The Perfect King (39 page)

The speed of Edward's advance was almost his only achievement on this campaign. The Scots withdrew at the approach of the English, and Edward had a miserable time in Ettrick Forest, trying to bring them to
battle
. He returned in a despondent mood, and only found a chance to redeem some fragment of glory when he learnt that David planned to hold his Christmas festivities at Melrose Abbey. This gave Edward a strong incentive for remaining in Scotland until then, to make sure that
he
was the one to stay at Melrose. The earl of Derby was directed to hold Christmas at Roxburgh, to safeguard the border and the security of the
castle
itself.

The notable feature of this campaign were the jousts of war. These were rare events in which knights rode against each other with their lances uncapped and sharpened, as if in
battle
. Normally jousts were jousts of peace, with lances capped with coronals, although men were often injured or killed from falls or internal injuries in these events too. Sir William Douglas came to Roxburgh, and with eleven of his knights, challenged the earl and his companions to a joust of war. His motive may have been to joust for the prize of the Scottish
castle
s which remained in English hands, for such jousts were recorded as receiving royal licence, and took place at Roxburgh and Berwick. Maybe even the right to hold Christmas at Melrose was decided by a joust of war. If so, Edward's knights won, for there he remained for the latter part of December. Sir William Douglas was so severely hurt in his joust with the earl of Derby that he had to be carried back to Scotland. At Berwick, where twelve knights jousted on either side, two Scots knights were killed and one English knight, Sir John Twyford. The campaign resulted in nothing more than a truce until May. Edward left Melrose on or about
30
December, and came south slowly, through Cornhill, Bamburgh and Alnwick to Newminster, where he remained for two weeks. He then set out on his long journey back to the south-east, to attend the great tournament at Dunstable.

This brings us to one of the most famous, or infamous, stories about Edward
III
: his supposed infatuation for, and rape of, the countess of Salisbury, his best friend's wife. It appears in its fullest version in the chronicle of the Hainaulter, Jean le Bel, who had come to England in
1327.
In brief, the story goes as follows. On the Melrose campaign, while Edward was still at New
castle
, a
castle
belonging to the earl of Salisbury was besieged by the Scots. In the
castle
was the earl's wife. The governor of the
castle
was supposedly the earl's nephew, the son of his sister, also called Sir William Montagu (according to le Bel). This Sir William escaped the siege and came to Edward at New
castle
, and begged him to bring assistance to his lady. Edward charged off to the rescue. The besieging Scots army fled, and Edward camped near the
castle
. He then decided he would take a dozen knights and visit the countess, one of the most beautiful women in England, whom he had not seen since her marriage. On hearing of his approach, the countess threw open the gates of the
castle
. She knelt in front of him, thanking him for his help, and led him into the
castle
. The king was utterly smitten by her, and, after brooding over her all evening, confessed his strong feelings. Her response was to beg him neither to tempt nor mock her, for what he was suggesting would bring dishonour to him, to her and to her husband the earl, who was at that time still in prison in France. Nevertheless, Edward continued to gaze at her longingly, his knights quite surprised to see him so besotted. Nothing untoward happened, however, and the next day he departed, and continued on his campaign, returning to England by a different route. However, in mid-August
1342,
after her husband's return from captivity, Edward invited them both to a great tournament at London, to which the countess - to whom le Bel now gives the name Alice - came dressed as plainly as possible, suspecting the king's fascination with her was the reason for the invitation. Once again Edward did not pursue her. But, later in the year, when her husband had been despatched to fight in Brittany, Edward returned to her
castle
under the pretence of inspecting it for security. On this third occasion, in le Bel's words:

