The Greatest Traitor: The Life of Sir Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March (46 page)

The crowds drifted away. His naked body swung there for the rest of the day, through the night, and through the following day and night. On the second day it was cut down, and handed over to some Franciscan friars for burial.

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Epilogue

ROGER’S BODY WAS
probably first taken to the church of the Greyfriars in London. It is usually said that he was buried there,
¹
but it seems that there was an attempt to return him to the Welsh Marches shortly after the hanging, as Roger’s widow, Joan, received permission a year after the death to remove his body from the Greyfriars church in Coventry.
²
If he was dug up, he was probably reburied at either the Greyfriars Church in Shrewsbury or at Wigmore Abbey. Both churches were destroyed in the Dissolution.
³

Joan was implicated in Roger’s treason, although she was at Ludlow at the time of his arrest. In 1336 she was pardoned and her possessions were apologetically restored to her, together with her loss of income. She did not remarry. She died in 1356, at the age of seventy, and was probably buried at Wigmore, possibly with her husband. Two years before she died, her grandson managed to reverse the judgement on Roger and inherited the family estates. Edward III declared the original sentence void owing to Roger not being allowed to speak in his own defence. The grandson thus became the second Earl of March, and Joan once more the dowager countess.

Isabella was never accused of adultery with Roger. Nor was she accused of complicity in the Berkeley Castle plot. She was treated very leniently indeed, and given a very respectable income, and, in time, some measure of freedom. She did not go mad and she was not locked up in Castle Rising, as is often claimed. If she had a son by Roger, he did not inherit the earldom of Lincoln or any other title, and nothing more is known of him. She died in 1358 at Hertford Castle, at the age of sixty-two, and was buried in her wedding dress in the Greyfriars church in London, where Roger’s body had briefly lain. Beneath her grave was buried the heart of Edward II. The grave was destroyed in the Great Fire, and although the church was rebuilt by Wren, this too was almost completely destroyed in the Second World War. A busy road now runs across the site.

One question outlived Roger: the fate of King Edward II. It suited Edward III perfectly to be able to accuse Roger of his murder; and he
later expressed his gratitude to Sir William de Montagu for thinking up this means of turning the Berkeley Castle plot to his advantage. The death of the ex-king in Berkeley Castle has consequently become an established historical fact. However, as this book has already stated, Edward II’s fate is a much more complex issue than a murder. It is a question of corruption and power: of knowledge and how that knowledge was used. Thus one must answer the question as to what happened to the ex-king after Berkeley. Did Roger leave a political legacy in the form of a dethroned Edward II?

Just as a man’s life story may begin many years before his birth, so it may end many years after he is dead.

Chapter Twelve Revisited

THERE ARE TWO
main reasons why we have commonly come to believe that Edward II died in Berkeley Castle. The first is that this was the official pronouncement both at the time and after Roger’s arrest, repeated by contemporary chroniclers, sometimes with attractive embellishments which made the event notorious. The second is that until about one hundred years ago medievalists depended almost exclusively on the direct evidence of these sources (official pronouncements and chronicles). Historical methodology tended to be restricted to a literal interpretation of a document, or a comparison of alternative texts. Possible biases, hidden agendas and secret agreements were largely ignored by scholars. The work of amateurs, which sometimes strayed into fictionalisation, confirmed to most intelligent readers that the scholars were right to be dismissive of anything not supported by authoritative records and contemporary chronicles. When huge numbers of official medieval documents began to be calendared and published in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, historians reacted by placing an even greater emphasis on the importance of the written record. This drive towards greater documentary authority was a very positive development, but it had a side effect. It created the illusion that the basic chronology of English political history was fixed, and that the modern historian’s role was one of refinement: adding detail and providing perspective. Scholars became reluctant to pursue fundamental revisionist lines of inquiry for the very good reason that, on the whole, they were unnecessary and counterproductive. The result is that, among scholars, revisionism has come to be associated with amateurism. With regard to the death of Edward II, scholars today tend to regard the story that he was murdered in Berkeley Castle as the safest historical narrative because it is the best documented and thus professionally the most acceptable. However, as the chronicle of Geoffrey le Baker shows, the most detailed and widely accepted narrative does not necessarily indicate the most reliable series of events. This chapter will show that, far from being the safest assumption, the death of Edward II in Berkeley Castle and his subsequent burial in December 1327 were undoubtedly fictions, initially devised by Roger and later reinforced by Edward III.

