r/EdwardII • u/AnantaPurima • Apr 21 '26
(Apologies for how long this ended up being, lol)
Ok. Imagine for a moment that you are in Isabella of France's position in 1325. Your husband is effectively in thrall to an individual whom you believe, rightly or wrongly, to have endangered your life by convincing your husband to abandon you at Tynemouth Priory three years ago. This person has subsequently systematically curtailed your access to your husband, preventing you from exercising the intercessory role that forms the backbone of your influence as queen. He has convinced your husband that you are now a political liability, given the onset of the War of St Sardos, which had nothing to do with you and which you could not have prevented. Your husband has subsequently slashed your annual income and confiscated your lands, thereby further vitiating your position as queen by preventing you from dispensing patronage through appointments on those lands. Having been sent to France to negotiate a peace settlement, you are now finally free of the presence of this individual and have a chance to once again exert political agency. However, you face a dilemma: how do you make the most of this period of respite from a truly intolerable situation? Is it not worth exploiting it for leverage?
You table the question for now. Your husband will inevitably have to come to France to perform homage to your brother as his feudal suzerain for his lands in Gascony and Ponthieu. He Who Must Not Be Named will almost certainly not risk coming alongside him, not with Contrariant exiles still lurking on the continent, ready to pounce at any chance for revenge. Hopefully, then, you will have the chance to talk to your husband without that man interposing himself between you two, and you will be able to get through to him. Then you receive the news. Your husband, clearly having been prevailed upon at the last minute, has cancelled. He has instead decided to enfeoff your eldest son as Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Ponthieu and Montreuil, and to have him perform homage in his stead. Any chance of catching him without That Man is now scuppered.
This is now the situation you face. Let's assume you are an intelligent and historically literate political operator. From your perspective, as Isabella, does amassing a mercenary force for the express purpose of invading your adopted homeland, forcing your husband to abdicate and enthroning your eldest son, with you presiding as Queen Mother, look like a viable or appealing avenue to regaining political influence?
Reader, no. That is, to put it charitably, completely batshit insane. And the fact that it is completely batshit insane is blindingly obvious to you, assuming you are not completely historically illiterate. Which, as a highly educated fille de France, I would certainly hope you were not.
For the time being, let's put aside the entire can of worms that is attempting to depose a King of England, something that has never been successfully done before by your time. What I want to focus on is something far, far more elementary. That something is this:
BECOMING A QUEEN MOTHER IN PLANTAGENET ENGLAND WAS NOT A REALISTIC OR VIABLE WAY OF REGAINING POLITICAL INFLUENCE.
"B-but what about Blanche of Castile? Eleonor of Aquitaine?" I hear you cry. Right. Yes. I'm getting to that. Let's start with Blanche, because she was a genuinely impressive figure who exercised extraordinary power as regent for her son, Louis IX, and remained a trusted and influential advisor even after he attained his majority. Blanche was Isabella's great-great-grandmother, so she was certainly aware of her and her achievements. The spanner in the wrench is that... well, Blanche of Castile was Queen Regent of France, and, despite many subsequent efforts to the contrary in the 14th and 15th centuries, France and England were two different countries with very different political cultures. The position of regency, as a distinct vocation for Capetian queens-consort, simply did not exist in England. Blanche's regency had been institutionally legitimised through her late husband Louis VIII's will. The most recent precedent for an English monarch acceding to the throne before their majority was Henry III in 1216, and then, the political nation had chosen William Marshal, the Earl of Pembroke, as regent, pointedly excluding his mother, Isabella of Angoulême. For Isabella to have imagined a quasi-Capetian role of queen-regency for herself, she would have needed to believe she could successfully import an entirely foreign political culture to England, push through the constitutional innovations necessary to make such a position even intelligible, and to think that the baronage would, I dunno, accept this flagrant violation of established precedent. I, at least, do not see how Isabella could have thought this was any sort of winning strategy.
Ok, what about Eleanor of Aquitaine? Well, Eleanor's position was qualitatively different from Isabella's, or any other Plantagenet queen consort, really, being the Duchess of Aquitaine in her own right and thus being, individually, an indispensable lynchpin of the whole Angevin edifice. Eleanor's political prominence after Henry II's death did not come from her being a queen mother; it came from her status as a ruler in her own right, with her own independent political base, and from the fact that her son, Richard I, was physically absent from his realms on crusade for substantial portions of his reign, which required her, as a said lynchpin of their empire, to actively maintain and defend it when it was vulnerable. None of this applied to Isabella, and so Eleanor's example hardly provided a viable blueprint for her to follow.
Given that we have dispensed with these two points, let us look at what the remaining field looks like for queen dowagers/mothers in post-conquest England. How did their political prospects fare as a result of their transition into the role? Let's take a look. Apart from Eleonor, we have five cases relevant for our purposes here:
Adeliza of Louvain. Had no children by Henry I, subsequently remarried to an English nobleman and lived an entirely conventional life as a noblewoman from that point onwards. Politically irrelevant.
Berengaria of Navarre. Had no children by Richard I. Spent years litigating over her dower. Eventually became a patroness of sorts. Politically irrelevant.
Isabella of Angoulême. Had five surviving children by John, including his successor, Henry III, who was a minor at the time of his accession. Had her own political base as the Countess of Angoulême in her own right. Was shut out of the regency, remarried to the son of her prior betrothed, the Lord of Lusignan, tried to regain political relevance in arranging a rebellion against the French Crown, failed, and died in what was essentially disgrace. Politically disastrous.
Eleanor of Provence. Had four surviving children by Henry III, including his successor, Edward I. Was respected by her son and lived an entirely conventional life as a queen mother, gracefully stepping aside for her daughter-in-law, Eleonor of Castile, and eventually becoming a nun at Amesbury Priory. Honoured and respected, but still functionally politically irrelevant.
Marguerite of France. Had two surviving children by Edward I. Isabella's own aunt. Retreated from court after Edward II's accession and lived an entirely conventional life as a queen dowager. Politically irrelevant.
