A Night at the Theater with Edward II

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, I got to see a performance of Marlowe's Edward II at Washington, D.C.'s Shakespeare Theatre Company. I'm not a theater critic and can't act my way out of a paper bag myself, so instead of a review per se, here are just a few thoughts on the Edward II production.

First (she said smugly), since I attended the play alone and therefore splurged on my ticket, I had a great seat--second row center, close enough to see the actors very well but just far enough away to avoid being spat on. The woman behind me told her companion that she had the best seat, but I think mine was better. So there.

The play was staged in 1920's dress. I rather like modern-dress productions of old plays if they're done well, and this one was. Isabella and Gaveston's wife, Margaret de Clare, looked very nice in their flapper outfits. Most of the men were dressed in military attire, except for Edward II and Gaveston. The 1920's setting also meant that guns were used on occasion: the unfortunate Spencer (Hugh le Despenser the younger) and Baldock were shot to death, although Gaveston and Mortimer were beheaded. The only jarring note was when the talk turned to religion; it was odd to have English people dressed in 1920's garb speak of the Pope's authority.

The play opened at Edward I's funeral, with the little Edward III and Isabella silently offering their condolences to Edward II. This was a nice touch, since the play closes at Edward II's funeral.

In the play, one of the barons' biggest complaints about Edward II is his fondness for masques and the like, and Gaveston's return was accordingly staged as a production number featuring men in skimpy outfits and in women's clothing, with Gaveston finally borne in wearing wings. (Spencer, as I recall, was in a yellow spangly number. If you're at Tewkesbury Abbey and hear rolling sounds coming from the real Hugh's tomb, that's probably why.)

I rather liked the actress who played Margaret de Clare, portrayed here as a squealing ingenue who assumes a priceless facial expression when rather late in the game, she finally realizes that there's something odd going on between Uncle Ned and her husband. It was also a good touch to have Margaret attending her uncle's funeral in the final scene.

I enjoyed the actor who played the Earl of Kent. I thought he did a good job of conveying Kent's hopelessly torn loyalties.

When Gaveston comes home from his second exile, there's a big sign reading, "Welcome Home Gaveston" onstage. I don't know why, but that gave me the giggles. I liked that sign.

Edward III is played by two actors; a young boy and a young man. Shortly before his crowning (and probably about the time of the boy actor's bedtime), Edward III's growing maturity is depicted by substituting the older actor for the younger one onstage. I thought that was clever on the part of the director, and also helped in showing the passage of time, which Marlowe compresses considerably.

Finally, Gaveston, having been executed, reappears several times in angel's wings to offer comfort to Edward, most importantly in the red-hot poker scene (where the wings also obscure the poker business). This could have been silly in the wrong hands, but it was quite moving, especially when Gaveston bears his friend's body offstage.

In short, I thoroughly enjoyed this play, which doesn't get produced in the US that often outside of the largest cities. It's playing through January 6, so if you're in the DC area (or can get there), check it out!

The Reign of Edward II as Told by the King

(King Elvis, of course)

"This Is The Story"

"Your Life Has Just Begun"

"Can't Help Falling in Love"

"He Is My Everything"

"From A Jack To A King"

"Hey Little Girl"

"The Girl I Never Loved"

"He'll Have To Go"

"Don't Be Cruel"

"Without Him"

"Every Effort has Been Made"

"My Boy"

"I Need Somebody To Lean On"

"I Can Help"

"He Knows Just What I Need"

"Woman Without Love"

"What She's Really Like"

"Mean Woman Blues"

"My Baby Left Me"

"When It Rains It Really Pours"

"That's What You Get For Loving Me"

"I Want To Be Free"

"Out Of Sight Out Of Mind"

"Fire Down Below"

"There Goes My Everything"

OR

"Write To Me From Naples"

My Friend the Semicolon; And Its Relation the Comma

I love semicolons; I really, really do.

What prompted this revelation is a discussion that I've been having at the day job. (Yes, the glamour of my day job overwhelms even me at times.)

Regardless of the outcome of the work discussion, I'll continue in my admiration and esteem for the semicolon. I don't think that it was ever discussed much in English composition in my grade school; it's a punctuation mark I pretty much began using on my own. I have to guard against overusing it in my writing; because one can have too much of a good thing.

