The Perfect King (72 page)

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Philippa's injuries and illnesses go some way to explain one big change in Edward's life. Until now he had never recognised any illegitimate offspring, and may well have had none. Such was the strength of his relationship with his wife that his dalliances with other women - presuming that he had some - had been restrained, even though he had encouraged a culture of intense sexual excitement at his court. But now a girl appeared before him who caught his attention and, having caught it, did her best to keep it. She was one of Philippa's ladies-in-waiting. Edward had of course paid attention to Philippa's female staff in earlier years, giving them grants and presents. The merging of their households in
1360
had brought him into daily contact with them. But to this girl, Alice Perrers, who had - we are told - 'a seductive voice' he gave much more than grants and presents.
About
1364
she bore him his first known illegitimate child.

Alice Perrers is the most famous
royal mistress between Henry II’
s 'Fair Rosamund' (Rosamund Clifford) and Edward IV's Elizabeth Lambert (better known as Jane Shore). Arguably she eclipses them both. What she is remembered for is not h
er captivating beauty or her deli
ghtful wit but her avarice and her manipulation. But in considering how her relationship with Edward began we must lay aside this aspect of her behaviour and remember that in
1363
she was just a sexually-desirable servant at court. When it was realised that she was pregnant with Edward's child, she left. She gave birth, perhaps at Southery in Norfolk, to a son who became known as John of Southeray or Surrey. When she returned to court, she received presents and grants, but as yet these were at the king's will. The images of the self-interested, calculating whore and the bewitching she-devil were still a long way from the public mind.

If Edward took a mistress while his wife was slipping into her final illness, we should not be too surprised. He had always had the opportunity to command the sexual availability of women, and adultery on the part of husbands was not considered a great sin. With Edward it is far more surprising that he had not done so more often. He was clearly a potent sire, and therefore if he had had many mistresses, we would expect him to have had a string of illegitimate children, like Henry I (who had more than twenty) and John (who had more than seven). Henry I and John had had these children by a number of women; they were multiple philanderers. Edward
III
apparentl
y was not. If he was not always loyal to his wife then he was far more circumspect in his romantic interludes than most previous kings. Therefore it is particularly interesting that he now proved loyal also to Alice. She was not paid off but allowed to come and go from court. This is what is strange about this illicit royal union. Edward kept her, and had two more children with her. This was unheard-of in the
1360s.
The monastic chronicler Walsingham decided she must have bewitched Edward in order to secure his affections. She may have done, but it was not necessarily in the way that the monk supposed.

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Throughout the
1360s
- not just in the plague years - Edward lost those close to him. His sister Joan died in September
1362,
two months before his jubilee. His daughter-in-law Elizabeth de Burgh, Lionel's wife, died the following year. His companion Knights of the Garter died wit
h sad regularity: Miles Stapelt
on (a founder member) and Richard de la Vache died in
1364
and
1366.
The great soldier Sir Thomas Ughtred, who had been present at Dupplin Moor, had served as an admiral and as a Justice of the Peace, and had fought in all of Edward's wars, died in
1365.
The men who came to take their places were all young, nearly thirty years younger than Edward. They were promoted because of their great inheritances or, in the case of Enguerrand de Coucy, because he was betrothed to Edward's daughter. As he walked around his newly completed works at Winsdor and Sheen, Edward must have been saddened that the friends with whom he had laughed and jousted when he had ordered their construction were now gone, replaced by men with whom he had little personal affinity. The
castle
on the Isle of Sheppey in particular was a testament to his military vision, but who was left alive with whom to share the subtle nuances of military design? He dedicated it instead to Philippa and named the town and
castle
Queenborough in her honour.

