Post Mortem Birthday Greetings to Edward II and Roger de Mortimer!

Happy very belated birthday to both! I always think it such an irony that these two men shared the same birthday, the same birth sign and yet were such different characters! I suppose it doesn't say much for horoscopes ;-) Edward was born in 1284 at Caernarvon, in north Wales at one of his father's new (and still being built) castles. Roger was born a few years later, in 1287, at Wigmore.

Also born on this day, which, incidentally is St Mark's Day:
Ella Fitzgerald; Oliver Cromwell; Guglielmo Marconi; Al Pacino. It is also Anzac Day, National Zucchini Bread Day, Cuckoo Day and Swaziland national Flag Day amongst others!

Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, Pt 2

Part 2 - 1314 - 1318

The year 1314 saw yet another Scottish campaign. Edward issued writs summoning his earls and their armies to battle. Pembroke, Gloucester and Hereford answered the call but Lancaster, Warenne, Warwick and Arundel did not - claiming that parliament had not ratified the summons. Without their numbers, Edward was weakened but still continued, ending with his sound and humiliating defeat at Bannockburn in June at which Gloucester was killed.

The ignominy of the Scottish campaign seemed to completely dampen Edward’s spirits, as if they weren’t low enough since Gaveston’s death. He suddenly seemed to accept that he needed Lancaster’s help and that his defeat had been some kind of divine message over his refusal to support the Ordinances. After Bannockburn, Lancaster rose to power once more, taking a leading role in government and implementing all of the Ordinances. Edward was forced to listen to his council and take his advice. Lancaster was the most powerful earl in the land once again but his power was based far more on his vast estates rather than on his friends and connections which seemed to be getting fewer and fewer (through both death and desertion) as time went by.

The death of his father in law, de Lacy, in 1311 had brought him two new earldoms - those of Lincoln and Salisbury. This meant that he was now in control of five earldoms and land which more or less stretched from coast to coast in England. His income was valued at around £11,000 a year making him the wealthiest of all the magnates apart from the king himself. Such vast lands meant that he also had a huge retinue across a large swathe of England - a private army upon which he could call to defend his position should he need to do so. And yet, within a few years, it would all change again due to his ineptitude, greed and lack of political judgement.

The years between 1314 and 1317 were particularly hard ones for Edward II and his regime to deal with. For a start the Scots continued to attack the north of England with impunity and between 1315 and 1317 a famine ravaged the land. These were the years when England needed a strong king and officials - instead it got Edward and Lancaster. To be fair, Lancaster did his best to implement the Ordinances in full, purging the royal household and local government of men thought to be bad for the running of the country (in other words hostile to Lancaster), and he also attempted to get the country’s finances back into shape by limiting spending. Unfortunately his plans to lead a campaign to Scotland in 1315 came to nothing when the famine thwarted any attempts to provision the army and he also had to deal with a revolt on his lands led by one of his retainers, Adam Banaster. To add to his woes, his main ally, the earl of Warwick, died in August.

From that point Lancaster was rarely seen at Westminster, preferring to govern from his own lands instead. Maybe it was the fear of further revolt that kept him at home or else the uncomfortable atmosphere that must have still existed between him and the king after Gaveston’s death. Although he still championed reform and gave advice it was clear that the gap between himself and Edward was growing. At a parliament in York in 1316 they had a blazing quarrel about the king’s continuing reluctance to implement the Ordinances. Later that year salt was rubbed into the wound as the Queen’s candidate for the see of Durham was chosen above Lancaster’s choice. And then, to cap it all, he was replaced by the earl of Arundel as the Captain of the Northern Forces.

Lancaster’s self-imposed absence from court during these years did him no favours, especially when he also refused to attend the council of Ordainers at Clarendon in 1317. It seemed that Edward was setting up his own little council circle consisting of men who, by marriage and favouritism, had suddenly become powerful: Hugh Audley, Roger Damory, William Montague and Hugh Despenser the elder. Audley and Damory had married two of the co-heiresses of the Gloucester inheritance - Margaret and Elizabeth respectively. The other sister, Eleanor, was, of course, married to Hugh Despenser the younger, a man who in another year would out-shine and out-do the others in terms of Edward’s adoration and his own ambitions.

