9781529151657

Prince What Is History, Now?

HUTCHINSON HEINEMANN

UK | USA | Canada | Ireland | Australia India | New Zealand | South Africa

Hutchinson Heinemann is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com

Penguin Random House UK , One Embassy Gardens, 8 Viaduct Gardens, London SW11 7BW penguin.co.uk global.penguinrandomhouse.com

First published 2025 001

Copyright © Helen Carr, 2025

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Penguin Random House values and supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes freedom of expression and supports a vibrant culture. Thank you for purchasing an authorised edition of this book and for respecting intellectual property laws by not reproducing, scanning or distributing any part of it by any means without permission. You are supporting authors and enabling Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for everyone. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner for the purpose of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems.  In accordance with Article 4(3) of the DSM Directive 2019/790, Penguin Random House expressly reserves this work from the text and data mining exception.

Maps © Darren Bennett at DKB Creative Ltd (www.dkbcreative.com)

Typeset in 12/14.75pt Bembo Book MT Pro by Jouve (UK), Milton Keynes Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A.

The authorised representative in the EEA is Penguin Random House Ireland, Morrison Chambers, 32 Nassau Street, Dublin D02 YH68

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN : 978–1–52915–165–7 (hardback)

Penguin Random House is committed to a sustainable future for our business, our readers and our planet. This book is made from Forest Stewardship Council® certified paper.

For Henry – an actual hero

‘Sometime he angers me.

With telling me of the moldwarp and the ant, Of the dreamer Merlin and his prophecies, And of a dragon and a finless fish, A clip-wing’d griffin and a moulten raven, A couching lion and a ramping cat, And such a deal of skimble-skamble stuff As puts me from my faith.’

William Shakespeare, Henry IV , Part 1, 3.1, 144–51

‘A great historian, as he insisted on calling himself . . glories in his copious remarks and digressions . . . We belated historians must not linger after his example; and if we did so, it is probable that our chat would be thin and eager . . . I at least have so much to do in unravelling certain human lots, and seeing how they are woven and interwoven, that all the light I can command must be concentrated on this particular web, and not dispersed over that tempting range of relevancies called the universe.’

George Eliot, Middlemarch (Chapter 15)

Author’s Note

There are many characters within this book, and though many of their titles changed over the course of their lives I have tried to keep names consistent –  prioritising fluency and readability where I felt appropriate. Some major characters, namely Edward III ’s sons, are named after the places they were born, for example Lionel of Antwerp, John of Gaunt, or Gaunt’s son Henry Bolingbroke. For the nobility, I have either referred to them by their title, for example earl of Lancaster, or by their family name –  Despenser or de Clare. On occasion, I refer to a character on a first-name basis, i.e. Henry or Thomas. In regard to French or Spanish kings and characters, I have used the contemporary spellings of their name, for example King Jean II of France, or Pedro of Castile, to demonstrate the multilingual nature of medieval Europe. I hope the Cast of Characters that I have provided will help readers navigate the many players who feature within the book and see for themselves how they are interwoven into various European medieval dynasties.

For place names I have tried to retain consistency throughout, though there can be some confusion in reference to Aquitaine. I have largely used ‘Aquitaine’ to describe the large, (mostly) English-held territory in France, but in some instances I refer to Gascony rather than Aquitaine. Though both names can refer to the same area, Gascony is a slightly smaller duchy contained within the larger territory of Aquitaine. I have used the term ‘Gascony’ when it is referred to as such in the record. For distances between places I have rounded the number to the nearest whole figure, for readability. Throughout the book I have kept currency at contemporary sums. Most figures are to the pound but in regard to the 1381 rebellion I use ‘d’ meaning ‘pence’ and the unfamiliar term ‘groat’. In the fourteenth century there was roughly twelve pence to the shilling and twenty shillings to the pound. A groat was worth four pence.

In order to understand the value of fourteenth-century currency by today’s standards I have used the currency converter available on the National Archives website, and where appropriate noted the converted sum in my endnotes.

All quoted primary sources from the archive are quoted as written and have been transcribed and translated by me, or left in the contemporary French with a translation alongside. Where I have quoted from printed primary sources, I have quoted them as read.

