Chapter 19: Deposition - Edward II’s Nieces, The Clare Sisters: Powerful Pawns of the Crown

Edward II, still the king of England though now in name only, spent a sad and lonely Christmas 1326 at Kenilworth Castle in Warwickshire under the protection of Henry of Lancaster, Earl of Leicester, while the queen and her allies spent the festive season at Wallingford debating what should be done with him. Whether Isabella had sought her husband’s downfall or just Hugh Despenser’s is not clear, but it had become apparent to all that Edward’s support had simply vanished and that he could no longer continue as king. Elizabeth Burgh, meanwhile, spent a lavish Christmas at Usk, which had until so recently been in the hands of her sister Eleanor and brother-in-law Despenser. Her household, officials and guests consumed 800 eggs on Christmas Day alone, plus 230 gallons (over 1,000 litres) of ale, 2 boars’ heads, 3 swans, 13 partridges, beef, bacon, pork, mutton and venison.^[1] After the persecution of the Despenser years, Elizabeth was back where she belonged, in her element as a great and wealthy noblewoman enjoying her status, being generous and being seen to be generous to her followers. As for her sister Margaret Audley, she was finally released from captivity at Sempringham Priory on 11 December 1326 after spending more than four-and-a-half years there, and spent her first festive season at liberty since 1321. One young woman held at Sempringham with her since 1324 was Joan Mortimer, one of Roger Mortimer’s eight daughters, who was released on 2 November.^[2]

On 1 January 1327, Eleanor Despenser’s daughters Eleanor and Margaret, and perhaps Joan as well, were forcibly veiled as nuns in three separate convents far apart.^[3] Margaret, the youngest of the three, was only 3 years old and living with Sir Thomas Houk and his family in the Yorkshire village of Hook, about eight miles from her birthplace of Cowick. She was taken to Watton Priory thirty miles away. Eleanor Despenser the younger, aged somewhere between 5 and 9, was perhaps still in the care of her aunt Isabella Hastings in 1326/27, and was taken to Sempringham Priory in Lincolnshire. Joan the eldest of the three, Eleanor and Hugh’s second daughter and about 10 or 12 years old, was taken to Shaftesbury Abbey in Dorset, though the order for Joan’s forced veiling is missing and it is possible that she entered the Church voluntarily and was already at Shaftesbury. The abbey was a most prestigious and wealthy religious house, founded in about 888 by King Alfred the Great, who installed his daughter Aethelgifu as the first abbess. It was the wealthiest Benedictine nunnery in England and the second wealthiest nunnery overall, and many of the medieval kings lavished gifts on it. Shaftesbury Abbey was often chosen by the medieval nobility as a suitable location for their daughters to be veiled. This suggests that Eleanor and Hugh Despenser, not Queen Isabella, may have chosen it for their second daughter after her betrothal to the Earl of Kildare’s son fell through in 1323 when the boy died aged 9.

Elizabeth, the fifth Despenser daughter, was only a year old and thus was spared, as was the eldest daughter Isabella, 14 years old and married, and already a mother or pregnant. It was almost certainly Queen Isabella who personally gave the order for the Despenser girls to be sent to separate convents, and perhaps she chose Sempringham because the elder Eleanor Despenser’s sister Margaret Audley had so recently been incarcerated there. It was not uncommon for members of the nobility to join the Church, as the Clare siblings’ half-sister Joan Monthermer, aunt Mary and cousin Isabella of Lancaster did, but it is hard to discern anything except spite and vindictiveness in the queen’s actions. The Despenser girls’ parents had not intended them for the Church but to marry; the younger Eleanor was betrothed to the future Earl of Pembroke, Laurence Hastings, in 1325, but in 1329 he married one of Roger Mortimer’s many daughters instead. Edward II had sent three of Mortimer’s daughters to convents in early 1324 after their father escaped and fled the country, but they were not forcibly veiled as nuns and were later released.

His daughters’ fate was yet another consequence of Hugh Despenser the Younger’s greed and tyranny; he had made his two sisters-in-law, the queen and numerous other men and women suffer, and now his wife and children suffered in return. The forced veiling of her daughters was probably also a consequence of Eleanor Despenser’s own behaviour. In and after 1326, there is not the slightest hint of any residual affection for Eleanor on Queen Isabella’s part despite their many years of friendship, and Isabella seemed determined to make Eleanor pay for whatever wrongs she believed the other woman had committed.