The logical starting point for demonstrating this claim is the issue which has most frequently been the stumbling block for those considering the narrative put forward in this book: that is to say how Roger managed to have the corpse of another man buried in Gloucester Abbey in December 1327, and more particularly how he managed to convince those who viewed it that it was the body of Edward II. Academics and laymen alike have made many wayward statements on this subject, from stating that the ex-king’s naked corpse was inspected to claiming that the wooden effigy at the funeral was used in place of the king’s body. Amazingly, no previous writer has considered the problem in the light of the burial and embalming practices of fourteenth-century English kings. As mentioned in
Chapter 12
, by the time Maltravers and Berkeley handed the corpse over to Abbot Thoky, it had been eviscerated, covered entirely in cerecloth, sewn into the ex-king’s garments, and placed inside one coffin of lead and another of wood. Even if both coffins had been opened in the abbey, the corpse would not have been recognisable as a result of its being entirely covered with cerecloth and obscured from view.
¹
Any doubts as to whether the process of embalming obscured the features may be answered by referring to the archaeological report on the body of Edward I, whose face still bore traces of cerecloth when his tomb was opened in 1774.
²
Confirmation that it was necessary to remove the cerecloth in order to recognise an embalmed corpse may be found in the case of Richard II, for whom this was done specifically so he could be recognised when being brought south from Pontefract in 1400.
³
There is no evidence that this removal of cloth happened with Edward II. Indeed, there is evidence to the contrary in the testimony of the only chronicler in the West Country at the time, Murimuth, who stated that those summoned to view the corpse only saw it ‘superficially’.
⁴
Thus, while it is possible that one or both of the coffins were opened at some point, we can be confident that the features would not have been visible and that a false corpse would not have been suspected after its removal from Berkeley Castle on 20 October.

Prior to this date it would have been easy for Maltravers and Berkeley to have had a false corpse embalmed. The watchers attending the corpse did not begin their period of watching until 20 October, almost a month after the supposed death. The key question is whether the face was viewed by anyone other than the conspirators before it was covered in cerecloth. Normally the embalming process would have started very soon after the death, probably within three days and certainly within a week.
⁵
Since the public announcement of the death of Edward II was not made until 28 September, at Lincoln, and since it would have taken at least three days for any lord or prelate to cover the 110 miles to Berkeley to view the corpse,
we can be confident that no independent person could have seen the body within ten days of the date of the supposed death, by which time the face and body of the corpse would have been covered. The possibility that anyone saw the corpse in an uncovered state is diminished even further if one accepts Smyth’s statement that Gurney returned with orders to keep the death secret locally until 1 November.
⁶
The only exception to this was the dubious figure of the royal sergeant-at-arms, William Beaukaire, who arrived at the castle on the day of the supposed death and who stayed with the corpse until burial. Finally, conclusive evidence that the exhibition of the corpse lacked credibility lies in the actions of the Earl of Kent and his fellow conspirators, who were convinced that Edward II was still alive despite their having been at the funeral.

There is a great deal of difference between demonstrating how something could have happened and proving that it did. Indeed, the burial of a false corpse raises a large number of questions. These are, most notably, why did Edward not mention Roger’s custody of the king in his charges against him? Why was such a magnificent tomb erected in such a prominent position within the abbey if the body beneath was not genuine? Why did Isabella have the heart of ‘Edward II’ buried with her if it was false? Why did John of Trevisa, the rector of Berkeley who translated Higden’s
Polychronicon
for Lord Berkeley’s grandson in 1381, repeat the story about Edward’s murder if it was not true, to the great discredit of his family? And, most of all, why did the men accused of complicity in Edward II’s murder flee in 1330 if they had not killed the king?

