Isabella and the Strange Death of Edward II (23 page)

Then, dressed in these clothes, he came out of prison
by night and managed to reach the last door without opposition because he was not recognized. He found the porter sleeping and straight away killed him. Once he had taken the keys of the door, he opened it and left together with the man who had guarded him.

Fieschi depicts a lack of security at Berkeley difficult to accept. According to the Italian priest, Edward changed his clothes, managed to get out of his prison, walked along corridors, across baileys in the dead of night and reached some postern gate in the castle. He then killed the porter, opened the door and escaped. No other guards were on duty either around the prison itself or in the castle grounds and so Edward II escaped ‘because he was not recognized’. The castle in fact would have been swarming with Mortimer’s henchmen. Gates would have been guarded, all entrances heavily defended. What’s more, such an escape would need careful planning. Berkeley was surrounded by a moat. If anyone left by a postern gate they would have to swim this and then thread their way through treacherous marshy grounds. Once they were clear of the castle they would need horses. Even if the security had been as light as Fieschi’s letter describes, the escape would have been noticed, the hue and cry raised and a full pursuit organized.

The said knights, who had come to kill him, seeing that he had escaped, and fearing the Queen’s anger, for fear of their lives decided to put the porter in a chest, having first cut out the heart. The heart and the body of the said porter they presented to the wicked queen as if it were the body of your father
and the body of the porter was buried in Glocestart [Gloucester] as the body of the King.

The reaction of Beresford and Gurney to the escape beggars belief. They are not bothered about an escaped king wandering the highways and byways of Gloucestershire but about what Queen Isabella might do or say. If indeed they did replace the King’s body with the porter’s, they would have needed the connivance and co-operation of others in Berkeley Castle, including Lord Thomas, John Maltravers and other knights and guards. They would also have needed to be extremely fortunate in managing to secure a corpse which, by sheer luck, resembled the dead King. This part of the story can be dismissed out of hand except for one fascinating detail: the business of the King’s heart. The clerk Hugh Glanville supervised the funeral arrangements of Edward of Caernarvon. He had to pay a woman, probably from the locality, for embalming the body, removing the heart and then taking it to Isabella. Nevertheless, as shall be shown later, this was done under great secrecy, and Glanville even tried to ‘doctor’ his account to hide what this woman had done – it only came to light because of some scrupulous clerk at the Exchequer. The only other source of the story of the heart are the Berkeley accounts, which describe how Lord Thomas bought the special casket for the heart to be taken to the Queen. Fieschi, amidst his farrago of possible untruths, has specified one correct factual detail to strengthen his credibility in the eyes of Edward III. True, the story of the heart being removed may have eventually become public knowledge, but Fieschi was writing during Isabella’s lifetime when such details were still a matter of
secrecy. Glanville did not present his account until 1335, eight years after the murder.

After he had escaped the prison of the aforesaid castle he was received at Corf [Corfe] castle together with his companion, who had guarded him in prison, by Lord Thomas, castellan of the said castle without the knowledge of Lord John Maltraverse, the lord of the said Thomas, in which castle he remained secretly for a year and a half.

Corfe Castle in Dorset has figured prominently in the captivity of Edward II. The deposed King was taken there before he was placed in Berkeley. Edmund of Kent truly believed that Corfe was his half-brother’s hiding-place. This part of Fieschi’s story, however, must be taken with more than a pinch of salt. In his account there is no reference to the Dunheved gang or to the other conspiracies and covens being formed in Buckinghamshire or Wales. Instead, we are presented with a picture of the liberated king, not pursued by horsemen or Mortimer’s hordes, but travelling through the English countryside, arriving at Corfe, disguised as a hermit, and staying there eighteen months. It could be argued, if the story were true, that Edward might well have chosen a place his pursuers would least suspect, under their very noses, but it was a highly dangerous ruse and very unlikely. The deposed Edward II had friends and partisans all over England. He could have called on men like Rhys Ap Griffith to hide him in the fastness of Wales and spirit him abroad to France, Spain, or wherever else he wished to go. Or there was the Dominican Order, with its international network of
houses, which would have provided a marvellous chain of escape for the deposed King. Others, too, would have helped but Edward apparently ignored them, according to Fieschi’s account. He arrived at Corfe and was able to shelter there unnoticed for eighteen months.

