Authors: Thomas B. Costain
The favorite went so far as to give offense to the one man who of all others should have been exempt from his insults. Thomas of Lancaster was a first cousin of the king, being the son of Prince Edmund, a brother of Edward I. He was hereditary high steward of England and the holder of five earldoms, including Lancaster, Leicester, and Derby. He entertained on a lavish scale. In that connection it is interesting to quote some figures from the accounts of his cofferers. In one year they paid out 3,405 pounds for food. In addition it was found necessary to lay down 369 pipes of red wine and two of white. White wine was reserved for invalids and children. Ladies liked the stout red wine as well as did their menfolk, particularly if it was well spiced and mulled. These were enormous expenditures for those days. Lancaster’s great castle at Pontefract must have been filled with guests at all seasons, and the accommodations of its eight towers must have been strained to provide sleeping quarters.
Lancaster was a man of overweening ambition but entirely lacking in the qualities which must go with the achievement of high objectives; an insensitive, coarse, violent fellow, lethargic in person and dull of wit. Because of his rank, however, he was the most powerful man in the kingdom and certainly should never have been selected by the upstart Gascon as a butt for his jests.
Royal families are no different from others in certain human respects. They have their divisions and feuds, they seethe with jealousies, they indulge in gossip and innuendo. The faults of the head of the family are well known to all the collateral branches, the brothers and uncles and cousins. Cousin Lancaster was the leader of the opposition where Edward II was concerned. He knew all about that young man’s record and thought poorly of him from every standpoint.
When Edward announced after his coronation that he now desired to begin the business of administration, there was a tendency among the nobility, many of whom had found Gaveston amusing, to regard this as a happy omen. They were even willing to make financial grants, despite the fact that Edward had depleted the treasury to get funds for his favorite. Two of the barons stood out, Cousin Lancaster and Hugh le Despenser.
“Wait and see,” grumbled the holder of five earldoms, whose feelings were still raw from the antics of Master Piers.
He was right. The country would soon discover that the reins of government had passed into the most careless and incompetent of hands.
T
HE short reign of Edward II—1307–27—was an unfruitful period, a time of military defeat and constitutional inertia. But it reads like a play or a novel because of the conflicts which arose between the leading figures on the stage, Edward himself and his favorites, his beautiful but false queen, Isabella the Fair, and her paramour, and that glum exponent of discontent, Cousin Lancaster. The story of these people is a series of climaxes, all violent and unhappy; but, it must be added, engrossing and exciting.
The story begins with an almost incredible error of judgment on the part of the king. When he had completed arrangements for his marriage to Isabella of France by agreeing to wed her at Boulogne, he faced the need of appointing a regent to act in his absence as custodian of the Great Seal and to exercise power in certain contingencies. It had been the invariable rule to appoint a member of the royal family when a suitable one existed, generally the queen or the heir to the throne. The logical selection, therefore, was Cousin Lancaster. Partly to express his dislike of that consistently hostile prince, and partly to pay a tribute to his favorite, Edward selected Gaveston for that highest of honors!
In the cathedral of Boulogne, the illustrious company was literally carried away by the beauty of the contracting parties. Edward was tall, well formed, handsome. Isabella, although only thirteen years of age, was incomparably beautiful; as fair as her father had been but with nothing of the cold perfection of feature which so often accompanies golden hair. There was a piquancy of feature and a sparkle generally about her. Later
it would be realized that she was as hard, as flawless, and as sharp-edged as a diamond; but in her first blooming none of this showed. She was magnificently attired in blue and gold. The crown on her head, sparkling with precious stones, was only one of two which her father, generous for once, had given her. The other was packed away with a large assortment of gold and silver articles. Her ladies-in-waiting had been babbling about the contents of the chests in which her clothes were kept. Ah, what gowns of velvet with gold embroidery, of sunny cloth from the East, of rich materials from the looms of Flanders! Never had a bride been so richly endowed.