Thinking about the semicolon has made me consider its more common and humble relation, the comma, and its role in the death of Edward II. The legend propagated by Geoffrey Baker, familiar to those who know Marlowe's play, is that Adam of Orleton, the Bishop of Hereford, acting on behalf of Mortimer and Isabella, sent an unpunctuated message to Edward's jailers at Berkeley Castle reading, Edwardum occidere nolite timere bonum est. The message could be interpreted in two ways, depending upon where the reader chose to insert a comma. Placing the comma after "timere" produces: "Do not fear to kill Edward, it is a good thing," while slipping the comma back after "nolite" produces, "Do not kill Edward, it is good to be afraid."

Instructive as this legend is in the "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves" tradition, it's been disproved for some time. Orleton was out of the country at the time and had fallen out of favor with Isabella and Mortimer, and he in any case would hardly have been likely to send a written message so incriminating. Evidently, Baker lifted the comma story from a thirteenth-century incident recounted by Matthew Paris.

Nonetheless, the comma story continues to appear, usually in historical novels but occasionally even in nonfiction. I submit that it's because these are the type of shenanigans one expects of a comma. The noble semicolon, on the other hand, behaves itself; no skulduggery for it.

Geraldus Redux

I don't know if you overseas readers have noticed this, but we in the United States have been awfully apologetic lately. We've had a radio host apologizing for making racist remarks, we've had the president of the World Bank apologize for getting his special lady friend a handsome raise, and we've had our president apologize to Walter Reid hospital patients. In my corner of the country, we've had a district attorney apologize for pressing rape charges against three innocent men, and our state house has apologized for slavery, following the example of our neighbor Virginia's apology for slavery. We're just a sorry bunch these days, it seems.

Anyway, in light of all these apologies, I was pleased to find an especially timely manuscript in what scholars now know as the Geraldus de Springerus archives. It appears that Geraldus, believing the last appearance of Isabella and a very special surprise guest to have been popular amongst the audience, invited the pair back in an attempt to stage a reconciliation between them. The discovery of this particular transcript is particularly exciting: it suggests that the medieval concept of a "loveday," wherein disputes could be settled amicably out of court, had permeated a much wider range of affairs than previously thought. One can only wonder at what further discoveries lurk in these archives.


Geraldus: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I'm pleased to introduce again our most gracious lady, the Dowager Queen Isabella, and, er--

Edward: King Edward the Second.

Isabella: You cannot call yourself the king. You are a humble monk now.

Edward: I'm very well aware of that, my dear. You reminded me of that twice backstage.

Isabella: After all, you resigned your crown.

Edward: If you call that farce a resignation.

Geraldus: If I may. Your graces, let's face it. Neither of you is getting any younger.

Edward: I beg to differ. I've never felt healthier. All of this fresh air, and exercise, and—

Isabella: We know. You were born to be a peasant.

Edward: Maybe you ought to get outdoors a bit yourself, my dear. You're looking a little peaked.

Isabella: I am not. (Consults hand mirror)

Geraldus: Your graces. Both of you look wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. But as I said, time is passing. As my people told your people, it's time to put the past behind you and apologize to each other. You've each come prepared, I believe.

Isabella (Pulls out a long sheet of parchment): I certainly have.

Edward: That's what you want to apologize for? All that? Really, my dear, it's not necessary.

Isabella: Don't be silly. These are the things I wanted you to apologize for. It's a checklist.

Edward: Oh.

Isabella: Item one. There's the time you gave Gaveston my wedding jewels.

Edward: Oh, come. They suited him and not you. You were a skinny little girl of twelve and he was—magnificent. (Sighs longingly)

Isabella: Oh, for God's sake, get your mind out of your crotch and attend to item two.

Edward: All right. Item two.

Isabella: You ignored me after the coronation.

Edward: You had all of your irritating French relatives to sit with, didn't you? Besides, you got to talk to them about the jewels.

Isabella: All right. We will skip item two for now. Item three—

Edward: If you're going to claim I abandoned you to the Scots, I'm leaving.

Isabella: No, no. But I did forget Bannockburn, come to think of it.

Edward: I have to apologize to you for Bannockburn?

Isabella: It was a great blow to my pride as a queen.

Edward: Oh, all right. (Aside) God forbid we should injure her precious pride as a queen.

Isabella: I heard that. Back to item three. Hugh le Despenser the elder.

Edward: Hugh the elder? What did he ever do to you?

