The Inglorious Reign of Edward II

Edward I’s Only Failure – Piers Gaveston – The Ordainers – On the Brink of Civil War – Robert the Bruce and the First Scottish War of Independence – Blunder at Bannockburn – The Scots in Ireland – The Barons Take the Helm – The Rise of the Despensers – Civil War Erupts – Conflict with France – The She-Wolf of France & a coup d’état – The March on London – The Fall of the Despensers – A Grisly Death?

Edward II & Piers Gaveston

Medieval historians joke that Edward II was Edward I’s only failure. The younger Edward’s reign was marked by conflict with nobles, scandal for his sexual proclivities, and he was eventually overthrown by his wife in favor of his eldest son Edward (future Edward III). Though Edward II was his father’s fourth son, his older brothers died before him. He was the first crown prince to be named the Prince of Wales, in 1301. He was 23 years old when he ascended the throne, and he immediately recalled his best friend (and likely gay lover) Piers Gaveston, the son of a Gascon knight, from exile, making him his chief advisor. Edward I had banished Gaveston to France in early 1307 because of his undue influence on the crown prince; the final straw for Gaveston’s exile came when young Edward asked his father to name Gaveston as the Count of Ponthieu. Upon returning to England, Gaveston was made the Earl of Cornwall, a title customarily given to royalty. This in itself caused turmoil, but it was just the beginning. Edward was slated to marry the daughter of Philip IV of France; Isabella had just turned 12, thus having come-of-age, and their marriage had been orchestrated by Edward’s father as part of the peace treaty that had kept Gascony in English hands. When Edward departed England for France to marry his betrothed, he left Gaveston in charge of the country. Gaveston ran afoul of the barons: he thought he was better than them, and he was quick to show his disdain, flat-out mocking them and giving them witty nicknames aimed at their faults. He called the Earl of Warwick “the black hound”; to which Warwick replied, with a note of prophetic doom, “Let him call me ‘hound.’ One day the hound will bite him.” To make the barons’ loathing of him worse, Gaveston often beat them in the jousting lists that were a popular (and honorable) pastime among the English aristocracy. When Edward returned from his wedding in France, he gave Isabella’s dowry, along with a number of their wedding gifts, to Gaveston; and on the night of Edward II’s coronation just a month after the wedding, Edward spent the night with Gaveston rather than with his wife. Edward thus wasn’t shy in his favoritism with Gaveston, and the barons—and the young Queen Isabella—soon became fed up with it.

A group of incensed barons formed a coalition and called themselves the “Ordainers.” They had the support of Queen Isabella, who was well aware of her husband’s sexual proclivities and spiffed at how he treated her second best in lieu of Gaveston; and her father, the King of France, threw in his support as well. Edward called a parliament in January 1310, but the Ordainers refused to show up as a sign of protest against the power in Gaveston’s hands. The next year the Ordainers issued the “Ordinances,” an attempt to curb royal control of finance and appointments. Edward was cornered, and though he had originally scoffed at the thought of assenting to the Ordinances, in October 1311 he did just that. Part of the Ordinances included the exile of Gaveston, and Edward’s favorite went packing to France. Edward hoped that the implementation of the Ordinances would cool the fire burning in the barons’ hearts, but baronial resistance to Edward’s rule continued to rise. With nothing to lose, Edward revoked the Ordinances and recalled Gaveston from France. The barons, enraged at Edward’s actions, put their weight behind the sword rather than the pen. In early 1312 they began plotting to capture Edward, Isabella, and Gaveston. When rumors of the plot reached Edward in the spring, the three of them fled north from London. The earls of Lancaster and Pembroke gave chase. Edward and his wife split from Gaveston and fled to York; Gaveston bunkered down at Scarborough. Pembroke cornered Gaveston and captured him. Putting him in chains, Pembroke started heading back south towards London, but before they could reach the city, they were accosted by the Earl of Warwick. Warwick hadn’t forgotten his promise to be true to his nickname, and he ferried Gaveston to his castle, conducted a mock trial, and had Gaveston convicted of treason. Piers Gaveston was executed on 19 June 1312. 

