Edward II's Nieces, The Clare Sisters by Kathryn Warner

Edward II's Nieces, The Clare Sisters by Kathryn Warner

Author:Kathryn Warner [Warner, Kathryn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Royalty, Women, History, Europe, Great Britain, Norman Conquest to Late Medieval (1066-1485), Historical
ISBN: 9781526715593
Google: 0vftDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Pen and Sword History
Published: 2020-03-20T00:58:43+00:00


Chapter 16

Intruder and Pharisee

In France, meanwhile, Queen Isabella was involved in long and intense negotiations with her brother Charles IV. She wrote to Edward II on 31 March, addressing him five times as ‘my very sweet heart’ and telling him how difficult her brother was being.1 The queen finally managed to arrange a peace settlement between England and France in June 1325. Although its terms were catastrophic for Edward II (through no fault of Isabella), he had no other choice but to ratify it. There remained, however, the awkward situation of the homage owed to Charles IV for Edward’s lands in Gascony and Ponthieu which he absolutely had to travel to France to perform. For various reasons, Edward did not wish to leave England. After prevaricating for many weeks and changing his mind regarding the correct course of action almost daily, Edward sent his son Edward of Windsor, not yet 13 years old, to France in September 1325 in his place. Hugh Despenser the Younger had pleaded with the king not to leave him behind in England, as his life would be in severe danger in Edward’s absence. His life was also in danger in France: the Vita Edwardi Secundi says that if Despenser and his father ‘are found within the kingdom of France [they] will assuredly not lack bad quarters’, a reference to a punishment (mala mansio) where the victim was stretched out and tied to a board. It adds that Despenser and his father ‘realised that in the absence of the king they would not know where to live safely’ in England and Wales. Adam Murimuth, royal clerk and chronicler, agrees that the whole country hated the two Hugh Despensers and that therefore they did not wish Edward to go abroad and leave them behind.2 The king, therefore, could neither leave his beloved behind or take him with him.

That Hugh Despenser the Younger genuinely did feel in physical danger because of the loathing he had brought upon himself by his extortions and general despotism is demonstrated by his being guarded by eight hobelars, armed men on horseback, all the time: the eight were paid by the king for ‘following Sir Hugh at all times wherever he went’.3 There is no doubt whatsoever that Eleanor Despenser’s husband and father-in-law were widely hated in England and Wales, and the younger Despenser was surely correct that someone, or indeed many people, would wish to assassinate him if they got the chance. He had spent the previous few years as cosseted royal favourite taking lands and manors from others, forcing them to acknowledge huge debts to him, and even imprisoning people until they agreed to do what he wished. His sister-in-law Elizabeth Burgh was only one of his many victims. Another, whom he imprisoned for eighteen months in 1324/25 until she signed over three manors to him, his father and the king, was the Scottish noblewoman Elizabeth Comyn. Others included the barons John Botetourt and his wife Maud, John Sutton and his



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