The Perfect King (18 page)

The real problem facing Edward was how to proceed against those who were the closest intimates of Mortimer, the handful of men who knew what had happened to Edward II. This was a matter of the greatest delicacy. The strategy he adopted was brilliant: Mortimer had concocted the 'death' of Edward II; so Edward III would maintain that his father really
was
dead, and that he had been murdered on Mortimer's orders. In this way, although he had no idea where his father was, he could set aside any attempts to restore him during his own minority, just as Mortimer had done. He also c
ould restore the son of the earl
of Kent to his rightful inheritance and pardon his poor dead uncle, which he did. But this strategy did carry one great difficulty. It raised the question of how Edward should treat the men who thus were implicated in a fictitious royal murder. Obviously he would have to take action against them. Fortunately, all the ringleaders fled except one.
Lord Berkeley remained. Defiantl
y he maintained in parliament that the ex-king was not dead.
5
Edward showed great awareness and intelligence in his response. He quickly took the initiative and came to an understanding with Berkeley. The official announcement of the death would be maintained, but Berkeley himself would not be held guilty of the fictitious death.'"

In this context, Mortimer was the least of Edward's worries. He was sentenced to be dragged to the gallows at Tyburn, then hanged. On the day of his execution he was made to wear the blac
k tunic he had worn at Edward II’
s funeral.
7
Isabella's movements were restricted for several months. Then she received her liberty and the income she had held before the ascendancy of the Despensers: the substantial sum of
£3,000
per year. Edward waited a week after the parliamentary trials before ordering the arrest of Maltravers for arranging Kent's death and the arrests of the other men involved in the supposed 'murder' of Edward II. They had already fled, of course, but Edward had to be seen to be taking action against the supposed killers of his father. Moreover, he wanted one of Mortimer's supporters in particular brought to him. This was Thomas Gurney, the man who had originally
brought him the news of his fath
er's 'death', knowing it was false. Gurney was arrested in Spain, and died three years later of a sudden illness on the way back to England. As for other members of die Mortimer faction, the dictator's widow, Joan, eventually received her lands back, with a full recompense for her lost income. Lord Berkeley was notionally held over on the charge of appointing the men who were supposed to have killed Edward II, but he was neither incarcerated nor deprived of his lands or revenues.

In this way Edward coped with a serious dilemma. On the one hand he had to be seen to take firm action against Mortimer's adherents. On the other, he had to be careful lest he be accused of creating false 'crimes' in order to discredit men for the sake of his own reputation, especially in the case of Lord Berkeley. Only two men - Mortimer himself and his henchman, Simon Bereford - were executed as a result of the coup. Even Geoffrey, Mortimer's son, who was walled up with his father in the Tower, was released without charge. Mortimer's eldest son, Edmund, was allowed to inherit some of his family estates within a few months of his father's execution. Edward never even pursued Sir John Maltravers, the other man responsible for the ex-king's security, along with Lord Berkeley.

Not only would it have been unwise for Edward to persecute those who had supported Mortimer, it would have served no purpose. Mortimer had surrounded himself with the cleverest and most able men of his generation. Indeed, virtually all the prominent men at court in the last year of Mortimer's ascendancy were retained by Edward
III
in the first year of his. We know this by assessing who witnessed royal charters in the period before and after the coup of
19
October
1330
(See Appendix Four). Bishop Burghersh of Lincoln, who spent more time at court in
1330
dian any other bishop, was retained by Edward III even though he was no longer Chancellor. The pope wrote commending his skills to Edward, who acknowledged in his reply that Burghersh had 'more good in him than all the other bishops'. This is remarkable in view of Burghersh being Mortimer's closest friend and adviser. Nor was he the only Mortimer ally to win Edward's approval; even Oliver Ingham attested a charter in
1331,
despite being a Mortimer agent; and two years later he was appointed seneschal of Aquitaine. Leaving aside the steward of the household (who attested charters by virtue of his office), all but one of the fifteen men who had witnessed more than three charters in
1330
under Mortimer's period of influence performed the same courtly function in
1331,
the exception being Geoffrey Mortimer. Edward restricted his reforms to replacing the Treasurer and Chancellor with men of his own choosing. The men he selected for these posts were William Melton (archbishop of York) and John Stratford (bishop of Winchester) respectively.

All this points to another significant feature of Edward's character: forgiveness. Edward was not averse to executing his enemies, as later events would show; but if a man could prove useful to him, he did not let past enmity stand in the way of reconciliation. Already by
19
October
1330
Lancaster - the rebel of
1328
- had been restored to favour. More surprisingly, Geoffrey Mortimer was permitted to live
quietly
on his estates in France. Alth
ough Maltravers was sentenced to dea
th for his part in procuring th
e death of the earl of Kent, he too was allowed to live untroubled in
Flanders. He was allowed to return to England
secretly
for a conference with Edward's advisers in
1335,
was employed by Edward in Flanders and Ireland not long after that, and eventually restored to his estates and lordship." Bartholomew Burghersh, who had shadowed Montagu's mission to the pope, was appointed seneschal of Ponthieu. Such an ability to forgive meant Edward did not permanendy alienate key magnates and prelates from court. He did not disable his government by vindictiveness upon the disempowered ministers. Nor did he create new enemies. In fact, so much did he sympathise with the judgement of those who had supported Mortimer that a year later, in January
1332,
he announced that a grant made before October
1330
was not questionable merely on the grounds that it was made in the time of 'evil counsellors'. Mortimer had not been a bad administrator. He had committed only one unforgivable sin in Edward's eyes. He had appropriated Edward's royal power.