When Edward heard of Gaveston’s execution, his heart was wounded and his blood boiled. He vowed to bring the conspirators to justice—but England was on the brink of civil war. When the earls of Pembroke and Surrey pledged their allegiance to Edward in light of Gaveston’s absence, Edward thought it prudent to cool the fire in his heart and keep England from turning in on itself. The cost of vengeance would be a kingdom, and that cost was too high. Now that Gaveston was out of the picture, the barons were more open to reconciliation with their king. One by one the recalcitrant barons returned to Edward’s side, and by 1313 Edward’s hold on England was secure enough to wrest a grant of money from parliament to continue his father’s legacy in Scotland. 

Robert the Bruce had not been idle in the years after Edward I’s death, and Edward II thought he could bring Scotland back into the English fold. After the Battle of Loudon Hill, Bruce marched north and captured two castles and burned two more. Later that year he seized two more castles. He was dogged by the family of Comyn, whose distaste for the English was rivaled only by their loathing of the Bruces. In 1308 Bruce divided his attention between the English and the Comyns, and he marched into the Scottish lands called Buchan, which was ruled by Clan Comyn, and smashed the Earl of Comyn at the Battle of Barra in May. Bruce followed up this victory with a scourging of the Buchan, which has become known as the “Rape of Buchan”, with the sole aim of extinguishing his Comyn rivals: most of the Comyn castles were destroyed and their inhabitants massacred. Bruce ordered further ravaging in the territories of Clan MacDougall, allies of the Comyns, and he fully defeated the MacDougalls at the Battle of Pass of Brander. In the end Comyn control over most of northern and southwestern Scotland—a control that had lasted a century and a half—was brought to an end. In March the next year, 1309, Robert held his first Scottish parliament at St. Andrews, and by the end of that summer he controlled all of Scotland north of the River Tay. In 1310 the Scottish clergy recognized Robert as king at a general council. King Robert looked south towards England and suggested peace between him and Edward II. The English king didn’t bite, so Robert ramped up his ousting of the scattered English garrisons still left in Scotland. The next three years saw the reduction or seizure of English-held castles as well as sporadic raids into northern England. English forces tried to lure Robert into a set-piece battle, but Robert stayed true to his guerilla tactics and refused to give in. By the turn of 1314 Robert had recaptured most of the English-held castles in Scotland and intensified his raids into northern England, which now reached as far south as Carlisle. 

Edward II could bear Robert no longer, and by this time enough barons had returned to his side after the Gaveston Affair that he was able to secure a grant of money from parliament to reclaim Scottish land that had been seized by Robert the Bruce. Edward sketched out a campaign with the support of Lancaster and a number of powerful barons, and he hoped his father’s luck would follow him on the battlefield. Edward knew that victory against Robert the Bruce would overshadow the Gaveston Affair, and his popularity would soar to unforeseen heights. If he failed, however, it would be a wound to his reputation that may prove mortal. The king knew it was a gamble, but he tossed the dice and mustered an army between 15,000 and 20,000 strong. But the Scots got a jump on him: in the spring of 1314, Robert’s brother Edward laid siege to Stirling Castle while other Scottish leaders captured Roxburgh and Edinburgh castles. The governor of Stirling promised Robert that he would surrender the castle unless English relief reached him by June 24th; when Edward heard this, he decided to speed up his campaign and made a hurried march north from Berwick to relieve Stirling Castle before the appointed date. Robert had only 6000 troops, mostly spearmen, to send against Edward’s 15-20,000 men. Nevertheless Robert didn’t back down but steeled himself to splinter the English army before they could reach beleaguered Stirling. 