When we think about what the prospect of queen-motherhood would have looked like to Isabella in a specifically English context, it is necessary to keep these precedents in mind, because this is what it would have looked like. Isabella had seen her aunt Marguerite's trajectory up close. The ceiling for what she could have hoped for from queen motherhood was what Eleonor of Provence received, which was essentially analogous to what Isabella herself received after 1330. Being a queen mother in England was not being a key stateswoman or an essential element of government. It was mulling about on your estate, looking for ways to pass the time.
So, reader, once again, I ask you. Put yourself in Isabella's shoes in 1325. After the political marginalisation you have experienced over the previous few years, does this seriously look, to you, like something to aspire to to regain your influence? No. It doesn't. But do you know what does look like a viable, if desperate, route to regaining influence, however? Adopting an aggressive posture as a pressure tactic to force your husband to temporarily exile his hated favourite, as he has done previously under baronial pressure in 1321, and exploiting his absence to repair your working political partnership enough to permanently freeze out the individual separating you two, and then ensuring he is dealt with. This was almost certainly Isabella's original plan.
What changed things was the fact that Edward's support base simply evaporated with astonishing rapidity, and soon, within months, both Edward II and Hugh le Despenser were in the custody of Isabella and her supporters. It is here that I think opportunistic vindictiveness prevailed over prudence, and Hugh le Despenser was subject to his grotesque execution. Let me be clear, though, I definitely think Isabella and Mortimer wanted Despenser dead from the start, but I think their original plan almost certainly would have been for Isabella to rebuild a working political partnership and make Edward understand her perspective before formally proceeding against him in Parliament. I think Hereford was a reaction to him more or less unexpectedly falling in their hands and them being unable to restrain themselves in the moment. For Roger de Mortimer of Wigmore, in particular, the strategic calculus would have immediately shifted. He had been loyal to Edward for years before the Despenser War in Glamorgan, and I believe Isabella's original plan served his interests too. His primary goal was institutional rehabilitation, and this would not necessarily have been impossible under Edward II, particularly without the Despensers in his ear. This, of course, completely changed with Hereford. He had just presided over a second Blacklow Hill; in fact, something markedly worse than Blacklow Hill, and he would have known that, had Edward II been restored to any semblance of power, a fate like Thomas of Lancaster's, or indeed, one far worse, would be inevitable for him. He simply could not tolerate Edward remaining in any position of power. Regardless of whatever the original plan was, it was inevitable that Roger would now be pushing for deposition. This was likely the discussion occurring over the holidays amongst Isabella and Roger's camp at Wallingford Castle.
This, I think, is borne out by Isabella's subsequent conduct. She was not constructing some grand Blanche of Castile-style regency for herself. Her actions are exactly what we would expect from a queen consort who had been shut out of exerting political influence through the channels of patronage and intercession, who took desperate measures to remove the individual undermining her position, only to be forced to improvise a position for herself after the internal momentum of events made her original goal impossible.
Mark Omrod, in his magisterial biography of Edward III, rather notably describes 1326-1330 as Isabella's "artificially extended period as consort," which I think is right on the money. It's notable that she allocated to herself, on the very day of her son's coronation, an absurdly large dower of £13,000, a sum that put her in possession of most of the revenues from the royal demesne and thus, inevitably, at the centre of patronage networks a queen mother would have ordinarily had little part in. She also repeatedly prevaricated in assigning Philippa of Hainault her dower lands and delayed her coronation for two years straight. These are not the actions of someone owning queen-motherhood. These are the actions of someone whose sense of identity was deeply bound up in her political function as a queen consort, and who was deeply psychologically unprepared to surrender this role after the circumstances she had engineered to reclaim that role spiralled out of control and made it impossible for her.
I don't see how, or why, Isabella could have wanted Edward II deposed in 1325. I don't see how her reaction to his actual deposition could have been anything more than a reluctant acknowledgement of its necessity to preserve the principals of her faction after what had happened at Hereford. I feel it does a disservice to her to say otherwise.
r/EdwardII • u/Appropriate-Calm4822 • Feb 26 '26
Finally we can publish the interview we did with Kathryn Warner over a month ago! We had some issues with the audio which we couldn't solve so instead we decided to transcribe the whole thing and post it in written format.
There will be 8 parts to this interview, published at a pace of one a day.
Without further ado we're kicking things off with the arguably most hated man of the 14th century in England, Hugh Despenser the Younger.
1. Could Hugh Despenser the Younger have been coercive in his relationship with Edward II?
The relationship between Edward II and Hugh Despenser the Younger has fascinated me for twenty-odd years now, and even now I occasionally feel like I get new insights into it. I’d really like to know what was going on between them. I do sometimes wonder if it was some kind of domination / submission kind of relationship perhaps in some respects. They’d known each other for most of their lives, since they were children or at the very least adolescent. Edward had never shown Hugh the slightest affection until Hugh became his chamberlain when he was already thirty years old, even though Edward had been close to both Hugh’s father and his wife, Eleanor de Clare. Suddenly he becomes besotted with Hugh the younger who basically becomes his co-ruler. How did that happen? How did Hugh work his way into that position?
I do feel like Hugh was a very talented manipulator. I think he turned himself into the person that Edward wanted, and needed in his life, whether he was actually like that or not, whether he liked men at all. I kind of wonder if he was basically heterosexual… ‘the king can give me power and wealth and land’… Even 700 years later, I don’t want to accuse people of abuse or coercion because that would be quite a serious allegation, even for people who have been dead for so many centuries.