One may counter these objections in a number of ways. For example: Edward III would not have mentioned the secret custody of his father in the 1330 trials because Edward II was still a potential danger to him. If news that the ex-king was alive had leaked out, Edward III might have come under pressure to restore him; he might even have run the risk of being accused of treason himself, having assumed his father’s power despite a poor track record of filial loyalty. One must also remember the danger to the old king; even if Edward III was sure of his throne in November 1330, his father’s life would have been jeopardised if it had been widely given out that the man was not dead. No chronicler reported the ex-king’s survival because even those that recorded the rumour that he was alive – the authors of the
Annales Paulini
and the longer
Brut
– were convinced that the rumours were false, and they had no evidence to the contrary. Later fourteenth-century writers merely followed their predecessors in declaring that Edward II died in 1327. As for why such a magnificent tomb was erected in such a prominent position if the body beneath was false, there is no reason to doubt that it was erected in good faith, probably by
the abbey itself, to whom the glory of being seen to hold a king’s corpse guaranteed a stream of visitors, pilgrims, noble benefactors and wealth.
⁷
Similarly the hearse was an elaborate work of art because it was undoubtedly ordered in good faith by royal officials. Furthermore, the possibility that the tomb did not contain Edward II’s body in December 1327 does not mean that it never contained it. Indeed, Edward II’s bones – if not his entire body – could have been secretly interred in the grave at a later date.
⁸
This would explain why so many royal visitors later came to Gloucester on pilgrimage, including Edward III himself in March 1343.
⁹
A similar explanation may be extended to the burial of the king’s heart. Isabella did not die until 1358, when Edward II would have been seventy-four, an age to which no medieval king lived. Thus he almost certainly predeceased her. It is therefore possible that the heart buried beneath Isabella in 1358 was not the organ that she had been given as her husband’s by Lord Berkeley in 1327 but one she had received more recently.
¹⁰
As for why Trevisa stated, in his English
Polychronicon
, that Edward was killed in Berkeley Castle, one would hardly have expected a scholar of Trevisa’s standing to alter a widespread work so fundamentally, especially as it had been universally accepted that Edward II had been murdered there, and Trevisa himself had probably never heard a different story. Thus it can be seen that none of these objections is incontrovertible. On the other hand, none of these counter-arguments is anything more than conjectural.

Only one objection and counter-argument provide a way to take the analysis forward: the flight of the men involved in the alleged murder, namely Bereford, Berkeley, Maltravers, de Ockley and Gurney. Their individual cases must be examined.

Simon Bereford was the only man apart from Roger executed as a result of the palace revolution of October 1330. He was hanged the following month because he had helped Roger ‘in all his treasons, felonies and plots’, including the Berkeley Castle plot. His precise role is unknown, although it may be noted that a later piece of evidence to be discussed at the end of this chapter offers an explanation.

John Maltravers fled the country on hearing of Roger’s arrest, escaping from Mousehole, in Cornwall, in a fishing boat. A writ for his arrest was issued to the sheriffs of the counties on 3 December 1330, more than six weeks after Roger’s fall. In his absence he was tried in Parliament and sentenced to be drawn, hanged and beheaded.
¹¹
A reward was offered for him, 1,000 marks alive or £500 for his head. The crime for which he was sentenced, however, was not connected with the death of the ex-king but that of the Earl of Kent. Thus it can be shown on paper that, although he fled, this was not because of complicity in the murder of Edward II.
However, this is a superficial reading of the evidence. Maltravers was an official keeper of the king with Berkeley, charged with protecting the king’s safety, and so implicated in the same charges as brought against Berkeley. This was stated explicitly by both Berkeley and the prosecution in the course of Berkeley’s trial. After the acceptance of Lord Berkeley’s second statement, that he was away from his castle at the time of the murder, Maltravers was even more strongly implicated. But he was not accused. In March 1334 he wrote from Flanders to Edward III saying he had certain information about the ‘honour, estate and well-being of the realm’.
¹²
It was no slight underling but Edward’s closest companion, Sir William de Montagu, who was sent to receive the information. By 1339 Maltravers was being employed by Edward III on official business in Flanders, and in 1345 he made a formal submission there to Edward, having served in Ireland the previous year.
¹³
He received a guarantee of safe passage at that time to return to face trial for the charge of procuring the death of Kent, but he did not immediately take it up. He continued to be employed by Edward, and was restored to all his estates after he returned to England to face the judgement of Parliament in 1352 for Kent’s death, at which time he was acquitted.
¹⁴
Thus, although he was involved along with Lord Berkeley in the supposed murder of Edward II, he was never charged with involvement in the killing, even when in custody in 1352.