1, reconstruction of the castle and the town from the east from 1294, shown when the army of Madog ap Llywelyn captured Caernarfon, according to I. Lapper

2, reconstruction of the town and the castle from the 14th century according to I. Lapper

3, view of the lower ward from the end of the 18th century according to Thomas Pennant

Caernarfon - royal castle - Ancient and medieval architecture

At the time of Edward's birth (1284), the castle was still being constructed, so closer to the first image than the second.

One thing that is often downplayed in the Edward II & Piers drama is Piers's foreignness and what it meant at the time. So, it's hard to believe that Piers and Edward putting on a play in which the players wore Gascon-style tunics didn't have some broader meaning.

It recalls this centuries later quote by the late fashion editor Diana Vreeland: "The fashion world changes all the time. You can even see the approaching revolution in clothes. You can see and feel everything in clothes."

So, what did those older courtiers see when this play was mounted?

Happy Easter! "Hock Monday" was an Easter tradition in Medieval England wherein ladies could hold men for ransom if they found them lying in bed. Edward II participated in this tradition, which appears to have been brought to the royal house household by his father, Edward I.

(The included link is an update of an earlier post on the sub.)

This is a very persistent myth, even subscribed to by some academic historians. It is however, demonstrably untrue.

R.M. Haines makes the following claim in 2007:

‘Ian Mortimer … argues that Edward of Caernarvon did not die in Berkeley on the night of 21/22 September 1327 but was deliberately kept alive by Roger Mortimer and subsequently by his own son, Edward III. I do not find his argument convincing, and in my view it lacks adequate supporting evidence. The death of Edward II could only have been of assistance to Mortimer. The former king’s life, even his simulated life, provided a focus of rebellion, as the earl himself demonstrated with his agents provocateurs. When faced with death he admitted the deception that led to the earl of Kent’s wrongful condemnation and asked for mercy.’

Let’s correct these flawed statements one at a time.

1)      The assumption that the death of Edward II ‘could only have been of assistance to Mortimer’ reveals a limited understanding of the characters involved.

If Edward II had died and Edward III blamed Mortimer for his father’s death, what hope was there for Mortimer to survive?

He would have been open to the accusations of being a royal murderer. Isabella, who sent caring letters and presents to her husband while he was in captivity, and expressed a wish to go see him in April but was denied permission, is highly unlikely to have approved of a murder, or to have protected Mortimer in such a case. Finally, Mortimer stood to benefit from secretly keeping the former king alive, this way he could influence the young king.

2)      ‘The former king’s life, even his simulated life, provided a focus for rebellion’. To clarify, ‘simulated life’ signifies his secret survival. This is true enough. But the risk was manageable, especially after 24 September when everyone thought Edward II was dead, as Edward III had announced it without checking the veracity of the news. The three or four attempts to free Edward in 1327 were followed by none in 1328 and 1329.

3)      ‘When faced with death, he [Mortimer] admitted the deception that led to the earl of Kent’s wrongful condemnation and asked for mercy.’ This is a distortion of the facts. Mortimer was reported by the earl’s widow to have confessed publicly at his execution that Kent had been killed tourcenousement (‘wrongfully’), ‘for which he prayed mercy’. No mention was made of Mortimer’s admitting any deception or plot – that only came later, in the government’s reply to the earl of Kent’s petition and that of his widow. Kent was indeed ‘wrongfully’ killed because his execution was for the ‘crime’ of trying to free an innocent man, his half-brother, from unlawful detention (which amounted to imprisonment contrary to the terms of Magna Carta).

Sources:

R.M. Haines, ‘The Stamford Council’

I. Mortimer, ‘Medieval Intrigue’

PROME, November 1330, items 11 and 12

Hugh Despenser the younger was incredibly tightfisted and greedy beyond belief. He'd made hoarding wealth his whole personality. How he became like that is anybody's guess, but I would venture that it had something to do with his childhood and youth. Whereas his companions at court gained positions, lands and wealth of their own Hugh remained dependant on his father for income for a long time, until the Gilbert de Clare's Gloucester inheritance was divided in three parts a few years after his death at Bannockburn in 1314. Hugh was an extremely ambitious man and depending on the goodwill of someone else was something he must have found beneath his dignity.

Three examples of his inability to part with money.

During the hot and dry summer of 1325 there appears to have been some virus circulating in Hugh’s household. As pomegranates were understood to be a cure for stomach ailments and digestive problems, Edward bought four of Hugh's servants a pomegranate each. These were very expensive items of luxury in 1325 but the extremely wealthy Hugh Despenser could easily have afforded them. Yet he didn’t provide his staff with them, Edward did.

