Authors: Thomas B. Costain
The king was compelled to bow his head to the storm. It was decided that Gaveston was to be stripped of all offices and honors and sent away.
For good measure, the bishops declared that he would be excommunicated if he ever attempted to return to England.
The king had given in, but between them this fine pair saw a way out of the difficulty. Gaveston was sent from England, but only as far as Ireland, where he was to serve as the king’s lieutenant at a fine salary. Edward rode to Bristol with him and stood sorrowfully at the docks while the vessel containing the Gascon and his company (a large one, needless to state) warped its way out into the Channel.
Queen Isabella wrote to her father, “I am the most wretched of wives.” Once she wrote that Piers de Gaveston was the cause of all her troubles, adding that the king had become “an entire stranger to my bed.” King Philip responded by continuing his intrigue with the leading barons, particularly with the Earl of Lancaster, who was always ready for any course of action directed against the king.
The favorite remained in Ireland for a year and seems to have conducted himself rather well. At any rate, he put down native disaffection and established a degree of peace in the part of the country lying about Dublin and known as the Pale. But Ireland, he felt, was not a proper setting for his brilliant gifts and he even went to the extent of addressing letters to the King of France, begging his assistance in having the ban raised. He wrote to the Pope, beseeching to be freed from the ban of the Church. He had no success with that man of few words but violent deeds, Philip the Once Fair, but the Pope looked on his plea with leniency and removed the ban of excommunication.
Brother Perrot returned to England at once with an almost regal train. With him were Irish malcontents, a few Englishmen, and a great many foreigners, including some needy Gascons. They landed at Milford Haven and made their way like conquering heroes to Chester, where the prodigal (as he was sometimes called) was received with affection and pleasure by King Edward. Things had been going a little better in the country. Baronial nerves had recovered to some extent as a result of a year’s relief from the presence of Gaveston. For one reason or another the council was persuaded to look with leniency on the case of the homecomer. A Parliament was held at Stamford on July 27, 1309, and an active minority headed by the Earl of Gloucester worked hard for him. Gloucester was his brother-in-law, still a minor and a young man of some instability. Gloucester’s sister was not too happy in her marriage with the vain Gascon, but the brother nevertheless used all the influence he could bring to bear and finally succeeded in getting a favorable vote. It was agreed
that Gaveston could remain and the earldom of Cornwall was restored to him.
This was a great victory, and if the insolent alien had possessed any common sense at all he might have settled down to a peaceful life on his share of the immense Clare holdings which had come to him with his wife. But Gaveston was a vainglorious winner as well as a poor loser. He must make a public display of his victory. He loved tournaments and, to do him justice, he had a sure seat in the saddle and a deft hand with the lance. It happened that the king had arranged to hold a tilting at Wallingford, and Gaveston decided to make this the scene of his public vindication.
The old Roman town of Wallingford, standing in the flat valley of the Thames about halfway between Reading and Oxford, was in a holiday mood for the tournament. Flags flew from the high turrets of the castle and pennants fluttered from the pavilions of the knights. Spectators had been coming for days, and now the common people were beginning to arrive, barefooted, with their shoes slung over their backs to save the soles but quite proud nevertheless in their new
courtepys
(which they called court-pies), a garment which aped the knightly tabard but was made of inferior cloth.
This was one of the brilliant events of the reign. The men in the stands, having doffed their riding cloaks, were as gay as peacocks, from their liripiped and plumed hats, topper-shaped and made of beaver, to the upturned tips of their toes. The
cote-hardie
, which was relatively new, was already giving way to a garment called the doublet, which was so attractive and at the same time so practical that it would continue in use for centuries. It was a sleeveless coat (later it would be fitted with puffed and slashed sleeves), fitting the chest rather snugly and going only to the waist.
The ladies, still drab and overly modest in their long kirtles and tunics and robes, were beginning to assert themselves a little against their popinjay husbands. Audacious things were being done with their headdresses, making them still higher and rather like windmills, and they were wearing their hair in long braids tied with gay ribbons.