*

It is particularly unfortunate for the biographer that the sorts of documents which survive from the fourteenth century - financial accounts, administrative and legal records, royal writs and chronicles written by clerks with one eye on posterity and the other on morality - rarely give an impression of how much fun was had at court. The weight of evidence is always on the side of business, whether the king's or God's. Nevertheless, we can be confident that Edward was ecstatic at his success in capturing Mortimer, and, as soon as the man was dead, he revelled in his position. As Sir Thomas Gray put it, 'so this king led a gay life in jousts and tournaments and entertaining ladies'.

Edward certainly enjoyed the jousts and tournaments which Gray mentioned. We can point to a whole gamut of tournaments, games, staged
battle
s, promenades and masked events provided by Edward, rather like a Roman Emperor providing games for the entertainment of his citizens. These events, whether private (for a few dozen nobles and knights) or public (for the citizens of London) all helped Edward recreate the cult of kingship. They were dramatic events too, with the emphasis on spectacle. For the games at Guildford, on
1
and
6
January
1331,
Edward ordered canvas and Spanish wool to be purchased to make 'the hair and hides of men and deer', perhaps to be used in mock hunts.'
5
For the same games he also ordered two banners and four pennons to be made, presumably for the two 'armies' which would compete in the tournament, and 'ten dozen false faces complete with beards, both for knights and squires'. Masks became a common element of Edward's games. So too were mock animals and mythical beasts. The costumes of merchants, friars, devils, dragons, angels and women never ceased to be popular, and were still being invented for Edward's entertainments twenty years later.

What is often overlooked about all this display is that it was not just an occasional happening, it was a regular occurrence. To get an idea of just how regular, we have to examine Edward's accounts for references to payments for armour and costumes. Of course, many festivities have left little or no trace, when only a small amount of armour was purchased specially. Nevertheless, it is reasonable to estimate that Edward attended some sort of 'games' on a monthly basis in the summer and on the major feast days in winter: so a total of about ten or eleven tournaments per year, each lasting between two and four days.'
7
In between these were the preparations for the events. And of course the events themselves were in many respects training exercises for real
battle
s and duels. Edward was encouraging his subjects to live the romantic chivalric life. For Philippa and her ladies at court this took the form of a massive display of wealth through their rich and varied appearance, and extravagance in practically everything they did. For Edward's knights, it took the form of regular displays of prowess in the joust, and dressing up and acting archetypal roles from popular culture and imagination. Edward was leading the royal family in a recreation of a semi-legendary realm. His purpose was a demonstration of absolute royalty. It was the biggest pro-royal propaganda statement since his grandfather Edward I had constructed a whole series of
castle
s in the newly conquered north of Wales, including one (Carnarvon) modelled on Constantinople, capital of the Eastern Roman empire. If Froissart's chronicle with its tournaments and feasts, romantic deeds and chivalric honour seems far-fetched, it is not because it was trying to misrepresent Edward's court, it is because it was trying to represent it faithfully.

Absolute royalty in
1331
harked back to one figure above all others, King Arthur. The Arthurian legends had, for a number of years, offered various kings the model for a band of knights who were indomitable and who would win fame, love and virtue. In his old age Edward I had tried to create just such a band to wage war agains
t the Scots; it had failed, partl
y due to its size (more than two hundred knights) and
partly
due to Edward IPs lack of determination to continue his
father
's war. Edward III imagined his band of knights in a new way. If he was to be the new Arthur, then he too needed a band of close-knit, peerless Knights of the Round Table. The late thirteenth-century Round Table, which now hangs at Winchester, has places for twenty-four knights as well as the king.'
8
Later Edward formed a chivalric band with a similar number of knights (twenty-six as opposed to twenty-five). Over and over again in Edward's accounts of the
1330s
we read of aketons (embroidered, padded tour
nament jackets), tunics and mantl
es being made for small groups of men. Edward's vision of his companionship was simple: a group of about two dozen friends, brothers-in-arms. From the beginning of his reign there was an attempt to make the Arthurian legends come true. If the Round Table could be made a reality, there was no reason why Edward's knights could not actually sit around it, nor any reason why they should not be as brave as the legendary knights of King Arthur. They had already begun to show their courage. It is no coincidence that the first set of aketons for a band of courtiers was made for the men who had assisted in the capture of Mortimer.

Edward Ill's vision of kingship cannot be separated from the legends of King Arthur. So strong was their pull that Edward visited Glastonbury - Arthur's legendary burial place - soon after he took power, in December
1331.
There were other examples of bonded knighthood for him to draw upon too. I
n Castile, Alfonso XI had recentl
y established his Order of the Band, a group of knights distinguished by their extravagant dress. Before that even, in the
1290s,
the Count of Holland had established a tourneying society. And then there were the religious knights. Edward's first home as baby, Bisham Priory, had been a house of the Knights Templar. He would have remembered nothing of this place from his living there, but he would have passed it many times in later years, and he cannot have been unaware that once there had existed in England an order of knights who dedicated themselves to fight for the patrimony of Jesus Christ, the Holy Land. The very oaths sworn by knights when they received knighthood exhorted them to noble deeds and Christian virtues: to higher purposes than self-aggrandizement. It was these higher purposes which Edward hoped would appeal to his own company of knights.