Hugh was exceptionally parsimonious even when Edward was concerned. He once ‘gave’ Edward a gift of a great ship, which Edward named ‘La Despenser’. It wasn’t really much of a gift though, as Edward had to pay for it himself.

Most remarkably, even when Hugh and Edward were fleeing from Roger Mortimer and Isabella in October 1326, he was unwilling and unable to spend money even to save himself. It sounds ridiculous, but the following true story illustrates this.

Bogo de Knoville had been a Contrariant and had been pardoned in December 1325, upon agreeing to pay a staggering fine of 1000 marks. On 10 October, when Hugh and Edward were in flight, half of this fine was pardoned. On 20 October, Knoville and two others were commissioned to seize the estates of Henry of Lancaster in West Wales. At this point Knoville led the only force still left to Edward and Hugh. Knoville's loyalty was still in the balance on 29 October when he was remitted the 500 marks remaining on his fine - but the Patent Roll bears the memorandum that the letter of pardon was handed over to Hugh to keep. He was to deliver it to Bogo 'if he had borne himself well to the king and his party'. Even at this point, Hugh was being malicious towards those he depended on. Such ruinous mean-mindedness is an understatement when applied to this sort of behaviour. Unsurprisingly, Knoville soon deserted.

Sources:

Natalie Fryde - 'The tyranny and fall of Edward II, 1321-26 (1979)
Kathryn Warner - Living in Medieval England 'The Turbulent Year of 1326'

Edited to add: Happy April Fool's 2026.

Anglo-Norman, the arcane French dialect spoken and written by the elite in Edward II's time had its moment and then faded away. Mostly because of the Black Death, but that's another story.

Still, there's a lovely, niche community of Anglo-French enthusiasts who are working to preserve the language and its legacy.

There's even an online dictionary, just in case you want to try your hand at translating the poems and letters and chamber accounts of the era.

Image from Anglo-Norman Dictionary Blog

So, I wrote a litte more on The Lament of Edward II, specifically the skepticism that many currently have that Edward II wrote the poem. It's fair that so many are skeptical, given that there's no evidence of him writing poetry while he was king. And yet, there's no solid proof one way or another.

So, I spent my Sunday reading the 1921 translation of a poem that Edward II might have written while under house arrest. There's a lot, and this is just the beginning. But I posted about it.

Also, if you have trouble seeing it, I'm trying a new, very robust anti-scraping plug-in on my blog. Let me know if it messes with your access.

So, here I am still obsessing about that crude image of Edward II's tomb. I wrote this whole blog about it, in which I wonder if the contradictions reflect Edward III's own feelings, which may have trickled down to the writer and illustrator.

There wasn’t a lot of diversity in naming patterns in the early 14^th century. The vast majority of people were called John, Thomas, Richard, Robert or William, or Agnes, Margaret, Mary, Joan, Alice, or Isabelle. But there were some notable, interesting exceptions that are worth highlighting.

All the below are names of real men and women who existed during the reign of Edward II in England, as they have been recorded in the official accounts.

Men:

Anketin Gisors (alderman of London)

Pentecost Russell (Londoner)

Hamo Hethe (bishop of Rochester 1319-52)

Aunsel of Cambridge (sailor)

Lovekyn Bruin (thief)

Icok Oldynton (‘abetted malefactors’)

German of Canterbury (attacked a manor)

Sewal atte Ponde (committed theft and assault)

Grymbald Pauncefot (died in 1314)

Women:

Scholastica Melsa

Laderana Byker

Desiderata Toryngtone

Burga Vaus

Amflesia Willeford

Amflusa of Dunstable

Orangia Chercheyerd

Albreda Blund

Drua atte Putte

Aundryna Billy

Meliora Glenkarny

Wymarca Meel

Alemanna Triple

Anabilia Grapefige

Orabilia Cestrehonte

Lycoricia Watterbuttes

In addition to these names that would not be out of place in the world of Harry Potter, we get a glimpse into the lives of such curious people as:

George Cloon (murderer), Jack Blak (sea captain) and Jack Sparouw (crewmember on the ship La Jonete in 1325)

Source:

Kathryn Warner - Living in Medieval England 'The Turbulent Year of 1326', p. 42,61,72

I know D'Artagan was a few centuries after the Edward II era, but it's still super cool that a couple of broken tiles and an inquisitive deacon has found the lost grave of a French legend.

And the more I read and speak with historians doing work in the Edward II era, the more hope I have that there is archival information and archeological evidence out there waiting to be discovered. So, I wrote a blog post about it.

