Edward I had many children with his first wife Eleanor of Castile but only Edward II had survived into adulthood. The elderly king then married Margaret of France and they had two children, Thomas and Edmund. But Edmund was born when the king was 62 years old, starting rumours over his legitimacy. He was only 5 when his father died.
Edward II immediately recalled his friend Piers Gaveston and gave him the estates and the Earldom of Cornwall which had been promised to his brother. He then arranged Gaveston’s marriage to Margaret, sister of the powerful Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester and Hertford, making him one of the country’s richest nobles. It also made him many enemies.
The king organised a tournament in his friend’s honour at Wallingford Castle in December 1307 but Gaveston and his supporters cheated, humiliating the Earls of Warenne, Hereford, and Arundel. Even so, Edward appointed Gaveston his regent when he went to France in 1308 to marry King Philip IV’s daughter Isabella. But he went a step too far when he ignored his new wife and spent all his time with his friend at the coronation feast. The French king was insulted when he heard about his daughter’s mistreatment.
Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, led the calls to exile Gaveston. Edward had to agree because Philip IV supported the demands. Gaveston was appointed the Lieutenant of Ireland instead, even though Richard de Burgh, Earl of Ulster, had just been given the same position. At first he alienated many by replacing long-standing officers but became popular when his new men put an end to the Irish rebellion.
Edward II convinced the earls to let Gaveston back, with Gilbert de Clare’s help, and Pope Clement V lifted the ban on him after John of Brittany, 4th Earl of Richmond, made a plea on his behalf. He was reinstated with the Earldom of Cornwall. In July 1309 Edward II agreed to the Statute of Stamford, a document based on the Magna Carta, to appease the barons. But the compromise did not last long because Gaveston was handing out favours and appointments to his friends. He also enjoyed inventing offensive nicknames for anyone who opposed him. Henry de Lacy, 3rd Earl of Lincoln, became ‘Burst Belly’; Aymer de Valence, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, was ‘Joseph the Jew’; Thomas Plantagenet, Earl of 3rd Lancaster was ‘the Fiddler’; and Guy de Beauchamp, 10th Earl of Warwick, was ‘the Black Dog of Arden’. It was only a matter of time before they secured their revenge.
Several earls refused to attend parliament in February 1310 in protest against Gaveston’s actions. A few weeks later several barons, including John of Brittany, 4th Earl of Richmond, and Guy de Beauchamp, 10th Earl of Warwick, broke parliamentary rules wearing their armour and carrying their weapons in parliament. But they were allowed to explain their grievances and Edward was then forced to appoint a committee called the Lords Ordainers to rule the kingdom. The committee consisted of eight earls, seven bishops and six barons, and they were led by Robert Winchelsey, Archbishop of Canterbury and the Earls of Warwick, Lincoln and Lancaster.
Henry de Lacy, 3rd Earl of Lincoln, was the most experienced member, Thomas Plantagenet, Earl of Lancaster and Leicester, was the richest and Guy de Beauchamp, 10th Earl of Warwick, was the most aggressive. Between them they drafted the directives, or Ordinances, which would control the king’s spending and stop him from appointing his own ministers. They also sent the troublesome Gaveston into exile once more. Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester and Hertford, would join the Ordainers following the death of Henry de Lacy in March 1311.
Although Edward II had raised taxes for an invasion of Scotland, Robert Bruce continued to raid the north of England. Edward eventually called upon his barons to support a military campaign in June 1311 but most ignored him because they hated the new Lieutenant of Scotland, the corrupt Piers Gaveston. Calls to exile him again were ignored and only Gilbert de Clare, 8th Earl of Gloucester, John de Warenne, 7th Earl of Surrey, and Gaveston accompanied Edward when he invaded Scotland in September. Bruce refused to negotiate with Edward and the Scots skilfully withdrew as the English army blundered forward. Edward’s troops withdrew when he ran out of money and Bruce went on the offensive, raiding northern England as Gaveston watched, powerless to intervene, from Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland.
Gaveston briefly went into exile but Archbishop Winchelsey excommunicated him and he was declared an outlaw on his return. Edward and Gaveston were nearly captured at Newcastle in May 1312 and while the king was taken to York for his own safety, Gaveston was trapped in Scarborough Castle. Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, and John de Warenne, 7th Earl of Surrey, guaranteed his safety and Valence then took him to Deddington in Oxfordshire. But not everyone was feeling so gallant.