Margaret Audley must have resumed her married life with Hugh Audley, and Hugh was also reunited with their daughter Margaret the younger. In early 1327 the little girl was about 5 or 6 years old and, unless Edward II had sent her to be raised elsewhere, had spent almost all her young life with her mother at Sempringham Priory. It is even possible that Hugh had never seen his daughter before. Margaret, the elder, was still only in her early 30s, but no more children would be born to the couple, and the younger Margaret was thus sole heir to one-third of the Clare inheritance. Hugh Audley was high in Queen Isabella’s favour in early 1327: on 22 February, he was one of the men appointed to make a truce with her brother Charles IV of France, with the bishops of Winchester and Norwich and the Count of Hainault’s brother John Beaumont. Hugh was at Montreuil-sur-Mer, capital of the county of Ponthieu (which had passed to Edward II from his mother and now belonged to his son) on 16 March 1327; perhaps Margaret travelled with him.^[4] Audley also asked Queen Isabella for permission for his sister Alice, widow of Ralph, Lord Greystoke, to marry her second husband Ralph Neville, lord of Raby, and this was duly granted.^[5] (Alice and Neville were to have many children; their son Alexander became archbishop of York, and their grandson Ralph Neville, the first Earl of Westmorland.) This demonstrates that Hugh Audley had access to the queen and that she was happy to grant him favours and appointments, and if Isabella knew or believed that Audley had been her husband’s lover years before, she did not hold it against him. Hugh was also pardoned the forfeiture of his lands and goods in 1321 for breaking his oath to remain with Edward II, and he and Margaret were restored to their lands.^[6] Another man close to the queen at the end of 1326 and start of 1327 was Sir Richard Damory, brother of the late Roger, Elizabeth Burgh’s third husband. Isabella appointed Richard as justice of North Wales on 12 December 1326, which suggests she had no doubts about his loyalty to herself and her son.^[7]

A parliament was held in London at the beginning of 1327, and Edward II was forced to abdicate his throne in favour of his 14-year-old son. This act, unprecedented in England, was presented in public as the king deciding to do so entirely voluntarily, and his subjects accepting his decision. The king’s support had collapsed catastrophically, and his tyranny, greed and support of Hugh Despenser the Younger’s extortions meant that his most powerful subjects, and even members of his own family, felt they had to take drastic measures to rid themselves of their failed ruler. Edward of Windsor would have become king eventually anyway when his father died, but Edward II was only 42 years old in early 1327 and might live for another twenty to twenty-five years. Nobody could wait that long, and so the succession was, in effect, sped up by forcing Edward II to give up his throne to his son. The coronation of the young King Edward III took place at Westminster Abbey on 1 February 1327, possibly attended by his first cousins Elizabeth Burgh and Margaret Audley, though Elizabeth had still not paid homage for her lands to the new king by 12 April 1327 and thus may not have been present.^[8] Her uncle Sir Edward of Caernarfon, formerly King Edward II, was removed from the custody of his cousin Henry of Lancaster at Kenilworth Castle on 3 April 1327 and taken to Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire. Nobody was entirely sure what to do with Edward of Caernarfon and about the unprecedented and embarrassing situation of a king being alive in the reign of his successor. Contrary to the fabrications of the chronicler Geoffrey le Baker writing in the 1350s, which have all too often been repeated as certain fact by later writers—although Baker was not writing an accurate narrative but pushing the idea of Edward of Caernarfon as an abused and patient saint in the interests of his canonisation—Edward was not mistreated at Berkeley Castle but had access to a chapel, good food and wine, and servants. His custodians at Berkeley were Thomas, Lord Berkeley (b. c. 1295), stepson of the Clare sisters’ much older halfsister Isabella Clare, and Thomas Berkeley’s brother-in-law Sir John Maltravers of Dorset, who in August 1321, at the parliament which exiled Hugh Despenser and his father, had been pardoned as an adherent of Roger Damory.^[9]