Robert the Bruce slays Sir Henry de Bohun

Edward’s army consisted of ten divisions, each commanded by a senior nobleman or experienced knight. On the 23rd of June Edward attempted to force his way across the high ground of the Bannock Burn, a snaking waterway encapsulated by marshland. His vanguard came into contact with the Scots, and a young English knight named Sir Henry de Bohun spied the Scottish king in council with some of his leading soldiers. Bohun, driven by a desire to win glory, charged straight for the Scottish king. Robert, mounted on a light palfrey and armed with a sword and axe, looked outmatched by the English knight who rode a destrier and was armed with lance and shield. Robert spurred on to meet his opponent, and as the distance closed, de Bohun lowered his lance and charged. Robert evaded the lance and thundered past de Bohun, striking him with his axe. The blow was so strong that it broke the axe, but de Bohun’s head took the most damage: his skull was split in two, and the axe wedged into his breastbone. This is the Scottish account of de Bohun’s death; the English account tells us that Sir Bohun was fleeing, with his back turned, when the Scottish king dishonorably struck him down. Whatever the circumstances around de Bohun’s death, we know for a fact that the English, enraged, charged the Scottish line—but the Scots had formed up into their schiltrons, presenting the English with a  hedge of impermeable spears, and the English couldn’t penetrate. Edward recalled his men, and the Scots scurried away.

Edward II rallies his men before battle

Edward pushed the advance the next day, on the 24th, and his 15,000-strong army came face-to-face with the Scottish host as they emerged from the New Park woods. The Scots knelt down before the English, and for a moment Edward thought they were surrendering! But then they stood up: they hadn’t been bowing to the English but praying to God. He was shocked when the prayers finished and the Scots began to shuffle into their formations. The 23-year-old Earl of Gloucester approached Edward and explained that it would be best if they didn’t fight that day; the English army had spent the night in the marshes around the Bannock Burn, and they’d had hardly a lick of sleep thanks to the infamous Scottish midges. Edward accused Gloucester of cowardice, and the earl, determined to show the king wrong, charged the Scottish spearmen. He didn’t get far: the spearmen cut him to pieces. The English army, watching his charge, found their morale dampened. Because the terrain was bad, Edward didn’t think the Scots meant to give battle; it was more likely that they were trying to intimidate the English. He ordered the English to fall into marching order and pushed them on. This was a mistake: Robert indeed intended to give battle, and the English marching order put the longbowmen—who were adept at breaking up the Scottish schiltrons—in the rear, where they would be little help in case of an attack. The 2000-strong English heavy cavalry marched in the vanguard, but they soon found that the terrain was not to the horses’ liking; this was the work of Robert. The Scottish king had ordered the digging of hundreds of holes, each measuring just a few feet long, along the path of Edward’s advance. The holes were capable of breaking a horse’s legs, and thus the cavalry were forced to advance, bunched together along a narrow Roman road. As the cavalry packed together on the road, Robert ordered his spearmen to charge. The cavalry, unable to maneuver because of the holes in the ground, were easy prey for the Scottish spearmen. The Scottish host plunged themselves at Edward’s army, still strung out in marching order, and the English were penned between the Bannock Burn and the Scottish schiltrons. The English soldiers were pressed together; the Scottish archers fired over the heads of their comrades into the massed men; and the English longbowmen, shoved shoulder-to-shoulder in the ever-tightening noose, lacked room to fire their bows. Panic gripped the English ranks as they faced death by drowning in the Burn—for many were heavily armored, and would sink, while others didn’t know how to swim—or death upon Scottish pikes. Though scattered remnants of the English army managed to make it across the Burn, most of Edward’s men were either slain or drowned. The king managed to escape, fruitlessly begging for entrance into Stirling Castle before high-tailing it to Dunbar and taking a ship to Berwick before retreating to York. Stirling Castle, stripped of any hope of reinforcements, capitulated to the victorious Scots. The English defeat at Bannockburn was a “calamity of stunning proportions,” according to the historian Roy Haines, not only for English ambitions in Scotland but also for Edward’s reign: though he had salvaged his reputation in the wake of the Gaveston Affair, he had tarnished it beyond repair in his blunder against Robert the Bruce. 