The company was a distinguished one. Philip the Fair in rose cloth, a huge figure of a man with his once fair complexion turned florid in a face as round as a wheel of country cheese; the kings of the Romans, of Sicily, of Navarre, and their queens; the Archduke of Austria; Charles of Valois and his tribe of marriageable daughters; Louis of Evreux; the Duke of Brabant; the dowager Queen Marguerite of England, proud of the success she had made of her marriage with the first Edward; and an immense assemblage of princes and princesses and counts and lords.
The bride and groom were seeing each other for the first time, but there was no evidence of an instant attraction between them. To Edward the bride was a very pretty girl, not far removed from the doll stage. To Isabella, her bridegroom wore a question mark as well as a fine satin jacket and a handsomely jeweled cloak. She had been told many strange things about him. But they might have reached a stage of marital happiness if each had striven to please the other. Edward was careless and casual and more interested still in his gossip and playfellow, Brother Perrot, and Isabella was quick to take offense and to show it.
The fault was more on Edward’s side. Throughout the period of festivities, both in France and in England, he behaved like a country loon and gave the nobility of France a chance to look down their very superior noses at him. Isabella never lost a chance to complain to her father, to write him letters, to raise her pretty voice in spiteful reproach.
The match, which looked so brilliant as the handsome young couple stood together at the altar, was doomed to failure.
When they landed at Dover on February 7, Gaveston met them in such an imitation of oriental splendor and so much jewelry on his person that he quite eclipsed the king. The English nobility observed the scene with smoldering anger. The feeling against Gaveston was growing as the word circulated that Edward had already depleted the treasury by many thousands of pounds given to his favorite. It was even said that a fund of thirty-two thousand pounds, which had been set aside for the expense of a new crusade, had already vanished into the jeweled pockets of Master Piers.
When the Gascon appeared, the king left the side of his bride, crying, “Brother! Brother!” and clasped him in his arms. The bride watched this effusive welcome with an eye that had ceased to be girlish and had lost all of its dewy quality.
Worse was to follow. King Philip had given many costly presents to his son-in-law in the way of rings and gold chains. The next day Master Piers put in an appearance wearing some of them on his person. It was a good thing that Philip had not crossed the Channel with the rest of the party, for he had already demonstrated one violent way of dealing with such matters. A few years before, Queen Marguerite of England had sent costly presents to the wives of two of Philip’s sons. When a pair of young gallants turned up at court later wearing the gifts openly, that far from gentle king had acted with sudden ferocity. Not only were the two courtiers flayed alive on a public square by the royal executioner, but the foolish daughters-in-law were sent to prison, where one of them died. If Brother Perrot had been a subject of the French king, he would have been given short shrift.
The outcome of this absurd folly was that some of the English nobility, with Cousin Lancaster as spokesman no doubt, went to Edward and told him that unless he banished Gaveston from court they would absent themselves from the coronation. Edward, taken seriously aback, assured them that he would arrange matters to their satisfaction.
Isabella had become instantly popular with the people of England. The first glimpse of her fresh beauty when she landed with the king at Dover had started talk spreading about the country. Her arrival in London for the coronation was a triumph. The citizens, as usual, had prepared a rousing welcome. The streets were covered with flags and bunting, and there were tall temporary structures here and there representing castles and fairy bowers. The conduits ran wine and everyone could fill a cup; and most assuredly everyone did. The mayor and the aldermen rode first in the procession which had been formed to greet the king and his new bride, and after them came the members of all the guilds, more than thirty separate organizations; four solid miles of shining faces and bright new liveries.
The lord mayor handed over the golden key of the city. “Your humble citizens, O King,” he declared, “prostrate themselves at your feet and surrender to you themselves and all that they have.” It was the old formula which had been observed with each royal visit since London Town had secured its charters. But it had a ritualistic flavor which pleased everyone,
particularly after the brief glance the good burghers and their wives had obtained of the sparklingly lovely queen.
