The Greatest Traitor: The Life of Sir Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March (41 page)

Lancaster recognised that he had no option: he could not go to Salisbury. The threat of arrest loomed too large, since he would undoubtedly have been accused of both murder and treason. Moreover there was a real risk of his being assassinated himself. Bishop Stratford, who had now wholly adopted the earl’s cause, returned to Salisbury to attempt to win over more of the bishops gathered there for the parliament. He held secret meetings in his own house, but spies were at work in the town, and Roger’s men soon drove him out of the city. He took shelter in the nunnery at Wilton, but there he was informed that Roger intended to murder him, and, mindful of de Stapeldon’s fate, he fled across the fields by night.
³⁶

With the Earl of Lancaster and his supporters silenced, there was no need for Parliament to sit. But since it had gathered, Roger used the opportunity to recall the courts and the Exchequer from the north, safeguarding them from falling into Lancaster’s hands, and restoring to London some of the favour which he now realised was necessary to maintain his popularity there. The only other significant business of the parliament was transacted on the last day, 31 October, when the king created three earls. The first was his brother, Prince John of Eltham, to whom he gave the title Earl of Cornwall. The third was James Butler, son of Edmund Butler of Ireland, to whom the king gave the title Earl of Ormond. Between
these two grants the king strapped the belt and sword on Roger himself. To him the king gave the title Earl of March.
³⁷
Roger’s greatest moment had arrived. To cap it all, eleven days later, at Ludlow, his eldest son’s wife gave birth to a son and heir.

Contemporaries were amazed by Roger’s new title. Normally earldoms were associated with specific counties or county towns. A more usual style would have been for Roger to call himself ‘Earl of Shrewsbury’ or ‘Earl of Radnor’, taking his title from the county town of one of the shires in which he held a significant lordship. Instead he chose March, referring to the Welsh March. This was for two reasons. Firstly it harked back to his wife’s ancestry, the French counts of La Marche, and drew attention to his connections with several of the ruling houses of Europe. Secondly it set him apart from all the other earls because it related to such a vast area. Despenser might have coveted the earldom of Gloucester, Roger himself might have controlled most of the earldom of Pembroke, but the earldom of March … Such a title implied supremacy over the existing earldoms of Pembroke, Hereford and Gloucester, and would naturally be far superior to those of Chester and Shrewsbury, if they were to be recreated. By comparison with such a magnificent title, what was an Earl of Lancaster?

Lancaster was furious when he heard of the title. Immediately he marched into Winchester and cut off the king’s approach to London. Roger sent the Sheriff of Hampshire to force Lancaster to withdraw. Thomas Wake came out from the city to meet the sheriff, and negotiations continued for several days before Roger’s army drew close. Desperately Wake tried to persuade Lancaster not to fight, suspecting that Roger would have little mercy on them. Only at the last minute did Lancaster relent. His soldiers were still leaving when Roger’s army marched into the city. Men from both sides skirmished with each other, jeering and shouting. The two armies scraped each other but they did not clash.

In London frantic negotiations were taking place as the Lancastrian supporters battled with the more moderate aldermen. Bitter recriminations were thrown across the Guildhall, as both factions realised the court was coming to London. In the end the neutral John de Grantham was elected, and he created a fiction that London had remained totally loyal to Roger. As the court entered the city in late November, both Roger and the Londoners had learnt a lesson: neither could afford to neglect the other.

Roger was satisfied for the time being, but he had not gone to London to make peace. He knew now for certain there would be war. There could be no return to the charade of Lancaster as head of a council. Only one of them could wield power. Thus his purpose in taking the court to London
was to break the citizens’ support for Lancaster. The earl stationed himself at Higham Ferrers in Northamptonshire, and sent his messengers to the king with proposals for a meeting of the royal council. Roger sent them back angrily, stating that Lancaster should show more humility: that he should approach his king as a vassal and make an unconditional surrender. Roger listed the king’s grievances, including protests that the king had the right to surround himself with such advisers as he chose, and that Lancaster had stayed away from court when he had been summoned, and had appeared in arms before the king on the few occasions when they had met. While Roger awaited a response, he took measures to control the capital. He prohibited the carrying of arms in the city and reinforced law and order. Finally, confident that London would stand firm, he and the court withdrew from the city to Gloucester, to arm, plan and begin the war with Lancaster. Force of arms could determine which of them was loyal and which the traitor.