The Battle of Bannockburn

Robert the Bruce’s victory at Bannockburn cemented Scotland’s independence: Edward II’s son, Edward III, would officially recognize Scottish independence, and Scotland would remain free until the Act of Union in 1707. None of this was foreseen in the aftermath of the battle, of course: Robert the Bruce still had a war to fight. England and Scotland continued tussling for years; Bruce led many invasions into England, and the English reacted with counter-invasions of their own. The coveted port town of Berwick changed hands again and again. The Pope excommunicated Robert and placed Scotland under edict, but the 1320 Declaration of Arbroath helped change this. The Declaration, signed in Arbroath Alley under the seals of eight Scottish earls, contained a statement of the origins of the Scottish people and declared their independence from England. The Declaration was recognized by Pope John XXII, and he lifted Robert’s excommunication (thought the edict over Scotland wouldn’t be lifted until 1328). Ireland became a focal point of the Scottish struggle against England. Robert invaded Ireland in 1315 under the guise of freeing the Irish from English rule (but really hoping to open a second front against King Edward II and to expand Scottish overlordship). The Irish crowned Robert’s brother, Edward Bruce, High King of Scotland the next year, and Robert began promoting the idea of a “Pan-Gaelic Greater Scotia,” in which his lineage would rule over both Scotland and Ireland. The Bruces managed to win over many northern Irish chieftains, but the Ulster clans refused to embrace Scottish rule. Southern Ireland saw no difference between English and Scottish rule, and as far as they were concerned, the famines and scourging resulting from English and Scottish conflict was worse than living under English lordship. The struggle in Ireland came to a screeching halt in autumn 1318 when High King Bruce was killed at the Battle of Faughart. Robert’s ambitions for Ireland fell apart, and he returned his attention to home rule. Nearly ten years later, in May 1328, Edward III recognized Scotland as an independent kingdom and Bruce as its king in the Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton. Robert the Bruce died the next year, on 7 June 1329. Contemporary chroniclers contributed his death to leprosy, but in the 14th century “leprosy” could refer to any gross skin disease. Researchers from the University of Western Ontario recently exhumed Robert’s bones and found no trace of leprosy; proposals for his mortal sickness include tuberculosis, syphilis, motor neurone disease, cancer, or stroke. Whatever the cause of his death, his throne went to his infant son, and Scotland would be ruled by Bruce’s most trusted lieutenant until the infant king reached adulthood.

The Battle of Boroughbridge

Robert the Bruce would become a star in Scottish history; Edward II would become known as one of England’s most inept kings. He returned to England bested and humiliated, with his reputation in tatters; and when that autumn’s harvest was bad and the price of food went through the roof, the English folk began blaming the failed harvest on Edward’s bungle at Bannockburn. The barons with whom he’d been reconciled began to back away yet again, and another cabal of powerful barons, these headed by his cousin Thomas of Lancaster, began exerting control over the English king. By 1315 Lancaster had made himself the de facto ruler of England, but he did little to reform the government and large swathes of the country plummeted into anarchy. By 1318 the upstart moderate Earl of Pembroke acted as mediator between Edward and his cousin, but by now the English king had two new favorites: Hugh le Despenser and his son, also named Hugh. The Despensers were Marcher lords along the borders of Wales (now controlled by England), and they hoped that by association with Edward they could expand their private kingdoms into the recently-acquired Welsh territories. The barons, sensing that Edward was falling back into his old patterns, demanded that he reinstate the Ordinances and exile the Despensers—the situation was the same as it had been with Gaveston, except now the names were different. But this situation would have a different ending: Edward had submitted to the barons to spare England a civil war, but this time he wouldn’t budge, and England would be plunged into momentary chaos. When the barons ordered the father-and-son Despenser duo banished, Edward took up arms on their side. Civil war erupted: Edward and the Despensers stood on one side, and the rebellious barons, led by a man named Roger Mortimer, stood on the other. The barons tried to take London in August 1321 but failed, and their coalition began to grow ragged as supporters dropped out. Edward defeated the weakened Lancaster—who had appealed to England’s enemy, the Scots, for help—at Boroughbridge on 16 March 1322. Edward executed his cousin six days later and initiated a heavy-handed rule with the Despensers at his side. 

