Authors: Thomas B. Costain
Prince Edward did homage for the provinces held in France, and Charles, in his turn, withdrew the forces he had sent against Gascony. There was now apparently nothing to hold the queen and the heir apparent from returning home.
But they did not return. There were many reasons. They were in a position abroad to make demands on the king and to insist on the dismissal of the Despensers as the price of their return. The country was sadly in need of better government, and nothing could be done if they came humbly back. There was, moreover, the relationship which had developed between Isabella and her “gentle Mortimer,” as she had fallen into the habit of calling him. She had now no desire to return and resume her place beside the king. When a woman of passionate nature has existed in a loveless marriage and has reached the late twenties before yielding to a clandestine impulse, it may be taken for granted that she will not be guided by anything but the dictates of her love. Isabella seems to have taken few precautions and to have worn her heart quite openly on her sleeve.
The behavior of the queen was so indiscreet that Walter Stapledon, Bishop of Exeter, who had been one of the advisers sent over with the young prince, decided that steps must be taken. He was a sound and courageous man and did not hesitate to reproach her. Isabella gave him no satisfaction. Mortimer, she declared, was a brave knight and an amusing companion; what harm could there be in a preference for his company?
Stapledon felt the time had come when the king in England should know the whole truth. He made a surreptitious departure from the French court and succeeded in getting across the Channel, despite the fact that the queen had warned Mortimer to prevent him from leaving. The bishop’s report to the king was that the queen’s infatuation for Mortimer was the real cause of the delay. He intimated also that other plans were being considered, even an intention to land an army of invasion. Edward instituted at once a watch on all English ports. Mail was delayed and examined and arrivals from France were questioned and sometimes held in custody.
King Edward has been praised for the way he handled the situation, particularly in the matter of the letters he sent to his wife, to his son, and to the King of France, which are termed manly and touching. The truth of the matter is that he behaved with his usual lack of acumen and decision. It must have been clear to him that an invasion was impending and that he must take immediate steps to prevent it. His father would have ordered an instant return on pain of losing all rights and properties and would have demanded of the King of France that he cease to harbor them if he desired peace to continue between the two countries. Edward showed his pique by taking the poor wife of Mortimer into custody with all her children and treating them with severity, when he might have packed them off to join their fugitive husband and father. Their presence would have served as a dampener at least on the open philandering of Isabella and Mortimer. Certainly steps were necessary to collect an army to defend the realm. Instead the king entered into long, repetitious correspondence.
His letters have an appealing quality, it is true, but they are lacking in vigor and incisiveness, and in two respects they reveal the weakness of character which he had so often displayed. First, they go to great lengths to answer Isabella’s expressed fear of violence at the hands of the younger Despenser, Nephew Hugh. He seems more concerned to defend the Despensers than anything else. In writing Isabella, he says, “He has always procured from us all the honor he could for you, nor to you has either evil or villainy been done since you entered into our companionship.” To Prince Edward he describes Hugh as “our dear and faithful nephew.” To Isabella’s brother, the king, he states, “Never in the slightest instance has evil been done to her by him, and since she has departed from us and come to you what has compelled her to send to our dear and trusting nephew letters of such great and special amity?” He goes on to charge that she has “spoken falsehoods of our nephew.” There is continually, in these letters, an insistence on the blamelessness of his favorites and the fairness of his dear Nephew Hugh.
The other great lack in his missives is that he neglects to say the only
thing that could conceivably heal the breach. He does not write one sentence to indicate a willingness on his part to change the conditions to which they must return. Far from promising to get rid of the obnoxious Despensers or to limit their power, he depicts them as perfect servants who have been sinned against though never themselves sinning. He makes it clear they are to remain, the older Despenser, who had reached the years of senility, the younger, and even the worthless individual they had foisted on him as chancellor, Robert de Baldock, Archdeacon of Middlesex, who had no qualifications for the part save a willingness in all things to pander to the desires of Nephew Hugh. While the king hunted and hawked and amused himself with horseplay and raucous humors, the Despensers and their tool Baldock had brought the country to a sorry pass; but he shows no recognition of this nor any intent to improve things. Did he know that his military summonses were being disregarded, that the taxes were not being collected, that laws were not being enforced, that the courts were filled with untried cases, that bandits and highway robbers infested the country with nothing being done about it, that the Despensers seemed interested only in their own enrichment? If he was aware of such things, there is no indication in his letters of any intent to correct the abuses.