Meanwhile, to add to Lancaster’s trouble, his wife was abducted by John de Warenne, earl of Surrey in April 1317. Although their marriage seems to have been loveless, it was the principle that was at stake and the event started a feud between Lancaster and Surrey. Surrey’s marriage was also loveless - in fact he had made a lifetime career of trying to divorce his wife, Joan of Bar. However, there does not seem to be any suggestion of a romance between him and Alice de Lacy, which is a shame because it would have made for a good story. Instead it has been suggested - first of all by Lancaster himself, that the abduction was carried out with help from others at Edward’s court, so maybe it was a move designed to humiliate him. I can certainly imagine that a few of his enemies found the whole thing humourous to say the least.

The favourites Damory and Audley (and to a lesser extent Montague) were still living off the King’s largesse like parasites, the elder Despenser still close to Edward, and with the other earls and barons now seemingly reconciled to the way things were. No wonder then that Lancaster felt he had no choice but to show his dissent through violent action. He launched attacks on the lands of both Damory and Warenne, seizing castles belonging to them and raising the spectre of civil war. It has also been suggested that he was behind an attack on Louis Beaumont - the new Bishop of Durham, and his brother Henry - as well as two papal legates, but as there is no real evidence of his complicity in the plot, it is perhaps best to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one.

To be fair to Lancaster, many of his complaints against the court - such as lack of adherence to the Ordinances, were justified, and his objections by letter did as much good as a paper boat in a flood. Nevertheless, what he did next was irrational, even by his standards of diplomacy - he tried to bring in the Scots on his side - a move that was guaranteed to get Edward’s attention.

No matter how angry he was with Lancaster though, it was still within Edward’s best interests to try and negotiate with his cousin. Lancaster still represented a powerful force for instability within the country and with his large retinue, land ownership and a possible alliance with Bruce, he posed a considerable threat to Edward’s regime. Mediation was attempted through the prelates, the earls of Pembroke and Hereford and also Bartholomew Badlesmere. To try and soothe troubled waters, the three nobles managed to get Damory to agree to constrain the amount of patronage he received from the king - but to Lancaster this was never going to be enough. His demands remained constant - the enforcement of the Ordinances and the removal of men such as Damory and Audley from the court altogether - with their grants confiscated.

Of course, Edward was never going to agree to that and so the negotiations continued, the arguments going back and forth. Eventually, an agreement was reached in August 1318 at Leake in Staffordshire. Known as the Treaty of Leake, it acknowledged that the Ordinances were to be maintained and that this would be overseen by a new council. However, on this council, Lancaster was to be represented by a banneret only - and - even worse for him - many of the members of the council were the courtiers that Lancaster so detested. On the plus side though, Lancaster and his followers were to receive pardons for any wrong-doing.

The Treaty of Leake was confirmed by the York parliament of October 1318 which saw more changes. There was a limited reform of the king’s household - which included the appointment of Hugh Despenser the younger to the powerful position of Chamberlain. Amazingly Lancaster seems to have given his consent - albeit probably reluctantly - to his selection, even though he detested Hugh the elder’s influence. Maybe it was because at the time the younger Hugh was not high in Edward’s favour and therefore was not seen as another potential Gaveston or Damory. Also, it seems that Hugh gave an undertaking not to bring his father into the presence of the king, which suggests that there was an understanding that Hugh and his father were not, at that moment, very close. It certainly appears, at this moment in time, that the barons thought Hugh Despenser was their man. How wrong could they be?

But back to Lancaster. Why then did he just seem to lie down and roll over after making such forcible protests? It seems that his principles actually weren’t quite so strong in the face of financial inducements. Edward arranged for several courtiers to acknowledge debts to him for large amounts of money. More importantly, Warenne was ‘persuaded’ into making peace with his former enemy - and granted him all of his lands in Yorkshire and North Wales. In some ways Lancaster had come out of the situation quite well - in terms of financial and land gain anyway. But morally he had completely lost the high ground and in doing so allowed a man into power - Hugh Despenser the younger - who was to prove so instrumental in his eventual downfall.

