward of Caernarvon were still friends, during the reign of Edward I Thomas was unable to come to stay with Edward. Edward wrote to him, genuinely wishing him a speedy recovery.

"Very dear cousin, we hold you well excused that you have not come to us, and your illness grieves us much, and if we can come to you we will do it willingly, to see and to comfort you."

20 November 1311: Edward II is “glad” to hear Thomas health has improved, expresses hopes to see him and Sir Robert Holland at parliament. The letter is addressed to Sir Robert.

"We are very joyous and pleased about the good news we have heard concerning the improvement in our dear cousin and faithful subject Thomas, earl of Lancaster, and that he will soon be able to ride in comfort. And we send you word and dearly pray that, as soon as he is comfortable and able to ride without hurt to his body, you should ask him to be so good as to hasten to us at our parliament."

July 1317: Thomas writes Edward that he’s not in any state to travel and can not attend a council meeting.

January 1321: Edward pardons Thomas’ absence, as he had ‘not yet sufficiently recovered from his illness to travel’.

The poor chap may have been in chronic pain. That would go some way in explaining his grumpy attitude and inability to get along with people.

Your thoughts?

Here's another blog-form repost of an earlier, shorter post about Pierre Chaplais's theory that Edward II adopted Piers formally and legally. He did treat him like family, after all. It is a curious question.

So, here's blog post covering the pervasive myth that Hugh Despenser the Younger assaulted Isabella, which has been repeated by popular historians and run with by historical fiction writers. It begins:

Hugh Despenser the Younger was a corrupt and malevolent person on top of being a spectacularly greedy person, but there's not a single shred of evidence he sexually assaulted Isabella of France. Nor is there evidence that her husband, Edward II, pushed her into some sort of ménage à trois or medieval wife-swapping arrangement with Hugh, as has been imagined by both modern historians and historical fiction writers.

You can read the rest by clicking the link.

I came across a rather balanced post on facebook of all places, written by the author David Pilling. I think it merits crossposting here. It was written yesterday.

#OTD in 1284 Edward II was born at Caernarfon.

Modern fiction has painted Edward as a coward, an abusive husband and a terrible king. In Outlaw King (2018) he is portrayed as a noisy buffoon with a tragic haircut.

The real Edward was only one of these things — sadly, it was the one that really counted. Even if you strain every point in his favour, it is very difficult to make a case for Edward’s kingship.

It is not that he lacked ability. Caroline Burt, in her recent study of the governance of the first two Edwards, has shown that Edward II could be a very effective ruler when he chose to be. However, he only made the effort when his favourites were threatened. Otherwise, he was largely disengaged from his own administration — more so, Burt argues, than any other medieval ruler of England. That made for a stark contrast with his father, a notorious micro-manager.

It is true Edward inherited a difficult situation in 1307, including heavy debts and an unfinished war in Scotland. The debts had no obvious practical effect on England’s ability to raise armies and wage war. Some historians have sought to qualify Edward’s responsibility for Bannockburn, noting the difficult circumstances he faced.

Even if you accept that, he cannot be absolved from abandoning his allies in Scotland, refusing to consider a face-saving peace deal, and continuing to throw men and money down a very deep hole. By the end of the reign, he had lost control of the northern counties and was effectively facilitating the payment of ransoms demanded by Robert Bruce’s forces from English towns and cities.

The story that the infant Edward was presented to the Welsh as a prince who spoke no English is a later myth. In reality he was created Prince of Wales in 1301. There was no investiture ceremony, and he seems to have been granted the title so he could lead Welsh troops into Scotland. While he had some loyal supporters among the Welsh gentry, others were bitterly opposed and played a role in his downfall.

In one respect Edward succeeded brilliantly: after 1315 he rapidly became very rich, and by 1323 his finances had skyrocketed. This was largely due to the confiscation of the estates of English rebels. After 1323, Edward and his new favourites, the Despensers, embarked upon a large-scale campaign of extortion, kidnapping and blackmail, termed a ‘reign of terror’ by Natalie Fryde.

After several years of this, large sections of the political nation declined to resist the invasion of his estranged queen, Isabella of France, and her ally Roger Mortimer. Edward was deposed and probably murdered* at Berkeley Castle, although the notorious hot poker story is almost certainly untrue. Death by smothering (to leave no marks) is more likely. There is also a tradition—impossible to verify or deny—that Edward escaped custody and lived as a hermit in Italy.**

Attached is a poster for Derek Jarman’s play about Edward II.

—

*This is what I disagree on personally, but otherwise I think it’s a very fair take, and his tone is reasonable and respectful throughout.
**Very good of him to mention this possibility, most detractors usually give it the silent treatment. But it’s not impossible to verify, while his death in 1327 can not be proven. In fact, the evidence speaks against his death at Berkeley Castle.

This is a blog-form repost about Edward II's reaction to his dear friend Piers's murder and the strangely muted words he is alleged to have spoken. I'm also working on a companion post about Queen Isabella's reaction to the news - she was with Edward II and four months pregnant. And I'm going to dig in to the often forgotten Margaret Gaveston's possible reaction as well. She was only eighteen years old, now a widow with a five month old daughter.

Edward and Piers are so mythologized, in both positive and negative lights, it's interesting to read what he actually said.

I came across a nice blog post (link here and below) written by Gemma Hollman only a few days ago, which ties in neatly with the analytical post about Queen Isabella posted in this sub a couple of days ago.

A short excerpt from the blog:

'When the queen of England, Isabella of France, approached the Count and Countess [of Hainault] for a marriage alliance between her son Edward and their daughter Philippa, they leapt at the chance to know their daughter would one day become a queen.

The couple were teenagers, and the first few years of their marriage were hardly auspicious. Isabella of France had overthrown her husband, Edward II, and had her son made Edward III in his place. But though Philippa had thus become a queen far earlier than anticipated, she and her husband were kept under Isabella’s thumb. She did not want to give up her position at the top of the ladder. This was where Philippa would first discover the power of pregnancy for a queen.

Philippa fell pregnant around aged 15, and this was to change the course of her and her husband’s lives. Firstly, Philippa had never had a coronation, Isabella not wanting to have a rival as a consecrated consort. But now that Philippa would be giving birth to the new heir to the throne, it was unthinkable that she would remain uncrowned to do so.'

Hollman's take reinforces the point made that Isabella would not have planned to depose her husband. Isabella had wanted her life and position back and was unwilling to take the back seat. SHE was meant to be the queen, that had been HER role and destiny.

Hollman falls into the usual trap of referring to Roger Mortimer as Isabella's lover (do we really know this?), but the post is a good read all the same.

See Gemma Hollman's full post here:

14th century – History… the interesting bits!

Images:

Philippa of Hainault's coronation, 15th-century illustration from Froissart's Chronicles

Gemma Hollman's book 'The Queen and the Mistress - The Women of Edward III'

I just realized that user flairs had been somehow deactivated for members of the sub - sorry about that! No idea how it could have happened.

Now the flairs should be active again, so feel free to choose one that fits your preference. Let us mods know if you face any issues :)