Isabella and the Strange Death of Edward II (15 page)

But the Dunheveds laid their plans well. Berkeley Castle was heavily fortified but King’s Wood, Michael Wood, Berkeley Heath, and the wild heathland of Berkeley Vale, provided natural cover for this roaming band of outlaws. At first Isabella and Mortimer dismissed them as mere gadflies. They would have been armed with long bows, arrows, swords and shields, but they would need siege equipment to penetrate such a closely guarded castle. Security at Berkeley would have been very tight; entrance only being allowed by a special pass. However, the Dunheveds were successful. A letter, published by the historian Tanquerery, dated some time in July 1327, informed Isabella and Mortimer that the Dunheveds had not only attacked and plundered Berkeley Castle but had even managed to get the King out of his cell. The writer of the letter was a high-ranking clerk, John Walwayn, who had been despatched to Berkeley to investigate the raid. Walwayn doesn’t just say the castle was attacked, but actually plundered, and the royal prisoner ‘taken from our care’ – a remarkable feat for a gang of ruffians and a few rebel priests.
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In the Middle Ages a castle could either be taken by storm or by means of treachery. A possible explanation in this case is that Lord Thomas Berkeley, although concerned
about his prisoner, was also anxious to carry through major repairs after the castle had been ransacked only a year earlier by the de Spencers and their forces. The Berkeley records prove this building work was going on. One chronicle relates how carpenters actually saw the King and heard his cries and groans of desperation.
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This also would confirm the view that the King was not being well treated. Rumours of possible torture would have spurred the Dunheveds to act quickly. They would have most likely used craftsmen involved in this building work, or one of the priests in their gang to secure their surreptitious entrance to the castle. Once this had been obtained, it would be easy to open a postern gate and let in the main body of attackers. The assault was probably launched at night. Guards and sentries were quickly despatched of, the place ransacked and Edward II freed. The letter from Berkeley specifically says, ‘
D’avoir ravi
’, namely, they ‘actually seized’ the King from his prison, and escaped from the castle. The hunt then began to bring these malefactors to justice. But what of the deposed King? The accepted story is that he was quickly recaptured and taken back to Berkeley.

On 1 August 1327, special powers were given to Thomas Berkeley to hunt down the gang and bring them to trial – but this commission makes no reference to Edward being on the run.
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By 20 August, one of the gang, William Aylmer, had been arrested at Oxford. We can assume the king had been recaptured because Isabella told the sheriff there that Aylmer was ‘to be indicted for trying to free Edward of Caernarvon’. She then added a surprising postscript: ‘That Aylmer was to be released on bail, pending a personal appearance before the King on the
7th October.’
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Instead of fleeing, Aylmer actually turned up in court, only to have all evidence against him quashed and his innocence established.
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The other outlaws were not as fortunate. They were all tracked down, apart from Stephen Dunheved, who managed for a while to evade his would-be captors, but his brother, Thomas disappeared into Newgate where he died from gaol fever.
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Aylmer’s arrest and the fate of Thomas Dunheved are quite remarkable. The evidence suggests Aylmer was deeply involved in the plot to free Edward. Seven months earlier, during the first week of March 1327, William Aylmer, parson of the church of Doddington, had been specifically named as a leading member of the Dunheved gang. He had tried to free the King from Kenilworth in the early spring and he definitely took part in the attack on Berkeley Castle. It is remarkable that clemency was shown to such a dangerous man: in 1326–7 he had been publicly named as one of de Spencer’s leading clerks and, two years earlier, he had been on a commission sent into Wales to try adherents of Mortimer. Isabella and Mortimer should therefore have been delighted to have such a rebel promptly hanged.
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As for other members of the gang, Thomas Dunheved, so rumour had it, was brought immediately before the Queen, then thrown into Newgate prison. Thomas was a Dominican friar and should have been given the benefit due to clergy; and the same courtesy extended to other members of his gang, who were also tonsured clerics. Isabella totally ignored the law and, apart from Aylmer and Stephen Dunheved, the rest of the gang appear to have disappeared off the face of the earth. A possible solution is that Aylmer turned King’s evidence and, in
return for his freedom, betrayed the rest of the gang to government agents. On a later occasion, in 1329–30 a certain Gregory Foriz was prosecuted for murder before King’s Bench. The case was run of the mill, except for two significant features. First, Henry of Lancaster intervened as a guarantor of Foriz and, secondly, William Aylmer was also named as an associate of Foriz,
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establishing a connection between a magnate, fast emerging as the leading opponent to Mortimer and Isabella, and the band of outlaws. This connection between Lancaster, Foriz and Aylmer suggests that the Dunheved attack had not been some mad escapade by a group of wild adherents sheltering in the forests of Michael Wood or the waste lands of Berkeley Heath. It also accounts for their success both during the attack and afterwards, when making their escape. Such a gang would need arming: bows, arrows, swords, hauberks, supplies, money and, above all, fast horses; they would need guarantees that they could be hidden in certain places and a blind eye turned to their passing. Nor was Dunheved’s attack simply a one-off. In his letter from Berkeley, the royal clerk Walwayn spoke about other crises, begging the government for greater powers and saying: ‘I understand, from a number of sources, that a great number of gentlemen in the county of Buckingham and in adjoining counties, have assembled for the same cause’, namely, the freeing of the deposed King. So it would appear that the conspiracy to free Edward stretched right across the Cotswolds, with more than one group feverishly plotting to attack Berkeley and free the King.
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Walwayn’s letter tantalizes in its vagueness about what actually happened to the royal prisoner. This, in turn, begs other questions. If Berkeley had proved to be unsafe,
why not transfer the King elsewhere? Yet this did not occur and Edward of Caernarvon was returned to his old prison. His gaolers were not reproved and apparently continued as his keepers. Some historians maintain Edward was moved between several castles but there is agreement that, by the beginning of September, he was definitely back at Berkeley.