Elizabeth Burgh’s lordship of Usk, along with Caerleon and other manors which Hugh Despenser had taken from her, were formally restored to her on 26 February 1327 on the grounds that Despenser had ‘flagrantly usurped royal power’ and acquired the lands by force and duress.^[10] Meanwhile in the Tower of London, Eleanor Despenser was believed to be in possession of some of the goods and chattels of the late Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, and in March 1327 was ordered to give them up to his executors.^[11] Queen Isabella, who had wished to execute Eleanor’s eldest son Huchon, finally gave up on 20 March 1327 after the garrison of Caerphilly Castle refused to surrender the young man to her. The siege of Caerphilly had dragged on for more than four months and had become too expensive. She pardoned Huchon ‘of the forfeiture of his life’, but he was to spend more than four years in prison.^[12] Although Huchon was still heir to his mother’s inheritance, or at least would be when he was finally pardoned and when Eleanor’s Clare lands were restored to her, the Despenser lands of his father and grandfather were forfeit to the Crown. Hugh the Younger and his father the Earl of Winchester would not be pardoned for their treason until 1397, late in the reign of Edward II’s great-grandson Richard II (r. 1377–99). Eleanor Despenser’s half-uncle Edmund of Woodstock, Earl of Kent— who, curiously, was only about seven years older than his great-nephew Huchon Despenser—received many of the Despenser lands in 1327.

Sometime between 1 May and 16 November 1327 when he was 14 or 15 and she the same age or a little older, Elizabeth Burgh’s son and heir William Burgh married Maud of Lancaster, third of the six daughters of Henry of Lancaster, Earl of Leicester and Lancaster.^[13] Maud was a niece of the late Hugh Despenser the Younger via her late mother Maud Chaworth, Despenser’s half-sister, though this was surely not a connection the Lancasters boasted about in and after 1327. Elizabeth Burgh herself probably had little choice in the matter of her son’s bride— William’s marriage was in the king’s hands and was granted to Henry of Lancaster on 3 February 1327, presumably by Queen Isabella— but she may well have been consulted, and was surely happy about the match. Henry of Lancaster was the greatest nobleman in the country, the nephew of Elizabeth’s grandfather Edward I, and was equally royal on his French mother Blanche of Artois’s side; she had been a niece of King Louis IX of France (r. 1226–70) and was queen of Navarre (r. 1270–74) by her first marriage, and was Queen Isabella’s grandmother. William’s bride Maud was not an heiress as she had a brother, Henry of Grosmont, but was a member of the most prestigious family in England, and being Henry of Lancaster’s son-in-law would be a huge advantage for William. At Lancaster’s request, William was granted custody of his lands in England at the beginning of 1327, despite being well under age, and was already addressed as ‘Earl of Ulster’ by May 1328 when he was still only 15 years old.^[14] The Lancasters were a very affectionate and close family, and William spent much time with them: in February 1328 he attended a jousting tournament with his brother-in-law Henry of Grosmont, and was with the Lancasters again in June 1328, the month after he was knighted.^[15] Elizabeth Burgh showed her willingness to be allied to the Lancastrian faction in the late 1320s. Her first daughter Isabella Verdon married Earl Henry of Lancaster’s close ally Henry, Lord Ferrers of Groby in Leicestershire, and her youngest stepdaughter Margery Verdon married Sir William Blount, Earl Henry’s attorney.

Elizabeth Damory, Elizabeth Burgh’s youngest child, also married in 1327 when she was still only a child (she was probably about 5 years old). Her husband was John Bardolf, heir to his father Thomas, Lord Bardolf of Wormegay in Norfolk, and they married sometime before 25 December 1327.^[16] John was born in January 1312, so was a few years his wife’s senior and almost 16 when they married. His father died in December 1329 and he inherited manors in eleven counties with the bulk of his inheritance in Norfolk, and his mother Agnes was said to be ‘by birth of the parts of Almain’, which meant Germany or somewhere close to it.^[17] Young though his daughter-in-law Elizabeth was, before his death Thomas Bardolf settled three of his manors on her and his son jointly, perhaps at her mother’s request.^[18] Elizabeth Bardolf née Damory would inherit only half a dozen manors from her late father Roger, and Roger had held them jointly with his wife so that his daughter could only expect to receive them on her mother’s death. Roger was not the Damory heir, and the family’s dozen manors passed to his nephew Richard Damory (b. c. 1314), his elder brother Richard’s son. Elizabeth Bardolf was therefore not as great a matrimonial catch as a more significant heiress would be, but she did bring her husband the huge benefit of close kinship to the king of England and was the half-sister of the Earl of Ulster, the greatest nobleman in Ireland. She probably remained in her mother’s care for a few years after her wedding, being still a child, and her only son was born in 1349 (her two daughters may have been older). If Elizabeth Burgh’s other Damory daughter, Margaret, ever married, there is no known record of it. Elizabeth’s eldest daughter Isabella Verdon was heir to one-quarter of the sizeable Verdon inheritance, and hence made a rather better marriage than her half-sister Elizabeth Bardolf when she wed Henry, Lord Ferrers of Groby. As well as arranging a good match for her eldest daughter, in October 1333 four months after the death of her son and heir William, Elizabeth Burgh left almost all her Welsh lands including Usk and Caerleon, and her manor of Bardfield in Essex, to Isabella and her Ferrers husband.^[19] Ultimately, however, neither Isabella nor Henry Ferrers benefited from this deal as they both died before Elizabeth.