At moments of grave crisis, it seems, Roger turned to God. Now he made the endowment for his chapel at Leintwardine. On 15 December at Gloucester he granted lands and rent to the value of 100 marks (£67) per year for a college of nine chaplains to sing masses daily in the church of St Mary for the souls of King Edward and Queen Philippa, Queen Isabella, Bishop Burghersh, and himself, his wife, his children and their ancestors and successors.
³⁸
It had been a long time since he had fought a campaign, and he knew he would be fighting the combined forces of the Earls of Lancaster, Norfolk and Kent. He might not live much longer. His mind had grown a little colder, since the loss of another of his sons. Not long after the death of his second son, Roger, his youngest son, John, had been killed in a tournament at Shrewsbury.
³⁹
Besides the dead there were grandchildren being born whom he realised he might never see grow to adulthood, who would inherit the fruits of his labours and merely wonder at his name. Chantries and sepulchral monuments were one way for noblemen to communicate across the centuries with their descendants. And finally there was the matter of his wife and Isabella, with whom he could neither be together nor apart, being wrenched between them both. It was a strange extended family – a king, two queens, a wife, a mistress, the living and the dead – but these were the people for whom Roger cared most, and he wanted them to be together at peace, if only in the prayers of the chaplains of St Mary’s, Leintwardine.

There was one other reason for the timeliness of this foundation: Roger was not just going to war over his policy towards Scotland or Henry of Lancaster’s treason, he was fighting for his and Isabella’s lives. The Earl of Kent had learnt that Edward II was still alive. And he had told Lancaster.

We do not know how the Earl of Kent learnt about the ex-king’s continued existence. Perhaps the most likely explanation is that Edward III confided in him while Roger and Isabella were travelling to Berwick for the marriage between David and Joan in July 1328. This may explain why he and his brother, the Earl of Norfolk, refused to attend the meeting at York which was to take place on their return. In his later confession, Kent claimed that he had heard the news at Kensington from a Dominican friar of London who ‘had raised up the devil, which declared unto him for certain that Edward, his brother, sometime King of England, was alive’.
⁴⁰
This was almost certainly a means to cover up the identity of his true informant. It remains a possibility that friars of the Dominican order had learnt for themselves that Edward was alive, and informed the earl. Whichever was the true source of his information, if Kent informed Lancaster between July and September, then Lancaster’s accusation of murder in the autumn was an attempt to call Roger’s bluff, to force him to reveal the living ex-king. While this remains uncertain, it is highly likely that Lancaster had been informed by the end of October, as on 5 November he wrote to the Mayor of London stating that he would send some information by messenger he dared not have written down which he had heard from the Earl of Kent.
⁴¹

The consequence of this information was further to alienate Edward II’s half-brothers from Roger. In December they issued a joint circular statement accusing their nephew the king of breaking the terms of his coronation oath and abusing Magna Carta.
⁴²
The latter was a tacit reference to Edward II’s custody, for which they held Edward III partly responsible, indicating that they were aware that he knew of his father’s survival.
⁴³
They called for a general gathering in London to discuss further action. It was sent to all those likely to be sympathetic to the Earl of Lancaster’s cause, as well as to the king. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of Winchester and the Bishop of London responded, as did Lancaster’s northern supporters. On 18 December the archbishop preached a sermon against the king at St Paul’s. Three days later a very full reply was received in the city and read aloud at the Guildhall. The archbishop, who by now had given up all pretence to impartiality, wrote back to the king and the court threatening him and them with excommunication. This outrageous letter, which implied the king was guilty as charged, coincided with the completion of Roger’s preparations for a military campaign. There was nothing left to do but fight.