Cast of Characters

Noteworthy players from royal families of England

Edward I (1239–1307), king of England (from 1272), also known as ‘Edward Longshanks’ and ‘Hammer of the Scots’

husband of:

Eleanor of Castile (1241–90), wife of Edward I (from 1254)

Margaret of France (c.1279–1318), wife of Edward I (from 1299); sister of Philip IV of France father of:

Joan of Acre (1272–1307), daughter of Eleanor of Castile

Mary of Woodstock (1278–1332), daughter of Eleanor of Castile

Elizabeth (1282–1316), daughter of Eleanor of Castile

Edward II (1284–1327), son of Eleanor of Castile; king of England (from 1307)

Edmund (1301–30), son of Margaret of France; earl of Kent; father of Joan of Kent

Isabella of France (c.1295–1358), wife of Edward II (1308–27), ‘Shewolf of France’, daughter of the French King Philip IV and Queen

Joan I of Navarre

Children of Edward II and Isabella of France:

Edward III (1312–1377), king of England (from 1327)

John of Eltham (1316–36)

Eleanor (1318–1355)

Joan (1321–62), queen of Scotland (from 1329) as the first wife of David II of Scotland

Philippa of Hainault (1314–69), wife of Edward III (from 1328)

Children of Edward III and Philippa of Hainault:

Edward the Black Prince (1330–76), earl of Chester (from 1335), duke of Cornwall (from 1337), prince of Wales (from 1343) and Aquitaine (from 1362); husband of Joan of Kent (from 1361)

Isabella (1332–c.1382)

Joan (1333/4–1348)

Lionel of Antwerp (1338–68), earl of Ulster (by 1347), duke of Clarence (from 1362); husband of Elizabeth de Burgh (1352–63) and Violante Visconti (1368)

John of Gaunt (1340–99), earl of Richmond (1342–72), earl of Derby, Lincoln and Leicester and duke of Lancaster (from 1362), duke of Aquitaine (from 1390), king of Castile and Léon (title claimed 1371–88); husband of Blanche of Lancaster (1359–68), Constance of Castile (1371–94), daughter of Pedro I, and Katherine Swynford (1396–99)

Edmund of Langley (1341–1402), earl of Cambridge (from 1362), duke of York (from 1385)

Mary (1344–61)

Margaret (1346–61)

Thomas of Woodstock (1355–97), earl of Buckingham (from 1377), duke of Gloucester (from 1385) *

Richard II (1367–1400), son of Edward the Black Prince and Joan of Kent; king of England (1377–99), known as ‘the White Hart’; earl of Chester, duke of Cornwall and prince of Wales (1376–99); husband of Anne of Bohemia (1382–94) and Isabella of Valois (from 1396)

Joan of Kent (c.1328–85), wife of Edward the Black Prince (from 1361) and mother of Richard II; countess of Salisbury (1344–9), countess of Kent (from 1352), princess of Wales (from 1361) and Aquitaine (from 1362)

Anne of Bohemia (1366–94), daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV; wife of Richard II (1382–94)

Isabella of Valois (1389–1409), duchess d’Orléans (from 1407); second wife of Richard II (from 1396)

John Holland (1352–1400), earl of Huntingdon (from 1388), duke of Exeter (1397–9) and half-brother of Richard II

Henry IV (c.1367–1413), son of Blanche Lancaster and John of Gaunt; king of England (from 1399); also known as Henry Bolingbroke and Henry Lancaster

Other noteworthy players from noble families of England

Piers Gaveston (c.1284–1312), close companion of Edward II; the earl of Cornwall (from 1307); husband of Margaret de Clare (from 1307)

Thomas of Lancaster (c.1278–1322), second earl of Lancaster, Leicester and Derby (from 1296) and the earl of Lincoln and Salisbury juxe uxoris (from 1311); grandson of Henry III and cousin of Edward II; husband of Alice de Lacy (from 1294)

Alice de Lacy (1281–1348), countess of Lincoln; daughter of Henry Lacy, the earl of Lincoln; wife of Thomas of Lancaster (from 1294)

Henry of Lancaster (1281–1345), third earl of Lancaster; younger brother of Thomas Lancaster and grandfather of Blanche of Lancaster

Blanche of Lancaster (1342–68), wife of John of Gaunt (from 1359); mother of King Henry IV and grandmother of Henry V

Hugh Despenser the Elder (1261–1326), earl of Winchester (from 1322); husband of Isabella de Beauchamp (from 1286)

Hugh Despenser the Younger (c.1287–1326), son of Hugh Despenser the Elder; lordship of Glamorgan (from 1317); husband of Eleanor de Clare (from 1306)