But as soon as he had brought the rebellious barons to heel, he was pitted against England’s running enemy, France. In 1323 the new King of France, Charles IV, summoned Edward to come and pay him homage for England’s French territories. When Edward refused to show, Charles IV invaded Gascony. Gascony was held by 4500 English soldiers, and Edward knew they didn’t stand a chance against France. Hoping he could smooth out his bumpy relations with the new French king, in March 1325 he sent his wife Isabella and his oldest son Edward to France to pay homage to Charles IV so that he would withdraw his troops from Gascony. That September Edward traveled to France himself to pay homage, and though he returned to England, his wife didn’t. Queen Isabella had fallen in love with her husband’s long-time nemesis, Roger Mortimer. 

Roger Mortimer

Isabella was the sole surviving daughter of the late Philip IV of France, and because of her adultery and role in the overthrow and execution of her husband, she came to be known as “The She-Wolf of France.” Isabella had loathed Gaveston, but she feared the Despensers; when she was sent to France, she went happily, glad to be free of her husband’s right-hand men. While in France she grew close to Roger Mortimer, who (like the Despensers) had been a Marcher lord along the Welsh border. Mortimer had been stripped of his land after his key role in the failed baronial rebellion against Edward and the Despensers. The loss of land had been the least of his worries: Edward had sentenced him to death. The death sentence was reduced to imprisonment in the Tower of London, but this was just a stay of execution. When Edward decided to have Mortimer executed anyways, the ex-Marcher lord managed to escape the Tower and sought exile in France. Isabella’s friendship with Mortimer blossomed into much more, and when their love became public knowledge, the Pope was furious: Isabella was married to the English king, so her affair wasn’t only scandalous, it was treasonous as well. Charles IV of France, not wishing to harbor the papal fugitives, banished them from his kingdom. They knew they couldn’t return to England, so they fled to the city of Hainault, in Flanders (which had rebelled against Charles) where they appeased the rogue Count of Flanders by betrothing Isabella’s son, the Prince of Wales, to the Count’s daughter Philippa. Their court in Hainault became a sanctuary for exiles—and the headquarters for a planned revolt against Edward and the Despensers. 

Edward didn’t care about his wife’s adultery; but he did care about his son, the Prince of Wales. He petitioned Charles for help in getting his son returned to him, and when the French king refused, Edward declared war on France. This emboldened the plotters’ machinations against the English throne. They didn’t want to use French troops for their planned coup d’état, since French foreigners on English soil would galvanize support even for a king as loathed as Edward II. The plotters settled on using 700 Flemish mercenaries and ships to transport them, and they would be commanded by the Count of Flanders’ brother. When Edward caught wind of his estranged wife’s plots, he mobilized the English navy, strengthened coastal defenses, and ordered soldiers to be drawn up. But Edward’s popularity was at an all-time low as the Despensers gobbled up more and more power, and the people of England were beginning to favor the Queen-in-Exile to the rightful king; thus the response to Edward’s orders was lacking. All throughout England his royal summons were ignored, and when they were obeyed, they were obeyed “to the letter” (i.e. within the confines of technicality, so that the response was just enough to be considered compliant). Isabella’s army set sail in a dozen ships on 23 September 1326 and met no resistance: Edward’s fleet had mutinied, and the royal ships had dispersed to engage in piracy against French merchantmen in the Channel. Isabella landed in the territory of the Earl of Norfolk, who was the son of Edward I from his second wife Margaret. Norfolk sided with Queen Isabella, and as Isabella’s ragtag force neared London, nobles allied with her. Manors linked to the Despensers were plundered, but property belonging to anyone else was left unscathed. As she marched, Isabella spread leaflets promising an end to her husband’s tyranny, a restoration of English justice, and the removal of the hated Despensers. Edward’s support trickled away as Isabella neared London, and the king and the Despensers fled the capital. Rioting broke out throughout the city, and any royal officials who didn’t leave the premises were persecuted. Royal property was destroyed, and London’s mayor issued a statement in favor of Isabella before being stripped of his position. The new London mayor released Isabella’s other three children, and Mortimer’s extended family, from the Tower of London (they had been imprisoned in the wake of Isabella’s defection). The Bishop of Exeter, who was responsible for England’s taxes, was cornered in a churchyard; a mob subdued him, cut off his head, and had it delivered to Queen Isabella as a token of their loyalty. 

