Following in the Footsteps of Edward II: A Historical Guide to the Medieval King

Introduction

Edward II (born 1284, reigned 1307–27) is famously one of England’s most unsuccessful kings, as utterly different from his domineering father Edward I (r. 1272–1307) and his warrior son Edward III (r. 1327–77) as any man possibly could be. Highly unconventional, even eccentric, his was an intriguing personality, and his reign of nineteen-and-a-half years from July 1307 to January 1327 was a turbulent period which saw endless conflict and wars with his own barons, and the king’s infatuation with a parade of men. His reign ended catastrophically after his own queen Isabella of France (c. 1295–1358) led an invasion of his kingdom in September 1326. Edward’s support collapsed within a few weeks, and he was forced to abdicate his throne to his 14-year-old son Edward III in January 1327, the first time this happened in English history. Following in the Footsteps of Edward II presents a new take on this most eccentric and puzzling of kings, telling his story from the perspective of the places in Britain which mattered most in his life, such as the magnificent Caernarfon Castle where he was born in 1284 shortly after his father conquered North Wales, his favourite residence at Kings Langley in Hertfordshire, the battlefield of Bannockburn near Stirling in Scotland where he led an army to the greatest military defeat in English history, the castle of Berkeley in Gloucestershire where he supposedly met his brutal death in September 1327, and Gloucester Cathedral, where his tomb and alabaster effigy still exist and are among the greatest glories surviving from medieval England.

Chapter One

King in Waiting, 1284–1307

Caernarfon Castle, Gwynedd, North Wales: Edward’s Birthplace

It is entirely possible that a king of England was born in the middle of a muddy building site. In the North Wales town of Caernarfon on the feast day of Saint Mark the Evangelist in the twelfth year of her husband’s reign, or Tuesday, 25 April 1284 as we call it, the Spanish queen of England gave birth to at least her fourteenth, and perhaps her fifteenth or sixteenth, child. Leonor or Eleanor of Castile was now about 42 years old, and this would be her last delivery. She died in November 1290 when she was 49 years old and her youngest child only 6, and of the fourteen or more children she had borne, only six outlived her: daughters Eleanor, Joan of Acre, Margaret, Mary and Elizabeth, and Edward of Caernarfon, the youngest. Edward, later King Edward II, was the first of only two English monarchs in history with a Spanish parent (the second was Mary Tudor, born in 1516 as the daughter of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon), and the first of three to be born in Wales (the others were Henry V in 1386 and Henry VII in 1457).

Both of Edward of Caernarfon’s grandmothers, Eleanor of Provence and Jeanne of Ponthieu, were French, and by blood he was more French than anything else, partly Spanish, and only minimally English. Only one of his eight great-grandparents (King John) was even born in England, and not one of his sixteen great-great-grandparents. Edward’s mother, Queen Leonor, gave birth to a large family, and had also been born into one; she was the twelfth of the fifteen children of the great warrior king Fernando III, ruler of Castile and Leon, two of the four kingdoms of medieval Spain. Edward II’s maternal grandfather (b. 1201, r. 1217–52) was made a saint of the Catholic Church in 1671, as San Fernando or Saint Ferdinand. The saintly warrior played a hugely important role in the centuries-long Reconquista, the ‘Reconquest’ of the Iberian Peninsula from its Muslim rulers, and is now the patron saint of Seville, the city in southern Spain he captured from the Almohad caliphate in 1248 after more than 500 years of Muslim rule. Fernando’s daughter Leonor was only 10 when he died in Seville in May 1252, and two-and-a-half years later married the heir to the English throne, Lord Edward (b. 1239), at Burgos in northern Spain. Lord Edward and Doña Leonor succeeded as king and queen of England in November 1272, on the death of Edward’s father Henry III. Their youngest child Edward of Caernarfon was born a few months short of thirty years after their wedding.

Edward of Caernarfon’s father Edward I invaded North Wales in 1282, and its last native ruler, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, was killed in an ambush in December that year. The birth of the king of England’s latest child in Caernarfon was intended as propaganda to hammer home the message of his conquest of Gwynedd and his subjugation of its people (though the often-repeated story that the king promised to give the inhabitants of Gwynedd a prince who spoke no English, then sneakily presented them with his new-born son Edward of Caernarfon, is an invention of 300 years later). Edward I’s fifth surviving daughter Elizabeth had been born in the North Wales town of Rhuddlan in August 1282, also an attempt to have the potential heir to the English throne born in Wales, which failed when the child was a girl. The boy born in Caernarfon in April 1284 was not, however, the direct heir to the English throne at the time of his birth; that was his 10-year-old brother Alfonso, born in Bayonne in south-west France in November 1273. He was named after his uncle and godfather King Alfonso X of Castile and Leon (r. 1252–84), the eldest of Queen Leonor’s eleven brothers and half-brothers. Alfonso of Bayonne died suddenly on 19 August 1284, whereupon his 4-month-old brother Edward of Caernarfon became heir to the throne. From 1274 to 1284, the English people had grown used to the idea that one day they would have a king called Alfonso of Bayonne; sadly it was not to be. Two other sons of Edward I and Queen Leonor, John and Henry, also died in childhood in 1271 and 1274, long before their little brother Edward of Caernarfon was born.

