The Three Edwards Read online

  Here was a chance for a state coup which could not be overlooked. Edward sent four vessels to lurk behind the Scilly Islands, with orders to seize the French vessel and carry off the Demoiselle. A brother who had accompanied her was sent to Corfe Castle as a prisoner, but the fair Eleanor was taken to Windsor Castle and kept there in semi-confinement for three years. During that time she was dangled before Llewelyn’s eyes as a bribe for his good behavior.

  Before the capture of the Demoiselle, however, a clash had been imminent. Hostilities blazed up all along the Marcher country, and the Welsh forces won successes at various points. Incensed by the defeat of an English army at Kidwelly, Edward decided on a major invasion and gathered a large force at Chester. Two other armies were to strike at the same time, one moving out from Shrewsbury under the command of Henry de Lacy and a second poised against South Wales under the Earl of Hereford. At the same moment an English fleet occupied the Menai Strait and cut off the Isle of Anglesey from all communication with Wales. Llewelyn depended on the food supplies which reached him from Anglesey and he now found himself at a desperate pass.

  The outcome was easy to foresee. Edward was an aggressive general, striking hard and fast and often, and under the pressure he exerted along the Conway River the Welsh were forced back into the cover of the wooded hillsides surrounding Snowdon. Here they held out bravely. Edward did not sit down and wait for starvation to complete his triumph. While the Welsh tightened their belts and held on grimly, he proceeded to build several strong castles at strategic points and to strengthen those at Conway and Chester. In late autumn Llewelyn gave in and sent out word that he was prepared to make terms.

  A treaty was signed at Conway on November 9 by which the Welsh prince gave up South Wales to the English and agreed to pay a fine of fifty thousand pounds. Anglesey was restored to him with the understanding that a yearly rental of one thousand marks was to be paid for it. The terms were hard, but later Edward agreed to remit the fine. This was generous because the Welsh prince, reduced to ruling a small part of the country around Snowdon, would have found it impossible to raise such an enormous sum.

  The next year Llewelyn was summoned to meet the king at Worcester and to his delight found Eleanor de Montfort there with the royal family. She had remained constant to him through all the trials and delays, and they were married on October 13 at the door of the cathedral, a large number of the nobility of England having gathered to witness the ceremony. The happy couple, who found they were as much in love as ever, left at once for Wales. It seemed that at last the peace between the two countries had been established on a firm basis.

  The Demoiselle (her girlhood name clung to her all through her life) was not destined to much married happiness. Two years later she died in childbirth, leaving a daughter who was given the name of Gwenllian.

  After a few years of peace, Llewelyn decided on another effort to rid the country of the English. There had been continuous irritations. Archbishop Peckham was at odds with the Welsh because of some fumbling efforts to bring the churches in the two countries into closer harmony. The subordinate officials of the king were aggressive and greedy, and the Marcher barons as usual were looking for gains. And behind all this there was a prediction by the wizard Merlin which all Wales began to talk about. Someday, Merlin had declared, a Llewelyn would wear the crown of Brutus and reign over England as well as Wales. Was this the Llewelyn he had meant? Finally the prince’s brother David, who had been allied with the English up to this time, came back and began secretly to urge Llewelyn to strike.

  Accordingly Llewelyn struck. On the eve of Palm Sunday, 1282, when all should have been peace in the land, the Welshmen marched out to a wild piping and the roll of national songs sung by thousands of fine voices. At first, success perched on the banners of the Welsh leader. Had Merlin been right? Roger Clifford, one of the English leaders, was beaten and taken prisoner. Two mighty earls were sent to the rightabout. The English were building a bridge across the Menai Strait. In an excess of bravado three hundred English and Gascon soldiers crossed over before it was completed. The tide came in and cut them off, and the Welsh proceeded to wipe them out to a man.

  Convinced that the full tide of success was running his way, Llewelyn committed the folly of taking his slender forces down into the open to face the might of Edward. In a relatively small skirmish near the upper waters of the Severn he was defeated and killed.

  In view of the prediction of Merlin, Edward had the head of the fallen prince cut off and exposed on a pole above the Tower of London, crowned with ivy.

  Gwenllian, the infant daughter of Llewelyn, was taken to England. When she grew old enough she took the vows at the convent of Sempringham. It may have been devotion on her part or the result of a desire on the part of the government at Westminster to have the Welsh royal line come to an end.

  David, the turbulent brother, was still at large. He was finally trapped, through information supplied by some of his countrymen, in a boggy stretch of land near Snowdon and taken to Rhuddlan with his wife, two sons, and seven daughters. He had been at odds with Llewelyn most of his life and had fought on the king’s side until the final campaign; and his role of double traitor seems to have roused a deep resentment in the English. He was taken to Shrewsbury and tried before a Parliament summoned for the purpose. There he was condemned to be hanged, drawn, and quartered as a traitor. Some authorities say that this method of execution was invented for his benefit. As a traitor to his knightly vows he was to be dragged at the heels of horses to the place of execution. Here he was to be hanged by the neck as a punishment for murders he had committed. He was to be cut down, however, before consciousness had left him and then, for profaning the week of the Lord’s passion, his entrails were to be cut out. Finally, for plotting against the king’s life, his head was to be chopped off and his body divided into four parts.