On 29 December Roger declared war on Henry of Lancaster in the king’s name.
⁴⁴
A letter was sent to London stating that Edward intended to march to Leicester, via Warwick, and that those who surrendered before
7 January would be pardoned for their transgressions, with the exceptions of Henry de Beaumont, Thomas Roscelyn, Thomas Wyther and William Trussel, whose disloyalty could never be forgiven. The letter was read aloud on 1 January to Lancaster and the other leaders at St Paul’s, who even now thought they could mediate. But the royal army was already on the march. They left Warwick that same day and went to Kenilworth, where the king asked for access to the castle. Upon being refused, Roger decided to bring forward the deadline for action. He took the army to Leicester and began to sack the Earl of Lancaster’s manors. Then he ordered the town and all the earl’s property to be destroyed by sword and fire, including the property of his dependants. Over the years Roger’s men had grown experienced in the art of wanton destruction. They took the earl’s deer, cut down his woods, emptied his fish ponds, emptied his granaries, took his cattle and sheep, and destroyed his manor houses, barns, fences, sheds and cottages. The entire town and hinterland was devastated in a few days. The army was, however, restrained when it came to killing people: the majority of the fatalities arose from Henry Percy’s massacre of a crowd of peasants marching to serve Lancaster.

Hearing of the attack on his lands, Lancaster marched north. At Bedford he held a council with his fellow lords. He declared that they now had no choice: they would have to fight the king. At this the Earls of Norfolk and Kent recoiled. They refused to ride in arms against the royal banner, for the double risk of being presumed traitors by their nephew, who was obviously Roger’s pawn, and for fear of Roger himself, who seemed unbeatable with a royal army behind him. They grew angry, and denounced Lancaster, accusing him of sedition, of trying to destroy the king. They abandoned the earl and rode off to seek peace before it was too late.

Roger was at Northampton. When he heard that the Earls of Norfolk and Kent had deserted Lancaster, he ordered his troops to prepare for an immediate night attack. Even Isabella took part, dressed in armour and mounted on a war horse. Through the night he led them, for twenty-four miles, arriving within sight of Lancaster’s camp near Bedford at daybreak. Henry made no attempt to defend himself. He came out of his pavilion and walked slowly forward through the cold January morning, and knelt down, alone, in the mud. He waited there until Roger, Isabella and the king rode up. They watched him from their horses as he begged for forgiveness.

FOURTEEN

King of Folly

THE MOMENT THE
Earl of Lancaster knelt at the feet of the young king, Roger was able to claim a personal victory far greater than merely that of defeating Lancaster. All England, Wales and Ireland was under his control. The king was in his power, Isabella was more dependent on him than ever, and all the key office-holders in the country were his appointments. If people sought pardons, they sought them from him. If wardships were distributed, it was to men of whom he approved. He had been granted the most prestigious title in the country, and no one dared face him with an army. His only real threat had been the vanquished, humiliated earl, kneeling in the mud before him. This, he may have reflected in his moment of glory, was what it felt like to be a king.

Like a king, but not actually a king. He did not enjoy this power by right but through duplicity and force. He could never be secure. Knowledge that Edward II was still alive was now circulating among the nobility: if he had previously had any doubts about remaining at court, this resolved them. He could never go back now to live on his own estates, as the Earl of Lancaster had demanded. And why should he? He had won the right to dictate his own fate, as well as Lancaster’s. Besides, there was Isabella to consider. She needed him. Henry of Lancaster’s rebellion had demonstrated that no one could be trusted. If Isabella’s second son John, the newly created Earl of Cornwall, were to die, the Earl of Norfolk would be next in line to the throne. Norfolk had initially sided with the rebels, and had only sought peace at the last moment. What if he were to take arms? And how many others were there like him? It was Roger’s duty to stay and show the king how to rule his realm, and how to control his opponents. In this way he justified to himself the necessity of maintaining his grip on power. The result was that he ruled the kingdom for the next two years with less regard for its people than for himself.