The Perfect King (17 page)

This trial was not about the earl of Kent, it was about Mortimer's power. Mortimer was the enemy here, not Kent. The prosecutor was the guilty party. But there was nothing Edward could do to stop him. Nor would he ever be able to stop him if men like his uncle saw his father's restoration as the best way to prevent Mortimer from achieving the throne. Edward realised he had to demonstrate to all those who knew that his father was still alive that he would never give up his right to be king. With a pitiful heart, he understood what he had to do. He sentenced his uncle to death.

*

On
19
March
1330
the earl of Kent was led out of prison, his hands bound. He was to be beheaded. Bravely, the captain of the guard declared that his men had refused to carry out the sentence. This embarrassed Mortimer, but the captain was steadfast, and so were his men. Mortimer and those who had gathered for the execution waited. Eventually Mortimer ordered the gaols to be searched for a man prepared to do his bidding, and a latrine cleaner, himself sentenced to death for murder, agreed to kill the earl in return for his life. He was brought out to confront his royal victim. So the blow was wielded by a criminal. And thus Edward sacrificed his uncle.

The fall of the axe meant one thing was certain: Edward would avenge his uncle's death. From that moment on there could be no drawing back from his determination to put an end to Mortimer's rule.

Mortimer was not unaware of the changed situation, but he was too involved to be able to extricate himself. How could he? He had kept Edward II alive — perhaps out of consideration for Isabella's wishes, perhaps out of his own desire to control the young king, perhaps both - and now he was guilty of having kept an anointed king hidden, illegally, for more than two years. If he withdrew from court now, Edward IH would surely come after him and seek revenge. Besides, he would lose Isabella if he withdrew, or went into exile; and he may well have been devoted to her emotionally, even beyond the limits of his excessive ambition. From Mortimer's point of view, all he could do was to keep his nerve, to use his wits to keep in control, for as long as possible.

From the day of Kent
's execution, Mortimer had exactl
y seven months of freedom left. In that time he certainly used his wits. He rallied troops, he appropriated lands and wealth, and he did all he could to keep Edward in his place. A plot arranged by Richard Fitzalan, heir to the earldom of Arundel, was discovered by Mortimer and foiled. But Mortimer's authority was diminishing by the day. Magnificent he may have been, feared he certainly was; but the young generation of knights at court were of a mind to fight for their king. Long before
19
October Edward knew whom he could trust. William Montagu had returned from Avignon, and he was willing to take action. It did not matter how many troops Mortimer inspected in his show of strength. The revolution would not be an invasion, it would come from within. The only question for these young knights of St George was how to strike the dragon, and avoid being scorched in its dying fire.

The politeness continued. Edward had learnt how to play the games of diplomacy. As late as
28
July Edward included Mortimer amongst those to whom he gave elaborate Turkish clothes for the summer season, along with his mother, his wife and his sister, Eleanor. They were still at Woodstock then, where Edward learned he had become a father. Philippa had given birth to a son, Edward - the future Black Prince - on
15
June. Edward was ecstatic, and gave the valet who brought him the news forty marks yearly for life. Maybe this was why his mood was light enough for him to give Mortimer presents of Turkish cloth that summer. Maybe these were the last attempts to cover up the plots being hatched. Either way, it is much easier to give gifts to a mortal enemy knowing you have marked him down to die.

The third day of the parliament held at Nottingham
Castle
was
19
October. Tempers had flared in the days before, the hatred and fear on all sides had become obvious. Mortimer had arrived to find that Lancaster had been given rooms in the
castle
. He flew into a rage and demanded to know who had dared house so great an enemy of the queen so close to her. On his orders the earl was directed to be removed and lodged at a merchant's house in the town. Mortimer also gave orders that the men of the garrison were to obey his orders, and not the king's. This was utterly outrageous. Just as shocking was his confiscation of the keys to the
castle
, which he handed to Isabella.

The king's friends were near to taking action. They hesitated at this last violent outburst from Mortimer, not quite knowing what he was planning. Some urged Edward to accuse Mortimer openly of murdering Edward II, and to arrest him. That way, even if the king's father were to appear in public, he could be declared an impostor and set aside. But Edward was reluctant to follow this path: it held too many pitfalls. Besides, he now knew that his secret information was being passed
directly
to Mortimer by John Wyard. As first Montagu, and then Humphrey and William Bohun, Ralph Stafford, Robert Ufford and John Neville of Hornby, were each led before Mortimer and interrogated, Edward realised that a more immediate and complete strategy was required.

At this point William Eland changed the course of history. Eland was the man who told the plotters about the secret passage which led from the riverbank up into the queen's apartments. It seems that he told Edward first, and the king sent him to Montagu with orders to give him the same information. This is the most likely sequence of events given the wording of Montagu's charter of reward. Edward states clearly that he revealed his own secret design for the arrest of Mortimer and his accomplices to Montagu, and that Montagu was 'strenuous' in carrying out the plan.
63
Sir Thomas Gray, writing twenty years later, tells us that the king instructed Montagu to order Eland on pain of death to leave a postern gate to the park open, which suggests that, until that moment, there was some doubt over Eland's loyalty. This postern may have been at the bottom or the top of the secret passage, or possibly both. The chronicle known as
The Brut
relates a conversation between Montagu and Eland in which Montagu asked Eland for the keys of the
castle
that night, and Eland pointed out that Isabella kept them under her pillow, but told him about the secret passage. Edward saw his opportunity to seize Mortimer without alerting his troops.