Hugh Despenser's grisly death

Isabella took London without any problems and intensified her pursuit of the king. At Bristol, the elder Hugh Despenser led Edward’s rearguard as he tried escaping into Wales. Isabella’s forces caught up with him, and he was captured. Isabella had promised to remove the Despensers, and English justice worked swiftly with Edward’s right-hand man: he was given a hurried trial and sentenced to a torturous death. He was hung, drawn, and quartered, and his head was put on display in Winchester. Edward managed to escape into Wales, and rumors spread that he had abandoned the British Isles altogether. On 26 October 1326, just a month after Isabella landed in England, Prince Edward was named Custodian of the Realm, and he issued writs for the summoning of parliament. But when it was learned that Edward II hadn’t left England after all, the younger Edward’s writs were rendered null and void (it was the king who held the seal of England, and without his seal, no law was valid). Isabella’s followers continued hunting the unlucky king, and he was captured in Neath Abbey. His few supporters were hung without trial, and the king was forced to give up his royal seal. He and the surviving Hugh Despenser were put in chains. The young Despenser’s trial was held on 26 November, where he, like his father, was condemned as a traitor, heretic, and sodomite. He was dragged to the gallows, hanged from a height of fifty feet, cut down, eviscerated while still breathing, and then beheaded before his body was cut into pieces. His head was put on display on London Bridge. 

the younger Hugh Despenser was chopped into pieces

Edward II, though in chains, was still king, and in order for a new king to be named, he had to either vacate the throne voluntarily in favor of the Prince or Wales—or he had to die. He couldn’t be executed, because his death needed to come from natural causes. Roger Mortimer ordered the Archbishop of Canterbury to issue a proclamation alleging (falsely) that Edward II had handed the throne to his son, but the younger Edward refused to meet with parliament until he knew for certain that his father had done so (which he hadn’t). Edward II, lacking enough supporters, felt the pressure grow, and it wasn’t long before he succumbed to the wishes of his people and proclaimed the Prince of Wales the new King of England. The crown prince took the regal name Edward III and began his reign on 25 January 1327; but because he was fifteen, the actual rule of the kingdom fell to the Queen Mother, Isabella, who was increasingly in the pocket of her lover. 

Mortimer knew Edward II would have to be dealt with, since he was still alive and had supporters who could cause problems in the new government. On 21 September 1327 Edward II was proclaimed dead (due to “internal trouble during the night”) while imprisoned at Berkeley Castle. His body was publicly displayed to smash any rumors that he was still alive, and his body showed no marks of violence. But because Edward II had only been 43, and had enjoyed good health, a natural death seemed unlikely. A more fitting scenario is that he was murdered on Mortimer’s orders (and with the compliance of Isabella). Though legend eventually stated that he was killed by having a red hot poker, or a tube of burning copper, shoved up his rectum (a reference to his sexual proclivities), this isn’t likely, for such burns would’ve been seen and recorded by onlookers. If the late king had been smothered, no marks would’ve been visible. Some recent historians have speculated that Edward II’s death was staged and that he survived until 1330, exiled in Italy. Many contemporary influential people in the upper echelons of English society—including numerous earls and sheriffs, royal officials, the mayor of London, and the Archbishop of York—were adamant that Edward’s death was a sham and that he lived on—at least for a time.