Isabella: He spawned Hugh the younger, which accounts for items four to one hundred.

Edward (Sadly, to audience): She just never did understand poor dear Hugh.

Isabella: Oh, I understood him all right. Well. Are you ready to apologize?

Edward: I suppose. (Stiffly) My most gracious lady, I humbly beg your pardon.

Isabella: I accept your humble apology.

Geraldus: Now, that's real progress.

Edward: Her turn! Let's talk about my deposition. And your killing my friends, and your trying to kill me, and Mortimer, and your locking me up, and your keeping the children from me, and—

Isabella: You never did have an orderly mind, did you? Well, let's get this over with. My gracious lord, I humbly beg your pardon.

Edward: Oh, come on. If that's humility, I'm the king of France.

Isabella: They wouldn't have you as the king of France.

Edward: Oh, Lord. (To audience) Now we're going to hear about the glories of France. And you wonder why we only had four children together? We're lucky we had that many.

Isabella: Oh, just accept my apology so we can get out of here.

Geraldus: Your grace, you could stand to look a bit more humble, in my opinion.

Isabella: Which no one asked you for, did they?

Edward: Oh, she still has her touch with the common people, doesn't she? (To audience) Tell us. Which queen do you like better? Isabella or Philippa?

Audience (Roaring): Philippa!

Edward: That nice, sweet lady. Always a kind word for everyone.

Isabella: How dare—

Edward: So gracious. So loyal. So merciful. The way she begged for those burghers in Calais—

Audience: Ahhh!

Isabella: Are we going to spend the rest of the afternoon talking about that irritating Hainaulter woman, or are you going to accept my apology?

Edward: Now I think she owes our dear Philippa an apology for that, don't you?

Isabella: Damn it, I came here to apologize to you, not her, and now I'm not going to apologize to either of you! (Stalks away)

Edward: Well, then, I'm going to withdraw my apology. (Shouts in Isabella's direction) She-wolf!

Isabella (From offstage): Sodomite!

Geraldus: Well. Sometimes people just aren't ready to let go of the past, it seems. Folks, join us next week for "Ten Pilgrimage Scams to Avoid."

Audience Member: Wait. She didn't make a sincere apology, and he withdrew his apology. Shouldn't we get our money back?

Geraldus: No. You'll just have to accept my humble apology for that, I guess.

Happy Valentine's Day From Some Famous Couples

Who said that you have to write romance novels to celebrate Valentine's Day in style? With the help of ACME Heart Maker, some famous couples in history (and in historical novels) have been doing it up right with custom-made candy hearts:

Thomas Seymour to Queen Katherine Parr:



Thomas Seymour to Princess Elizabeth:



Richard III to Anne Neville (remember the cookshop story):



Margaret Beaufort to Henry VII:



Henry VII to Elizabeth of York:



Henry VIII to Katherine of Aragon:




Edward IV to Elizabeth Woodville:



John of Gaunt to Katherine Swynford:



Edward II to Piers Gaveston



Roger Mortimer to Queen Isabella:




Queen Isabella to Roger Mortimer:



Hugh le Despenser the younger to Gower, Wales:

A Letter From Philippa of Hainault to Her Sister

Once again, a search of long-neglected archives has turned up a fascinating document: a letter from Philippa of Hainault to her sister Margaret, Duchess of Bavaria. Philippa seems to have written a number of such letters, which are in such a poor handwriting and in such an informal style that it seems almost certain that they were written by the queen herself instead of dictated to a clerk. Philippa seldom dated her letters, but the contents of this one suggest that it was written in January 1328, shortly after her marriage to fifteen-year-old Edward III. Philippa’s age is uncertain, but she was probably a little younger than her new husband.

My dearest Margaret,

At last I can write and tell you that I am a wife! Ned and I were married in York on the 24th, or thereabouts—I always did have a poor head for dates, as you well know. Anyway, it was a very nice wedding, presided over by Archbishop William Melton. It was snowing and cold in York, but the new robes Papa bought me before I came here kept me very warm. Queen Isabella said that it helped too that I had some meat on my bones. (She’s such a witch, Meg.) I just pretended I didn’t hear her. Stupid cow.