Eleanor de Clare (1292–1377), wife of Hugh Despenser the Younger (from 1306) and William la Zouche (from 1329); granddaughter of Edward I; daughter of Gilbert de Clare, seventh earl of Gloucester, and Joan of Acre, daughter of Edward I

sister of:

Gilbert de Clare (1291–1314), eighth earl of Gloucester; husband of Maud de Burgh (from 1308)

Margaret de Clare (1293–1342), wife of Piers Gaveston (1307–12) and Hugh de Audley (from 1317); daughter of the seventh earl of Gloucester

Elizabeth de Clare (1295–1360), wife of John de Burgh (1308–13), Theobald de Verdun (1316) and Roger Damory (from 1317)

Roger Damory (d. 1322), Lord Damory, baron d’Amory in Ireland, constable of Corfe Castle; favourite of Edward II along with Hugh de Audley and William Montagu

Elizabeth de Burgh (1332–63), duchess of Clarence; wife of Lionel of Antwerp (from 1352)

Roger Mortimer of Chirk (1256–1326), uncle of Roger Mortimer of Wigmore

Roger Mortimer of Wigmore (1287–1330), earl of March (from 1328); nephew of Roger Mortimer of Chirk; husband of Joan de Geneville, baroness of Geneville (from 1301); lover of Queen Isabella, mother of Edward III

Alice Perrers (1348–1400), mistress of Edward III

Thomas Beauchamp (1338–1401), earl of Warwick; one of the chief opponents of Richard II

Richard FitzAlan (1346–97), earl of Arundel; one of the chief opponents of Richard II

Robert de Vere (1362–92), earl of Oxford and Marquess of Ireland; favourite of Richard II

Thomas Mowbray (1366–99), duke of Norfolk

Main players in royal and noble families of Scotland, France and Castile and León

Scotland

John Balliol (1248–1314), king of the Scots (1292–6)

Edward Balliol (1283–1364), ruler of parts of Scotland (1332–56)

Robert Bruce (1274–1329), king of the Scots (from 1306); husband of Elizabeth de Burgh (from 1302)

Edward Bruce (c.1280–1318), earl of Carrick, high king of Ireland (from 1315); brother of Robert Bruce

Isabella Macduff (d. 1358), countess of Buchan

Elizabeth de Burgh (1289–1327), wife of Robert Bruce (from 1302)

David II (1324–71), son of Robert Bruce and Elizabeth de Burgh; king of the Scots (from 1329); husband of Joan of England (1328–62); daughter of Edward II and Margaret Drummond (from 1364)

James Douglas (c.1286–1330) , also known as ‘Black Douglas’ France

Philip IV (1268–1314), king of France (from 1285); husband of Joan I of Navarre (from 1284); King Philip I of Navarre (1284–1304), count of Champagne

Philip V (1292–1322), king of France (from 1317)

Charles IV of France (1294–1328), third son of Philip IV; king of France (from 1322), the last Capetian king of France

Philip VI (1293–1350), king of France (from 1328), the first Valois king

Jean II of France (1319–64), king of France (from 1350)

Charles V (1338–80), king of France (from 1364)

Charles VI (1368–1422), king of France (from 1380)

Castile and León

Alfonso XI (1311–50), king of Castile and León (from 1312 as a baby; reigned from 1325); husband of Queen Maria of Portugal (from 1328)

Pedro I (1334–69), son of Alfonso XI and Queen Maria of Portugal; betrothed to Joan, daughter of Edward III, but she died before they were wed; king of Castile and León (from 1350)

Constance (1354–94) and Isabella (1355−92), daughters of Pedro I; both later wives of the Black Prince’s brothers John of Gaunt and Edmund of Langley, respectively

Maps

Introduction

The fourteenth century in England has been dubbed ‘the calamitous fourteenth century’, known to posterity for everything that went wrong: a crisis period of famine, plague and war.1 It can, from a distance, look like everything went terribly awry from 1300 onwards – a prosperous realm tumbling into destitution. This dramatic change in personal and political circumstances is written about and visualised in medieval philosophy, literature and manuscript culture through the motif of the Wheel of Fortune. Spun at random by the goddess Fortuna, the Wheel is a recurrent and potent textual and artistic symbol that appears across manuscript illumination and storytelling, evidencing a sense of circularity in life and the changeable nature of fate. Medieval society was fatalistic and also, at the start of the fourteenth century, intensely hierarchical. Society was divided into around seven categories: serfs, peasants, merchants, knights, lords and nobility, the Church and the Crown. People rarely moved outside of their social spheres, bound by feudal law – an important legal aspect of medieval society –  where all land was held from the king in return for homage and service in times of war. Even ecclesiastical tenants were expected to provide spiritual services as remuneration. Time itself was similarly dictated by the major powers of the medieval world: the Church and the king. Dates were recorded with reference to the feasts and saints’ days of the liturgical year, as well as the number of years the current monarch had been on the throne: 29 September was known as Michaelmas, and after Edward II succeeded the throne, 1307 became known as the ‘first year of Edward II ’s reign’. In 1307, the new monarch Edward II inherited a prosperous but troubled kingdom. His father, Edward I, had ruled for over thirty years. Edward I was a fierce warrior and charismatic leader who was both revered and feared, making his presence felt across medieval Christendom. By 1300 he had conquered Wales, controlled Ireland