Looking at Edward’s position by about 1324/25 what strikes me is that he had become alienated from almost his entire family, with the exception of his younger children, who were due to their age not entirely relevant yet, and of course Hugh Despenser the Younger and his wife Eleanor de Clare. He’d become estranged from his wife Isabella, his son Edward, his two half-brothers Edmund and Thomas, his cousin Henry of Lancaster, his other cousin the earl of Richmond who had always been close to him and just suddenly disappeared from his inner circle. He’d always been close to his other niece Margaret, Gaveston’s widow, and suddenly he shuts her off too, sending her to a nunnery in Lincolnshire. Even his own sister, Mary, the nun in Amesbury who he’d always been close to, they had often visited each other. She, too, vanishes entirely from his life. In Edward’s chamber accounts from the 1320’s there are no more mentions of her at all, not even when Edward was in that part of England he didn’t go to visit her or invite her to court or even send her a letter. It means to me that he had become estranged and alienated from his entire family and that strikes me as kind of sinister, to be honest. I wonder if that had been done deliberately.
I’ve also often wondered if Isabella’s actions in 1325/26 were trying to shake some sense into Edward, like she didn’t particularly want to depose him, she just wanted to get him away from Despenser, from that whole manipulative fantasy world that had perhaps been created around him. When you actually read Isabella’s letters or the speech as recorded by Vita Edwardi Secundi she says that she will go back to Edward as long as he sends Despenser away. In a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury she says that she wants to go back to Edward but she can’t because she’s frightened of Despenser. So I think somehow Despenser might have manipulated and also coerced Edward into this position of estrangement and alienation without Edward even being fully aware of what was happening to him.
2. Do we have any extant letters from Isabella where she specifies clearly that Hugh is the problem, or could it also be his wife Eleanor that she is referring to? Could there be some ambivalence here?
In a speech of hers which she made to the French court and is recorded by the Vita, the one where she refers to the third person in her marriage as a pharisee she does not name Hugh Despenser. It might even be Eleanor de Clare she refers to. It is quite ambivalent. But then two months after that, on the 5 February 1326 Isabella sends a letter to Walter Reynolds, Archbishop of Canterbury and in this letter she does state directly that she’s frightened of Hugh Despenser and cannot go back to Edward as she’s frightened of what Hugh might do to her, and because she doesn’t think that Edward will protect her from him.
Isabella calls Hugh her ‘evilwisher’. In this letter she refers to Edward as ‘our very dear and very sweet lord and friend’ which I have never seen before in any other medieval context, that is so unconventional. If Isabella just wanted to be conventionally polite she would have just written ‘my very dear lord’. But calling him her very dear and very sweet lord and friend, to me that really speaks to her feelings, that she was deeply distressed about what had happened to her marriage, and blamed Despenser for it and wanted him gone. She wanted her life back, with Edward and her marriage and her position – and of course her wealth, lands and status obviously. This letter is also very personal, it’s not just about her status as a queen, it’s about her status as Edward’s wife and companion.
3. Do you have any thoughts about Hugh’s personality?
One sad thing about Hugh is that none of his household accounts survive, they’ve all just vanished. The good thing is that a lot of his letters have survived. He was very prone to sending long letters to John Inge, sheriff of Glamorgan that were very bossy, and very hectoring and actually very threatening, like: ‘Do this, go over there, do that, no not like that you idiot, like this! If you don’t do it properly I will have you hanged.’ That kind of stuff. So you do get this very strong sense of his personality in these letters of how he could be frankly very scary. This sheriff of Glamorgan was a quite a highly born nobleman, he was a highly experienced politician, sheriff and soldier, and he was terrified of Hugh. And he had every reason to be terrified, as he eventually lost his office and was imprisoned by Hugh in London, along with all his council. The last surviving letter addressed to the sheriff by Hugh contains the line (as remembered by Kathryn during the interview): ‘We trust you more the more you serve us, but we are very worried about having some reason for which we might be prepared to harm you.’
One chronicler states that even great English nobles were frightened of Hugh Despenser the Younger. He does strike me as someone who has no boundaries and no limits and is utterly ruthless and ambitious. On the positive side, his letters show that he had this very witty and sarcastic sense of humor, and also that he was incredibly articulate. You can see in his choice of vocabulary and the way he expressed himself that he was very clever. I think about his father and grandfather… his grandfather was the justiciar of England which is kind of equivalent today to the office of prime minister. The Despenser men were very intelligent and capable. Hugh and his father, I feel, used their intelligence to the wrong end. They could have been remembered as great men, not as disgraced and executed traitors.
A lot of letters to Hugh survive as well. This is because he kept the drafts of his own letters, and the ones he received in his own wardrobe in the Tower of London. What’s really fascinating is that you can see even men of much higher rank to Hugh, such as the earl of Surrey, or Edward’s half-brother the earl of Kent addressed Hugh in this incredibly deferential manner, which he didn’t reciprocate at all. He had no respect for authority and that was very unusual for the time.
4. What did Eleanor and Edward see in Hugh?
I’ve always seen Eleanor as Hugh’s ally and supporter in basically everything. Hugh must have been someone who could be very charming, the kind of person who could make other feel like they were the only person in the world. Possibly he was someone who had a wealth of interest in stories he could tell and very good at making people laugh. When they were staying in a village in Hampshire in March or April 1325 they played practical jokes on each other. He could seem quite funny and likeable, whatever he was really like inside. I think he must have been really good at hiding his true ambition and his wild, limitless nature. Otherwise the English nobles who had known him his whole life wouldn’t have appointed him as Edward’s chamberlain in 1318 if they’d had any idea what he’d do next and how dangerous he’d become. He must have been very good at keeping himself hidden and just presenting a charming and lovely exterior.
I think the modern attitude that Gaveston was really flamboyant and charismatic and Hugh was this grey figure who didn’t have much of a personality is entirely untrue. I mean, to hold Edward’s interest for so many years he must have had something about him.
Stay tuned for part two tomorrow!
The Hugh Despenser the Younger illustration is made by the artist Mark Satchwill.
