Tag archieven: Hugh Despenser 1st Earl of Winchester

[EdwardthesecondBlogspot]/Piers Gaveston’s second exile

 

Edward II recalled Piers from the exile imposed on him by Edward I immediately after he heard the news that his father was dead, on 11 July 1307. Piers was back in England by early August, and Edward created him earl of Cornwall on 6 August, possibly without Piers’ prior knowledge – or so Edward would claim in letters to the Pope and the king of France the following year. (Edward can’t entirely be trusted here, however – he also claimed that he made Piers an earl at the urging of his barons – which was emphatically not the case!)Edward also arranged Piers’ marriage to his (Edward’s, not Piers’, obviously) niece Margaret de Clare, which took place on 1 November 1307, but which had been planned for months – the charter granting the earldom of Cornwall to Piers on 6 August was decorated with the de Clare arms as well as Piers’ own. Piers had an annual income of £4000, making him one of the richest men in the country.As though all this wasn’t bad enough – making the younger son of a minor Gascon noble a wealthy earl and a member of the royal family by marriage – Piers dominated Edward’s favour and attention. According to the contemporary Vita Edwardi Secundi, Piers “alone found favour in the king’s eyes and lorded it over them [the English barons] like a second king, to whom all were subject and none equal. Almost all the land hated him..his name was reviled far and wide…he was an object of mockery to almost everyone in the kingdom.” The comment that Piers was ‘like a second king’ is echoed in other chronicles – the (later) Meaux chronicle called him “almost a king” (quasi rex) and the canon of Bridlington claimed there were two kings in England.

 

 

 

 

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[EdwardthesecondBlogspot]/Edward II’s Coronation oath, 25 February 1308

 

 

Sire, volez vous graunter, è garder, &, par vostre serment, confermer au poeple d’Engleterre les leys, & les custumes, à eux grauntees par les auntiens Rois d’Engleterre, voz predecessours droitures & devotz a DIEU; & nomement les lois, les custumes, & les fraunchises, grantez au clerge, è au poeple par le glorieus Roi seint Edward, vostre predecessour? Jeo les grante & promette. Sire, garderez vous à DIEU, & seinte eglise, & au clerge, & au poeple paes, & acord en DIEU entierment, solonc vostre poer? Jeo les garderai. Sire, freez vous faire, en touz voz jugementz, ovele & droit justice & discretion, en misericorde & verite, à vostre poer? Jeo le frai. Sire, graunte vous à tenir & garder les loys & les custumes droitureles, les quiels la communaute de vostre roiaume aura esleu, & les defendrez & afforcerez, al honour de DIEU, à vostre poer? Jeo les graunte & promette.

 

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[EdwardthesecondBlogspot]/25 February 1308:”Coronation of Edward II

 

On this day 700 years ago, Edward II and Isabella were crowned king and queen of England at Westminster Abbey. Edward was exactly twenty-three and ten months, Isabella just twelve.The coronation differed from its predecessors in several respects. Firstly, the wives of peers attended for the first time. Secondly, Edward took his oath in French, not Latin – a fact often used to condemn him as ‘stupid, lazy, ignorant and uneducated’ by historians of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, conveniently ignoring the fact that Edward, even if he was ignorant of Latin, which is most unlikely, could easily have learnt the short responses by heart, and that French was the native language of probably everyone attending the coronation.* Thirdly, a new clause was added to the coronation oath: “Sire, do you grant to be held and observed the just laws and customs that the community of your realm shall determine, and will you, so far as in you lies, defend and strengthen them to the honour of God?”More ink has been spilt on the meaning and intention of this clause than you could possibly imagine, but I’m not going to analyse it here because, frankly, the whole subject is tedious beyond belief. (The full text of Edward’s oath, in the French original and English, is in the sidebar on the left.)

 

 

 

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