Guy de Beauchamp, 10th Earl of Warwick, took Gaveston to Warwick castle while Pembroke was away visiting his wife on 10 June. Thomas Crouchback, Guy de Beauchamp, Humphrey de Bohun, 4th Earl of Hereford, and Edmund FitzAlan, 9th Earl of Arundel, then condemned Gaveston to death in a mock trial and he was beheaded at Blacklow Hill on the Kenilworth road on 19 June. Many barons disliked the fact that his guarantee of safekeeping had been ignored and Valence and Warenne were just a few who switched their support to the king. The king was also annoyed that Gaveston’s captors had not returned the jewels he had given his friend.
John of Brittany, 4th Earl of Richmond, and Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester and Hertford, reconciled the king with the barons who had executed Gaveston. They were pardoned but they were then ignored. Meanwhile, Edward turned his attentions to Scotland only to find that Thomas Plantagenet, Earl of Lancaster and Guy de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, refused to give him assistance because they had been marginalised. Edward even had to cancel the debt Edmund FitzAlan, 9th Earl of Arundel, owed to the crown to get him to participate.
The experienced Humphrey de Bohun, 4th Earl of Hereford, had been sacked as Constable because he had taken part in Gaveston’s execution. He had been replaced by the loyal, but inexperienced, Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester and Hertford. So Edward was marching north with a new commander and a depleted army.
The English army encountered the Scots at Bannockburn on 23 June and there were arguments as they approached their enemy. Bohun wanted to lead the cavalry attack but Clare was thrown off his horse after charging ahead without orders. Both Clare and Bohun survived the melee and the rout that followed but Bohun’s cousin Henry was killed in hand-to-hand combat with Robert Bruce.
De Clare was called a coward when he suggested avoiding battle the following day and Edward went as far as to accuse him of treason. So de Clare led a new attack, against his better judgement, to prove his loyalty. Bohun’s archers were overrun by the Scottish cavalry, Clare was killed and the English army withdrew in disarray.
Aymer de Valence, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, escorted Edward away from the field of battle while Bohun Humphrey led the rest of the barons to Bothwell Castle. The castle commander declared for Bruce as soon as he heard of the Scottish victory and he took the English nobles prisoners. Bohun was eventually exchanged for Bruce’s queen, Elizabeth, and his daughter, Princess Marjorie.
Edward escaped to England where he was forced to submit to the barons and reconfirm the Ordinances. But many of the barons were still hostile to him. A sick Guy de Beauchamp, 10th Earl of Warwick, withdrew to his estates and died; there were rumours he had been poisoned on the king’s orders. It was a bad decision if he had: Guy was sorely missed because he was ‘the wisest of the peers’ and the ‘other earls did many things only after taking his opinion’. The country descended into turmoil as Thomas Plantagenet tried to govern, with little success. The Scots even captured Carlisle, taking Andrew Harclay, Sheriff of Cumberland and Warden of the West Marches, prisoner.
Roger de Mortimer, 1st Earl of March, acquired lands in the Welsh Marches and Ireland through his marriage to Joan de Geneville. But he had to fight Henry de Lacy, 3rd Earl of Lincoln, for his estates in Ireland in 1308 so he asked Edward Bruce, brother of Robert Bruce, King of the Scots, for help. Edward invaded Ireland following the victory at the battle of Bannockburn in 1314 so Edward II appointed Mortimer his new Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and defeated both Bruce and the Lacys.
Hugh le Despenser had been only 4 years old when his father was killed fighting alongside the rebel Simon de Montfort at the battle of Evesham in 1265. But he kept the Earldom of Winchester because his grandfather had been loyal to Edward. It also helped that his son, also Hugh, was a favourite of Edward II, encouraging the Despensers’ enemies to start rumours about a royal homosexual relationship.
Hugh the Elder was one of the few who remained loyal to Edward during the arguments over Piers Gaveston. He was appointed the king’s chief administrator when Gaveston was executed in 1312 and both father and son filled their pockets as they took control of the government, increasing the jealousy against them.
Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester and Hertford, died in 1314, and the king married his three sisters, Eleanor, Margaret and Elizabeth, to his favourites, Hugh Despenser the Younger, Hugh de Audley and Roger d’Amory. The frustrated Marcher barons were outraged to see the valuable estates they coveted given to the king’s favourites.