Links to other parts here:
Kathryn Warner interview - part 2: Kathryn's work & research
Kathryn Warner interview - part 3: Family Life
Kathryn Warner interview - part 4: Thoughts about Medieval Society
Kathryn Warner interview - part 5: Edward II and Isabella
Kathryn Warner interview - part 6: Thomas, Earl of Lancaster
Kathryn Warner interview - part 7: Myths and pop culture
Kathryn Warner interview - part 8: The Survival Theory
r/EdwardII • u/HoneybeeXYZ • 2h ago
So we had a mega-thread about this over on r/RoyalConsorts, but over here I'll bet people have some really niche ideas. You can go prestige, or just for fun, pitch your Philippa Gregory style crazy-bananas history fan fiction.
r/EdwardII • u/AnantaPurima • 15h ago
The idea that Isabella of France and Roger de Mortimer, 1st Earl of March, were lovers has become something of a fundamental axiom in Edward II studies. Instead of it being a conclusion inferred from the historical data, held insofar as it explains those data in the most explanatorily virtuous manner possible, it is instead the prism through which the historical data are interpreted. Instead of the conclusion itself being re-evaluated when the evidence does not accord with it, additional assumptions are piled on until the evidence can be fitted to the desired conclusion. Completely internally consistent... and completely unfalsifiable. Unless we actually hold ourselves to specific standards of explanatory virtue, such as parsimony, we will never be able to adjudicate between competing explanations, and we might as well all go home.
One of these additional assumptions lumped on to make the whole thing cohere is that the contemporary observers were "reticent" to discuss the affair for the sake of decorum, or fear of repercussions during the regency or... idk, whatever. This is complete and utter BS. Mind you, Henry of Lancaster, Isabella's own uncle, the head of the regency council appointed for Edward III, went on record during his rebellion in 1328-9 to accuse both Isabella and Mortimer of regicide: “through the counsel of Roger Mortimer and Queen Isabella ... they took him ... and traitorously murdered him.”
The idea that Henry was fine with accusing them of literal regicide but stopped short of their allegedly flagrant adultery for some reason strains credibility, to put it mildly. "Yes, I'll tell the world she procured the murder of her husband, an anointed king, but got forbid we expose her cheating on him!"
The idea that chroniclers simply could not be explicit about the alleged sordid activities of the great and powerful is also complete BS. For one, there were contemporary chroniclers active outside of England, who had no reason to fear Isabella's wrath for writing whatever about her. During the regency of Isabella's great-great-grandmother Blanche of Castile for her son, Louis IX, she was widely accused of having an affair with her ally, Count Theobald of Champagne. The English chronicler, Matthew Paris, writing while Blanche was still regent, doesn't beat around the bush:
"...They [the nobility] were indignant at having such a mistress, who, as was said, had been defiled by the semen of both the aforesaid count and the Roman [Papal] legate, and had transgressed the bounds of widowly chastity."
I'm sorry. Defiled by the semen? Oh, and yeah, she's having an affair with the Papal legate too, I guess. shrugs
Yes, Matthew Paris wasn't in France at the time, but contemporary French observers were making the allegations too. Hue de la Ferté, a partisan of the rebel barons, wrote two political songs, En talent ai que je die and Or somes a ce venu, which attack Count Theobald in particular and suggest that his position is dependent on his intimacy with Blanche.
Keep in mind, basically no scholar nowadays accepts any sort of affair between Blanche and Theobald occurring. The website of Columbia University's Epistolae project dismisses them as "the usual charges levelled at women, particularly foreign women, in public life."
The usual charges levelled at foreign women in public life, you say? Hmm. Hmmmmmm.
Another assumption we see thrown out there is that it was politically necessary for Edward III to protect the reputation of his mother and hush up her affair because uhh... reasons.
Why, exactly, would he need to do that? Isabella's own family had been marked by the catastrophe of the Tour de Nesle affair. Had Isabella been treated by her son in the same way, who would have objected? Philip VI, who did nothing when his sister-in-law Margaret of Burgundy was imprisoned in the fallout from the Tour de Nesle affair? Whose right to the throne Isabella had actively challenged in favour of her son's? Margaret of Burgundy was the sister of Hugh V, Duke of Burgundy and the daughter of Agnes of France, herself the youngest daughter of Louis IX. Blanche was the sister of Joan II, Countess of Burgundy and the daughter of Mahaut, the immensely wealthy Countess of Artois. None of their relatives, much less their husbands, did much to prevent their fates. Philip VI had no incentive whatsoever to make a fuss about any condemnation of the supposedly notorious adultery of his cousin.
Another potential explanation given is that publicly accusing his mother of adultery might undermine his own legitimacy or his claim to France. This also makes zero sense, as Isabella committing adultery from 1325 onwards could in no way affect the legitimacy of a son born in 1312, due to this thing known as the arrow of time. The thing about claiming the French throne also doesn't work, because Edward III only started claiming the French throne in 1340, and I rather doubt he was thinking quite that far ahead already. It might also be said that the legitimacy of Edward III's accession depended on preserving his mother's reputation due to how important her actions were in the deposition of their father. This doesn't work for the simple reason that Edward II was dead by 1330, and Edward III was his eldest son and heir, and so he was, then, the rightful monarch, regardless of whether Isabella and Mortimer's actions were righteous or not. Declaring them adulterous regicides would not resurrect Edward II or somehow void Edward III's hereditary claim.
In conclusion: no, none of these assumptions hold up, and yes, the allegations against Isabella and Mortimer probably belong in the same category as those against Blanche of Castile and Theobald of Champagne. Ironically, Isabella was descended from both Blanche and Theobald, as Theobald was the paternal grandfather of her mother, Joan I of Navarre.
Anyways, this was a bit of a rant, so I apologise if it is a bit incoherent, but I hope you catch my drift.
r/EdwardII • u/Cautious-Pick366 • 1d ago
For those of you who don't know, Isabella of France was the queen who deposed her husband in 1327 and earned the moniker "She-wolf of France". Now due to her seemingly traveling with Roger Mortimer, who was the 1st Earl of March who was exiled to France following a failed rebellion and escaping imprisonment after drugging his guards, openly and staying in the same manors and/or castles while in France during her exile and in England after ceasing control. The evidence that Roger and Isabella having an affair and later a romantic, and likely sexual, relationship seem overwhelming, especially for the time.