News from Lady D.

Hi all,

Sorry that the second part of the Lancaster post has been delayed. I had forgotten all about the school Spring Break - so I have been rather busy taking my daughter out and about and generally having a rather good time! I have been to Hanley castle (a Despenser home), The Cotswold Farm Park where I met some lovely goats and donkeys, and today a new (so new that not all of it is built yet) environmental centre called Thistledown - near Stroud, Glos.

And there is a further excuse - a couple of sunny days (yes, gasp!) - so I took the opportunity to get out in the garden and stomp on some weeds. I am trying to resurrect my old herb garden - wish me luck!

Anyway, daughter goes back to her dad"s on Friday eve and the weather looks bad for the weekend, so I promise the next posts will be up then! And in the meantime - if anyone has a cloning machine, please let me know!

Thomas, Earl of Lancaster b. (c) 1278-1322 - Part1

Part 1 - Minority to 1313

Throughout the majority of Edward’s reign there can be little doubt that one of the biggest pains in the bum (if you pardon the expression!) was his cousin, Thomas, earl of Lancaster. Lancaster was not only a constant source of anxiety to Edward, he was also an implacable enemy of the Despensers. It therefore pays to take a closer look at this man who, despite not having any charisma as well as very poor political judgement, nevertheless caused Edward’s regime so much trouble.

Thomas Plantagenet was born around 1278, the eldest son of Edmund, brother to Edward I and Blanche, the daughter of Robert, count of Artois (and also the son of King Louis VIII of France). His half-sister on his mother’s side, Joan, was married to Philip IV, the king of France and mother to the future kings Louis X, Philip V and Charles IV as well as Isabella, Edward II’s future queen. With such a pedigree it is little wonder that he probably expected more from the corridors of royal power and privilege than he got.

Nevertheless, in his younger days he seems to have been a favourite of Edward I, and he and his cousin, the future Edward II appear to have had a close and affectionate friendship. This is quite poignantly illustrated (especially in light of future events) by a letter Edward sent to Thomas when he was sick. In it he says that he hopes to be able to join Thomas soon and offer him some comfort.

In 1290, there were plans for Thomas to marry Beatrice, the grand-daughter of the duke of Burgundy. This, however never worked out and in 1294 he married Alice de Lacy - daughter of Henry de Lacy, the earl of Lincoln - instead. Upon his marriage he received a share of the Lacy lands plus the promise of the remainder on de Lacy’s death. The marriage was not a happy one however, and produced no children.

Edmund died in 1296, leaving his son to inherit the earldoms of Lancaster and Leicester. Although he still hadn’t come of age, his tenants were commanded to pay homage to him in July 1297. It was in this year, too, that he saw his first military service in Flanders and was knighted at Ghent on 1st November 1297. Over the next ten years Thomas’s star seemed to be in no danger of falling from favour. He fought alongside the King at Falkirk and Caerlaverlock, as well as accompanying Prince Edward to Perth in 1304-5 and again to Scotland in 1306-7.

After the death of Edward I, Thomas remained on good terms with Edward II for a while - receiving royal grants including the Stewardship of England, as well as dining frequently in his company. This lasted for a good eighteen months. At this point Thomas even seemed favourable enough to Gaveston, taking no part with the other barons’ protests at his high-handedness. In this he clashed with Henry de Lacy, which must have put even more strain on his marriage with Alice.

However, in the winter of 1308-9, after Gaveston’s exile, things began to change for the worse. The reasons for this are not clear but, according to an article by Andy King ('Thomas of Lancaster’s First Quarrel with Edward II', in Fourteenth-Century England III, ed. Mark Ormrod (Woodbridge Boydell & Brewer, 2004)), it may have had something to do with a petty dispute between Lancaster and the King. It was over the illegal actions of a royal official who seized a manor Lancaster thought was his. As I said, it was nothing more than a petty squabble that should have been easily solved. Instead the enmity between Lancaster and his royal cousin grew out of all proportion and was to have a huge effect on the realm thereafter.