and had successfully invaded Scotland, with the intention of conquering the country entirely, thereby practically if not legally making himself supreme king of the British Isles. With Edward I at England’s helm, the start of the fourteenth century saw a realm thriving. Its population was growing, it had a flourishing European trade network and an expanding economy. But as soon as Edward II ascended the throne, the political atmosphere changed.

This book begins with the start of Edward II’s tumultuous reign and ends with the deposition of Richard II in 1399. Enclosed between these complex and intriguing reigns was a war with Scotland which lasted – on and off – into the sixteenth century, as well as the beginning of the Hundred Years War, which began in 1337 and ended in 1453. Northern Europe also saw catastrophic famine, followed only twenty years later by the largest human catastrophe in known history, the Black Death. Taking place halfway into the fourteenth century the Black Death reshaped the western world; its governance, social structures and the way people considered life and death. Half the population died, and into the seventeenth century people continued to live with the near-constant spectre of plague. Major movements and cultural changes emerged in England after the 1348 wave of the plague, mostly notably the 1381 rising known as the Peasants’ Revolt. These ran in tandem with the growth of a merchant class, wider access to education, religious reform and a period of self-betterment. The vernacular also changed, with the language of the court shifting from French to English, producing some of the greatest works of the English literary canon. By the end of the century England had become more Anglocentric. A pause in the war against France (which would resume under Henry V the following century) meant that the focus of power was domestic, rather than concentrated across the Channel. Covering almost one hundred years of history, the book is broken into five sections, each looking at the political or social changes during the century. Part One looks at the early reign of Edward II , showing how the accepted power structures and social stability of medieval England were thrown into tumult by weak leadership and favouritism. Part Two narrates the collapse of opposing powers through the contemporary symbol of the Wheel of Fortune, and

Part Three examines a new age of hope, European interest and national spirit. Part Four presents the century’s nadir, when it was ravaged by the inhumanity of war and the outbreak of plague and the plague’s consequences. Part Five looks at England as it found itself in a fragile and vulnerable position, ruled by a child who became a tyrant, and explores how the latter part of the fourteenth century became a space of great radical change.

The leading characters are the last of the Plantagenets, a royal dynasty that ruled from the twelfth century to the end of the fourteenth. Henry IV, who ruled from 1399, had Plantagenet ancestry, but he was the first king in two centuries who did not directly inherit the crown. I have therefore chosen to end the age of the Plantagenets with the deposition of Richard II .

In Middlemarch George Eliot explores human experience, morality and ego. On pondering the role of a historian, or even an observer of people, she writes, ‘I at least have so much to do in unravelling certain human lots, and seeing how they are woven and interwoven . . .’ This is a book about unravelling certain human lots and has two themes to its narrative –  power and humanity. There is so much we do not know about the people who lived during the fourteenth century, but what we do know is that they were human beings whose lives were dictated by power: the power of God and the power of kings. Three very different monarchs ruled during the fourteenth century, each with different ideas of what it meant to wield power; in doing so, they revealed their own humanity. One was corrupted by power, another overexerted his, and another demonstrated that power wielded through violence and fear is only ever temporary.

This book is told through the lens of the last Plantagenets but includes a wider focus on the people who coexisted with them. I am interested in a storytelling culture, in people who believed that their fate was intertwined with divine favour and that miracles could happen, who saw their lives as ruled by portentous signs and symbols. Although kings, queens and the nobility carry the narrative forward I have included – where possible – the experiences of common folk, women, and those living outside the royal sphere. I have also

included, where appropriate, examples of the art and literature of the age in order to offer a sense of what people imbibed from their environment. Culture is a fundamental part of human experience and although medieval people only saw as many images in their entire lifetime as we experience in one day, the cultural fabric of their world was immensely rich.