The most significant death of this period was that of King John of France on
8
April
1364.
He had dutifully returned to England in January - when his ransom had not materialised - and had fallen mortally ill. Herein lay a problem for Edward. Obviously no more of the ransom would
be paid, but, far more importantl
y, John had not formally renounced sovereignty of the agreed territories before his death. That extra addition to the Treaty of Bretigny had never been ratified. The responsibility for the renunciation fell on the dauphin, who became Charles V. Charles had proved very reluctant to acknowledge any ceding of territory, and now saw an opportunity to capitalise on his father's failure. He could hardly do worse on the field of
battle
, and, while peace continued, he could rebuild his fortunes and those of France. Any hope of the formal renunciation
being made, and a permanent settl
ement, was thus extinguished.

The problems - although immediately suspected - did not immediately become political reality. In fact the cause of the renewed hostilities came from a quite unexpected direction. In
1362
Edward had agreed an alliance with King Pedro of Castile, known to history by his telling soubriquet 'the Cruel'. At first Pedro had doubted whether it was in his best interests to ally with Edward. His sole purpose was to protect himself against a strong alliance between Aragon and France. But after the death of the French king, he made his mind up, and ratified the Anglo-Castilian treaty. It was just as well for him that he did, for in
1365
the French hit upon a solution to the English unofficial armies, or 'companies', which were ravaging their territories. The great French commander Bertrand du Guesclin offered them the opportunity to attack Castile in the name of Enrique de Trastamara. Back in England Edward realised the danger. English mercenaries were about to fight against his ally. To stop them he issued orders on
6
December
1365
that no Englishmen were to take arms against Pedro. But his orders fell on deaf ears. The English mercenaries commanded by Sir Hugh Calveley, Sir Nicholas Dagworth and Sir William Elmham proceeded with impunity into Castile, under the pretence that they were going on crusade. By the end of March they and du Guesclin had done their work, and Enrique de Trastamara had been crowned at Burgos, the capital. Pedro fled to Bordeaux, a king in name alone.

Although it was the prince who agreed the mission to reinstate Pedro, there is no doubt that it was with Edward's full approval. Edward felt bound to honour his treaty. The matter was discussed at the brief May
1366
parliament, and Edward sent John of Gaunt to the prince with reinforcements and financial support. By this time the English mercenaries, realising that the prince was going to march into Castile, were only too eager to be paid off. On
3
April
1367,
at Najera,- the prince and his Gascon army inflicted a crushing defeat on Enrique de Trastamara, who almost alone escaped the carnage and arrest of his army. Du Guesclin himself was captured, as well as Marshal Audrehem, whom the prince had previously captured and ransomed once already, at Poitiers.

It was a stunning military victory, but the prince had terribly miscalculated. Najera is one of the clearest examples in medieval history of a tactical victory which proved to be a strategic defeat. For when the campaign was over, and the prince's clerks worked how much it had cost, the total was
2.7
million florins
(£405,000).
There was no hope of regaining such a huge amount of money from impoverished Castile. Worse, Pedro the Cruel saw all the prisoners as traitors, not deserving of ransoms, and murdered as many as he could despite the prince's protestations that these men were valuable to him. Although the prince held a great victory feast when he returned to Bordeaux, in reality he had plunged his principality into chronic debt, having regained about one-eighth of what he had promised in wages of war and supplies.

The crisis in which the prince now found himself was comparable to that which Edward had faced in
1340-41,
when he returned from Flanders incognito owing around
£300,000.
Edward had then weathered the consequent crisis by taking the argument to his political opponents, compromising, and then reversing his compromise after the storm had blown over. The prince could not do this. The crucial difference was that in England there was no alternative to Edward's government in
1341,
but in Gascony there was an all-too-eager alternative sovereign in the form of the French king. And King Charles, as every Gascon knew, had yet formally to renounce his sovereignty. When the lords who had fought at Najera realised that not only would they not be paid for their troubles, they would also be taxed to cover the prince's shortfall, many began to think they would be better served by the weaker, less-assuming French king. It was therefore through the Najera campaign that the prince precipitated the next stage of the Hundred Years War.