I was hoping that I would be able to tell you that I had been crowned, but Queen Isabella told me that I had to wait! When I asked why, she would only say, “We need to find a more suitable time.” Ned was furious when she said that—he’s so handsome when he’s angry, though, I really didn’t mind. But I am rather upset that I can’t get crowned until God knows when, especially since Uncle Edmund—that’s the old king’s brother, the Earl of Kent—said that the queen was crowned when she was twelve years old, so why should I have to wait when I’m older than that now? The queen was not happy when he said that, and neither was Uncle Roger. But they didn’t say anything, just gave him a look. (The Queen and Uncle Roger are really good at giving people looks.)

Oh, I should mention that Uncle Roger is Roger Mortimer, whom they call the queen’s “close advisor.” They must think we’re really stupid in Hainault, not to know what they really are to each other. Once I get to know Ned a little better, I’m sure he’ll tell me all I want to know about that story. In the meantime, I just put on my I’m-just-a-naive-little-girl-from-Hainault face whenever they ogle each other in public. (It’s so disgusting.)

Speaking of my new in-laws, had you heard that my father-in-law, the late Edward the Second, was buried just last month? I got to England just after the funeral. I’ve learned that talking about the late king is a definite no-no around the Queen and Uncle Roger, though. When I asked what he had died of in Berkeley Castle they started to give me looks, but then they told me to run along and play with Ned. (I think that’s their code for begetting an heir. So I didn’t mind doing that at all.)

I don’t have a household of my own yet, like a king’s wife should. When I asked the queen about that very nicely (I’m always very polite to her, Meg, don’t worry), she got the usual expression on her face and snapped, “Well, at least your husband didn’t give all of your wedding jewels to his lover,” and Uncle Roger laughed. I really didn’t understand the humor in that, but I suppose when you’re the queen’s “close advisor” (wink), you can laugh at just about anything.

Ned is very sweet, though, and even more handsome than he was when he came to Hainault. Uncle Edmund told me that he looks a lot like his father, and that certainly got the looks from Queen Isabella and Uncle Roger! (Poor man, he's always getting looks from them. I think if I were him I'd go on pilgrimage for a while.) But unlike his father, Ned really enjoys tournaments, and we’ve been having a lot of them to celebrate. Ned and Uncle Roger both joust, and you know whose favor Uncle Roger gets to wear! (So very subtle.)

Well, I must go now; the queen has sent one of her ladies to tell me we’ll be late for the tournament if I don’t quit fussing with my hair (that’s what I tell her I’m doing when I’m writing to you). Sigh. But I suppose mothers-in-law are what we married women have to put up with, aren't they?

Your loving sister,

Philippa

Queen Isabella, Live on Geraldus

I’ve been doing some in-depth research, and deep in the stacks of the university library, I found the following hitherto untranslated transcript of an encounter between a Geraldus de Springerus and the dowager queen Isabella some time in the late 1340’s.

As background to this exciting discovery, it appears that in the decadent years between the Battle of Crécy and the advent of the Black Death, Geraldus de Springerus was an itinerant entertainer who traveled throughout England. His “shows,” as they were called in the common parlance, were widely attended by the lower elements of the populace, and featured “guests,” sometimes from the same rank as the audience, sometimes of a much higher social standing. Oddly, the latter sort of guests do not seem to have regarded their appearance alongside Springerus as demeaning. This suggests a hitherto unrealized fluidity among social relations at the time and, I hope, will provide a fruitful ground of study for researchers in decades to come.

The translation presented a challenge, as the shows were conducted in a peculiar mix of Norman French and Middle English, depending upon the status of the guest. Furthermore, there are lacunae where the transcriber appears to have simply given up the attempt to record the goings-on, instead simply writing, “Fisticuffs.” This implies that quite often, the passions of the audience may have become extremely heightened.

Many more transcripts await translation. In the meantime, I hope this modest contribution to medieval studies will be met with interest.

Geraldus: Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. Today the theme of our show is “Misunderstood Women.” I’m very pleased to have with me today our dowager queen, Isabella, over from Castle Rising, where she spends most of her time these days.

Isabella: But only because I want to.

Geraldus: Yes, your grace. We had another guest lined up, one Mistress Margery, who wanted to address accusations that she had been making people’s sheep die, but she had—er—a conflict and could not make it after all.

Audience Member: Because we burned the witch!

(Cheers and claps from audience. There is a single boo toward the back, followed by fisticuffs.)

Geraldus: (To Isabella) They’re a tough crowd today, your grace.

