The Perfect King (82 page)

There is another well-known document which suggests that Edward II was alive in the
1330s.
It has a strikingly reliable provenance. This is the royal wardrobe account written by or under the auspices of William Norwell in
1338-40
which states twice that the William le Galeys who was brought to Edward III at Koblenz in September
1338
claimed to be the king's father. The first of these two references is an undated payment 'to Francisco the Lombard sergeant at arms of the king for the money by him spent on the expenses of William le Galeys who asserts that he is the father of the present king, previously arrested
(arestati)
at Cologne and by the said Francisco led to the king at Koblenz by his own hand,
25s
6d,
Judging from the king's itinerary derived from the same manuscript volume, this delivery of le Galeys must have been while the king was staying at Niederwerde near Koblenz, between
30
August and
7
September
1338.
The second entry is specifically dated to
18
October, when the royal party was at Antwerp. Francisco - now fully named as 'Francekino Forcet' - was paid 'for the money received by him for the expenses of William Galeys remaining in his custody, who calls himself king of England, father of the present king, namely for three weeks in December of year twelve
(1338)
by his own hand
13s
6d.

In considering these two documents it is important to understand that there are several areas in which they corroborate each other. These are
(1)
that Edward II was believed by important individuals definitely or possibly to have been alive in the later
1330s, (2)
that the person cl
aiming to be Edward II was in the protection or custody of Italians,
(3)
that his expenses were meagre (fittingly for a man living as a recluse) and
(4)
that probably both narratives may be connected with the Fieschi family of Genoa and the papal court. As a result of this corroboration it seems it would be wrong to presume that the Fieschi letter is a forgery as no one has managed to find any evidence that it is anything other than what it purports to be. Furthermore, there are reasons to suppose that William le Galeys was not an impostor. Not only was he not punished, he was entertained at royal expense and his keeper was paid in advance for his expenses in December. One logical explanation for the advance payment is that Philippa was expected to give birth to Edward II's grandchild about then (Lionel being born at the end of November).

To carry this debate further requires us firsdy to establish what evidence , there is to corroborate or deny the
Fieschi statement and Norwell's
suggestion that Edward II was still alive in the raid-to-late
1330s;
and secondly to establish what evidence there is that Edward II had died by a certain date. Contrary to most assumptions, these two questions are not
directly
connected. If Fieschi's letter was fraudulent, one would still have to answer the question of when Edward II died (given the findings of the research summarised in Appendix Two). And if the letter is correct, it still says nothing about Edward's death.

To begin with the survival of Edward II. In trying to understand the political and social context for the writing of the Fieschi letter an examination of the Fieschi family has been undertaken, as well as the careers of Manuel himself and the two family members of greatest importance in the
1330s:
Cardinal Luca Fieschi (d
.1336)
and Niccolinus Fieschi, also known as 'Cardinal', of Genoa. The author of the letter, Manuel, was resident with Luca (his second cousin once-removed) at Avignon, and served him as a notary, and also served as a papal notary from before
1327
to
1343,
w
hen he was made bishop of Vercell
i. Luca died at his house in Avignon on
31
January
1336,
whereupon Manuel became his executor.
On the internal evidence of the letter, unless there is a mistake in the periods spent at the two hermitages in Italy, the letter cannot have been written much before January
1336.
Given the fullness with which the letter accounts for Edward's whereabouts up to about January
1336
but not for a period beyond that, it is likely that it was written in the first half of
1336,
perhaps triggered by the death of Cardinal Luca.