Of course it may be that there were other factors involved in Lancaster’s disaffection - ones that have not been recorded for us to see. But the upshot of it all was that, as the other barons reconciled with Edward during Gaveston’s absence, Lancaster removed himself from court and the king stopped granting him favours. He even opposed Gaveston’s recall to court in June 1309 even though he had previously been on friendly enough terms with the man.

Of course, Gaveston being Gaveston, he was soon stirring up discontent among the nobility again. This time Lancaster joined the opposition and, during a tournament at Dunstable, he and the other earls drew up a charter of complaints against the king, including judicial malpractices and abuses as well as the practice of purveyance (the right of the Crown to requisition goods and food needed for household and military use) - something which had become an oppressive burden on the country at this time. One of the chief aims of the charter, though, was to once again remove Gaveston from the King’s side. Lancaster seems to have thrown himself into his role with great enthusiasm and soon appeared to be the figurehead for the rest of the dissenters.

At the Parliament in February 1310, Lancaster presented a list of complaints to Edward and in March Edward agreed to appoint a number of lords and clergy to look into reforming royal and government policy. These twenty-one men, headed by Lancaster, became known as the Lords Ordainers. A year and a half later, in August 1311, they presented a document of Ordinances. Edward seems to have tried to avoid the whole thing in the intervening time by arranging to be on campaign in Scotland with Gaveston - a campaign that really couldn’t achieve a lot because the dissenting earls and barons refused to send troops.

By August 1311 Edward couldn’t really avoid the issue any longer. He was forced to face up to the earls’ demands for reform. Many of the Ordinances were indeed sensible measures to ensure good government and to prevent abuses against the common people. They also demanded that the baronage should provide their consent in parliament for any new laws or wars the King decided upon. So far, so good, but other ordinances designed to reform the royal household called again for Gaveston’s exile. Not surprisingly, the king baulked. To begin with he refused to accept any of them as he felt that they controlled his divine right of kingship. Then he agreed to accede to them all as long as the one concerning Gaveston was revoked. In the end he was forced to accept the exiling of his favourite as well, under threat of rebellion.

Gaveston left English shores in early November 1311, but not for long. It appears that he returned to England again either by Christmas or in early January: obviously Edward was not prepared to be separated from his beloved for anything. Also, Piers’ wife, Margaret had just given birth to a baby daughter and it is also possible that Piers had returned to see her too. Whatever the reason (and a great post on this can be read on Alianore’s Edward II blog here), Edward revoked the Ordinances and Gaveston’s exile at York in January 1312 and restored his friend to his lands and his earldom.

The Lords Ordainers, were, of course suitably outraged. Archbishop Winchelsea had Gaveston excommunicated and Lancaster demanded his surrender and exile. Predictably Edward refused point blank and the rebel barons started to head north, intent on a confrontation. On 4th May Lancaster took hold of Newcastle, where Edward and Piers had been staying, but they had already fled by sea to the heavily fortified Scarborough castle. For some reason, Edward left Piers there for his own safety and travelled to York via Knaresborough. Why he left him is uncertain - the Vita claim it was an accident, although it would seem a careless one if so. Other chronicles maintain that it was deliberate. There is some record that seems to indicate that while at Newcastle, Piers had suffered some form of illness: the King’s wardrobe accounts detail the costs of a physician and a monk brought in to look after him. Perhaps at Scarborough he suffered a relapse and was unable to ride any further.

Whatever the reason, the Ordainers caught up with Gaveston at Scarborough and besieged the castle until he was forced to surrender to Pembroke, Warenne and Percy. Lancaster had left the siege earlier, worried that his forces would add to logistical problems due to their size. A truce was worked out - probably between the moderate Pembroke and the King whose terms were more than favourable to Gaveston’s future. However as Pembroke travelled south with his prisoner to meet with the king, he was attacked at Deddington by the earl of Warwick who seized Gaveston from under Pembroke’s nose. Gaveston was then taken to Warwick Castle, ‘tried’ by the earls of Lancaster and Warwick and sentences to be executed. On 19th June, he was then taken a few miles away to Blacklow Hill, on the earl of Lancaster’s lands, run through with a sword and beheaded.

