The early Plantagenets

by William Stubbs

The Despensers.

The fate of Gaveston might have warned any who counted on acquiring power by Edward’s favor, and in fact for several years he remained unburdened and uncomforted by a confidential servant. But the waning popularity of Lancaster seemed now to render the position of the king’s friend less hazardous, and an aspirant was found in the younger Hugh le Despenser. He was the grandson of that Hugh le Despenser, the justiciar of the baronial government, who had fallen with Simon de Montfort at Evesham. His father, now the elder Hugh, had been a courtier and minister of Edward I., and had been throughout the early troubles of the reign faithful to Edward II., but he was regarded as a deserter by the barons and had a bitter personal enemy in the Earl of Lancaster. Father and son were alike ambitious and greedy; they showed little regard for either the person or the reputation of their master, and sacrificed his interest whenever it came in competition with their own. The younger Hugh, like Piers Gaveston, was married to one of the heiresses of Gloucester, and had been appointed in 1318 chamberlain to the king under the government of compromise. Edward in his weakness and isolation clung tenaciously to these men; they had inherited some of the political ideas of the barons of 1258, and had perhaps an indistinct notion of overthrowing the influence of Lancaster by an alliance with the commons. The younger Hugh, at all events, from time to time uttered sentiments concerning the position of the king which were inconsistent with the theory of absolute royalty; he had said that the allegiance sworn to the king was due to the crown rather than to the person of the sovereign, and that if the king inclined to do wrong it was the duty of the liegeman to compel him to do right. Another part of the programme of the Despensers involved a more distinct recognition of the right of parliament than had ever been put forth by Lancaster, and it would seem probable that they hoped by maintaining the theory of national action, as stated by Edward I., to strengthen their master’s position, and through it to strengthen their own. So low, however, was the political morality of the time, that the same selfish objects were hidden under widely different professions. The Despensers had sadly miscalculated the force of the old prejudice against court favorites, and did not see how every step in advance made them new enemies. The Earl of Lancaster saw in their unpopularity a chance of recovering his place as a national champion, and a quarrel among the coheirs of Gloucester gave the opportunity for an outcry. Hugh of Audley, who had married Piers Gaveston’s widow, and who was therefore a rival and brother-in-law of Hugh le Despenser, showed some signs of contumacious conduct in the marches. The Earl of Hereford and Roger Mortimer, the Lord of Wigmore, declined to join in the measures necessary to reduce him to order, and refused to meet the Despensers in council; and in a parliament which the king called to meet on the 15th of July, 1321, the whole baronage turned against the favorites. Their attempts to influence the king, their greedy use of the king’s name for their own purposes, the rash words of the younger Hugh, the vast acquisitions of his father, their unauthorized interference in the administration of government, and their perversion of justice were alleged as demanding condign punishment.

Sentence
against the
Despensers.

War
between the
king and
the barons.

Battle of
Boroughbridge.

Execution
of Lancaster.

Ulterior
consequences
of the execution.

The Earl of Hereford, Edward’s brother-in-law, made the charge before the three estates, and the lords, “peers of the land,” as they now perhaps for the first time called themselves, passed the sentence of forfeiture and exile on the two. They were not to be recalled except by consent of parliament, and a separate act was passed to ensure the immunity of the prosecutors and the pardon of those who had taken up arms to overthrow them. This was Lancaster’s last triumph, and it was very short-lived. In the month of October the Lady Badlesmere shut the gates of Leeds Castle against the queen, and Edward raised a force to avenge the insult offered to his wife. All the earls of his party joined him, and the Earl of Lancaster, who hated Badlesmere for his old rivalry, did not interfere to protect him. Finding himself for the first time at the head of a sufficient force, the king determined to enforce order in the marches and to avenge his friends the Despensers. He marched against the border castles of the Earl of Hereford, Audley, and D’Amory. On receiving news of this Lancaster at once discovered his mistake, and called a meeting of his party—the good lords, as they were called—at Doncaster. Both parties showed great energy, but the king had got the start. He obtained from the convocation of the clergy of Canterbury, under the influence of the archbishop, his old tutor, a declaration that the sentence against the Despensers was illegal, and lost no time in forcing his way towards Hereford to punish the earl who had procured it. On his way he defeated the Mortimers. He took Hereford; and having reached Gloucester in triumph, on the 11th of February, recalled his friends to his side. Lancaster and his party were not idle, but they underrated the importance of the crisis and divided their forces. One part was sent to secure the king’s castle of Tickhill, the other, under Lancaster himself, moved slowly towards the south. Edward, in the hope of intercepting the latter division, moved northwards from Cirencester, and the earl, when he reached Burton-on-Trent, did not venture any farther. On the news of his flight his castles of Kenilworth and Tutbury surrendered, and Edward started in pursuit. The unfortunate earl had reached Boroughbridge on his way to his castle of Dunstanburgh, with his enemies close behind him, when he learned that his way was blocked by Sir Andrew Harclay, the governor of Carlisle, who was coming to meet the king. A battle ensued, in which the Earl of Hereford was slain, the forces of Lancaster were defeated, and the earl himself forced to surrender. He was taken on the 17th of March, and on the 22nd was tried by the king’s judges, in the presence of the hostile earls, in his own castle of Pomfret. He was condemned as a traitor. Evidence of his intrigues with the Scots was adduced to give color to the sentence, and he was beheaded at once. So the blood of Gaveston was avenged, and the tide of savage cruelty began to flow in a broader stream, to be avenged, like Lamech, seventy and sevenfold. At once the people, hating the Despensers and misdoubting Edward, declared that the martyr of Pomfret was worthy of canonization; miracles were wrought at his tomb; it was a task worthy of heroes and patriots to avenge his death. His name became a watchword of liberty; the influence which he had labored to build up became a rival interest to that of the crown. First, Edward II. and the Despensers fell before it; then, in the person of Henry IV., the heir of Lancaster swept from the throne the heir of Edward’s unhappy traditions. In the next century the internecine struggle of the Roses wore out the force of the impulse, and yet enough was left to stain from time to time the scaffolds of the Tudors, long after the last male heir of the Plantagenets had perished.

Revocation of
the Ordinances
of 1311.

Some few of the other hostile barons perished in the first flush of the triumph; Badlesmere, in particular, was taken and hanged. Roger D’Amory was dead. The Audleys were spared. About thirty were put to death; many were imprisoned; many more paid fines or forfeitures which helped to enrich the Despensers. Edward was now supreme, and took, as might be expected, the opportunity to undo all that his enemies had tried to do. In his first parliament, held at York, six weeks after the battle, he procured the revocation of the Ordinances, and an important declaration on the part of the assembled estates that from henceforth “matters to be established for the estate of our lord the king and of his heirs, and for the estate of the realm and of the people, shall be treated, accorded, and established in parliaments by our lord the king and by the consent of the prelates, earls and barons, and commonalty of the realm, according as hath been hitherto accustomed.” No ordinances were to be made any more like the Ordinances of 1311. The declaration, intended to secure the crown from the control of the barons, enunciates the theory of constitutional government. And thus the Despensers tried to turn the tables against their foes. But although they determined to annul the Ordinances they did not venture to withdraw the material benefits which the Ordinances had secured. The king, immediately after the revocation, re-issued in the form of an ordinance of his own some of the most beneficial provisions; and the parliament responded by reversing the acts against the favorites and granting money for defence against the Scots.