There are no promises of any kind in what he writes. Come back on my terms and I will forgive you. That is all he holds out.
Finally Edward sent copies of the letters he had addressed to Charles of France and to the Pope, and this brought results. The pontiff, in the indignation caused by the adulterous conduct of the queen, demanded of the French king that he send Isabella and her son out of the kingdom under penalty of excommunication. Charles was deeply disturbed at this and intimated to his sister that the time had come for her to leave.
In dealing with this situation in his
Chronicles
, Jean Froissart gives a melodramatic version. He says that the queen’s cousin, Robert of Artois, who was now her only real friend at the French court, came to her in the middle of the night with word that Charles intended to turn them all over to Edward. He advised strongly that she start at once for Burgundy, where she would be out of reach of both kings and would be kindly received and protected.
The result was that the queen, the prince, gentle Mortimer, and all others who had been received into the conspiratorial circle, including Edward’s ambassadors and his half brother, Edmund of Kent, departed from France without delay and made their way to the Low Countries.
When Isabella, her son, and her long train of followers came into the Netherlands on the invitation of Sir John of Hainaut, they saw that they were in a different world; a land of low and monotonous plains under heavy skies and, all about them, behind high strong walls, splendid and prosperous cities in which people had found that industry yielded dividends in rich living and content. Perhaps their greatest surprise came when they reached the city of Valenciennes and stopped before the castle of Count William of Hainaut. The exterior looked strong and capable of standing siege, but within it was designed for a colorful and realistic kind of life. Immediately inside the great gate was a courtyard and opposite it an entrance of folded oak, with a bronze head of some fabulous creature serving as a knocker, which gave onto a room of singular cheerfulness.
This room served in place of that strange monstrosity in Norman castles, the great hall. It lacked the high arched ceilings and so achieved warmth under its low galleries. There were six tall windows to give light. The floor, miracle of miracles, had not a single rush malodorous with age, but was of paving stones, scrubbed every day and so kept white and aseptic. There was a glow about the whole apartment, owing largely to its red hangings and the glazing of the windows.
It was in this unusual apartment that the tired queen and her companions made the acquaintance of William, Count of Hainaut, the older brother of Sir John, who had escorted them on their way. Standing behind the count in a row were his four daughters, who might best be described as a muster of young peacocks, so bright were the colors they presented, their flaxen hair, their apple-red cheeks, their dresses of green, and their red shoes. Prince Edward was just entering his teens, which is a period of susceptibility, and his first impression must have been that never before had he seen girls so different but so attractive for that very reason. Margaret, Philippa, Joanna, and Isbel! How could a youth of his years resist falling in love, not with one, but with all four?
This was exactly what he was expected to do. After the meal served them, a truly gigantic one with haunches of meat, fish swimming in sauces, and a succession of sweet dishes of strange but enticing tastes, he was told so by his mother. The count, it seemed, loved each of his little tow-headed daughters equally. He would certainly be happy to have one of them marry the future King of England, but when the time came he would expect it to be the oldest of the four. Was it Margaret who pleased Edward most? No, it was not Margaret. There was another who had
brighter cheeks than her sisters and was just a bit more plump. Philippa? Yes, it was Philippa. He was advised to keep any such preference to himself and to allow it to seem that his admiration was equally divided. Besides, there was the Parliament in England to be considered. It would be most unwise to let it be known that he had made up his mind before the consent of that body had been obtained.
It was known both to mother and son that King Edward had started negotiations for a marriage of the prince with the infanta Eleanor of Aragon, a most distinguished and desirable alliance. Isabella was aware, however, that if she could win the support of Count William it would be possible to get together a force for the invasion of England. What better inducement could she offer than a brilliant match for one of his four daughters? She had made it clear to the count by correspondence before leaving France that such was her thought. An understanding was reached between them that the marriage would be arranged after her return to England.