If Isabella felt that London was small and dirty and lacking in the distinction of Paris (and no doubt she did), she did not allow it to show. She bowed and smiled and raised her hand in a continuous greeting. She took an open interest in everything that was shown her and everything told her about the points of historic importance: the streets over which the fair Saxon princess Matilda rode to the hearings at Lambeth to decide whether or not she might wed King Henry I; the exact spot where the spirit of St. Thomas of Canterbury had been seen before the masonry of the wharf at the Tower of London had toppled and fallen into the river at the raising of his shining cross; the clock at St. Paul’s where the arm of an angel pointed to the hours and the still more amazing one at Westminster which showed the tides as well as the time; London Bridge, so massive and impressive with its rows of stalls and shops, its homes and its church, the great weight of which had caused the collapse of four of the stone piers not more than a quarter of a century before. Perhaps she shuddered inwardly when her eyes were directed to the Tower of London, standing so high and grim above the rest of the city, and learned that this would be her home.
The popularity which the queen won on that first day did not abate for many years. The foolish conduct of the king won a sympathy for her which was generally felt. Through all the shifts and troubles of the next few years, London was consistently loyal to the beautiful queen. Isabella was discerning enough to realize the value of the city’s support. To cast forward into the future, when her first child was born, a fine healthy boy who was destined to become Edward III and to be known as the conqueror king, she sent a letter to the citizens.
Isabella, by the grace of God, Queen of England, Lady of Ireland, and Duchess of Aquitaine, to our well-beloved the Mayor, and Aldermen, and the Commonality of London, greeting. Forasmuch as we believe that you would willingly hear good tidings of us, we do make known to you that our Lord in His grace has delivered us of a son, on the 13th day of November with safety to ourselves, and to the child. May our Lord preserve you. Given at Wyndesore, on the day above-named.
It could not have been done with a surer touch. Three days were given over to rejoicing in the city, so general was the enthusiasm felt at this happy event. Once again tuns of wine were set up in the streets at which all could drink to the royal child and to the health of the beautiful queen.
In spite of the hostility of the barons, Brother Perrot was at the coronation on February 25. In the procession to the abbey, Lancaster carried
Curtana
, the sword of mercy, and his brother Henry bore the rod and dove. Immediately behind them, strutting in sheer magnificence like the Grand Cham, was Piers de Gaveston, carrying St. Edward’s crown! There was talk of stopping the procession and ejecting the favorite, even of killing him on the spot, but better counsel prevailed.
This was no more than the first unpleasantness, the worst episode of many which marred the day. It developed that the Gascon had been given full charge of the coronation arrangements and had been seriously lax about them. Seats had not been provided for all who were entitled to them. The abbey was so unnecessarily crowded that one knight, Sir John Bakewell, was trampled underfoot and suffocated. The ceremony, which should have been completed by noon, was not over until three o’clock. The royal party and the guests emerged from the abbey in a state of exhaustion. The banquet, which should have been ready hours before, was still in the making. Early dusk had fallen when the guests were summoned to their places. The food was badly cooked. The service was exasperatingly slow. In his first chance to show what he could do, the king’s companion had failed utterly.
The young queen was greatly disturbed by this farcical note. Her remonstrances had no effect on her royal husband, so she took to voicing her dissatisfaction in further letters to her father. Philip, running true to form, saw a chance in this to create dissension in the neighboring kingdom and set about creating an opposition party. Cousin Lancaster was chosen to head the dissentients, and it was largely through his efforts that a meeting of the council was held. Struggling hard to save his favorite, Edward could do no more than get postponements. Finally, however, the barons got together on April 28 in a very dangerous mood.
The meeting was almost unanimous against the king and Gaveston. The only one who stood out, in fact, was the nobleman named Hugh le Despenser, who had served Edward I long and faithfully but who was sufficiently political-minded to see a chance here to win the favor of the new king. His voice was drowned out in the loud chorus of baronial demands; and later, when Parliament met at Northampton, he was dismissed from the council for his stand.