Piers de Gaveston showed unusual restraint in arriving before the king and queen and riding direct to the tilt house, a temporary structure with a sloping roof and blinds on the sides. He was followed by many knights and squires, however, and his shining armor was of the best; from the continent, forsooth, and fitted with the latest articulations for shoulders, elbows, and knees. He did not wear the
cyclas
, a loose surcoat, because it was an English invention and therefore not fashionable. Undoubtedly he expressed some umbrage that he was classed with the challengers instead
of the champions, and when he came out for action there was little or no applause. The nobility scowled and Queen Isabella went suddenly quiet and seemed to lose all pleasure in the tilting.
Gaveston gave the nobility more cause for mortification by outshining and outpointing them in the jousting. He had many gifts, this insolent Gascon, and one was his great skill with weapons. At the close of the tilting, however, he proceeded to throw away all the favor he had won for himself by his prowess. His tongue began to wag and he gave free rein to a gift he had for finding nicknames. He tossed his quips about with an airy unconcern for consequences.
Cousin Lancaster he called
The Fiddler
because that man of dull wit had arrayed himself in a rather outlandish attempt to follow the latest fashions.
His own brother-in-law, Gloucester, was loudly libeled as
Filz à puteyne
, the whore’s son, an allusion to willful Princess Joanna, who had run away and married a man not even a knight when her elderly first husband died.
The Earl of Pembroke, Aymer de Valence, who had a prominent nose and a dark complexion, became
Joseph the Jew
.
The Earl of Lincoln, who was heavy of build, was dubbed
M’sieur Boele Crevée
or
Burst-belly
.
Finally he spoke of the Earl of Warwick, who had the unfortunate habit of foaming at the mouth, as
The Mad Hound
.
“Let him call me hound!” cried Warwick in a black rage and probably lending point to the witticism. “Someday the hound will destroy him!”
While Edward was thus allowing his insolent favorite to undermine him with all classes of people from Cousin Lancaster down to the lowest kitchen knave, the situation in Scotland drifted into a curious and costly impasse. Robert the Bruce was king, but he was still a king without a country. The people of Scotland had been won over to him, with the exception of the adherents of the Comyn family, but all the great fortresses were in English hands. There was no possibility of establishing peace and order in the land until the forts had been reduced and the English expelled. The Bruce proceeded to this task with great determination.
It thus became necessary for the English king to maintain strong garrisons in the Scottish fortresses, which meant that supplies had to be sent in by sea at very heavy expense. Scotland was costing Edward so much, in fact, that the royal treasury remained empty. Edward was caught in a cleft stick as far as the war was concerned. The English nobility had no stomach for further fighting and would protest against taking the field,
but at the same time their pride had been touched by the turn of events. They did not want Scotland lost. The new king could not please them, no matter what policy he pursued.
Edward’s desire to protect Gaveston led him into all manner of subterfuges to keep Parliament from meeting. This cost him the taxes which otherwise would have been voted. The royal pockets were empty. The situation became so acute that there was no money to pay the expenses of the royal household. The queen had no income until a special arrangement was made for revenue to be paid her from estates in Ponthieu. She resented this impoverishment most bitterly.
In order to save Gaveston, Edward made an extraordinary concession. He agreed to the selection of a commission which would take over the administration of the kingdom. The members became known as Ordainers because of the nature of the oath they took “to make such ordinances as should be to the honor and advantage of Holy Church, to the honor of the king, and to his advantage and that of his people.” The commission consisted of twenty-one members, none of them commoners, and prominent among them were all the enemies of the favorite. Archbishop Winchelsey had been summoned back to assume his duties at Canterbury and was a member. He had ceased to favor the king and was again disposed against the granting of Church funds for state purposes.
Knowing his peril to be great, Gaveston left the court. When Edward went to Berwick to make a pretense of beginning active measures against the Scots, Gaveston went with him. He remained in the north for the better part of a year.