Over the last five years, and the course of writing the book, mankind has experienced a pandemic, the impact of climate change, two appalling wars and the unsettling rise of major Eastern and Western political powers. Now, perhaps more than ever, we can gain empathy for, and perhaps a fragment of insight into, how people of the fourteenth century felt about the world they lived in, when they endured famine, plague and brutal conflict at home and abroad.

By looking closely at the information available to us, asking questions of sources and ‘reading against the grain’, it is possible to access the emotions and humanity of people living in the fourteenth century.2 It is possible to study the psychology of kings –  who above all were just people –  and to reconsider canonical moments in history (which always favours the victors) with humanity and empathy. It is essential to consider history as human experience. If my readers come away from this book feeling they have come to know the characters as human beings and can reflect with empathy as well as intrigue upon the world they lived in, I will consider my job well done.

Helen Carr Cambridge, November 2024

Prologue

Avalon

Torches flickered in the biting spring breeze as twilight sent Glastonbury Abbey into darkness. To the sound of crows and the evening chorus of birdsong, an eerie and private ceremony began. In April 1278 the monks of Glastonbury had briefly paused traditional Easter liturgy, for Edward I, the king of England, had arrived in person with his queen, Eleanor of Castile, for another holy ceremony – the exhumation and reburial of a legendary king. From underneath a decrepit slab reading, ‘Here lies buried the renown King Arthur in the Isle of Avalon’, two wooden coffins, chipped and crumbling with age, were carefully lifted from the damp ground and cracked open under a wash of candlelight. Each revealed one skeleton, the first,  the saviour of the Britons – ‘Rex Arturius’ –  and the second, his queen, ‘Guinevere’. The skulls were carefully removed for ‘the veneration of the people’, the remaining bones delicately wrapped in silks and interred inside a black marble tomb flanked by two lions, with an effigy of Arthur himself. The tomb was then fitted into place at the abbey’s high altar. It remained a talisman of medieval kingship for the next three hundred years in Glastonbury, or as mythology told it, ‘Avalon’ –  the mythical meeting place of the dead.

Almost five centuries later in London, like ‘Arthur’, Edward I was also exhumed. Dr John Thomas, the dean of Westminster, sanctioned a request to exhume the illustrious king. The lid of his vast tomb was removed and its contents inspected, revealing a corpse ‘adorned with ensigns of royalty’: wrapped in a wax cloth, wearing a crimson mantle and gold and red royal robes, a crown planted upon its decaying head. Edward’s body was ‘almost intire, not withstanding the length of time it had been entombed . . . after the spectators had taken a sufficient view, the top of the coffin and the covering stone of

the tomb, were restored to their proper places, and fastened down by a strong cement of terrice before the dean retired from the chapel’.1

Like Arthur, Edward I had become a posthumous icon –  important enough to be exhumed. But the carefully inspected bones were a reminder of Edward’s mortality. The long-limbed, short-fused ‘Longshanks’. The astute and severe Plantagenet king who lived and ruled, played his role in shaping England as a realm. But Edward I lacked the longevity and omnipotence of legend. When in 1278 Edward exhumed ‘Arthur’ (or the corpse he believed to be Arthur) from the damp earth, he did so intending to reshape the institution of Plantagenet kingship. He exhumed a model of governance, one that the kings who followed him would either be burdened by, or would embrace and build upon. The marble lid of Arthur’s new tomb was sealed from all worldly light, but his ghost rattled into the fourteenth century. It carried a haunting prophecy of goats and boars, of war, famine and conquest. It carried whispers of what was to come for the last of the Plantagenet kings and this sceptred isle they governed.

Unto Destruction

‘But now concerning the demeanour of this new king, whose disordered maners brought himselfe and manie others vnto destruction; we find that in the beginning of his gouernement, though he was of nature giuen to lightnesse, yet being restreined with the prudent aduertisements of certeine of his councellors, to the end he might shew some likelihood of good proofe, be counterfeited a kind of grauitie, vertue and modestie.’1

Raphael Holinshed, Chronicles of England

1.

The King Is Dead

The beginning of the fourteenth century was marred by a bitter conflict between neighbouring realms. The border that divided them was a frontier blackened by fire. England and Scotland had been at war since 1296, when King Edward I invaded Scotland, asserting English royal authority over the country. The relationship between England and Scotland had historically been a peaceful one, a coexistence of two kingdoms with a permeable border and shared interests. But in the late thirteenth century Scotland faced a power vacuum.