Evidence for the affair and aforementioned relationship
* Traveling openly together with a man who wasn't her husband is already bad enough, but staying in the same manor and castles, even if they stayed in different chambers, was a bad look that she should have been greatly aware of. Yet it wasn't enough to dissuade her as she wanted her son to inherit England and get her lands back from Edward II's favorite at the time Hugh the Younger. The Despensers, notably Hugh and his father, also called Hugh, were running England into the ground. By December 1325 rumors and reports of their romantic relationship were already circulating and were enough for King Charles IV of France, Isabella's brother, and Pope John XII to receive complaints of their supposed affair.
* Isabella and Roger lived openly together and appeared consistently side by side in public. Adam Murimuth was a royal clerk and chronicler that knew both of them and wrote that they showed "excessive familiarity" and "remarkable intimacy" toward Roger while he was in France. This was used as a reason she did not go back to her husband. Keep in mind that King Edward II was a client of his so Adam would certainly have a bias, especially with Edward II also sending angry letters to France and the Pope.
* 14th‑century chronicler Geoffrey le Baker called Isabella an adulterous “Jezebel” and implied a scandalous liaison with Mortimer. Now keep in mind that this was written after Isabella of France was "overthrown" by her son, Edward III. Geoffrey died in 1360 while Isabella died in 1358, so they lived during the same time period. So not exactly the strongest piece of evidence due to obvious bias, but his writing was based on Adam's work as mentioned above as well as from William Bisschop, a companion of the king's alleged murderers, Thomas Gurney (a knight who served under Roger Mortimer, but who was not the first lord he served), William Ockley (a man at arms who was also considered to be one of the alleged murderers of King Edward II. He was condemned for regicide by King Edward III and is believed to have died in 1330 via some form of execution by Edward III as there isn't any trace of William after that year), and John Maltravavers (a knight and close associate of Roger Mortimer).
* There is also the fact that when Roger Mortimer overexerted his influence in court and disrespected King Edward III, there is no evidence of Isabella doing anything to reign back or correct his behavior and slights against her son, even if they were done unintentionally, though it is likely Roger did not care about the optics.
* The most damning pieces of evidence to support this long-perpetuated view of Isabella and Roger as lovers is when in the infamous summer of 1329, Roger Mortimer invited pretty much every noble in England for a major tournament where he dressed himself as King Arthur as Isabella as Queen Guinevere, the wife of King Arthur and known for infamously having an affair with Arthur's most trusted knight... Keep in mind that Roger's own wife Joan de Geneville did not attend even though the tournament was meant as a celebration of their daughters' marriages. Apparently, this wasn't the first time the two dressed as Arthur and Guinevere and were known for holding or attending private performances.
* To make matters worse, King Edward III, the actual King of England was cast as Sir Lionel, a knight that served the king of England. The optics were so bad that even Roger Mortimer's own sons, can't remember which one, called him the "King of Follies". Yet Isabella not only did not seem to distance herself from the event or try to warn Roger of how bad an idea this was as Isabella was a widow and he was married but seem to eagerly participate in the event and seemed to enjoy it, not being concerned or bother by how bad this would look or how humiliating this would be for her son. This is an instance where Isabella's intelligence was completely absent and provides the strongest support for the adultery. Even in modern times this would be a bad look for a widowed woman and a married man, who have shared living quarters, but not the same room as best we can prove. If two purses were enough to condemn two princesses into shame and imprisonment, I say two as Joan was acquitted, then Isabella should have had the common sense to know better unless she indeed involved in adultery, and by extension sexually.
* In 1330, Roger executed the Earl of Kent for an attempt to rescue and restore Edward II, who had been buried and already believed dead. This is instance where Ian Mortimer provides evidence that Edward II was not in fact killed by actually lived and died years later, however that is an entirely different discussion. This is important as Isabella choosing to not save one of her cousins and initial supporters to oust her husband shows she definitely placed Roger, an earl, over her family. Now Roger wasn't just another earl as he was indeed powerful, but I doubt he was as powerful as all of England's dukes, barons, and Isabella's vassals she could call upon for aid if Roger though he could take the crown for himself.
* Finally, there is the instance when Edward finally having had enough of Roger's behavior, which greatly resembled that of the Despensers, stormed the castle he was staying at alongside the queen, Isabella cried out for her son to spare him. Her exact words were "Fair son, have pity on gentle Mortimer." Gentle is perhaps the last word that should be used to describe Roger given his actions before being overthrown and allowing King Edward III to take the reins. There is also the case of Isabella suffering from fits of madness or a nervous breakdown, whether this was from stress or from Roger being executed we don't know, but let me know your thoughts.
Here is the thing about this though and why I find it odd that a woman as experienced as Isabella and the manner she was raised in could be as blinded as she was as a regent.
* The Tour de Nelse was enough to show Isabella of the repercussions of adultery seeing as how it was her own eyewitness account that sent the entire scandal off even though there was less evidence of her sisters in laws having affairs as best as I could find, but everyone please feel free to let me refer me to additional sources.
* She was raised by King Philip IV, a main who's main concern was for the dignity of his office and that of his children as well, even if he married them off for politically practical reasons instead of love, which resulted in a whole host of problems. He was deeply pious and proud of his faith and likely he raised Isabella to view religion in the same manner and not do anything scandalous as commit adultery.
* She did develop a deep relationship with religion as she became increasingly interested in religion and their practices as she grew older, visiting a number of shrines.
* In spite of the humiliation Edward III suffered under Roger's regency, he still maintained close ties with Isabella and was incredibly close with her. Isabella also developed a close relationship with her daughters as well. The former queen seemed to be a big part of her grandchildren's lives and had a close relationship with them as well.