  Whether or not the parliamentary judges were responsible for this dreadful method of execution, the gruesome spectacle seemed to find favor. For centuries thereafter it was used to dispose of men who had been convicted of treason. There would be a case, in fact, during the reign of Henry IV when official animosity against a convicted traitor, a man of low degree, would be so great that the various stages of the sentence would be carried out in different cities.

  The head of the unfortunate David was elevated above the Tower of London beside that of his brother (of which little was left by that time). The cities of York and Winchester engaged in a dispute for possession of his right shoulder, and Winchester won. The three other quarters were awarded to York, Bristol, and Northampton.

  David’s qualities had not endeared him to his countrymen while he was alive, but the manner of his death made him a martyr in their eyes. The bards sang songs about him for centuries thereafter.

  3

  It became evident that Edward had something of his builder father in him when he turned his attention to the castles of England. He realized that they were ill planned and that something must be done about them. The Norman stronghold had been built for one purpose only, defense. It was a grim structure of high, thick walls surrounded by a moat. Inside there were no provisions for the comfort of the occupants. The sanitary arrangements were crude, in fact almost nonexistent; the bedchambers were little more than holes sunk into the walls and lacking light and ventilation. It had now become apparent that even for defense this type of castle was not the best. It lacked the means of interfering with besiegers. Archers who had to station themselves at narrow slits in the immensely thick walls had no chance of directing a deadly fire on attacking forces. By the later part of the reign of Henry III a move was being made to have bastions at the corners of all defense walls so that a cross fire could be maintained by the archers.

  Edward now began to build an entirely different type of castle. It was on what was called the “concentric” system, consisting of several lines of defense which had to be passed in turn. The great strongholds he raised in Wales—Caernarvon and Con
way in particular—were mighty fortresses and so substantially raised that much of the masonry is still intact. In addition to being practical from a defense standpoint, they displayed a marked advance in the living quarters. Conway, which became a favorite with the royal family, was quite sumptuous, with a stately great hall and chambers with plastered walls and glass windows.

  But even while Edward spent his time and thought on his castles, not to mention the great cost of them, the trend in the world at large was running the other way. Men were beginning to discover comfort and were no longer willing to exist in stately pig wallows. The manor house was being developed. Gradually the homes of the nobility would be built with an eye to ease and dignity in living. Where it was felt that more security was needed than a brick manor house could afford, a compromise was effected by raising the walls higher and giving them crenelated tops. In time it became necessary to have the royal assent to this method of fortifying a country house. The rapidity with which the tendency to live in fortified castles went out is best demonstrated by the number of permits to crenelate a manor house issued in consecutive reigns. There were 181 granted in the reign of Edward III, sixty by Richard II, eight by Henry IV, one by Henry V.

  CHAPTER IV

  A Prince Is Born

  1

  THE subjugation of Wales had been completed in 1282 with the deaths of Llewelyn and David, but peace between the English and the Welsh did not come by any means. Edward still found it necessary to spend most of his time in and about his new dominions and he devoted much of it to the completion of the great castles which were to hold the wild tribesmen under control.

  Where Edward went, Eleanor went also. She was in Wales the next year, holding court at Rhuddlan Castle, and it was here that her daughter Elizabeth was born. A year later the tall fortress of Caernarvon was ready for occupancy. A grim reminder of the power of the conquerors, it stood on the sea, with one gate looking out over the Menai Strait and the other commanding a view of the white summit of Snowdon, where the bravest of the Welsh leaders still held out. As Eleanor was with child again, Edward took her to Caernarvon. The impending event was not considered of any greater importance than the many other accouchements. There was an heir to the throne, Prince Alfonso, named after the queen’s brother in Castile. As several years had passed over his head, it was hoped that he would achieve the maturity denied his two older brothers.

  At this point the story reaches debatable ground. Of recent years historians have been disposed to cast aside the best elements in the generally accepted legend of the birth of a fourth son in Caernarvon Castle who was to become king in his turn under the title of Edward II, the contention being that the early annals contain no mention of it and that it may, on that account, be an invention of some later writer. The legend, as it has been so often told, is set down for what it is worth.

  The queen made her entrance into the castle through the east gate, a strong imposing structure. The natives of this part of Wales, who have not yielded in their adherence to the original story, still call this Queen Eleanor’s Gate. It gave direct entry to the Eagle Tower, a lofty and menacing pile of masonry high enough and strong enough to awe (if such had been possible) the proud chieftains who still refused to accept the fetters of Saxon servitude. Rather high in the Eagle Tower is a suite of rooms which is pointed out today as the queen’s; in one of them, a tiny chamber twelve feet by eight sunk into the thick stone walls, she gave birth to the new child. It must have been a cold and dismal room, because it contained no hearth; indeed there was little room in this far from regal niche for more than a bed. The grooms of the chamber had done their best to give a touch of cheer by hanging tapestries on the walls. The queen had brought many tapestries and wall hangings of gay colors from her native Castile, and it was her custom to have a supply of them carried in her train so she could enjoy that much alleviation of the bleak and dreary walls which always surrounded her. The child was a boy, a healthy specimen. He was placed in a cradle of oak, hung by rings to two upright posts, the whole of somewhat crude workmanship. This first couch of the royal infant has been kept and proudly displayed down through the centuries.