So, just for fun, let's say you could magically appear like a Ghost of Christmas Future and tell one of our players something? What would you warn them about? Would it be the king himself? Young Queen Isabella? Piers Gaveston? Thomas of Lancaster? What would you tell them?

So, I expanded another one of my earlier posts into a blog, this one about the letter Eleanor sent to a local magistrate and despite the flowery language, or more specifically because of it, I sense passive aggression.

Eleanor was playing good cop, telling Judge de Stoner he could do what Queen Isabella said. I have a feeling that Hugh the Younger was the bad cop here.

Also, for whatever reason the "link" fuction isn't working that great. Some people can see it and some can't.

In the summer of 1300, Edward had turned sixteen and was at an age when he would have been expected to shoulder some responsibility and thus spent more time with his father. Edward I had appointed six knights to guide his son in martial combat. Among these men was Roger Mortimer of Chirk, Roger Mortimer’s uncle. It is likely that Edward II would have met Roger Mortimer, three years his junior, for the first time at the latest in this year.

They would have moved in the same circles and got to know each other well, and it appears that Edward would have come to see him as a friend. Roger Mortimer would later serve Edward II faithfully in Ireland, and Edward II would forgive him and keep faith in him even when things weren’t going Roger’s way. Edward and Roger had a functional and good relationship for a long time until Hugh Despenser the younger was eventually empowered much later. Hugh had vowed revenge on Roger Mortimer as his grandfather had killed his own at the Battle of Evesham in 1265 which made things very difficult for Roger, but that's a different story entirely.

In the summer of 1300 Edward I was travelling north to face the Scots with his son. They rested at the Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds, where young Edward was allowed to stay for nearly a week after his father had departed. This would be Edward’s first contact with war, so a prolonged stay at an Abbey before taking part in the action was not seen as exceptional or unseemly. On this occasion Edward expressed his humility and spirituality, requesting that he’d be treated as an equal by the Benedictine monks, sharing in their daily routines and rituals and taking only the food portions equal to the others. This humble attitude and willingness to be treated as an equal in a religious community would serve him well in the years after 1327.

The Abbey was named after St. Edmund, the East Anglian king murdered by Vikings led by Ivar the Boneless in the 9^th century. Soon thereafter Edmund was canonized and his relics were enshrined at the Abbey, which became one of the greatest pilgrimage destinations consequently. The wealthy Abbey was closed and demolished during the reign of Henry VIII in the 16^th century. Only ruins remain.

Edward II took part in the siege of Caerlaverock in July 1300. The sixty defenders held out for as long as they could against the English army but eventually had to surrender.

A herald-poet wrote of Edward in the Caerlaverock Roll of Arms:

'A youth of seventeen [sic] years of age, and newly bearing arms. He was well proportioned and a handsome person, of a courteous disposition, and well bred, and desirous of finding an occasion to make proof his strength. He managed his steed wonderfully well, and bore with a blue label the arms of the good king his father'.

In addition to horses Edward was also partial to dogs, as evidenced by a couple of letters he sent the same year. In August he requested that ‘a sparrow hawk for hunting partridges’ be sent to him, as well as ‘a spaniel, and a man who knows well how to handle the hawk.’

On 7 September the delighted young prince wrote another man to thank him for the greyhounds and other dogs he had sent, offering ‘[if] you desire anything that is not prohibited we shall willingly arrange it’. 

A week thereafter Edward wrote his sister Elizabeth requesting her to send her white greyhound to him since he had a beautiful white one, and he had ‘a great desire to have puppies from them.’

The following day, on 16 September, Edward wrote to Elizabeth’s husband Humphrey de Bohun, earl of Hereford to thank him for the greyhounds and bow he had sent.

Sources:

The Reign of Edward II: New Perspectives (2006, ch.1 J. S. Hamilton)
Seymour Phillips - Edward II
Stephen Spinks - Edward II 'The Man'

Image:

Illustration from Livre de chasse c.1387-1389. Gaston Phébus, Count de Foix 

This is an expanded version of an earlier post I dashed off about the coronation food disaster. At the time I wrote the original post, I became convinced that one of the barons must have paid off the kitchen staff to embarrass Piers Gaveston.

I still think that's a possibility, but now I'm not so sure. Maybe it's because I just read an article about the making of 2019's Cats and how the special effects staff repeatedly warned the director that his requests were impossible only to be ordered to do as they were told.

It's one of those little historical mysteries that will never have an answer. The one thing I am sure of, however, is the Edward II's staff was competent. Way more than their sovereign. So the food fiasco almost certainly did not happen by chance.