Of course, Edward II might have changed his appearance, and people saw what they expected to. But someone’s memory would have been jogged. The keepers at Berkeley would have instituted some form of search, circulated the description of both the escaped King and his mysterious attendant. Fieschi might have replied that if the story was being put about that Edward II had died at Berkeley, there would be no search for him. Gurney and Beresford arranged the funeral of the supposedly dead King, so why should anyone suspect that a lonely hermit and his companion were the deposed King of England and his liberator? This is a tenuous argument. Corfe Castle was under the direct command of Edward of Caernarvon’s gaoler, John Maltravers. The castle also contained Mortimer’s agents, Bayouse and Deveril, who were later to play such a key role in the destruction of Edmund, Earl of Kent. Nor do we have any idea who Fieschi is referring to when he talks of the castellan of Corfe ‘Lord Thomas’: no record exists. Fieschi probably got his facts mixed up and is alluding to Lord Thomas Berkeley.

Fieschi does not explain why Edward stayed from September 1327 to February/March 1330 in the one place, and in fact, cleverly links the story of Corfe to the conspiracy of the Earl of Kent, which he refers to in the next section of his letter.

Later on, hearing that the Earl of Kent, who had
maintained that he was alive, had been beheaded, he embarked on a ship with his aforesaid custodian and by the will and counsel of the said Thomas, who had received him, had crossed to Ireland where he remained eight months.

Fieschi is implying that the liberated Edward probably stayed at Corfe, hoping that his half-brother Edmund of Kent would come to his assistance. When Kent was executed outside the gates of Winchester, Edward and his attendant, with the aid of the even more mysterious ‘Lord Thomas’, took ship to Ireland, where he stayed until late autumn 1330, around the same time that Mortimer and Isabella fell from power. Fieschi suggests that Kent’s conspiracy was based on the truth, but he ignores all the contradictions. Corfe Castle was not a large place, and at the time it was crawling with Mortimer’s agents, intent on drawing the Earl of Kent to his death. Moreover, all of them failed to notice the hermit and his mysterious friend. A castle community was self-enclosed, with everybody knowing everybody else’s business. Yet this mysterious hermit was allowed to come and go as he wished at a time when Corfe was at the centre of a bizarre conspiracy. Nor does Fieschi explain why Edward should sail to Ireland, where he would receive little support. The only part of that country directly under the English Crown was the city of Dublin, and the area around it called the Pale: this was dominated by James Butler, Mortimer’s close ally and henchman. Isabella elevated Butler to the status of Earl Ormonde in return for his help and support of her lover.

Afterwards, because he was afraid that he might be
recognized there, donning the habit of a hermit, he returned to England and came to the port of Sandvic [Sandwich] and in the same disguise he crossed the sea to Sclusa [Sluys], travelled to Normandy and, from Normandy, as many do crossing Languedoc, he came to Avignon, where he gave a florin to a papal servant and sent, by the same servant, a note to Pope John [John XXII].

Further inconsistencies in Fieschi’s letter now become apparent. Edward supposedly escaped from Berkeley, walked through the English countryside, stayed in a royal castle controlled by Mortimer’s men for eighteen months and then coolly took ship to Ireland. He only stayed there for eight months and returned because he was frightened of being recognized. Why Edward II, who had no fear of such recognition in England, should panic about being noticed in the streets of Dublin or in the wild remote countryside beyond, is never explained. True, Mortimer’s henchmen were in Dublin. English traders called there, but it was safer than Corfe. Moreover, Edward II had never been to Ireland or surrounded himself with Irish princes, noblemen or merchants. So who would recognize the deposed King, who was supposed to be dead and buried in Gloucester?

Edward II’s supposed flight back to the very busy English port of Sandwich, a place frequented by diplomatic envoys from the English court, merchants, burgesses, was even more improbable. The route he was then reported to have followed is also highly suspicious. Edward landed at the French port of Sluys and travelled through Normandy, the only other part of France, as well as Gascony, where
Edward might have been recognized. English influence was particularly strong in Normandy because of its possession of the neighbouring counties of Ponthieu and Montreuil. Edward II had been married at Boulogne sur Mer in Normandy and there were certainly other less dangerous routes he could have taken: he had visited northern France and journeyed to Paris on at least two other occasions, in 1313 and 1320.