The good lady made him as much honour and good cheer as she could, as she knew she ought to for her lord's sake, although she would have preferred him to have gone elsewhere, so much she feared for her honour. And so it was that the king stayed all day and night, but never could get from the lady the answer agreeable to him, no matter how humbly he begged her. Come the night, when he had gone to bed in proper state, and he knew that the fine lady was in her bedchamber and that all her
ladies were asleep and his gentl
emen also, except his personal valets, he got up and told these valets that nothing must interfere with what he was going to do, on pain of death. So it was that he entered the lady's chamber, then shut the doors of the wardrobe so that her maids could not help her, then he took her and gagged her mouth so firmly that she could not cry out more than two or three times, and then he raped her so savagely that never was a woman so badly treated; and he left her lying there all battered about, bleeding from the nose and the mouth and elsewhere, which was for her great damage and great pity. Then he left the next day without saying a word, and returned to London, very disgusted with what he had done.

According to the story, the countess was never happy again. In a distraught state, she told her husband what had happened on his return from the Continent. The man was overcome with grief and so angry that he decided to leave England. Having settled half his estate on her and his heir, he went to fight the Moors,
and died in the siege of Algec
iras.

When Froissart came to this part of le Bel's manuscript he was profoundly shocked. Although le Bel had in several places prefaced his description of events with the words that he had only heard of one evil deed which Edward had ever done (and this was it), Froissart omitted the description of the rape altogether. He left only the fact that Edward had been enamoured of the countess. When he completed the second version of his text, he introduced a charming vignette in its place. In this, Edward played chess with the countess, deliberately not playing well so she would win. When she did win, and he pressed her to accept a valuable ring as her prize, she refused, to which Edward answered that she could be sure he would have taken something of hers if he had won. Instead of the rape scene he wrote

You have heard me speak of Edward's love for the countess of Salisbury. The chronicle of Jean le Bel speaks of this love less properly than I must, for, please God, it would never enter my head to incriminate the king of England and the countess of Salisbury with such a vile accusation. If respectable men ask why I mention that love, they should know that Jean le Bel relates in his chronicle that the English king raped the countess of Salisbury. Now I declare that I know England well, where I have lived for long periods mainly at the royal court and also with the great lords of the country. And I have never heard tell of this rape although I have asked people about it who must have known if it had ever happened. Moreover I cannot believe [it] and it is incredible that so great and valiant a man as the king of England would have allowed himself to dishonour one of the most notable of ladie
s of his realm and one of
his knights who had served him so loyally all his life.

Clearly the whole episode caused Froissart great worry. When he came to rewrite his chronicle a third and final time, he omitted this careful passage too, so there was no reference at all to the rape.

Later historians have been equally concerned by the story. The great seventeenth-century antiquary William Dugdale would only have known of the 'romance' which Froissart relates (le Bel's version being lost at the time). Dugdale knew that the countess of Salisbury was not called Alice but Catherine. He also was aware tha
t the earl had no nephew called
William Montagu; the only other William Montagu in the family was his young son. So he looked around the family tree and focused on the earl's brother, Sir Edward Montagu. He decided - on what authority is not clear - that the governor of the
castle
at the time was this Sir Edward, and the 'countess of Salisbury' with whom the king fell head over heels in love was the intended bride of William's son: Joan, 'the Fair Maid of Kent'. Since his source was the third version of Froissart's work, and that had dropped any reference to the rape, the story now became merely that Edward had been touched by the beauty of Joan, his cousin (who was actually about thirteen at the time), and had been in a great study over his feelings for her, but next morning had left, as was decent, gone off to fight the Scots, and returned by a different route.

Modern writers have been no less intrigued by this story. The discovery and publication of le Bel's original chronicle focused attention on the more sordid details, and the discovery of a similar account, including the details of the rape, in a number of continental chronicles further encouraged people to suspect that Edward really was a rapist. However, all the continental stories have a common historiographical root: in other words, they are not all original accounts but copies of one archetypal story. So where did that come from? And does it have a basis in fact?