Isabella: (To Geraldus) Tough crowds? You’re looking at a woman who escaped the Scots single-handedly. Well, with some help from my knights, of course. (To the crowd). You’ve heard the stories about me. I took a lover. I had my husband murdered. I had my brother-in-law the Earl of Kent executed on trumped-up charges. I kept my son the king and his wife poor while my lover and I got richer and richer. I did everything possible to keep my lover in power and my son from being king on his own.

Geraldus: And those stories aren’t true, your grace?

Isabella: Of course they’re true. Do I look like a weakling to you? But no one understands why I did them. And that’s why I’m here, to set the record straight.

Geraldus: And that’s why I’ve brought you here, your grace. To—

Isabella: Oh, just keep quiet. (To the crowd) I put up with my no-good husband for years. I kept quiet when he gave all of my jewels to Gaveston. I listened while he talked about digging ditches. I never said “I told you so” when he lost to the Scots. I put up with the two Hugh le Despensers for as long as anyone possibly could. I was the best wife in the world. I was.

Woman in Audience: I hear you, girl!

Isabella: So what was I to do when a man like Roger Mortimer came along? Say no, thank you, I’d rather stay with my sodomite of a husband?

More Women in Audience: No way, girl!

Isabella: And the money. I couldn’t have Mortimer see me in rags, now could I? Or let him look shabby, could I? And the land—I needed places to entertain him in properly, didn’t I?

Even More Women in Audience: Damn straight!

Isabella: And my son. You think having a boy that age glaring daggers every time I so much as smiled at Roger Mortimer was pleasant? I couldn’t do anything to please the little wretch. (Dabs eyes.) I did try so hard to be a good mother to him. I got him on the throne, didn’t I?

Women in Audience: Awwww!

Isabella: And that stupid brother-in-law of mine was a meddler, pure and simple. If he’d minded his own business—

Man in Audience: So why’d you kill that poor bloke your husband?

(Fisticuffs between man and surrounding women.)

Geraldus: (after a long interval of fisticuffs) Well, that is a perfectly valid question, your grace.

Isabella: I— Well, because he was a bloody nuisance!

(Cheers from women in audience)

Geraldus: Well. We’ve got a very special surprise for you now, your grace.

(A curtain at the back of the platform is pushed aside and a man wearing a monk’s habit steps out and pulls his hood back. Isabella stares in horror at him.)

Isabella: You’re—you’re—

Edward II: Your husband, my dear.

Isabella: You’re not dead.

Edward II: Still smart as a whip after all of these years.

Isabella: But I went to your funeral!

Edward II: You went to a porter’s funeral. I killed him and escaped. I’ve been wandering all around Europe ever since, dressed like this.

Isabella: I held a splendid funeral for a damned porter? I’ve been paying to have masses said for a damned porter?

Edward II: That’s it.

Isabella: Well, this is just outrageous and in extremely poor taste.

Edward II: And you call the red-hot poker business good taste? I thought you would have been more subtle, frankly.

Isabella: That was Mortimer’s idea.

Edward II: (in a high voice) Oh, that was Mortimer’s idea. That’s right, blame it on your boyfriend. Oh look now, she’s sulking. She always was good at sulking.

Isabella: Well, I hope you don’t think you’re going to take your throne back.

Edward II: And deal with the Scots and your French relations again? Lord no, Ned’s welcome to it. I can do all of the rowing and thatching and ditch digging that I please now.

Isabella: Well, if that just isn’t absolutely delightful.

Geraldus: Folks? Why don’t you show there are no hard feelings? An embrace for the audience?

Isabella: [Editor’s note: This passage contains obscure words that appear to be strikingly scatological and obscene. Further analysis by specialists is needed here.]

(Isabella stalks off the platform.)

Edward II: Good riddance. Now that she’s gone, can you find a slot for me sometime? How about “Men Who Lost Their Thrones and Don’t Really Mind”? I hear that David Bruce is available.

Geraldus: It’s going to be hard, but—let’s see. I’ve got your niece Joan of Kent coming up on “Women Who Just Can’t Say No to Marriage,” and your son’s scheduled too, on “Men Who Want to Be King of France.” And there’s “People Who Worry About That Pestilence Thing Coming to England.” But I’ll think of something. I’ll have my people send a messenger to your people.

(All of you people who commented on my previous Isabella post are to blame for this one.)