A fortification on the castle site at Caernarfon had existed since Roman times, and the Normans built a motte and bailey castle there in the early 1100s. Beginning c. May 1283, Edward I had whatever still existed on the site knocked down and began the construction of his massive stone castle, one of his chain of great strongholds stretching across North Wales: Caernarfon, Rhuddlan, Conwy, Beaumaris and Harlech. In April 1284 at the time of Edward II’s birth, the castle, which still stands in Caernarfon, was in the earliest stages of construction. It therefore perhaps seems unlikely that the room on an upper floor of the Eagle Tower pointed out to visitors today as the birthplace of Edward II had already been built. Then again, the Eagle Tower is the oldest part of the castle and work on it, and on the town and the town walls, did progress very rapidly in the 1280s. Leonor of Castile may have given birth to her son in whatever had already been built of the Eagle Tower by April 1284, or in a temporary timber building on the site, or perhaps she had decided to take lodgings somewhere in the town itself which Edward I was having built at the same time. The exact location of Edward II’s birthplace is, therefore, not entirely certain. In his own lifetime and afterwards, and indeed even today, Edward was strongly associated with the town of his birth. In January 1330, over two years after Edward’s reported death at Berkeley Castle, his friend the Archbishop of York referred to him in a letter to the mayor of London as ‘our liege lord Edward of Caernarfon’ (he spelt Caernarfon as ‘Karnarvan’), and in the 1350s one chronicler even called Edward’s wife Isabella of France ‘Lady Isabella of Caernarfon’.

Edward was christened in Caernarfon on 1 May 1284, and his first wet-nurse was a woman of the town called Mariota Maunsel, to whom he granted an annual income of £5 twenty-three years later in 1307 after he became king. The boy left Caernarfon and Wales in the summer of 1284 when he was only a few months old – although he travelled to Wales a few years later, he was never again to set foot in his birthplace – while work continued on his father’s new castle and would do so for several decades. Caernarfon Castle was intended as a symbol of the English king’s dominance of Wales and of the Welsh people. In September 1294 when Edward of Caernarfon was 10 years old, the Welsh nobleman Madog ap Llywelyn led a revolt against Edward I, and burned some of Caernarfon Castle and the town walls. This rebellion was put down in 1295 by the wealthy and powerful Gilbert ‘the Red’ de Clare, earl of Gloucester and Hertford (b. 1243), who, rather oddly, was Edward of Caernarfon’s brother-in-law although he was forty years the boy’s senior; Gloucester married Edward’s older sister Joan of Acre (b. 1272) in 1290. William Beauchamp, earl of Warwick (c. 1240–98), also took part in putting down Madog’s rebellion. Warwick’s grandson Hugh Despenser the Younger, born in the late 1280s and a young child at the time of the Welsh rebellion, would later marry Edward II’s eldest niece, and would become Edward’s powerful and despotic favourite in the 1320s. Other than Madog ap Llywelyn’s rebellion, Caernarfon Castle never saw military action, except when it was besieged again in 1400 during the revolt of the Welsh nobleman Owain Glyn Dŵr (whose name is sometimes anglicised as ‘Owen Glendower’), early in the reign of Edward II’s great-grandson Henry IV (r. 1399–1413).

Caernarfon Castle stands looking over the southern end of the Menai Strait which divides the mainland of North Wales from the island of Anglesey, and was built in that location to control Edward I’s access to the rich and fertile island which was called ‘the garden of Wales’. Between 1283 and 1292, Edward I spent the huge sum of £13,000 on the castle, the equivalent of many millions of pounds today. The king never saw his great castle completed; his son Edward II continued the work at Caernarfon throughout his reign, and it was not until 1330, early in the reign of Edward II’s son, Edward III (r. 1327–77), that the castle was completed (and even then, some of the planned buildings in the inner ward were never constructed). Even today, the entire town of Caernarfon stands within the castle walls – the circuit measures 800 yards – and the castle itself, with its seven polygonal towers and walls 20ft thick, looks as dominating, daunting and massive as it must have appeared 700 years ago. A stone statue of Edward II which dates to around 1320 when he was 34 years old still stands on the exterior of the King’s Gate of the castle, though as Edward did not visit Caernarfon again after he was born there in 1284, he never saw it, nor had any chance to spend time in one of the four luxurious towers built to accommodate the royal family and their guests. These were the King’s and Queen’s Towers, the Chamberlain Tower, and the Black Tower. Edward I made his son and heir Prince of Wales in February 1301, and it may be that he had it in mind for his son and the young man’s household to live at Caernarfon at least some of the time, but this never happened, perhaps because the king spent much of the last years of his reign fighting in Scotland and took his son with him.