Isabella, meanwhile, had not only to answer to other members of the royal council for her husband’s fate but also to her Welsh lover. In September 1327, according to the accepted story, matters were brought to a head. Another plot was hatched to free Edward, but this time it wasn’t a roaming band of outlaws but a number of Welsh gentry, loyal to the old King, and very eager to weaken Mortimer’s power in Wales.

On 4 September, Roger Mortimer was commissioned to resume his duties as Justice of Wales and, on the 8th, empowered to arrest all those breaking the peace in Wales.
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He kept a close eye on government. In the fourteenth century, one of the ways the monarch indicated who was in favour was by asking them to witness charters issued under the Great Seal. Mortimer had been with the court at Doncaster where he witnessed a charter on 26 August. After that date, this Welsh lord, whose name is rarely absent from the list of charter witnesses, did not act in this capacity again until 4 October 1327 at Nottingham.
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Apparently, the situation along the Welsh March had become so serious that Mortimer was obliged to tear himself away from the Queen and return to Wales to deal with the problems there, to ensure that Edward remained captive.

This crisis did not become apparent until several years later when in April 1331, William Shalford, Mortimer’s
lieutenant in Wales during 1327, was accused by Howel Ap Griffith of being party to Edward II’s death.
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The case was referred to King’s Bench where it was quashed due to Griffith’s non-appearance. Griffith’s testimony is still extant, published by T. F. Tout in his article, ‘The Captivity and Death of Edward II’. It reads as follows:

Howel Ap Griffith appeals William Shalford and others of his Council, of encompassing the death of Edward, father of our Lord the King whom God protects, who was feloniously and traitorously slain by murder. Namely, that on the Monday after the feast of the birth of Our Lady, September 14th 1327, at Rhosfair in Anglesey, that same William sent a letter to Lord Roger Mortimer at Abergavenny. In this letter he maintains that Rhys Ap Griffith and others of his coven had assembled their power in South Wales and in North Wales, with the agreement of certain great lords of England, in order to forcibly deliver the said Lord Edward, father of our Lord the King, who was then detained in a castle at Berkeley. And he also made clear in that letter that, if the Lord Edward was freed, that the said Lord Roger Mortimer and all his people would die a terrible death and would be utterly destroyed. On account of which the said William Shalford, like the traitor he is, in that same letter counselled the said Roger that he ordain such a remedy in such a way that no one in England or Wales would ever think of effecting such deliverance. The said Lord Roger Mortimer showed that letter to William Ockle [In the manuscripts he is called William Docleye]. And commanded him to
take the said letter of William Shalford to Berkeley and to show it to those who were guarding the said Edward. And Mortimer charged him to tell them to take counsel on the points contained in the letter and to quickly remedy the situation in order to avoid great peril. The said William Ockle took charge and carried out the orders of the said Roger. On account of which the said William Ockle and others, who were guarding the Lord Edward, traitorously killed and murdered him . . .