The tension increased after Humphrey de Bohun, 4th Earl of Hereford, suppressed a revolt in Glamorgan in 1316. Hugh the Younger had executed Llywelyn Bren without a trial and Bohun, Mortimer and Clare used it as an example of the Despensers’ oppressive rule. They were even more annoyed when some of their lands were confiscated and given to the Despensers.
The Treaty of Leake in August 1318 reconciled the king with the Welsh Marcher lords. But the Despensers conspired to depose their leader, Thomas Plantagenet, Earl of Leicester and Lancaster, so his supporters ignored a king’s summons in 1321. Even the steward of the royal household, Bartholomew Badlesmere, rebelled against his master. The Lords Ordainers took steps to restore order in the kingdom by forcing Edward to banish the Despensers in July.
Aymer de Valence, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, failed to appease the Marcher Lords so Roger de Mortimer, 1st Earl of March, marched on London. He was refused entry to the capital so he put it under siege until Edmund of Woodstock, 1st Earl of Kent, forced him to withdraw. Mortimer surrendered to the king at Shrewsbury in January 1322 and was imprisoned in the Tower. He escaped in August 1323, after arranging for someone to drug the constable, and went into exile in France, vowing to reclaim his lost lands from the Despensers.
Edward II’s younger half-brother was named Thomas, after Thomas Becket. He was heir presumptive until his nephew Edward was born in 1312 and was then created Earl of Norfolk, although the Norfolk estates were split between Thomas and his brother Edmund. 16-year-old Thomas was appointed Earl Marshal in 1316; not the wisest of appointments because he had a violent temper. He was also made the Keeper of England while the king campaigned in Scotland.
Thomas Plantagenet, Earl of Lancaster and Leicester, had become one of the kingdom’s richest nobles when he married Alice de Lacy, Countess of Salisbury and Lincoln. In 1316 Lancaster stopped John de Warenne, Earl of Surrey, from getting a divorce and he then persuaded the Bishop of Chichester to excommunicate him for adultery.
Thomas took control of the kingdom following the reissuing of the Ordinances; he struggled to run it. There was intrigue at court when Warenne kidnapped and imprisoned Thomas’s wife in Reigate Castle. Some believed Alice had arranged the abduction to escape her miserable marriage but Thomas thought Edward II had exploited Warenne’s frustration over his failed divorce to humiliate him.
Whatever the motive, an outraged Thomas seized two of Warenne’s castles, but he did not ask for his wife back. The king eventually forced the two earls to make a truce and while Alice got her divorce, Thomas kept her Earldoms of Lincoln and Salisbury, as stipulated in their marriage contract. Alice’s failed marriage continued to haunt her when she was imprisoned in York when her ex-husband rebelled in 1322.
Many nobles were disappointed by Edward’s lack of effort against Scotland and Thomas Plantagenet, Earl of Lancaster, tried to incite a rebellion in March 1322. He marched north only to find the Sheriff of Cumberland, Andrew Harclay, holding Boroughbridge with 4,000 men. Lancaster only had 700 troops and Harclay refused his promises of estates so he was forced to attack the following day.
Lancaster’s men failed to cross the River Ure by a ford and Humphrey de Bohun, 4th Earl of Hereford, was crossing the bridge when disaster struck. A pike thrust between the bridge planks skewered his anus and his dying screams created panic. Many rebels defected during the night while reinforcements joined Harclay, leaving Lancaster no option but to surrender next day. He was taken to Pontefract, condemned to death and beheaded on 22 March. Harclay was rewarded with the Earldom of Carlisle.
The English army invaded Scotland in 1322 but Robert Bruce withdrew north, using a scorched earth policy to starve Edward’s troops. The king and queen were at Rievaulx Abbey in Yorkshire when the Scots counter-attacked and the new Warden of the Marches, Andrew Harclay, 1st Earl of Carlisle, was unable to march south in time to help them. John of Brittany, 4th Earl of Richmond, was captured at Old Byland on 14 October 1322 while Edward II and his half-brother Edmund of Woodstock, 1st Earl of Kent, were lucky to escape to York.
The defeat convinced Harclay that he could not defend the Marches, so he met Robert the Bruce at Lochmaben in January 1323. They agreed a peace treaty which recognised Scotland as an independent kingdom in return for a hefty payment. Edward would also be allowed to marry one of his relatives to Bruce’s son, allying the two countries. The deal was a favourable one but it had been agreed without the king’s permission.