In
The Greatest Traitor
I suggested that it was Niccolinus Fieschi who brought the Fieschi letter to England in April
1336,
a date which would agree with the above analysis. Since writing that, other reasons have emerged to suggest Niccolinus was involved with the delivery of the Fieschi letter. He was a relative, probably an uncle or first cousin once-removed of Manuel's, and a contemporary (probably a second cousin) of Cardinal Luca. He was additionally a lawyer and an ambassador representing not only the pope but also the Genoese state and Edward III, who treated him with exceptionally high regard. If his kinsman Manuel was deliberately trying to mislead Edward
III
over something as serious as the survival of Edward II in Italy in early
1336,
we must ask why Edward III rewarded Niccolinus so enthusiastically on meeting him at the Tower on
15
April
1336.
And we must also wonder why he continued to trust him with his secret business, employing him as a high-level diplomat to negotiate peace treaties with the French, Genoese, Sicilians and the pope for the next eight years, undertaking to pay him more than- a thousand pounds in fees and expenses for his service between July
1338
and April
1343.
When Edward wrote to the pope in
1340
to explain his
assumption of the tide King of
France, he picked the sexagenarian Niccolinus to be the bearer of his letter, and described him as an 'intimate confidant', and expressly remarked on his 'proven faithfulness and far-sighted circumspection'.
5
Unless Edward never received the Fieschi letter, one cannot believe it was written in bad faith, for if it had been it would be impossible to understand why Edward completely trusted a man closely connected with its author. On the other hand, if the letter was written in good faith, and was received by Edward, it would explain why Niccolinus became so trusted from the moment he arrived at the Tower in April
1336:
he was acting as the representative of the custodians of Edward II. It would also explain why Niccolinus was present at Koblenz in September
1338,
at the time of the meeting of William le Galeys and Edward III.

Let us return to the letter itself. One important point which has not previously been discussed concerns the two
castle
s. The
castle
Milasci
is unlikely to be Melazzo, as identified by Anna Benedetti in the
1920s,
as the place has no known reference to the Fieschi family or any other character in this story, and there is no other evidence to sustain this identification. In contemporary documents, Melazzo appears in Latin as
Melagius,
not
Milasci.
There are a number of alternatives, however, of which one demands particular attention. This is Mulazzo, in the Val di Magra, four miles from Pontremoli, a town once belonging to Cardinal Luca Fieschi, given by him in his will to his nephews, and from
1329
to
1336
in the hands of his niece's husband Pietro Rossi. Mulazzo was even closer to the estates of Luca's nephew, Niccolo Malaspina, 'il Marchesotto'. This might be significant as Niccolo Malaspina's other estates (Godiasco, Oramala and Piumesana, among others) were situated very close to Cecima, the place to which Edward
II
is supposed to have been transferred when war threatened his first sanctuary in about
1334.

Another aspect which has hitherto escaped detailed investigation is the identity of the man who guided William le Galeys to Edward
III
in
1338.
Francisco Forcetti or Forzetti appears in later English accounts dealing with wool exports to Italian companies. He also appears in two other English references: one relating to a Barcelona ship (probably relating to the Barcelona agency of the Peruzzi) which needed to be taken from Haverfordwest to Bristol in December
1342
and the other an appointment in
1344
to guard a Buckinghamshire manor held by an Italian, Tedisio Benedicti. His 'Lombard' (Italian) identity, coupled with his status as a royal sergeant-at-arms, shows that William le Galeys was not 'arrested' at Cologne by a local officer as a law-breaker or local demonstrator, but by an agent of Edw
ard's who was employed (apparentl
y exclusively) on Italian business. That Forzetti was reimbursed for his expenses in bringing William le Galeys from Cologne to Edward at Koblenz (fifty-seven miles) suggests he was specifically charged with this task. Certainly this was not a normal 'arrest' in the sense of it being a response by a local law officer to- the antics of a local malefactor. In this context it is very interesting that Forzetti too had a link with the Val di Magra. Tedisio Benedicti (whose Buckinghamshire manor he was guarding in
1344)
was a papal sergeant-at-arms and an esquire of Queen Philippa's who came from Falcinello in the Val di Magra, about twelve miles from Mulazzo. Benedicti was probably familiar with at least one international connection of the Fieschi family, Francisco Fosdinovo. The village of Fosdinovo is very close - about three miles - to that of Falcinello in the Val di Magra. This Francisco Fosdinovo came to England in
1337
with Antonio Fieschi (d
.1344)
and Giffredus de Groppo San Pietro: two men who had very close links with Cardinal Luca and Niccolo Malaspina, 'il Marchesotto'. It is even possible that Francisco [of?] Fosdinovo and Francisco Forzetti were one and the same man. If they were, the implication would be that the man who took William le Galeys to Edward
III
in
1338
was an agent of Luca Fieschi's nephew and heir.