Shalford was furious. He challenged Griffith to mortal combat and, when the case appeared before King’s Bench in April 1331, Shalford brought a host of witnesses to testify to his innocence. Griffith, however, fell mysteriously ill on his journey to London and was unable to press the appeal, so the case was dropped. The incident may have had more to do with the rancorous clan hatred in Wales than any love for the deposed King or even resentment against Roger Mortimer. However, Griffith’s appeal does seem to fit in with the accepted chain of events. Shalford was Mortimer’s lieutenant in Wales and Mortimer had left the English court and was based at Abergavenny. According to Griffith, Mortimer decided to take matters into his own hands and find a way of getting rid of Edward for good. Shalford wrote his letter on 14 September and, within a week of that letter, Mortimer had sent agents into Berkeley and Edward II was reputedly killed on or about the feast of St Matthew, 21 September.

Other evidence proves this story. The
Annals of St Paul
, a fairly contemporary account, simply says, the King died
at Berkeley. The
Bridlington Chronicle
alleged: ‘With regard to the King’s decease, various opinions were commonly expressed. I myself prefer to say no more about the matter, for sometimes, as the poet says, lies are for the advantage of many and to tell the whole truth does harm.’ Adam Murimouth reported: ‘It was commonly said that he was slain, as a precaution, by the orders of Sir John Maltravers and Sir Thomas Gurney.’ Historians place a great deal of trust in Murimouth, but even he is not totally accurate. The Somerset knight Sir Thomas Gurney, together with William Ockle, were specifically named as the King’s assassins, and Maltravers had to face other charges.

Higden’s
Polychronicon
which was translated into English by John Trevisa, vicar of Berkeley, when Thomas, Lord of Berkeley, was still alive, agreed that Edward II was killed in the gory way as described in Swynbroke’s chronicle, ‘by a red hot poker being thrust up into his bowels’. The Leicestershire chronicler, John of Reading, claims that this horrible death was not just a matter of rumour but based on the confession of the guilty parties. Swynbroke, that garrulous and very hostile witness to the rule of Isabella and Mortimer, provides the detail with great relish. He first tried to exculpate Thomas, Lord Berkeley, who was responsible for both the castle and the prisoner, saying that, until the actual death, Berkeley had treated the fallen King with kindness but he was not really the gaoler. Ockle’s arrival put an end to all this. Lord Thomas Berkeley, angry that he was no longer master in his own house, said farewell to the imprisoned King and took himself elsewhere – he was to make this same excuse three years later when he had to appear before Parliament to answer for his actions. He claimed to have
been very ill and had retired to his manor at Bradley near Wootton-Under-Edge.
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Swynbroke actually put someone else’s name in the frame for the murder of Edward II – that confidant of Mortimer and deliverer of powerful sermons, Adam Orleton, Bishop of Hereford. According to Swynbroke, Orleton, acting on behalf of Mortimer, was the one who issued the specific order for Edward’s death. Orleton was asked by the former King’s gaolers what they were to do with their prisoner. Orleton sent the following message back: ‘
Edwardum occidere nolite timere, bonum est
.’ This can be translated two ways, depending where the comma is placed. Either: ‘Do not fear to kill Edward, it is a good thing.’ If, however, the comma is moved back to follow ‘
nolite
’, it can be translated: ‘Do not kill Edward, it is good to be afraid.’
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It’s a fanciful story but Swynbroke seems to have fabricated it. First, it is taken from the tale about the death of a Hungarian queen, as recounted by the chronicler Matthew Paris almost ninety years before.
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Secondly, by September 1327, Orleton was no longer in favour with Isabella and Mortimer because he had secured a transfer to the prosperous bishopric of Worcester against their orders. Thirdly, Orleton was not even in the country when Edward was killed, but at the papal court of Avignon on business of his own. Finally, after Mortimer and Isabella fell from power in 1330, Orleton was challenged about his involvement in the regime of Isabella. The good bishop issued an ‘Apologia’ in which he clearly demonstrated that his hands were not stained with innocent blood, as he was not party to, and had not consented to, the late King’s death.
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