So Prince Edward remained a fortnight in Hainaut in the pleasant company of the four gay, chattering daughters of the house. He managed to keep a neutral attitude, although he had long talks with the slightly plumper Philippa and found his secret preference growing more certain with each hour. He may have conveyed a hint to her of his feelings in the matter.
In the meantime Queen Isabella was conducting a campaign for armed support. The impression had been widely spread throughout the Low Countries, largely by the efforts of young Sir John, who undoubtedly had fallen in love with her, that she was a fair lady in great distress and that all chivalrous knights should rally to her support. Her conduct was exemplary. Mortimer stayed in the background and was accepted as no more than a member of her English entourage. She even attired herself in dresses of seeming modesty, taking little advantage of a sudden turn in feminine styles which had been under way in Paris. Her dresses conformed to the new fashion in having tight bodices and buttoned sleeves and very full skirts which swayed like slow waves on a quiet sea, but they were made of subdued materials and lacked the rich embroideries in pearls and thread of gold. She thus created the impression of an exile who could not afford the best apparel of the moment but could look beautiful in the plainest of wear.
As the weeks passed, the train which followed her on the recruiting journeys she undertook grew larger, like the lengthening tail of a comet. She managed to inject a great deal of gaiety into it, as had Eleanor of Aquitaine when she took a company of well-born ladies to fight in the crusade led by her first husband, the King of France, wearing such dazzling
uniforms that the brave knights were more interested in the lady crusaders than in fighting the paynim.
Knights joined the English queen from all parts of the Low Countries—Holland, Friesland, Brabant, Gueldres, as well as Hainaut—most of them youths eager for a chance to show their mettle. There were recruits from Germany as well and from as far away as Bohemia. It was a large and gallant company, 2,757 strong, which Isabella and Sir John of Hainaut finally led to Dort, where a fleet was assembled to take them across the water to England. Sir John was in command, with Roger Mortimer in charge of the English contingent.
They had a stormy passage and on September 24, 1326, landed with some difficulty on a strip of beach between Orford and Harwich. There was not a house in sight and only a few natives who scuttled for cover at the first glimpse of them. The young knights set to work to make an abode in which their beautiful lady could spend her first night back on the soil of England. For the purpose they used some bits of wreckage found on the beach and four carpets. The queen thanked them with bright smiles in spite of her weariness.
The next morning, with banners flying, they started their march inland. Isabella rode in front with Sir John of Hainaut beside her. She was in the gayest of moods. Mortimer rode well back in the ranks; she was striving to conduct the adventure with the utmost decorum.
E
DWARD was in the Tower of London when the news reached him of the landing of the queen and Prince Edward on the coast of Suffolk with an army of foreign knights and mercenaries. With him were the two Despensers, the wife of Nephew Hugh, who was a niece of the king, and Baldock, the chancellor. The news seemed to have dumfounded him. He had not expected that things would come to this, despite the reports which had reached him from the continent. He looked at those about him with an almost blank stare, as though asking what was to be done now.
Even a king as disorganized and unready as Edward has sources of information. Spies on the continent had sent word of Isabella’s activities and of the favorable impression she was making. It had been clear she was planning an invasion, but Edward’s only move at first was to write more letters. These were addressed to the Pope and the King of France and begged assistance in the crisis which threatened him. Later he talked to the members of the council and the leaders of Parliament. They did not display any willingness to aid in raising an army. During August he paid visits to a number of cities, hoping to enlist the nobility but finding the same lack of interest. If he had announced his intention of banishing the Despensers for all time, he would have had a far different reception. But if he thought of any such concession, he set his mind stubbornly against it. He had not broken the power of the baronial opposition and sent his cousin to the block to give in at the first hint of more trouble. Had he taken action at once, he could have brought in an army of mercenaries himself, but it was seemingly impossible for him to act with promptitude. Even when the reports from abroad became more disturbing daily, he made no effort to establish concentrations of armed men along the coast to resist a landing.