Edward was a relatively passive player in the move to war after Najera. He was
constantly
on the back foot, reacting from afar to the plots and strategies emerging in the cauldron of Gascon discontent. But he probably suspected what was happening. In
1333
he himself had been a young king with much to prove and nothing to lose by making war on his enemies. Now King Charles was in a similar position. When the count of Armagnac wrote to Charles in May
1368
appealing against the tax imposed by the prince, the French king saw an opportunity to divide and rule in Gascony. Lord Albret - for many years a die-hard English supporter — felt similarly angry with the prince and openly supported Armagnac. Together with the renewed attacks of the renegade English mercenaries, who had returned from Castile seeking more plunder in France, Charles decided that this was too good an opportunity to miss, and accepted the Gascon invitation to intervene. In so doing, he set himself on the path to war.

Historians have tended to portray Edward's acceptance of the slide into conflict as a sign of his willingness to resume the fight and an ambition to enlarge on his conquest, as if he was some sort of military automaton. But this is a great misrepresentation of his ambitions at this time. He had for years yearned to consolidate his victories in France through a satisfactory peace treaty. He was old, he was ill, and he had lost his com
panions in arms. More importantl
y Queen Philippa was dying, and he was determined to stay with her until the end. Already she had commissioned her tomb effigy. For Edward and his wife it was just a matter of waiting, spending what littie time they had left together.

Edwa
rd attended parliament reluctantl
y in May
1368.
Rather than discuss the deep crisis his son was facing in France, he showered praise on the representatives, charming them. He thanked them for all their support over the years, and they rose to the flattery, calling him their 'highest, most excellent and most redoubted lord'. The statutes enrolled were, however, without a clear strategy. It was as if Edward simply waved them through, or peremptorily dismissed those petitions which were too bothersome. The Statute of Labourers was re-enacted to suit the gentry, sheriffs were prohibited from holding their office for more than a year, and he relinquished his attempts to control JPs. He tried to regulate the wine trade by prohibiting English merchants from buying wine in Gascony, a statute which met with unfortunate results. The only acknowledgement of the impending doom appears in his statute abolishing the wool staple in Calais, which he admitted was threatened by the French breaking of the peace.

It was after parliament that the gravity of the situation became clear. Until now he had maintained a
laissez
faire
attitude towards his son's government in Gascony. The prince, after all, was the heir to the throne, and it was necessary for him to learn how to deal with tricky political situations. Edward would not have helped him by stepping in and removing him from authority. But when King Charles accepted Armagnac's request to intervene, Edward had to respond. He wrote to Charles demanding to know what he meant by accepting the appeal. Charles deferred his answer, not wanting to provoke an immediate attack. The prince had no doubts as to the seriousness of the situation and ordered men-at-arms and archers to be raised on his estates in England and Wales, and prepared for war. All became clear in November when Charles assumed his sovereign role and summoned the prince to appear in Paris in May
1369.
Edward wrote to his son, clearly of the opinion that he was not fit to govern. The prince wrote back, answering those of his father's 'advisers' (it was not seemly to say that the king himself was wrong) who accused him of maladministration and of bringing dishonour on himself.
55
But the prince was now sick as well as bankrupt. He had caught a debilitating illness in Castile, and was physically too weak to lead an army. Although the prince wrote to Paris saying that he would accept the summons with 'a helmet on his head and sixty thousand men at his back', in truth he was having difficulty even riding a horse.

When news of the prince's illness reached England it was just another blow to the king, who was now psychologically crushed by the events of the year. In addition to his and Philippa's own sicknesses, in September he had heard of the death of his daughter-in-law Blanche, the last surviving child of the late duke of Lancaster and wife of John of Gaunt. Such news, coming on top of the realisation that war was now imminent, and the illness of his glorious son of whom he had been so proud, was dispiriting. But then came worse news: Lionel was dead. Lionel, his second son, named after his Arthurian hero, probably the most intelligent of all his sons. Where would it end? Lionel had been in Italy, had just made a glorious marriage with the daughter of Galeazzo Visconti, lord of Milan. The aged poet Petrarch had himself been there and had lauded the prince. And now he was dead. Messengers came from Italy asking where Edward wanted his son to be buried.