In Which I Ponder the Subject of Queen Isabella

I do my best pondering in the shower, and today in the shower I was pondering two things: what I should blog about next, and why historians and novelists—particularly female ones—have taken such a rosy view of Edward II’s queen, Isabella, lately. Thus a blog post was born and my hair made squeaky clean, all in the course of a few minutes. You just can’t beat the shower, can you?

So why has Isabella become a feminist heroine of sorts? It’s true that she did put up with a lot during Edward II’s reign, and it’s true that she acted with courage in amassing troops and sailing to England to overthrow her husband’s despised favorites, the Despensers, without knowing how successful her enterprise would be. It’s also true that there was moral justification for her actions, given the threat the Despensers, especially Hugh the younger, posed to anyone who possessed property they coveted. So far, so good.

Once Isabella achieved her objective of overthrowing the Despensers, though, and put her son Edward III on the throne in place of his father, she is notable mainly for the greed, short-sightedness, maliciousness, and sheer stupidity she displayed. She granted herself an enormous dower and went through the considerable amount Edward II had left in his treasury with remarkable speed. She and her lover, Roger Mortimer, quickly alienated their allies, especially Henry of Lancaster, by excluding them from decision-making despite their status as members of the young king’s regency council. She entered into a hugely unpopular treaty with Scotland and wrecked any chances she might have had of reconciling the northern landholders to it by appropriating most of the reparation money from the Scots for herself. She tolerated the increasing disrespect with which Roger Mortimer treated the maturing king and seems to have done nothing to protect her own son’s interests against those of her lover. She and Mortimer duped her own brother-in-law, the Earl of Kent, into believing that Edward II was still alive, then had him executed for attempting to rescue his brother from prison. This act of tyranny was probably the last straw for Edward III and his friends, who brought Mortimer and Isabella down only months thereafter.

I’ve left out the most damning of Isabella’s actions, the murder of her husband. Even if it was directed by Mortimer without Isabella’s involvement, she nonetheless continued her relationship with him, suggesting that she felt little if any revulsion at his deed. She might have felt guilt at the end of her life, when she elected to be buried in her wedding cloak and with Edward II’s heart in her tomb. (This, of course, does not take into account the theory that Edward II was not murdered at Berkeley Castle. That’s another blog post, another day.)

Isabella also comes out rather poorly when one looks at her dealings with other females. I’ve already blogged about her forced veiling of the Despenser girls, children who had done her no harm and posed no threat to her or to the crown. Other women and girls were treated shabbily as well. About the same time the Earl of Kent was executed, Isabella and Mortimer ordered that his widow—who was nine months pregnant—be arrested, along with the couple’s children, all of whom were very young. (Among them was the two-year-old Joan of Kent, later mother to Richard II.) The order for the arrest of the Countess of Kent shows great concern for the countess’s jewels, which were to be tracked down and delivered to royal officials, and very little for the countess herself, who was to be accompanied to her new quarters only by her children and two damsels.

Alice de Lacy, the widow of Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, had been treated badly by the Despensers; thus, one would expect the victorious Isabella, who had publicly decried the Despensers’ treatment of orphans and widows, to restore her to the lands out of which she had been bullied. Instead, Roger Mortimer, undoubtedly with Isabella’s acquiescence, took over the more valuable of Alice’s Welsh estates, notably Denbigh.

Isabella’s adultery with Roger Mortimer has often been treated as a justified response to the presumed unfaithfulness of her husband the king. Even if one accepts this dubious morality—which was quite dubious in medieval England, where women were expected to be faithful wives even if their husbands strayed—Isabella’s apologists have seldom addressed the fact that Mortimer himself was married, to a woman against whom Isabella had no cause to bear a grudge. Joan de Geneville had borne Mortimer a dozen children and had suffered imprisonment for his sake by Edward II. Her reward was the destruction of her marriage at the hands of Isabella and her husband, though it could be argued that the estrangement of the Mortimers at least gave Joan a break from child-bearing, if age hadn’t done that already.

Finally, Isabella had obtained money and ships for her invasion of England by agreeing to marry the future Edward III to Philippa of Hainault. Isabella thus owed a considerable debt of gratitude toward her new daughter-in-law when she and Edward III married in 1328. Instead, Isabella delayed Philippa’s coronation until 1330, when Philippa was visibly pregnant with her first child and the matter could not be decently postponed for much longer. Philippa was also deprived of dower lands and prevented from having her own household until that time, and does not seem to have gotten her full dower until 1331, after the fall of Isabella and Mortimer.