Elizabeth Burgh’s uncle Sir Edward of Caernarfon reportedly died at Berkeley Castle, Gloucestershire on 21 September 1327, though huge question marks were soon raised as to whether he was truly dead or not. He was buried at St Peter’s Abbey in Gloucester, now Gloucester Cathedral, on 20 December. Elizabeth attended her uncle’s funeral, leaving her young daughters in the care of Isabella Hastings, sister of the late Hugh Despenser the Younger.^[20] Elizabeth was not a woman to bear a grudge, and evidently held no ill-will against Lady Hastings for what her brother had done to her. Little is known about Edward II’s funeral, except that apart from his niece Elizabeth, his widow Isabella, his son Edward III, his half-brother the Earl of Kent, and Roger Mortimer attended. Before too long, Kent became convinced that Edward was still alive, and indeed it does appear that the former king’s family had little if any chance to view his body. Margaret Audley was perhaps also there along with the late king’s three younger children and his other half-brother the Earl of Norfolk, though the other Clare sister Eleanor Despenser was still imprisoned in the Tower. A royal wedding followed hard upon the royal funeral when the 15-year-old Edward III wed Philippa of Hainault in York Minster on 25 January 1328. As with his father’s funeral, few details are known about the young king’s wedding, but most probably his cousins Elizabeth Burgh and Margaret Audley were invited.

Eleanor Despenser was released from the Tower in or shortly before late February 1328, and on 26 February a month after his wedding to Philippa, Edward III ordered her to come to him in York. Her lands were still in the king’s hands on 14 May that year, though on 22 April Edward III (or rather, someone acting in his name) had ordered all her lands in Wales, England and Ireland to be restored to her as it was ‘not consonant with reason that her lands should be deemed forfeited by Hugh [Despenser]’s forfeiture’.^[21] Eleanor’s lands belonged to her by right and reverted to her after Hugh’s death. They included the great lordship of Glamorgan, Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire, Hanley in Worcestershire and Burford in Oxfordshire. Eleanor went to live at Hanley Castle, at least some of the time. Edward II had stayed there with Hugh and Eleanor herself in January 1324 and paid to rebuild the castle after the Despenser War, and perhaps Eleanor went to Hanley because it reminded her of both men. The castle had a great chamber called ‘Grystenchambres’ with rooms below, a hall with two stone towers attached to it, at least three other great chambers one of which was next to the hall, and four other towers to the south.^[22] Sadly, Hanley Castle was already ruinous by the middle of the sixteenth century and not a stone of it exists today.

Eleanor had lost her husband, who was subjected to the most grotesque death imaginable, and the uncle with whom she had been extremely close and who may, though we will never know for sure, also have been her lover. Her eldest son Huchon was in prison and her middle three daughters Joan, Eleanor and Margaret were all now nuns whether they wished it or not, but she had her youngest sons Gilbert and John, her youngest daughter Elizabeth, and her eldest daughter Isabella and Isabella’s infant son Edmund Fitzalan. Her second son Edward Despenser was perhaps as old as 16 when his father was executed in 1326 and was certainly at least 13, and therefore he was lucky, unlike Huchon, to avoid imprisonment at the hands of the new regime. Perhaps after his father and grandfather’s downfall, a Despenser adherent such as Ingelram Berenger or John Haudlo kept Edward Despenser well out of sight and mind of Queen Isabella and Roger Mortimer.^[23]