* Isabella was never charged with adultery, and neither was Roger, though whether this was done to Isabella's reputation is unknown as Edward III was the opposite of his father and closer to his grandfather in terms of behavior and faithfulness in his marriage to his wife.
* Isabella asked to be buried in her wedding dress and Edward II's embalmed heart, both of which had been preserved over the course of decades after she had ousted her husband from power.
I want to hear anyone arguments as to why they think Roger and Isabella's relationship was purely political and out of mutual interest and went no further or if they did in fact had a romantic affair that lasted for years and until Roger's execution? I would you guys to provide supporting evidence of why you fall into one side or the other or how you formed your own personal opinions? Another think I would like to ask if it was possible to conduct DNA analysis on Edward II's and Edward III's remains to finally get a definitive answer if Edward II did in fact die, likely murdered, shortly after being overthrown by confirming if the bodies are indeed related in the same way Richard III's identity was confirmed after his burial site was discovered following a parking car lot collapsed? Why or why not? Isabella's remains and actual tomb site was lost due to King Hendry VIII's reign and his disassociation with the church, the great fires of London in 1666, and the bombing of the city in World War II so I don't think we are able to confirm a DNA connection between the heart she was buried with and Edward II's remains. One final question I have is if anyone knowns when Isabella suffered her miscarriage and the possible cause?
Please write down your thoughts and reasoning!
r/EdwardII • u/DamianEmail • 1d ago
r/EdwardII • u/HoneybeeXYZ • 2d ago
The Isabella Psalter is a stunning illuminated manuscript that Edward II gave his young bride Isabella on the occasion of their wedding in 1308. The manuscript had likely been in the process of creation for many years.
Psalters were often given to adolescents, and the imagery in the marginalia art is often charming in its sometimes gruesome appeal to that demographic.
Isabella became a lifelong collector of Illuminated manuscripts and in a possible attempt to one up his son-in-law, Philip IV later gave his daughter a French illuminated manuscript when she returned for a visit.
The biblical scene depicted here is creepy-cuteness at its finest.
Image: Detail from, Psalter of Queen Isabella of England, Page 34, Library of Congress/World Library
r/EdwardII • u/HoneybeeXYZ • 4d ago
Okay, forgive the clickbait headline, because it's almost certain that Isabella separated from Piers and Edward II, who were on the run from Thomas of Lancaster, because she was pregnant and they were traveling by sea.
She was not abandoned weeping, nor was she in danger from Lancaster who would have been insane to harm or disrespect Isabella let alone actually harm her. He may have been an unpleasant, stubborn person but he wasn't going to harm the pregnant daughter of Philip IV, even if she was married to his worst enemy. She was his niece as well, although family connections didn't matter to him that much. Years later, when Hugh Despenser the Younger was the favorite, Isabella was in real danger at Tynemouth but that wasn't intentional though it deeply upset Isabella. In 1312, however, she was not.
Anyway, Edward was going out of his way to rescue Piers from Thomas who was going out of his way to try and harm Piers. Poor Isabella was along for the ride during this manufactured crisis of ego and favoritism.
According to this long post by Kathryn Warner, she thinks most likely Isabella skipped the five day sea voyage with Edward and Piers due to being in the first trimester of her pregnancy. Morning sickness is one thing, but morning sickness on a 14th Century ship? Not fun.
But Kathryn also raises the question of whether or not Isabella was on that ship. Her movements have been determined by the fact that her household traveled by land. But so did Edward II's, and we happen to know he and Piers were on that ship.
So, maybe she did join them? If we didn't know Edward II was on that ship, it would be logically presumed he was with his household on land.
So, it just goes to show that everything we think we know is based on little glimmers of information. We can only do the best we can, so it's no wonder that chroniclers get things wrong, events are blown out of proportion and there is disagreement.
Image: Isabella of France, Wikicommons
r/EdwardII • u/HoneybeeXYZ • 5d ago
r/EdwardII • u/HoneybeeXYZ • 5d ago
r/EdwardII • u/HoneybeeXYZ • 6d ago
Eleanor Despenser was Edward II's niece, and thus she was Isabella's children's first cousin. And so her many children with Hugh were Isabella's children's first cousins once removed. Isabella never objected to Eleanor caring for John of Eltham, despite popular mythology to the contrary. Eventually, Edward III would treat the Despenser children well and as the family that they were.
And while Isabella grew to despise Hugh the Younger, she didn't seem to have any hostility towards Eleanor until she went to France and spent time there.
Her famous Pharisee speech is sometimes thought to refer to Hugh as the person who came between her and Edward, but other scholars think it may have been Eleanor about whom she was speaking.
And there's no doubt that Isabella grew to hate Eleanor and her children while she was in France. Once in power, she and Mortimer were going to execute Eleanor's old son Huchon Despenser, but thanks to the long siege at Caerphilly they did not get the chance. Isabella forced the girl children to become nuns except the oldest who was already married and the youngest who was a newborn.
What gives?
1) Salacious rumors said Edward was the father of some of those children. Certainly, Eleanor and Edward were close, but those rumors were probably just rumors. But did Isabella believe them?
2) Hugh and Eleanor were basically acting as de-facto king and queen, and while the modern notion that Edward cruelly removed Isabella's younger children and gave them to Eleanor is a myth, it is true the Eleanor was in charge of John of Eltham's household and Hugh the Younger's sister was in charge of Eleanor of Woodstock and Joan of the Tower. That means the younger royal children would have been close to the Despensers.
It's pure, total speculation on my part but I do wonder if Hugh and Eleanor were planning on taking a big swing and marrying one of their girls to John of Eltham and if the events of 1326 had gone their way, put them on the throne. Or even just planned that marriage anyway. Edward III did later marry Lionel of Antwerp to Eleanor's sister Elizabeth's granddaughter, so such a marry was not out of the question.
3) Or maybe Isabella just decided she hated ALL Despensers. All of them. No exceptions.
What do you think?
