10 Queen Isabella by Alison Weir

Author:Alison Weir [Weir, Alison]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Queen Isabella

Welcome, in God's Name, Madam and Your Son

They sailed with a good wind, meeting no resistance from English ships, for Edward's sailors were either elsewhere or had mutinied and refused to fight “because of the great wrath they had towards Sir Hugh le Despenser.” Then their fleet ran into a storm “that sent them off their course, so that for two days they did not know where they were. And in this, God was merciful and helped them: He altered their course by a miracle. So it happened that, at the end of two days, the storm was over, and the sailors sighted land in England. They made for it gladly, and landed on the sands on the open seashore,” just before noon on 24 September 1326. Contemporary accounts state that the landing was made at either Orwell or Harwich, but it is more likely to have been on the Suffolk side of the River Orwell, given that the invaders went to nearby Walton for the night.

“The Queen being got safely ashore, her knights and attendants made her a house with four carpets, open in the front, where they kindled her a great fire.” At first, “they did not know what part of England they were in, nor whether they were in the power of their friends or their enemies,” but local inquiries established, to their relief, that they were in the territory of Thomas of Brotherton, Earl of Norfolk. During the three hours that it took for men, horses, and provisions to be unloaded, the Queen wrote letters to the citizens of London, and to other cities and towns, stating that she had come to avenge the murder of Lancaster and to rid the realm of the Despensers and Robert Baldock, the enemies of the kingdom, and asking for their assistance in this enterprise.

The reference to Lancaster was probably made at the behest of Isabella's uncle, Leicester, whose support had been offered as a means not only of overthrowing a hateful regime but also of avenging his brother's death. He was an important ally, one the Queen could not afford to lose, and from the first, his influence was paramount. Isabella might have withdrawn her support from Thomas of Lancaster, but she had been shocked by the manner of his trial and execution-he was, after all, her uncle, and a prince of the blood royal-and she was well aware that he was now revered in England as a virtual saint and martyr. The political value of her cause's being associated with such a powerful legend was immense and was another reason why the invaders identified themselves so closely with the Lancastrian cause.

Once the unloading had been completed, the invasion fleet sailed back to Hainault. In the afternoon, Norfolk arrived to escort Isabella to his seaside castle at Walton-on-the-Naze, where she spent the night. Here, she was joined by many barons, knights, and gentlemen of East Anglia and by secret supporters of the contrariants.

Thomas of Brotherton had done his

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.