Isabella and the Strange Death of Edward II by Paul Doherty

Author:Paul Doherty [Doherty, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781472112408
Publisher: Constable & Robinson
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

SIX

The Downfall of the She–Wolf

‘Edwardum occidere nolite timere, bonum est: Do not fear to kill Edward, it is a good thing.’

‘Edwardum occidere nolite, timere bonum est: Do not kill Edward, it is good to be afraid.’

Message sent by Adam Orleton, Bishop of Hereford,

to Edward II’s gaolers, September 1327,

Chronicle of Geoffrey Baker of Swynbroke

The old adage ‘those whom the Gods wish to destroy they first make mad’, sums up the fall of Isabella and Mortimer in the autumn of 1330. Astute observers like Pope John XXII, who tried his best to advise them, realized their collapse was inevitable. Isabella had destroyed one tyranny and replaced it with another. Wales was seething with discontent: exiles abroad were plotting invasion. There was unrest in both London and the shires around the capital. Although there appeared to be no opposition from the barons – Kent was dead, Lancaster anxious not to suffer a similar fate – the real focus of discontent was in the royal household. The young King Edward III, married and now expecting an heir, watched the events of 1330 with growing anxiety. In less than three years Mortimer had achieved the destruction of two princes of royal blood: a King and his half-brother.

Later in the fifteenth century, during the Wars of the Roses, such violence became the norm but even then it was a case of generals and captains of defeated forces facing a military tribunal and summary execution on the edge of a battlefield or in the market square of some provincial town. Edmund of Kent’s destruction had been illegal, violent and without precedent. A prince and half-brother to a King, uncle to another, was hustled from court, his pleas for mercy ignored, and made to stand before a city gate before a drunken dung-collector was bribed to kill him.

The Earl of March’s arrogance was now notorious, with his tournaments, Round Tables and the constant emphasis on his mythical ancestry. Did Mortimer harbour secret notions of becoming King and wiping out the House of Plantaganet? Did he intend to marry Isabella and beget a new dynasty? There is some proof that Isabella was pregnant by him though we have no firm evidence. Mortimer certainly saw himself as Master of the Kingdom, as did the Queen. According to Swynbroke, by 1330 Mortimer even refused to give way to the young King, relating to him as if he was his equal.1

Edward III looked around him for support. He may have received passive assistance from Lancaster but, when he struck, the young King showed a shrewdness beyond his years. He gave a glimpse of his diplomatic skills after 1330, which would enable him to unite the baronage around him and bring to an end the bitter court-faction politics and the threat of civil war which had plagued the kingdom since his father’s accession in 1307. Edward III put his trust in no one except the clerks and knights from his own household, in particular, the young William Montague and Edward’s personal secretary, the scholar Richard Bury, Keeper of his Privy Seal.

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