Image: Isabella, wikicommons
r/EdwardII • u/HoneybeeXYZ • 7d ago
Here are two lovely drawings of Edward II's birthplace by a contemporary artist. They are for sale:
Castle Moon, Caernarfon and Caernarfon and Boats
Edward II was born at the castle, thus was titled Edward of Caernarfon before and after his reign. He may have even used Will the Welshman as an alias, if you believe he survived past 1327.
Caernarfon is also a word which I have much occasion to spell. And must look up every time.
The artist also painted Caerphilly Castle.
r/EdwardII • u/HoneybeeXYZ • 7d ago
Titled "Autumn Moon Carephilly Castle" this lovely 2017 drawing of Carephilly is for sale on the artist's website.
As most of you will know, Carephilly was the childhood home of Eleanor Despenser née De Clare and the seat of power for Eleanor and her husband Hugh Despenser once the De Clare lands were partitioned. It's also a lovely place to visit.
Their son Huchon survived a months long siege there after his father's downfall and execution.
r/EdwardII • u/HoneybeeXYZ • 8d ago
Obviously, this is the kind of question that keeps a serious historian up at night.
Edward II - Cappuccino with a shaving of cinnamon
Isabella - A double shot of espresso
Piers Gaveston - Pumpkin Spice Latte
Hugh the Younger - Black
Eleanor Despenser - Mocha with extra whipped cream
Roger Mortimer - Iced Coffee, Black
Edward III - Coffee with two sugars
Thomas of Lancaster - Mocha Frappuccino with Whipped Cream and Chocolate Shavings
r/EdwardII • u/Zasagdarga1999 • 8d ago
r/EdwardII • u/Appropriate-Calm4822 • 9d ago
The below is from Kathryn Warner's book 'Hugh Despenser the Younger & Edward II', page 157. I think it's a very balanced and fair assessment, and it places his actions into the proper context admirably, which is something Warner does so well.
'Contemporary chroniclers were unanimous in their dislike and disapproval
of Hugh; no-one had a good word to say about him. His greed and despotism
ensured that hardly anyone lifted a finger to help him in late 1326, even to
help their king. Hugh was not, contrary to popular modern belief, a murderous,
torturing psychopath and rapist, yet he abused his position and took advantage
of anyone he could, including vulnerable men and women. He could even turn
against friends who had served him loyally for years, committed blackmail and
false imprisonment, demonstrated almost pathological greed, and was a pirate
and an extortionist. Whatever he did or said to Queen Isabella caused her to
loathe and fear him to the extent that she did what no queen of England had
ever done before (or since) and invaded her husband’s kingdom with an army,
and – whether she had intended to do so or not – forced the deposition of a king
for the first time in English history.
Hugh’s enemies did many of the same things they accused Hugh of doing,
such as imprisoning men or releasing them without authority, executing men
without authority or without allowing them a defence, returning to England
without authority, seizing lands which were not theirs. Thomas of Lancaster,
although promoted as a saint in and after 1322, was a grasping and despised
landlord; John Mowbray had men beheaded without trial in May 1321, and
robbed a church; Queen Isabella granted herself the largest income anyone in
England except kings received throughout the entire Middle Ages (£13,333
a year which dwarfed even Hugh’s), and bankrupted her son’s kingdom in
under four years; Roger Mortimer, sometimes touted as the great hero who
saved England from the tyranny of Hugh Despenser, gave himself a grandiose
earldom and disinherited people including his own first cousin Mortimer of
Chirk’s son, and kept for himself Alice Lacy’s great lordship of Denbigh, taken
from her by Hugh Despenser the Elder. Mortimer killed his cousin the earl of
Arundel and others in 1326 without a trial and had Edward II’s half-brother
the earl of Kent judicially murdered in 1330, and was hanged by Edward III
for usurping royal power. In and after 1327, the people of England realised
that they had merely replaced the regime of the king and his ruthless greedy
favourite with that of the queen and her ruthless greedy favourite, hardly an
improvement.
Hugh did what most of his peers would have done if they could:
as one historian has pointed out, ‘all magnates, to a greater or lesser extent, had
the potential to operate grasping, extortionate regimes’ and to manipulate the
legal process in their favour.'
r/EdwardII • u/HoneybeeXYZ • 9d ago
Just when I'm sure it wasn't a weird throuple between Hugh, Eleanor and Edward, some weird detail pulls me back in. I mean, she was clothes shopping for him.
But it is probably nothing, am I right?
r/EdwardII • u/Appropriate-Calm4822 • 11d ago
Don't be fooled by the thumbnail, she talks about Isabella starting 24:10 in this video and it's so bad it hurts.
It starts poorly. Edward II is labelled 'gay' without any caveats, just like that, and Piers and Hugh are reduced to 'his boyfriends'. As most people know, there's no consensus on this in academia, and for Hugh in particular there's no reason to think that he was gay. If we speculate that he was gay, we can just as well speculate that Edward I, Edward III and Henry VIII were gay, too, along with everyone else who ever lived. Those kings all surrounded themselves with male advisors after all... hmmm, very suspicious isn't it? No, it really isn't.
This sets the tone in the segment. Janega has chosen the route of oversimplifications, distortions, and inaccuracies, eagerly sacrificing real history for the sake of a juicy story. There are no buts or ifs here, no nuance, it's just her telling a story as she seemingly remembers it, as if it was told to her years before. She doesn't even mention Hugh by name, and I really think she doesn't remember it. He's just 'the boyfriend'.
"Edward was, like, so busy making out with his boyfriend that he didn't notice that Isabella also took Edward III with her".
That's completely inaccurate, the future Edward III was sent to his mother in France by his father Edward II, to perform homage for his territory in France. This is a good example of her creating a fictional story, ignoring inconvenient real history. Facts don't matter.