Harclay was accused of treason because he only had the authority ‘to make a truce, to give safe-conducts or make any agreement without proper grant of powers’ with the king’s enemies. He had gone beyond his powers and a furious Edward ordered Sir Anthony Lucy to arrest him. On 3 March Harclay was proclaimed to be ‘no knight, but a knave’, his spurs were cut off, his sword was broken over his head and he was stripped of his robes. He was then hung, drawn and quartered and his head was taken to the king at Knaresborough before it was displayed on London Bridge. The four parts of his body were displayed in the four corners of the kingdom; at Carlisle, Newcastle, Bristol, and Dover.
Edmund of Woodstock, 1st Earl of Kent, was appointed Warden of the Marches and given responsibility for the Scottish border. It only took him two months to come to the same conclusion as Harclay: it was impossible to hold the Scots back. Edmund referred the problem to his half-brother and he was on the council which agreed a thirteen-year truce with Scotland.
Having made his peace with Scotland, Edward turned his attentions to his possessions in France. He had avoided paying homage to Charles IV so the French king was threatening to confiscate the Duchy of Aquitaine under the pretext of a local dispute. The king again used his half-brother Edmund of Woodstock, 1st Earl of Kent, as his troubleshooter and sent him to hold it in July 1324. But promised reinforcements never arrived and the French overran the duchy. Edmund was captured at La Réole in September and he was forced to agree to a six-month truce.
Edward had found it difficult to manage without the Despensers so he recalled them in October, claiming he had been forced to exile them under duress. They helped the king ‘legally’ obtain the Lacy lands and were given some while Alice de Lacy was forced to buy the rest back. She kept the Earldom of Lincoln but her Earldom of Salisbury reverted to the crown.
Alice was kept under house arrest ‘for her own protection’ until she was married to Eubulus le Strange, who was hoping to make money by claiming the land given to the Despensers. But she stopped him taking the estates and the king showed his approval by cancelling the debts left to her by Thomas, her ex-husband who had been executed after the battle of Boroughbridge.
But Queen Isabella was enraged that the Despensers had returned; even more so when Hugh the Elder was created Earl of Winchester. The Queen’s supporter (and possibly her lover) Roger de Mortimer rebelled and took Hugh the Elder and Hugh the Younger prisoner. Although Mortimer wanted the Despensers put on trial for treason, Hugh the Elder was immediately hanged in his armour, at Bristol in October 1326. His head was cut off and sent to Winchester while his body was chopped up and fed to dogs.
Edward II had refused to go to France to pay homage to King Charles IV, so he instructed Queen Isabella to negotiate with her brother on his behalf. She was anxious to escape from the king and happily left for Paris in March 1325. Both parties agreed Prince Edward could act on the king’s behalf so he was sent over to France to meet his uncle.
Although the two kings were satisfied with the arrangement, Isabella refused to return to England. Instead she met up with the exiled Roger de Mortimer, 1st Earl of March, and the two became lovers, maybe reviving a romance they had started in England. They plotted how to remove King Edward from the throne and they were soon joined by the king’s enemies. Both John of Brittany, 4th Earl of Richmond, and Thomas of Brotherton, 1st Earl of Norfolk, had lost estates to the crown and Isabella promised to return them in return for their support. Even the king’s half-brother Edmund of Woodstock, 1st Earl of Kent, joined the growing rebellion because he hated the Despensers more than Mortimer.
But the scandal of Isabella’s and Mortimer’s affair forced them to leave the French court and head to Flanders. While she raised a mercenary army, he organised the fleet which carried them to the River Orwell in Suffolk on 24 September 1326. The people of London came out in support of the queen so Edward fled the capital, pursued by Mortimer and Isabella.
Few nobles were prepared to help the king because they hated the Despensers. Edmund FitzAlan, 9th Earl of Arundel, was the last loyal earl and he was captured in Shrewsbury and taken to Isabella at Hereford to be executed. It took the executioner twenty-two strokes with a blunt sword to sever his head.
Henry Crouchback captured Edward II at Neath in South Wales on 16 November and took him to Kenilworth Castle. He would be rewarded by having the Earldoms of Lancaster, Derby, Salisbury and Lincoln returned. Isabella and Mortimer faced a problem because the king could not be legally deposed or executed, but the barons gave their support when they asked how to deal with the situation.
Edward was taken Berkeley Castle and in January 1327 was told he had been found guilty of incompetence; he was forced to abdicate. Mortimer then arranged his murder in September 1327 and the popular story is that he was killed by having a red-hot poker thrust into his anus. It left his teenage son Edward III under the control of Isabella and Mortimer.