The trouble started on a bleak stormy night in 1286, when the king of Scotland – and friend of the English – Alexander III left Edinburgh Castle on horseback. Riding through a tempest, the Scottish king tumbled down a deep ravine and broke his neck. Scotland became a country without a king. Edward I of England was invited to arbitrate what was originally a civil argument of succession. As feudal superior, Edward was effectively asked to oversee who the next monarch of Scotland should be. Edward played his part and John Balliol was installed on the throne, a weak king who allowed Edward to pull the strings of power in Scotland. Soon tired of serving as Edward’s vassal, Balliol tried to reclaim his authority and in 1295 entered into an alliance with the French. As France was an age-old enemy of English kings, this was the ultimate rebuff to Edward’s authority. Edward, famed for his fierce nature, was infuriated but also saw this as an opportunity to exert further power over Balliol. In 1296 he invaded Scotland and in one fell swoop claimed overlordship of the country and its people by force. Edward I had already been a successful conqueror. In Wales he had quelled the rebellions of princes and fortified the country with a ring of formidable garrisons. After his conquest of Wales, a country that had been once ruled by princes of Wales as vassals to the king was now ruled entirely by Edward. He was now able to name his own son, Edward, as prince of Wales. Much of Ireland

had been colonised over the previous century, with Edward having been granted the lordship as his apanage before coming to the throne. To control Scotland as he did Wales – possibly even marrying his son into the Scottish line of succession – would mean that Edward would be crowned and sceptred in Westminster, with his power stretching across the Isles as their ultimate overlord. But Scotland would not surrender, even as Edward took the country by village and town, beginning with Berwick-upon-Tweed.

The steep crenellated walls of Berwick Castle loomed over the River Tweed. Berwick was a bastion of defence, sitting so close to the edge of the yawning river that the water licked at its foundations. Garrison and port, town and royal castle, it straddled the border between England and Scotland, and was visible for miles. Dubbed another Jerusalem, it was besieged almost as often as the city in the Holy Land, as both England and Scotland demanded control of the north’s most powerful stronghold. Berwick was taken by Edward I in a brutal siege in 1296, during the first months of the first Scottish War of Independence –  a siege that cost the lives of all the men who had tirelessly defended it. It was, by the start of the fourteenth century, the place Edward kept his most important Scottish prisoners, including women.

Strung up from the highest towers, exposed to the punishing elements, was a cage, ‘well inforced [sic] . . . of strong wooden lattice and planking secured with iron’. Inside was a woman. Isabella, countess of Carrick and Buchan, who was being punished as a traitor. Edward had ordered that, ‘Because she did not strike with the sword, she will not perish by the sword . . . however, on account of the illicit coronation which she carried out’, she would be imprisoned, ‘in a little enclosure made of iron and stone in the form of a crown, solidly constructed, let her be suspended at Berwick under the open heavens, so as to provide, in life and after death, a spectacle for passers-by and eternal shame.’1

The countess’s crime was that in 1306 she had placed a crown on the head of Robert Bruce, a Scottish noble born into one of the most powerful families in Scotland and England, holding land on both sides of the border. Bruce was once loyal to Edward I but after John

Balliol was forced to abdicate, imprisoned by Edward I in the Tower of London, Scotland needed a new king to lead the country against the invading English. Bruce’s claim to the Scottish crown was in his blood; it was a role once coveted by his grandfather during the original arbitration a decade earlier, which went in favour of Balliol. At Scone in Perth –  the site of all Scottish coronations –  Robert Bruce had his chance and, per tradition, was crowned by a member of Clan Macduff:  Isabella of Buchan. A clan member by birthright, she was considered the appropriate Scottish noblewoman to do the deed. Firmly placing the crown on Bruce’s head, Isabella made Bruce king of Scotland and herself a traitor in the eyes of Edward I. In response, Edward I would stop at nothing to exact punishment and revenge.

Robert Bruce inherited a country oppressed by English force, with Edward packing garrisons across Scotland with English soldiers, and his opposition against the formidable English king was initially futile. Bruce went into hiding while he was hunted by English spies and soldiers. When he could not be found, Edward’s men turned on his people and his family.

In a bloody rout in 1306 at Kildrummy Castle in Aberdeenshire, Bruce’s family were captured. Robert’s sisters, Mary Bruce and Christina Bruce, with his daughter Marjorie, were taken to Berwick alongside Isabella and his queen, Elizabeth de Burgh, as prisoners. The castle went up in flames and Bruce’s brother Neil was murdered along with the rest of the castle’s residents.