W
HILE the king played at war-making in the north and so avoided the need of facing his angry baronage, the feeling against him and his favorite grew steadily. The queen still kept up a show of loyalty to her husband, which added to the sympathy felt for her everywhere. She may have poured out her indignation in letters to her father or in the talks she had with the leaders of the Ordainers, but nothing was allowed to show on the surface.
In February 1311, the Earl of Lincoln died. He will be remembered as the full-bodied baron who had been given the nickname of
Burst-belly
by the effervescent Gaveston, a fact which he himself never forgot or forgave. Nevertheless, he had been made regent while Edward went off to his ineffectual campaigning in the north. Cousin Lancaster was married to Lincoln’s daughter, an only child, and so succeeded to all the estates and added the earldoms of Lincoln and Salisbury to his already formidable list of titles. He stepped also into the late earl’s shoes as regent of the kingdom.
Lancaster went north at once, ostensibly to pay homage for his new properties, but in reality to convince the king that he must delay no longer in returning to face the Ordainers. Edward received him with civility. When Gaveston joined them, the regent, who resented having been called
The Fiddler
and who knew that even his friends now called him that behind his back, drew himself up haughtily and had nothing to say, not even condescending to return the insolent alien’s gesture of greeting. Edward was furious, but there was nothing to be done about it. Lancaster had all of the barons and bishops and most of the commoners behind him. The king was standing alone. He grumblingly promised to return.
It was six months before he kept his promise. First he rode across country to the most remote part of the North Sea coast where the towering
castle of Bamborough stood on the top of an almost perpendicular rock one hundred and fifty feet in height. There was only one possible approach to the black keep in its circle of high walls, a steep and winding road cut through the rocks on the southeast. The waters of the North Sea at high tide broke loudly on the rocky base of Bamborough. Remembering perhaps how an earlier owner of this grim rock sentinel, Robert de Mowbray, had held William Rufus at bay, Edward was sure that here was the perfect sanctuary for his friend.
It was late in August when the king faced the Ordainers at Westminster. They had a long list of grievances and demands to lay before him, and the chastened monarch agreed to all of them readily enough, save a clause which banished Gaveston from the kingdom for all time. When Edward stood out angrily, the barons gave him a choice: send the Gascon away or face civil war. It did not take long for him to make up his mind.
What armed forces he had were in Scotland, holding out in the strong fortresses of that country. They could not be summoned to his aid without leaving Bruce a free hand. It was doubtful, in any case, if they could get out, with a hostile nation hemming them in. On the other hand, the barons were united and ready.
For the third time Gaveston was sent into exile, with Flanders his only chance of sanctuary, even Gascony having been closed to him. He went unwillingly and as openly antagonistic to the nobility as ever. The Ordainers then proceeded to find and dismiss all the relatives and friends of the Gascon for whom places had been found in the royal household and the administrative offices. Edward was not consulted about this house-cleaning and he resented it bitterly.
“Am I an idiot,” he cried, “that they won’t let me look to my own household?”
Gaveston was like the proverbial bad penny. He left for Flanders in October. Apparently he did not like that prosperous but sober country, for the next month there were rumors in England that he had returned in disguise. These stories began to take on substance as the bad penny became bolder. He was seen in the west at many points, flaunting his identity and his prosperity openly. Before Christmas, which Edward was spending with the queen at Windsor, he paid an open visit to the royal castle. When Isabella protested against this folly, the troublemaker treated her with contempt. He was, he declared, the good friend and loyal servant of the king. What booted it if others, even the queen herself, were not pleased?
The country seethed with indignation, and in London the trained bands marched to protest the recklaw attitude of the favorite and to voice sympathy for their much-loved Isabella. Edward paid no attention to public opinion. He had finally made up his mind that the friend of his boyhood
would remain with him in spite of everything. He even issued a writ announcing the return of Gaveston and lauding his action as an evidence of loyalty. Soon thereafter he restored all the estates of the favorite.