Given that Edward II was almost certainly still alive in
1330,
we should note that the two documents which relate to his whereabouts after that date both suggest that he was in Italian custody. After a very thorough programme of checking and re-checking, I can find no good reason to doubt the outline of the Fieschi letter, and many reasons to believe it genuine. I particularly rate the detail given in the letter on Edward's final days of freedom, the knowledge the letter displays about Welsh, English and Italian topography, the correlations with the Norwell account, the pre-planned 'arrest' and prolonged entertainment of William le Galeys in the Low Countries (as opposed to the death penalty usually meted out to royal pretenders), the extraordinary level of trust placed in the Genoese relative of the letter's author, the fact the letter was wr
itten by the notary of Edward II’
s most important kinsman at Avignon, and the circumstantial links between Edward
III
, Cardinal Luca Fieschi and his kinsmen and contacts from the Val di Magra. I am also very interested in - and take seriously - the timeliness of certain acts connected to the Fieschi, such as Edward Ill's ratification of the estate of Manuel Fieschi in August
1342
immediately after his return from a very high-speed visit to Gloucester, the place of his father's tomb. Laying aside the inevitable anti-revisionist prejudices which attend such thinking, there is no sound reason to disregard the outline of the Fieschi letter in postulating where Edward II was after
1330.

On the basis of the foregoing passages, it seems probable that Cardinal Luca Fieschi
was the 'godfather' of Edward II’
s preservation in Italy. First of all we know that, even before he arrived at Avignon, Edward
LI
knew Luca. He was related to him and had met him in his youth, when Luca
had come to his father's court.
The two men had met several times in
1317
when Luca had been sent by Pope John XXII to negotiate a peace between Edward II and Robert Bruce. Th
ey had probably met as recentl
y as May
1325,
when Cardinal Luca had obtained royal protection while visiting England.
So when Edward II arrived at Avignon in about March
1331,
he had a powerful relative in the papal curia whom he knew reasonably well. And Manuel - Luca's notary - was there too. When, after spending time with the pope, Edward
II
left Avignon, he made his way ultimately to Italy. In so doing he was probably accompanied, and Luca Fieschi is the most likely candidate for arranging his protection from Avignon to Italy. First he went to Brabant and Cologne. Both these places had personal prophetic symbolism for the English royal family (as explained in Chapter One). When he came to Milan he was on territory familiar to the Fieschi, as Luccinus Visconti, brother of the ruler of Milan, was married to Isabella Fieschi, Cardinal Luca's niece. If we are right in supposing that Mulazzo was Edward's next port of call, then, as we have already seen, he was close to the estates of Niccolo Malaspina, Luca's nephew. More than that, the whole district was under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the bishop of Luni, and this was practically a pocket appointment of Luca's. The most powerful town in the district, Pontremoli, was a town granted to Luca and controlled in
1331
by Pietro Rossi, the husband of Ginetta Fieschi, Luca's niece. When war threatened the Val di Magra in
1334,
prior to the protracted siege of Pontremoli
(1335-36),
it seems that Edward was moved to a hermitage in the north, near Cecima and the northern estates of Niccolo Malaspina. Here he remained until Luca's death at the end of January
1336.
Shortly after this the late Luca's kinsman and notary, Manuel Fieschi, still based in Avignon, wrote the letter to Edward
m
finally revealing the whereabouts of his father.