The end of King Ed II and dispensing with the Despensers!
King Edward was expecting an invasion and sent his ships out to sea in order to intercept Isabella’s convoy. But Isabella and Mortimer managed to avoid any of Edward’s ships, and landed in Suffolk on September 24th 1326.
On the face of it, Isabella’s chances of unseating an incumbent king with her small force appeared rather remote. However, her arrival galvanized the people who had been unhappy with the regime, and who harboured great resentment towards the Despensers. Instead of resistance, Isabella received a warm welcome and offers of assistance from many quarters.
Queen Isabella disembarks at Orwell in Suffolk in September 1326.
Isabella proceeded westwards towards London where Edward was residing. The king, astonished at the collapse of his support, fled to the west country. In an empty gesture of defiance, Edward placed a bounty of £1,000 on Mortimer’s head.
‘You put a bounty on my beloved Roger’s head so as to cause me trouble!
I will place a price on wretched Despenser’s head, a sum which amounts to double!’
Isabella responded by offering £2,000 for the head of Hugh Despenser.
The city of London was a crucial area for either side in what looked like becoming a civil war. To whom would the Londoners give their allegiance? This question was answered in a most graphic manner on October 15th 1326 by the treatment the citizens of London meted out to Bishop Stapledon, whom Edward had appointed ‘protector’ of London after his cowardly flight from the city. When the unfortunate prelate attempted to assert his authority over the city, he was dragged from his horse and savagely put to death.
Edward may well have ruefully remarked:
‘Isabella has London in the bag! In the bag!
Oh, what a drag! Oh what an infernal drag!
And all of the time, my support continues to sag! Sag! Continues to sag!’
Edward and the Despensers were on the run, and running very scared. King Edward, sovereign of the realm, was a fugitive within its borders, hunted as a common felon. No king had ever known such ignominy. Hugh Despenser the elder was captured at Bristol, and after a swift trial was executed on October 26th. At this point King Edward II was deposed and his son, was proclaimed guardian of the realm.
Unfinished business.
The odyssey of King Edward and Hugh the younger was coming to an ignominious close. On November 16th the two fugitives were apprehended at Liantrisant in Wales. Edward because he was king, was accorded good treatment but not so his favourite, Hugh the younger. He was subjected to every possible indignity as he was transported east to Hereford. Bound to a horse, citizens jeered at him as he passed and some scrawled biblical quotes on to his body. Knowing the penalty awaiting him, Hugh refused all sustenance in the hope that he would die of starvation before being hanged, drawn and quartered. But luck was not with him, and after a brief trial at Hereford, he suffered the sentence prescribed for traitors.
‘Your crimes were so wicked and foul!
For this you will watch while we burn your bowel!
And onto the flaming fire!
Your blood soaked innards will make a fitting funeral pyre!’
Hugh was drawn feet first by four horses to the walls of his own castle where a gallows of immense height awaited him. Sometimes the condemned would be allowed to hang until dead, thus sparing him the agonies of emasculation. But spared he was not, Hugh suffered the full penalty of the law with all of the accompanying barbarities.
The execution of Hugh Despenser.
What would King Edward have said?
‘Oh farewell, fair Hugh!
We now bid each other adieu!
You were not of the mediocre many, but one of the finest few!
In my heart of hearts there will always be a special place for you!’
In January 1327 the king, languishing at Kenilworth castle consumed with grief and humiliation, was forced to formally abdicate in favour of his son. Bemoaning his fate, he would constantly and loudly cry out in anguish, hammering the walls of his chamber with his fists before collapsing to the floor in tears.
Parliament promised Edward a comfortable, but severely restricted retirement: the life of a pampered prisoner appeared to await him. Tearfully, he sullenly prepared himself for his luxurious confinement in a yet to be disclosed location. Edward must have harboured hopes that his son Ted, now king, would eventually see fit to alleviate his circumstances once he had reached manhood.
‘To you my dear son, young Teddy!
Of course as king, you know that I proved to be persistently unready!
Oh what matter now, I would humbly request, nay beg, to take a place at your side!
So through England’s green meadows as father and son we could, once again ride!’
However this was not to be.
Popularity is of course a fickle phenomenon and can disappear as swiftly as the morning dew. This was the experience of Isabella and Mortimer, whose star began to fade as the dust settled and people steadily became familiar with their true colours. Soon plots were hatched to free the deposed king and restore him to the throne. Naturally, Mortimer viewed this as a problem and one that had to be eliminated with immediate effect.
Edward was transported to a variety of abodes, but was eventually deposited at Berkeley castle and here he would endure the rigours of his last days.
‘The throne of England was one hell of a hot seat!
Although being king was an experience that was hard to beat!
But the heat that Edward was now unmercifully made to bear!
Well t’was a foul act, totally unnecessary and grossly unfair!’
So now the final curtain.
Edward breathed his last one day in late September, 1327. He was almost certainly murdered on the orders of Roger Mortimer. It has been alleged that he was killed by having a red hot poker plunged into his rectum which burnt his internal organs to a crisp. In this way no tell tale signs of violence were left on his body. King Edward II was buried by the High Altar in Gloucester Cathedral.
King Edward II
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