The first thing to note is that whoever composed the story of the rape knew the movements of the king and Salisbury in
1342
correctl
y. The English chronicles do not mention many details about the Scottish incursion into Northumberland, but le Bel and Froissart give plenty. David II and his army would very probably have passed by a
castle
belonging to the earl of Salisbury - Wark
Castle
- as there was a crossing over the River Tweed nearby. Edward's army also probably stayed near to Wark, for on his return from Melrose in
1341
his wardrobe spent the night of
31
December at the adjacent manor of Cornhill. There was a whole series of tournaments that year over which the king presided, Dunstable in February, Northampton in April, and Eltham in May. Although there is no overt record of a tournament at London in mid-August, there was a great feast, which very probably included jousting, at the Tower on
15
August, when Prince Lionel was married. As already noted elsewhere, the earl of Salisbury himself was indeed abroad in captivity at the time of the supposed infatuation but had been released early in June
1342.
Finally, it should be noted that the earl did indeed fight the Moors in the Spanish peninsula, and died not long before the siege of Algeciras (although in England, not Spain). In this respect there is some accuracy in the story as related by le Bel.

The problem is that, although some of the details are verifiable, most are blatantly incorrect. As Dugdale noted, the countess was called Catherine, not Alice, and it is very unlikely that Edward had not seen her since her marriage for she had been married to his best friend for at least thirteen years. There was no nephew of the earl called 'William Montagu'. There is no evidence of any settlement of the family estates in
1342-44.
The version of the story underlying the continental chronicle states that the earl had no heir, which is incorrect. It is very difficult to accept that the countess was at a border fortress during a period of hostility while her husband was overseas. It is even harder to accept that she habitually stayed there. There is no support for the story at all in any English or Scottish chronicle.

Caught between a string of significant errors and some correct facts, one twentieth-century biographer (Michael Packe) tried very hard to make the story fit. He decided that Dugdale was right - that it was Edward Montagu who was the governor of Wark, who escaped to warn Edward that the
castle
was about to fall - and added that this was how 'William Montagu' was supposed to be the nephew of the 'countess'. Edward Montagu's wife was indeed called Alice. Moreover she was also a cousin of Edward's, being the daughter of the earl of Norfolk, and so may well have been invited to the marriage tournament at London in August
1342.
She was about eighteen years of age, and before her marriage to Montagu had been betrothed to his nephew, William Montagu, son of the earl of Salisbury. Packe did not attempt to tackle the question of why Edward Montagu might have left his royal wife and thirteen-year-old nephew in a border fortress during a period of hostility. He considered two details conclusive. First, le Bel mentions at one point that the young William Montagu had to pass a message to his
aunt
the 'countess'. And second, Alice was supposedly killed by her husband and several other men about ten years later. Packe decided that, because Edward did not pursue his cousin's killers with dire vengeance, he was somehow compromised by Edward Montagu.

In all this fact-shuffling and theory-dealing, some fundamental points have been ignored. There are three stories here, rolled into one. They may be connected but they are still separate events: the meeting at Wark, the tournament at London and the rape. One at least - the rape - circulated separately to the others. Therefore we must ask how information about these three events at opposite ends of the country - two of which took place in private — could have reached the person who eventually wrote them down. We might ask why a chronicler of no particularly high status should have known what Edward did or did not do in the countess's bedchamber. Not only that; in order to know what passed between the king and the 'countess' at Wark, the original teller of the tale would have had to be one of the dozen knights picked by Edward to visit the
castle
with him, or one of the lady's household servants, or a member of the
castle
garrison. It is exceptionally unlikely that any of these people did not know the woman's name and correct tide. It is equally unlikely that they did not know that the governor of the
castle
was not the earl's nephew, and that William Montagu was the earl's twelve-year-old son. There are too many errors in describing the family to put them all down to 'Chinese whispers' when other fact
s about the campaign are correctl
y related. The only way in which the story of the infatuation can be considered credible is if the names and relationships had all been distorted through having been standardised by an unreliable intermediary in the process of making this story fit with the two other events, namely the accounts of the rape and the tournament at London.