Isabella and Mary (who was moved on to Roxburgh Castle and whose own ‘kage’ was built into its walls for all to see) were meant to be a spectacle and a warning. Where the men were butchered and their remains picked on by birds, these women were caged and tormented. Thomas Bruce – Robert’s brother – was captured and ‘drawn at the tails of horses in Carlisle’ before being ‘hanged and afterwards beheaded’.2 After one particularly chilling day, six rebel heads decorated the three gates of Carlisle, England’s principal northern fortress. By the beginning of the fourteenth century, England’s warrior king was seen by Peter Langtoft –  a chronicler from Yorkshire –  to have inflicted on Scotland ‘such slaughter I never saw before’.3 This was what happened if you moved against Edward I.

In the late summer of 1306, as Isabella dangled over Berwick-uponTweed, encased in iron, ‘so well and securely guarded in the same cage that she may not leave it in any way’, Edward was marching north.4 The king planned to join his men and his eldest son, Edward, prince of Wales, in Scotland, where, having captured Bruce’s family, they had been hunting the so-called traitors. In his pursuit and to incite terror, Prince Edward perhaps raised the dragon banner, ‘the royal standard, which they call the dragon, brothers –  presenting themselves for the deadly judgement of combat’.5 The Scottish force was led by noblemen with land and title on both sides of the border, but Edward ordered his men to ‘put to death all enemies and rebels’.6 Their status bought them no clemency.

While Edward’s dragon banner was a harbinger of terror and doom in Scotland, the 67-year-old Edward himself did not intimidate as he once had. Nicknamed ‘Longshanks’, the formerly tall, muscular and imposing figure was now ageing, sick and increasingly troubled by pain in his joints. Dosed up with pomegranate wine, rose water and a concoction of herbs, he was occasionally carried on a litter, his legs – bound in tight leather leggings – rendering him incapable of walking.7 Edward’s ailments meant that the march north was cumbersome and deathly slow. Eventually, the king and his company were forced to wait at Lanercost Priory, an Augustinian house built largely from the stones of Hadrian’s Wall. Edward was in so much pain he physically could not carry on and had to stay there for months. Glass windows were specially fitted to keep the icy wind from the old king’s bones.8

By the end of 1306, with Robert Bruce on the run, the rebellion had been quelled. Scottish nobles were slaughtered and dragged through the streets of Newcastle, even clergy and women – normally immune from punishment due to their religious status and chivalric law –  were stripped of everything they had and imprisoned in order to assert Edward’s aggressive policy for pacifying Scotland. But Edward maintained his resolve, determined to hunt down Bruce and the remaining rebels before his days were done. Dragging himself from Lanercost Priory, the king held parliament at Carlisle before moving forward to Scotland in early July 1307. His baggage train

wove through the undulating, craggy hills of Cumberland, the sound of steel rattling across the valleys. Despite a Herculean effort, Edward never reached Scotland. As Robert Bruce crept out of hiding, raising men on the white beaches of the Scottish Isles, Edward turned off the north road and moved west. He was destined for the old Hadrianic fortress town of Burgh by Sands. The move to march an army off the road that led directly north made no sense, unless Edward was going there to die.

Burgh by Sands was steeped in folklore. Aballava was the name of the Roman fortress at Burgh, otherwise called Avalon, and it was suggested by the twelfth-century French writer Marie de France, in her poem Lanval, that Avalon was found in Cumbria.9 To fourteenthcentury minds, this could mean that Burgh by Sands was Avalon, the place Arthur – according to legend – drew his last. Not Glastonbury, where Edward had recovered and re-interred his said-to-be corporeal remains. It is possible that Edward, who had cast himself in the role of Arthur, hedged his bets in his dying days. That he wished to die in ‘Avalon’. The elements hammered at the sides of Edward’s tent as he was nursed in his bed, withered by dysentery and age. Finally, when it was seen fit to move the gasping king, he was carefully lifted from his sheets in order to allow him to sit and eat something. Instead, that morning, on 6 July, Edward I, the formidable ‘Hammer of the Scots’, died in the arms of his servant.