According to Fieschi, Edward reached the papal court of Avignon during the late autumn of 1331, but this time he was alone. His mysterious liberator, the man to whom he owed his life has abruptly disappeared, without any reference to his fate. The last mention of this hero of the hour was when he accompanied Edward to Ireland. The deposed King chose a place where rumours about his supposed escape were rife, thanks to Kent’s conspiracy and the exchange of sharply worded letters between Isabella and Pope John XXII. This cunning old pope had died in 1334 so he, too, like all the others mentioned in this letter, had gone to the grave supposedly carrying the secret with them. Edward III would therefore be unable to verify Fieschi’s story. Moreover, the Italian priest cunningly depicts Pope John XXII as acting in great secrecy, meeting the deposed King ‘in camera’ and acting as host for a mere fifteen days. If Edward III had made inquiries at Avignon about the veracity of Fieschi’s story, the papal court would have been unable to answer, whilst Fieschi could point to the secrecy Pope John XXII had thrown over this matter.

Finally, after various deliberations covering a wide range of subjects, after receiving permission to depart [licencia] he went to Paris, from Paris to Brabant and
from Brabant to Cologne to see the Three Kings and offer his devotions.

Fieschi describes Edward leaving Avignon and, once again, placing himself in great danger. He journeyed to Paris, then on to Brabant and across into Germany to visit the famous shrine of the Three Kings at Cologne. Why the deposed King should do this is not explained. If Edward was frightened of being recognized in Ireland then Paris and Brabant were very dangerous places. He could have been recognized in the French capital by his wife’s kinsmen, and in Brabant English influence was dominant through the marriage alliances of his kinswomen as well as trade links. In those dangerous years of 1331 to 1336, England and France teetered on the verge of outright war: an Englishman, disguised as a hermit, would have certainly excited suspicion and attracted the attention of the authorities. Nor, in Edward II’s life, is there any indication of any special devotion on his part to the shrine of the Three Kings at Cologne. His visit there is not explained nor why the supposedly royal hermit was travelling across northern Europe at the very time his own son and English troops were there.

After leaving Cologne, he crossed Germany and reached Milan in Lombardy and in Milan he entered a certain hermitage of the castle Milasci [Melazzo] where he remained for two and a half years.

If Edward II had left Ireland in December 1330 and travelled through France and Germany, his peregrinations
through northern Europe, before he reached Melazzo, took about four years. This would place him in the hermitage at Melazzo sometime in 1334 so he might have left it in the summer of 1336. Fieschi is now on home territory. The area of Italy he pinpoints is the desolate region of north-east Lombardy: a very difficult place to carry out an investigation, if Edward III had been so inclined. Mountainous, served only by narrow trackways, cut off during late autumn, winter and early spring by snow and rain, English bounty hunters such as Giles of Spain could have spent months, if not years, trying to track down this elusive English hermit.

Because this castle became involved in a war he moved to the castle of Cecime in another hermitage in the diocese of Pavia in Lombardy.

Again Edward III could not dispute the accuracy of this statement. Italy, particularly the north, was riven by internecine petty wars, where local lords waged blood feuds and constant disputes over boundaries with neighbours or nearby towns. Fieschi, being very astute, names ‘Milasci’ and ‘Cecime’ but there are a number of places in northern Italy which bear both these names. He calls Cecime a castle but no trace of a castle has been found there, only a fortified village with the Abbey of St Alberto of Butrio nearby. Did he quote these names to justify his story? Fieschi had acted as a papal tax collector in that area and could set himself up as an expert on the local geography.

And he remained in this last hermitage for two years
or thereabouts, remaining confined and carrying out prayers and penitence for you and other sinners.

Fieschi is now being deliberately ingenuous. Is he claiming that the deposed English King stayed at Cecime for the rest of his life? Or that he moved elsewhere? If the latter, he could be alluding to Edward II’s move to the nearby monastery of St Alberto of Butrio. Fieschi gives no further details about the deposed King, except that he appeared to have undergone some form of religious conversion, spending his time in prayer and reparation. He provides no details of where and when the confession was taken or really why he was writing this letter in the first place. Instead he says that he will append his seal to the letter to establish its veracity and ends by terming himself Edward III’s ‘devoted servant’ as well as notary, legal advisor to the papal curia.