We cannot know the precise movements of each person that night, but some things are clear. The lower entrance to the passage was left unlocked by Eland or on his instructions, and perhaps an upper door was unlocked by one of Edward's accomplices within the
castle
. Eland himself was with Montagu. From the inclusion of certain non-combatants among those rewarded for assisting in the coup, especially Pancio de Controne and Robert Wyville, it would appear that these men also helped in the operation, very probably assisting in the entry of the armed men. As de Controne was a physician, it is possible that his role was to support Edward's alibi of ill-health, as Edward would not have wanted to be with Mortimer and Isabella when the fight to arrest them broke out.

According to Sir Thomas Gray, after ascending the stairs from the tunnel, Montagu and his accomplices were undetected as it was 'mirk night'. The followers of the nobles had left the
castle
and returned to their lodgings in the town. Isabella, Mortimer, his sons Geoffrey and Edmund Mortimer, Simon Bereford, Sir Hugh Turpington, and Bishop Burghersh were in the hall of the queen's lodgings discussing what action was to be taken against the plotters. Various other esquires and men-at-arms stood guard, but they were few. Most of Mortimer's men were billeted in an outer ward of the
castle
, at a considerable distance, or on watch on the outer walls. As steward of the household, it was Turpington's responsibility to make sure that the servants and guards were attending to their business. He was probably in the course of a routine check about the
castle
when he saw the armed group advancing up the stairs to the queen's apartments. Had he withdrawn at that moment he might have saved himself, but Turpington had fought alongside Mortimer since at least
1310,
and his response was unquestioning and immediate. Turpington's dying shout alerted everyone within the hall, and, in the next few moments, as Montagu, Neville and the other assailants rushed to the door of the hall, the household esquires ran to defend the entry. In the struggle which followed, several esquires were injured and two were killed: Richard Crombek and Richard Monmouth. As they fought, Mortimer left the hall and went into the queen's chamber to seize his sword. Bishop Burghersh followed him, not to fight but to try and escape. But Montagu had enough men to capitalise on the surprise of his attack. Within a short while Mortimer had been disarmed, and his sons Geoffrey and Edmund had been arrested, along with Simon Bereford. Isabella, inviolable as the king's mother, simply screamed despairingly at the door of the chamber into the dark corridor beyond, suspecting Edward to be present.

All the prisoners were marched down to the basement of the queen's apartment, and down the spiral staircase into the secret passage, down to the riverbank and through the park. They were taken to Leicester. Such was Edward's fear of Mortimer that he rode with the men who removed him, and ordered them to hang him as soon as they reached Leicester. But Lancaster, who had also ridden with Edward and his knights, urged him to use parliamentary approval for Mortimer's execution. A show trial was needed, if only to reinforce the idea that Edward II was dead, and that Mortimer had killed him. Lancaster - who had now become reconciled to Edward, and clearly must have apologised for his earlier behaviour - persuaded the king. Mortimer was taken to the Tower of London.

Just as the execution of his uncle had been a pivotal moment in Edward's development as a man, so now the destruction of Mortimer's authority was-a pivotal moment in his development as a king. Having accompanied Mortimer all the way to London, Edward ordered him, his son Geoffrey Mortimer and Simon Bereford to be walled up in one of the rooms. The doors and windows were accordingly filled in by a mason. Six royal sergeants-at-arms under the command of two knights of the royal household, Robert Walkefare and Arnold Duroforti, were stationed around the room to make sure Mortimer did not repeat his
1323
escape. There, in the darkness, Mortimer waited for a month before he was sentenced. Perhaps Edward ordered this in reflection of the conditions in which his father had been held. On this we can only speculate. But one aspect of the incarceration is very interesting: it was not just any room into which Mortimer was sealed. It was the one next to Edward's own.

FOUR

Absolute
Royalty

On
26
November
1330
Edward had Mortimer dragged before parliament, bound and gagged. He sentenced him to death for fourteen specific crimes, most of which were prefaced by the accusation that Mortimer had 'accroached the royal power'. It has generally been assumed that this marks the moment when Edward took absolute control of his kingdom, and it is true that with Mortimer's downfall the major obstacle to Edward's direct rule was removed. But many challenges remained. Before he could recognise his ambitions, Edward would have to wait until he was older, more trusted as a leader, and more confident.

First there was the problem of what to do with the old regime, its victims as well as its supporters. There was the issue of the lands and treasure which Mortimer and his friends had amassed, including the fortune gathered by Isabella. What should Edward do with the people they had obstructed or disempowered, and the estates of those they had executed, such as Hugh Despenser and the earl of Kent? Disinherited lords could be reinstated, as with the earl of Kent's son; but what about those whom Mortimer had locked up for good reason? What about Mortimer's family and the families of his supporters? And what about their actions before
1326?
One of Mortimer's Irish tenants, Hugh Lacy, came to court seeking redress for accusations of treason brought against him in
1317,
when Mortimer had been a highly respected King's Lieutenant of Ireland.
1
Such grievances had to be treated on their individual circumstances. It would have been unwise simply to revoke all of Mortimer's actions.

Edward proceeded cautiously. On the way south from Nottingham, just four days after the arrests, he ordered Mortimer's treasure to be handed over to Richard Bury, along with that of Queen Isabella. Mortimer's lands were confiscated. Isabella voluntarily surrendered her vast estates at the end of November. The pope was very quick to get involved, writing to Edward immediately requesting that he de
al lenientl
y with Isabella and Mortimer.
4
In fact, so seriously did the pope take the matter that he sent two copies of his letter on behalf of Isabella to Edward, in case one should be lost. The pope wrote at the same time to Queen Philippa, the earl of Lancaster, William Montagu and the bishop of Winchester exhorting them all to use
their influence to help Isabella, Mortimer and the bishop of Lincoln. Such intentions were not lost on Edward, who knew he would need the pope's support in the years to come. Isabella was placed temporarily under house arrest. The bishop of Lincoln was left unmolested.