The abduction of a prisoner from the safe-keeping of one earl by another and the violence used to secure Lancaster’s ends did nothing to help his cause. The earls Pembroke and Warenne turned back to the king’s side along with others in the moderate camp. Negotiations with Lancaster and the other rebels continued but for now Edward had the upper hand. Lancaster was forced to return Gaveston’s stolen horses and jewels and in return he and the other barons were pardoned. Also, to add further to Lancaster’s woes, one of his main allies, Bishop Winchelsea, died in February1313 and he lost the backing of the clergy for the Ordinances.

From what was possibly a petty beginning to Thomas’s feud with Edward, things had now turned nasty with Gaveston’s death. He may have been pardoned, but Edward was not the sort just to forgive and forget the murder of the one man he loved above all others. Lancaster had dug himself a pretty big hole, and over the next years, instead of trying to lie low, he just kept on digging.

Nicholas de Litlington - Hugh Despenser's Illegitimate Son?

Well, it's great to be back! Two weeks away in self-imposed exile from blogland has seemed a short time in some ways (I didn't get as much done as I wanted) and a long time in others (I missed blogging)! Anyway, to kick-start everything again, here's the post I promised on Nicholas de Litlington, now thought by many historians to be an illegitimate member of the Despenser family.


Nicholas de Litlington (or Lytlington, Lytlyngton, Litlyngton) became the Abbot of Westminster Abbey in 1362 after being its prior for the past twelve years. An energetic man, he set about improving the abbey, and carrying on the improvements started by his predecessor Simon Langham (who, although had, in succession became the bishop of Ely, continued to fund the abbey’s restoration). Not only did his work improve the life of the monks already cloistered there but also seemed to help recruit further numbers to replace those who died during the Black Death of 1348-50.

He attended parliament when it was held at Westminster and was frequently requested to try petitions there. He is also well known for the commissioning of an expensive illuminated manuscript known as the Litlington Missal, which still exists. As well as a respected holy man, politician, builder and administrator, it seem that Litlington also had a rather secular liking of wealth and extravagance. He amassed a large collection of plate and loved hunting. He also had, among his possessions at his death, certain items of armour. There is a story that when he was seventy years of age, upon hearing of a threatened French invasion, he donned his armour and presented himself to partake in the realm’s defence. The story also goes that the dimensions of the armour were so vast, that it could not be sold on to anyone else. Obviously, the man liked his food as well!

So, apart from anything else, Litlington seems to have been a great character. However, there is another side to his story - one that has stirred up great controversy - his parentage. Many genealogy sites claim - incorrectly - (thanks to Dugdales Baronage of England) that he was an illegitimate son of Edward III and his mistress Alice Perrers. However, just a small amount of investigation shows that if this had been the case then it would have indeed been a miracle. Litlington died in 1386: if the above story of his age is true (and there is no reason to think that it is not), then that puts his birth date at 1316 or thereabouts. Edward III was born in 1312 and Alice around 1348 so it is pretty nigh impossible that they were his parents. In addition Litlington never claimed that he was from royal blood.

In her book, Westminster Abbey and its Estates in the Middle Ages, Barbara Harvey noted something quite extraordinary about Abbot Nicholas. This was that he used the Despenser coat of arms, albeit with a slight differentiation on the bend, and that he surmounted his initials with a coronet. He used these freely - in the tiles on the floor of the refectory in Westminster Abbey, on the bosses in the cloister, in the glass windows of the Jerusalem Chamber and on his personal collection of plate. Most notably they are found in the extravagant illuminated Litlington Missal, which he commissioned in 1383/84.

It seems that the other members of the Despenser family had no objections to his use of their heraldic devices, even though such familial privileges were often closely guarded. In fact he seemed to have been on good terms with certain members of the remaining Despenser family after 1326. For example he dined with Henry Despenser, Bishop of Norwich and grandson of Hugh the younger, as well as serving as attorney for Henry’s brother Edward in 1373.

