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] for descriptions by the chroniclers). Not only were the most recent events of the civil war rehearsed but a long history of Thomas’s slights and challenges to royal authority was set out. These included his pursuit of the king and Gaveston and the seizure of the king’s jewels and horses in early 1312, actions which were already, as was recognised in the indictment, the subject of the king’s earlier
, his inability to subdue the Scots or even to constrain them from their raids into northern England seen as evidence writ large of his incompetence and incapacity. Furthermore, Edward had frequently to adjust his political ambitions in England in order to secure the necessary support to wage war in Scotland. This also meant that he had increasingly to rely upon parliament and systems of taxation granted by parliament
Introduction Edward’s French war was unnecessary, fairly small-scale and unsuccessful, but became disastrous for him only because it gave the opportunity for his exiled opponents to coalesce around his wife and son in France. His domestic problems migrated to France and ran out of control. England’s cross-Channel landholdings had long been a major
, destroyed long-term peace: the harshness of the punishments after Boroughbridge and Edward’s continued reliance on favourites. Failure in Scotland and war with France further undermined his reputation and less than five years later he lost his throne. The fear and distrust after the unprecedented scale of executions in 1322 is easy to understand. Earlier rebellions had led to
Introduction The death of Gaveston in June 1312 has been described by historians of the reign as a watershed moment, defining the following decade’s politics and leading, if not inexorably then with at least the inevitably afforded by hindsight, to civil war and the death of Gaveston’s own killers. In the months after Gaveston was killed, Edward set about weakening and
were willing to provide voluntary gifts to help him rule. He had greater success with direct taxes on the laity, but not carte blanche. Lay taxes had to be for specific needs (often war) and required consent. Parliament provided the facility for consent (which in turn contributed to the increasing role of the commons in parliament). Unlike customs duties, clerical grants and lay subsidies were intermittent, but over
Introduction Historians have tended to the view that Edward inherited significant problems and then almost immediately set about compounding them. 1 There is, in the first instance, no doubt that Edward’s father, Edward I, had bequeathed major political problems to his son. Most of these related in one way or another to war and its financing. Edward
some things on behalf of the king to the Earl of Lancaster, which are contained on another roll. [See below, 15o .] (l) Grant of foot soldiers for Scottish war On the following Friday [20 February] the great men and the community of the kingdom granted the king in aid of his Scottish war, from each town in the kingdom, except from the king’s cities, boroughs and demesne, one able and
tensions persisted and the king struggled either to engage with his opponents or to bring them wholly under his control. Eventually, as set out in Chapter VI , the situation worsened, with the king’s new favourites presenting a focus for opposition, and simmering tension shifted to open hostility and a brief but vicious civil war. Emerging victorious from this civil conflict in the spring of 1322, Edward II was able to gather both
Milan in Lombardy and from Milan he entered a certain hermitage of the castle Mulazzo, 25 where he remained for two and a half years. And because this castle became involved in war he moved to the castle of Cecima 26 in another hermitage in the diocese of Pavia in Lombardy. And he was in this last hermitage for two years or thereabouts, remaining in seclusion, doing penance and praying to God for