Caernarfon Castle is now looked after by Cadw, the historic environment service of the Welsh government, and is, with Beaumaris Castle, Harlech Castle and Conwy Castle, part of, ‘The Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd.’ This has been a UNESCO-designated World Heritage Site since 1986. Caernarfon Castle is open to the public daily except on 24, 25 and 26 December and 1 January, and entrance costs a few pounds; under-5s can visit for free and there is a discount for under-16s, senior citizens and students. Cadw also offers annual or lifelong membership with free entrance to its properties, and three- and seven-day Explorer Passes for visitors to Wales. The town of Caernarfon is easily reached by car or bus from the A487, 9 miles from Bangor; Bangor is also the nearest main line railway station. Caernarfon is one of the most impressive castles in Britain, even in Europe; a visit is an absolute must.

Conwy Castle, Conwy County Borough, North Wales: Edward, the New Prince of Wales

Edward of Caernarfon finally returned to Wales when he was 17 years old in the spring of 1301, after his father gave him the principality of Wales and the earldom of Chester (see below under ‘Lincoln Cathedral’). A few weeks after the ceremony which bestowed these lands on him on 7 February 1301, Edward, bearing the proud title ‘Prince of Wales’, travelled to North Wales to take the homage of his Welsh vassals. He stayed at Conwy Castle from 28 April until 5 May 1301, a few days after his seventeenth birthday.

Conwy Castle was built by Edward I between 1283 and 1289, and the king also built the town’s walls which encircle Conwy to this day and measure 800 yards in total length. The same architect, Master James St George, worked on both Caernarfon and Conwy, and Edward I’s outlay on Conwy was even greater than on Caernarfon. It was built on a rock base, a natural fortification, and still has eight towers. Accommodation at Conwy was, by the standards of the time, luxurious, and there were royal chambers and a chapel in the inner ward where Edward of Caernarfon must have stayed and worshipped in 1301. He must have known that his father had briefly been besieged at Conwy in December 1294, during the rebellion of Madog ap Llewelyn. A famous story related by a chronicler called Walter of Guisborough relates how Edward I refused to drink his own personal supply of wine at this time, but insisted that it should be shared among the Conwy garrison.

After 1301, Edward II never visited North Wales or Conwy Castle again. On 30 January 1326, just under a year before his forced deposition, he appointed the noblewoman Alina, Lady Burnell, née Despenser (c. 1287–1363) as the constable of Conwy Castle. This was a rare honour; Alina was only the second woman in the fourteenth century, after Edward II’s second cousin Isabella, Lady Vescy, née Beaumont at Bamburgh in 1304 and again in 1307, to be put in charge of a castle. Alina’s appointment probably came as a result of the influence of her brother Hugh Despenser the Younger (c. 1288/89–1326), who from 1319 until his execution in 1326, was Edward II’s chamberlain and mighty ‘favourite’. Edward II’s great-grandson Richard II (r. 1377–99) spent time at Conwy Castle in 1399 shortly before he surrendered to his cousin Henry of Lancaster, who was soon to take the throne as Henry IV, and in March 1401 Conwy fell during the revolt of Owain Glyn Dŵr. The castle saw action again in the 1640s, during the Civil War.

The wall walks built by Edward I in the 1280s survive almost intact and still encircle the town, and it is possible to walk much of the way around the town on the walls (though some parts are not safe). For information on visiting Conwy, see above, under the entry for Caernarfon Castle. Conwy is about 23 miles from Caernarfon, and the town has its own railway station. Like Caernarfon, Conwy is one of the great castles of medieval Europe, and a must-see.

Kings Langley, Hertfordshire: Edward’s Favourite Residence

Edward of Caernarfon’s childhood was peripatetic, something he had in common with all royals and all great noblemen and noblewomen of the Middle Ages, and he and his household spent a large part of the year travelling around the south and Midlands of England. There is much evidence, though, to suggest that both in childhood and in adulthood Edward II’s favourite residence was the palace of Langley in Hertfordshire, and he spent much time there. The town became known as Kings Langley later in the Middle Ages because of its association with Edward II and his royal successors, though in Edward’s own lifetime was often called ‘Childerlangley’ or simply ‘Langley’. Edward, then aged 24, founded a Dominican priory at Langley in December 1308 ‘in fulfilment of a vow made by the king in peril’. The Dominicans were, and are still, known as the Blackfriars or the Friars Preacher, and were founded by Saint Dominic in 1216; Edward II supported the order staunchly, and they reciprocated and were among his most loyal followers throughout his reign and even afterwards. All Edward’s confessors were Dominican friars, and some of his tutors in childhood were also Dominicans.

On 20 December 1308, Edward granted the Dominican order £100 annually and gave them his ‘garden adjacent to the parish church of that place [Langley], with two plots of land next to the garden’. The friary was built in Edward’s park at Langley, and he also gave the friars his building of ‘Little London’ at Langley for them to live in while the new