But the question remains: if Nicholas was a member of the Despenser family, where did he fit in? One clue to this comes from Nicholas himself, who named his parents as being ‘Hugh and Joan’. The only Hughs of the right period who bore the Despenser coat of arms were Hugh the elder and Hugh the younger. It is therefore very probable that Nicholas was an illegitimate son of one or the other. However Joan, at the moment, is impossible to trace.

In a bid to try and track down the illusive beginnings of our abbot, I have done hours of researching online and nearly ended up cross-eyed as a result. To begin with, I thought I’d try and see what relevance the name of Litlington might have so I trawled through the parish records of villages with that or similar names. I could not find any direct unequivocal links with the Despenser family, but I did come close. There is a village of Litlington in Cambridgeshire which, in the early 14th Century consisted of five manors. One of these manors, Dovedales, was originally held in the honour of Gloucester and so was included in the estates partitioned between the three de Clare sisters. It seems though that this particular manor was given to Margaret and thence to her second husband Hugh Audley. Although Hugh Despenser coveted Audley and Margaret’s lands, I could not find any record that he had either visited the manor or taken it off his sister in law.

Another of the manors at Litlington was called Huntingfields. I did some searches on this manor and was extremely excited when I came up with it being granted to Hugh Despenser the younger. However, this excitement was rather short-lived as on closer inspection not only had the manor been gifted in 1325 (far too late for Nicholas to be conceived there), it was also in Nottinghamshire. Wrong time, wrong place!

Of course, it is possible that the Litlington name has nothing to do with a place of origin at all. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography puts forward the theory that his name came from a village in Middlesex called Littleton or Litlyngton, where the abbey had some land. Maybe it was just a place he liked and wanted to be associated with.

My latest attempt to trace some clues to his parentage lie within the heraldry aspect. As I already said, the bend on the coat of arms shows three small objects, which, as Susan Higginbotham has suggested, could be fleur de Lys. I am also puzzled why the parts of the shield which are normally white on the Despenser coat of arms are blue, but this could just be sheer elaboration on the part of the artist. What really interests me, however, is the coronet on top of the initials ‘NL’. Different types of coronets signified different types of rank. For example an earl’s coronet is different from a barons, and that is what I need to identify here. Is the coronet that of an earl or a baron? Hugh the younger was still a baron at his death whereas Hugh the elder was an earl. What I am wondering is, would the type of coronet on top of Nicholas’s initials provide a clue as to whether his father was Hugh the baron or Hugh the earl. Again, this may be a complete red herring and the coronet may signify something else: I certainly can’t identify it with certainty from the picture alone. To this end I have contacted the College of Arms (or Herald’s College) in London to see if they can enlighten me. Unfortunately, up to the date of this post they have yet to answer my query.

Even though we cannot say for certain who Nicholas’s parents were, I feel sure that he was fond of them. He founded an anniversary for them and also for himself at Great Malvern Priory (also associated with the Despenser family), to be celebrated on September 26th each year

When he died on November 29th 1386, he had led a full and useful life. He had enriched the Westminster Abbey that he loved so much, leaving it, amongst other items, two silver-gilt chalices; 48 dishes and two chargers; 24 saltcellars of silver; two silver jars for wine; twelve silver plates; a mitre and a pastoral staff. Even though his family tree cannot be sketched with any certainty, it certainly seemed that he inherited some of the positive Despenser traits - administrative skills, a talent for getting rich and also the knack of getting to the top!

For more details on his life, a good article is to be found on Susan Higginbotham’s site here.


Sources:

Royal Bastards of Medieval England by Chris Given-Wilson

Living and Dying in England, 1100-1540: The Monastic Experience by Barbara F. Harvey

Westminster Abbey and its Estates in the Middle Ages by Barbara F. Harvey

Plantagenet Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families by Douglas Richardson, Kimball G. Everingham

Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society: Volume 2, Part IV ('The Jerusalem Chamber' by the Rev. Thomas Hugo, 1860)

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online at http://www.oxforddnb.com

British History Online at http://www.british-history.ac.uk

And once again, many thanks to Susan for her help and suggestions