Marking Edward I’s obsession with conquering Scotland, the chronicler Jean Froissart later relayed that his son the prince of Wales was made to swear to his father that ‘he would have his body boiled in a large cauldron until the flesh should be separated from the bones; that he would have the flesh buried, and the bones preserved; and that every time the Scots should rebel against him he would summon his people, and carry with him the bones of his father’.10 Froissart’s account builds on the image of Edward I as a king that was feared. But Edward’s bones were not boiled. This later description of Edward’s wishes was simply a eulogy to his fearsome reputation. Like Plantagenet kings before him, Edward I was interred at Westminster Abbey, a mausoleum for his ancestors, presided over by the patron saint Edward the Confessor. A glimmer of Edward’s legacy is etched

in the Purbeck marble of his tomb in a laconic inscription: ‘Edward the First, Hammer of the Scots. Keep Troth’.11

The succession was set: the crown and responsibility of the realm would go to his only surviving son, Edward Caernarfon, prince of Wales –  named after his father, but, his contemporaries believed, entirely unlike him. Where Edward I cast himself in the image of the legendary King Arthur, who united the Britons, Edward II was destined to do the opposite.

Affable and charismatic, Edward II was as likeable as his father was menacing. To many, the transition from father to son may have come with a sigh of relief. Edward II , according to a contemporary, was ‘a handsome man, strong in body and limb’.12 He cut the figure of a king but lacked the important features necessary to retain control over an entire kingdom: nous, political strength and popularity. Edward’s interests were more basic and his friends more rustic. He preferred sport, rowing or labouring to governing. He was known to bring ale to the thirsty on hot days, befriend workmen and take an interest in building and construction.13 On one occasion, Edward is said to have almost drowned rowing, ‘with a great company of simple people’, on the Cambridgeshire Fens, when his boat overturned.14 The oldest son of Edward I and Eleanor of Castile, Edward’s only full surviving siblings were his older sisters, Joan, Margaret, Eleanor, Mary and Elizabeth. After the tragic death of Queen Eleanor of Castile in 1290, his father had married the French princess Margaret, forty years his junior, and had two sons, Thomas and Edmund. However, these boys were much younger than Edward. What he lacked and longed for was fraternal company. In the latter years of Edward I’s reign, the prince began to form attachments to other courtiers, most notably a young squire called Piers Gaveston, placed in Edward’s household when the prince was a boy. ‘Handsome, nimble, quick witted, of an inquisitive disposition and fairly well practiced in the arts of war’ is how one chronicler described Piers Gaveston. It is possible that Gaveston –  probably slightly Edward’s senior –  was meant to befriend Edward, or even inspire him to take interest in warfare, tournaments and the chivalric celebrations enjoyed by his father, but

not Edward himself.15 The friendship blossomed and Piers Gaveston became Prince Edward’s favourite friend. It was not long, however, before Gaveston began to push the boundaries of noble hierarchy.

Around the time of Edward I’s final campaign to Scotland in 1307, the prince approached the king’s treasurer requesting the county of Ponthieu in northern France be given to his friend. The prince could be easily manipulated by the charming and persuasive Gaveston, but not his battle-hardened and intimidating father. Edward’s relationship with his father had always been volatile but this bold request was incendiary. One account describes the old king boiling himself into such a rage with the prince of Wales over requesting that land should be given as a gift to Gaveston that he grabbed him and tore out a fistful of his hair, spitting: ‘You bastard son of a bitch! Now you want to give lands away, you who never gained any!’16 Gaveston was given two months before he was sent into an exile which was perhaps as much of a punishment for Prince Edward as it was for Gaveston. Edward I clearly saw the relationship as a serious threat and it was allegedly stated by the dying king that under no condition should Gaveston be allowed to return to the realm and the company of the prince.17 It is more likely, however, that this deathbed scene is a flourish, adding fuel to the later argument that Piers Gaveston and Edward II had developed a homosexual relationship, that ‘he had bound himself with him before all other mortals’.18

Accounts of supposed homosexual relationships in the Middle Ages rarely offer clear evidence of those involved identifying as such, and the term itself was not yet in existence.19 People around Edward related how he treated Gaveston with ‘love’ and ‘tenderness’ and after around three years in the prince’s household, Gaveston was described as his ‘socius’ or ‘companion’, which was not uncommon for young men, particularly soldiers.20 Their relationship was later portrayed as homosexual based on these contemporary accounts, yet there is no direct evidence to prove this. The nature of the relationship between Piers Gaveston and Edward II is tantalisingly obscure, but it appears to have been deeply loving and romantic –  to contemporaries, this could have appeared ‘queer’, in that their physical closeness did not