  Edward had left his wife at Caernarvon and had returned to Rhuddlan, where matters of state demanded his presence. It was here that he received word of the birth of a son, and he was so pleased that he knighted the Welshman who brought the news and made him a grant of land. Even though the newborn infant would not be heir to the throne, it was well to have the succession doubly secured; and it is probable also that the continuous arrival of daughters had achieved a certain monotony for the royal father. It may have been concern for the state of health of his much-loved queen that caused Edward to depart in great haste for Caernarvon rather than the elation he felt over the arrival of another boy. He found Eleanor well and the new prince sleeping in abounding health in his plain cradle.

  The legend has it that when the new son was three days old a number of Welsh chieftains came to Caernarvon to make their submissions to Edward. They begged him, if he would have peace in the land, to find for them a prince above reproach who would speak neither English nor French. The king was resourceful, as he was to prove innumerable times during his eventful reign. He listened to the plea of the tribesmen, and an ingenious plan took form in his mind. He accordingly left the reception chamber where the chieftains were assembled and, much pleased with himself, returned almost immediately with his newborn son in his arms. He held the infant out for their inspection. Here, he declared, was the prince they had asked for, the new Prince of Wales.

  “He has been born a native of your country,” he said. “His character is unimpeachable. He cannot speak a word of English or French. If it please you, the first words he utters shall be Welsh.”

  The chieftains, realizing that they had been caught in a skillful trap, made the best of things. They knelt in turn and kissed the hand of the royal infant, swearing fealty to him.

  Such is the legend. It is a pleasant one, the kind that, once heard, is never forgotten. It is one of the favorite stories of English history and the narrator hesitates to put it aside, to condemn it completely to the discard. It must be said, of course, that there are grounds for skepticism. It was not until 1301 that the prince, grown to man’s estate, had bestowed upon him the title of Prince of Wales. This official step was taken when Parliament met in the city of Lincoln, and it is one of the strongest points advanced against acceptance of the old story.

  But sometimes a small item, buried away in the records of the dark past, will obtrude itself into discussions of this kind. There is an entry in the royal household accounts of a date long after, when the small prince had grown to manhood and had taken his father’s place as King of England, to be known as Edward II. Twenty shillings had been paid to one Mary of Caernarvon, his Welsh nurse.

  Quite apparently he had been very fond of her and he remembered her well enough to have her come all the way to London to see him. This might indicate that the child born in the great castle had been more than just another royal infant, one of sixteen; that some significance had attached to him which made it advisable to keep a nurse of Welsh birth in attendance long enough for him to remember her after all these years. A trivial occurrence, perhaps; and yet it burns like a small candle in a darkly shuttered room.

  Four months later Prince Alfonso died, and the healthy child who may or may not have been displayed proudly to the Welsh chiefs in Caernarvon Castle became heir to the throne of England.

  CHAPTER V

  The Plantagenets at Home

  1

  THE life of a king is not all fighting battles and sitting in council, and (if he happens to be a monarch of medieval days) the building of grim castles and the condemning of unfortunate men to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. He always had a home life, and from what can be learned of the relatively quiet hours he spent with his queen and children, a truer picture of the man himself can sometimes be obtained than by the study of his official actions.
/>   Edward was a devoted husband and a fond father. If his eye had been disposed to rove a little when he was younger and the married beauties of his father’s court had been prone to flaunt their willingness, he lost all interest in dalliance as soon as he and Eleanor began their life together. There would be no rifts in their marital happiness. Edward’s father, Henry III, who so lacked the attributes of kingship, did leave behind one golden legacy, the love of family.

  It has already been explained that Windsor Castle became the main home of this family of delicate sons and radiantly lovely daughters. After the death of the second son, the oldest daughter, Eleanor, became first in the line of accession. Edward even went to the length of having the members of the baronage swear fealty to her as his successor. It was recognized that the princess now needed an official home of her own, and at first she was given Maiden Hall, a retired angle of Westminster Palace. There was not much room there for an elaborate household, and the princess had to be content with “three men servants, three maids and three greyhounds.” Later her retinue included “her own chamberlain, keeper of the hall, groom of the bedchamber, cook, salterer, shieldman and sumpterer, besides boys and damsels.” Her younger sisters accompanied her on visits to shrines where they left alms of stated amounts. It is recorded that on such outings they had tiny bells sewn into the hems of their dresses, because it was held that there was efficacy in a delicate, tinkling sound, that it had magical powers for good. Even winter would not keep them off the roads. Together they would set out in a chariot of sorts drawn by five horses. If it was impossible to keep snug and warm in the vehicle (carriage-making was still a new craft), it was at least dry and reasonably comfortable. Princess Eleanor always saw to it that her favorite Rougement was taken along so she could desert the close interior and enjoy a gallop on the rare occasions when the sun came out.