Edward II, Isabella and Mortimer

One story in English history has long been the subject of public fascination. That is the 1307 to 1330 period of Edward II, his wife Isabella, her presumed lover and co-conspirator, Roger Mortimer, plus a few other characters. Some of the tales in this saga are simply untrue. Others are at least exaggerated or of questionable merit. But the whole has the modern feel of an extended lurid Sunday tabloid story, with all the attendant titillation. And with its bucket load of myths, it seems to have firmly captured the public imagination.

The brief background to the story is that Edward became king on the death of his father, Edward I, in July 1307. He was born in April 1284 at Caernarfon and was allegedly presented to the Welsh as the prince guaranteed not to speak English. This myth dates from 200 years after the event. He was 23 when assuming the throne, but had not impressed either his father or the leading magnates as having the ‘right stuff’ to be king. This was partly as he liked the practical aspects of outdoor life - digging ditches, roofing, swimming and rowing - which at the time were deemed inappropriate for a king.

Edward II

Edward was keen on another man at court, Piers Gaveston, whom he had known since he was 16. The friendship was regarded as too close by his father and others. So was Edward a homosexual? Well he wasn’t averse to women. In 1308 he fathered an illegitimate son, Adam, who died in 1322. He also likely had an incestuous sexual relationship with his eldest niece, Eleanor de Clare. He had three children later with his wife Isabella, who had been barely 12 years old when they married in January 1308. Good looking, six feet tall and very strong. he was also courageous in battle. This is as far as you can get from the effete, mincing fop portrayed in popular culture.

Question of sexuality

In fact Edward was probably bisexual, hard in an age where such a trait would not have been recognised, let alone approved. The most significant relationship he had in his life was the one with Piers Gaveston. He showed all the symptoms of infatuation, showering him with lands, titles and honours. When departing for Boulogne to marry Isabella he scandalised the kingdom by appointing Gaveston as regent of England as opposed to one of his half-brothers, or perhaps his cousin, the earl of Lancaster, which would have been customary.

Gaveston himself was married, and a father. Isabella herself became pregnant four years after the royal wedding, in 1312, when she was 16. Rather than the seemingly unnatural relationship between the two men, it was the favouritism that infuriated the nobility at the time. Gaveston made it worse by insulting and ridiculing certain leading figures, which didn’t go down well. As he controlled state patronage his attitude and behaviour riled many of the barons. They forced his exile three times - in 1307, 1308 and 1311- but on each occasion he soon returned as Edward essentially refused to accept his banishment. It all got too much for the nobility and in June 1312 Gaveston was brutally killed by two Welshmen for a group of magnates led by the earls Lancaster and Warwick.

Seal of Edward II

Edward was inconsolable and nurtured a desire for vengeance on those responsible. But fast forward 10 years. After a decade of misgovernment, battles lost to the Scots and a terrible two year famine, England was coming under the effective control of the Despenser family. Power hungry and avaricious, Hugh Despenser and his son, also Hugh, used their influence over Edward to seize lands, notably in the Welsh marches and generally to enrich themselves at the expense of established noble families. This friction was leading to civil war with the barons against the king and the Despensers. Among the rebels was the previously loyal ex Lieutenant of Ireland, Roger Mortimer, imprisoned in the Tower in February 1322, and Thomas earl of Lancaster, executed in March.

Isabella estranged

18 months later Mortimer escaped to France, with which England was sliding into war. At King Charles IV’s court he attracted a group of exiles, amid growing opposition to the Despensers. He met up in 1325 with Queen Isabella, who had persuaded Edward to let her use her influence with Charles (her brother) to try and secure peace between the countries. Her son Edward, standing in for his father in doing homage to Charles, later joined her. This proved a key piece in the game. Isabella had become estranged from her husband, who was increasingly under the sway of the younger Hugh Despenser, rather as he had been with Gaveston. Isabella repeatedly refused to return to England while Despenser was around but the king adamantly declined to remove him.

Isabella landing in England 1326

Isabella and Mortimer, with the heir, young Prince Edward, under their control, joined forces to plan an invasion of England. They were helped by William of Hainaut, who in return secured for his daughter Philippa a marriage to young Edward. With a few exiles, notably Henry the new earl of Lancaster, but fewer than 1500 men, they landed on the River Orwell in September 1326. Within a few weeks they had seized London. King Edward and the Despensers had fled. The king was forced to abdicate, with the Despensers hanged and mutilated.    

What happened to Edward?

Edward allegedly died after confinement in Berkeley castle on 21 September 1327, though it was not clear how, or if he was killed, by whom. The matter was left vague for some time. If he was murdered the later tale of a red hot poker is clearly a myth. The people named as killers were never really punished. But in fact he may not have been murdered at all as historians have increasingly used archival and other evidence (or lack of it) to question the accepted narrative. His body was not properly verified, the message of his death was not confirmed by other sources, and Thomas earl of Berkeley, in whose care he was placed, later denied in parliament that he had ever heard of any murder. Strangely Edward’s half-brother, the earl of Kent, plus Melton, Archbishop of York, with a large group, believed two years later that he was still alive. They laid elaborate and well-resourced plans to rescue him from his purported confinement in Corfe Castle. Kent was caught and executed by Mortimer very quickly for this attempt to spring an apparently dead man.

Passage at Berkeley Castle where Edward was supposedly held 

Finally a document called the Fieschi letter suggested Edward had been smuggled out to Italy and that he was being used to blackmail his son, the new King Edward. The Fieschi family was wealthy, strong in ecclesiastical circles and well connected politically. An individual named as William le Galeys in the letter (possibly the exiled king) may even have met his son, the current king, in Flanders, though this is clothed in more secrecy. The work of historian Ian Mortimer on this whole episode is both extensive and forensic and has not been effectively challenged.

Were Isabella and Roger sexual partners? Quite probably. They were believed latterly in medieval times to have been, but hard evidence has been pretty scant. Mortimer, himself married to the very wealthy Joan Geneville, clearly worked together with Isabella politically. When they ran the country as regents for the teenage Edward III for three years or so from 1327 to 1330 their behaviour was greedy and arrogant. Mortimer, circumspect at the start, later amassed lands and titles while Isabella had 30% of crown revenues paid personally to her - the highest in history. It was what we might now term a kleptocracy. Old backers deserted the pair, regarding them as no better than the Despensers they had replaced. In October 1330 what amounted to an internal coup by the 18 year old Edward and his friends removed Mortimer from power. The following month he was tried as a traitor in London and hanged at Tyburn.

Isabella in popular history  

As for Isabella she was painted for centuries as a scarlet woman, nicknamed the ‘French she-wolf’. She was said to have been party to murdering her husband, though she sent him letters and gifts while he was in captivity. Confined briefly in 1330, she then lived out her life post Mortimer in honourable retirement and relative freedom. But sentiment see-sawed more recently as she was depicted as the wronged woman, the mistreated and humiliated wife who acted with her lover to take control of her destiny. This narrative from the Mills and Boon school of history, unfortunately so beloved of popular TV programmes today, is just as much nonsense as the she-wolf routine.

Isabella in truth was just a woman of her time, driven by the culture and beliefs of 700 years ago. She guarded her royalty jealously and would have been happy to marry Edward, king of England, as royal as she was herself. She proved politically clever but should not be judged, or rather romanticised, by modern standards and cast simplistically as a stereotype, says Kathryn Warner, rightly. She had a very cruel streak and was greedy and self-serving when in power. But who wasn’t? Spurning all the myths we might be better assessing all these characters simply as 14th century Europeans.