Isabella’s defenders have largely blamed Roger Mortimer for the shortcomings of Isabella’s rule. They fail to recognize that one can’t have it both ways. If Isabella was truly dominated by Mortimer and subject to his will, her subservient role as Mortimer’s tool is hardly the stuff of which feminist icons are made. If she was his equal or his superior in power, she has to assume her share of blame for the couple’s actions.

I don’t mean by this to suggest that Isabella was devoid of all redeeming characteristics or that it’s unreasonable for a biographer or a historical novelist to take a sympathetic stance toward her. To the contrary, I think that like most people, she was a mixed bag of qualities and that circumstances worked to put her in a situation where her worst ones came to the forefront. After all, before and after the events of 1325 to 1330, she mostly conducted herself in a manner that was free from reproach. She was certainly kind to some people, like the Scottish orphan boy she provided for early in her reign; she retained some loyal friends, like Joan of Bar, to the end of her days; and she seems to have had an affectionate relationship with her younger daughter in her old age (Isabella’s old age, that is). Perhaps like so many who have found themselves suddenly in a position of power, she found it too heady a brew. And one can’t tell from the records whether she struggled with guilt and remorse, during or after the events in question.

So that brings me back to my original question: why such a blinkered view of Isabella? I don’t really have an answer (gee, thanks!), except that I think that some writers are so taken by the idea of Isabella as a strong woman avenging the wrongs done to her that they blind themselves to the more unpleasant aspects of her character.

It’s quite possible, I might add, for a novelist to make Isabella a sympathetic character without sanitizing her. Brenda Honeyman did it brilliantly in The King’s Minions and The Queen and Mortimer, and Margaret Campbell Barnes in Isabel the Fair and Hilda Lewis in Harlot Queen managed it well also. (Harlot Queen, by the way, has been reissued by Tempus Publishing, evidently through the influence of biographer/novelist Alison Weir, an admirer of Lewis’s novels.) Show us the strong, sensitive Isabella by all means—but not at the cost of pretending that the she-wolf didn’t exist.

A Sad Day at Bristol

Today marks the 680th anniversary of the death of Hugh le Despenser the elder, Earl of Winchester, who was put to death at Bristol on October 27, 1326, by Queen Isabella and Roger Mortimer following their invasion of England. It was a sad end for a man who had been a loyal servant to the crown since the days of Edward I and who had been one of the godfathers to Edward III.

Hugh the elder had been sent to Bristol to hold the town against Queen Isabella's troops. Edward II and Hugh le Despenser had fled to Wales, where they were on the day of Hugh the elder's execution. In Bristol, Hugh the elder resisted the queen's besieging troops for eight days, but finally surrendered on October 26 and was promptly arrested.

The next day, Hugh the elder was tried, if it could be called that, by Roger Mortimer, Henry, Earl of Lancaster, and the Earls of Norfolk and Kent (Edward II's half-brothers), among others. He had been among those who presided over the trial and execution of Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, in 1322, and his role in this proceeding was prominent in the charges against him, which also included accusations of robbery and treason and of depriving the prelates of the Church of their franchises. Hugh the elder had participated in some of his son's land-grabs and could be justly accused of robbery on those grounds, but the charge of treason surely required some mental gymnastics to justify, given Winchester's unbroken record of loyalty to Edward II and his father. Nonetheless, he was sentenced to be drawn through the town, hung, and beheaded. He was to be hung in a surcoat emblazoned with his coat of arms.

According to one chronicler, Isabella pleaded to spare the life of the elder Despenser, who was sixty-five (not ninety as reported by Froissart). Though several historians have accepted this claim at face value, it seems highly unlikely; as queen, Isabella would have hardly needed to plea to the men who were acting in her name.

Edward II's young daughters, Eleanor and Joan, were at Bristol Castle with Hugh the elder and were reunited with Queen Isabella upon its surrender. The girls had been in the care of Isabel de Hastings, one of Winchester's daughters. Presumably she had accompanied her charges to Bristol and thus too was at the castle at the time of her father's capture. According to Froissart, the young girls watched the execution from the castle window.

The sentence was carried out immediately after the trial. Hugh the elder's head was sent to Winchester, the seat of his earldom, on a spear. One source says that his body was rehung and remained on the gallows for three days, after which it was fed to dogs.