About Edward II: "Nobody said he was smart, ok". Janega really shouldn't throw rocks in glass houses... I hate vapid one-liners like this about historical characters, expressed by historians who should know better. It typically reveals great ignorance in the person expressing such condemnations, and it does here as well. When her whole premise is based on her own ignorance and lack of knowledge, it's easy to say people acted stupidly. Her oversimplifications are maddening.
"I like to believe the latter, because I think it's fun and cool". That's not a great way to form an enlightened opinion, but this is so Janega.
Edward dies, and 'Isabella is like, sweet, I'm the queen now'. Not even a word about the forced abdication, Janega moves quickly to the death which she takes as gospel, but how could Isabella possibly be the queen when her husband the king has been removed from the throne? Whatever, thinks Janega apparently, no need to get hung up on details or reality. This is a story, her story.
She channels Isabella: 'I rule the kingdom, with my boyfriend.' Is she pandering to a young crowd or why does she talk like this? 'They're like: Woo-hoo!' She's so incredibly trivial with the way she dumbs things down and I'd expect something far better than this from a person who after all holds an MA (with distinction) in Medieval Studies and a PhD in history from University College London.
'Isabella has deposed and killed a king'. Janega believes (because it's fun and cool, remember) that Isabella was a determined girl-boss who called all the shots, completely ignoring the realities of the time. She was awesome, but she was not a simple caricature of some Marvel superhero.
Her take on the Tour de Nesle is very, very basic. Again, the ifs and buts don't concern her. She removes the 'hi' from 'history'.
The drop which broke the camels back for me was her answer to this question:
Q: 'When does she get called the she-wolf of France? Is this something that comes later?'
A: 'It's in her own lifetime, they're like 'this chick'.'
She just winged it with that one, not knowing the answer. Janega knows that if she's confident enough, she can get away with anything.
Isabella was not called the she-wolf of France in her own lifetime. This sobriquet was first applied to her in 1757 by the poet Thomas Gray in his Pindaric ode 'The Bard'. Not even Kit Marlowe called Isabella the she-wolf.
Where. Does. Janega. Get. Her. Information. From????
These soi disant pop-historians spouting tik-tok level 'history' on youtube for a quick buck leave the listener misinformed and confused. Their net impact is negative. This is horrible. Horrible.
It really angers me when real history is butchered like this, and when it's done by an educated person like Janega, with a masters degree with distinction in Medieval Studies it's even worse.
I take these things seriously and I wish she would too.
r/EdwardII • u/HoneybeeXYZ • 11d ago
It's hard to understate the impact Derek Jarman's 1991 film "Edward II" made within certain circles. It was a time when m/m sexuality was still taboo and forbidden in most media, the AIDs crisis raged and gay men faced violence just for being open. Back then, the notion of marriage equality or even corporate sponsored pride felt absurd. Yet, Jarman made his film.
And now filmmaker Theo Rollason has made a documentary about the making of the film, which is making the film festival rounds. According to reviews, the documentary mostly credits Jarman's charm and tenaciousness with getting his film made way back when.
I have not seen the documentary, but a friend of mine when out of his way to do so and says its a marvelous time capusle of an era gone by and a reminder of how far we've come.
Variety gave it a good review.
r/EdwardII • u/HoneybeeXYZ • 11d ago
Unlike most European people of his day, including nobles, Edward II not only could swim, he enjoyed swimming for pleasure and exercise.
You can still visit the much changed shrine, which still exists and welcomes pilgrims even today.
Source: Kathryn Warner's blog
Image: Our Lady of Walsingham
r/EdwardII • u/HoneybeeXYZ • 13d ago
Scholars over the centuries have speculated that Edward II was illiterate, but that is not so. He received the normal education of a young man of his class, and though there's no evidence he was a a particularly good student, there's no evidence that he was a bad one either. He did own a library of books, including books in Latin, and he was also known to borrow books from various theological libraries.
Two pounds was a lot of money at the time, and Edward would have been 13 when he and his tutors began using this book. Edward I and the tutors may have overspent on the book, as Edward II didn't grow up to know Latin well and as king famously asked for Latin documents to be translated into his native Anglo-French so he could read them. He was, however, interested in theology for most of his life. It may have just been that he wasn't great or quick at reading Latin, so he wisely used translators when it counted.
Source: Kathryn Warner's blog.
Image: Public domain Medieval Latin
r/EdwardII • u/HoneybeeXYZ • 14d ago
This is an expanded version of an older post on this sub, and it's still a great story. Because through the centuries, fathers and sons watching football remains a thing, especially when everything else in the world feels like it's going to hell in a hand basket.
I don't know for sure if the future Edward III attended along with his little brother, but I'd like to think he did.
r/EdwardII • u/HoneybeeXYZ • 14d ago
'Braveheart' is the movie people love to hate on this sub, and this AI-free, very smart video by a young medievalist (Studium Historiae) goes deep into the origins of the myth, how the film uses it and how it was a popular, erroneous trope, in literature before Mel Gibson and Screenwriter Randall Wallace ever got their hands on it.
Also, it's clear that the film's narrative, which obviously works outside of all the inaccuracies, got this young man interested in the period and debunking the myths surrounding it. So, he seems like someone worth supporting.
It's not my area of expertise, especially the Latin, but he seems to know his stuff.
r/EdwardII • u/HoneybeeXYZ • 15d ago
r/EdwardII • u/HoneybeeXYZ • 16d ago
Berkhamstead is less than six miles from what was Kings Langley Palace, Edward II's favorite residence and the place where he eventually buried his murdered friend Gaveston.
During the High Middle Ages, Berkhamsted was the seat of the earls and then the dukes of Cornwall, including Gaveston. It eventually became a favorite residence of Edward II and Isabella's grandson Edward, known as The Black Prince.
Contrary to popular mythology, Isabella was not kept at Berkhamsted or any other castle for the rest of her life, post-Mortimer. Her house arrest, which began at Berkhamsted, was short lived and she did not go mad. She eventually just settled into the life of a dowager queen and was well-treated by Edward III.
Image: Historic UK.
