The Perfect King (76 page)

Alice was intelligent enough to realise that her way to power and wealth was likely to be short-lived. By
1372
she had grown accustomed to royal living, but in the weeks that Edward was away at sea, trying to sail to France, having announced that he would die there, she must have seen all her hopes disappear. She must have been terrified. At that point she would have had seriously to consider what she would do if he never returned. And although he did return, the question remained in her mind. What would she do when he was dead? He was already past sixty: she had only a limited amount of time to safeguard her position and future. Hence her dealing in property and her use of influence to guarantee a future income. Hence her abuse of her position.

Contemporaries could not understand their king's love for this woman. He had delivered them victory after victory. They probably did not know how weak his mind was, how innocent and naive he had become in his dotage. The rumour spread around that a certain Dominican friar, who had attended Alice as a physician, dabbled in magical cures and had given her the secret of a potion by which she could bewitch the king. It seems that it was her physical beauty that had originally 'bewitched' Edward, but that was an insufficient explanation for contemporaries. Edward had been surrounded by beautiful women all his life, so why this one? Especially as she was using her influence with the courts to resurrect maintenance -that odious practice of using political power to protect criminals from trial - which Edward himself had stamped out.

One of Alice's friends was in a similarly tight spot. William Windsor, who had repeatedly been accused by the Irish of extortion, bribery and a host of other crimes, was cleared of any wrongdoing in
1373,
perhaps as a result of Alice's intervention in the case. But he remained controversial and unpopular. The Irish pleaded with Edward's government to send the young earl of March to be their governor, and this seems to have been Edward's intention. But in the autumn of that year someone persuaded Edward to send Windsor back to Ireland. The change of appointment was made less than six weeks after Edward's gift to Alice of those controversial jewels which had once belonged to Philippa. It seems likely that Alice persuaded him. This is all the more probable when we consider that Alice and William were making property transactions together at this time. And that was not the. half of it. It was probably at this time that Alice, and William
secretly
married.

It seems utterly extraordinary to us - as it did to contemporaries — that this woman could betray the king who had given her so much. To look at the matter from her side, we must realise that she was living in fear. As soon as Edward died she would be nothing, and liable to attack from her political enemies. When the king died she could hardly expect members of the royal family to defend her: they would throw her to the dogs. Hence, to marry William Windsor
secretly
was to guarantee that she would have a protector after Edward's death. She may have even coerced him: if he did not marry her, she would allow the courts to find him guilty of embezzlement and extortion in Ireland. If this was the case, there would have been very
little
Windsor could have done. Not even an appeal to the king would have worked, for Edward in his mindlessly smiling state, was besotted with Alice.

The high point of Alice's public position came in
1375,
when she attended a tournament at Smithfield with the king. She rode from the Tower through the city dressed as the Lady of the Sun, to the amazement of the Londoners. Ladies led knights on silver chains: a fitting image, in view of Alice ruling Edward in his old age. She planned further tournament displays for the following year, and manipulated her position to be able to acquire whatever she wanted: clothes, jewels, bed
-
hangings, tapestries. Edward was wholly in her power. His world had shrunk to his immediate horizons, his ambitions dissipated. He was conscious only of Alice, his household servants, and his few surviving family members. With them he participated in hunti
ng, hawking and civilised, courtl
y entertainment. All else had failed.

The Good Parliament met at Westminster on
28
April
1376.
Edward remained at Havering, and did not attend (except for the opening ceremony). Nor did the prince, physically too weak for business of any sort. So it fell to John of Gaunt to represent the royal family in the Painted Chamber as the magnates, clergy and knights of the shire gathered for the first time in two-and-a-half years. Edward, so obvious by his absence, became the subject of debate.

There are many ironies about the reign of Edward III, but none more obvious than those which arose in this parliament. The leadership fell to the commons, and especially to the first ever Speaker of the house of commons: Sir Peter de la Mare. He was the steward of the earl of March, Edmund Mortimer, great-grandson of the Roger Mortimer whom Edward had ousted in
1330.
The steward of the Mortimers was now lecturing Edward on his adultery, half a century after a Mortimer had been committing adultery with Edward's mother. And the word which de la Mare used more often than any other to describe the self-seekers around Edward was 'covyne' (coven); it was a word which Edward himself had used repeatedly in accusing the first Mortimer and his henchmen of their crimes. The judge had become the criminal, the criminal's heir the judge. But the biggest irony lay in the fact that Edmund Mortimer himself was now a member of the royal family, having married Philippa, Lionel's daughter, in
1368.
Through his steward, the great-grandson and heir of Roger Mortimer was now speaking up for royal legitimacy and openly decrying an adulterous influence on the Crown.

De la Mare and his associates in the commons had been able to seize the initiative for one very powerful reason. The Bruges treaty only provided for a year-long suspension of hostilities, and without further taxation England would not be able to send an army to France to keep the war on foreign soil. S
o, when the commons met and flatl
y refused the subsidy, they were in a very strong position indeed. When John of Gaunt realised that their motive in refusing was a concerted will to move against those who were poorly advising the king, he was furious, and threatened to crush the rebels in the commons. It had to be pointed out to him that, although de la Mare might be a commoner, he had the protection of one of the mightiest men in the land. This was something which John had to consider carefully, for although he was the royal representat
ive at that parliament, the earl
of March was now the father of a boy who had a rival claim to the throne. Roger Mortimer, Lionel's grandson, was arguably next in line after the young Richard of Bordeaux. Gaunt had not yet been formally recognised as second-in-line. Thus he was forced to acknowledge that the political will of parliament, including the commons, could not be stifled.

It is impossible not to be impressed by de la Mare's courage. With death threats being muttered around him, and John of Gaunt steaming in his pent-up. anger above him, he proceeded to accuse Latimer of a string of crimes, including misrule and extortion in Brittany, theft of Breton revenues from the king, negligence in the defence of Saint-Sauveur and Becherel, seizure of wine and money taken from enemy ships which should have come to the king, embezzlement of four-fifths of the ten thousand marks compensation paid by Sir Robert Knolles for the failure of the
1371
campaign, and embezzlement of four-fifths of the ten thousand pound sum paid by the citizens of Bristol to protect their liberties. He was further charged, along with the London merchant and master of the royal mint, Richard Lyons, of taking interest from the Treasury for money which had been given by foreign merchants to the Crown. Both were also charged with sequestrating imported goods for sale through price-fixing monopolies. The immediate dismissal of Latimer was demanded as an absolute condition, as well as that of Lyons. Some called for them to be executed.

John of Gaunt could not dismiss charges of this magnitude, but nor could he simply acquiesce to the demands. He therefore ordered an adjournment. Lyons, seeing his life at risk, sent a bribe of a barrel of gold worth a thousand pounds to the prince of Wales, who had once been his protector. Prince Edward, now drawing close to death, wanted nothing to do with him, and was suspicious of his brother's motives in adjourning parliament. He refused the bribe. Lyons accordingly sent the gold to the king, whose reputed response was to accept the gift with a smile, saying that he gladly accepted it as Lyons was simply returning what he had stolen from him. 'He has offered us nothing which is not our own', Edward said.'
5

Edward remained largely unaware of the proceedings at Westminster. He would not have known, for example, that Lord Neville, his steward, had tried to make a stand in defending Latimer. Such actions cut no ice with de la Mare. 'You should not be so concerned with other people's actions when you may soon find it very difficult to defend your own,' declared de la Mare. 'We have not yet discussed your case, nor touched upon your conduct.' That shut Lord Neville up. But as Neville and Latimer were still in charge of who had access to the king, Edward heard
little
or nothing about the total of sixty serious charges brought against them until they were dismissed from their offices, arrested, and had all their possessions confiscated. Richard Sturry, one of Edward's chamber knights, came to tell him of their plight and to plead for his friends. He phrased the news in a way calculated to cause Edward maximum distress. Parliament was seeking his deposition, he told him. They were trying to do to him what they had done to his father.

Deposition. With dishonour. It was what Edward had dreaded all his life. He had strained to do all he could to be a king above criticism in order to avoid that ever happening to him. And yet now, in his feeble-minded state, he saw his worst nightmare coming true. He sought advice from Sturry, who urged him to take immediate action to stop the proceedings in parliament. This would have been very dangerous, and Edward knew it. But what could he do? His distress was exacerbated when it emerged that Alice was being implicated in the accusations levelled against his officers. He saw himself losing those few people whom he trusted, being separated from the one woman he loved, and he himself losing the Crown. He saw himself being left alone, like his father. He implored those with him to take him to Kennington to see his son, the prince, to consult with him. They did so. But on a day which must have torn his heart in two, when he arrived at his son's palace, he found him dying

The disease which had debilitated the prince for the last seven years was now about to claim his life. The sight of his bedridden son in agony can only have added to Edward's pains. He had already buried seven of his children; it was now clear he would soon bury an eighth, his favourite. Edward ordered the prince to be taken to Westminster where they could spend the final days together.

Edward watched his son die in his chamber at the Palace of Westminster. On
7
June the prince made hi
s will, dictating it in French.
He desired to be buried in Canterbury Cathedral, in the undercroft beneath the shrine of St Thomas the Martyr. He chose a French poem to be inscribed on his tomb, and gave details of how he wanted his funeral to be conducted. He asked for his shield, helmet, sword and surcoat to be placed above his grave. He appointed his brother John one of his executors, the others being ecclesiastics and members of his household. After these details were seen to, he turned to his father and begged him to grant him three last requests. He asked him to confirm all the gifts he had made to members of his household, friends and family, including his illegitimate son, Roger of Clarendon. He asked him to make sure a
ll his debts were paid. And lastl
y he asked him to protect his nine-year-old son, Richard, his heir.

Edward assented to the requests. The scene was reminiscent of Philippa's last days, seven years before, when she charged him with a similar series of final duties. As with Philippa, the prince was a part of Edward's whole life. Roger Mortimer had still ruled England when he had been born. Edward may have recalled the four-year-old boy on his first horse, his
little
tournament coats made to match those of his father and Lord Montagu. All through the years, his son had made him proud. He may have failed as an administrator in Gascony but he had succeeded in the one field of human endeavour which Edward respected above all others: the battlefield. It had been the prince who had held the English army together that day twenty years earlier, at Poitiers, and brought King John of France as a prisoner to England. And in dying, Prince Edward asked for a simple thing which reminded his father of perhaps the greatest day of his life. He asked that his badge of three ostrich feathers, which he had picked up after the battle of Crecy, would be carved on his tomb, together with the motto he had used that day,
'Ich Dien’
I serve. Prince Edward died the following day.

Across the nation the outpouring of grief was genuine and extreme. At St Albans, Thomas Walsingham expressed his pain through literary tears:

Oh what a death to be mourned by the whole kingdom of England. How untimely you are, death, in robbing us of whatever might be seen to be bringing succour to the English. How sad you make the old king, his father, by robbing him of the desire which not only he had, but which the whole nation had, that his firstborn son might sit upon the throne after him and judge the people righteously. What great grief you cause his country, which believes that now he has go
ne it is bereft of a protector.